Good point. That’s pretty much the definition of “civility” when dealing with abhorrent people, isn’t it?

For example, if I can use Michael Bane as an example, he, in etiquette terms, “cut” the hammer killer. Even Emily Post wouldn’t call that rude under the circumstances.

What he didn’t do was launch into him with a tirade, flailing his arms and shouting him down through spittle-flecked lips regardless of the depth of his disdain. He made his point directly and clearly and was done with it. The observers might have thought he was “mean” or “taking it too seriously” but he didn’t appear to be a wild-eyed crazy.

He didn’t “back down” or “roll over” nor did he show a lack of determination, he simply acted like a sane, mature adult does in public when challenged. No tantrum, just proportional, icy, remorseless dignity and bearing toward an individual who deserves nothing more (and probably less).

When I talk about public civility, that’s what I mean. The public remembers the crazies as crazy and nobody does crazy like an anti-gunner because feelings are the only weapon they have. In the public eye, in person, the grown-ups win every time. True, if we demonstrate “firm dignity” in front of the press they may not show it every time, but if we show any crazy at all it will be the lead and be presented as the norm. Shouting louder and waving more signs won’t change that.

Someone like Sugarmann I suspect isn’t as willing to be cordial. I just get that vibe from him.

I think we need to, as Socrates once said, define our terms. There is a HUGE difference between the common hoplophobe and the lying POS who are manipulating society against us. In between you have people who use the law against use “for our own good.”

There is a dramatic difference in attitude from, and how we should treat, the coworker who is afraid of the darn thing and someone like Josh Sugarmann.

Many pro-gun bloggers were once in the first group. While the second group is devious.
http://blog.joehuffman.org/Trackback.aspx?guid=640ea184-a3b7-4f38-aa45-f24a825e6604

Now to address the issue of civility, it is much like non-violence. We should always be non-violent whenever possible. But when , and only when, non-violence fails do we use violence.

We on the pro-gun side should be civil and mature to the full extent possible. Much like Theodore Roosevelt once said:

“Don’t hit at all if it is honorably possible to avoid hitting; but never hit soft.”

Furthermore, one does not need to hate the people one fights against in order to fight the good fight and win.

As the man once said: “Be nice, until it is time to not be nice.”

“Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.”
-C.S. Lewis

We need to be ruthless without being rude.
Because while they are tyrants, they think of themselves as heroes.

I would not underestimate the effect having the Supreme Court sanction the limits of the Second Amendment will have on the cultural fight. In those terms, that’s a big deal. If we had lost Heller, every law student, every kid in school, would be learning that the Second Amendment is a right associated with membership in a militia. Over time that’s going to have a huge impact on whether we win or lose on this issue politically.

The anti-gun folks always made the argument anyway, but we had a good case on our side to throw back at them, and that won the day at the end of the day. We would have lost that. Maybe it wouldn’t have mattered, and we could have corrected the problem with a constitutional amendment, but that wouldn’t have helped define the limits of the right, which is still ahead of us, and which we could still lose.

I don’t see those two things as separate fights or separate issues.

No doubt harder times are ahead…that is why I and many others are pushing our organizations to “institutionalize” our successes and work with us on a long-term strategy that we all buy into. If I may borrow from the Red Queen, if we don’t know where we’re going, any road will do. And we’ve gone down many wrong roads for exactly that reason.

Politics is politics, but it isn’t the largest, or most important, factor in our RKBA battles. When we were hell-bent on winning only political battles, we came within a fraction of losing the far more important cultural battle. You may belittle guns on trains or in national parks all you want, but the cultural shift they represent is the long-term winner for us.

And it wouldn’t hurt to keep in mind that Heller was, in effect, an outlier arising from outside the old gun political establishment.

And yes — whore that I am — my shows have sponsors; those sponsors allow me to reach about a million people a week with shows that, unlike some of my competition, have my very specific political viewpoint imbedded in them. I am not on welfare, the beneficiary of a government job or the recipient of government grants. As a small businessman, my goal is to make a profit both for me and the people who work for me and depend on me….like most of the small businesspeople in the U.S.

Best,

Michael B

We’ll see how that statement holds up post-McDonald. Carry in parks and checked guns on Amtrak are small potatoes compared to Alito and Roberts. Considering Obama gave us Sotomayor, I wouldn’t get too excited about what he and the Senate Dems have given us so far. No to mention, Bush gave us Lawful Commerce in Arms which has saved many of your sponsors.

We didn’t get the attention we deserved under Bush, I agree with that. On non-gun issues, I couldn’t stand the man as President. But looking strictly at the gun issue, you can’t really argue that a win in Heller for individual rights is worth as much as checking a gun on a train.