Linoge looks a pretty whaky example of an Obama supporter and concludes that the administration is certainly heading down the path for re-education of all us gun clinging cousin humpers. I can’t say that I really find it persuasive in terms of indicating where The Administration is headed, when you have folks on our side threatening journalists and anti-gun supporters with consequence on the day of reckoning that is certainly fast approaching.
There are extremes on all sides. Part of the reason our system works is that it tends to dull extremes. The ship of state does not turn on a dime. The captain can throw the rudder hard to port as much as he wants, but unless successive administrations do it, it’s hard to execute a sharp turn in either direction. Because our system is slow to change, it takes a serious consensus among the people in order to keep it moving in any one direction.
Given that there doesn’t seem to be a whole lot of actual change going on, I think it’s safe to say that the re-education camps, at best, will be a second term project. I’m not saying we’re not going to get some really bad policies and legislation out of this Congress and this Administration, but we’ve seen all this before. My problem with hyperbole, and I do think it’s hyperbole, is that while it might be emotionally satisfying, it’s not entirely useful for actually rebuilding the coalitions we’re going to need to defeat this. Fear is a powerful motivator, but I think what this administration has actually been proposing is plenty scary enough to get people motivated.
Sebastian,
Who said any of us were on your side?
CIII
Well, speaking of hyperbole…
First, I said that I am convinced that Obama is headed down a “certain path”. Even I know better than to claim that he would institute re-education camps and total and absolute confiscation of all firearms – such plans would never work, would be met with the strongest of opposition from multiple angles, and would be just plain dumb.
Second, I never said our side does not do similar things occasionally. The problem is, our side is no longer in power. And those that suddenly do find themselves in power view it as a “mandate” for all of their little pet projects, whether they are good, bad, or indifferent.
Third, my belief is that “certain path” will (obviously) be something down the middle, but “down the middle” between the extreme shown in that one comment, and Obama’s current plans, leaves us more than a little in the lurch. Sure, things move slowly – unfortunately, another Assault Weapons Ban would not be that large of a movement, so doing it slowly will still make it happen. The same could be said of an armor piercing ban, and all of the other fun little things possibly in the works. We are fighting a battle of public image, and that image has already been carefully crafted with us in a positive light, for the past years/decades. Nudging that public image a little farther, and using a few more buzzwords, loaded polls, and other creative social engineering tools, and…. well, you end up with things like the law that just passed in Pittsburgh, and you end up with politicians like Payne.
Finally, I find it greatly ironic for you to call anyone out on a charge of hyperbole, given some of your pre-election posts encouraging people to get out help/vote/campaign/whatever…
That comment doesn’t look real to me. It reads more like a crude parody. There are some lefties who do think a lot like that, but they’d express it differently. It’d be less about what they want to do, and more about their bad feelings about the people they want to do it to, and their good feelings about themselves.
I bet it was just some lefty rattling Pamela Geller’s cage. Or else a righty who thinks Geller’s a blowhard.
Sebastian:
When you say that “our system works”, of what are you speaking?
When you say that “our system worksâ€, of what are you speaking?
Given the leftward tilt of the people we’ve elected over the last century, we still haven’t caught up to Europe yet in terms of sliding toward Gomorrah, so to speak. I should have said our system works better — not implied that it works perfectly — if over time the population desires votes for nanny state policies, no written constitution, for all practicable purpose, is going to stand in its way.
Who said any of us were on your side?
That’s a good point. I have never claimed to be cool enough to sit at the cool kids table.
Linoge:
I apologize if I didn’t quite understand what you meant there, but you also have to admit you challenged my sense of reality, which I felt the need to answer.
Sebastian,
I don’t know you well enough to say your “cool” or not. But it’s obvious the table you’ve been sitting at isn’t working very well anymore.
Oh yeah, don’t forget to buy a Goldenrod for your new safe. They work well in keeping out moisture.
CIII
Sebastian, I have always been of the mindset that if there is a failure in communication, it is the fault of the communicator, and not the communicatee (basically, I screwed up). Likewise, I was simply responding to your challenging my challenge.
All that out of the way, while I hate to be the child by saying this, but, at least from my end, you started it. Perhaps not conciously, but over the past few months, the frequency of your self-appointed, holier-than-thou, Voice of Reason posts has been increasing steadily, and have been getting more and more condescending. Yours is the one true way, and everyone else either does not get it, is not helping, or is just doing it wrong.
Sorry, mate, but it is getting old – at least for me – and I was simply explaining that.
Linoge,
I appreciate the feedback. Feel free to elaborate, because one thing I definitely don’t want to do is start getting holier-than-thou.
If anyone else thinks the same way, feel free to chime in. I am not one to take offense to constructive criticism.
If anyone else thinks the same way, feel free to chime in
I’m your Huckleberry…
What immediately comes to mind for me is the constant tut-tutting about the language some of us use when referring to the segment of hunters who will sell anyone with a politically incorrect firearm down the river for whatever reason. For the life of me I don’t see how one cutesy term (AHSAhole) is really that much better than another (Fudd) when it’s all said and done. You make it sound like it’s the shooters driving the wedge when it’s the hunters who are supporting the anti-gun politicians. Personally, I think that attitude’s offensive as all hell. It should have gotten to be obvious long ago — as in, right about the time the Deacons for Defense and Justice and groups like them started getting hamstrung by more stringent gun control laws — that an attack on one gun is an attack on all of them. After all, they weren’t just using pistols and semi-auto rifles…
Pistolero:
The object of finding a better term was to smear only those hunters who honestly know better, and are the ones driving the wedge. “Elmer Fudd” is a term that’s generally taken as an insult to all hunters. The hunters who are actively working against us, we have to oppose — there’s no point in trying to reach them, because they can’t be reached.
My point with the whole “Fudd might not be such a great term to use” is that we ought not help the AHSA crowd drive the wedge and help them pry.
*shrugs* I mentioned it before. The tone starting changing around the time that you got into election mode I think.
There’s also the fact that your links to Bitter have increased. Either as a jumping off point or as a “this is why I’m right” thing. Which then begins to bring a little bit of doubt to the rest of the links that you use. The fact that I sometimes have to go 3 or 4 links back to find the original source of whatever you (and they) were ranting about only to discover that the source doesn’t really support what each of you are going on about. (I don’t have a specific incident at the moment, I can find one if you would like). I spent a lot of time doing Forensics in high school specifically Extempt (30 min to prepare a 5 min. speech on a given topic) and we were drilled about checking our sources and that Reader’s Digest is not a good source, that you need to go back to whomever Reader’s Digest is quoting/summarizing.
*shrugs*
Kathy, if you notice something like that, let me know. That’s often the case of me just not having time to thoroughly vet everything someone sends me, so if you point out the original article doesn’t support what is claimed, I can look into it more and update the post.
Bleh, wish I could provide specifics (honestly, I do – I know constructive criticism is that much more useful with them), but you are rather prolific, and I do not wnat to go pawing for hours just to find two examples. Lazy, I am.
However, speaking in generalities, before the election, the constant tone of your posts (at least to me, again) was that if we were not out canvassing neighborhoods, we were not doing anything. Or, at least, nothing useful. Now, after the election, if we are not close on the party line with you, we are not helping, or worse – hindering. Like I said, just a general feel, but perception is 9/10ths of reality and all that.
As far as re-education camps go and sending people thereto I have another idea that they might embrace that’s far more cost-effective and somewhat traditional among the Left.
Instead of people sending-off it’s people arriving to deliver – like sexual harassment and diversity sensitivity seminars in the workplace, they double (quadruple?) the size of ACORN and its funding, and send teams of The New Internal Service-Forces Corps Cadre to every jobsite and workplace to conduct the same sort of Marxist criticism-self-criticism sessions that Ayers and his cronies enjoyed playing-at in his Lefty Edu-School programs…
And after the program is completed you take a test and get a card with your “grade” on it. Some of the test questions will ask whether you or anybody you know owns a gun.
We can have our little arguments amongst ourselves. However, when the chips are down we better come together or we will hang separately.
The object of finding a better term was to smear only those hunters who honestly know better,
I thought that’s what we were doing in the first place…
The path you are now is this , and this is how it was done in England . The left looked at the long term goal , they became teachers , lawyers and university lecturers . They became social workers , and police officers and of course took over the media . They then chanted a constant mantra of political correctness all white people are inherent racists , the police are part of the facist empire ect , ect . Today England is a liberal crime ridden pc correct cess pit , where freedom is actually suppressed ( re no right to defend yourself even in your own home ) . Taxes are so high its imposible to live well , the streets are dangerous to walk at night in every community and the police never show up in time . It started in the classroom thirty years ago , today in the USA the same path has just been taken , you have been warned .
However, speaking in generalities, before the election, the constant tone of your posts (at least to me, again) was that if we were not out canvassing neighborhoods, we were not doing anything. Or, at least, nothing useful. Now, after the election, if we are not close on the party line with you, we are not helping, or worse – hindering. Like I said, just a general feel, but perception is 9/10ths of reality and all that.
There are many ways to be involved, and those are a few. But they are, pretty much, the core of political activism. I guess what I should be asking is, what in your view is a contribution you’ve made or outlook that you hold that you feel I’m belittling? I am certainly an advocate for my point of view, but I don’t mean for that to cross into disrespect.
Don’t worry, Kathy. No more links to me. You’ll be safe from any Bitchy commentary from now on. I know, it’s terrible that my own boyfriend thinks I have a few interesting things to say every once in a while.