RSS
Home
John Ensign psychically knows Washingtonians don't care about DC vote
Print
Email
RSS
Subscribe
He knows what you're really thinking.
(AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)
I take it back. Despite my initial impressions, Sen. John Ensign (R-NV) has obviously thought long and hard about withholding congressional representation from the District's 600,000 residents. You see, Ensign concocted an amendment that would dismantle the city's gun control laws, and stapled it onto the DC vote bill (using a staple gun I can only assume). The bill, NRA kiss-up amendment included, passed the Senate. Now it and the gunless House version must somehow be reconciled.
Ensign had muttered to Politico that he "hadn't given it much thought," but now we see he was just jerking our chain, because yesterday we found he had written an op-ed for the Washington Post explaining his ironclad reasoning for keeping the District voiceless. The semi-citizens of DC don't want a House representative, Ensign tells us, we want more guns.
In the piece, Ensign really feels DC's pain, lamenting that we have been having our "right to self-defense" violated, that the restrictions on firearms imposed by the city government were "burdensome," and that they "frustrate and discourage DC residents." The raw, sincere empathy is quite moving.
John Ensign sees into our souls so clearly that I wonder if he isn't really TV fake-psychic John Edward. I can just see him now, at a community meeting in the District, wandering the stage and connecting with voters. . .
(Cue wavy lines indicating transition to imaginary scene.)
He chooses a person at random; a woman who looks particularly heavy with grief, but she doesn't know why. "I'm getting something over here," he says in her general direction. "Something is bothering you, deep down, about your place in this world."
"It's true!" she says as a tear rolls down her face, thrilled that someone finally sees her suffering. "Living in DC, there really is something very fundamental missing. It's like -- "
Ensign/Edward stops her. "I see it. I do. A basic right you feel you should have."
"Yes!"
"Something that is guaranteed to every other American in all fifty states, unfairly denied to you by a heartless government."
"It's true!" She begins to shake as her sister, sitting next to her, squeezes her hand.
"You are frustrated," our psychic senator declares, "because DC's gun laws are too strict."
"What?" the woman asks.
"You want it to be easier to have a gun. You want lots of guns."
"That's not it..."
"I know it's hard. I feel that emptiness inside you."
"Sir, that's really not right. I'm talking about the fact that we have no one representing us in..."
"Yes!" Ensign interrupts. "No one representing your lust for weaponry! It's a tragedy!"
"No, sir!" she shouts. "I mean we are disenfranchised! We have no vote in Congress!"
Ensign is getting hot now, sweating and bellowing. "Yes! No vote in Congress expressing your deep, biological need to wield an arsenal of doom upon the sight of which your enemies will tremble!"
"This guy sucks," says her sister as they walk out with the rest of the crowd.
Just as phony TV psychics like John Edward are disingenuous frauds, as is Ensign's argument that somehow the people of Washington, DC are clamoring for an easier path to personal armament. As I have noted, polls are clear that DC voters are not interested in making it easier to own guns. If we are "frustrated," it's because we are subjects of the federal government, not equal participants. We have in the U.S. House and Senate, at best, caretakers -- not representatives.
If John Ensign is so worried about the sanctity of our rights as human beings and as citizens of a democracy, maybe he ought to think about that first.
Related Articles:
Comments
