Congressman's Contempt for You

I would imagine that a few of you have heard this stunning audio clip from an interview done by Kerry Picket with the Honorable Charles Rangel (D-NY), whose butt has been in a seat in the United States Congress for 35 years and who is 86 years old.  Not that there's anything wrong with that (?).

Here is the clip -- it is two minutes long and worth the effort if you have not recently eaten.

Rangel is famous for his raspy voice, extreme-left politics and general contempt for the people of his district although when he finally retires, expires or both (this is his last term), there will be statues of him all over Harlem and all manner of things named for him.

If you have heard the clip, you most probably caught only the end of it.  There, Miss Picket asks Rangel a question about how he can spout the nonsense he does about limiting gun ownership and concealed-carry permits, while he himself is surrounded by armed guards.

Rangel's response to that is a very predictable laugh out loud, and then a pompous "That's a little different -- We deserve, I think we need that protection ..."  He used the term "we" to mean "congressmen."  It's pretty hard to put a meter on how pompous and how typically leftist-power that sounds.  "We know better than you; we are the elite; we need more than you; two legs good, four legs bad .."

And he would get reelected easily in what must be the stupidest congressional district in the USA, at least the most gullible and easily persuaded.  If my congressman tried to say that I would choke, and certainly vote for someone else -- or move.

But today's piece is about highlighting something else that Rangel said, earlier in the brief interview, regarding concealed-carry permits.  Miss Picket was noting that corruption in the city had led to very few concealed-carry permits being issued, and those only to the well-connected, who had friends high up in the NYPD, city government or Congress.

Rangel responded as only a leftist control-freak with contempt for the Constitution that created his elected position could.  Referring to those permits, Rangel immediately said "We don't need that many guns ...".

I'm almost surprised that part of the clip wasn't played as much as the despicable end of the clip (the laughter and the "we deserve protection ..." line.  Because to start a line with "We don't need that many guns", as an excuse for a corrupt issuance practice for concealed-carry permits, is to say something that tells all about the left.

"We" don't need that many guns.  "We."  Rangel just cast the royal "we" ahead of the rights of the individual citizen's right to keep and bear arms as guaranteed in the Second Amendment.  In the view of the left, that is the proper balance, as it is in the globalize-everything crowd that just got its butt kicked in the UK.

I know that I immediately heard that line as being every bit as pompous as the more-quoted part of his words.  Whether or not "we" do or do not need more or fewer guns is not for Charles Rangel (D-NY) to decide.  That issue was decided, about 230 years ago, for him.

It is in fact, embarrassing for those few in his district who might have the capacity for embarrassment, that he would say that in the context that he did.  Not only did he put himself above the Constitution, but he essentially said -- and other parts of his comments reinforce this -- that a corrupt process for the issuance of permits is effectively defensible because "we" don't need that many guns.

That's so miserable on so many levels.  Certainly his contempt for his constituents and those of neighboring districts is, well, contemptible.  But he is saying that if there are only a few concealed-carry permits, and the people who get them obtained them by participating in a corrupt process involving influence-peddling or exercise of inappropriate political power, that's OK.

Follow?  Good and decent people feeling at risk because their mayor, the dishonorable Bill DiBlasio, has vilified his police force, cannot arm themselves through a workable process.  But people can get those permits, through exercise of political string-pulling.  Who, you have to ask, would you want to be issued those permits -- the decent but unconnected, or those who obtain them through the back door?  Whom do you trust more?

I do not think this to be an unwarranted extrapolation of what Rangel said.  He did what leftists do, which is to live in his own realty bubble, knowing he can say whatever he wants and still get elected until he is 105 years old, which is not that far off, were he not retiring.  He will spout his contempt for his constituents both overtly (laughing at why congressmen deserved armed guards) and covertly (my right to defend myself stops at his interpretation of what we "need").

When will the left or the press (but I repeat myself) comment on that?  When will Hillary Clinton be asked if she agrees that Congress should have armed guards but I, who has never been arrested in my 65 years (and who, by the way, has been an expert shot since his teens), cannot in Rangel's view, buy a weapon to protect myself?

Ain't going to happen.  But a lot can change in November.

Copyright 2016 by Robert Sutton
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