Dec27
Gun Rights, Gun Control
on December 27, 2012 at 11:46 am…and irreconcilable cultural differences.
Just another example of how there are (at least) two Americas, though not the ones that John Edwards used to demagogue about.
…and irreconcilable cultural differences.
Just another example of how there are (at least) two Americas, though not the ones that John Edwards used to demagogue about.
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I’ll tell you about cultural differences.
I was driving through Middleton, WI, adjoining community to the People’s Republic of Madison when I was passed by an Aveo automobile adorned with a variety of liberal bumper stickers common to this part of the country, along with a prominently displayed sticker that said “Gay” on it.
I want you to know that all I could feel for this fellow was a profound sense of pity. If it were me, I wouldn’t want the whole world to know I was driving a Chevy Aveo . . .
What strikes me so odd about liberals is their unending and undying faith that even elected governments don’t go bad, or that the next election can solve it, as if the next election is even guaranteed to come. And even if they do, elections in many cases in the world can mean nothing more than “I get to elect my despot”. See the Middle East.
Private gun ownership, including “dangerous assault rifles”, provides the real check against arbitrary government power wielded by any particular governing party, be it Democrat, Republican, or anybody else.
Let’s put it this way: from their perspective, the best reason that liberals should have for supporting the 2nd Amendment is George Bush.
Private gun ownership, including “dangerous assault rifles”, provides the real check against arbitrary government power wielded by any particular governing party
Is there any historical evidence for this argument? Last year we saw a bunch of tyrannical Arab governments fall, and none was toppled by citizens with private firearms. Has any U.S. governing party ever been “checked” by private gun ownership?
Those toppled tyrannical governments were replaced with other tyrannical governments. A lot of good that did.
The point is to have individual liberty, not just have different rulers.
The point is to be a free citizen, not a subject.
Why, more often than not, do governments first disarm the population before they start slaughtering it, if it truly made no difference whether the population was armed or not?
As a commenter on another site said (I don’t remember where I saw it), “government is a gun pointed at your head”. That’s what laws are. Resist the law hard enough and you die. Unfortunately, it is a necessary evil so that criminals can be punished and individual rights can be secured on a society-wide basis.
But, that gun pointed at the population’s head can be easily abused by those in power, and so it has to be checked, and the only true check is a gun pointed right back.
Otherwise, you are just at the mercy of your rulers, even if they are elected, and all you have is hope that they won’t turn against you.
And no, this is not a justification for any random flouting of the law by any random individual for any random reason. But, it is explained already in the Declaration:
“…But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.”
Right now, thanks to those who died in the War for Independence, we can “throw off such Government” through elections. But, the 2nd Amendment is what secures those elections to happen at all.
“What strikes me so odd about liberals is their unending and undying faith that even elected governments don’t go bad, or that the next election can solve it,.”
My starting position, politically, is that there isn’t a dime’s worth of difference between a politician or a businessman. One is not more or less noble than the other. Neither is looking out for you.
About the only difference is that the businessman is using shareholder money whereas the politician is using mine.
About the only difference is that the businessman is using shareholder money whereas the politician is using mine.
Except in the frequent cases where businessmen hire lobbyists to legally bribe* politicians to get taxpayer money and other favors. The return on investment for bribing politicians is many times (often orders of magnitude) higher than anything else you can do with your money.
I do resent the frequent comparison of politicians to drunken sailors. As the proud father of a sailor, this is a grossly unfair comparison. At least when sailors go out to get drunk, they’re spending their own money.
*Campaign contributions are a legal form of bribery because the politicians voted to make them legal.
There’s a couple of differences you haven’t accounted for.
1. The businessman’s money is given to him voluntarily and is used to create wealth, in the form of valuable goods and services for the benefit of all. The politician’s money is seized at gunpoint from the producers of value, and produces negative wealth, both in the form of capital made unavailable for productive use and in the form of laws with which to oppress those selfsame producers.
2. The businessman can’t burn your house down, shoot you as you run out of the flames, and grind your body and the bodies of your loved ones under the treads of a tank. The politician can — and does.
Well the businessman can do all those things you say a politician will do….if he’s part of the mob.
But what I was mainly referring to was the honesty and nobility.
I can’t figure out people who won’t MOVE to “X” place that already HAS all the no guns, high taxes, socialized medicine kinds of stuff they want here. If you grow up in Alaska but don’t like cold weather, you don’t set the state on fire, you MOOOOOOVE! The opposite applies, if you don’t like hot weather, leave Arizona, after all, I hear a house jut opened up in Alaska.
I know people who say politics and weather aren’t the same, but people should be just as willing to move for political climate as for natural climate.
Except that the lefties have decided to move into red states and turn them blue…witness Vermont and New Hampshire.
And they managed to Californicate Colorado, too.
Great video on the hypocrisy:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k1SZurGArxE
Prelim details of Feinstein’s proposed new law are at links below.
http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/336520/feinsteins-assault-weapons-proposal-robert-verbruggen
http://www.feinstein.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/files/serve/?File_id=10993387-5d4d-4680-a872-ac8ca4359119
Wow. Looks like it could result in immediate confiscation of some firearms from individuals who comply and try to register their grandfathered firearms but fail a new background check, and would create a good database for a future attempted confiscation of all “assault weapons.”