People waste so much time debating policies, pulling up data and facts to support arguments and using eloquence in debate (not that it matters who says what anymore, anyway; everyone has already made up their mind), and it doesn't have to be wasted like that. When you play a game of Oh Heck (one of my family's favorites) and your hand is stacked with high-ranking cards of the trump suit, just play them up front and screw anyone else's chances of winning the hand. I'm not saying that Representatives should start playing Oh Heck in the House during hearings (although that might be a better use of their time) even though it would be awfully entertaining to see Ted Cruz lose his cool over an untimely green 14 on C-SPAN. No, of course I'm speaking metaphorically. Instead of dilly-dallying in debate and trawling useful, intelligent information, politicians and people who engage in civil discourse should merely use the Trump Card of politics, and not just the one with the funny yellow swath of hair and a teeny-bopper wife (though that one's useful too; he has money). I'm saying the easiest way to gloss over the whole argument and consolidate all eloquence into one phrase is to say this:
The Founding Fathers intended it this way.
Take, for instance, the ongoing debate over gun-control. Who cares that not allowing crazies to have private, military-grade arsenals leads to a safer environment for everyone else? Why is this even a question? Let me quote the Constitution of the United States of America at you: "A well-regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed." It's clear to see that when you replace sound and logical discourse with the simple, inarguable truth that the Founding Fathers wanted AK-47s in the hands of people who suffer chronic hallucinations and periods of frenzied, unwitting violence from schizophrenia, all other arguments dissolve into insignificance.
Of this particular case, a lot of people would be hesitant to accept this clear and conclusive assertion on grounds such as these: that the Founding Fathers never dreamed of the issues concerning guns that we have today, that the Amendment states "well-regulated" as a qualification for the militias that protect us from tyranny and invasion and Indian uprisings, that we do have a militia that is well-regulated and run by the individual states (or at least was at one point) and so as individuals we don't need to privately own assault weapons, that assault weapons are specifically designed for killing people efficiently and therefore should be kept out of reach of children and other less-than-capable people, that licensure in no way further infringes on the Right to Bear Arms, that we are already required to be licensed to hunt, that areas with stricter gun-control and socioeconomic standing similar to our own and the ability to enforce those laws (United Kingdom, Australia, certain states, etc.) have seen dramatic decreases in gun-related crimes, that with current gun-control legislation we would still be able to have our hunting rifles and small handguns, that you don't need an AK-47 to protect yourself against an AK-47, that areas without assault weapons don't attract "thugs" like carcasses attract flies, or that it's simply a really bad idea to let just anybody have any gun they want with no limitations at all. If someone raises these issues to you, it's an easy fix. You've already played red 14 and bet two in a red-trump, two-card round; play red 13: "Hitler used gun-control." You can walk away as they stammer to find an adequate response.
I really, truly don't understand why anything is a controversial issue after people use the Trump Card. Just like the Bible, there's no issue that you can raise that can't be answered with a good read of the Constitution. Abortion, marriage equality, workplace harassment, immigration, education reforms, school uniforms, national banks, expansion--these are all issues that we have or have had that the Constitution and Bill of Rights clear up unequivocally. The wording of the Founding Documents is never, ever purposefully vague to leave wiggle room for varying interpretations.
What's more, the Founding Fathers were as one perfectly united in their ideologies, given a perfect, undefiled vision of what the United States were to be. It was God who gave them that vision, that idea that "all men are created equal," which is why there were no varying degrees of disputation with any of their points of discourse. They were united. And as the Constitution and Declaration of Independence were given directly by God, they are as immutable as the Big Ten and immutably given the provision to be amended.
Forget gun-control for just a little bit. We should be more worried about our inherent equality before our Maker than about such terrifying things as crazed, gun-grabbing bureaucrats. The Founding Fathers were very clear about how equal every person is, particularly on the issue of marriage equality. Is it any question then about so-called "Gay Rights?" Stack your argument with the word "God," nobody can disagree without disagreeing with deity. After all, the Founding Fathers--despite many of them being agnostic, atheist or deist--founding this nation on Christian values such as acceptance, peace, equality of blacks and whites, equality of the genders and especially monogamy and celibacy. That tells us all we really need to know about if LGBT should have the same rights as us straight people.
It also tells us about the place of other religious groups: this is a Christian nation because some old guys that didn't believe in God made it so. Any other group can just accept that or leave. And not just religious groups. We're obviously a nation of Anglophones because our founding documents were written in English. Nobody else really has the right to speak anything else in public because the Founding Fathers obviously intended it that way.
It's so easy to conscientiously ignore what data suggest, what elocution describes and what sanity would seem to claim when pack your argument with as much Founding Father rhetoric as you can, especially when and fortified with "God." It doesn't matter that Jefferson and Madison and the rest are long since decayed in their graves and we're still alive. The Founding Fathers intended it. Try it, use it. Your assertion will stand bullet-proof and shiny like a turret of righteousness against the tirades of sophistry. Which is a good thing, really, because you might need something bullet-proof when the next deranged looney careens around the corner with a military-grade machine gun that he indubitably has the right to own.
