Not that I didn't think a guy like David Hardy would have a sense of humor, I just never would have expected something so sharp...
I suppose I must mention his (George Will's -- ed.) piece in WashPo. I mean he is a famous writer who wears a tie and always looks like he never got over being buggered with a turnip during freshman hazing at an Ivy League school (and has a classical education so he would recognize being buggered with a turnip) but can still use baseball analogies in every article, even if discussing his appendectomy, just to show he's one of the guys. Provided all the guys in question have been buggered with turnips as a prelude to a really classical education.
OK, I tired of his writings years ago and rarely read them. Just as he probably rarely eats turnips. But I digress.
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But Will (who is probably as frightened of firearms as he is of turnips) maintains it is a disputed right (hey, there was a dissent!) and now the Court will have to ... shudder ... decide what it means, and that means policy makers (i.e., the Obama Admin., Nancy Pelosi, the California and Illinois legislatures, etc.) will be unable "to function as laboratories for testing policy variations." Policy variations as to ... hmmm... expressly-stated constitutional rights. But, where the question is at all close, Will argues that conservativism requires deference to elected policymakers, especially those at the local level. "Judicial conservatism requires judges to justify their decisions with reference to several restraining principles, including deference to the democratic branches of government and to states' responsibilities under federalism."
I think Americans in 1791 chose their policy variations.
*snerk* One gets the idea, yes, that David Hardy's not a fan. When I see such ham-fisted, doctrinaire analysis of something that really should be cut and dried, it really turns me off too. And that's exactly what Will's analysis of Heller was. He got so caught up in his little rule book that he missed the whole damn point of what the court did in Heller — that is, they stood up for individual liberty, which is what I for one thought conservatives were all about, intellectuals and their little rulebooks be damned. I suppose I should be fair and mention that Will was riffing off another conservative judge's analysis of Heller, but even so, that still doesn't change the fact that Will was more or less agreeing with that analysis. You see Hardy pointing out some of those elected policymakers Will contends the courts should defer to. I must say, that was brilliant. One gets the idea that those rules would allow for some flexibility so as not to give said policymakers free rein to piss all over the rights that so many have fought and died to protect, but I guess in the world of pointy-headed intellectuals like George Will that isn't the case. I keep thinking of one of the first things the great Bill Whittle wrote — just substitute "conservative intelligentsia" for "Europeans," and it fits perfectly:
"We are, and remain, the descendants of people who had had quite enough of being told what to do by inbred aristocratic fops and unelected, intellectual sadists. When Europeans call us simplisme, they show themselves incapable of recognizing the difference between intelligence, of which we are amply endowed, and intellectualism, that circle-jerk of coffee table revolution and basement politburo planning that we have never had much patience with."
Maybe it isn't quite fair at first glance to lump Will's bloviations in with Europeans' attitudes toward the American ethos and way of life, but it's quite obvious to me that all of this is a game to him and those like him, just like Communism worked fine at the coffee table but was an unmitigated disaster when put into practice. "Rights? Who said anything about protecting your rights, you declasse rubes, there are rules that must be followed here!" Once again, he's gotten so caught up in the rules that he's completely missed the object of the entire exercise. I guess such is par for the course for intellectuals, but my blog-friend Ted had a great example of what their level of thinking leads to:
The Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy had a great line about intellectuals proving that Black is White, and promptly getting run over at the next crosswalk.A-yep. Thing about it is, though, in this instance they're trying to get us ALL run over...
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