"...the problem with advocating the right to arms is the liberals don't like arms and conservatives don't like rights."I and other Second Amendment advocates have often worried that political conservatives were at best a "fragile vessel" for carrying on the RKBA battles, and some of us have argued — unsuccessfully — that RKBA issues were better served by removing them from the whole hog conservative agenda.
I certainly think that Hardy is correct when he quotes Prof. Robert Cottrol of George Washington Univ. College of Law:
On the Second Amendment, their [conservatives] support has quite frankly been rather anemic -- -- it's clear that many support it opportunistically, i.e., because the Democrats over the last ten years have been dumb enough to embrace European style gun control as a core value in a nation where roughly 50% of the population lives in households with firearms. Conservatives have adopted the Second Amendment because it is good politics, but I don't see, with some exceptions, the kind of passion and commitment that liberals show for rights that they value.There are, of course, fire-breathing conservative Second Amendment supporters (Zell Miller, a Democrat, comes immediately to mind), but for the larger body of conservative politicians, we're the crazy aunts and uncles in the attic. Once every four years, they unlock the attic door and throw us a handful of bullets to keep us quiet until the next election.
On our part — as a lot of my friends have noted — we hold our noses and pull the lever for conservative politicians who agonize over non-issues like gay marriage and poor Terry Schaivo while steadily chipping away at our individual rights without even having the good graces to flinch.
So while I'm all for W. loading every court in the land with conservative judges — a large part of the reason I voted for him — I would dearly love to see the libertarian wing of the conservative movement at least acknowledged. Of course, Hardy (and I and most everyone with an IQ out of double digits) would like to see Judge Alex Kosinski on the Supreme Court. We all know that's not going to happen, because above all things, conservatives fear a wild card. Be interesting to see what develops...
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While the liberal media routinely equate "conservative" with "Republican," (except when dealing with liberal Republicans, which they label "moderate"), I don't expect such sloppy thinking from Dave Hardy and Prof. Cottrol. Both of their statements are accurate only if one substitutes the word "Republican" for "conservative." Support for the Second Amendment is an integral, core conservative value. It is not inherently a Republican value, notwithstanding the party platform satements to the contrary. Any opposition to gun-control in the Republican party as a whole has been more driven by opportunism than ideology. Most northeastern Republicans would gladly abandon any pretense of support for RKBA but for their desire to keep their party in the majority, which requires not undermining their southern and western GOP colleagues' chances for reelection.
For now, the GOP is being dominated by the conservative wing. How long that will last is anybody's guess, especially considering the increasing ubanization and suburbanization of the nation. This brings us right back into the red state vs. blue state analysis.
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