bob herbert today, decrying "right-wing wackos" such as the abortion-doc and holocaust-museum shooters:

A new book by Dennis Henigan, a vice president at the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence, goes into detail on this point. In “Lethal Logic: Exploding the Myths That Paralyze American Gun Policy,” Mr. Henigan refers to a Harvard Law Journal article written by an N.R.A. lawyer titled, “The Second Amendment Ain’t About Hunting.” In the article, the lawyer makes it clear that for the N.R.A., the right to bear arms is “directed at maintaining an armed citizenry. ... to protect against the tyranny of our own government.”

well, that idea certainly was central to the constitutional right to bear arms. now herbert just leaves us to ponder the insanity of the idea that our own government could ever be tyrannical, a delusion of right-wing wack-jobs. it's amazing how quickly the obama admin has settled over the left as a permanent condition of life. but perhaps it would help them to recall that a few months ago there was an administration that was enthusing about universal surveillance, imprisonment without even the semblance of due process, instituting a world system of secret torture facilities,extreme manipulation of public opinion by disinformation toward the goal of killing people, etc. already, they seem to need a lesson from sarah palin on how to criminalize gay marriage, launch a crusade against islam, illegalize abortion, require christian prayer in schools, or throw you in prison for a decade for smoking pot.

herbert is certainly right, however, that only insane right-wing killers seem to worry at all about tyranny, and that all reasonable people have long ago resigned even the hint of independent thought and autonomous action to the beautiful bureaucracy. that, my friends, is what it means to be rational and progressive person. that is what it means to be an american: to suckle at the teat of the state from the womb to the grave: to give over your brain chemistry, your children, your intellection, into the hands of...whomever.

at any rate, i think you can tell from the herbert-style schtick that a progressive administration presents more or less the same threat of tyranny as a reactionary administration. this is evident precisely from the fact that herbert regards the very notion of tyranny as an absurd anachronism, an obvious impossibility, pretty much the stance of ayatollah khamenei, let's say. and you can definitely tell by that how far the american republic has come since the founding. indeed, american history is a kind of slowmo u-turn.

one thing we should agree on, i suppose: your .22 rifle is not going to help you to resist. there can be no resistance, a fact more evident with every passing hour.