The Caffeinated Penguin

Posted By matt on April 28, 2006

As mentioned in my previous post, these are the quotes/stories from How to Talk to a Liberal (If You Must), by Ann Coulter. As mentioned in his comment, many of her sources may be taken out of context, and I definitely need to research them further. However, they piqued my interest, so maybe they'll pique yours. Note that most of these sources are noted in the bibliography at the end, so it's not a tremendously difficult task, merely time consuming.

In the absence of any evidence tending to show that possession or use of a “shotgun having a barrel of less than 18 inches in length” at this time has some reasonable relationship to the preservation or efficiency of a well-regulated militia, we cannot say that the Second Amendment guarantees the right to keep and bear such an instrument. Certainly, it is not within judicial notice that this weapon is any part of the ordinary military equipment or that its use could contribute to the common defense.

– United States v. Miller (A supreme court case decided in 1939), as quoted by Ann Coulter, How to Talk to a Liberal (If You Must), p. 168

This decision interests me because, while it decides that sawed-off shotguns are illegal, it does so based upon the idea that they are not valid military equipment. However, the flip side to that ruling is that anything which is valid military equipment should be illegal. So, where's my full-auto AK, dammit!

In a public school in St. Louis, a teacher spotted the suspect, fourth-grader Raymond Raines, bowing his head in prayer before lunch. The teacher stormed to Raymond's table, ordered him to stop immediately, and sent him to the principal's office. The principal informed the young malefactor that praying was not allowed in school. When Raymond was again caught praying before meals on three separate occasions, he was segregated from other students, ridiculed in front of his classmates, and finally sentenced to a week's detention.

– Ann Coulter, How to Talk to a Liberal (If You Must), p. 188

Before snack time in her kindergarten class in Saratoga Springs, New York, little Kayla Broadus held hands with two of her classmates and recited this prayer: “God is good, God is great, thank you, God, for my food.” The alert teacher pounced on Kayla, severely reprimanded her, and reported her to the school administration. In short order, the principal sent a sternly worded letter to Kayla's parents advising them that Kayla was not allowed to pray in school, aloud or with others.

– Ann Coulter, How to Talk to a Liberal (If You Must), p. 188

These bother me, because, while I agree that religion should not be forced upon schoolchildren by public school, I also think that it should not be driven out of them. “Separation of church and state”, which many people (myself included) so champion is supposed to stop the state from establishing a state religion, which basically means neither condemning nor promoting any religion as long as said religion is not doing anything dangerous, such as advocating violence or otherwise persecuting a group.

For example: If some religious student and starts yelling about how “God hates fags”, then I would call this persecuting homosexuals and therefore creating a hostile school environment (since school attendance is compulsory, a code of behavior should be adhered to so as to make the environment reasonably pleasant). However, this is not hindering religion; merely the hate speach promoted by said religion.

However, if a student is saying a blessing before a meal, this is not hurting anyone, and therefore should be left alone

Thanks to the vigilance of a teacher at Lynn Lucas Middle School outside of Houston, two sisters carrying Bibles were prevented from bringing their vile material into a classroom. The teacher stopped the students at the classroom door and marched them to the principal's office. (Maybe it was just the sight of public school students carrying a book of any kind that set off alarm bells.) The sisters' mother was called and warned that the school intended to report her to Child Protective Services. When the mother arrived, the teacher threw the Bibles in the wastebasket, shouting, “This is garbage!”

– Ann Coulter, How to Talk to a Liberal (If You Must), pp. 188-189

Imagine what would have happened if this was the holy Qu'uran. It doesn't even matter if the above was true or not. Even if American Muslims were cool about it (which, thankfully, they have been very cool throughout the whole “Dutch Cartoon” debacle), we would be seeing anti-US riots all over Europe and the middle east, plus a bunch of suicide bombings.

“The basic rationale for depriving people of their rights in a dependency relationship, is that certain individuals are incapable of or undeserving of the right to take care of themselves and consequently need social institutions specifically designed to safeguard their position…. Along with the family, past and present examples of such arrangements include marriage, slavery and the Indian reservation system.” (Quick reminder: This woman wants to be your president someday.)

– Hillary Clinton, as quoted by Ann Coulter, How to Talk to a Liberal (If You Must), p. 313

The ineresting thing about this is, while I disagree with her point, is that one needs to bear in mind that Hillary is basically a socialist and would like nothing more than to institute european-style womb-to-tomb nannystate socialism. This is her agenda, and it is fine. However, isn't this a social institution designed to take care of “individuals … incapable of or undeserving of the right to take care of themselves”. Hell, it seems to me that if she had her way, she would turn the US into one big Indian reservation (because that's a good idea).

As Alexander Hamilton oberved in Federalist, No. 29, if the government were to “form an army of any magnitude, that army can never be formidable to the liberties of the people while there is a large body of citizens, little of at all inferior to them in discipline and the use of arms, who stand ready to defend their rights and those of their fellow citizens.”

– Alexander Hamilton, Federalist, No. 29, as quoted by Ann Coulter, How to Talk to a Liberal (If You Must), p. 369

Democratic darling Thomas Jefferson, for example, wrote, “Laws that forbid the carrying of arms … disarm only those who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes. … Such laws make things worse for the assaulted and better for the assailants; they serve rather to encourage than to prevent homicides, for an unarmed man may be attacked with greater confidence than an armed man.”

– Thomas Jefferson, as quoted by Ann Coulter, How to Talk to a Liberal (If You Must), p. 371

These two interest me because of my strong support for the second amendment and, despite being listed last here, will likely be the first which I research and read. I have some history books I want to get through first, but I definitely want to grab a copy of the Federalist papers, as well as the writings of Thomas Jefferson.

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