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SEIFFE:  Chicago Tells

Saturday, August 27, 2008 

By Ralf Seiffe

Americans who value their constitutional rights rightly fret that politicians are forever trying to take them away.  One worry is that the politicians will first attack small or unpopular rights with the object of taking more, later.  This is the “slippery slope” argument; a process that starts slowly but as the speed of change increases, political objectives that would have been unacceptable initially, becomes unstoppable.  Avoiding such a fall often depends on recognizing small signs indicating one is in jeopardy and to move away from the clear and present danger.  Barack Obama and his Chicago political sponsors are presenting just such early, but now tiny signs which the rest of the nation should pay attention to avoid the slippery slope of losing our rights.

The Second Amendment’s guarantee is one of those unpopular rights.  With regard to firearms, there is no more antagonistic a politician than Chicago’s Mayor Richard M. Daley.  Throughout his career, the mayor has shown his irrational fear of firearms: as an Illinois Constitutional Convention delegate, he voted to allow “police power” to overcome the natural right of citizens to protect themselves.  He participated in lawsuits that sought to attach the liabilities of criminal gunman to the manufacturers of firearms.  While he tolerates drug gangs taking over whole neighborhoods, he will not tolerate an inner city grandmother possessing a revolver. Every year, he directs his puppets to introduce anti-gun proposals in the General Assembly.  He seized the land used by the Lincoln Park Traps, a century-old shotgun sports club open to the public.  He directs the activities of Father Pflager to extend influence beyond the borders of the city.

No one can explain the sort of phobias that the mayor’s activities manifest; they are probably congenital and Daley may be blameless for them.  What’s not excusable, however, is his reaction to the recent Supreme Court decision that possessing a firearm in the home is a constitutionally protected activity.  Soon after the decision in June, the mayor had his corporation counsel gin up a crock of legalities that purports to excuse Chicago from observing this Supreme Court decision.

This should concern anyone who values constitutional government.  The Chicago despot’s arrogance on guns should be a stroboscopic bolt that signals things are different in Chicago.  As Americans consider the presidential election, they might want to ponder how these “Daley values”--or their absence---may have infected his protégé, Barack Obama.  If they do, then they will begin to see the slippery slope materialize.

It starts with Chicago machine politicians who are generally not interested in a full debate on the issues followed by a hard fought election campaign.  They have arranged things to eliminate electoral competition but when it does crop up, the preferred method of extinguishing it is to kick any upstart off the ballot.  The technique is to challenge the competitor’s nominating petitions at the state board of elections in a Byzantine process that is stacked against any disturbance in machine business.  It is an effective style of political abortion that Chicago Democrats--and some Republicans--believe they are entitled.

This is the exact strategy state senate candidate Barack Obama used in his first contest and it’s cropped up again in his presidential campaign.  When a 527 group produced an advertisement connecting Obama with Bill Ayers, the unrepentant terrorist, Obama’s first move was not to recognize the group’s First Amendment rights and fight the advertisement on the merits, it was to go to the Justice Department and threaten TV stations who aired it.  It shows that the presidential candidate has learned and internalized the lateral thinking that any Chicago machine politician uses. 

By appealing to the Justice Department--normally not a Chicago politicians’ favorite agency--Obama reveals to all who will see that his political morality is antagonistic to the First Amendment.  This naturally makes one suspicious of the candidate and curious about what other techniques he might employ to enforce his political will.   That’s where Mayor Daley’s active defiance of the Supreme Court helps us understand what we might expect from another product of the Chicago machine.   

The concern is not about guns, per se.  Obama’s anti-Second Amendment record is is abundant and one of the only issues about which the candidate has a record.  Instead, it’s about the candidate’s regard for the rules of fair play, civil rights and the extent to which he will emulate Chicago’s flyover tyrant.  Daley has already begun his slide down the slope of extra-constitutional activity and that’s worrisome because after all, Daley is Obama’s proximate model of success.   

Obama supporters will reject this observation out of hand, no doubt.  They will say there is no connection between the Second Amendment, the mayor, the candidate and our Constitutional guarantees. From this they will continue to ridicule the danger of a slippery slope.  To them I say take a lesson from poker players.  They look for small signs that indicate their opponents’ state of mind.  Tiny signals like an eye twitch or a moustache stroke have no definitive connection but these tells help smart players avoid disaster on the next raise.  The mayor’s disregard for the Second Amendment is just such a tiny signal as is Obama’s resort to the Justice Department.  Let’s hope thinking Americans manage to see these two politicians’ actions as “Chicago tells” and avoid a looming slippery slope threat to our constitutional republic.

Ralf Seiffe advises business start-ups and product launches from Chicago, Illinois and is a political analyst and columnist for the Illinois Leader and Illinois Review.

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