The Right to Bear Arms

Chamomile Tea Party Posters

Boing Boing editor/partner and tech culture journalist Xeni Jardin hosts and produces Boing Boing's in-flight TV channel on Virgin America airlines (#10 on the dial), and writes about living with breast cancer. Diagnosed in 2011. @xeni on Twitter. email: xeni@boingboing.net.

MORE: Art and Design • parody • politics

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saru

Completely apart from the entire Chamomile Tea Party thing, what the fuck is this poster supposed to mean?
I honestly don’t get it. Is it parodying people who oppose restrictions on fire arms, saying that they might as well allow people to own full sized artillery?
Anonymous

OK, y’all broke Flickr again.

Proud of yaselves?

Thought so.
OP_TIMUS

I see the long-dead left/right paradigm is still very much alive in the minds of americans – how sad!
- osmo
  
  Seems kinda strange to go the centrist way and assume that all vision is redundant in politics and that all that matters is a false “objectivism”.
  
  The left/right thing is still important in… well in about every country on the planet it just means different things. So I wonder – where are you from? But I agree in the idea that left/right can be a falsehood without any form of ideology behind it.
  
  Personally I think that dissent is the only thing that keeps parliamentarism alive today – so maybe the call of “unity” is a good thing ;)
sdmikev

This appears to have the requisite amount of homo-eroticism for your average gun show, Hummer driver, NRA member, etc..
Excellent work.
- bassplayinben
  
  Thanks for being a part of the problem, sdmikev.
  
  Some of these posters show a strong and obvious bias.
  - sdmikev
    
    Please have a glass of humor today.
    - bassplayinben
      
      I’ve already had several! I think it’s hilarious that you immediately put yourself up as perfect example of the subject of discussion without even knowing you were doing it.
Anonymous

If I wasn’t at work, I’d open up Photoshop and comp a bear paw / fur onto that guy’s arm.

After all, we all carry the right to bear-arms, amirite?
Anonymous

A contract without a sword is a just a piece of paper.
Lobster

I love the “mothers of democrats” one. I’ve long made it a personal policy never to strongly hold an position that amounts to, “quit being a pussy.”
enough4

So according to that Flick page, Republicans prey on the “fearful and naive” and constantly use filibusters, so Democrats need “stronger backbones,” but “partisanship” and “bickering” are “hurting us” and we should “vote them out.”

In other words, we want stronger and more partisan Democrats that can fight filibusters (“the Republican way”) so that we can angrily vote them out when we get what we specifically asked for.

What a pathetic, self-important and arrogant joke that’s just as irrelevant and incoherent as the Tea Party it seeks to parody.
- Lobster
  
  No, they are actually referring to the Democrats with the “prey on the fearful and naive” thing. Specifically Obama. The Tea Party’s only complain with the American Right is that it’s too liberal.
  - enough4
    
    I am referring to the Chamomile Tea Party poster on the Flickr page linked at the bottom of this post, not the billboard in Iowa. The one that says “LOOK TO YOUR RIGHT” at the bottom.
Lobster

I also love the “radical leaders prey on the fearful and naive” thing. I loved it even more when it was on a billboard of Obama next to Lenin and Hitler. I wonder if they need a spineless librul to explain “irony” to them.
Artimus Mangilord

Right to “bare” arms, more like! Grrr!
grimc

Like somebody said in the first post about these: Vote Wishy-Washy.
- Enormo
  
  “Like somebody said in the first post about these: Vote Wishy-Washy.”
  
  I’m not sure if this is supposed to be tongue in cheek or what but I get so depressed about the future of this country when those with moderate beliefs are labeled as “Wishy-Washy.”
  
  It’s as if there is this idealogical continuum with a single axis and ideas only exist at either end of it. And anything between the poles is just some compromised watered down version of an idea.
  
  Juvenile. Just juvenile.
Church

So, like “Bears” bear? ‘Cause these guys look a bit too clean cut.
jeligula

Big Mac for lunch, I’m thinkin’.
dculberson

No, THIS is the right bare arms:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/feliciaday/3828388329/
- Anonymous
  
  No, THIS is! ;)
  
  http://www.bustedtees.com/secondamendment
- dculberson
  
  I am ashamed that I typed that wrong. Of course I meant “right two bare arms.”
nutbastard

I’m glad the tea party exists if only to act as a magnet for all the xenophobic nutjobs that mistakenly aligned themselves with the Libertarian party at some point.
zyodei

To quote the Pelosi’s press release linked above:

“Since virtually every aspect of the heath care system has an effect on interstate commerce, the power of Congress to regulate health care is essentially unlimited.”

Does that make any sense to you? It seems like a hell of a presumption, that “virtually every aspect of health care” involves interstate commerce.

Basically, she is saying that any area that the Federal government deems “interstate commerce” is subject to Federal jurisdiction. Which means just about everything can be deemed a federal matter. Which means the power and scope of the Federal government is basically unlimited.

It should be noted that there is existing Supreme Court precedent, set during WWII, that a farmer feeding wheat he grew on his own property to his livestock was “interstate commerce” – because he was thus not buying wheat interstate, and thus somehow affecting interstate wheat prices.

Just because someone is a kook, and is wrong on some or even many issues, does not mean they are wrong on every issue.

The Tea Party certainly has its crackpot element, and the Republican Party are a bunch of twits with few redeeming features. But if you don’t think there is something unsettling about the unlimited scope and the incomprehensible spending of the US federal government, you aren’t a student of history.
mkultra

It’s amazing how important bipartisanism seems to be when the democrats have control, and how nonexistent it is the rest of the time. Doesn’t anyone remember 2000-2008?

In my opinion, the way we need to treat politics in this country is as a big, slow version of Iterated Prisoners Dilemma. In that scenario, the best strategy over time is Tit-for-Tat, or do exactly what your opponent did to you last round. Cooperate, sabotage, or obstruct.

Sadly, it seems that very few politicians care about the future beyond the next election.
- hungryjoe
  
  Bipartisanship got us into both Iraq and Afghanistan. It’s overrated.
  - Steaming Pile
    
    It also got us a collection of watered-down half measures of the sort one would normally associate with a much smaller majority. I’m looking at you, Senator Harry Reid (D-NV).
    
    The House of Representatives has been doing what we elected them to do, more or less; it’s the Senate that has been dragging its feet on everything, and that’s because Harry doesn’t or won’t try to understand that the Republicans couldn’t care less about anything but making things suck as hard as possible, then blaming the Democrats.
    
    Well, at least one Democrat (Reid) deserves that blame; I don’t know about the rest, unless we’re talking about the small handful of bad actors in the Senate who like to sit on the fence (while taking interviews with Fox News) for fun and profit.
zyodei

P.S. The SCOTUS case I mention above is Wickard V. Filburn. I’m not making it up, it was quite an important case. Read about it:

Wickard v. Filburn
CL114C0777498D

phallic!
glaborous immolate

“Tired of the rancor”, the poster maker decides to add to it by only mocking the right.
- Steaming Pile
  
  Well, the right are the ones doing all the mock-worthy stuff. The mere existence of the Tea Party as anything other than a loosely-organized fringe group is testament to that.
Gutierrez

Eh it’s not about wish-wash, flip-flop, or flim-flam, it’s about getting the “Whatever it is, I’m against it!” attitude both sides are so entrenched in off the air and out of the chambers.

Get informed, form your opinions, voice them, but then listen to the opposition, have a real debate and work to settle the dissent in a democratic manner.

That’s a cup of tea I’ll sip all day long.
- grimc
  
  Anybody who thinks that both parties are behaving in a “whatever it is, I’m against it” way is clearly not paying attention.
  - Gutierrez
    
    So tell me, how is the vote on Elena Kagan is split? What about the attempt to break the filibuster on jobless benefits?
    
    If there was a stance on Kagan’s actual ability to interpret the law as her new job requires instead of an argument over use of political bias, I would think both parties would dissent on her nomination.
    
    Any attempt to reduce deficit would be a reduction in both social programs and tax cuts, not to mention other government programs.
    
    But yes, it’s more complicated. Everything is. I just want less cable TV staged shouting matches and more information and discourse. Especially shown to and participated in by the public.
    - grimc
      
      If there was a stance on Kagan’s actual ability to interpret the law as her new job requires instead of an argument over use of political bias, I would think both parties would dissent on her nomination.
      
      Because you don’t think Kagan has the ability to interpret the law? Based on what? And the only solution, it seems, is for the President to nominate somebody who’ll sail through. Maybe somebody from the esteemed law firm of Wishy, Washy and Bleh.
      - Gutierrez
        
        â€œShe has worked to bend the law to fit her personal political wishes,â€ Senator Charles Grassley, Iowa Republican.
        
        I never voiced my opinion on whether or not Kagan is fit for the position. I’m going squarely off the opinions of the dissenting voters on the panel who are all but one of the republicans. And if it was the other way, a republican nominee and the democrats make the same stink it would still be the same problem.
        
        Wishy, Washy and Bleh? I’m talking about a clear interpretation of the law as it is written. Justice is blind, she doesn’t even know what red and blue look like.
        
        And so I’ll go with a quote from Republican Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, â€œWhatâ€™s in Elena Kaganâ€™s heart is that of a good person who adopts a philosophy that I disagree with … [She] understands the difference between being a liberal judge and being a politician.â€
- Outtacontext
  
  Gutierrez, I couldn’t have said it better myself (although I tried — 11 times -g)!
- Steaming Pile
  
  Listen to the opposition? This opposition? The “Let ‘em eat cat food” opposition? The “start over” (code for “forget the whole thing”) opposition? Surely you jest.
  
  We tried that. It didn’t work. It was like talking to the wall. Their “ideas” (the ones that weren’t horrible) got incorporated into legislation, and the people proposing those ideas voted against the legislation anyway. Again and again. What good did it do to listen to them in the first place? None at all.
  - Gutierrez
    
    But that’s my point exactly. No one is listening if one side is a wall. When two sides have different ideas, they are both in opposition to one another. We’ve lost the ability to have a democratic debate in this country that leads to a solution.
    
    It doesn’t matter who “they” are, who the “opposition” is. It’s everyone. The point of the Senate is to slow legislation down. But not to grind it to a halt. To have meaningful discussion about the bills before congress and find ways, through debate, to move beneficial legislation.
    
    I know, idealism, define “beneficial”, all that. I’m just reiterating that I want real debates on issues.
    - Steaming Pile
      
      But it’s not EVERYONE. It’s one side. The majority wants to pass stuff because that’s what they were put in office to do. The minority folds their arms and says NO, no matter what it is, even if it’s something they proposed only a few years ago when they ran things. Even if they were asked (and they WERE asked) for input, and some of their ideas (the ones that didn’t suck) were included.
      
      I ask you, how many sides are there? The answer cannot possibly be two. The really infuriating thing is that the majority leader tolerates this behavior when the minority had already given him the solution back in 2005.
      - zyodei
        
        What’s so wrong with saying “no?” It’s worth remembering that the vast majority of what the Federal government does is strictly unconstitutional, and thus completely illegal and illegitimate. It is a violation of the oath to uphold to constitution to vote for most legislation.
        
        A great majority of what the Federal government does falls under the supposed authority of the “commerce clause.” It reads thusly:
        
        “[The Congress shall have power] To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian tribes”
        
        This is used to justify just about everything. For instance, the recent health care overhaul: virtually nationalizing the national health insurance, helping to ensure the insurance companies monopolies, forcing individual citizens to buy insurance: yup, all of this counts as “regulating interstate commerce.”
        
        Here is Pelosi on the subject:
        
        http://www.speaker.gov/newsroom/factcheck?id=0107
        
        And what is all this talk against filibuster? What is all this talk of unity? Wasn’t all this “unity” the whole problem of the Bush era? Didn’t we wish the Dems had filibustered more then?
        
        Seeinghow the single greatest danger to the welfare of America is runaway Federal spending, I don’t see any problem with saying “no” – and I wish both parties would do more of it.
Daneel

…only slightly less stupid than the right to arm bears.
Anonymous

The US is not a confederacy of independant states anymore. We ceased to be that a long time ago and for all intents and purposes the federal government has the final say in legal matters. The vast majority of citizens feel this is for the best and don’t care that we didn’t amend the constitution to make it more official. Get over it.
- zyodei
  
  The US is not a confederacy of independant states anymore. We ceased to be that a long time ago and for all intents and purposes the federal government has the final say in legal matters.
  
  It is worth examining exactly how the present situation came to be. I think it would much better be described as a gradual and stealthy usurpation of power than in any way an expression of the democratic will of the people.
  
  The vast majority of citizens feel this is for the best and don’t care that we didn’t amend the constitution to make it more official. Get over it.
  
  No, the vast majority of the citizenry just isn’t really aware of this issue or how the American republic was originally organized. Most people have never given a thought in their lives to the idea of America as being a loose confederation of largely independent states. Acquiescence through ignorance is hardly a ringing endorsement, and the present state of affairs is not a result of healthy democratic processes.
  
  Democratic institutions work best on smaller levels. On a level as large as a country, individual voices are lost the only the voices of money and organized political entities are heard.
  
  A great many people, when then take the time to look into the issue, think the current massive and largely unaccountable centralization of power in DC stinks.
Outtacontext

Here’s an interesting article in today’s Washington Post: “Lindsey Graham stands apart from other Republican senators on Kagan vote.” It reflects the type of bipartisan attitude I’ve been talking about. You don’t have to agree with the other party but there are ways to work with them to move forward.
- glaborous immolate
  
  Graham hopes that the next Bork (or Scalia or whoever) gets the approval of the Democrats on the committee in a demonstration of their response to his goodwill.
  
  Sure that will happen
- zyodei
  
  I agree. Here’s another great idea of true bipartisanship and uncontested cooperation moving this country forward:
  
  https://senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=107&session=1&vote=00313
- zyodei
  
  Sorry, but just had to comment on the linked article.
  
  “I think there’s a good reason for a conservative to vote yes, and that’s provided in the Constitution itself,” Graham told his peers before reading to them from Federalist No. 6, by Alexander Hamilton.”
  
  It’s worth noting that the Federalist Papers aren’t the Constitutions, and the musings of Hamilton (arguably the worst of the founding fathers) can hardly be said to represent the consensus of the founders…
grimc

@guitierrez – And see, that’s the problem with these calls for ‘bipartisanship’ and ‘moderation’. They’re based on the assumption that each side is a fair actor, and it’s simply not true.

@enormo – And cries for ‘moderation’ act as if it’s a dead center, and going one way or the other is bad, bad, bad.
rebdav

It always irritates me that many leftists are against the right to bear arms. I get being anti-hunting, the 2nd wasn’t about that. I remember learning that most anti-gun laws were enacted to disarm southern and urban African-Anericans.