Concerned liberal

Just so you know - you're not the only liberal around here. As far as I am concerned, guns is about the only thing conservatives have right, but you might be able to tell that we are in the minority here.

It can be a right-wing love-fest around here, so I figure it's my job to keep em honest.

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What surprises me is how many people around here seem to like the Bush administration (though I know many don't, too). The current administration is demonstrably no great friend of personal liberty. Both the big parties generally seem to favor some form of paternalistic, invasive government. I'm not some wayward child. I don't need government constantly telling me what's right and wrong, safe and unsafe, making me register here, sign this, fork over that. Government is there to help defend my freedoms, not circumscribe them.

Anyway, as others noted above, political labels have become nearly useless. Using a simplistic liberal-conservative/left-right dichotomy, I could be labeled conservative or right-leaning insofar as I think the Bill of Rights wasn't written just because the Founding Fathers had some extra ink and time to kill one weekend. Those freedoms have darn good reasons for being enshrined in the Constitution, and the people allow those freedoms to be violated by their government at their own risk. Then again, groups that fight for First Amendment freedoms are often labeled liberal, like the ACLU. Groups like the NRA that fight for Second Amendment freedoms are often considered conservative.

And then again, I'm very concerned about environmental issues, for example. I don't appreciate corporations putting profit above our health and our ability to hike/hunt/camp in unspoiled country. A liberal cause or stance? Who knows?

Interesting, though predictable discussion, folks. I'll continue lurking for a while, though the temptation to jump in grows...

But:

"Radical Chic, or Mau-Mauing the Flak-Catchers" is a Tom Wolfe essay, collected in his book by the same name, NOT Norman Mailer

Mailer IS (was? isn't he dead yet? ) a member of the Radical Chic AND a Flak-Cacther.

Welcome Malice. (sounds kinda like what we expect from liberals )

You might even have to associate with a few libertarians, something most liberals equate with standing in doggie doo.

It's interesting to see a different perspective on these issues. Your description of conservatives is almost a mirror image of what they think about liberals. As a libertarian I think you're both right!


Please stick around. The more ideas in play the better.

Also, what DO you shoot?

When a politician tells me that he or she believes that gun control is an effective means of crime control, right off I know they are a liar or a fool or both. Neither trait is what I look for in a leader.

Bush leans a little too far to the left IMHO but at least he's not making any overt moves against the 2A.

I'm still scratchin' my head over how a conservatively managed government can be construed as "invasive." I 'spose that spin comes from the abortion brouhaha. A woman's "right to privacy" and all that crap. I guess we'd best not prohibit prostitution then either?

The Left tells us that we need the various federal regulatory agencies whose main purpose apparently is to stifle the productivity of private run businesses. I still get a chuckle when I think about the reforms made by the GOP run Congress that applied the same workplace rules on Federal agencies that hamstrung private industry in prior years. I worked for the USPS at the time and USPS management howled long and loud when that came about. "We can't afford to do business with those regulations!" Welcome to the club Federal bureaucrats.

Typically, what starts as good intentions in the form of government regulation, progressively becomes more and more heavy handed. 'Tis the nature of government. First and foremost, grow the bureaucracy.

The core belief of the Left is that the individual is a total nincompoop that can't and shouldn't be trusted to lead their own life as they see fit. Gun control is a prime example.

I can't vote for Liberals. Plain and simple. I disagree with so much of modern Liberalism's ideals and tenets, I just can't support them and will do what I can to defeat them.

Tim

All animals are created equal except that some are more equal than others.

tcdrennen, that's what I get when I try to rely on decaying brain cells. While I was thinking of Radical Chic, I was also thinking of the longest sentence written that actually could be followed coherently. That honor belongs to Norman Mailer in his book "Why Are We In Vietnam."

Malice, if you're going to ask for advice on what shotgun to buy, expect a lot more replies than you got here on this thread!

As far as "government tyranny" goes, these kinds of cases are the only ones I can see happening in the near future. And in such a case I do not see many other American gun owners, who are mostly conservative, standing beside me. So, is this fear unfounded or am I right?

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I think you would be pleasantly surprised.

If/when JBTs come forcibly rounding up anybody based on religion/creed/sex/race/idiology, you can damn well bet anyone with a rifle will be sitting attop the hill, standing shoulder to shoulder white liberal, black conservative, gay indian dude with a pink AR-15, alike.

Don't worry Malice, it is all bark anyhow. Personally, I like Liberals, especially for target practice at the range. They just don't give up hope as fast as Conservatives and tend to keep running for longer while... I mean, uh... uh...

Besides, I still think most people are on the same side. We just can't agree on how to make it happen.

A concerned liberal, eh? Your decision to vote for John Kerry should have you concerned. I've said it before and I'll keep on saying it come what may - a vote for anyone other than Bush this November is equivalent to voting for Kerry, and anyone voting for Kerry is just asking to have their Second Ammendment Rights erroded. You might as well walk down to the Democratic campaign headquarters and turn them all in right now, because they'll be coming after them eventually, one way or another.

Yep. Hypocrite.

Bush isn't going to sign the AWB because the Republican are going to stop it.
Not the dems.

He's not asking for the AWB on his desk because he doesn't want to sign it.
Not like clinton, gore or kerry.

I'm voting for the man who's standing still and watching the ban fade into the sunset.
Not like clinton, gore or kerry.

Also, the guy who runs the range lets me shoot whatever he has out that day.

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Show up wearing your kerry button. I could use the laugh.

If ever there was The Wrong Tool For the Job TM, the simple left/right dichtomy is it when it comes to describing political-economic alignments. The Political Compass is better, if still flawed.

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The best one I've come across -- the least ambiguous -- is www.politopia.com .

Welcome, Malice. THR is a great learning resource.

Wes

When a politician tells me that he or she believes that gun control is an effective means of crime control, right off I know they are a liar or a fool or both. Neither trait is what I look for in a leader.

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Concise and insightful.

And, yes, prostitution shouldn’t be prohibited.

~G. Fink, Libertarian

I am getting a surplus Mauser 8mm and/or Mosin 38 carbine in the next month when I work out all the kinks and find which dealer will do the FFL transfer cheapest.

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Good choice of rifles. As far as transfer fees go, get yourself a C&R license, its a couple of hoops to jump through but will pay for itself the first time you use it.

Who/what is Pol Pot?

Pol Pot?

http://www.freerepublic.com/forum/a3b0d9b5448a4.htm
The Killing Fields and Murder of a
Gentle Land- what really happened in Cambodia a quarter-century ago

ThreadKiller

I'm still scratchin' my head over how a conservatively managed government can be construed as "invasive." I 'spose that spin comes from the abortion brouhaha. A woman's "right to privacy" and all that crap.

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Well, conservatives tend to favour "traditional" morality and society.


And to some people, "traditional morality/society" includes theocracy, aristocracy, keeping the peasants in their place, etc, opposing "alternative lifestyles" (and anything "trendy") etc.

(The last Conservative government in the UK came up will all sorts of authoratarian nonsense like this. Not to mention running a "Back to Basics" ("family values", etc) campaign, while many of their MPs were having extra-marital affairs).

Well perhaps my book of political definitions needs to be updated. In my world it's the Conservative movement that will honor and defend the US Constitution as it was intended. The Left (Liberalism) on the whole regards it as a "living document" to be interpreted in any convenient manner. I don't play poker with those who regard the rules as "living" and I sure as heck don't want to play politics with those who want to play fast and loose with the Constitution.

And to be sure, both camps harbor those who would willingly and even gleefully dictate terms to those they don't agree with. It just seems to me anyway that it's the Left who is much more "in your face" than the Right. And it bothers me that there seem to be no moral absolutes as far as the Left is concerned.

Maybe I should regard myself as more a "Constitutionalist" than a Conservative. I have no desire to dictate lifestyle choices to others as long as their choices do not bring harm to others. If you're Gay, fine. Go about your business and make it your business. Start advocating pedophilia though and we've got trouble buster. Want to have pre-marital sex? Fine, just don't ask me or anyone else to pay for the consequences of an unwanted (inconvenient) pregnancy. Want to fund pornography and call it art? Fine, do it with your own funds. Keep your hands off of my bank accounts. Want to fry your brains on drugs? Fine, go right ahead. YOU pay for it though.

I'd like to believe that most conservatives think along these lines. We understand that there is a right and a wrong and are adult enough to deal with it. Adults understand and accept that there are consequences for one's actions.

Liberalism flourishes best in the immature mind.

Tim

Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.

Malice,

Welcome to THR!!

You wrote:

Bush decides that all ::insert Gays/Musslims/Athiests/LEGAL immigrants:: are a menace to our country and decides to round them up. The proverbial "they came for us in the night," situation. That is the kind of thing that would make me take up my rifle and fight, because I am not willing to trust that the government is just trucking my friends, neghibors, and fellow Americans off to take showers and not somthing worse. Or, if the big networks convince a conservative president to criminalize all independent (the real "liberal media") media? I.E. the desecration of the First Amendment.

Please respond to the following:
Kerry and the Dem majorities in the House and Senate decides that all ::insert gun owners/those opposed to the new national ID card/Christains/tax payers opposed to paying reparations/pro-lifers/those opposed to unrestriced illegal immigartion:: are a menace to our country and decides to round them up. The proverbial "they came for us in the night," situation. That is the kind of thing that would make me take up my rifle and fight, because I am not willing to trust that the government is just trucking my friends, neghibors, and fellow Americans off to take showers and not somthing worse. Or, if the big networks convince a liberal Democrat president to criminalize all independent (the real "conservative media") media? I.E. the desecration of the First Amendment.

If your concerns are such that you ask I share 3 feet of your trench to protect your special interests, what say you of my offer to take a space beside me behind the wire in my trench when the hard times come?

Hmm?

I'll be waiting for your answer. I have mine ready when you respond.

S-

ThreadKiller

Well perhaps my book of political definitions needs to be updated.

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Mine probably needs as much updating (and I've long thought most of the lables used in politics are too vague to be useful - even when the politicians themselves are being honest about what they stand for).

Besides, my main encounters with C/conservatives have been with the British variety, where some of the values some of them want to conserve will be some of the ones the early Americans fought a war to get away from

(Note the use of "some" in both my posts - there is a lot of variety within, and overlap between many self-declared political groups).


Anyway - as for what you say want (and don't want) from government, I pretty much agree with you. (I'm probably a bit more "liberal" than you'd like, but I say we call a truce, at least until both our countries are a lot more like you would like yours to be )

Malice, just a friendly FYI - it will make keeping track of who you are responding to easier if you use quotes. You do so by typing:

[qu.ote]Quoted Text Here[/qu.ote]

without the periods. I hope that helps some.

Thanks, and welcome to THR.

Good Grief

Hey Malice,

My brother's former girlfriend is not terribly unlike yourself. Her dad was a Marine, and she is one of the handful of Democrats who support the RKBA.

I assume then that your relationship to the Democratic party is not unlike my own relationship with the Republican party, in that you find a few exceptionable planks on their party platform, i.e. their desire to slowly restrict them out of existence.

Like a good number of forum members, I associate most closely with the Classical Liberal/American Libertarian line of thought. Also like many members, I vote Republican, as there is a somewhat sizeable contingent of libertarian leaning Republicans, and I feel that the Libertarian party is not going to be successful in our electoral system.

Like probably at least a few fellow forum members, I was once a modern, american Liberal.

Now, in response to the central question/fear expressed in the initial post, I can saw with a very high degree of certainty that there is not even the most remote of chances that el Presidente Bush would, or could round up: homosexuals, aetheists, or legal immigrants, and find some nefarious means of doing away with them, and or significantly restraining their rights. There are, of course, radical fringes which support that sort of nonsense, but they are not in power now, nor are they in position to ever become in power, and the Republican party in general is far more moderate than it is being given credit for. Let us take the assumptions made about you, as a self-defined Liberal to be inaccurate, much as your assumptions about the capacity of the president (being based on largely leftist dogma which is attempting to portray W as a proto-fascist in order to motivate people to vote, and vote against him), are inaccurate.

The matter of Muslims being rounded up, by contrast, is a might bit more probable, however, only in the event of another terrorist attack, and in such an event it really wouldn't matter who the president was; many of us feel that both parties are bent on slowly subverting natural rights. As others have pointed out, FDR rounded up the Japanese.

As far as Kerry goes, the fact that the Socialists (as in they actually call themselves Socialists) back Kerry is evidence enough that no one who supports individual rights should be voting for the man. Socialist Party sends support to Kerry

You may wish to read some of John Ross' writings:
http://www.john-ross.net/
particularly this one, as well as the follow-up here

-Morgan

Malice,

First...this may come off as a flame but I hope you will take it as my poor attempt at dialogue.

Regarding your response:
No attempt to trap. You do recognize that it's your original question don't you. I just changed the groups off the top of my head.

I saw your proposition as one regarding oppression by "a" govenment against certain of its citizens. Your response to my question was disappointing but not unexpected. My basic POV is >>I may not be at heart with a lot of groups out there but if the government starts rounding them up something has to be done. I exclude from the "acceptable list" people or groups that break laws or abuse other humans.

Now back to your sresonse: Why is springing to the protection of gays or legal immigrants (for instance) fundamentally different and more defensible or intrinsically more noble than defending Christians or pro-lifers, given the same the boot heel is being used against either? In your world view are only certain groups endowed with "value" or human rights and thereby worth defense? Could you see no way to come to the aid of say Christians if they were singled out for special attention or persecution by government?

We have a excellent example in world history of a society that allowed "a" govenment to single out certain groups and crush them with no opposition from the population at large. Such was the perspective of the German people regarding the mentally challenged, physically handicapped and people of the Jewish faith and pretty much every non-German country in Europe in the late '30s and '40s, was it not? We all pretty much know how that turned out. What is that old saying that all that is required for the advancement of evil or tyrany in the world is that good me do nothing? Or something like that Hitler used incrementalism to traget one group after another, the German people never picked any of them as worthy or defending and eventually he was unstoppable.

However I promised you my POV, if it matters.

I have people I count as friends in the Gays/Musslims/Athiests/LEGAL immigrants camps and many others. You would not be alone when and if the bad times come. I would quess however, your line would be peopled with far fewer from the liberal camp than would it be with conservatives.

Because I count myself as a member of some of the following groups: gun owners/those opposed to the new national ID card/Christains/tax payers opposed to paying reparations/pro-lifers/those opposed to unrestriced illegal immigartion, I'm not sure you or too many other liberals would show up if the bad guys throw us a party. No?

S-



S-

A non-hunting vegetarian huh? I guess I understand that. Not much challenge in stalking the wild rudabaga. Although the new .17 might be just the thing for shooting the tops off radishes at 100 yds.

Definations are always tricky in these discussions. Please define what you mean by liberal in a little more detail. But, be warned. You will have to defend every position or risk being ripped to shreds. Lots of sharp minds around here.