In shocking news not being reported from Washington, President Obama advocates a plan to increase the number of American women being raped.  Citing all the correlated public “benefits” to more rapes, our President called on narrow minded advocates for individual rights to compromise and get behind his rape plan, which he says is in the public interest.

In response, Republicans promised to support the President’s proposal if the rape victims are compelled to carry their rape babies to full term.  Rep. Inbreeder (R-MA) said, “Rape babies are a blessed gift from God; if we passed our President’s proposed legislation, then rape babies will be a gift from President Obama and the Congress as well. Women of America, you are welcome.”  Former Texas GOP gubernatorial candidate Clayton Williams could not be reached for comment.

A spokeswoman for NOW says that American women support President Obama no matter what, because he is a Democrat.  Whether it is cozying up to violent misogynistic Muslim extremists, increasing corrupt political payoffs to incompetent public school teachers (who fail to teach our children), or making women wholly dependent on protection from a unionized police worker (who is only 20-30 minutes away), NOW asserts that President Obama’s policies are pro-women, because He says so.

Now of course this is not literally true, but it is actually true.  These individuals did not literally advocate these positions, but the actual consequences of what they do say and do would be consistent with this satire.

Politicians, like President Obama, advocate public policies as panaceas without serious consideration of the costs, probable unintended consequences, and their likely ineffectiveness.  This can have disastrous consequences (see federal deficit) when we as citizens get caught up in a thoughtless hysteria to solve a problem and lose sight of government’s purpose, the protection of individual rights.

In the nonsense debate over President Obama’s misfocused effort to increase federal gun control, we need to ask ourselves about these proposals:

1. Whose rights are being protected by the proposed law?
2. Which of their rights is being protected?
3. Is that really a right?
4. Do alternatives exist that would be more effective at protecting individual rights?
5. Does the proposed “solution” violate an individual’s rights?

Related to this last point, there is another important aspect to be considered regarding the criminalization of voluntary behavior that does not directly infringe upon another’s rights.  Based upon their personal values, interests, and needs, individuals are currently choosing to engage in behavior related to gun and rifle purchases that will be criminalized, either outright or by the effects of the compliance costs associated with new regulatory schemes.  If 50% plus one of the voters disagrees with that individual’s personal choice, should that be a criminal issue, or even a civil issue?

These questions are not particular to this specific proposal or even President Obama.  In fact, these questions would function as excellent guidelines for solving the real problems (see federal deficit/debt) that President Obama’s gun control scheme is distracting the Congress from addressing.

If you are pro-Obama’s proposal and pro-gun control, please answer the above questions in the comments below.

Extra points:

“A “right” is a moral principle defining and sanctioning a man’s freedom of action in a social context. There is only one fundamental right (all the others are its consequences or corollaries): a man’s right to his own life. Life is a process of self-sustaining and self-generated action; the right to life means the right to engage in self-sustaining and self-generated action—which means: the freedom to take all the actions required by the nature of a rational being for the support, the furtherance, the fulfillment and the enjoyment of his own life. (Such is the meaning of the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.)” – Ayn Rand, “Man’s Rights”, The Virtue of Selfishness, p. 93

“The only proper purpose of a government is to protect man’s rights, which means: to protect him from physical violence. A proper government is only a policeman, acting as an agent of man’s self-defense, and, as such, may resort to force only against those who start the use of force. The only proper functions of a government are: the police, to protect you from criminals; the army, to protect you from foreign invaders; and the courts, to protect your property and contracts from breach or fraud by others, to settle disputes by rational rules, according to objective law. But a government that initiates the employment of force against men who had forced no one, the employment of armed compulsion against disarmed victims, is a nightmare infernal machine designed to annihilate morality: such a government reverses its only moral purpose and switches from the role of protector to the role of man’s deadliest enemy, from the role of policeman to the role of a criminal vested with the right to the wielding of violence against victims deprived of the right of self-defense. Such a government substitutes for morality the following rule of social conduct: you may do whatever you please to your neighbor, provided your gang is bigger than his.” – Ayn Rand, “Galt’s Speech”, For the New Intellectual, p. 183.