“The Iowa House approved two gun-rights measures Wednesday night that sparked Democrats to stage a walkout earlier in the day, stalling action for six hours,” w2cox.com reports. “One bill would allow people to use deadly force to protect themselves and the other called for writing gun rights protections into the Iowa Constitution . . . House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy of Des Moines [above] said the chamber’s 40 Democrats decided to return after deciding they’d made their displeasure clear regarding a lack of notice about the bills and concerns the proposals would gut the state’s gun laws. He said he feared the votes would turn Iowa into the Wild, Wild West . . .
“It would eliminate all gun laws,” he said. “This issue is very, very extreme. This proposal is not a mainstream proposal . . .
The future of the measures is unclear as they move to a Senate where Democrats have a 26-24 margin. Majority Leader Michael Gronstal, D-Council Bluffs, says he has no plans to bring the issue up for debate.
And while we’re at it, here’s some news from sj-r.com regarding the Illinois handgun registration bill championed by former White House Chief of Staff and Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel:
Handguns would have to be registered and a new tax would be imposed on ammunition sales under bills approved Wednesday by the Illinois House Executive Committee.
With Democrats voting “yes” and Republicans “no,” the committee approved House Bill 5831, which requires handgun owners to register their weapons with the state. The bill is an initiative of Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanual . . .
The bill carries a $65 registration fee for each gun. Davis said that might be changed to $20.
Todd Vandermyde, representing the National Rifle Association, said the bill is simply a tax on gun owners . . . Republican lawmakers said the bill won’t do anything to deter criminals.
“Criminals don’t care if they register guns,” said Rep. Mike Tyron, R-Crystal Lake.
Republicans also opposed House Bill 5167, which would place a 2 percent surtax on ammunition sales in the Illinois. Rep. Kelly Cassidy, D-Chicago, said the tax would raise $800,000 to $1.2 million, which would go to hospitals that treat gunshot victims. Cassidy said the tax would amount to one penny a bullet.
Vandermyde said a tax on ammunition sales is the same as taxing the right to vote.
“The courts say we have a right to own guns and ammunition,” Vandermyde said.
With friends like Dems, who needs enemies?
Perhaps this is because of the decidedly partisan stance taken by many 2A advocates. Personally, while I am passionate about 2A rights it’s very hard for me to vote for many Republican candidates as I am opposed to virtually every position they take except for gun rights.
Word.
I’m in the exact same position as you..
Not me.
This is an important point you make, Diemos. Though many otherwise support the 2nd amendment, they ultimately give social or economic progressive policies greater weight and vote for those who are openly hostile to gun rights.
Free country and all that. If you would rather have (insert progressive policy opposed by the GOP here) than respect for the 2nd amendment, then that’s how you should vote.
Actually, I’d like to have the whole Bill of Rights, but no one is offering that right now. Neither the Democrats nor the Republicans have any respect right now for due process, rule of law, or any sort of Constitutional guarantees.
+1
I guess Ron Paul is the exception that proves the rule… I get the impression that the GOP would drum him out of the party if they could, just as they did to Gary Johnson.
The issue is that there aren’t any real candidates running on the platform of majorly shrinking the overall size of the federal government, and thereby empowering each individual citizen.
In general, the Democrats are all corrupt and/or socialists and/or nanny staters, the Republicans are all corrupt and/or vague government-sanctioned-religious-moralists, and third parties candidates are all a bunch of crackpots.
Until we can start putting forward candidates who can eloquently speak on the actual issues, we will ALL lose to the competing interests of the nanny staters, the socialists, the corporatists, and the moralists.
So many of the hot button issues today, such as abortion, homosexuality, gun rights, taxes, immigration, etc. are debated as though there are only two positions, when in reality there is a third, and more compelling option which nearly everyone can agree to: broad application of the 10th amendment.
The problem, generally, is that the Democrats play dirty, the Republicans do not play in a tactically sound manner, and the Constitutionalists don’t even show up to the game.
Agree with much of that. Reminds me a bit of Yates’ view,
‘The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.’
The issues are different, but the ‘best’ are in their study or work, the worst have craved power all their lives. Or so it seems.
+1 Carlos I’m quoting you on that.
I suppose my reasoning on that is that the 2nd Amendment is indeed a constitutional right, so even if elected officials pass stupid laws there’s some protection potentially from the judiciary.
That aside, I think the point I’m trying to make is that 2A advocates should be trying to reach out across the aisle. Strategically speaking, relying entirely on one party is a bad idea. Eventually they will be out of power, and with the way that American politics has worked historically they are likely to be relatively impotent for an extended period of time when the pendulum is swinging away from them. Therefore it’s a good idea to try and make inroads in both parties.
I don’t think that being anti-gun is so entrenched in the left as it once was (at least not in the rank and file of voters, the leadership is obviously still kind of stuck on it), and as such there’s a lot of potential to work both sides of the aisle. As things stand now, few Democrats would be smart to try and cater to firearms enthusiasts because the public face of the gun culture is pretty rabidly conservative. They would risk alienating existing supporters to try and woo a group that seems to be reflexively opposed to them based on their party, so they don’t do it at all. I would love to see the gun culture become more concerned with preserving civil liberties (both the right to bear arms and the right to generally be left the hell alone if you’re not causing other people grief) than with bashing any one party. I think that many both on the right and the left are very much unhappy about the erosion of civil liberties in the US and the growth of governmental power over the last decade or two, and I think that the gun enthusiast community could really serve as a great bridge between the two sides to push this as a political priority. We may not agree on whether or not health care should be available regardless of financial means, but I think we can all agree that having a SWAT team knock down your door, shoot your pets and tear up your house without even having to knock and announce is a parlous state of affairs.
It doesn’t really matter if some politician is promising me rainbows and gumdrops and free at home supermodel lapdances, if he wants to take away my right to defend myself then he’s saying he wants to be able to take away those things (and more) at will.
So in a system who it’s pretty much a choice between groups of asshats, I’ll take the asshats that are prepared to govern an armed citizen and not a defenseless subject.
I think you are stealing a base or two, CarlosT. There are plenty of Republicans who are doing all they can to preserve freedom. Not nearly enough, but plenty.
While it is satisfying to sit back and say “a pox on both their houses” the truth is that the Democrats are the “progressive” party, and the progressive movement from its inception has been hostile to individualism and by extension individual rights.
The GOP is pretty rotten with sissies and wimps and are no where near as fierce as they ought to be in defending our rights – but as a party, they are the only ones who even try.
“Either you take care of politics, or politics will take care of you.” There is no choice to stand aside, really. We’ve been talked out of expressing our views openly by the retribution that a ideological party cadre asserts…in either party. The two-party system was never meant to be. The powers in industry and labor want it that way, and it is difficult to see how it can be broken down….
I can’t agree with that Tim. Leaving aside specific issues where I think the Republicans are on the side of limiting personal liberty, Republicans and Democrats alike have eroded our rights with the Patriot Act, warrantless wiretaps, the NDAA. Both parties cheered almost unanimously when the President assassinated a US citizen without even a pretense of due process. Yes, I get the guy was probably a scumbag. The point is that the Constitution requires that you prove beyond a reasonable doubt a scumbag did something worthy of the death penalty before you carry out the sentence. The President can’t just announce he’s guilty and kill him. That’s a monarchical power, and there’s nothing less American than monarchy. At least, that’s how it used to be.
Gun rights are important to me, but as part of the whole package of our civil liberties, and right now, both parties are failing that test, abysmally.
Word. We’re headed straight to Authoritarian Corporatist Hell.
That’s the same position that the Catholic Church has taken. How’s that working out for them?
“One bill would allow people to use deadly force to protect themselves”
I like how they say that like it is a bad thing.
They use the law for THEIR purposes. They have police protection and only the police are allowed to use deadly force. Interesting that they are ever-present for the lawmakers and not for the citizens…
The Second Amendment isn’t a litmus test. It is THE litmus test.
Precisely.
Responding both to the question of litmus tests and diemos’ comment above reflecting Party platforms in the large, there is an observation which is coming to the fore in various journals. The point arises as a question: “Can fiscal conservatism ever again become the mainstream of Republican primaries and the platform of the convention?” The status quo for four elections has been social conservatism tied to the Rovian pandering to the religious fundamentalists. In the current election season Romney represents, if any candidate, the opportunity to reconstruct a Republican core and platform centered on fiscal conservatism, the economic well-being of the country, and the liberty of the citizens. In brief, I would suggest that there is a pivot around which both parties must be judged, and that is fundamental liberty to create families, businesses, and communities unburdened by the whimsical tastes of momentary majorities. Without these we become just another second-rate also-ran in the history of nations. The fundamental freedoms that define our citizenship are those of the Bill of Rights, of which none is redundant or antiquated. Citizens diverge in the priority they place on a robust economy and defense versus safety nets and transfer payments. The central pivot from which neither party must come unhinged is liberty insured by the rights regained from a tyranny we shed long ago through force of arms. Neither party should be proud if it substitutes a despotism of its own morality, left or right, for the liberty of citizens or the economic health of the nation. If the Republicans wish to defend liberty and nurture the prosperity of the nation, they must keep those issues foremost, neither subject to nor pandering for any particularist religious doctrines, which doctrines and religion only liberty itself protects from an adverse majority.
Right on!! …And good luck.
Well said! You need to run for office, because I feel an urge to move there and vote for you :).
I’ll have to move ‘there’ too, ’cause I ain’t gonna get many votes in my township.
I disagree. I also want Amendments 1, 3-10, 13-15, and probably a few of the others I don’t want to bother to look up right now.
In short, I want all the rights the Founding Fathers intended free citizens of this country to have. I don’t want to live in some police state because we’re all too afraid of some guys living in a cave somewhere to actually live up to ideals they set for us.
I’m sure they’d be disgusted with us. Here we are, the most powerful nation on earth, with a military unmatched in the world, and yet we’re willing to trade away our freedoms because we’re scared, freedoms they gave us when they were a small country clinging to the coast of a continent they didn’t control, facing seas held by the empire they just barely fought off, and trying to hold together a new nation.
Well put, I couldn’t agree more. The problem is, there isn’t always a consistent libertarian to vote for — so I can understand the logic of being a single-issue voter.
I’ve always been registered to vote as an independent because I thought that both parties were highly suspect. I’ve voted for candidates from both parties, but I’ll be damned if I will ever again vote for any candidate who belongs to a party that holds as part of it’s official dogma that I have no right to self-defense.
The Republicans are still suspect, but the Democrats are out in the open now. They hate me, and I hate them. So be it.
I agree completely that they are both suspect. I believe that they are largely interchangeable, save for a very few key issues, many of which affect a minority of citizens. The Second Amendment affects every single citizen, and is near the top of every politician’s list. It has become my key issue.
Excellent summary; that’s exactly how I feel!
Todd
And so it goes….. Vonnegut.
“The Republicans are still suspect, but the Democrats are out in the open now. They hate me, and I hate them. So be it.” The D’s have been out in the open since FDR. Yes, they don’t understand us and care little for the Constitution or the Founding Principles or Rationality. There are none so blind as those who will not see.
I don’t see too many republicans who uphold ALL of the rights guaranteed by the Constitution. The are all in on 2A, but then get rather curmudgeonly when it comes to a woman’s right to chose, gays rights to be different, freedom of religion, freedom from unreasonable search and seizure, and during the Bush II administration, their rah rah patriotic fervor threatened the fundamental first amendment freedom to disagree. The Patriot Act was to me far more destructive to our basic rights as citizens and a threat to our political way of life than anything else that has been done in the last 40 years. And both parties are complicit. That’s why I am an independent–I don’t trust either party not to identify with the 1% more interested in ruling the hoi poloi than in protecting our democracy.
Well Said Ralph.
Personally I think prostitutes have more credability than politicians. With a prostitute you know right up front that they are gonna screw you and take your money. Politicians claim to be your friend and shake your hand before doing the same thing.
I think prostitutes have more credability than politicians.
True, and they’re cheaper, too.
And they don’t stick around for four years.
I am less than thrilled with the Democommunists, but the Republinazis hose you just as well. The War on Terror and the Patriot Act come to mind. Reagan outlawed new auto weapons for civilians. Romney hosed the pro- gun public in Taxachuestts.
I still favor the Libertarians, but it seems not many share my view.
AT THE CLOSE OF THE CONSTITUTIONAL CONVENTION, a woman asked Benjamin Franklin what type of government the Constitution was bringing into existence. Franklin replied, “A republic, if you can keep it.”
All true, Tom. The difference is that screwing us is the Democratic Party platform.
The Republicans have been pushing just as hard for the police state. They’re both complicit. If they thought they could get the votes that way, the Republicans would sell out the Second Amendment in a heartbeat.
+1
In fact, it was Reagan who, while governor of California, signed the bill outlawing the open carrying of loaded weapons. And it was Governor Schwarzanegger who signed the bill outlawing the .50 cal and the law requiring ID and a fingerprint to buy ammo (since declared unconstituional).
Reagan did it to keep the Black Panthers from legally resisting police oppression. Carlos is better informed about this history than I am.
It’s sad the Dems don’t realize how vehemently racist the grabber policies they support are.
Too true. Like was mentioned above, the gun control ball really got rolling in California because those scary black people got guns.
Another fact: the KKK started out as a gun control movement. A lot of the free blacks returning to the South after the Civil War brought back their rifles. This was intolerable to the whites because if the blacks remained armed, they couldn’t be kept down and the whites wouldn’t be able to keep their dominance.
Therefore, many of the early KKK raids were gun confiscation raids (as well as lynchings, of course), to get as many of those rifles out of the hands of blacks as they could.
I don’t have the luxury of getting to vote on a single platform. I’m young, just married, and seriously worried about my family’s economic future. Neither party has it right. If I just voted for Republicans based on guns, I’d be doing a disservice to this country. The 2nd Amendment is under significantly less threat than other elements of our Constitution.
Republicans will ban guns if they see enough folks outside of their base carrying them legally. Look how quickly Reagan took them away in California when black people started open carrying.
Democrats are the party of control, they want to control every thing we think and every thing we do. Any vote for a democrat is a disservice to the country.
“Romney hosed the pro- gun public in Taxachuestts.”
I assume you’re referring to the “AWB” bill Romney signed around 2004…
From what I have seen from the pro-gun groups in MA is that said legislation was to amend the ALREADY ENACTED MA AWB to include the soon-to-expire Federal exemptions that would otherwise expire for MA residents as well.
If this is indeed accurate (and it seems to be), then it wasn’t so much a bill to *restrict* what could legally be owned by Citizens of the Commonwealth of MA, rather it was the only politically viable means of preventing already enacted restrictions from tightening by virtue of inaction.
“These guns are not made for recreation or self-defense. They are instruments of destruction with the sole purpose of hunting down and killing people.”
Mitt Romney on so-called “assault weapons.”
They guy’s a total POS. If it’s Romney vs. Obama, I’ll do one of those famous Supreme Court balancing tests, hold my nose and pull the Republican lever. If it’s Santorum vs. Obama, I’ll just sit this one out.
The parties themselves, in the abstract, are actually far from interchangeable. They stand for diametrically opposed approaches towards the goal of making our society a better place for all.
One party positions itself as the loving, concerned, give-the-poor-guy-a-hand party of compassion. The other party has historically presented a more austere, forbidding, almost Calvinistic face. The “nice” party favors an approach that involves an ever-increasing “sharing” of all wealth in order to raise up the lower 75% to the level of the top 25%, while the “Calvinistic” party favors an approach that leads to a more robust and healthy economy which translates into more and better-paying jobs for people who are un-or-under-employed, so that everyone has the opportunity to work and contribute to the common good and share in the rewards.
Obviously, it’s easier to convince a relatively uninformed electorate that the “nice” party is more concerned with them than are those cold supply-siders. A very superficial understanding of how an economy of a country works allows an increasingly-more-uninformed electorate to believe they’ll do better with the “nice” people in charge than with those meanies who don’t want to share. Because of this, we’ve seen that those people from the “mean” party who get elected are the ones who decide that the “nice” approach attracts more votes, leaving us with a situation in which , whenever the “meanies” somehow get to be in charge, they act more and more like the “nice” party. It’s more fun to be popular.
Sadly, though, the system of sharing that is pursued by the “nice” politicians works, at most, for a few years, and then the economy trashes, because the really smart and ambitious people who are needed to start and run profitable businesses (and thus provide jobs) get tired of working harder and getting less, and of being demonized because of their ability. They pull out of the starting and the running of businesses, leaving the country’s businesses being run by people who don’t have the ability or the ambition to do it right.
And then the very people who thought that the “nice” approach would make their lives better – the poorer people, with the fewest in-demand skills or work habits – end up suffering the most, while the better-off people live off of their savings until the economy can be started up again.
That’s why we’re creating hardly any jobs now – the people who can create those jobs (NOT the politicians – politicians cannot create productive jobs) are sitting this current economy out. Companies, and business owners, have lots of cash in the banks, but they’re not gonna bring it out and risk it just to have most of it confiscated, and be called “selfish” on top of that.
But any politician who publicly pushes for the less “nice” approach knows that s/he’s going to be the object of pure hatred, because the “nice” politicians are going to present him/her that way – even though the less “nice” approach leads to more jobs and a higher standard of living for everyone.
We just need more people willing to ignore that hatred so that people will eventually see that they’re being conned into hating the philosophy that will eventually help them and not drive them into worse straits.
But, frankly, who wants to take that kind of crap, especially when the worst of the crap will come from the very people who would be most helped by the “mean” approach and whose lives end up the most trashed by the “nice” approach?
So, you end up with pols from both sides who try to make everyone love them, and then the parties look interchangeable, like they do now. And poverty increases, and life gets harder for everyone, while the “nice” politicians try to convince everyone that it’s more noble to have a more primitive life with less heat, fewer cars, smaller homes, and longer work hours. Sometimes they go so irrationally far as to claim that healthy economies mean we’re wrecking our entire planet, that we need to learn to live simpler, more primitive, less comfortable lives because we’re not worth wrecking the earth.
But they still fly everywhere, buy huge houses, drive expensive cars, and do whatever it takes to be comfortable and happy.
So, even if you’re just gonna bitch about how they all suck equally, you’ll do yourself a favor if you educate yourself a bit, and then vote based on that.
Milton Friedman is a long way from God. You’re supposition that “job creators” will just stay home if taxes get a bit higher is ridiculous. People will do whatever makes the most money. The super wealthy in this country pay a far lower tax rate than you do. Mit Romney is around 15%, not counting his off-shore evasion. Job Creators are us. Labor precedes capital. Much as you might like to suck up to the Man, the work of us plebes matters more.
Romney pays 15% on most of his income because it comes from capital gains. Increasing capital gains, though it may seem “fair” to you, decreases total government revenue from capital gains tax. That is because, unlike your assumption (“You’re supposition that “job creators” will just stay home if taxes get a bit higher is ridiculous. People will do whatever makes the most money.”), reality is that people do respond when the government increases taxes. They invest less, trade less, and shelter their money in lower tax, and less productive, uses.
What? Republicans like what you describe are losing out to the religious fundamentalists… they’ll happily redistribute wealth if its under the guise of Jesus and if it goes to their constituents.
http://www.johntreed.com/AmericansareMarxists.html
I’m on my phone so I cannot link the information but the NRA has been busy in Oklahoma this new session of Congress. And a number Of Dems voted to support a number of gun bills as they passed through our panels. This included OC, suppressors for hunting, castle doctrine in church and some others. Not all dens are bad, just some.
Both parties have shown themselves quite willing to run roughshod over the Constitution – the executive overreach begun in the Bush administration after 9-11 has only gotten worse under Obama. I’m a registered Democrat, so I can have some kind of voice in the primaries, but I have little use for the institutional party. I do badger my various representatives about any number of issues, including 2A issues. Got all those f*%kers on speed dial.
Interestingly, my non-scientific impression of my comrades on the far left (I don’t mean NPR-listening Volvo drivers, I mean the actual far left – socialists, anarchists, occupiers, and any number of lefty populists) are quite friendly toward the 2nd Amendment. It’s the “mainstream” nanny state center-left that wants “common senses” gun control. And though they don’t say it out loud in public, I think a lot of country club Republicans feel much the same way – they don’t want an armed unwashed, especially one with too much melanin.
You make some good points, Ralph, and your assessment of the national Democratic Party platform is correct, but I think Romney, if he gets elected, is going to bite you in the ass. From a pragmatic standpoint, Romney, as he tries to gain centrist “common sense” cred, is more of a danger to 2A than Obama. You know the man is a shape-shifter from Planet Politician, just like Obama. The Repubs will likely keep the House, so Obama won’t have any leverage to do much damage.
Romney is an unprincipled opportunist. He’ll go whichever way the wind blows, and right now the wind is at the Second Amendment’s back.
When I was young and probably even more foolish than I now am; I was a Democrat. Although always a hunter, the lure of safer streets and the promise that gun control wasn’t about hunting allowed me to vote for many a Liberal Democrat. Safety for freedom is a tempting, although I now believe unwise, compromise. However, the CCW movement has clearly demonstrated that more guns in the hands of more law abiding citizens reduces crime. How anyone, now that the data is piling up, can be against the right of the people to keep and bear arms escapes me. There must be some stupid gene that makes obviously untrue cliches trump clear facts. “This will turn (insert the city or state here) into the Old West”, over and over, and yet the CCW bills pass and every time crime goes down. None are so blind as those who refuse to see, unless it is Rahm Emanuel.
Actually, they ARE right when they say that it will make modern jurisdictions resemble the “wild west.”
They just don’t bother to tell you that the “wild west” had statistically low murder rates…
http://www.examiner.com/gun-rights-in-minneapolis/dispelling-the-myth-of-the-wild-west
Yep. A woman could walk through a mining town in Nevada unmolested, and a few deaths were counted as a bid deal in the famous “Shoot out at the OK corral.” That wouldn’t count for much in any ghetto today. (The Comanches…that’s a different story.)
Again, TTAG servers were overwhelmed by the insightfulnessitude of my comment, and it has vanished.
We regret our loss. Post it again.
” . . . and it has vanished.”
Naw. Mine was just way too big, and it ate yours.
It’s probably stuck in the purgatory of SPAM filters and will show up in an hour. I’ve had that happen a couple of times.
If I were really on top of things, I would paste my comments from a text editor. Alas. Spam filter? I didn’t put VIAGRA in all-caps in there five times or anything.
Try using v1agra 🙂
Even my response to this vanished, thought it was there before. Whiskey Tango Foxtrot?
Some Democrats, such as Senator John Tester support the Second Amendment. Harry Reid is also pretty good about it. Most don’t, however.
Some Republicans don’t. Keep in mind that before Bloomberg started switching parties whenever it was convenient, he was a Republican. Brady and Helmke were as well. I would actually say that the NRA made a mistake in endorsing McDonnell for VA governor in 2009. Both he and Deeds are good about it, but I’d say that Deeds is a little bit better.
I would love it if the 2A was truely “THE LITMUS TEST”, but we have all seen over the years that most states and even our so called HIGH COURTS have no respect or understanding of the 2A. The 2A is just a useless idea dreamed up by some silly old men to these MORONS, and we’ll never change their minds so we need to vote them all out. We need to get rid of(vote out) all these no good 2A hating COMMIES and then we can enjoy our guns in peace.
Lotsa all caps. Please tell me who these “Commies” are, and provide evidence. It’s one thing to use the term as an expletive, but the closest thing we’ve got to a commie in national office is Bernie Sanders, an avowed Democratic Socialist, and his 2A record ain’t bad. If you can’t provide facts that show that these people you decry do in fact support a Communist economic order, you’re just making all of us 2A supporters look ignorant. Basically, you’re yelling.
“Please tell me who these “Commies” are, and provide evidence.”
I don’t think we have enough space here to list just the ones who have openly supported socialism, let alone the closeted socialists. That list starts all the way at the top and works down.
You make an excellent point NCG because I tend to get a bit carried away. I know that they’re really not COMMIES but they’re close enough. They’re all socialist scum at the very least so the term COMMIE fits in my book.
Well, I do have some socialist leanings, so I reckon I’m scum. I’m certainly no advocate of state run planned economies, but a lot of great things have been accomplished through collective effort. And the Fire Department is pretty cool.
Rahm Emanuel is as much an enemy of the United States as Al Qaeda.
He is utter scum.
He does have horns if you look at him from just the right angle. Seriously, I doubt we agree about much, but R.E. is scum. Corporatist tool all the way.
Don’t they ever get tired of that idiotic Wild West argument? Clearly they watched too much TV, because Dodge City was never like Gunsmoke. Would that Washington DC or Detroit be as dangerous as Dodge City on a Saturday night.
They tried the same argument here in Tennessee when our Restaurant Carry Statute was passed. There was lots and lots of hand-wringing by the gun haters over the potential for “shootouts in bars” and “blood in the streets”, none of which has ever come to pass in the two years it has been law.
Seriously, I don’t know if Ralph is for real, or just some alter-ego of Mr. Farago. Dude spouts off shit like my crazy uncle at Thanksgiving.
Reading the diverse opinions here and the multilevel critiques of our government, I am reminded of a quote attributted to Winston Churchill, “Democracy is the worst form of government on earth, except for all the others”. I am grateful that I live in a country where we are free to be able to discuss all of the above posts with out fear of imprisonment, or worse.
My fear is that this is a temporary condition. We’re living troubling times, and I don’t like the direction things seem to be headed.
Just as most republicans do not share crazy extremist views publicly stated by crazy extremist republican politicians, all Dems do not support crazy extremist views publicly stated by crazy extremist Democratic politicians.
The hyper-polarized narrative is being foisted on our culture in what is easily the largest propaganda campaign in human history, perpetrated by both liberal and conservative media and politicians (who all have vested monetary interests). I think this is because hyper-polarization makes better and more lucrative TV than the moderate reality of this country and a sense of perpetual grand conflict primes people for easier manipulation by the presumed members of their “side”.
In my local government I have discovered that while having many democratic views, I also share views on a lot of issues with republicans, libertarians, “occupy kids” and “tea partiers”. I have a lot of views. Those who abuse power in politics don’t care what party you are, you are just the mark.
-D
Ah, yes, the wild west. Where in the most dangerous town in its most dangerous year (Tombstone, Arizona, 1881) there were only about 3 people killed ( Shootout at the O.K. Corral)
Every other old west town averaged 1.5 murders a year, and not all of them were shooting.
Of course, the frontier towns talked up their reputation so they would seem more interesting. And yet factually, Tombstone in 1881 was far safer than Baltimore in 2008.
In that case, wouldn’t the wild west be much better? Less crime and less dead. All because everyone was armed, and because pistols then couldn’t really hit much.
http://www.cracked.com/article_18487_6-ridiculous-history-myths-you-probably-think-are-true.html
Old Armenian saying, “Those who want to take your gun, want to take your life.”
Who, exactly, do the Dems want to kill?
Your not scum NCG and I tend to say stupid $hit because I have a weird sense of humor that often pisses people off. I’ve read a lot of your posts and you’re pretty reasonable, and if you read mine you’ll quickly learn that I’m not. I don’t even know what a real COMMIE is and I label all gun grabbers and haters as no good COMMIES. Even though I make fun of socialists, I believe that our country is growing closer to socialism that anything else.