A comment an anti actually appreciated... Amazing.

[ArfinGreebly]

Eloquent

benEzra,

A fine piece. Exemplary erudition.

Makes a fella humble.

Thanks.

Thanks very much.

 

[AndyC]

An example for us all to follow (me especially) - thought-provoking, even from my pro-gun perspective.

 

[Mannix]

Very nice post, hopefully you won a couple converts over to the cause .

My god though, just reading through some of the responses to your OP gave me the willies. Some of them seem to think that the only two ways the country can go is authoritarian left, or authoritarian right.

 

[RPCVYemen]

=I am of the firm opinion that a calm voice is a lot more effective than an edgy one.

That matches my experiences.

"ben Ezra" as in Abraham ben Meir Ibn Ezra?

Mike

 

[Coronach]

I am of the firm opinion that a calm voice is a lot more effective than an edgy one.

This is absolutely true. If you go around sounding mad, people will assume you're a madman. They can then ignore your points as the rantings of a lunatic.

On the other hand, if you are able to state your point rationally and back it up with facts, logic and/or philosophy, it will often cause the people who are listening (as opposed to merely hearing) to think.

Well done.

Mike

 

[frankcostanza]

great letter! thanks for posting

 

[Leitmotif]

On the other hand, if you are able to state your point rationally and back it up with facts, logic and/or philosophy, it will often cause the people who are listening (as opposed to merely hearing) to think.

In my experience with antis, it generally inspires them to ignore your point and attack you instead. A good argument is one thing, but ad hominem is forever.

 

[benEzra]

"ben Ezra" as in Abraham ben Meir Ibn Ezra?

Mike

Yes.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abraham_ibn_Ezra

Abraham ben Meir ibn Ezra (Hebrew: אברהם אבן עזרא or ראב"ע, also known as Abenezra) (1092 or 1093-1167), was one of the most distinguished Jewish men of letters and writers of the Middle Ages. Ibn Ezra excelled in philosophy, astronomy/astrology, medicine, poetry, linguistics, and exegesis; he was called The Wise, The Great and The Admirable Doctor.

He was born at Tudela, (current day province of Navarra) when the town was under Muslim rule. He left his native land of Spain before 1140 on account of the vexations inflicted on the Jews. He led a life of restless wandering, which took him to North Africa, Egypt, Palestine, Italy (Rome, Rodez, Lucca, Mantua, Verona), Southern France (Narbonne, Béziers), Northern France (Dreux), England (London), and back again to the South of France, until his death on January 23 or 28th, 1167, the exact location unknown.

The Abenezra crater on the Moon was named in his honour.

I was introduced to the name and Browning's persona as a teenager via the Robert Browning poem "Rabbi ben Ezra" by none other than Isaac Asimov, in his novel Pebble in the Sky (one of his first).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pebble_in_the_Sky

I'm both an Asimov fan and a Browning fan (both Robert and Elizabeth), I like the philosophy of the poem (which is really Browning's own), and from what I've read of the real ben Ezra, I am intrigued by him.

The Browning poem that caught Asimov's fancy, and (in turn) mine:

Rabbi Ben Ezra

GROW old along with me!
The best is yet to be,
The last of life, for which the first was made:
Our times are in his hand
Who saith, "A whole I planned,
Youth shows but half; trust God: see all, nor be afraid!''

Not that, amassing flowers,
Youth sighed, "Which rose make ours,
Which lily leave and then as best recall?''
Not that, admiring stars,
It yearned, "Nor Jove, nor Mars;
Mine be some figured flame which blends, transcends them all!''

Not for such hopes and fears
Annulling youth's brief years,
Do I remonstrate: folly wide the mark!
Rather I prize the doubt
Low kinds exist without,
Finished and finite clods, untroubled by a spark.

Poor vaunt of life indeed,
Were man but formed to feed
On joy, to solely seek and find and feast;
Such feasting ended, then
As sure an end to men;
Irks care the crop full bird? Frets doubt the maw-crammed beast?

Rejoice we are allied
To that which doth provide
And not partake, effect and not receive!
A spark disturbs our clod;
Nearer we hold of God
Who gives, then of his tribes that take, I must believe.

Then, welcome each rebuff
That turns earth's smoothness rough,
Each sting that bids nor sit nor stand but go!
Be our joys three-parts pain!
Strive,and hold cheap the strain;
Learn, nor account the pang; dare, never grudge the throe!

For thence,--a paradox
Which comforts while it mocks,--
Shall life succeed in that it seems to fail:
What I aspired to be,
And was not, comforts me:
A brute I might have been, but would not sink i'the scale.

What is he but a brute
Whose flesh has soul to suit,
Whose spirit works lest arms and legs want play?
To man, propose this test--
Thy body at its best,
How far can that project thy soul on its lone way?

Yet gifts should prove their use:
I own the Past profuse
Of power each side, a perfection every turn:
Eyes, ears took in their dole,
Brain treasured up the whole;
Should not the heart beat once ``How good to live and learn''?

Not once beat ``Praise be thine!
I see the whole design,
I, who saw power, see now Love perfect too:
Perfect I call thy plan:
Thanks that I was a man!
Maker, remake, complete,--I trust what thou shalt do!''

For pleasant is this flesh;
Our soul, in its rose-mesh
Pulled over to the earth, still yearns for rest:
Would we some prize might hold
To match those manifold
Possessions of the brute,--gain most, as we did best!

Let us not always say,
``Spite of this flesh to-day
I strove, made head, gained ground upon the whole!''
As the bird wings and sings,
Let us cry, ``All good things
Are ours, nor soul helps flesh more, now, than flesh helps soul!''

Therefore I summon age
To grant youth's heritage,
Life's struggle having so far reached its term:
Thence shall I pass, approved
A man, for aye removed
From the developed brute; a God though in the germ.

And I shall thereupon
Take rest, ere I be gone
Once more on my adventure brave and new:
Fearless and unperplexed,
When I wage battle next,
What weapons to select, what armor to indue.

Youth ended, I shall try
My gain or loss thereby;
Leave the fire ashes, what survives is gold:
And I shall weigh the same,
Give life its praise or blame:
Young, all lay in dispute; I shall know, being old.

For note, when evening shuts,
A certain moment cuts
The deed off, calls the glory from the gray:
A whisper from the west
Shoots--``Add this to the rest,
Take it and try its worth: here dies another day.''

So, still within this life,
Though lifted o'er its strife,
Let me discern, compare, pronounce at last,
``This rage was right i' the main,
That acquiescence vain:
The Future I may face now I have proved the Past.''

For more is not reserved
To man, with soul just nerved
To act to-morrow what he learns to-day:
Here, work enough to watch
The Master work, and catch
Hints of the proper craft, tricks of the tool's true play.

As it was better, youth
Should strive, through acts uncouth,
Toward making than repose on aught found made:
So, better, age, exempt
From strife, should know, than tempt
Further. Thou waitedst age: wait death nor be afraid!

Enough now, if the Right
And Good and Infinite
Be named here, as thou callest thy hand thine own,
With knowledge absolute,
Subject to no dispute
From fools that crowded youth, nor let thee feel alone.

Be there, for once and all,
Severed great minds from small,
Announced to each his station in the Past!
Was I, the world arraigned,
Were they, my soul disdained,
Right? Let age speak the truth and give us peace at last!

Now, who shall arbitrate?
Ten men love what I hate,
Shun what I follow, slight what I receive;
Ten, who in ears and eyes
Match me: we all surmise,
They this thing, I that: whom shall my soul believe?

Not on the vulgar mass
Called ``work'' must sentence pass,
Things done, that took the eye and had the price;
O'er which, from level stand,
The low world laid its hand,
Found straightway to its mind, could value in a trice:

But all, the world's coarse thumb
And finger failed to plumb,
So passed in making up the main account;
All instincts immature,
All purposes unsure,
That weighed not as his work, yet swelled the man's amount:

Thoughts hardly to be packed
Into a narrow act,
Fancies that broke through language and escaped;
All I could never be,
All, men ignored in me,
This, I was worth to God, whose wheel the pitcher shaped.

Ay, note that Potter's wheel,
That metaphor! and feel
Why time spins fast, why passive lies our clay,--
Thou, to whom fools propound,
When the wine makes its round,
``Since life fleets, all is change; the Past gone, seize to-day.''

Fool! All that is, at all,
Lasts ever, past recall;
Earth changes, but thy soul and God stand sure:
What entered into thee,
That was, is, and shall be:
Time's wheel runs back or stops: Potter and clay endure.

He fixed thee 'mid this dance
Of plastic circumstance,
This Present, thou, forsooth, would fain arrest:
Machinery just meant
To give thy soul its bent,
Try thee and turn thee forth, sufficiently impressed.

What though the earlier grooves,
Which ran the laughing loves
Around thy base, no longer pause and press?
What though, about thy rim,
Skull-things in order grim
Grow out, in graver mood, obey the sterner stress?

Look not thou down but up!
To uses of a cup,
The festal board, lamp's flash and trumpet's peal,
The new wine's foaming flow,
The Master's lips aglow!
Thou, heaven's consummate cup, what needst thou with earth's wheel?

But I need, now as then,
Thee, God, who mouldest men;
And since, not even while the whirl was worst,
Did I--to the wheel of life
With shapes and colors rife,
Bound dizzily--mistake my end, to slake thy thirst:

So, take, and use thy work:
Amend what flaws may lurk,
What strain o' the stuff, what warpings past the aim!
My times be in thy hand!
Perfect the cup as planned!
Let age approve of youth, and death complete the same!

Robert Browning

 

[WuzYoungOnceToo]

I'm impressed by any man who's sufficiently secure in his masculinity that he carries a gun called a "Ladysmith".

But seriously....that was some outstanding commentary. Also, I found your observation regarding the representation of rifles in the FBI murder stats...

"That 2.97% figure is for ALL RIFLES COMBINED."

...to be quite interesting. That's 1/2 the % of murders committed using body parts ("Hands, fists, feet, etc."), and less than 1/4 the number committed using "non firearm, non edged" weapons. That really puts the "evil black gun" obsession the anti lobby has into perspective.

 

[Dain Bramage]

A good argument is one thing, but ad hominem is forever.

Leitmotif, I may have to steal that from you.

 

[WuzYoungOnceToo]

In my experience with antis, it generally inspires them to ignore your point and attack you instead. A good argument is one thing, but ad hominem is forever.

The same is sadly true of most non-vegetarians who like to spout off about how barbaric hunting is. A more irrational position I've not encountered.

 

[MD_Willington]

Very good...

Pre 1861 capacity... I guess that doesn't include the Lewis and William Clark air rifle for their 1803-1806 expedition, though it did not use powder, it did have a 20+ ball capacity.

 

[the pistolero]

In my experience with antis, it generally inspires them to ignore your point and attack you instead. A good argument is one thing, but ad hominem is forever.

And this guy is living proof of that. I'd like to think well-thought-out arguments could ultimately win the day, but with some people the only thing you can really do is say, "Molon Labe." That was a well-thought-out remark in the OP, though, and it's arguments like that which will ultimately win out for us. Well done, indeed.

 

[benEzra]

I'm impressed by any man who's sufficiently secure in his masculinity that he carries a gun called a "Ladysmith".

LOL. Here it is:

Also, I found your observation regarding the representation of rifles in the FBI murder stats...

"That 2.97% figure is for ALL RIFLES COMBINED."

...to be quite interesting. That's 1/2 the % of murders committed using body parts ("Hands, fists, feet, etc."), and less than 1/4 the number committed using "non firearm, non edged" weapons. That really puts the "evil black gun" obsession the anti lobby has into perspective.

It's even better for some individual states. For example, Illinois is considering a new AWB "for the children," Jesse Jackson just led a protest at the DSA factory, etc. But out of 448 murders in Illinois in 2005, all rifles combined accounted for 4 of them.

In my experience with antis, it generally inspires them to ignore your point and attack you instead. A good argument is one thing, but ad hominem is forever.

That is sometimes the case, but it's a win-win. Third parties viewing the thread then see your rational arguments, AND see the anti being an idiot and foaming at the mouth. For every hardcore prohibitionist out there, there are probably 10 fence-sitters who are open to persuasion, but who may not be posting, just lurking.

 

[WuzYoungOnceToo]

That is sometimes the case, but it's a win-win. Third parties viewing the thread then see your rational arguments, AND see the anti being an idiot and foaming at the mouth. For every hardcore prohibitionist out there, there are probably 10 fence-sitters who are open to persuasion, but who may not be posting, just lurking.

An excellent point that merits repeating. We often lose (or never acquire to begin with) sight of the fact that the real value of reasoned debate of this type is the persuasion of those who can be persuaded. ie, the fence-sitters you cite. You're never going to convince the faithful that your position has merit, no matter how eloquent and sound your arguments are. But by making those well-reasoned arguments in public you at least have an opportunity to influence those who have not yet made up their minds one way or the other. They're the ones that matter, because they're open to convincing, and they often vote.