backwoodshome.com ^ | 8/14/2016 | Massad Ayoob
Sunday, August 14th, 2016
Why am I concerned with the prospect of Hillary Rodham Clinton as President of the United States? Let me begin to count the reasons.
For many years I have been a sworn police officer. Mrs. Clinton’s dislike of police has long been a matter of record. From her contempt for the Arkansas troopers on her bodyguard detail when her husband was governor of that state, to the disdain with which she treated Secret Service when she was in the White House, to her campaign’s recent announcement that it was not interested in an endorsement by the Fraternal Order of Police, it is clear that Mrs. Clinton is no friend or supporter of law enforcement.
For many years I have been an expert witness in weapons and homicide cases, on both the criminal and civil justice sides of the house. Even-handed fairness is the very essence of justice. Go back to her earliest professional days, when her ethics were questioned during the Watergate matter. Go back to the case where her ethics came into question in her defense of a child molester. As we look at the questionable contact more recently between her husband and the Attorney General immediately before the AG abjured from deciding on Mrs. Clinton’s prosecution in the email matter, we wonder about even-handed fairness by a potential President whose appointments to the US Supreme Court will determine the tenor of that body for the next generation or two.
For many years I have been a life member of the NRA, and a responsible gun owner and firearms instructor. When a candidate compares groups you belong to – and thus, by extension, you – to terrorists, you start getting nervous.
We live in a time when there is strong sentiment to put suspected realterrorists on lists such as the no-fly list and the no-gun list. A candidate conflating law-abiding Americans with terrorists is unacceptable. It is not surprising that some American gun owners watch the rise of Hillary Clinton and feel like German Jews witnessing the ascendance of Adolf Hitler. (And, before anyone invokes Godwin’s Law, I invoke Ayoob’s Corollary to Godwin’s Law: If you don’t want to be compared to Nazis, don’t act like one.)
For many years I have been a sworn police officer. Mrs. Clinton’s dislike of police has long been a matter of record. From her contempt for the Arkansas troopers on her bodyguard detail when her husband was governor of that state, to the disdain with which she treated Secret Service when she was in the White House, to her campaign’s recent announcement that it was not interested in an endorsement by the Fraternal Order of Police, it is clear that Mrs. Clinton is no friend or supporter of law enforcement.
For many years I have been an expert witness in weapons and homicide cases, on both the criminal and civil justice sides of the house. Even-handed fairness is the very essence of justice. Go back to her earliest professional days, when her ethics were questioned during the Watergate matter. Go back to the case where her ethics came into question in her defense of a child molester. As we look at the questionable contact more recently between her husband and the Attorney General immediately before the AG abjured from deciding on Mrs. Clinton’s prosecution in the email matter, we wonder about even-handed fairness by a potential President whose appointments to the US Supreme Court will determine the tenor of that body for the next generation or two.
For many years I have been a life member of the NRA, and a responsible gun owner and firearms instructor. When a candidate compares groups you belong to – and thus, by extension, you – to terrorists, you start getting nervous.
We live in a time when there is strong sentiment to put suspected realterrorists on lists such as the no-fly list and the no-gun list. A candidate conflating law-abiding Americans with terrorists is unacceptable. It is not surprising that some American gun owners watch the rise of Hillary Clinton and feel like German Jews witnessing the ascendance of Adolf Hitler. (And, before anyone invokes Godwin’s Law, I invoke Ayoob’s Corollary to Godwin’s Law: If you don’t want to be compared to Nazis, don’t act like one.)
