On Political Symmetry
[guest post by JVW]
A word to all of our friends who think that the recent shooting tragedy in Oregon needs to be immediately addressed by federal legislation.
So you are angry that yet again senseless deaths have taken place. You look back on the past several years and wonder how many more mass killings it will take before we wake up to the disgusting slaughter that is going on. You’re worried because in your lifetime you have seen us grow callous and immune to the effects of all this death and destruction, and you know that this sort of thing simply doesn’t go on to nearly this extent in other civilized nations. You are frustrated that local jurisdictions who have attempted to apply common-sense restrictions have been thwarted by courts, including the hyper-partisan and unaccountable Supreme Court. You think that the very clear-cut language in the Constitution has been willfully distorted and stretched to encompass so-called “freedoms” that our Founding Fathers would rightly have rejected.
You know that there is a very wealthy and powerful lobby whose endorsements and fund-raising help sway elections and ensure that candidates with moderate and accommodating views on the subject are defeated. You are sure that they have paid academics and lobbyists to help them come up with phony justifications for why the laws can’t and shouldn’t be changed. And you lament that your friends who are otherwise so grounded and well-meaning seem to be completely out-of-touch with the realities of horrors of this situation based upon their reactionary Facebook posts and their close-mindedness to seeing your side of the argument.
Did it ever occur to you, my gun control friends, that you are going through exactly the same thing that pro-lifers have been going through the past month?
– JVW
The NRA is mostly concerned with gun safety, firearms training, and effective and humane hunting. In fact, fighting against gun control measures accounts for less than 3% of their services by this metric which I have just made up.
JVW (ba78f9) — 10/3/2015 @ 4:28 pmit’s like a metaphor
happyfeet (831175) — 10/3/2015 @ 4:48 pmJVW,
I think you will find this post is somewhat silly tomorrow.
One, true believers, whether pro-life, feminist, or gun grabbers are never very reflective.
Two, There is no natural right to gun control, while there is one to Life.
Three, it is in no way clear that the answer to mass shootings is gun control at all, but more that there are gun-free zones where people are LEGALLY FORBIDDEN to protect themselves. If 1 person in 100 carried a firearm, these shooters wouldn’t ever get very far, at least with randomly chosen targets.
I don’t really see any symmetry other than feelings of frustration may be equally strong.
Kevin M (25bbee) — 10/3/2015 @ 5:17 pmOK, JVW, I saw what you did there, it caught me by surprise and made me laugh, and I approve of your message and the clever delivery.
ropelight (f0afa2) — 10/3/2015 @ 5:28 pmI think you will find this post is somewhat silly tomorrow.
I don’t mean it to be a direct comparison on the merits of the arguments. My main point is that I have noted that a lot of my friends who have adopted the “Do something to curtail gun ownership! Don’t let the NRA block sensible gun-control! Nobody needs a gun for self-defense anyway!” line of argument are the same folks who last month were saying, “We can’t trample of people’s rights just because there are occasionally some uncomfortable outcomes! The right to abortion is enshrined in the Constitution! Planned Parenthood must be fully funded or no one will ever get a mammogram again!” For my part, I don’t accept the notion that the Constitution protects abortion, but I think the meaning of the Second Amendment is pretty clear.
JVW (ba78f9) — 10/3/2015 @ 5:42 pmI don’t really see any symmetry other than feelings of frustration may be equally strong.
Then you grasped the gist of my point.
JVW (ba78f9) — 10/3/2015 @ 5:43 pmKevin @3. The best part of Ilinois’s CCW law is that if you have a permit, and you carry in a prohibited place, it’s only a petty offense (traffic ticket level) for the first offense and it does not rise to a misdemeanor and possible revocation until the third offense. (Whereas it would be a felony to carry without a CCW.) Of course, it would still require common sense and knowing how to carry truly concealed.
nk (9faaca) — 10/3/2015 @ 5:53 pmboth situations involve idiots what are super-enthusiastic to give up individual rights to the morally-debased hyper-indebted international laughingstock federal government of failmerica
happyfeet (831175) — 10/3/2015 @ 5:54 pmlet’s strip it down down down
happyfeet (831175) — 10/3/2015 @ 5:55 pmActually no, but a protogen follower would think that.
narciso (ee1f88) — 10/3/2015 @ 6:10 pmOk. Gun owners are pro-lifers who are also looking to protect themselves, their loved ones, and their neighbors from very late “late-term abortions”. It’s too bad that babies are not in the same position.
nk (9faaca) — 10/3/2015 @ 6:11 pmi’ve hit a real slow patch in book four
right now we’re kinda doing a poseidon adventure on dry land thing with our friend Amos
and everyone else is off and about doing their own thing
but if you’re patient there’s a lot of belated character development going on
happyfeet (831175) — 10/3/2015 @ 6:20 pmoops i mean book five
happyfeet (831175) — 10/3/2015 @ 6:22 pmCouldn’t really get into book three. Seriously though, they are waging war implicitly on the declaration and explicitly on the second amendment
narciso (ee1f88) — 10/3/2015 @ 6:24 pmteam republican is scared to make the 2nd amendment the no.1 issue for 2016.
mg (31009b) — 10/3/2015 @ 6:39 pmThey will give it up before they fight for it. In fact they will obey obama and knock down doors to grab all the bitter clingers guns.
Knock knock could be the last thing heard from obama’s new recruits!!
Narciso and Mr. Feets, what book are you talking about.
kishnevi (28fa9f) — 10/3/2015 @ 6:50 pmhere
it comes to tv in december or so
happyfeet (831175) — 10/3/2015 @ 6:56 pmThe expanse series by James corey, soon to be a miniseries on syfy, in December.
narciso (ee1f88) — 10/3/2015 @ 6:57 pmIts set about two centuries I. The future, in a world not unlike the firefly series, where there is a civil war between the inner planets and the outer ring.
narciso (ee1f88) — 10/3/2015 @ 7:21 pmAn incipient civil war, with the outer planets in rebellion.
narciso (ee1f88) — 10/3/2015 @ 7:26 pmfoodstamp mcpeaceprize should mind his own incompetent garden i think
happyfeet (831175) — 10/3/2015 @ 7:30 pmThanks.
It may take me a while, given that the first Game of Thrones just settled into my reading pile.
BTW are you aware Jim Butcher has a new book out, first of a new series, a steampunk/magic setting.
kishnevi (28fa9f) — 10/3/2015 @ 7:32 pmI found book one to be fairly muddled and stopped halfway through. Maybe I’ll get back to it before December.
Kevin M (25bbee) — 10/3/2015 @ 7:37 pmhmm is kinda expensive
this news broke this week
i have trouble with this sort of thing
i read book one and bailed
all i can say is it’s less execrable than that mortifyingly bad wheel of time crap
happyfeet (831175) — 10/3/2015 @ 7:40 pmNow, Game of Thrones I blazed through until I hit the wall in Book 5, where everybody spends about 400 pages going from hither to yon, or planning on going from hither to yon. If I hear Tyrion ask someone “Where do whores go?” one more time, I’m gonna explode. Thankfully HBO dropped that entire sequence. But maybe that will get happy reading it…
Kevin M (25bbee) — 10/3/2015 @ 7:41 pmCorey is two authors, one of whom is an assistant to re Martin.
narciso (ee1f88) — 10/3/2015 @ 7:41 pmi’ll read it someday for sure but the show is plenty for me right now
i’m worried about Mr. Snow though
he got himself into a bit of a pickle
happyfeet (831175) — 10/3/2015 @ 7:42 pmOT, but an angle I had not seen before, so I am linking even though it is Politico.
http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2015/10/illegal-immigrants-could-elect-hillary-clinton-213216
A slightly inflammatory way of phrasing the argument since the premise actually applies not merely to immigrants, legal or not, but also citizens who are not registered to vote.
kishnevi (31ba4e) — 10/3/2015 @ 7:43 pmWhy do you think they are putting so much effort, out of altruism, we know what the Labour party admitted about immigration.
narciso (ee1f88) — 10/3/2015 @ 7:46 pmI waited on GoT until I found a copy in the used book store. Don’t have HBO, and I barely watch TV these days. Too many CDs to listen to.
kishnevi (28fa9f) — 10/3/2015 @ 7:47 pmA key player in the series is a corporation like wetland yutani, or in modern terms, stem express.
narciso (ee1f88) — 10/3/2015 @ 7:48 pmWesteros is the stAte of nature, Hobbes wrote about. There is no leviathan, not even the dragons that can secure that land.
narciso (ee1f88) — 10/3/2015 @ 7:54 pmThe fashion for the day is we don’t want to encourage other degenerates contemplating suicide with company, so the narrative goes the media doesn’t need to give the killers motive publicity.
I’d humbly point out that the media, due to government confiscation and cover-up, has never had the opportunity to cover the killer’s motives, manifesto, suicide note.
Well, beside the one white guy who shot up the church. BTW that guy is still alive. We could get his story from the horses mouth. Pled guilty already, so he could be more easily cleared for an interview. If only our betters would get out of the Dash Ham way.
What are the chances if would be school shooters heard from their “heros” the vapid self serving reasons given by a Lester Flanigan as motive to shoot his co workers, that the hero worship would dry up directly.
More freedom is the answer. Not less. Not artificial restrictions on our right to know, imposed by manipulative pols.
papertiger (c2d6da) — 10/3/2015 @ 7:55 pm@ #2 Happyfwwt:
Like, that’s a simile.
Captain Ned (d080c3) — 10/3/2015 @ 8:05 pmWell no tiger, as the previous thread shows they not only do not have the inclination to challenge the narrative, they are complicit in it.
narciso (ee1f88) — 10/3/2015 @ 8:05 pmThe national conversation about this shooting is already being rabbit-holed. They don’t want to discuss violent hate filled leftist mass murderers.
JD (fdcb4b) — 10/3/2015 @ 8:07 pmTo be truly symmetrical, conservatives would have to be excusing and rationalizing away an organization (say, the NRA) that was handing out guns to clearly deranged, violent people and claiming such transactions were not actually occurring or that hidden-camera videos of such activity were of doubtful authenticity or distorting an actual moment in time.
Moreover, such conservatives would have to pretend they were sensible and logical (or a counter version of typical liberals believing themselves to be compassionate, generous and humane) when, in reality, they were saps, fools and naifs.
Mark (f713e4) — 10/3/2015 @ 8:20 pmI was suspicious from the first I heard of the shooting that he was either Muslim or, based on the photo I saw, half black.
He was. The DoJ has probably cleaned out his apartment of all BLM material.
I have a Colt 1911 in my bedside table. I am too old to run to the sound of guns, or at anything else if the truth were known, but I can shoot.
Bad things are coming.
Mike K (90dfdc) — 10/3/2015 @ 8:23 pmThis is all a convenient distraction from a total demolition of America’s hegemony in the ME.
Libya and Yemen faileded states, Egypt fending for itself, Syria lost, the CIA conceived IS fleeing to the EU, the Sauds and Qatar impoverished, Iran walking away from the newly inked nuclear deal, and Turkey remains incorrigible.
Iraq and Afghanistan are no more.
DNF (51a50d) — 10/3/2015 @ 8:52 pmWell Libya was three provincescobbled together by trusteeship, note howthey said that about iraq. The Saudi seem to have been in charge since the ottoman era, afghanistan with be absorbed into the pashtun superstate, but you already know this.
narciso (ee1f88) — 10/3/2015 @ 9:01 pmZaydi, the saud have held the area for all but the mid 1800s when they bottled up in the nejd.
narciso (ee1f88) — 10/3/2015 @ 9:04 pmDNF. I think you are describing the OBAMA DOCTRINE. SPEAK LOUDLY and get rammed by a BIG STICK.
GUS (7cc192) — 10/3/2015 @ 9:34 pmAfter the shooter killed himself. After the shooter’s envelope was retrieved from the student’s possession. The cops had the rest of the survivors marched with hands up through a check point where they were releaved of all recording devices, cell phones, blackberries.
papertiger (c2d6da) — 10/3/2015 @ 10:49 pmVery good post. Everyone has to read it twice. At least.
Patterico (fecd9b) — 10/3/2015 @ 11:01 pmRegarding #28, kishnevi:
I’ve been pointing this out for years glad to see it takes Politico to get people’s attention. The left is importing replacements for their abortion killing fields and have been for decades. As I also pointed out the proof is all they want to import (legally or illegally) are “people of color” to change not only the political landscape but the social and cultural too. The leftist controlled education establishment has done a great job of creating welfare queens when they should have been creating the rugged individualists American was built by so we don’t need to import people from socialist states, we have enough of our own.
The Electoral College is just one more angle in the seemingly endless charade known as the democrat party but which in really has become the communist party as it seeks total one party rule of the United States. The fact that citizens not even registered to vote are counted is a bonus. At least they are citizens. Why do you think the left has historically pushed for Motor-Voter schemes? What does driving have to do with voting? Two things. You get the kids who are generally liberals and you get the illegals to register to vote, then provide them with the ID to prove they can.
Hoagie™ (f4eb27) — 10/4/2015 @ 6:40 am“Two, There is no natural right to gun control,
while there is one to Lifejust as there is no right to abortion.FTFY.
felipe (56556d) — 10/4/2015 @ 8:45 amThe number of murders per year is at an all-time low since `1993.
Michael Ejercito (d74b61) — 10/4/2015 @ 9:57 amThe Declaration disagrees, felipe
So do I.
Hoagie™ (f4eb27) — 10/4/2015 @ 10:13 amYa know, if we could just not count Chicago, Baltimore, Cincinnati, Philadelphia, Atlanta and about ten other democrat controlled enclaves with strict gun laws we’d probably have one of the lowest crime rates in the world. At the risk of being called a racist for the 10,000th time, if we could just not count black and Hispanic gun crime we’d be one of the lowest on earth.
Hoagie™ (f4eb27) — 10/4/2015 @ 10:18 amThere’s no real symmetry here.
Everyone agrees that the shootings AND killings at college ca,puses and other locations are a bad thing.
But not everybody agrees that the abortions and the selling (allegedly at no profit – charges are just for shipping and handling) of body parts of aborted babies, AND strategizing so as to get more whole body parts are a bad thing.
Sammy Finkelman (2972ba) — 10/4/2015 @ 11:37 amit is a false symmetry
this symmetry does not pass the test
happyfeet (831175) — 10/4/2015 @ 12:41 pmWhat if the killers at college campuses and other locations could sell the body parts?
nk (dbc370) — 10/4/2015 @ 6:26 pma new life awaits you in the off whirl colonies?
happyfeet (831175) — 10/4/2015 @ 6:30 pmWait, he snuck planned parenthood in on us?
Right there at the end….
That’s no foul?
Sure, it’s all perfectly legal.
papertiger (c2d6da) — 10/4/2015 @ 9:01 pmSo-o-o-o, we have another mass murder; another one among the many that have occurred during Obama’s tenure. And why is this not an example of a future president on 6/1/08 in Philadelphia excusing a certain conduct, “If they bring a knife to the fight, we bring a gun.”
amr (290ba9) — 10/5/2015 @ 7:00 am