Apparently, the job of filling in for Glenn Beck comes with a wingnuttery quotient proviso. Because yesterday on Beck's show, Judge Andrew Napolitano made sure he filled his.
Napolitano started by complaining that it was "progressives" who were arguing that we had to give up our liberties in order to obtain security. Come again?
What exactly did we hear from the American Right during the eight years of George W. Bush's nonstop assaults on civil liberties -- ranging from wiretapping citizens to using torture to using military tribunals to try American citizens? Oh, that's right -- we heard that opposing these measures meant we hated America and cared more about terrorist rights.
It's true that Napolitano opposed the wiretaps and the torture. But is he now claiming that these were progressives who argued they were necessary?
In any event, the real capper came shortly after:
Napolitano: Can the government keep us safe? I don't think so. I think airline travel is safer today because pilots have guns, because cockpit doors are now like bank vaults, and because the passengers have become courageous. All this was done by individuals, in the private sector, and not by the government.
I've said it before, I'll say it again: If the feds had not stripped us of our natural rights to keep ourselves safe by keeping and bearing arms, 9/11 would never have happened!
Come again, again? Napolitano seems to think that if everybody on board those planes had been permitted to pack heat -- which is the scenario he seems to envision here -- we'd all have been a lot safer.
Oh yeah, that makes a lot of sense. Just let everybody bring their guns on board. That'll make us safer. Uh-huh.
Maybe Napolitano is arguing that only pilots should have been allowed to pack heat. But that would not exactly be consonant with his complaint that the feds had taken away our "natural rights" to carry guns.
All I can say is that if the airline system were insane enough to follow his suggestion and let everyone exert their "natural rights", I'd be exerting my natural right to take a train or a bus.
