An interesting discussion. I agree with the commenters, like Eric Raymond, that there seems to be a confusion between conservative and libertarian.
125 thoughts on “Is SF Becoming More Conservative?”
Comments are closed.
An interesting discussion. I agree with the commenters, like Eric Raymond, that there seems to be a confusion between conservative and libertarian.
Comments are closed.
I called CHRIS a liar (or something — I’m not sure what you call someone who doesn’t even check where someone is linking, merely assumes — an assumer?) for claiming he thought I had linked directly to the Scalzi article when where I actually linked was right there in my post (as a linked url, which anyone could figure out by moving their mouse pointer over it). I wasn’t talking about YOU.
Anyway, it was weird and beside the point, the usual argument-diverting pettiness that Gerrib always does here. My point it that Scalzi is a whiny poor-victim-me liberal under his rough, tough libertarian exterior.
Getting back to the SUBJECT, which is not John Scalzi — I think scifi is mostly progressive/liberal/libertarian. I mean, it’s about the FUTURE, mostly, and how human nature will evolve and change. Conservatives don’t believe that human nature can evolve and change, at least not in the way most science fiction writers believe. All that stuff in Star Trek about how there is no money and no war and Earth is united under one government, etc. — that’s a Progressive thing. Sure there is a subset of scifi that’s focused on military and hardware and is basically miltary/western in space stuff, but that’s a subset. Heinlein is liberal/libertarian — all that free love constant-sex-with-anything stuff in his “grownup” books is against everything conservatives stand for. Maybe back in the early days of “pulp” scifi you could say all that stuff with Stalwart Captains and buxon female sidekicks in distress and monster aliens from space was “conservative” (or mostly just primitive), but once science fiction got “respectable” in the 60s and 70s is was when it jumped on the progressive liberal bandwagon and just about every best-selling scifi novel was about women fighting for their rights (like in the 300th century women will still be “oppressed”) or how War Is Bad or Evil White Men (from SPACE or Earth) are despoiling Edenic planets full of cute minority aliens (Ursula K. Le Guin was one of the worst offenders in the Evil White Humans kill/hurt everything and everyone just because category).
I must say, I quit reading scifi years ago, except for a few old favorites (Jack Vance, Andre Norton). It’s either boring military stuff (sorry, that stuff just bores me, personal tastes), didactic warmed over Marxism mixed with cultural self-hatred (I’d write an article about China Miéville called “What Happens When You Treat Your Own Culture Like The Other” only I’d have to read his stuff and I don’t want to), or fantasy. And as for fantasy, if the author’s name isn’t “Tolkien” it generally isn’t worth reading. Most modern fantasy is just Harlequin Romance with dragons.
Andrea Harris – well, if you’re not omniscient, then don’t accuse people of being liars unless you can prove it. Of course, since you published multiple rebuttals of Scalzi’s original work, it suggests that you know the post was widely disseminated. Else, why spend so much time and energy rebutting it?
Carl Pham – If somebody writes a series of snarky articles about how poor people should just STFU and get a job, isn’t that exactly the definition of “lack of compassion?”
In general on this board and in particular on this thread, there’s a lot of “2+2=17.5” thinking going on. The idea that pointing out poor people are, well, poor, does not mean that I want to steal your money to help them.
Actually, I didn’t even start the topic of poverty. My original point remains that saying SF is “liberal” or “conservative” is like saying that a screwdriver is right-handed or left-handed. Some books and authors skew one way or another, and some have no disernable political leanings.
How on earth did you draw that conclusion from what Chris said?
Er…Daveon, Chris actually said “But your lack of compassion is par for the cours on this site.” Can you maybe pay attention before you light up and flame on?
And what evidence does Chris have that we all lack compassion, hmm? About what has he complained here? Our lack of support for government health care, for raising taxes so that government can spend more money doing worthy things, our disinclination to think that the President and Congress spending taxes are the best source of new jobs and economic growth.
I don’t actually ever recall someone here saying something about his personal interaction with another human being and having Chris jump in and criticize some inhumanity he sees. As far as I can tell, Chris’s main problem with our “compassion” is we decline to vote Democratic, or support Democratic nostrums for government programs to “help” people in need.
Especially given I happen to know he’s active in his local rotary chapter,
Do you recall me criticizing Chris’s compassion? I did not. He criticized mine, and I took exception to that, to what appeared (based on his own statements) to be his principal criterion for judging the compassion of another man. I still do. And you’re just flacking for a political fellow traveler, which is a little high-schoolish, frankly.
has family members who spend time on charitable activities for disadvantaged members of society
Ah, so I can get credit for my pop’s volunteer medical care? My son’s volunteer hours? Cool. I can see advantages to this collective responsibility theme you leftists like so much.
who are REALLY not as looked after as they should be through taxation etc.
Should? Who died and left you king, Lord Grand Poobah of Morality, telling everyone else what to do with the hours of his day (which is what the taxes screwed out of him by force represent)? On the basis of what wonderful moral stature do you, St. Daveon, propose to judge your fellow man, and tell him he must spend more of his hours working for this or that noble cause, rather than work as he sees fit?
You know what? Screw you and your insufferable arrogance. When I need moral advice, I’ll ring up my mother. I don’t need some anonymous Internet twit — or corrupt lying weasel lawyer in Washington — to tell me what’s moral and what’s not, where I should exhibit compassion and where I need not. I don’t try to tell you who deserves your compassion, and what form it should take. It’s disgusting that you want to tell me.
Andrea Harris – you said you’re a liar, or something, because the only way you could have gotten to Scalzi’s old post is through my post. You also said I refuse to believe that you immediately knew which Scalzi article I was talking about.
Actually, since I read Scalzi’s original post when he posted it, I didn’t have to go through you or anybody else to read it. I didn’t mouse over your link because I am familiar with the article. I am familiar with the article because it’s one of the two or three most famous articles the man has written, and I have a reasonably good memory.
Usually, when one falsely accuse somebody, the false accuser apologizes.
If somebody writes a series of snarky articles about how poor people should just STFU and get a job, isn’t that exactly the definition of “lack of compassion?”
In the first place, no it’s not. A “lack of compassion” would encompass something like being indifferent when a friend or relative suffers. Writing a snarky article may hurt someone’s pride, at most. You would define “lack of compassion” so far down it would lose any important meaning. And I can see why: because what you’d like to do is argue that writing an emotional article or giving a fine speech about how poor people need help from government is exactly the definition of “compassion.” Well it’s not.
And in the second place, I doubt whether enough transterrestrials have written a series of snarky articles about how poor people should STFU to make your comment that this is “par for the course” here accurate.
If you screwed up and wrote not exactly what you meant — well, that isn’t my fault, and it’s perfectly reasonable for me to assume that the evidence you think proves lack of compassion is “par for the course” among commenters here is the stuff about which you usually complain: a lack of political support for government initiatives.
Usually, when one falsely accuse somebody, the false accuser apologizes.
Boy, talk about the pot calling the kettle black. Chris, sometimes you are the master of unintentional irony.
Liberals: people who believe that accusing other people of being big old meanies means anything to anyone. Come on now — do you really think that yelling that I’m “not compassionate” is going to make me burst into tears? On the contrary, I think it’s hilarious. In fact, I think I’ll get t-shirts made.
Anyway, I’m loving Gerrib’s and Daveon’s hissy fit. Go on, girls! Work it!
I don’t try to tell you who deserves your compassion, and what form it should take. It’s disgusting that you want to tell me.
To coin a phrase: “The case for the prosecution rests your honour…”
The amusingly ironic thing here is that either directly or indirectly you do tell me, Chris and the world in general all the time. You don’t seem to notice that you’ve done it either and then you get really really upset about it.
And, finally, yes, I used the word SHOULD – I think, for example, that people who put their lives on the line to defend their country, SHOULD be looked after by the tax payer when they get home. Especially if they are injured, ill, or mentally ill through what they did or had done to them.
That’s just one example. There are lots of others.
Finally, “I’m flaking for a fellow traveler” – dear ghods, do you people actually think about this stuff before you post? You guys are like a tag team for personal attacks for anybody who doesn’t meekly take the crap you like to dish out.
I’m loving Gerrib’s and Daveon’s hissy fit. Go on, girls! Work it!
Er… We’re not the ones screaming with indignation about being called names but do carry on. I haven’t had a laugh this good in ages.
“Er… We’re not the ones screaming with indignation about being called names but do carry on.”
The “I know you are but what am I” defense doesn’t work against adults. Try another.
Copied from Daveon’s comment right above his comment claiming he’s not the one screaming with indignation about being called names! (Also, “dear ghods”? That’s even more pretentious than “$DEITY.”)
The amusingly ironic thing here is that either directly or indirectly you do tell me, Chris and the world in general all the time.
Really? Quote me, then, telling you or Chris or anyone else what you should do to show compassion to your fellow man, or even how you should spend the hours of your day or the money you earn. Should be easy, Daveon, since I do it “all the time” and nobody would call me sparing with words.
Heinlein is liberal/libertarian — all that free love constant-sex-with-anything stuff in his “grownup” books is against everything conservatives stand for.
Sorry, Andrea, I have to take exception here. Heinlein never claimed to be conservative–and I frankly doubt any of his real fans (i.e., the ones familiar with all his work) would call him such. (He has been inaccurately called “conservative” by his leftist detractors.
His issues with modern American conservatism, incidentally, went far beyond free love. He was very concerned about the increasing police state created to control crime, and he opposed the draft (which was still in effect when he was forming his final opinions on politics). These were legitimate concerns; if you doubt this, look at the way the law-and-order issue morphed into gun control in the Bush I and Clinton administrations. Also, I have yet to see any sign that the all-volunteer military is less effective; quite the opposite, in fact.
As for free love, I’m not as much in love with the concept as RAH was, but I find it hard to get exercised about. I find it hard to believe that two men having gay sex is the biggest problem in the world today.
Where Heinlein was in line with conservatives was in the things that really matter. He was pushing commercial space in “The Man Who Sold the Moon” in the 1950–a half century before it became a mainstream concept. Even in his early book Beyond This Horizon–arguably from Heinlein’s early socialist phase–he nevertheless defends the bearing of arms not only as a right, but as a necessary prerequisite to a polite society. He was a staunch supporter of doing away with government social programs, believing that the best social net was a booming free economy. Finally, he made an exception to his otherwise libertarian views when it came to defense against the USSR, supporting a large and well-equipped military, an effective and tested nuclear arsenal, and the Strategic Defense Initiative of the Reagan administration.
Actually, a case can be made that Heinlein didn’t get his ideas from conservatives, but that to a large extent, conservatives today have gotten many of their ideas from Heinlein.
I didn’t say his “real fans” called him conservative. But in any discussion of libertarian and conservative thought in science fiction Heinlein’s name comes up, and I’ve read (elsewhere, maybe not here) that some conservatives would certainly like to claim him for at least some of his positions. I just pointed out that he wasn’t conservative, and one of the reasons why.
By the way, I don’t know any conservative that wants the draft back. When I was a kid my mother worked for the draft board and hated it. Being against the draft is one of the few things I and the hippies agree on.
On the other hand, there were some advantages to making every American male of a certain age serve at least some time in the military. It forced young men from all walks of life to rub shoulders at least for a while, and recognize in each other their common citizenship. But people back then already had a culture in common — it doesn’t seem to today. So I don’t think that bringing back the draft would do anything but waste money and time (very non-conservative) and piss everyone off, as well as denigrating the effectiveness of the military by filling it with rebellious, angry people.
I’m willing to accept that a lot of modern conservatives got a lot of their ideas from Heinlein and others like him. Conservatives of older days weren’t all that thrilled with things like letting the common people have a vote and bear arms. Then again, most modern conservatives are actually classic liberals. Most modern liberals are pinko commies. Or is that commie pinkos? I always get that mixed up.
I’m going to take credit here for T.L. James’ book NOT being called “The Labyrinth of Night” after I pointed out that the title had been used by Allen Steele.
If I can figure out how to read Kindle stuff on a netbook, I’ll buy the book, Thomas.
As for Scalzi, I read a couple of his books and won’t bother with any more.
On SF becoming conservative, anyone read any John Barnes? Interesting ideas.
Thanks, Mike, but I hope you don’t mind sharing that credit with a half-dozen others. And Steele, it turns out, wasn’t the only one who made use of the same title…it’s surprisingly overused.
The new title is unique as far as I can see, and is actually better suited to the plot. The apparent association to Constellation is unfortunate, though.
I take it you saw the PC app downloads in the Kindle store? I haven’t tried that myself (I should) to see how difficult it might be.
The valley complex on the western edge of Mars’ Valle Marinaris is called the Noctis Laberintus (Latin spelling is not my forte). That translates to “labyrinth of night.”
The idea that pointing out poor people are, well, poor, does not mean that I want to steal your money to help them.
The best lies are technically truths. That’s how the father of the lie works too.
Two problems. 1) Do you want the government to “redistribute the wealth?” Then, while technically not lying, you are really misrepresenting the truth.
2) Treating the poor as a class.
This is another sleight of hand. Everyone is born naked and (with few exceptions) poor (inheritance usually doesn’t happen at birth so it’s also basically true for rich kids too.)
There’s a phrase, “Land of opportunity” that seems to have gone out of style. It means all those poor people have a chance to make a good life here. It’s one of the driving forces behind illegal immigration as well because it can even work for those handicapped by an illegal status.
However, the govt. works against those opportunities by being “here to help.” Stealing the money of hard working people to ‘help’ them is exactly what those on the left, and explicitly in the 2011 SOTU, want to do.
Then they lie about it.
Oh, and to keep it about SF. River Tam says it’s because the government is meddlesome.
“Noctis Labyrinthus”, Chris. Congratulations on puzzling out the book’s primary setting.
I dunno Carl, on the larger point that Chris was trying to make, that you and Andrea have little compassion, I think a pretty strong case can be made.
I mean, just look at your respective treatments here of Chris and Daveon: namely , the repeated well justified criticism of their sloppy arguments.
It is clear their minds are unable to integrate any amount of logical critique of their arguments into constructive progress, as evidenced by their continued failure to make improved subsequent arguments. Example: Daveon’s most recent assertion that there is an abundance of sufficient evidence to prove you lecture others on how they ‘should’ be compassionate, and then glaring failure to provide any of that evidence.
I think what the two of you have done is akin to criticizing a mentally handicapped child, as it well might be, since I haven’t seen sufficient evidence in their posts to convince me that their condition is necessarily predicated on conscious choice (a case in which they would be earning criticism for their avoidance of logic) and not biological anomalies (a case in which criticism is fundamentally pointless).
And I think we have all been well socialized to understand that poking fun at challenged individuals for the consequent actions driven by their disability is uncompassionate and in bad taste, even if it does promote belly laughs from the audience. 😉
Andrea: I think you may be giving the draft too much credit when you say it made for “common citizenship.” As infuriating as the treasonous antiwar rallies in the Iraq War, they were small compared to those protesting Vietnam, when the draft was in effect (and largely because it was in effect–cockadoodledoo!!!). Even if you assume it did create “common citizenship,” a benefit of questionable value, it did so at the expense of military effectiveness–which is to say that it was effectively a social program that took resources away from the national defense.
One place you and I are in agreement is in the general weariness with modern military sf. There is much milsf I love: Heinlein’s Starship Troopers and The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress, and Lois McMaster Bujold’s Vorkosigan saga come to mind. However, when you have almost all the “conservative” sf being milsf–as opposed to fiction about entrepreneurs, or pioneers–it seems to be conveying a depressing subtext.
That subtext is the idea that the future is so bleak that there is nothing to write about but war. If you wanted a future in which you could escape this gawdawful planet, well, boys, your only hope is in signing your life away and getting a free spaceship ride to the Moon, where you can fight other people who signed their lives away. No hope for D. D. Harriman types any more; it’s the military or stay on Earth forever.
It’s somewhat analogous to the increasing dependence of the Republican Party on wars for its political success. The GOP seems to have given up on the Second Amendment, political speech, freedom of entrepreneurs from excessive regulation, and pretty much anything that might actually give hope of freedom for the future. The message sent is that you can choose between a totalitarian state under atheists or a totalitarian state under Muslims. (I’m not really clear on why it is that atheists are automatically assumed to be better; Stalin, Mao, Castro, and Pol Pot come to mind).
This isn’t saying that I necessarily oppose the GOP on individual national security issues, such as the Iraq War; it’s just that I’d like a little hope for a more free future along with it.
I didn’t say the draft “made for” common citizenship. I said that the draft forced people from all sorts of backgrounds together so that one result was they at least recognized they were all Americans together. I also said that the days when that happened was operating under a different culture than today, which is one of the (many) reasons a draft would not work today.
On the other hand, maybe draft opposition is one thing that can bring us together as a nation.
Re the GOP: they’re big on war and turning the US into a police state? What? Is this the same group of Howard J. Milquetoasts who collapse like leaky balloons every time Obama frowns? Maybe if you group them all together you could make up one spine from the whole bunch. If anything, it’s the Democrats who keep the ball rolling on the creeping totalitarian endless-war front. After making sure the Republicans are the ones to blame in the public eye. Whatever — they work together, it’s a power thing. I do agree that there doesn’t seem to be anyone in Congress of any significance who cares much about either free speech or the second amendment, but that’s a joint effort.
Ryan: are you saying that Daveon and Chris Gerrib are Special Needs trolls? That explains the helmets.
Re the GOP: they’re big on war and turning the US into a police state? What? Is this the same group of Howard J. Milquetoasts who collapse like leaky balloons every time Obama frowns?
It’s not that they’re big on war, although they haven’t done much to stop the Democrat/Communist Party from turning the US into a police state. It’s just that they’re weak on everything else. And it’s precisely their gutlessness that causes them to puff up their half-assed half-wars against this or that dictator, because they are too cowardly to take on the real villains, the Democrat/Communists.
Because the Republicans will not call evil by its name and declare literal war on our Democrat/Communist slave masters, we will inevitably have all guns seized in Waco-type actions in the next few years. The Demoncrat dictatorship will literally last till the end of time.
“…we will inevitably have all guns seized in Waco-type actions in the next few years. The Demoncrat dictatorship will literally last till the end of time.”
Well if we must jump right into paranoia here is what I have to say about that:
Waco was one little place. If the gungrabbers decide to go after every gun owner in America, they’ll find out that 1) most Americans take their guns seriously, and aren’t about to give them up just because some SWPLs have decided they’re icky; and 2) America isn’t small and nicely contained behind a stockade like Waco. The mistake of the Koresh bunch was sticking together and basically making themselves a target. They should have dispersed among the general population and hidden their guns. Well I guess that’s the problem with belonging to an isolationist, separatist cult.
Yes, I am saying that if the government goes full-on 2nd Amendment overturning, we should respond in kind, by becoming the lawless outlaw bad people the gungrabbing sorts have always said we are. What would we have to lose by then?
Unfortunately, what used to be America is now so thoroughly corrupted by cowards and traitors that no more than a tiny percentage will ever fight back.
Also, there’s the problem of knowing when to act. It seems to me that time is already here, but I have the uphill battle of trying to convince others to join me, without getting arrested first.
It used to be that guns were an everyday, unremarkable item. Now gun owners are a tiny, despised minority, in much the same situation as the Jews in Nazi Germany–and they will ultimately have the same fate.
“Now gun owners are a tiny, despised minority, in much the same situation as the Jews in Nazi Germany–and they will ultimately have the same fate.”
Really. Where on earth do you live? I live in the Shenandoah Valley, where hunting (and thus gun-owning) is an ordinary pastime. One of the women I work with has a photo of her young old son holding the head of his first buck. (Mmmm. Venison.) Hunting season is a big deal here.
Before I moved here I lived in Florida. Let’s just say there are a lot of people in that state who will suddenly have already “sold their guns/gave them away” on Gun Grab Day. I think wherever you’ve been residing, you need to take a little vacation.
I live in Reno, overrun by Communists from the Bay Area.
There’s a point you miss about the coming gun confiscation. Yes, many gun owners will bury their guns and thus avoid confiscation.
But it doesn’t matter. They will never be able to use those guns for self-defense. The moment they do, they will go to prison.
The only hypothetical use for guns after the grab will be the Revolution, and that will be prevented simply by arresting anyone who talks about it to someone else. Good luck overthrowing the government by yourself.
You really need to get out of Reno.
Andrea, I’m coming to this thread late, but I also knew exactly which Scalzi essay you were referring to without reading your blog – it was cited & discussed on quite a few blogs.
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In your most recent comment, you said “Yes, I am saying that if the government goes full-on 2nd Amendment overturning, we should respond in kind, by becoming the lawless outlaw bad people the gungrabbing sorts have always said we are. What would we have to lose by then?”
If the 2nd amendment was overturned legally, and enough people responded by becoming “lawless outlaw bad people”, what we’d have to lose is our civilization. You’ve recently accused liberals like me of being overly impressed by foreigners, so I expect hoots of derision from you on this, but I think that the United Kingdom, while mildly inferior to the USA in certain respects, is a wonderfully civilized place, a bastion of human rights and the rule of law, and I’m proud that the UK and the USA are so closely allied. The UK’s civilization isn’t particularly impaired by their heavy regulation of private gun ownership. If the 2nd amendment was overturned, I think we’d be much better off being like the UK than being like a country of “lawless outlaw bad people”.
The UK’s civilization isn’t particularly impaired by their heavy regulation of private gun ownership.
Other than those “hot burglaries,” in which gangs of thugs go into a house while the residents are at home inside, and beat them up and take their things, mocking them all the while. Or the takeover of major parts of the country by Jihadists. Or the quiet revocation of the right to trial by jury.
Hush! Bob-1 is so happy with his dream of veddy British people serving each other tea and crumpets in a happy gunless paradise. Don’t spoil it for him.
See, I can be compassionate!
I’ll spoil it for him, specifically because he’s making it the same way here and I’m sick and tired of being enslaved by vermin like him. I don’t feel “compassion” toward evil bullies.
I’m aware of the arguments that the UK is a more violent society than the USA. But I doubt gun laws are the reason — compare the UK to other NATO allies (or other countries which you are willing to deem sufficiently civilized, despite their heavy regulation of private gun ownership) to see why. My point is that citizens can be part of a free and democratic civilized society (and not a nation of “lawless outlaw bad people”) even if their right to own guns is heavily regulated.
Ken, I’m not even advocating infringement of the 2nd amendment at all, although I think the entire subject is completely incoherent and irrational, given the acceptance of bans on more potent arms, such as, say, nerve gas. I just wanted to point out there was a perfectly civilized alternative to Andrea’s proposal.
I dunno, Ken. Republican wars tend to be short and small. Think of Reagan in Grenada or Panama, or Bush Senior’s Gulf War I, or (reaching way back) McKinley’s Spanish-American War. It’s generally been Democrats who undertake the massive Save Humanity wars of Sacred Principle that engulf the entire country, if not world, for years. Think of the Second World War (FDR), the First (Wilson), Korea (Truman), Vietnam (LBJ), the Mexican-American War (Polk) — one can even make a case that Democrats started the Civil War, inasmuch as they completely dominated the southern states that seceded. (That’s a bit of a slander, however, since there were plenty of northern Democrats who stayed loyal.)
The weird exception to this rule is Bush Junior’s war in Iraq. Had he followed time-tested Republican principles, he would have declared victory when the Iraqi Republican Guard was crushed, Saddam’s sons were dead, and Saddam himself in custody, and the whole shebang would have been over in 3 months. This business of implementing Colin Powell’s highly non-Republican if not non-rational “Pottery Barn rule” and indulging in stereotypical Democratic “nation building” was as strangely anomalous as his introduction of a massive new entitlement (Medicare Part D) and enhanced Federal intrusion in local education issues (No Child Left Behind).
Oh no really, you’re just pulling our leg, Bob-1: you can’t seriously think that “heavily regulated” and “free and democratic” belong together. You’ve been tweaking us all this time! You don’t believe in any of that lefty stuff. It’s all been an elaborate practical joke!
Well played, sir. Well played.
“nerve gas.” *giggle*
Oh you. You card.
You don’t think the UK is free and democratic?
In a recent thread here, Carl Pham wondered why some people don’t want guns to be legally owned in their neighborhood. He suggested animism — that such people subconsciously think guns are somehow alive and evil. This made me laugh. But it is true — I would rather my neighbors didn’t own guns and I wondered if I could articulate why. My answer is that I think guns are like nerve gas. I don’t want my neighbors to own nerve gas because, while my neighbors are nice people, and seem quite responsible, accidents do happen. Gun accidents, like nerve gas accidents, threaten my family when they happen next door. I don’t necessarily want to outlaw guns, but I do think nerve gas is the right sort of thing to compare them too. To be fair, the biggest threat to my family from my neighbors probably comes from their cars — my daughter has just learned to walk, and while it is my job to see to it that she is safe, she’d be safer if she couldn’t get run over by my neighbors. I don’t want to ban cars, I don’t even care to ban guns, but I consider both dangerous, like nerve gas (which, I presume, is illegal because of its dangerous nature, despite being a method of bearing arms.)
“You don’t think the UK is free and democratic?”
Well, this is a thread about science fiction.
“Guns are like nerve gas.”
Oh my sides. You are too much. Do you do standup?
What I wondered, Bob, is why people have a strong impulse to ban guns after an atrocity like Tucson, even knowing full well it would do exactly zip to prevent any future such horror. I likened it to one’s strong impulse to kick the car when it refuses to start on a winter morning and you’re already late. A chthonic urge to punish something, and a willingness to indulge the momentary fantasy that the inanimate is somehow “alive” enough to be capable of suffering pain on punishment.
Unless you’ve never kicked your car, banged your TV or computer when it misbehaves, or cursed your cell phone when it dropped a call, you have no business laughing. You’re more self-aware than that, I think.
On your actual point, Bob, I see no mystery in why people have an impulse to ban guns in their neighborhood. I fully agree with you: they are dangerous tools, and people have the impulse to ban them for just that reason, as they would not want man-eating tigers kept as pets, or people doing experiments in nuclear fission or poisonous gases. Duh.
But an impulse does not equate to a decision, not if you’re an adult. You’re required to consider whether mitigating or higher factors might inform your judgment away from your impulse.
Indeed, this is the essence of maturity. You must govern your daughter’s impulses to run into the street after her ball, for example, or go see what that friendly jumping dog is doing. You use your brain to limit the expression she gives her impulses, because you recognize that reality is complex, and what seems like the sensible conclusion (“I don’t see any cars, so it’s safe to go in the street!” “That dog seems nice!” “Let’s ban guns to make sure no one shoots anyone by accident!”) may, on closer examination with attention paid to the facts, turn out to be mistakes.
Carl,
Why do you think banning guns would do zip in the Tuscon case? The shooter didn’t seem particularly dilligent or clever – if it was even mildly difficult to obtain a gun (say, more difficult than obtaining marijuana but less difficult than hacking a computer), I think the shooter wouldn’t have managed to obtain one. He might have tried to use a knife or even a car as a weapon instead, and I think fewer people would have been killed or maimed in such an event, all other things being equal.
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On a completely irrelevant personal and friendly note: I actually never bang, kick, or even curse machinery and tools. When I was young, I banged on the top of my parent’s television the way “the Fonz” did on Happy Days, but my mother caught me, and instead of chewing me out, she asked me how I thought a television worked, and why I thought banging on it would improve its operation. As my punishment, I was required to come up with an answer, and that turned out to be an educational project. As for cursing, I curse God and, mostly, Jesus. As a Jewish atheist, I enjoy giving that fictional JC character some undeserved grief.
“As a Jewish atheist, I enjoy giving that fictional JC character some undeserved grief.”
Wow. You’re so brave.
Well, braver than Blaise Pascal, although that’s not saying much.
Here, have a funny link: http://hinessight.blogs.com/church_of_the_churchless/2008/03/curse-god-freel.html
Carl, regarding another one of your questions (which I may again be misremembering), on why give a thug who is invading your house the benefit of the doubt, my answer is that not using lethal force helps you to avoid cases of mistaken identity like this famous case: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yoshihiro_Hattori
My wife was sort-of involved in a similar case before we were married — someone down on her street mangled his hand in a snowblower, and completely freaked out my wife as he tried to ask for help. I suppose she might have shot him if she had been armed. Not a reason to ban guns, but a reason to think about how to safely give strangers the benefit of the doubt. Contrary to your comment, I think the other commenter’s wish for non-lethal defensive weapons is the right sentiment.