States' Rights vs. Civil Rights

"Sen. Loretta Weinberg announced Friday she has introduced a legislative resolution condemning the 'Voting Rights Act of 1965.' saying that the federal proposal would undermine her state's election laws and states' traditional role in deciding the best voter registration strategies for each individual state."

"'Historically, states have been given the right of self-determination when it comes to deciding who can vote,' Weinberg said. 'Regardless of how you feel about our voter registration laws, the federal legislation which was recently passed by the House would set a terrible precedent, and opens the door for Negro voting activists elsewhere in the country to override our own state's laws. Hopefully, the Governor and our Congressional leaders will stand up for our state and oppose this overreaching federal bill.'"

Sounds pretty ludicrous, doesn't it? I mean in this day and age who could possibly oppose peoples' civil rights? But wait, there's more:

"'I find it a bit ironic that the move to trample states' rights to regulate voter registration practices is coming from Republicans who are all too eager to demand states' rights on such things as health care, abortion and defining marriage as between a man and a woman,' Weinberg said. 'While our Constitution guarantees people equal rights, the decision was made to allow states to regulate race relations, in order to allow them to develop strategies that meet the individual states' demographic, economic and lifestyle needs. What works for Florida or Texas may not work for our state and vice versa, and voter registration practices should be the sole provision of the individual states, not the federal government.'"

Wow. I mean, just WOW! What kind of inbred, knuckle-dragging, microcephalic, regressive moron could possibly expect a states' rights argument to override a fundamental civil right? Would you believe a liberal Democrat from New Jersey?

Except, of course, she wasn't talking about voting rights; she was talking about that other civil right, the never-to-be-mentioned-in-polite-company civil right, that red-headed stepchild of a civil right, the right L. Neil Smith called "a natural, fundamental, and inalienable human, individual, civil, and Constitutional right -- subject neither to the democratic process nor to arguments grounded in social utility," the right to keep and bear arms.

You can see Sen. Weinberg's hateful screed here. I won't even go into the insanity of a Jew arguing for disarmament (today), I will just ask this: Why is it perfectly acceptable to be opposed to a civil right as long as it is the right of citizens to carry the safest and most effective self-defense tool in the history of humankind?