September 30, 2010--Ammunition
If like me you at times have trouble sleeping through the night, you know the terrors that lying awake can provoke and how difficult it can be to return to the narcotic of sleep.
I have the bad habit, when this occurs, of listening to the radio. I hook myself up via an earpiece so as not to disturb Rona. Though, at times, when it falls out, she awakes with a start to ask, "Is there a man in the bed?" Assuredly a man other than her husband since with her acute senses she can hear the voices filtering through the earphone from one talk show or another that I have been foolishly listening to.
Foolishly because what peace can this possible bring?
All those aired during the middle of the night are either devoted to flying saucers and extrasensory perception (Art Bell's "Coast to Coast" is the prime example), where half of those who call in recount their experiences of being abducted by aliens; sports talk, where most of the callers moan about the latest catastrophes befalling the hapless New York Mets; or are devoted to what is these days is considered to be political dialogue. Of these there are many national and local versions of pretty much the same thing--rants by various assortments of right-wing fanatics. The hosts as well as their callers.
To the latter I am pathetically addicted. I rationalize by claiming that though I hate them I listen because I need to know what those with whom I disagree are thinking. More in truth, for some inexplicable reason, I like that they make my blood flow fast and thus distract me from my middle-of-the-night darker, more existential inclinations.
These days, though, what I am listening in on rivals my self-generated broodings.
Just last night, for example, between three and five AM, I took in a "conversation" about the much-cherished Second Amendment. The one that reads:
The one about which Alexander Hamilton wrote in Federalist 29:
Which is what the framers and ratifiers of the Constitution intended--that the people, at a time when the government was not intending to have a standing army, had the right, indeed the responsibility to bear arms so that they could be called upon if the emerging country was attacked by a foreign force. That they could become a "well regulated militia."
But what the early morning callers were concerned about was something very different. Even as they proclaimed themselves to be strict constructionists of the Constitution--that they believed each of its words literally.
What they were noting, as I huddled with my radio, is a record sale of ammunition for those constitutionally protected firearms. Gun shops, they reported, are running low on ammo. Which to them is troubling since most worried that during these perilous times one can't have enough.
These weapons and ammunition were needed, they claimed, because we are approaching a time when it may become necessary to take up arms against our current government.
To them, the federal government no longer reflects the will of the people and has become our oppressor. Just like in 1776, it may soon be time to declare our independence and move to overthrow the government. By which they mean the Obama administration.
These self-proclaimed patriots drew parallels between pre-Revolutionary times and ours. Seeing us in similar circumstances. Forgetting or ignoring that in the late 18th century America was occupied by a foreign force, the British, and we had no legal redress for our concerns in their Parliament. Unlike now, we were taxed and governned without representation.
Night tremors are by definition magnified by half-states of consciousness, and so there is no evidence except from my over-heated imagination that what I have been recently hearing represents anything resembling a consensus.
But the casual and unguarded way in which these talk show hosts and their listeners talked about, well, treason--the only crime defined in that sacred Constitution--was chilling. Even, later, in the light of day.
I have the bad habit, when this occurs, of listening to the radio. I hook myself up via an earpiece so as not to disturb Rona. Though, at times, when it falls out, she awakes with a start to ask, "Is there a man in the bed?" Assuredly a man other than her husband since with her acute senses she can hear the voices filtering through the earphone from one talk show or another that I have been foolishly listening to.
Foolishly because what peace can this possible bring?
All those aired during the middle of the night are either devoted to flying saucers and extrasensory perception (Art Bell's "Coast to Coast" is the prime example), where half of those who call in recount their experiences of being abducted by aliens; sports talk, where most of the callers moan about the latest catastrophes befalling the hapless New York Mets; or are devoted to what is these days is considered to be political dialogue. Of these there are many national and local versions of pretty much the same thing--rants by various assortments of right-wing fanatics. The hosts as well as their callers.
To the latter I am pathetically addicted. I rationalize by claiming that though I hate them I listen because I need to know what those with whom I disagree are thinking. More in truth, for some inexplicable reason, I like that they make my blood flow fast and thus distract me from my middle-of-the-night darker, more existential inclinations.
These days, though, what I am listening in on rivals my self-generated broodings.
Just last night, for example, between three and five AM, I took in a "conversation" about the much-cherished Second Amendment. The one that reads:
A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
The one about which Alexander Hamilton wrote in Federalist 29:
If a well regulated militia be the most natural defence of a free country, it ought certainly to be under the regulation and at the disposal of that body which is constituted the guardian of the national security...confiding the regulation of the militia to the direction of the national authority...(and) reserving to the states...the authority of training the militia.
Which is what the framers and ratifiers of the Constitution intended--that the people, at a time when the government was not intending to have a standing army, had the right, indeed the responsibility to bear arms so that they could be called upon if the emerging country was attacked by a foreign force. That they could become a "well regulated militia."
But what the early morning callers were concerned about was something very different. Even as they proclaimed themselves to be strict constructionists of the Constitution--that they believed each of its words literally.
What they were noting, as I huddled with my radio, is a record sale of ammunition for those constitutionally protected firearms. Gun shops, they reported, are running low on ammo. Which to them is troubling since most worried that during these perilous times one can't have enough.
These weapons and ammunition were needed, they claimed, because we are approaching a time when it may become necessary to take up arms against our current government.
To them, the federal government no longer reflects the will of the people and has become our oppressor. Just like in 1776, it may soon be time to declare our independence and move to overthrow the government. By which they mean the Obama administration.
These self-proclaimed patriots drew parallels between pre-Revolutionary times and ours. Seeing us in similar circumstances. Forgetting or ignoring that in the late 18th century America was occupied by a foreign force, the British, and we had no legal redress for our concerns in their Parliament. Unlike now, we were taxed and governned without representation.
Night tremors are by definition magnified by half-states of consciousness, and so there is no evidence except from my over-heated imagination that what I have been recently hearing represents anything resembling a consensus.
But the casual and unguarded way in which these talk show hosts and their listeners talked about, well, treason--the only crime defined in that sacred Constitution--was chilling. Even, later, in the light of day.
posted by Steven Zwerling at
5:39 AM
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