Style Weekly
Writer Lives in Fantasyland
Joe Essid’s Back Page opinion (“The Mad Minute,” Jan. 23) is a good example of smug writing by someone raised on Mr. Rogers and Big Bird pabulum. Being nurtured on Mother Goose and Aesop’s Fables begets a more complete child.
I had to chuckle when Vice President Joe Biden came to Virginia Commonwealth University for a closed anti-gun rally, stating in a wizened voice, “I can see no need for a 50-round clip.” Well, duh! The central clause of the Second Amendment is: to the security of a free state. That can only mean shooting officials, as officials run the state. Biden, like any reasonable person, seeks the unfair advantage in a final contest. Incidentally, the Constitution makes no mention of shooting bears or crooks.
Perhaps you no longer take seriously the Constitution, or think it fluid. Then, maybe you follow history. Name a nation that has not had an internal armed conflict. We’ve had two biggies so far: driving out those oppressive British, then getting snookered by the pesky Yankees.
It is the nature of man to create opposing contentious factions. Look all over the world today. Our Constitution was designed to interrupt that process, but it’s not working. The process, genetically driven from the reptilian age, is stronger than any primate design. And the only rule is: Don’t lose.
Sweet Joe Essid may choose to bend over as government inexorably rams home its do-good, destructive invasive edicts. I choose Patrick Henry’s model: liberty or death. And when officials knock down my door, or I knock down theirs, one of us is going to die, hopefully more. Now, that’s the nature of man. And in America, government — the necessary evil — should live in fear of the people. If you think a few mass murders are tragic, try living in a totalitarian state. I fear that’s where we are headed.
Sam Forrest, Richmond
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