![\"\"](\"http:\/\/graphics8.nytimes.com\/images\/2007\/08\/06\/nyregion\/06bloomberg.span.jpg\")
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New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0Photo credit: The New York Times\u00a0<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n Longtime reader and blogfriend Eddie Beaver<\/strong> sent me a link to an article<\/a> by NYT columnist, Ross Douthat. <\/strong>In my view, Douthat has written a fairly important observation of a political dynamic that is broader than the simply the new push by the elite for new and stringent gun control legislation:<\/strong><\/p>\n Bloomberg, LaPierre and the Void<\/strong><\/p>\n FOR a week after the Newtown shooting, the conversation was dominated by the self-righteous certainties of the American center-left. In print and on the airwaves, the chorus was nearly universal: the only possible response to Adam Lanza\u2019s rampage was an immediate crusade for gun control, the necessary firearm restrictions were all self-evident, and anyone who doubted their efficacy had the blood of children on his hands.<\/strong><\/p>\n The leading gun control chorister was\u00a0Michael Bloomberg<\/a>, and this was fitting, because on a range of issues New York\u2019s mayor has become the de facto spokesman for the self-consciously centrist liberalism of the Acela Corridor elite. Like so many members of that class, Bloomberg combines immense talent with immense provincialism: his view of American politics is basically the famous New Yorker cover showing Manhattan\u2019s West Side overshadowing the world, and his bedrock assumption is that the liberal paternalism with which New York is governed can and should be a model for the nation as a whole.<\/strong><\/p>\n ….Unfortunately for our country, the Bloomberg versus LaPierre contrast is basically all of American politics today. Our society is divided between an ascendant center-left that\u2019s far too confident in its own rigor and righteousness and a conservatism that\u2019s marched into an ideological cul-de-sac and is currently battering its head against the wall.<\/strong><\/p>\n ….The establishment view is interventionist, corporatist and culturally liberal. It thinks that issues like health care and climate change and immigration are best worked out through comprehensive bills drawn up by enlightened officials working hand in glove with business interests. It regards sexual liberty as sacrosanct, and other liberties \u2014 from the freedoms of churches to the rights of gun owners \u2014 as negotiable at best. It thinks that the elite should pay slightly higher taxes, and everyone else should give up guns, SUVs and Big Gulps and live more like, well, Manhattanites. It allows the president an entirely free hand overseas, and takes the Bush-Obama continuities in foreign policy for granted.<\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n Douthat’s criticism of a reflexively angry but unimaginative and politically inept Right is correct, but class trumps mere Left-Right distinctions regarding gun control, with celebrity pundit Fareed Zakari<\/a>a<\/strong> and conservative press baron Rupert Murdoch<\/a><\/strong> aligning with fellow Manhattan West Side billionaire and gun control zealot<\/a>, Mayor Michael \u00a0Bloomberg \u00a0<\/strong>and various worthies\u00a0in calling for UK style “gun bans”.<\/strong><\/p>\n Britain<\/strong> of course, does not have a 2nd Amendment<\/a><\/strong> or, for that matter, a written Constitution<\/strong> that acts as a bar to government curtailment of civil liberties <\/a>and both Parliament<\/strong> and British courts have different views on the limits of basic rights of free speech, self-defense (not just with guns), property and other liberties than the American norm. In light of the \u00a02nd Amendment<\/strong> and District of Columbia vs. Heller<\/a><\/strong><\/em>, that sort of draconian legislation that makes gun ownership a privilege of the very few, would be obviously unconstitutional. If Illinois<\/strong>, for example must comply with a Federal Appellate Court order to permit citizens under new legislation to carry concealed guns<\/a>, it is rather unlikely the Federal courts will entertain a confiscatory national gun control law that would trample not only the 2nd Amendment, but the 4th, 5th and 14th along the way. Nor would the governors of a majority of American states be on board for this, nor most Congressmen from rural states or the high tens of millions of Americans who own guns<\/a> and reside in zip codes outside of Georgetown and Manhattan.<\/p>\n However, a healthy disregard for the strictures of Constitutional law and the liberties of ordinary citizens is a hallmark of the New Paternalism of our increasingly oligarchic elite,<\/a> composed of superwealthy billionaires, hedge fund managers, Fortune 500 CEOs and the technocratic-political-legal class sporting ivy league pedigrees. They are even worse on the 4th Amendment and individual privacy<\/a> than on gun rights look<\/a> disapprovingly<\/a> at the First, which constrains their ability<\/a> to censor and punish unenlightened opinions<\/a> or political<\/a> criticism<\/a>. Outside of gay marriage and abortion, I am hard pressed to think of a single individual liberty our elite holds in unqualified esteem or at least in as much esteem in their own presumed competence to rule.<\/p>\n As Douthat noted, this not merely about guns, but of this small group having a searing contempt for the way the majority of Americans live their lives and a manifest, bipartisan, desire to regulate them for their own good in matters great and small. To decide how other Americans should educate<\/a> their<\/a> children<\/a>; whether they should<\/a> go to college<\/a> and if so<\/a>, what they should be permitted to study<\/a>; \u00a0how much and what kind<\/a> of food they should be allowed<\/a> to eat or drink<\/a>; whether their religion should be treated with deference<\/a>\u00a0in public policy or dismissed for the greater good<\/a>; where they should live<\/a> and how far back their “middle-class”<\/a> living<\/a> standards<\/a> should<\/a> be<\/a> cut or pensions<\/a> reduced<\/a>, transformed<\/a> or eliminated<\/a> for the<\/a> benefit <\/a>of those <\/a>whose incompetently \u00a0mismanaged companies<\/a>, banks<\/a> and<\/a> \u00a0 equities firms<\/a> were so recently bailed out<\/a> by taxpayers<\/a> and the Federal Reserve.<\/a><\/p>\n It would be one thing, of course, if these high minded New Paternalists intended to live under the laws they eagerly want to impose on the rest of us, but largely they intend a different set of rules for themselves. They are ardent gun-control advocates who pack heat<\/a>, public pension reformers who loot their employee’s pensions to enrich themselve<\/a>s, ed reformers who send their kids to posh private schools<\/a>\u00a0, crusaders against obesity who love junk food<\/a>, zealous environmentalists with giant carbon footprints<\/a> and advocates of tax reform whose corporations pay no taxes<\/a>. Their mismatch between words and deeds is so vast as to almost be admirable – say what you like about this cabal’s lack of humility or sense stewardship, they hit the jackpot when it came to chutzpah.<\/p>\n If Hubris mated with Hypocrisy, their offspring would look much like the present American leadership class.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0Photo credit: The New York Times\u00a0 Longtime reader and blogfriend Eddie Beaver sent me a link to an article by NYT columnist, Ross Douthat. In my view, Douthat has written a fairly important observation of a political dynamic that is broader than the simply the new push […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[360,361,215,476,132,425,864,78,492,465,545,588,187,104,603,381,10,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18158","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-21st-century","category-america","category-culture","category-democracy","category-dystopia","category-government","category-gun-control","category-ideas","category-leadership","category-legitimacy","category-liberty","category-oligarchy","category-politics","category-reform","category-republic","category-society","category-state-failure","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18158","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=18158"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18158\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18217,"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18158\/revisions\/18217"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=18158"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=18158"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=18158"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}