Now you're just being disingenuous. Either that, or you are misrepresenting what actual "Tyranny" is.
Or both.
--Patrick
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*sighs, turns over "DAYS SINCE LAST MASS SHOOTING IN AMERICA" sign to 0*
- Thread starter Charlie Don't Surf
- Start date
Or both.
--Patrick
Oh Lord, it's that time of year again. I knew when the good old militia was brought forth again.
This whole conversation is useless, because it's really just a matter of faith/gospel by now. The Founding Fathers were regular old people, albeit smart ones, and they wrote a text from their historical and cultural perspective. Updating or changing it isn't allowed though, because their writ is holy, divinely inspired and unchanging, to many people. It's like Quran exegesis.
This whole conversation is useless, because it's really just a matter of faith/gospel by now. The Founding Fathers were regular old people, albeit smart ones, and they wrote a text from their historical and cultural perspective. Updating or changing it isn't allowed though, because their writ is holy, divinely inspired and unchanging, to many people. It's like Quran exegesis.
But... that’s the clever part about the Constitution!
Both sides are firmly entrenched because neither side trusts the other. If you support gun owner rights, you are convinced that tyrants and their moronic lackeys are only seeking to curtail gun ownership because it’s part of a plan to install an authoritarian dystopia. If you want to see stricter gun laws, then you probably see the other side as paranoid, inbred hillbillies waiting for their marching orders at the next Klan meeting to shoot innocent people for fun.
And because each side refuses to look at the other side’s point of view, we get this ideological trench warfare.
Perhaps what we need, then, is to have the government issue everyone a registered gun for a week, and then take them away?
Ehh, probably not.
--Patrick
Dave
Staff member
Except the current leadership of the Republican Party has made it clear that any such attempts to do so will simply be abused. Everytime the Left sacrifices a step toward the Right, the Right takes a step backward (towards their unsaid, actual political agenda) and tells us we aren't meeting them in the middle. Send me the head of Mitch McConnell and maybe we can START that discussion.
GasBandit
Staff member
I miss the old eyeroll smiley.
The founders, having just fought a desperate and bloody revolution to get out from under the thumb of an oppressive government, built the establishing documents of the government of this new country on the principal that a strong government cannot be trusted - and thus all the language in the constitution and in the bill of rights in particular do not talk about what the people are allowed, but what the government is NOT allowed.
That's a fundamentally different point of view than what many are used to thinking. They believe that the government "allows" them to do certain things because they are necessary to live and succeed, but all else is forbidden unless permission is granted. That is actually anathema to the very core concepts of what has made America work. Rather, the proper frame of reference is that you have no limits apart from where they impact the rights of another (the proverbial "Your right to swing your fist ends where my nose begins").
And the founders also did realize that times change, and they put in a mechanism to amend the constitution - one we've used 17 more times since the 10 amendments they immediately enacted.
The founders had seen first hand the methods and effects of actual tyranny first hand, which is why those first 10 amendments so often address particular abuses that Americans suffered under British rule. And they deemed an armed populace, able to resist, to be so important, it was the second on their list of things they wanted to make explicitly clear that the government was not allowed to undermine.
And if Americans decide that the times have changed enough for that to no longer be the case, there's a process already in place for repealing that amendment. But gun grabbers know that their views are not in the majority, which is why they pick away at it, bit by bit. Why they do end runs around the 2nd amendment via municipal or state laws that contravene the 2nd amendment, which are usually struck down if and when they reach the United States Supreme Court.
Yes, he's absolutely taking the proverbial piss.
Oh but it IS allowed as I just said - it's just those who want guns gone don't have anywhere near the numbers to enact their will, so they try to achieve their goals through unconstitutional means.
I've brought it up before... but mandatory safety and handling training as part of the high school curriculum. A lot of the fear and misuse comes from a place of ignorance.
Oh thank you. I saw it in .GIF form, but that was reeeeeally ungainly (and grainy).
I'd counter that the fear and misuse comes more from a willful fingers-in-ears, la-la-la-can't-hear-you desire to remain ignorant, and comes from the same place as a desire to outlaw vaccination, meat as food, cell/WiFi towers, windmills, etc.
Oh, and also from those folks who don't want all men (and women!) to be equal (i.e., those who choose to oppress others).
--Patrick
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I saw that when Tin posted it on FB. It's... sad, really.
I stole it from Dave here.
GasBandit
Staff member
GasBandit
Staff member
Aww, you shattered the time loop illusion.
Equality of opportunity (or something resembling egalitarianism and/or equality before the law/government) or Equality of Result?
Two very different things.
"Overpower" would probably have been a better fit than "Oppress," but that made the sentence sound weird to me.
That is, those folks who don't want what I called "equality" are scared of guns in the hands of others not because they fear for their own safety, but instead because it grants those others the ability to respond with deadly force regardless of any other disparity (size, strength, etc.). It's the sort of equality usually associated with Sam Colt.
--Patrick
figmentPez
Staff member
True, only 1 of those is made of straw....
Given the expansions of the Welfare state and/or entitlements, social policy changes, etc, in the last number of decades, I think you have that graph backwards.
*puts on flameproof suit*
Both sides of the spectrum feel that way. It’s just another sign of all the stupid partisan tribalism in this country. And neither side thinks that they’ve done anything wrong; it’s always that evil “other side” that is to blame.
Well, I mean, almost all new wealth generated over the last twenty years has been funneled to the top 1%, about 40 million people are living under the poverty line, Mitch McConnell is refusing to let bills passed by the Democratic House even come to a vote, and, oh yeah, now we're stealing refugee children from their parents and giving them to human traffickers when they're not just being kept in concentration camps, plus, hey, Nazis are back and running on the Republican ticket, so, um, you've got your head up your ass as usual, Eriol.
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BOTH SIDES ARE THE SAME...
I mean, remember when Obammur fired people over investigating his birth certificate? Or his DOJ said he could just house people in his hotels without it violating the emoluments clause? Or when he enacted his own radical healthcare plan that was totally not a slightly modified version of a Heritage Foundation idea that had been implemented at the state level by Romey?
Then again, i guess the right is right about social issues moving, and, as we all know, letting gays get married and allowing miscegenation are just partisan left wing ideas...
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When one of those sides is full of people who base the value of another person on the color of their skin or who their parents are, it gets hard to take the rest of their message seriously.
—Patrick
Or how they want to take rights away from people based on their religion, or their gender identity, or their sexuality, or anything that makes then a non-cishet white male with wealthy and property.
I see they're not the same, they're just doing the same thing... which is, like, different because...
What honestly gets me is the hypocrisy.
I don't consider myself very left of the line, as I am heavy into things like gun rights (though I believe we do need more training and less stockpiling), but it really gets to me when my step-dad almost has a fit over people on the TV talking about being offended by something that to him isn't worth offense. He does not get the irony that he is utterly outraged by something that does not involve him and from which he will never be able to relate. He also goes off about things like "safe-spaces" but anytime you try to challenge him on anything he slinks off to his own safe space in a huff because he does not want to listen to you.
I also absolutely loath people that spout things like "protecting freedom" because the entire idea of american freedom is to live your life as you please, as long as it does not hurt anyone else. Yet the minute a muslim family wants to move into a "christian neightborhood" or a transgendered person just wants to take a piss, it's somehow them getting their freedoms dissolved. It reminds me of segregation when all the racists thought just their kids sharing a drinking fountain with a black kid was going to destroy American values.
Anyways... back to the topic at hand, things with guns do need to change, but I also agree blanket bans won't ultimately help. We need more gun training, reductions in private sellers and stockpiling, and a much better mental health system so we can prevent these types of things from happening in the first place. We also need to kill the culture of hate and scapegoating that has been growing like weeds since time immemorial, rather then promoting it like we have been heavily the last decade. (god I hate pundits).
That needs to happen or it's never going to really stop.
I don't consider myself very left of the line, as I am heavy into things like gun rights (though I believe we do need more training and less stockpiling), but it really gets to me when my step-dad almost has a fit over people on the TV talking about being offended by something that to him isn't worth offense. He does not get the irony that he is utterly outraged by something that does not involve him and from which he will never be able to relate. He also goes off about things like "safe-spaces" but anytime you try to challenge him on anything he slinks off to his own safe space in a huff because he does not want to listen to you.
I also absolutely loath people that spout things like "protecting freedom" because the entire idea of american freedom is to live your life as you please, as long as it does not hurt anyone else. Yet the minute a muslim family wants to move into a "christian neightborhood" or a transgendered person just wants to take a piss, it's somehow them getting their freedoms dissolved. It reminds me of segregation when all the racists thought just their kids sharing a drinking fountain with a black kid was going to destroy American values.
Anyways... back to the topic at hand, things with guns do need to change, but I also agree blanket bans won't ultimately help. We need more gun training, reductions in private sellers and stockpiling, and a much better mental health system so we can prevent these types of things from happening in the first place. We also need to kill the culture of hate and scapegoating that has been growing like weeds since time immemorial, rather then promoting it like we have been heavily the last decade. (god I hate pundits).
That needs to happen or it's never going to really stop.
Poor guys just want to be free to ruin other peoples lives... and isn't that what freedom is really about?
And nothing of value was lost.
Ok, and that looks confirmed by the opening paragraph from a summary of the treaty in question:
[Emphasis added]
Sooo...if the treaty does NOT restrict domestic policy, and apparently never did, then what is the point of Trump-eting the withdrawal at an NRA meeting, or of even pulling out of the treaty in the first place?
—Patrick