Closing of the escape routes

Finally, today, Mike Vanderboegh brings us Christian Resistance: "Pardon me sir, but your fig leaf is on fire. Vanderboegh quotes extensively from a Leon Wolf posting that points out that the Obama administration is rapidly removing all possibility of political action in regard to abortion policy, leaving pro-lifers with no alternatives but to submit to something many find immoral, or to take up arms. I made a similar point about closing off the possibility of political action in this post, though mine was not nearly as eloquently written. Wolf, in turn, quotes Megan McArdle:

My argument is that abortion, like slavery, is becoming in this country an issue upon which people have no reasonable political recourse. I’ll go further, and say that the process by which 7 judges enforced their consciences on the
American public was itself borderline illegitimate; it was first, not in their
proper job description, and second, a bad way to run a government

It is, indeed, a bad way to run a government. A great deal of the art of politics is managing the often disparate goals of people coming from different cultures and backgrounds. It's called compromise, and we often have very low opinions of our politicians because the practice it. Fascism and communism seek to make everybody nominally the same, and when it can't do that, they seek to kill or imprison those who don't go along. But our Constitution deliberately allows for endless debate on various topics, until a substantial majority come to believe one side or the other. By substantial, I mean 70% or more. The gun control debate is an excellent case. Gun control activists and gun rights folks have been debating this topic since at least the 1960s. Initially, gun control seemed the sure winner. But as time moved on, and people began to see the effects of gun control, and read the counter arguments, gun rights gained, until in May of this year:

CNN/Opinion Research Corporation Poll. May 14-17, 2009. N=1,010 adults nationwide. MoE ± 3.

"Which of the following comes closer to your interpretation of the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution? In addition to addressing the need for citizen-militias, it was intended to give individual Americans the right to keep and bear arms for their own defense. It was only intended to preserve the existence of citizen-militias, and does not give individual Americans the right to keep and bear arms for their own defense."

Individual Gun Ownership Only Citizen-Militias Unsure
% % %
5/14-17/09 77 21 2

The Supreme Court in the Heller decision confirmed a widely held belief. That this debate has been going on for at least 50 years, with no one being killed over it is testament to the genius of our Founders. But the angry Left can not be satisfied with this slow, deliberative process. Like angry children run amok, they want to destroy it all NOW.

I can not remember where I heard of saw this, but it was probably a movie when I was a kid. A wise Indian chief had his enemy surrounded on three sides. His second in command ordered the nearly victorious Indians to close the gap, and kill all the warriors. The Indian chief countermanded the order. When asked why, he responded that you always wanted to leave the enemy a means of escape. When pressed further, he explained that he didn't want to children of these warriors growing up with vengeance in their hearts.

The administration could learn a thing or two from old chief.