gulliver
gulliver's JournalYour post is complete nonsense.
You seem to have heard someone make an argument that "passing stringent anti-firearm laws will persuade the law breakers to turn in their weapons" and that there are serious (non-fringe) calls for "abolishing the 2nd amendment." By itself this says that your bullshit and reality detectors are miscalibrated...or you think ours are.
You confuse yourself by not separating normal gun owners from the flakes who have assault weapons and high-capacity magazines. You seem to believe these J. Random Numbskulls, law-abiding though they may be, actually counterbalance violent criminals in some meaningful way. But be serious. How can anyone possibly believe that? I'll need links to your fact base I'm afraid, because I can't remember a single case where any of these weapon flake bozos ever did anything but harm. School me though. Show me a weapon flake hero law enforcement benefit statistic.
Then where do you get the notion that the responsible citizens (gun owners and not) who don't own nut-level flake weapons are somehow "disarmed?" Far from it. Some of us have normal gun owner type guns. Some of us have dogs. But nearly all of us are protected by trained, well-armed professional police, and the country itself is protected by invincible levels of trained military forces. Your flake "good guys with guns" just get in the way. Your flakes make things worse. Your flakes actually create threats.
Say my house gets burglarized. I come home and find the door kicked in. Do you think I want my wide-eyed, sweaty neighbor from across the street to come running over with his AR-15 to shoot my cat (and probably himself and me)? Nope. I don't need your good guy. I'll take a cop, thanks.
Law-abiding flakes with ultra-powerful weapons and/or stockpiles of ammo are not "good guys." Law-abiding, permit-packing flakes who carry concealed weapons but face no realistic threats are not "good guys." They are just sad flakes ranging from eccentric to sick, and their hobby rates no protection whatsoever. The country is sick of them and, laws or not, it won't be long before these types can't get jobs or keep friends any more. Justifiably so and high time. It's just not funny any more.
I have no doubt that most are generally good people with a touch of eccentricity who don't see the connection between a burgeoning super-gun industry and a society choking on gun pollution. They don't see themselves as pathetic, knot-headed, or touched, but that is what they really are in real reality. And other people do know.
Your baseless assertion that gun flakes are good guys holds no water. They actually range from annoying nobodies to monsters and (intentional or through incompetence) monster weapon-suppliers. That being the case, and since you admit that these "good guys" are law-abiding, why not pass laws? Strangle the "soldier-of-fortune" assault weapon industry with laws. Industry obeys laws. Gun stores obey laws. Even gun shows obey laws. Pass the laws.
Then, for good measure, ostracize, expose, divorce, abandon, fire, and expel the people who continue to hold these weapons, regardless of their legality. You like assault weapons; we don't like you. Get a job somewhere else. That is the way it is heading, and that is a good thing. The last thing we need is for these poor weirdos to think the government is the only one "oppressing" them. They need to know that people no longer like or respect them. They aren't cool. They can shove their assault weapons.
Hunters, target shooters, and those who have legitimate self-defense concerns would actually gain respect if they didn't have soldier/cop wannabes, macho poseurs, fad-boys, and fetishists screwing things up for everyone. Wayne LaPierre can get a new job representing just the weirdos. He's a perfect fit.
Any grandfathered or hidden banned weapons that remain will be harder and harder for criminals to get as time goes by. And the warped monsters won't be able to get them from Walmart or on-line with a few mouse-clicks any more. While we can't make all of those weapons disappear overnight, I'll bet we can quickly make them much harder to get, much riskier, far less cool, and through scarcity, much, much more expensive.
Tolerance of "weapon flakes" is coming to an end.
The big turning point I see is that more and more people are starting to get a simple fact: people who possess assault weapons or carry concealed weapons are nearly always flakes. The cool factor is evaporating. Owning an AR-15, for example, or carrying a concealed weapon now means you and your family deserve to be suspected and shunned. If employers find out about it, you and your family deserve to be unemployed. You deserve to be divorced by your spouse. You deserve to have your children disown you. You deserve to be kicked out of your parents' house.
That's gun control.
People who own these weapons, these high-capacity magazines, this "special" ammunition...you are starting to be viewed more and more like the people who have kiddie porn. No one is buying your "defense of freedom" bullshit any more. No one thinks you are cool.
What about outing people who have flake weapons?
What if there were a place you could go to simply post the full name and other information about people with flake weapons, weapons caches, and so forth? Then employers could search for the names of prospective employees and rule out the ones who might be weapon flakes. Parents could find out if their kids were going to a home with a weapon flake in it. It might even help law enforcement identify criminals.
I'm thinking most of these people with AR-15s and AKs wouldn't want everyone to know about it. The impracticality of it would outweigh the cool pretty fast.
Here you go, Julian Assange.
Maybe it's just Republican-run businesses that have trouble competing
My father-in-law used to talk about Germany, and he would say that the attitude of people there is: "This is the way business is done here. If you can't work with that, then don't go into business."
I've been thinking about that more and more lately. Every time I hear a Republican complain about how we have to change our country (or state, or city) to make it business friendly, I think about it. Maybe these complainers are people who shouldn't be in business in the first place. Maybe it's good for them to go out of business.
Why don't we turn the tables on the complainers and ask them why they need the bar lowered to succeed? Maybe they just aren't cut out for their jobs. We shouldn't be propping them up by giving them tax breaks, lowering our pollution standards, and giving them special treatment.
Republican business people (not all of them, just the whiners) should be allowed to fail on their own lack of merit. The country should not give them any breaks at all, no matter how much they beg and cry. It isn't right that Liberal- and Moderate-led businesses who follow the rules and want to do what is right for the country have to compete with Republican-led businesses headed by propped-up, substandard whiners.
Are the young paying the price for not voting?
I keep hearing how the young are having a tough time. Well maybe it is because they don't vote. Is that too simplistic? Maybe if a lot more 18- to 30-year-old people voted, they would be getting a better deal. Maybe the reason they haven't gotten a good deal in the past is that they don't vote.
Skepticism should not drive young people away from voting. It should stampede them toward it. Young people should be very, very skeptical of their fellow citizens' generosity. It is just possible that voting citizens really don't care that much about the interests of non-voters. If there is going to be a short end of the stick, it's going to the non-voters.
Sexism is a male pocketbook issue. That's why more men vote Republican.
Sexism takes money from women and gives it to men. Men don't vote Republican only to politicize their domination fantasies. They vote Republican to keep their hands on more money.
Those weak-kneed, draft-dodging, characterless, ex-husband-material jerkwads? They go Republican every time. And Republican women just love their company I guess.
"I got your money, Honey." That's the true Republican message to women. Why do any women vote Republican?
"Mr. Carville, what did you think of the debate?"
"I tell you what. I can't even believe Mitt Romney is still a presidential candidate. I mean he has been running for a decade, and Flip Flop Mitt still can't stand for anything longer than two minutes! Heck, I started to think Mitt might turn into a Democrat right before my eyes. He was backing down and hiding from every position he's ever had.
And he actually gave me the creeps with that weird smile. And his eyes were full of tears. Did you notice that, Wolf? And he was sweating like Nixon in the Kennedy/Nixon debate. Ugh, the guy reminds me of Nixon but without the charm."
"Heh, heh, well now James. It seemed to me that Romney didn't do too bad. Didn't the President seem kind of listless or tired?"
"Yeah, well he didn't seem that way to me. You know, he wasn't the attack dog in this debate that some on our side might have wanted. But that's just it, this President doesn't want to be president of only half of the people. Obama may not have clobbered Romney with all the jobs Bain Capital took away from hard-working middle class Americans. But I think he knows the American people know Mitt Romney by now and know they can't trust him."
"Thanks, James. Alex, I know you have a different opinion?"
"I do, Wolf. You know, I would have to give the edge to Romney in this debate. I think he showed that he can go toe-to-toe with the President. I think he did what he needed to do."
"Well, folks, it looks like a split decision. I think both sides come away from this debate with some of their points made. John?"
"Yes, it was a close debate. I think the President came off perhaps a bit too reticent..."
"John, he's not trying to be Whiner in Chief. I thought Romney looked like someone's Chihuahua got loose in the bull pen. He was making a lot of noise."
"Ha, ha, James. Well I do think Romney seemed a little over-excited, but the pressure was really on him. I think he did fine. I'm just not sure it was enough."
This isn't what happened that night on CNN, by the way. Quite the opposite. Carville jumped right on Obama's case and Wolf and John King soon followed suit. This is just what I wish happened.
Can we all agree to stand our ground after the next debate?
I expect that Obama will offer a few more thrills next debate. But our audience should not have to rely on that for us to keep our courage and our heads. We need to have Obama's back next time, period.
Folks should realize that the debate doesn't stop after Obama and Romney shake hands. It continues into the media. It goes to us.
Suppose the debate had continued for another two hours and Obama and Romney had stayed on stage. And suppose for that two hours Obama did nothing but admit that Romney dominated, won on style, and so forth. Suppose Obama admitted he had been listless and "languid" (NPR's version of listless). Well, then Obama would have lost the debate.
But Obama stayed cool and stuck to his facts for his ninety minutes. Our Progressive-leaning pundits and audience dropped the baton on minute ninety-one.
We weren't thrilled. We weren't inspired. But guess what? If your emotions choose your behavior for you, you lose. Our side's keenest observers seemed to miss the fact that Romney flip-flopped and snake-oiled. They missed Romney's beads of sweat and his teary eyes. They missed a man pretending to be someone he is not.
Obama didn't play the 47% card in his ninety minutes. He didn't play the tax returns card. Those were ok calls in my opinion. But our side in the post-debate debate? We missed the sweat and flip-flopping cards. We missed the substance card.
A lot of us—most disappointingly our media talking heads—folded a good hand and fed Obama to the wolves. We thought we were just being honest. Funny how emotions work.
Let's hope we start to get a poker face for this next debate. When will we learn Obama's not the only one in this fight? Once Obama is done with Romney next debate, let's remember it's our turn to play.
Romney found a way to take the value out of fact checking.
Fact checkers need to hone their game, because catching dishonesty isn't just about checking facts. Romney will have successfully taken the value out of fact checking if they let him get away with it. If Romney says he "will" do something, there is no way to call him a liar on it. So that is what he does. Then being a flip-flopper or being two-faced doesn't register if your bullshit detection process is strictly a fact-checking process. Rachel Maddow also caught Romney on his strategy of saying one thing on camera (to large audiences) while his people quietly revise and recant it to reporters behind the scenes. You could call that a sort of fine print communication style I guess.
Fact checkers need to turn into believability checkers or they are going to be out of jobs.
"Who's debate arguments do you agree with and trust more?"
That's the question that determines who won the debate.
If you just poll people asking who won the debate, you won't know who won.
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