NP: Elvis Costello, When I Was Cruel (CD)

I've apparently guilted myself into a spate of posts today. Motivation is where you find it, I guess.

Last week once again illuminated what I think is one of the most indefensible positions held by the Bush administration, and that is that books are more dangerous in the war on terror than guns. What if it's a book about a gun?

Seriously, if the second amendment is to be interpreted to the extent where looking at records of gun purchases abridged the right to bear arms, doesn't it follow that looking at records of book purchases abridges the right to free speech? Is there something I'm missing? Some technicality Ashcroft is hanging his hat on to argue, rather implausibly, that he's not completely in the NRA's pocket?

Of course, maybe this is actually a mark of the Bushies' consistency. Saddam Hussein didn't have weapons, but he was reading up on them, so we had to stop him. Maybe he was spotted near a library and the threat was thusly deemed imminent. Imminence is also the reason I don't buy into the "give a man a gun and he'll kill the infidels for a day, teach him to shoot and it's a jihad" explanation, either. If you teach him to shoot, he's still going to need a gun at some point. Which goes back to the "what about a book about a gun" question that's not entirely as tongue-in-cheek as it seems.

This is one of the reasons the histrionic Left annoys me. If you were to lay this out in a commercial, I think it would have a much greater impact than trying to argue that Dubya is in league with the Nazis. But that tendency speaks to a larger trend that I may take on in the near future, which is how corporate management techniques seem to have taken over and subsequently destroyed the democratic process.