In Defense of Dueling

It’s time to bring back dueling. Yes, dueling, that ancient, time-honored way of settling disputes. It worked for our ancestors and even our revered founding fathers, save a fussy few, saw no problem with it. The trouble was women and others not considered full and equal citizens didn’t get to participate – another glaring weakness in our Constitutional system.

Now I know that some of the more weak-stomached, overly empathic, prissy rule-of-law types – read, Democrats, so-called progressives, organic tofu-munching, hybrid-driving, godless humanitarians et al. – might deem this a somewhat radical proposal. But consider: Dueling is totally bipartisan, non-discriminatory (with a little tweaking) as to gender, race, age, ethnicity or economic class, and American as apple pie and political corruption. Republicans, conservatives and libertarians should embrace it as it’s both very old school and keeps government’s nose out of our private affairs.

Democrats should welcome it as well as it would put an end to the tedious and bullying Senate filibuster. Furthermore it would hasten the settling of domestic disputes – women have a shooting gene as well; remember Annie Oakley? And it’s a handy way of dealing with one’s critics and other annoying malcontents.

In defense of dueling let us reflect on the service it lent our nation when the unfairly maligned Aaron Burr plugged ol’ Alex Hamilton before he could pen another of those nit-picking, elitist intellectual, legally dense Federalist Papers, which no one except Republican-appointed Supreme Court nominees has ever read. Think of the degree of honesty dueling would bring to all business transactions – used car deals, credit card disputes, stock brokers and insurance sellers, real estate peddlers and a wide range of corporate CEOs. It surely would make someone think twice before trying to sell some poor sucker a phony bill of goods; politicians and bankers take note.

And it’s economical: only financial outlay is for a gun, and any school kid knows how cheap and readily available these are, and some bullets, which you can pick up at Wal-Mart’s. I like the old one-shot deals that came as pairs in hand-tooled wooden boxes myself, but I’m a sentimentalist. Think how much time and money it would save in courts, trials and lawyers. Almost eliminates any need for tort reform.

So for pennies on the dollar and a way to shrink government and make it work more smoothly – nothing focuses a politician on the need for alacrity and cooperation like the threat of being drilled by a colleague or constituent – dueling is the logical choice.

Let’s not get turned aside by a few queasy feelings, let’s suck it up like the real Americans we used to be, and get behind the God-given right to kill for our beliefs, or grievances, or whatever. Just go to: bringbackdueling.com to lend your support, and donate to this worth cause.