For his letter in the Minnesota Star Tribune, Dustin Guggenberger (I didn’t make that up) is a Fatuous Bastard™.
As a lifelong Second Amendment advocate residing in the great state of Minnesota [really, deep in the febrile crescent], I feel compelled to write in defense of a right that forms the bedrock of our freedoms, a right that too often is diluted in public discourse to mere hobbies or traditions. In Minnesota, where our vast landscapes and rural communities rely on self-reliance, the Second Amendment stands as an unyielding guardian against overreach, ensuring that citizens remain sovereign in the face of potential tyranny. [Yes, like the tyranny of Trump’s soybean bailout.]
This is no peripheral privilege to be debated or compromised. The Second Amendment enshrines a God-given right, explicitly declaring that it “shall not be infringed.” [I’ve read the Bible carefully and can find no mention of guns, let alone assault rifles; maybe there is a different one floating around that I am not aware of. I don’t think it’s in the Torah or the Qur’an, either. Natural rights types are out of control and want to govern all of us with their cockamamie ideas.] These words are not suggestions; they are a constitutional firewall, nonnegotiable and impervious to bargaining. To portray it otherwise is to erode the very essence of American liberty. [Funny, even Tony Scalia in the Heller decision said that the 2nd Amendment was subject to regulation.] It is not about hunting deer in the North Woods or sporting clays on a crisp autumn day, vital pursuits though they may be. No, the Second Amendment is the ultimate safeguard: the sacred right [there’s theology, again] of the people to keep and bear arms in defense of themselves, their families and their republic against a tyrannical government that might seek to subjugate its own. [The author of this turgid polemic is among the least likely to rise up against a tyrannical government; I invite him to come to the Twin Cities and help fend off lawless ICE.] In Minnesota, where history echoes with the spirit of pioneers who tamed the frontier through grit and resolve [he undoubtedly loves the old racist state flag], this right reminds us that true security comes not from distant capitals but from empowered individuals ready to uphold justice.
Let us never forget that compromising on this foundation invites the shadows of despotism to lengthen. [The shadows are getting longer, but that’s because it’s after the equinox.] I urge your readers — and our lawmakers — to reaffirm this truth: The Second Amendment is the line in the sand that preserves all other rights. [Shakespeare’s Polonius has nothing on this cluck.]
As a reminder of its immutable power, I close with the full text of the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution: “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.”
Jesus, what a Yankee Doodle. The author of this codswallop is a likely to defend us against tyranny as these two:
Meal team six; provenance unknown
In fact, they aren’t out protecting us from tyranny in the current moment. They like that tyranny just fine.
The letter’s author “closed” with the Second Amendment, including the preamble to it that everybody, including Chief Justice Warren Burger, thought meant that the amendment didn’t confer an individual right to rock-ribbed (headed?) individualists like Guggenberger, but rather it was conferring the right of a state to maintain a militia. In spite of being an “originalist,” or so he said, Tony Scalia tore the preamble off the front of the amendment in 2008.
Lord save us from dotty fools like Tony Scalia and Dustin Guggenberger.
The Fatuous Bastard™ award aims to recognize and celebrate all the incels and other assorted misfits who were stuffed in lockers in high school and never got over it, the overweening, overcompensating pseudo-intellectual fools who mistake a thesaurus for thought, the basement dwellers whose fingers are as orange as their hero, the . . . well, you get the idea.