Terrifying

Let’s be clear about one thing from the start. Hillary Clinton is not  running for President. Rather she is engaged in the simple exercise of capitalism, putting on a massive tour to flog her new book. So don’t get the idea that her recent appearance at a CNN “Town Hall” was about running for President. I mean it. Do not get that idea. Do not dare even to hold that thought in your head. Because, as Ms. Clinton made clear when asked about her support for a new “assault weapon” ban, the mere holding of an idea in your head can be an act of terror.

 For example, if you happen not to support a new “assault weapon” ban, even if you keep your opposition to yourself, you are little better than those fellows who flew those planes into those buildings. (You still remember those fellows, right?) Ms. Clinton helpfully explained:

“I believe that we need a more thoughtful conversation, we cannot let a minority of people — and that’s what it is, it is a minority ofpeople — hold a viewpoint that terrorizes the majority of people.”

I submit that the enormity of that sentence is too great to absorb in just a single breath, so I’ll give you thirty seconds to take it in.

OK. Ready to go on?

Let’s break this sentence down from back to front. We learn that a “viewpoint” can terrorize – at least at the exact moment of this writing  – 159,133,793 people.* Not an action to vindicate a viewpoint. Not a violent or even peaceful demonstration in support of a viewpoint.  Not even the plain expression of the viewpoint. Rather, the mere holding of a viewpoint – well, at least of a viewpoint with which Ms. Clinton disagrees – is an act of terror.

Fortunately, however, Ms. Clinton offers hope that we might someday rest easy in our beds, unterrorized by viewpoints. Because as we work our way toward the front of the sentence, we learn that Ms. Clinton is determined that such viewpoints simply are not going to be permitted. We cannot, she declaims, let (read “allow” or “permit”) a minority of people hold  this terrible, terrifying point of view. In other words, some beliefs are too dangerous to be believed.**

From there, Ms. Clinton is a little short on detail. She fails to explain precisely how she plans to prohibit the holding of this viewpoint and, presumably, other viewpoints that ought not be held. And this determination to eliminate terrible viewpoints really does want some detail. After all, Medgar Evers – who, it would sadly turn out, had best reason to know – observed that “you can kill a man, but you cannot kill an idea.” Viewpoints, one supposes, are equally robust and thus their eradication seems likely to be equally messy.

But perhaps it is churlish of me to press Ms. Clinton for her plan – after all, it's not like she is running for President.

Because that would be terrifying

* This assumes Clinton meant a majority of the people in the United States. If she meant that a viewpoint is capable of terrorizing the majority of ALL the people, then we’re talking somewhere north of three and a half billion trembling victims of a viewpoint.

** Pay close attention to the terms “majority” and “minority” in Ms. Clinton’s statement. She is here espousing an idea that actually is terrifying, a brand of tyranny called democracy, best characterized by events like one actually called the Great Terror.