Weekend woundup

I'm with Bill Maher on this one. North Carolina's macho gun nuts were so busy stocking up on assault weapons that they didn't notice Art Pope buying the whole state government.

And finally, New Rule: Someone has to tell America's gun nuts to stop wetting their Army surplus pants about losing the Second Amendment. It's not your Second Amendment rights that are under attack; it's all the other ones.

It used to be that law enforcement couldn't search you without probable cause, but now we're becoming a quasi-police state where one minute you're home quietly reading 50 Shades of Grey, and suddenly there's a SWAT team in your living room waving guns. And you're going, "No, no, Katt Williams lives next door!"

Now, last month, while no one was taking anyone's guns from anybody, the Senate voted overwhelmingly to reauthorize a program where they can collect data on any American citizen and hold onto it forever. They can look at your e-mails, your texts, your Skypes, and not a peep out the crowd that's always bitching about what the framers intended. In fact, the answer from almost everyone seems to be, "Oh what the hell, the airport screeners have already seen my ass anyway."

The Facebook generation, especially, doesn't seem to care that Big Brother knows everything about you — what books you read, what movies you watch, your Match.com account, your other Match.com account when you're feeling a little freaky and wanna meet the sort of woman your regular Match.com account wouldn't approve of.

Call me old school, but I don't want the feds Googling what I'm Googling. It's bad enough when Netflix pries into my private life. "You watched The Walking Dead and Zombieland. You might also like this interview with John McCain."

(audience laughter)

I don't want the government doing that! "You downloaded this article favoring the legalization of marijuana. You might also like being incarcerated."

You know, they always say these programs are just to catch terrorists. The next thing you know, they're using them to shut down the pot dispensaries. And that place was right on my way home! Now I gotta go to Valley Village!

Doesn't anyone care that this is the new normal? I guess not, because gun nuts don't care, and neither do liberals. When Bush did warrantless wiretapping, oh, he was wiping his ass with the Constitution. But when Obama does it, oh well, whatever helps Jessica Chastain find bin Laden, we're good with that.

(smattering of audience applause)

Yeah, both parties compete mightily to appear to be the greater champion of our freedoms, but the only thing that still has bipartisan support in Washington is not giving a shit about privacy.

And when you talk to the NRA types, as I like to do down at my local moose lodge, they actually believe that what protects their rights isn't laws, or courts, it's that they have a gun. They think that's what keeps the government from going too far. Without guns, Obama would become an emperor and force everyone to gay marry, but he can't because a guy in Kentucky named Skeeter has a .22.

(audience applause)

Except that, you know, while you guys were buying guns to protect your other guns, sittin' up on the porch there, waitin' for Obama's Negro Army to come confiscate your weapons and go all Django Unchained on your ass — that's when we lost all the stuff in the Bill of Rights, about trials and juries and warrants.

You see, the Redcoats — they never wanted your gun. They wanted your liberty. And that's why the Founding Fathers said you could have the gun, dumbass! And now the only right we have left is the guns, and left nothing left to use the guns to protect! We're like a strip club with a million bouncers and no strippers!