Secretary Clinton Awarded Anti-Second Amendment Consolation Prize

Secretary Hillary Clinton Slips

Twice failed presidential candidate, Secretary Hillary Clinton, received a consolation prize in San Francisco on Thursday, 14 June, 2018. The award was given by the Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence at its 25th anniversary dinner. The 25th Anniversary dinner seemed premature, as Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords was a self-proclaimed strong Second Amendment supporter before her shooting in 2011, only seven years ago.  From nbcbayarea.com:

The former U.S. Secretary of State under President Barack Obama spoke at the Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence 25th anniversary dinner, where former Rep. Gabby Giffords awarded Clinton the Courageous Leadership Award for her ongoing efforts to strengthen common sense gun laws.

Clinton said her gun safety position made her a target of the gun lobby during her campaign for president.

"The gun lobby spent about $30 million against me, not having the guts to take on specific gun proposals," Clinton said. "In fact, their ads had nothing to do with guns. They were just outright lies."

The disconnect is easily explained. Anti-Second Amendment organizations are constantly undergoing re-branding, as people become wise to their agendas. When banning handguns became unpopular, the push became "gun control". When "gun control" lost punch, the movement changed to "gun safety". 

The ultimate goal remains the same, while the intermediate and near term goals are altered. The process is to pass incremental legislation that undermines the Second Amendment and leads to a disarmed population.

25 years ago, in 1993, a group known as the Legal Community Against Violence and as the Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence (LCPGV), was formed. In 2017, the name was changed to the Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence. That is how a "Giffords" center, named for an event only seven years old, can have a 25th anniversary.

Notice the vague, imprecise, manipulative term used by Secretary Clinton to describe her efforts. "common sense gun laws." The phrase begs the question by its nature. It assumes the argument is settled. The laws proposed are anything but common sense. 

The laws would not have prevented the events used to trigger the emotional push for the laws passage. The shootings are events used to push the desired agenda. The agenda had been determined previously.

That recipe has been a consistent and effective formula of the Progressive age. As mass media came under near exclusive control of those with the Progressive ideology, argument did not matter. What mattered was control of the narrative. When you control the media, you control the narrative. When you control the narrative, you control the country. 

Technological and political change has made the control problematic. It has taken three decades. The elite, Progressive, "experts" could not anticipate the changes. Their political blinders, their self deception, and the nature of reality all prevented them from anticipating the changes.

Political Talk radio formats started gaining traction after the FCC, under Reagan, freed up some regulatory rules. The change was predicted to be detrimental to conservatives. 

In the early 80's, what little talk radio there was, was mostly Progressive. A few "conservatives" were on the air as an answer to the progressive voices. After the change in rules in 1987, enormous demand for alternate content to the Progressive univoice on television, in academia, in newspapers, in Hollywood, and to a small amount, on radio, found an outlet. 

Today, Rush Limbaugh, his allies and local ideological proponents, dominate talk radio.

When the Internet became commercial, vast numbers of silenced Constitutionalists and Conservatives found ways to talk to each other. They created their own forums, digital publications, and news outlets. The Progressive media lost their ability to shape and control the narrative. 

The NRA has been a counter to the Progressive media for decades. It arguably kept the Second Amendment alive, with delaying actions, for 60 years, while the technology to effectively combat the Progressive media developed and grew.

The development of alternate voices to media controlled by ideologically indistinguishable Progressive elites, allowed the election of President Donald Trump. President Trump skillfully used new means of communicating, and the Progressive media's own blind spots, to get his message to the people.

 Carl Jung wrote, "People don't have ideas. Ideas have People." The elites of the United States have been the "people" of the Progressive idea for at least 60 years, arguably a century. But Progressivism is limited. It requires an elite group of government "experts" to control everyone else. It disdains the rest of the people as stupid and uninformed. It can only rule by fraud, trickery, manipulation, and force. 

Throughout history, governments have normally ruled by fraud, trickery, manipulation, and force. Machiavelli did not create new ideas with The Prince. He described reality. The founders of the United States understood this reality.

The First Amendment was designed to prevent, or at least, minimize the fraud, trickery, and manipulation, by assuring a competition of ideas and ideologies. It was designed to prevent the domination of the media by the government.

The founders did not foresee the rise of the mass media and the takeover of that media by an ideology dedicated to fraud, trickery, and manipulation. They did not foresee the domination of the government by the media.

The Second Amendment was designed to prevent the takeover of the sovereignty of the people by force. Progressives have worked mightily to use their subversion of the First Amendment to degrade the power of the Second Amendment. 

The Progressive alternative to controlling the people through fraud, trickery, and manipulation is force. Force and fraud reinforce each other. The checks and balances of the Constitution are designed to prevent this. 

Perhaps, with the rise of alternatives to the old, dominant, Progressive media, the checks and balances of the Constitutional republic will restore the sovereignty of the people. That struggle is ongoing.

©2018 by Dean Weingarten: Permission to share is granted when this notice and link are included.

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