On guns, Senator Weinberg's rhetoric doesn't match her actions

We can't quite figure out which came first.  Did Senator Loretta Weinberg emerge from the parchment white bunghole of Star-Ledger editorial boss Tom Moran, or is it the other way round?  Who came first? 

One thing is certain, if there is a threat to their safety, both Weinberg and Moran make sure that they are well protected by men with guns.  Both Weinberg and Moran erect borders that are extremely well protected.

It's too bad that they don't extend the same protections to other citizens that powerful politicians and corporate newspaper editors have.  Especially children. Apparently Weinberg and Moran don't think much about protecting children.  If they did, they wouldn't propose the watery measures they have.

Weinberg is a husk, the residue of her once activist self.  Moran is just an old-fashioned pussy.  If they really believed that the absence of legal firearms would end America's culture of violence, then Senator Weinberg would propose a Constitutional Amendment to abrogate the Second Amendment of the Bill of Rights, and Editor Moran would advocate for it.    

Of course, Weinberg and Moran know that such an amendment would be for firearms what the 18th Amendment was for alcohol.  The 18th Amendment declared the production, transport, and sale of alcohol illegal (though curiously, not the consumption or private possession of it).  The amendment wasn't particularly effective, had a lot of bad side-effects, and was repealed a few years later.

We know they know because we are constantly being told by Weinberg and Moran that making laws are meaningless.  They tell us that America cannot possibly enforce its border controls.  They tell us that America cannot keep people out or find and deport those here illegally.  They tell us that abortions must be legal or they will simply be performed illegally.  They tell us that we must decriminalize certain drugs because we have no ability to enforce the laws that make drugs illegal.

So it stands to reason that they must know that outlawing firearms would be just as meaningless.  So why do they mislead us by acting otherwise?

A case in point is yesterday's quasi-religious orgasm on what goes for the editorial pages of the Star-Ledger these days.  Did you know that these editorials are largely written by ex-sports columnists?  Because they are.  And they have all the make believe and canned drama attendant with such columns. 

You can tell the depth of these so-called journalists by the fact that they fail to even research what their own newspaper said about the issue they are currently having hysterics over.  A case in point is what the Star-Ledger calls "no-fly, no-buy" bills "that would deny firearm purchases to known or suspected terrorists."

Now to show you just what kind of festered arseholes write this kind of garbage, the Star-Ledger itself has criticized the no-fly and terrorist watch lists that are the basis for this silly legislation.  That's right, the Star-Ledger has trashed this concept on its own editorial pages, pointing out that the list is too vague, that it lacks due process, noting the informal manner in which an individual can land on the list, and the difficulty an innocent person has in getting off the list he or she has been improperly placed on.  Oh, and currently the terrorist watch list has 1.8 million names on it.  That's more than the population of Essex and Bergen Counties put together.

Nelson Mandela was on the terrorist no-fly list.  So was Senator Ted Kennedy, as have other members of Congress.  As the ACLU pointed out, the "no-fly list policy rests on the idea that the government will never confirm or deny whether you're on the list.  They won't tell you whether you're on the list, they won't tell you why you're on the list if you are, and they won't tell you what they suspect."

The no-fly list is often equally frustrating to members of law enforcement, as a former FBI agent who now teaches at New York University noted:  "The FBI isn't the secret police, or at least it isn't supposed to be.  Such excessive secrecy demands, especially where an American is alleging a violation of his civil rights, undermines the rule of law the FBI and Justice Department are supposed to be defending."

Once upon a time, the editorial board of the Star-Ledger could write a well-reasoned piece that would capture the nuances of a debate and provide a well rounded review of both sides.  But that was called journalism.  They don't do that anymore.  Over at the sports-department (aka the editorial board) it is all loud-mouthed and spittle.  They should just write in all caps and exclamation marks, noting how many times they shit themselves in the production of the column and when. 

There was a time when the Star-Ledger cut its way through to the truth.  That time is gone.  Now they add to the fog of ideological warfare that covers everything from Sunday morning sermons to late night comedy.  The editorials are little more than advertising narratives, violently written.  There is no balance, no reason.  They tell you who to hate and how much.  They add to the culture of violence in America.  They do nothing to ameliorate the gnawing coarseness of our social discourse.