At risk of alienating more Libertarians and even some libertarians – to say nothing of the enemies of liberty: reader, beware!

An opinion piece in a niche publication, GQ picked up by MSNBC, condemns several recent Nazgul (US Supreme Court) decisions. The philosopher-kings/tyrants-in-black, the author says, wants to “take America back to the 18th Century.”

While the piece is typical of the Woke regressives’ reaction in the past five or six days, it illustrates perfectly the irrationality and agenda of those enemies of liberty. (Here is where I start stepping on toes!) Actually, they are enemies of life AND liberty.

The GQ writer, like so many, uses the excuse of “democracy” to attack the Supremes’ concealed carry decision on concealed carry laws – and Alito and others are castigated with a regular shopping list of accusations. Most betray the writer’s lack of knowledge of history and government, and apparently an inability (or refusal) to understand the US Constitution. (Flawed though the USC is, it is better than anything that these enemies of life and liberty are proposing!)

In particular, he makes light of, and dismisses, the importance of human life. And the concept of personal responsibility. (In TPOL’s opinion, the Supremes STILL refuse to explicitly address the evil of government deciding who can live and who can die, and the evil of government killing or advocating the killing of innocent people. We are NOT endorsing the Nazgul or proponents of their tyranny or human government.)

Like so many opinion pieces (and many “news stories”), the writer talks about women’s rights, but his words betray his bias: “people considering pregnancy” and “people who are pregnant.” Seemingly equating denying sexual equality with the value of life. He sets up a fair number of strawmen, including trying to accuse the court of going back to the 18th Century and even to the Dark Ages (the 13th Century). To compare equal pay or marriage to permitting the killing of innocents is, at best, disingenuous.

Although he concentrating on the overturn of Roe v Wade, his condemnation of the concealed-carry decision (so-called “expanding the reach of the Second Amendment”) is very clear. He attacks the court for denying democratic decision-making on a clear, specified right to keep and bear arms. Then hypocritically, he attacks democratic means for people deciding on abortion: at best an implied “right” only to those who deny one of the supposed basic justifications of human government: protecting life.

He is of course far from alone in this political opinion, as the viciousness of attacks on the decisions continued to escalate in the past few days. Both decisions are attacked on an amazing number of grounds: they are racist, they are sexist, they are going to destroy women, destroy all rights, destroy the nation, and apparently much more. And of course, the claim that the action banned will continue to be done, and that enforcement is “impossible” or “very difficult.” (Of course, does not that problem apply as much to theft, murder of adults, and many other types of aggression against people?)

This guy’s opinion was written before the Bremerton v Kennedy ruling was published, which is already being attacked in a similar manner. Both the overturn of Roe v Wade and the Kennedy decision are “merging church and state” according to many commentators. No doubt other similarities will be “found” as the opponents to the decisions get their acts together.

Clearly, these issues are far from settled. Of course, these are systemic problems of human government and in particular of the American constitutional system in the first quarter of the 21st Century.

Let me submit some basic principles for readers to consider:

1. Rights are NOT “given” or “granted” by governments or constitutions: they are rights which humans have BECAUSE we are humans. Whether from God or just because, we are born with these, and it is an absence of good (that is, evil) when such rights are taken from other people.
2. Rights are absolute with a single limitation: your or my right to do something is limited IF that exercising that right takes away some other (innocent) person’s right(s). That is, of course, the basis of the Non-Aggression Principle which is the foundation of liberty and anarchism – and claimed to be that of “minarchist” philosophy.
3. Rights which are fundamental to a free society – and are supposed to be a foundation of American society – include Jefferson’s famous three unalienable rights: life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness (expressed as the right to property).
4. Abortion cannot be a fundamental right (if a right at all) because it violates the right to life of the unborn child. It is aggression leading to the DEATH of the fetus, embryo, child) – NOT the expelling of “pregnancy tissue” or “a clump of cells.”
5. At the same time, keeping and bearing a gun – and even using it (or any other tool or weapon) in self defense or defense of others against aggression IS a fundamental right, because the aggressor is seeking to steal those fundamental rights: life, liberty, and property.
6. ALL liberty must be enjoyed with the understanding that liberty requires responsibility for our actions. We must respond in an appropriate manner to threats to our freedoms and those of others, including as much as possible NOT taking away the rights of the person aggressing against us. (This directly applies to the unborn child: that child bears NO responsibility for being brought into existence, committed NO action that led to its “enslaving” (as some claim) the mother. Nothing justifies the mother (or anyone acting “on her behalf” with or without her agreement) killing the child.)
7. There ARE going to be times when liberties of two different persons legitimately are in conflict, and one or the other will lose those rights – even the right of life. That is a sad fact in a fallen, unsaved, imperfect universe.

Think on these things.