by Ted Rall
One Amendment from Column A, Another from Column B
Antonin Scalia's dissent--"[granting Guantánamo detainees the right to a fair trial] will almost certainly cause more Americans to get killed"--was widely ridiculed as baseless and hysterical.
What a difference a week--and your politics--make.
Then Kennedy cast the swing vote in another major decision. Declaring Washington D.C.'s handgun ban unconstitutional, he accepted the NRA's argument that the Second Amendment's reference to "a well-regulated militia" is not a conditional clause. Wherever they live, Americans are indeed entitled to purchase and keep a handgun.
"What an idiot!" my friend e-mailed me. "Doesn't he get it? Kids are going to die!" Shades of Scalia; irony included free.
"À la carte" airline pricing--$2 for a Coke, $15 to check a bag, $30 for a coach seat that sucks 95% as much as the regular ones--pisses people off. When it comes to constitutional questions, however, we Americans like to pick and choose our favorite parts of the Bill of Rights like items from a Chinese menu: one from column A, another in column B.
Liberals revere the right to free speech enshrined in the First Amendment. The right to bear arms, not so much. With conservatives, it's the other way around. Sometimes they clash over the meaning of the original ten amendments. It's freedom of, not from, religion, say right-wingers. Freedom from, argue advocates of the separation of church and state.
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