Gun-toting liberal

[TX1911fan]

As was mentioned above, the problem is that the national party, for both political parties, dictates the entire package. In 2000, Ron Kirk, former mayor of Dallas, was running for a Senate seat in Texas. My wife voted for him because he was a good mayor, and although he was a Democrat, he didn't have a lot of Democrat "failings" as we see them. I told her, however, that if he won, he'd go to Washington and be just another Democrat, because in order to get anwhere in the party, he has to toe the line. Are Republicans perfect, heck no! But, on most points, they are much closer to my ideology, and are more willing to protect the rights I hold most important, so that's where my vote goes.

By the way, Germany had nothing to do with Pearl Harbor, so I guess that whole D-day thing was just a waste of time, right? Irrational hatred of Bush does strange things to people. I would hope that a similar hatred of Hillary on the other side would not lead to the same self-defeating and destructive thinking, but that kind of thinking is probably best described as wishful.

 

[Dravur]

There are plenty...

of left wing people who have guns... Dikane Feinstein for one. She has a carry permit and a gun.. She just does not want YOU to have one, for you are a serf.

It cracks me up, as I am a conservative/libertarian on issues. I am pro 2k, pro smaller government and such with the conservative views, but I am also for a strong border policy, and am very much pro business and anti-union.

Now for my liberal side. I am pro-choice, mostly cuz i cant stand kids anyway. I am for loosening up the war on drugs. I persoanlly dont care if some dork wants to huff paint, just dont ask me to pay for his care when he can't drool without help.

So, there are liberals out there who are gun owners as well as supporters. But until they start electing LEADERS who are also progun, pro smaller gubmint, then I shall fight them every step of the way.

 

[MD_Willington]

Hey, I'm a liberal too..

I believe everyone should have a liberal (ie bounteous, bountiful) supply of firearms.

I believe the troops should be able to apply force liberally (without hindrance) against their enemies...

Many "Liberals" are not really liberal ie they aren't really tolerant of other ideals or broad minded.. aka, hey you can be a part of our "PC fun-shine band" as long as you tow the party line and cram our party line down everyone else's throat... :banghead:

 

[shooter503]

Many "Liberals" are not really liberal ie they aren't really tolerant of other ideals or broad minded.. aka, hey you can be a part of our "PC fun-shine band" as long as you tow the party line and cram our party line down everyone else's throat...

Many "Conservatives" are not really conservative ie they are too tolerant of other ideals or broad minded.. aka, hey you can be a part of our "PC fun-shine band" as long as you tow the party line and cram our party line down everyone else's throat...

 

[ozwyn]

I guess I would be a "semi-isolationist liberatarian", since many liberatarian platforms seem to think the border should be MORE open.

 

[DarthBubba]

Be An American Damn it

I like to think of my self this way.
I am an American period. My views, life, and person are mine and mine alone and no political party or over sized, ill informed, giant ineffective Government will ever own me. I will like wise never bend to the will of the Race and Religion pimps and the sooner you all throw away all of the labels they try to force on you and join me in being simply an American the sooner we can take back Our Country.

Be An American Damn It,
DarthBubba

 

[shooter503]

I tend to agree Darth. However. would it be OK by you if I blew up your business that is "libertarianly" dumping pollution in the river I like to fish in?

There is a place for government somewhere. Some force must balance the conflicting needs of individuals. Without that force there is anarchy. The difficulty is in how we, as the people, appoint and control that force. Clearly, the present government is disfunctional. It is owned by monied interests and cares only for the votes in the next election that will keep it in power.

Could it really be possible for a new party to emerge when the incumbents are doing all they possibly can to maintain their monopoly?

 

[wooderson]

Depending on the situation I would either bristle at being called a liberal (friends who should know better) or accept it rather than start trying to differentiate at times (ie here), but my attitude has always lined up with Phil Ochs...

"Ten degrees to the left of center in good times. Ten degrees to the right of center if it effects them personally. Here then is a lesson in safe logic."

 

[Beagle-zebub]

Someone stated earlier that the Republicans gleefully accepted the pro-gun banner in the 1990s, but gun-ownership has really been in the pocket of the Republicans (by default, because of Democratic opposition to it) since the Johnson administration, if not even FDR's presidency. To this day, the most egregious abridgement of the RKBA has been the Gun Control Act of 1968, which was passed by LBJ and a Democratic House and Senate; the Brady Crime Bill and the AWB were both passed while Clinton still had Democratic majorities in both houses, and the National Firearms Act of 1934 was a product of Democrat FDR and a Democratic Congress.

While I'm not going to act like the Republicans are really all that great at doing what's right with reference to the RKBA, history does give evidence that the Democrats are the party in which those with power solidly favor restricting gun rights.

 

[Helmetcase]

If LBJ hadn't signed GCA of 1968 into law, Nixon surely would have. He said that "guns are an abomination", and was a serious hoplophobe (made sense...the man was incredibly paranoid about his enemies and didn't fancy liberals, hippies, Black Panthers, and people outside his military being armed).

The lines weren't always as polarized as they are now. And they're getting less polarized as Dems get tired of losing elections. It's a trend we should welcome and work to continue.

 

[bobhaverford]

Hel Nutcase,

By your line of reasoning any proclivity, inclination, behavior, desire or wish could be construed as a "right" which of course they are not. My argument is not from a Christofascist perspective, as you so quaintly put it, but rather from a uniquely AMERICAN perspective. To wit: just because a right was not enumerated does not entitle the citizens to that right; rather that those rights that citizens ARE entitled to shall not be infringed just because they are not enumerated.

Otherwise, a citizen could claim as his "right" anything so construed as a right and not specifically restricted by the constitution. Finally, the messy business of sorting out this "rights" argument is left to the legislature thereby EMPOWERING THE CITIZENS with the ultimate right of self determination.

Funny how those with fascist inclinations are always the first to shout "Fascist!" Had you engaged in this debate respectfully and with decorum I would gladly have continued it. However since that is not the case I will not engage in further debate with you sir.

 

[bobhaverford]

For further clarification of the meaning of the 9th Amendment to the United States Constitution:

Subsequent to Griswold, some judges have tried to use the Ninth Amendment to justify judicially enforcing rights that are not enumerated. For example, the District Court that heard the case of Roe v. Wade ruled that the Ninth Amendment protected a limited right to abortion.[4] However, Justice William O. Douglas rejected that view; Douglas wrote that, "The Ninth Amendment obviously does not create federally enforceable rights." See Doe v. Bolton (1973).

The Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals stated as follows in Gibson v. Matthews, 926 F.2d 532, 537 (6th Cir. 1991):

[T]he ninth amendment does not confer substantive rights in addition to those conferred by other portions of our governing law. The ninth amendment was added to the Bill of Rights to ensure that the maxim expressio unius est exclusio alterius would not be used at a later time to deny fundamental rights merely because they were not specifically enumerated in the Constitution.

Professor Laurence Tribe shares this view: "It is a common error, but an error nonetheless, to talk of 'ninth amendment rights.' The ninth amendment is not a source of rights as such; it is simply a rule about how to read the Constitution." [5] Likewise, Justice Antonin Scalia has expressed the same view, in Troxel v. Granville (2000):

The Declaration of Independence...is not a legal prescription conferring powers upon the courts; and the Constitution’s refusal to 'deny or disparage' other rights is far removed from affirming any one of them, and even farther removed from authorizing judges to identify what they might be, and to enforce the judges’ list against laws duly enacted by the people.

In the year 2000, the Harvard historian Bernard Bailyn gave a speech at the White House on the subject of the Ninth Amendment. He stated that the rights referred to in the Ninth Amendment are rights that may be "enacted into law." Here is how Dr. Bailyn interpreted the Ninth Amendment:[6]

When the federal Constitution was written the wisest minds in America decided that there should be no national Bill of Rights, not merely because most of the state constitutions already contained some such protections, but, as Madison (who would later write the federal Bill of Rights) said, 'There is a great reason to fear that a positive declaration of some of the most essential rights could not be obtained in the requisite latitude.' In other words, the enumeration of rights by the federal government, the mere listing of them and defining them, would necessarily limit their scope. 'The rights of conscience in particular [he said], if submitted to public definition, would be narrowed more than they are likely ever to be by an assumed power.' The right solution, he and others then felt, was what is implied in the present 9th Amendment: that, in addition to the rights specified by the states, there is a universe of rights, possessed by the people latent rights, still to be evoked and enacted into law. But was this workable? In any given situation, someone would have to decide whether the rights that were claimed were valid, and that would leave the existence of rights to the mercy of personal and political opinion, and no one would be safe. Some rights a core body of rights protected against the powers of the federal government would have to be specified, and the residue somehow protected in general terms. This is the compromise that we have inherited from them and that we live with, and struggle with, and benefit from, every day of our lives: in the first eight amendments of the Constitution, a carefully worded list of specific rights protected from encroachment by the federal government, together with the belief that there are not only rights protected by the states but a reservoir of other, unenumerated rights that the people retain, which in time may be enacted into law.
​

 

[MD_Willington]

Many "Conservatives" are not really conservative ie they are too tolerant of other ideals or broad minded.. aka, hey you can be a part of our "PC fun-shine band" as long as you tow the party line and cram our party line down everyone else's throat...

I agree, both groups are guilty as charged...

 

[Helmetcase]

Hel Nutcase,

Thanks for making your maturity apparent for all to see.

By your line of reasoning any proclivity, inclination, behavior, desire or wish could be construed as a "right" which of course they are not.

No. Not even close to right. Pathetic, actually.

You don't have a right to murder, to punch people you don't like, to pour your used motor oil down the kitchen sink, to rape women, etc.

There's no slippery slope here. You either have a right or you don't, and anyone with a smidgen of moral clarity can see that certain things are simply not rights at all and thus I'm clearly NOT outlining such a slippery slope, but regardless the point of the COTUS is to delimit what powers the govt has. Seems you're equally guilty of suggesting govt has rights that it doesn't have. One of the most closely held rights is control over your own person. You'd gladly suggest that state govts have the right to decide what you can and can't do with your own internals.

If you don't believe there's a right to privacy, then you necessarily believe the govt can take an interest in whether you use contraception, sleep with your wife in a kinky position, own more than one gun, what TV shows you watch, who you associate with, what politics you have, what you do with your spare time, etc.

Do you really think the govt should be allowed to decide you can only have sex with a person of a different gender? That you can only do it on a certain day of the week? That you shouldn't have privacy about your personal affairs? REALLY? And I'M the un-American one here? Puhhhlease.

but rather from a uniquely AMERICAN perspective

Ah yes, when all else fails, resort to suggesting that your point of view is more "American" than the other guy's.

If anything, the more AMERICAN perspective is to allow others to make choices you wouldn't choose for yourself. You would have the govt choose FOR women to not get to have abortions and FOR gay people to not marry, and you'd use the govt as your implement of choice. I don't see where the COTUS protects the govt's ability to do any of that.

Funny how those with fascist inclinations are always the first to shout "Fascist!" Had you engaged in this debate respectfully and with decorum I would gladly have continued it. However since that is not the case I will not engage in further debate with you sir.

Oh, give me a $@#$%#$@ break. The conversation was fine until YOU attacked the original poster by saying "it's people like YOU who are destroying the COTUS" and all that jazz. Invariably these discussions go down the tubes when some conservative like you decides to trot out the "it's you damn hippy libs who are destroying my country" crap. And it's so tiresome.

Get a grip.

As for your quoting at length the minority dissenting view on the 9th, I find it unconvincing. There are just as many, if not more, jurists who are inclined to read the 9th as I do (did you bother to read the link I supplied? Didn't think so)--which is to say, it says just exactly what it sounds like it says, and that just because a right isn't explicitly mentioned, said right is not disparaged.

Other than conservototalitarians like Scalia's ilk, most rational people do NOT believe that you don't have any rights other than those explicitly enumerated in the COTUS.

For what you're arguing to be true, you would have to believe that the only rights you have are those explicitly mentioned in the COTUS. Nobody really believes that.

Or do you not believe that the govt can print your name, CCW permit info, and address on a billboard for all to see?

 

[bouis]

To understand the 9th amendment you have to understand the context in which it was written -- the authors of the Constitution considered a bill of rights to be unnecessary, because the government of the constitution is one of limited, enumerated powers: the federal government has no power except those surrendered to it by the States in the Constitution. This was thought of as the greatest protection a people could have from the government. But a lot of folks were afraid that the federal government would disregard its mandate and assume powers not surrendered [go figure!].

And so a bill of rights was added to address this concern. But there was also a fear that a bill of rights would be read as establishing a government with unlimited powers, except those specifically excepted by the bill of rights. So the 9th amendment was added clarify that.

A great example is the 4th amendment. We get countless 4th amendment cases in the Supreme Court these days, but guess how many there were in the first 60 years of the Republic? Exactly two, and neither got more than a sentence or two of discussion by the Supreme Court.

But, what happened? The worst of both worlds. The federal government is now assumed to have unlimited powers [completely unconstitutional], and for the most part your protections from it are limited to those things it specifically can't do [technically correct, but not in the spirit of the document].

On another matter [and I don't think that I'm some kind of one-dimensional ideologue], I think that reasonable people can disagree about a lot of issues, but the key distinction goes back to the above: whether we have a government of limited and enumerated powers, or one with the power to do whatever it likes. If you believe in the latter then you're part of the problem, whether you think guns are good or not.

 

[ArfinGreebly]

My, My . . .

How polarizing.

I believe in Guns, Germs, and Steel a number of "tricks" were listed as key ways parties control people.

It's been a while since I saw it discussed, but what I took away from that was that of the six aspects of control, one party mostly uses three of them, while the other party uses the other three.

Anyone who has touched this more recently than I, please feel free to correct my memory.

What it amounts to is two factions openly hostile to one another yet accomplishing the same ends.

Kind of like the never-ending argument about the differences between socialism/communism and fascism. Both systems rob individuals of their rights, but since the perceived process is different, people are happy to argue for one side or the other while missing the whole point of the exercise.

What we need is a two-party system.

We already have one of those parties, though it has two names.

The other party needs a clear definition and, if it can be made to resonate, can eventually get a foothold.

Remember the political parties of the early years? No? We had other parties than those you see today. Today's parties pretty much embody the bulk of the thinking formerly housed in those earlier parites, in one form or another.

Trouble is, today's parties are both "The Government" party.

So, given that we're down to one actual party, it would be really interesting to see what a viable platform would be for the new party.

I'd really like to see that.

 

[The Amigo]

Funny

Its funny how we are fighting in IRAQ to keep democracy flowing when. Some American citizens don't have the right to vote for their president yet and live under a colonial status since the end of the Spanish American war. I guess Puerto Rico is not as important... Yet were are good enough to serve in the military hmmm...

I will defend the flag to the end but that doesn't mean we all shall trust the government always to the end. I like to carry guns and support our troops 100% but somebody needs to keep an eye on uncle sam 2.

 

[MrTuffPaws]

Welcome to the Liberal's Gun Club. I'm a member myself.

 

[Art Eatman]

If you browse back through this thread, I think it's pretty obvious that the term "statist" is better than either "liberal" or "conservative" when you're talking about today's politicians.

For instance, the behavior of the Republicans in Congress these last several years are not what I grew up seeing in the Republicans of Congress--particularly as regards spending.

I first really started paying attention to politics and RKBA in the arguments about the GCA of 1968. Appalling. It seemed to me that things got worse as LBJ's "Great Society" got underway and more fully established, insofar as federal government intrusion into daily life.a The Carter-era economic policies exacerbated what began with LBJ.

So, while not particularly "a Republican", I surely turned away from the modern era Democrats.

But I'm darned sure anti-statist.

What I have observed about most--most, I said, not all--pro-gun politicians is that they at least know the meaning of "individual sovereignty". What I have observed about a higher percentage in "most" anti-gun politicians is that they apparently despise the very concept of individual sovereignty, believing that all people should be subservient to an ever more powerful central government.

That's why, for me, the RKBA is indeed a valid litmus test for a candidate for office.

But back for a moment to "statist": Most politicians, today, have grown up under the aegis of LBJ's Great Society, and tend to believe that government both can and should solve social problems. Dubya is one such; in no way do I call him a Conservative in the once-used sense of the term.

I ain't real pleased with the state today's Union.

Art

 

[spacejunkiehsv]

Almost off topic...

I have one set of ideas that would help eliminate people from being grouped together as much as we are.

I think if we limited terms for ALL offices to two terms (total) at EACH level (local, state, then federal), then we may be able to help eliminate CAREER politicians. Career politicians are mostly in it for the job/power and what comes with it. If they can do a little good work along the way, that's just gravy.

I believe career politicians greatly harm this country. If we could get some people in office whose main goal is to do good (as they see it), we would be much better off in the long run.

Hell, it would help a lot to somehow get out from under this (mostly) two party system. I would LOVE to feel like I could vote for an independent candidate without giving my vote to the GREATER evil (versus the LESSER evil) at the time.

 

[Neo-Luddite]

Join the NRA anyway

Join the NRA anyway. It is a single-minded organization with a big tent.
You need to get past the idea that there is some kind of conflict of ideals between being liberal socially and pro-RTKBA. There is not. Don't be conflicted so much. Don't apologize to anyone for what you believe.

You CAN be anti death penalty and be in the NRA. You can be pro-choice, pro-drug legalization, pro gay marriage or whatever. NO ONE CARES AS LONG AS YOU ARE A FELLOW GUN NUT standing up to be counted.

Yes, there are plenty of conservative folks in the NRA. Yes the money must flow. But you have to decide what matters most. The other civil liberties won't matter anymore once this is gone. Complacency about the individual right to own weapons breeds the ground of hollocaust.


John F. Kennedy was a life member of the NRA.

 

[BenjaminR]

Eh, you're not alone. My dad's a gun toting liberal.

 

[Ryder]

I don't understand why political beliefs seem to come as a package of positions on a variety of unrelated issues for so many people.

Me either. I recently made a comment that some crime victims would have stood a better chance of survival if they had been armed and somebody jumped all over me for calling the victim a liberal. Here I was under the impression that CCW permits were not limited due to political affiliation.

Looks like some people let politics take the place of religion in their minds, or they are unable to spereate the two. They feel they must believe the whole package based on simple faith. Maybe because they lack religion and the human soul yearns for spirituality? I don't know! haha, it's too deep for me and now I probably just got your thread locked
.

 

[ReadyontheRight]

The older I get, the more I lean to the right on certain social issues. But I'm not a religious person, I don't care about abortion at all, and I do think we could benefit from cleaning up the environment a little... but at the same time, I'm not really buying the whole 'global warming' thing. I'm just me. I listen to different sides, and form my own opinion.. sometimes those opinions change, sometimes they don't. Basically I think people should be free to do whatever they want, as long as they don't deprive anyone else of those rights.

Mike -- Would you please just run for President?

Just PLEASE don't say you're "middle of the road". You are a conservative libertarian. We just need to come up with a catchier name for your Party.

 

[ReadyontheRight]

What I have observed about most--most, I said, not all--pro-gun politicians is that they at least know the meaning of "individual sovereignty". What I have observed about a higher percentage in "most" anti-gun politicians is that they apparently despise the very concept of individual sovereignty, believing that all people should be subservient to an ever more powerful central government.

That's why, for me, the RKBA is indeed a valid litmus test for a candidate for office.

Oh -- and Mike -- Please appoint Art as Chief Justice. AND Civilian Marksmanship CZAR. Thanks!