A magnificent example of why not to use "liberal" as an attack/insult

[we are not amused]

I think a lot of the reason the term "Liberal" is usually associated with anti-gun and anti-freedom ideas, is because most politicians espousing those ideas are "Liberals".

Take Barak Obama for example, viciously anti-gun, yet is supported overwhelmingly by "Liberals".

Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, Dianne Feinstein, Dick Durban, deceased Ted Kennedy, John Kerry, Charles Schumer... The list of elected "Liberal" Politicians who are notoriously anti-gun could go on almost without limit. In fact, the only pro-gun Liberal at the Federal level I can name is retiring Representative John Dingle! I am sure there a few other elected Representatives and maybe a Senator or two, but that is about it! And many of them are not considered Liberals, but Blue-dog Democrats.

I once asked the question, "What are pro-Second Amendment Liberals doing to preserve our gun rights, other than depending on the despised Conservative Republicans, T.E.A. Party associates, and Libertarians?". I think it is still a fair question.

Look, I will work with Liberals to preserve our gun rights, even if they are wrong on every thing else, but don't expect me to endorse their view point or ideology.

As for not using the term "Liberal" as an insult. Why do they consider it an insult when I accuse them of being "Liberals".

Besides, as a T.E.A. Party associate, Conservative Republican, and former Libertarian, I have heard all sorts of insults from the "Liberals" on this site. Including one uninformed individual who accused the T.E.A Party of closing mental institutions and causing the Sandy Hook school shootings. In fact, it was President John F. Kennedy who issued an Executive Order shifting patient care of mentally ill people from hospitals to out-patient arrangements, which with the active support of the ACLU and other Liberals, has made it so hard to involuntarily commit even the dangerously mentally ill people.

Liberals, on this site, have made no attempt to not attack Conservatives when subjects such as "Fast and Furious" came up, and certain other actions by this administration in regard to gun rights. I remember certain people who always referred to "Fox News" as "Faux News" with no blow back from other more "responsible" Liberals.

For the Liberals who truly support Gun Rights for every one, not just a select few, I respect and value your opinion on gun rights, even if I don't support the rest of your agenda. I don't expect you to agree with me, but if you don't want me to assume that most "Liberals" are not "anti-gun", you need to be electing and appointing more pro-gun Liberals to high elected office. After all, if you are not being represented by the Liberals you help elect, perhaps you ought to reconsider your political representation.

There is a big fight in the Republican party between the Tea Party people, Conservative's and the Libertarian wing of the Republican Party and the "Establishment, Country Club" types. I don't hear a similar fight between Democrats who favor a Totalitarian, Fascist type of Progressive, Corporatist State, and those who favor small government, individual rights, and limits upon the State.

Or even much of a fight between pro Second Amendment Liberals and anti-gun Liberals. If you want to keep your gun rights, you need to make noise and be counted! Join the NRA, the Second Amendment Society, Gun Owners of America! Speak out publicly against anti-gun Legislation, call news papers and televisions editors. Call your Representatives and Senators about their position on gun control. If you have been doing that, and still have so little influence, then you are a very tiny minority that your elected representatives rightly feels it can ignore.

 

[Sam1911]

Pointing out that liberals vote for anti-gun candidates isn't what makes them vote that way.

The idea is not to use "LIBERAL" as an attack or insult. You can point out to someone with generally left leaning policies that the candidate they're favoring opposes the right to bear arms, and try to encourage them to vote differently. You can even suggest that if they vote for candidate Smith(D) they are voting to disarm themselves and others.

What we're trying to stop is the use of these people's own self-identity as a negative, antagonistic term -- thus DEFINING them as our enemy, instead of trying to change one very specific behavior that hurts us.

If politicians that favor some progressive or left-wing policies stopped believing that gun control was something "their people" wanted/expected them to support, fewer of them would! (See certain regions of the country which swing "D" but pro-gun.) If fewer politicians wanted the hot-button anti-gun plank in their general platform, we'd face less of a threat from that end of the political spectrum.

Gun control does not have to be a pillar of the liberal platform. It should be made like segregation or prohibition -- something NO party claims any more, because ALL parties realize it is a horrible and unpopular idea that the country has moved beyond, together.

 

[Sam1911]

Why do they consider it an insult when I accuse them of being "Liberals".

They don't. And that's not the problem.

The problem is when WE define THEM as our enemy, period.

"Fight the LIBERALS" says we are against YOU.

"Fight gun control" says, "hey, we'd like you to stop supporting this one bad policy..."

 

[Theohazard]

And who exactly is doing that?

Anyone who uses the term "liberal" as a pejorative to mean "anti-gun"; anyone who thinks that only conservative Republicans can support the RKBA; anyone who alienates liberals or Democrats even if they support the RKBA cause. That's who is doing that.

 

[jerkface11]

If you're voting for liberal Democrats you're not supporting the second amendment.

 

[Theohazard]

If you're voting for liberal Democrats you're not supporting the second amendment.

Wow. Are you intentionally ignoring my points just to "win" an argument? My point is that we need to make it so liberal Democrats aren't predominantly anti-2A, that's the whole point here.

Once that happens, then voting for a liberal Democrat won't automatically mean you're voting for an anti-gun candidate most of the time.

 

[Theohazard]

Gun control does not have to be a pillar of the liberal platform. It should be made like segregation or prohibition -- something NO party claims any more, because ALL parties realize it is a horrible and unpopular idea that the country has moved beyond, together.

Exactly! I simply can't understand why so many pro-gun people don't want this to happen, and instead they want to see it stay a partisan issue that's supported by roughly half of the country.

 

[Nom de Forum]

As for not using the term "Liberal" as an insult. Why do they consider it an insult when I accuse them of being "Liberals".

Because........

In fact, it was President John F. Kennedy who issued an Executive Order shifting patient care of mentally ill people from hospitals to out-patient arrangements, which with the active support of the ACLU and other Liberals, has made it so hard to involuntarily commit even the dangerously mentally ill people.

The actions of the Kennedy Era ended many of the abuses of involuntary commitment. During the Reagan Era it was made far worse for the mentally ill by cutting the funding to inpatient facilities and out-patient treatment. Shortly after the epidemic of mentally ill homeless people began.

There is a big fight in the Republican party between the Tea Party people, Conservative's and the Libertarian wing of the Republican Party and the "Establishment, Country Club" types.

If you take a look at the last election results that fight is over, the Tea Party just hasn't figured that out yet.

I don't hear a similar fight between Democrats who favor a Totalitarian, Fascist type of Progressive, Corporatist State, and those who favor small government, individual rights, and limits upon the State.

....... of this type of gross, hostile exaggeration of reality being associated with the term "liberal". While there may be Democrats of the type you describe, their numbers are infinitesimal. Please remember that the original Fascists were enabled by the support of corporate leaders, that the leaders of corporations are registered as and supporters of Republicans far more than than they are Democrats, and that Theodore Roosevelt was a Republican, a progressive Republican. Today, T.R. the great Trust Buster, advocate for consumer safety standards, and protector of the environment would be appalled by the Republican Party's stance on those issues.

 

[we are not amused]

The idea is not to use "LIBERAL" as an attack or insult.

If politicians that favor some progressive or left-wing policies stopped believing that gun control was something "their people" wanted/expected them to support, fewer of them would! (See certain regions of the country which swing "D" but pro-gun.) If fewer politicians wanted the hot-button anti-gun plank in their general platform, we'd face less of a threat from that end of the political spectrum.

Gun control does not have to be a pillar of the liberal platform. It should be made like segregation or prohibition -- something NO party claims any more, because ALL parties realize it is a horrible and unpopular idea that the country has moved beyond, together.

So that means Liberals shouldn't use the term TEA Party or Conservative as an insult, or "Faux News". That will disappoint a lot of them.

And I agree, the Democratic Party should lose the "Gun Control" plank of it's Party Platform, Just like it lost the slavery,Segregation and Prohibition planks of it's Platform.

But that is something the Democrats will have to do. As a Conservative Republican, I don't attend Democrat Party Committee meetings or vote in Democrat Primaries, ( by the way, open primaries is a horrible idea, do you really want people who have no intention of supporting your parties candidate helping choose them?).

Liberal politicians think it is a hot button issue with their supporters, because it is. If enough Liberals decide to punish the Liberal politicians who support gun control, they would drop it like a hot rock. So far they haven't, which leads me to believe that there are very few Liberals who are for the RKBA. If I am wrong, then prove it by being a voice on the National stage, not just a few isolated marginal regions.

Make your voice heard! If you are really a big voting block, then prove it!

Words by anonymous posters on a pro-gun web site bemoaning the fact that Liberals are associated with anti-gun positions is simply whining about the obvious!

If you don't like it, get out and do something about it! Don't whine that the big boys are being mean to you!

 

[jerkface11]

My point is that we need to make it so liberal Democrats aren't predominantly anti-2A

Great idea how do you do it? As of right now they don't offer candidates who fit your description.

 

[buck460XVR]

Thing is, the majority of folks in this country are not Republican or Democrat, but Independents. They do not vote by party line or one platform. They pick candidates that most closely portray their priorities. Calling them "Libs" because of one of their priorities may turn them off to us, even when their gun priorities are the same. Life is not always simple black and white.

 

[OilyPablo]

I keep forgetting which group of people started gun free zones, bans people from school for shirts with NRA or hunting or guns mentioned. Pop tart or play dough gun ? You are out. Which group is pushing UBC? Ammo micro stamping? I can just call them prohibitionists. But they are so much more.

 

[Theohazard]

Great idea how do you do it? As of right now they don't offer candidates who fit your description.

I've already offered a few suggestions that are easy and make a good starting point: We should stop conflating "liberal" with "anti-gun"; we should stop mixing 2A politics in with other politics and embrace anyone who supports the 2A cause, even liberals; and we should stop framing this as a partisan issue that only conservative Republicans support.

Ultimately, candidates reflect their voters; when their voters aren't as anti-gun then the candidates won't be either.

 

[jerkface11]

As I pointed out the DNC has gun control as part of their platform so you can hardly accuse pro-gun groups of being the ones making it a partisan issue. And these pro-gun liberals still vote for anti-gun politicians.

 

[Theohazard]

As I pointed out the DNC has gun control as part of their platform so you can hardly accuse pro-gun groups of being the ones making it a partisan issue.

Of course, but why should we help them? Why do we want it to remain supported by a large percentage of politicians in this country? Don't we want it to be an issue like segregation, an issue that no politician in their right mind supports?

And these pro-gun liberals still vote for anti-gun politicians.

Not all of them do. But even if most of them do, do you want it to stay that way? Because it sure sounds like you do.

 

[OilyPablo]

I've already offered a few suggestions that are easy and make a good starting point: We should stop conflating "liberal" with "anti-gun"; we should stop mixing 2A politics in with other politics and embrace anyone who supports the 2A cause, even liberals; and we should stop framing this as a partisan issue that only conservative Republicans support.

Ultimately, candidates reflect their voters; when their voters aren't as anti-gun then the candidates won't be either.

Hey we get it. But the party will have an anti gun owner platform. It's hard to get past the fact that 85+% of self identified people who we shall not call l...... will vote specifically for that platform in all its glory. A group of sheep may feel better but they won't change into different critters.

 

[Theohazard]

Hey we get it. But the party will have an anti gun owner platform. It's hard to get past the fact that 85+% of self identified people who we shall not call l...... will vote specifically for that platform in all its glory. A group of sheep may feel better but they won't change into different critters.

Exactly, but why not try to help change that? We can't change what they do, but we can change what we do.

 

[Sam1911]

So that means Liberals shouldn't use the term TEA Party or Conservative as an insult, or "Faux News". That will disappoint a lot of them.

If you keep trying to justify your own bad behavior on the basis of the bad behavior of others, you might as well wave the evolutionary white flag. Development and growth are dead. We (the whole human race) lose.

And besides -- no Tea Partier considers being called a Tea Party type to be an insult, thus proving my point from before.

 

[we are not amused]

Look, if pro-gun Liberals don't want to be identified with anti-gun Liberals, fine!

Don't associate with them!

Don't vote for them!

Don't donate money to them!

Then you will have no reason to whine about be called an anti-gun Liberal!

Don't associate with bad people and then whine about being associated with bad people!

Reminds me of a quote by Larry Niven, "It is not smart to put <deleted> in plastic bags and throw it at armed men, in fact, it's not smart to stand next to that kind of yahoo."

Don't blame the rest of us who support the Second Amendment but aren't Liberals for the failings of your political party. We don't drive people into being Liberals, it is a conscious choice. Unless you happen to think all Liberals who aren't con artist and hucksters are unthinking idiots. (Sorry, but that is my position )

If you believe otherwise, fine, deal with it. But don't blame others for your own failure to reform your party.

That I notice is one of the constant complaints by Liberals. It is always somebody else's fault. It is Ronald Reagan's Fault, it is George Bush's fault, it is the evilll Tea Baggers fault, or the Republican's fault! They can never take responsibility for their own failures.

So now it is the fault of people who think most Liberals are anti-gun, for making them anti-gun!

 

[we are not amused]

If you keep trying to justify your own bad behavior on the basis of the bad behavior of others, you might as well wave the evolutionary white flag. Development and growth are dead. We (the whole human race) lose.

And besides -- no Tea Partier considers being called a Tea Party type to be an insult, thus proving my point from before.

And mine! If they don't want the term Liberal being used as a pejorative, then they shouldn't support the policies that make people use it as one.

If they are proud of being Liberal, then embrace it! And all it stands for! Or work to change it into something they are proud of. Don't whine about how unfair it is! Life isn't fair, deal with it!

 

[Theohazard]

So now it is the fault of people who think most Liberals are anti-gun, for making them anti-gun!

Of course not. You're either missing the point or trying to make a straw man argument. Or both.

Yes, if a liberal is anti-gun, then that's his fault. If most liberal candidates are anti-gun, then that's their fault. But the whole point is we shouldn't be encouraging liberals to be anti-gun by telling them they're not welcome among us pro-2A supporters, that's all.

don't blame others for your own failure to reform your party.

Nobody is saying that we gun-rights supporters are at fault for the anti-gun leaning of the Democratic Party. But what we're saying is that we shouldn't encourage the Democratic Party to continue to be anti-gun, because when we alienate liberals, that's what we're doing.

 

[Sam1911]

And that's all fine and happy stuff, but doesn't change the fact that using "Liberal" as a stand-in for the term "anti-gunner" is a bad choice and damages our cause.

So, you can put this on them, but you aren't fixing yourself. Which sort of sounds like the point you were making.

 

[Cee Zee]

The minute you step outside the specific goals of protecting gun rights and gun ownership you start offending people that could be your ally on this issue. I've said it before. I know a whole family of liberals (just ask them) but they all support gun rights. If you want to fight the battles of other causes this isn't the place and neither is the NRA. I'm all for people standing up for what they believe. But driving people apart based on arbitrary groupings is classic sticking a square peg in a round hole stuff. It just doesn't work. It will never work. It can lead to disastrous consequences in fact.

As gun rights supporters we shouldn't even be asking each other what we think on other issues. We're sure to cause division in our own ranks and that is a bad thing. Stick to the point here. It will benefit us all. Once we win this battle we can move on to other issues and divide up teams again.

 

[Kynoch]

It's akin to the classical meaning of "Liberal Arts" (the combined study of math,
science, history, literature, and languages) has been redirected toward radical
Leftist venues -- even though the US Military Academy at West Point was ranked
the nation's #1 Liberal Arts college last year.

If you REAALY want to get me going, let's start talking "Progressive" and "Reform".

FWIW: "Radical Left" still does it for me. I'm old enough to have lived through
the 60's and know a Corpse Flower by any other name.

I thought West Point was largely an engineering school?

 

[Kynoch]

And mine! If they don't want the term Liberal being used as a pejorative, then they shouldn't support the policies that make people use it as one.

If they are proud of being Liberal, then embrace it! And all it stands for! Or work to change it into something they are proud of. Don't whine about how unfair it is! Life isn't fair, deal with it!

What a ludicrous view. You actually seem to enjoy offending others and then make the claim that those you offend are wrong to be offended. What bull manure -- bull manure that is all too prevalent in the pro-2A camp.