Freedom, pt. 2

As promised, I’m moving on to the other amendments today. I’m not equating “rights” with “things listed in the constitution,” it just provides a handy framework.

I don’t think there’s much doubt that social conservatives are more likely to have an expansive view of the 2nd amendment. Social conservatives are more likely to perceive there to be a right to gun ownership, and in some cases a right to use those guns to resist the actions of a tyrannical government, than are progressives. Progressives, especially in crime-ridden inner cities, are likely to see guns as a blight that kills people.

I have some issues with the socially conservative stance, which is this; that I think the possession of a gun by my neighbor is inherently coercive. When push comes to shove, if government is otherwise leaving us alone, the guy with the gun has the power to take away any rights I might have. This is why I don’t think gun ownership is really a libertarian position; rather, gun ownership establishes a series of small groups with the power to govern those around them. The ownership of a hunting rifle or a pistol does little to actually enable people to resist government tanks, fighter jets, cruise missiles, etc. Essentially, it only protects people from government when government isn’t very serious about being oppressive. Perhaps that should be a whole blog entry, sometime. In any case, social conservatives at least have an argument that they are more in favor of individual rights here.

The third amendment, which has to do with government quartering the military in peoples houses, isn’t really an issue in modern politics, so I’ll skip it.

The fourth amendment is search and seizure. I think the social conservative record on this is truly abysmal. J. Edgar Hoover, despite his personal quirks, was a social conservative. George W. Bush is a social conservative. The guy who stood up at a town meeting in Norfolk and said he had nothing to hide and that government was welcome to search his underwear if that would help them stop the next 9/11, was a social conservatives. Progressives have things to hide – we’re up to all sorts of edgy and kinky things.  We think that telecom companies should be prosecuted for helping the government spy on people, we think that the Patriot act should be repealed, and we think domestic spying should require a warrant – hey, just like the fourth amendment says. Big win for the Progressives.

The fifth throught seventh amendments have been squished on by GWB, too, in failing to provide trials, but I don’t think this can be laid at the door of social conservatives, per se. It’s really kind of a unique aberration to GWB, not seen since Abraham Lincoln – who was a progressive. On the other hand, it’s worth noting here that conservative judges are far less likely to grant appeals by criminals, including those on death row, and for less likely to overturn sentences. To that degree, social conservatives are less likely to uphold the rights of the accused. Having said that, there’s a way one can take this too far – when “reasonable doubt” becomes sufficiently broadly defined, convictions become virtually impossible, and we become less free because we are not protected from individual takings of our freedom (robberies, murders, etc.) I don’t really think we’re close to that point, however, so that’s a theoretical argument. A less socially conservative judiciary would almost certainly improve the preservation of the rights enumerated in the fifth amendment.