Another blogger on the left wonders why Democrats champion firearm prohibition

[headednorth]

I get that you don't want leftists to be armed, but assume you see the problem in forcibly preventing them from being armed provided they haven't committed a crime of any kind and are free Americans in a free society...

I don't see a way to realistically separate people by ideology and prevent them from possessing weapons tbh. I'd rather throw their rhetoric from the last 50 years or so back in their faces and make them live by the code they have chosen.

 

[FiremanBob]

There are important differences in the meanings of "left" and "right" as applied to different nations and different times. The Whigs were not "Leftist" in the sense of today's Left in the US and Europe. Merely being against monarchy does not qualify one as a champion of freedom. Nor does it mean that one is a Leninist "fighter for the proletariat." For example, in the Spanish Civil War you had Communists on the Left and Monarchist/Fascists on the right. Neither side fought for freedom or liberty in the American sense.

Today the American Left is much the same as the European Left (applies to Australia and New Zealand, too). They are Communists every bit as extreme as Lenin's Soviets or The Party of Orwell's 1984, but with much more sophisticated PR and propaganda.

The proper way to distinguish Left and Right on a continuum in modern America is this: The Left wants greater government control over individuals groups in society, and the Right wants less government control. Anarchists would be on the extreme Right. Our Founders would be about 20% between that extreme and the center.

Another aspect of self-governing society that is ignored by many in today's debate is the role of non-governmental institutions in maintaining the civilized nature of society, whether as arbiters of morally acceptable behavior (the church), providers of charity to those who could not support themselves (often the church but other organizations as well) and maintainers of professional standards (guilds, universities, and professional associations). The Left today needs to destroy all of these competitors to its exclusive claim to power. In addition to those, the fact that we did not have TV or other electronic entertainment meant that people were forced to participate in their local societies for their mental and physical recreation, and therefore could not afford to be odious to their neighbors.

 

[slap shot]

Hey guys! I'm the author of this article. Hit me if you have any questions, suggestions, or so on.

Are you really a blogger on left like the thread title suggests?

 

[Deleted member 67409]

There are important differences in the meanings of "left" and "right" as applied to different nations and different times. The Whigs were not "Leftist" in the sense of today's Left in the US and Europe. Merely being against monarchy does not qualify one as a champion of freedom. Nor does it mean that one is a Leninist "fighter for the proletariat." For example, in the Spanish Civil War you had Communists on the Left and Monarchist/Fascists on the right. Neither side fought for freedom or liberty in the American sense...

"The left" and "the right" exist as modern synonyms of "liberal" and "conservative." The words aren't perfectly synonymous. Indeed, any application of the words "left" and "right" to a context before the French Revolution is technically anachornistic because left and right refer to seating positions in the National Assembly.

Liberalism changed once it got away from classical liberalism, the liberalism of the Founders and the Whigs, and moved towards socialism and communism beginning with Marx, Lenin, and Mao. The modern left, the "Progressive Left", is if anything Maoist in its operation and ideology. That being said, the RKBA does not and should not only apply to people who we perceive to be our friends, assuming we all agree on basic principles of natural law.

 

[VetteGirlMA]

Liberals and conservatives both know that solving a problem means that they are no longer necessary. Suppose someone invents the "George Jetson meal in a pill" tomorrow that will end world hunger. Even with free Jetson food pills there will still be a war on hunger. It cannot by definition end because many people, the political class, lobbyists, special interest groups entire careers are based on not solving that problem until after they comfortably retire from their cushy jobs. The next director will have no interest in solving the problem because they also want to retire from the same cushy job. So whatever "war on something" that is being promoted today or tomorrow will still be around after 100 years if not more because solving it make the political class obsolete. The problems must exist ad infinitum if they are to remain in power and continue their rulership over us.

 

[milktree]

There are important differences in the meanings of "left" and "right" as applied to different nations and different times. The Whigs were not "Leftist" in the sense of today's Left in the US and Europe. Merely being against monarchy does not qualify one as a champion of freedom. Nor does it mean that one is a Leninist "fighter for the proletariat." For example, in the Spanish Civil War you had Communists on the Left and Monarchist/Fascists on the right. Neither side fought for freedom or liberty in the American sense.

good so far.

Today the American Left is much the same as the European Left (applies to Australia and New Zealand, too). They are Communists every bit as extreme as Lenin's Soviets or The Party of Orwell's 1984, but with much more sophisticated PR and propaganda.

er... communists like Lenin? um...

The proper way to distinguish Left and Right on a continuum in modern America is this: The Left wants greater government control over individuals groups in society, and the Right wants less government control. Anarchists would be on the extreme Right.

Wat?

The "left" and "right (as exemplified by the democrats and republicans) *both* want greater control over individuals, just about different stuff.

The Libertarians (we need a second axis) seem like the only ones who really care about individual freedoms and liberties.

 

[VetteGirlMA]

Hey guys! I'm the author of this article. Hit me if you have any questions, suggestions, or so on.

Hey edgy college liberal how come you don't have the guts to let my comment go through on your blog?

 

[Whutmeworry]

Hey edgy college liberal how come you don't have the guts to let my comment go through on your blog?

Were you trying to post the same comment on his blog that you posted above? If so, I would think it's relatively mild and non-threatening even compared to a lot of other non-PC language I've seen libs have meltdowns over lately...

 

[Whutmeworry]

I also think your comment is spot-on BTW.

 

[VetteGirlMA]

I also think your comment is spot-on BTW.

My comment on his blog probably blew his mind because I know quite a few lgbt people in MA that are gun owners and honestly hate liberals. But by blocking comments from me only proves the point that edgy college liberals (his words not mine) want to live inside their little echo chambers and hear zero dissent. There is no honest debate. It can’t happen.

 

[timbo]

One of the biggest longstanding fears in the minds of many Englishmen was the creation of a standing army that answered to the monarch. Why? With a standing (professional) army, the king could put down any revolt without needing Parliament's OK or the nobility's support. In the lead-up to the English Civil War, the Glorious Revolution, and the American Revolution, the British Crown attempted to disarm both private citizens and militias in order to have more political control over the populace in preparation for increased centralization of power in the hands of the state.

It honestly is a shame that Americans know close to zilch about English constitutional history because its our history too. Up until 1775, it's our history and legal tradition.

Guilty as charged...while I know a fair amount of American History, most of it is post Revolutionary War. I will need to do some more in depth reading on English history, at least history 100 or so years before the Revolution. Thanks for the history lesson/s.

 

[timbo]

Interesting. As self proclaimed liberals go you might not be so bad.

Well, there are "classic" liberals and "progressive" liberals. There is a world of difference between the two.

 

[Deleted member 67409]

Guilty as charged...while I know a fair amount of American History, most of it is post Revolutionary War. I will need to do some more in depth reading on English history, at least history 100 or so years before the Revolution. Thanks for the history lesson/s.

Focus on:

*The Norman Invasion of England in 1066
*The Angevin Empire and Magna Carta
*The Reformation (Henry VIII and Elizabeth I)
*Kings James I, Charles I, Charles II, and James II
*The English Civil War
*The Glorious Revolution

If you're conversant in those areas, you'll understand the Colonial Era and the Founding generation better. There's also the Enlightenment, specifically the Scottish Enlightenment, which I need to improve my knowledge of.

 

[timbo]

Focus on:

*The Norman Invasion of England in 1066
*The Angevin Empire and Magna Carta
*The Reformation (Henry VIII and Elizabeth I)
*Kings James I, Charles I, Charles II, and James II
*The English Civil War
*The Glorious Revolution

If you're conversant in those areas, you'll understand the Colonial Era and the Founding generation better. There's also the Enlightenment, specifically the Scottish Enlightenment, which I need to improve my knowledge of.

Thank you! Since High School, I have been reading about and studying the French Revolution...That is where much of our progressive/liberal thought comes from. Damned Robespierre.

 

[AHM]

The Great Contradiction: Why American Liberals Ought to Oppose Gun Control

... if you are defending and supporting somebody, you don’t remove their ability to defend themselves

The article's false premise is that liberal leaders are interested in
defending and supporting the poor and downtrodden.

The reality is that liberal leaders are interested in eternal power,
and their method is gleaning votes from the poor and downtrodden.

(Cue @VetteGirlMA's point about how pols can't keep vampirically
sucking the votes from constituents if they actually solved their problems).

I get that you don't want leftists to be armed, but assume you see the problem in forcibly preventing them from being armed provided they haven't committed a crime of any kind and are free Americans in a free society...

@headednorth didn't say a thing about
"forcibly preventing (liberals) from being armed".

He correctly divined that the masses of the Left have self-disarmed
by sucking for the hoplophobe blather spread by
the Community Leaders standing atop their windpipes.

Luckily the tacticool-drilling Antifas are only an iota of all the liberals.

I don't see any reason to encourage liberals to arm themselves if
they're going to continue their grasp for power.

I do have confidence that the average left-voting Little Person
would have a Damascus Roadside Moment
if they actually had to surmount the barriers to legal gun ownership.

But obsessing over strawmen threats to liberal gun owners
is like worrying about where one would find enough ant poison
to arm a populace that objectively embraces their insect overlords.

I don't see a way to realistically separate people by ideology and prevent them from possessing weapons tbh. I'd rather throw their rhetoric from the last 50 years or so back in their faces and make them live by the code they have chosen.

You don't even have to troll the snowflakes
that it would be hypocritical for them to be armed.

They're staying good and helpless without any encouragement from us.

 

[Spanz]

It's not a hard concept to grasp.
You can't successfully suspend the constitution and declare yourself supreme ruler when a large portion of the population is armed.
Look at people like Hillary and Maura Healy .
They don't consider themselves public servants.
They consider themselves your rulers.

i really DO think that this is the underlying issue for dems....all their tricks to subvert the constitution would dissolve in the face of a justified armed citizen revolt.

 

[VetteGirlMA]

The article's false premise is that liberal leaders are interested in
defending and supporting the poor and downtrodden.

The reality is that liberal leaders are interested in eternal power,
and their method is gleaning votes from the poor and downtrodden.

(Cue @VetteGirlMA's point about how pols can't keep vampirically
sucking the votes from constituents if they actually solved their problems).


They're staying good and helpless without any encouragement from us.

The way I see it is that there are some things that are far more important than any social justice cause, and the ability to keep breathing air and continue to exist on planet Earth is eclipsed by whatever social justice tapestry that the left is knitting in the basement. When a person is facing a life or death scenario kind words are not going to cut it. Too many people heroically gave their lives for kind words and have nothing to show for it except as a footnote in history. At the end of the day, the gun is power. How the power is used is up to the individual. However as a species we have a long history replete with abuse of power. We don't even have to look far into the past or even far away. It will be many hundreds of thousands of years before we can call our selves noble and good. As near as I can tell humans have still evolved little from chimps flinging dung at each other, fighting over bananas and screaming at the moon. In those intervening millenia I want the philosophy of the individual empowered to do whatever they want to do and pursue whatever path they want, with force if necessary to win out. Defending and preserving that notion of maximum is worth defending for future generations but they will need the tools to say "No more".

Like it or not we are a society of individuals where individual people are held accountable for their misdeeds. Likewise people are individually responsible for their own safety otherwise the only alternative is going to be an all powerful police state. If we ever hit that I hate to tell that 'edgy college liberal' that no matter which way the pendulum swung, an authoritarian left wing state or a right wing theocracy, he would be just as likely to get pushed into the oven by his own friends as a perceived political enemy. Plenty of jews still died while waving their medals for valor and bravery earned in WW1 at the SS guards saying how could you do this to me, I'm a hero. It didn't matter. What stopped the slaughter were guns and people trained to use them.

Sometimes I wonder how the left can be so utterly short sighted to miss this obvious lesson from history.

 

[VetteGirlMA]

i really DO think that this is the underlying issue for dems....all their tricks to subvert the constitution would dissolve in the face of a justified armed citizen revolt.

On the other hand, remember the civil disobedience in Oregon when tens of thousands of people did the open carry rally? Marching with their ARs and AKs? Well I've actually had left wingers actually say to me "you know the cops should just shoot everyone" or "they should call in the army and kill them all". I'm dead serious. Now the question becomes if I know someone wants to commit mass murder then why in the hell would I ever want that person near the levers of power?

 

[Brewer]

Sometimes I wonder how the left can be so utterly short sighted to miss this obvious lesson from history.

You can't learn what you've never heard. All of human knowledge is accessible in most people's pockets, but for every megabyte of history and wisdom there's a gigabyte of selfies and cat videos.

 

[H-minus]

You can't learn what you've never heard. All of human knowledge is accessible in most people's pockets, but for every megabyte of history and wisdom there's a gigabyte of selfies and cat videos.

Moreover, you can't learn what youve been mistaught by the left wing educational system.

Just last week my 11 year old was learning about the the executive branch of govt. and brought home a packet on presidential impeachment. The packet stated that only two presidents had ever been impeached: Andrew Johnson and Richard Nixon. I was stunned at the blatant lie. I wrote a letter to his teacher that if she isnt going to teach the fact that Johnson and Clinton were the only impeached presidents, the next letter I would write would be to the school board asking for her job.

I'm still waiting for her reply.

 

[Brewer]

Moreover, you can't learn what youve been mistaught by the left wing educational system.

Just last week my 11 year old was learning about the the executive branch of govt. and brought home a packet on presidential impeachment. The packet stated that only two presidents had ever been impeached: Andrew Johnson and Richard Nixon. I was stunned at the blatant lie. I wrote a letter to his teacher that if she isnt going to teach the fact that Johnson and Clinton were the only impeached presidents, the next letter I would write would be to the school board asking for her job.

I'm still waiting for her reply.

Seriously? Wikipedia could have told that teacher Johnson and Clinton were the only two impeached and Nixon resigned before impeachment. Could be a mistake or deliberate misleading, but either is blatant enough to warrant writing the school board. Be persistent and document everything.

 

[Whutmeworry]

Moreover, you can't learn what youve been mistaught by the left wing educational system.

Just last week my 11 year old was learning about the the executive branch of govt. and brought home a packet on presidential impeachment. The packet stated that only two presidents had ever been impeached: Andrew Johnson and Richard Nixon. I was stunned at the blatant lie. I wrote a letter to his teacher that if she isnt going to teach the fact that Johnson and Clinton were the only impeached presidents, the next letter I would write would be to the school board asking for her job.

I'm still waiting for her reply.

Don’t wait for an answer. Write to the school board. Encourage other like-minded parents to do the same. When the school board ignores your letter, SHOW UP at the next meeting with those other like-minded parents and voice your displeasure. They can’t ignore you when you’re in their face.

 

[AHM]

All of human knowledge is accessible in most people's pockets, but for every megabyte of history and wisdom there's a gigabyte of selfies and cat videos.

Checking...it's a fair cop:
Documents/text/Culture_Media: 21.5MB
Pictures/art/Animals/Cats: 100.5MB

 

[strangenh]

Checking...it's a fair cop:
Documents/text/Culture_Media: 21.5MB
Pictures/art/Animals/Cats: 100.5MB

Yes, but your data is anecdotal.

 

[AHM]

Yes, but your data is anecdotal.

No, I keep that stuff in another directory tree.