Thursday, May 11, 2017

Common To Whom?

Governor Deal has signed the so-called Campus Carry Bill. Now the fun begins.

Though still aligned with the Permission Society World View, supporters of the bill are celebrating this as "common sense" legislation, co-opting Obama's bumper-sticker phrase on the issue. Hopefully this causes the phrase and the idiocy behind it to fall into disuse as it has never been about common anything let alone just the loudest current social norms. That is, if you believe this country was founded on the precept of personal liberty. Then the Bill of Rights is little more than an enumeration of the liberties of the people that shall not be infringed by the government. The view of individual liberty does not sit well with those who long for the days of monarchies, of those bestowed with power, in particular the power to grant and withdraw at their discretion liberties to the little people.

Those nostalgists include the Left-Wing-Nuts who are now going nutzy-cuckoo. They see this as an attack on their breeding ground, an attempt to poison the fount of their life. Their histrionics cannot be contained.

Being the well educated grammarians that they are they fear the loss of their kingdom for the want of a comma. They invoke the "let's eat, grandma" vs "let's eat grandma" to make their case that a missing comma in the legislation actually allows a Weapon's Carry License holder to make it into "their" building. Being arrogant know-it-alls they have anointed themselves the sole arbiter of legislative intent concluding that this missing comma goes against that intent and therefore invalidates the entire law. In their world this missing comma can't be right (or could it?) so they intend to sue. HASHTAG: CommasMatter HASHTAG: WordsNotSoMuch

Academia is up in [un-]arms with UGA's Franklin College faculty resolving:
“If this legislation is enacted, and students and faculty are hesitant to discuss sensitive or controversial topics because of the presence of guns on campus and in our classrooms, the academic integrity of UGA will be greatly compromised."
Now THAT is gobstopping. This faculty seems so ensconced in their ivory tower that they are unaware that college campuses banned the liberty of free speech, especially on topics they deem "sensitive or controversial" long ago. The campus newspaper, the Red & Black, reported on limits the  University has placed upon those meeting their disapproval to Free Speech Zones where they will not offend sensitive sensibilities because they won't be heard. But trust them, it isn't censorship, it's free speech in a safe place. They live in an echo chamber and banish any dissenting speech to a small soundproof room.

This is why the term "common sense" has no place in any discussion about what happens on any college campus in America.