TexasCHLforum.com

jimlongley wrote:Seeing the wording of the Bell response, calling the Second Amendment a guarantee of a privilege, my first inclination would be to vote against him. On second consideration I see the word "guarantee" as a commitment. With both of those in mind I intend to contact the Bell Campaign to ask for claraification, that is, if he recognizes the Second Amendment as a guarantee of a right (it is, after all, the "Bill of Rights") or if he really does see it as a privilege.

Well I wrote the Bell Campaign, and what I got back was less than satisfying.

Attached below are, in inverse order, my original email to Chris Bell, and the reply from Adrienne Fischer, complete with word games.

That doesn't make me feel any more comfortable, playing word games makes you appear even less than honest or forthright than the original statement. The simplest thing to do, to clear up any "obscurity" instead of playing word games, would have been to admit to using the wrong term and correct it.

According to my Webster's that definition of a right is far down on the list of definitions. My Webster's also defines a privilege as: "A right or immunity granted as a peculiar benefit, advantage, or favor." Thus, privileges may be a subset of rights, but there are rights that are not privileges, privileges can be granted and revoked, rights cannot.

Herewith, a quote from Wikipedia, note the delineation between rights and pivileges:

"In modern English and European systems of jurisprudence and law, a right is the legal or moral entitlement to do or refrain from doing something or to obtain or refrain from obtaining an action, thing or recognition in civil society. Compare with duty, referring to behaviour that is expected or required of the citizen, and with privilege, referring to something that can be conferred and revoked."

I'll be sure to let my friends know that you would rather play word games than engage in honest discourse and correction of obvious errors. That kind of attitude just smacks of someone who would come back later and say "that depends on what your definition of is is."

Adrienne Fischer <adrienne@chrisbell.com> wrote:

Mr. Longley,

Rest assured that I understand the nature of the guarantees made by our Constitution. However, I believe that simply because something is a right does not preclude it from being a privilege as well. According to Webster's Dictionary, a right is a "privilege to which one is justly entitled." Clearly not every privilege is a right, but every right is a specific kind of privilege.

I apologize for any obscurity in my response.

Adrienne Fischer
Grassroots Coordinator
Chris Bell for Governor
4032 South Lamar, Suite 700
Austin, TX 78704
(512)482-0216 office
(512)444-0216 fax
(713)504-4336 cell

From: James F Longley [mailto:jimlongley1@sbcglobal.net]
Sent: Saturday, September 23, 2006 2:49 PM
To: cbell@chrisbell.com
Subject: Rights vs Privileges

I am very concerned about a statement you apparantly made, or has been attributed to you by your grassroots organization.

From: Adrienne Fischer [mailto:adrienne@chrisbell.com]
Sent: Thursday, September 21, 2006 12:12 PM
To: (address removed)
Subject: Re: What is your position on the 2nd amendment



Chris Bell believes firmly in the privileges guaranteed by the Second Amendment and supports the right of every Texan to own and carry guns legally. However, he feels that it is equally important that existing laws are properly enforced.


...


Adrienne Fischer
Grassroots Coordinator
Chris Bell for Governor
4032 South Lamar, Suite 700
Austin, TX 78704
(512)482-0216 office
(512)444-0216 fax
(713)504-4336 cell


The statement above indicates that the person that wrote it seems to think that a right and a privilege are the same thing. The Bill of Rights guarantees rights, not privileges, and I would very much appreciate it if you would disavow this statement and issue a correction. Absent that I feel that I can no longer consider you a candidate worth my, or my friends' vote.

Jim Longley
209 Exchange Place
Allen, TX 75013-1538

Seeing the wording of the Bell response, calling the Second Amendment a guarantee of a privilege, my first inclination would be to vote against him. On second consideration I see the word "guarantee" as a commitment. With both of those in mind I intend to contact the Bell Campaign to ask for claraification, that is, if he recognizes the Second Amendment as a guarantee of a right (it is, after all, the "Bill of Rights") or if he really does see it as a privilege.

John wrote:

KBCraig wrote:

John wrote:When it was not illegal, cocaine could be picked up at the store and was used in coca cola.

So could heroin, morphine, and opium. And the "drug problem" was almost non-existent.

Kevin

Oh i'm sure it was a problem, just wasn't illegal. We had a different work ethic and social norms then too. Times have changed. Reminds me of a line in a Jimmy Buffett song, "But only jazz musicians were smokin' marijuana...".

It was a problem, but it was treated as a "personal problem" and those who became addicted were seen as lacking in self-control. Even Arthur Conan Doyle portrayed Sherlock Holmes as addicted through a personality lack.

My grandmother used to tell tales of a couple of cousins of hers who demonstrated their lack of self-control by developing drug habits in the 1880s to 1890s, one to "marihuana" which was originally prescribed for control of pain, cramping, and nausea associated with a bowel condition. I myself suffer from that same condition, Irritable Bowel, which seems to have passed down through the maternal side of my family, and there have been times that I would gladly have smoked almost anything for relief.

The other cousin became addicted to Cocaine when he was introduced to it while participating in explorations in South America and eventually moved from chewing the leaves to swallowing powder and eventually to injection.

My grandmother disdained both for their lack of self-control but never blamed easy access to the drugs.

She also told interesting tales from when she and my grandfather were in China in the nineteen-teens and the numerous Chinese that she observed who were addicted to Opium.

Would that we could move back to a societal norm that held that those who became addicted were responsible for their own actions, not where we are where we have to be protected from our own obvious weaknesses by having laws passed against the use of a variety of things, such as guns too. Prohibitions never seem to work very well, but that doesn't stop significant subsets of our society from trying to use them to control access by other subsets.