Well, not officially. Yet. Idaho voters will decide my fate probably in 2014, when a state constitutional amendment proposed by Sen. Jim Rice of Caldwell is put to the voters.
The aim? Broaden Idaho’s definition of what a “militia” is –
as in the militias mentioned in the Second Amendment to the US Constitution –
to include all of the state’s adults.
What will I, an Idaho citizen, be required to do as a member
of the state militia?
Rice, according to the Associated Press, says amending the
constitution is an important “backstop” to protecting existing gun rights.
I’m going to go out on a limb right now and express a right
of my own: I don’t want any part of any militia, state or otherwise.
I do not own a gun. That does not mean I don’t think others
should own guns; it just means that I, personally, do not own a gun. I have
plenty of items around the house that could serve as weapons if the need
arises, ranging from crowbars and shovels to two automobiles, not to forget to
mention a wide variety of hammers, kitchen knives, plungers, quilting frames,
bits of wood and a circular saw which could, in a pinch, serve a call to arms
if someone ever called up a Hopelessly Inefficient State Militia.
You don’t want people like me in your militia. I have a
strong contrarian streak that extends back years through my father and his
brother locking themselves in the only public telephone booth in Santpoort,
Holland, denying its use to other paying customers for over an hour, to my
family’s passive aggressive resistance in Nazi-Occupied Holland and then to the
two fellows who got thrown out of their synagogue because they wouldn’t give up
their front-pew seats to a rich fellow who bought them from the rabbi. If you
ask me to show up at a rally for the state militia, I will appear in my pink
bunny costume wielding a wiffle bat as a weapon. And the wiffle bat will be in
pastel colors. And no matter how much you push, I WILL be at the front of the
line in the parade so the local news gets a good shot of me as we march past.
And if you push me to the back, I will enlist some obscure
state representative to define “peaceable assembly” as wearing bunny suits –
and only wearing bunny suits – at public militia demonstrations. You don’t want
that, though I do know an excellent pink bunny suit supplier who will be
overjoyed if that legislation gets pushed through.
Now I know Sen. Rice isn’t going around with a proposal to
forcibly enroll every adult in the state in the state militia, if even such a
thing existed. But perception is nine-tenths reality, so it’ll appear that if
any militia action is called for, I could possibly be drafted if the state
constitution is changed to say the militia represents every adult in the state.
Not gonna happen.
Republicans should be aware that this is the kind of
shenanigans (as is this WARNING: Halli Stone) that will drive moderates such as
myself to the Democratic party, or at least some fringe candidate/loser I know
doesn’t stand a chance at winning any election, thus narrowing your chances for
any victory. You may say good riddance, and, bless me, the feeling is mutual.
Frothing at the mouth as you pander to a base of voters that is never going to
leave you is, as we have seen on both the Democratic and Republican sides, a
losing proposition. Elections are not won or lost because a party smooches it’s
bases’ behind, but because the loony factor emerges enough to throw moderates
in a different direction.
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