SilentStalker
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So, how do we keep our democratic republic from suffering the same fate as Venezuela? Yes, I’m specifically referring to the taking of arms and mob rule.
Helpless Venezuelans lament losing guns, right to stand up to government
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AlexanderA
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Socialism and capitalism are the two poles of a continuum. No country is purely one or the other; they all fall somewhere on the continuum. For example, the "capitalistic" U.S. has a "socialistic" post office and interstate highway system. Conversely, "socialistic" (in name only!) China has a thriving capitalistic business sector, and even in Venezuela and Cuba they still have the concept of private property. So the only question is where exactly on the continuum a country will fall.
I'm very familiar with the situation in Greece. Greece is a democratic parliamentary republic, with a figurehead president. The governing party is SYRIZA (the Coalition of the Radical Left). Previously, rule alternated between PASOK (the Panhellenic Socialist Movement) and the center-right New Democracy party. There is/was no discernible difference in daily life or the economy under any of these governments. (Greeks generally ignore the laws they don't like.) The current Prime Minister, Alexis Tsipras, has made a big show of attending Fidel Castro's funeral and visiting Maduro in Venezuela. He even named his son "Ernesto" after Che Guevara. It's all rhetoric, for internal party consumption. In reality, Greece is in a close and growing strategic partnership with the United States.
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LRDGCO
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A simple "I was mistaken. None of Europe's governments are Socialist" would have sufficed but I enjoyed the update on Greece.
AlexanderA
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Some conservative people in the U.S. label anyone to their left as a "commie." (You see this a lot on ar15.com, for instance.) By their lights, if a liberal Democrat is a "commie," certainly a social-welfare regime in Europe would be "socialist." You and I both know that even governments that label themselves "socialist" are not necessarily socialist. Greece is a prime example of this.
Old Dog
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I have absolutely zero to add to this thread, other than I'm enjoying reading it and following the discussion ... yes, it's political, but hopefully the mods will keep it open.
(Things continue to go bad here, maybe I'll move to mom's home country, Finland ...)
(Things continue to go bad here, maybe I'll move to mom's home country, Finland ...)
Welcome. We have a great tradition in two national sports, namely kicking communists' butts and gun stashing.
Too bad (or fortunately?) USA has never seen the results of socialism up close, Soviet Union was a grim reminder right across the border and even though the level of socialism in Finland is moderate these days, even younger generations realize not to idolize a Venezuelan-type of sandersian dystopia. Essentially a balancing act, even though I've considered moving to the US a number of times. In the 80's I'd probably have already done it, the current rise of hardcore and champagne socialists in the US is a bit alarming and if that continues, the consequences won't be good.
The futile attempt of private individuals to stand up armed against the government would result in martial law followed by military dictatorship. The people at DIA will do everything to protect the state. We do not want to see consequences of their actions.
The Liberal
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It’s not free. It’s collectively funded as an essential public service via taxes.
The Liberal
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We honestly just reckoned we’d trace your IP addresses and take your guns while you’re at work or something. It was on the agenda at the Big Liberal Weekly meeting.
On topic, most Democrats and liberals actually support a fairly broad RKBA. We just don’t agree that common ownership of assault weapons and easy acquisitions of and access to firearms are compatible with public safety. Also worth noting that many more Americans have been killed in modern times by gun violence than by government action.
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I was with you until that. There is no such thing as gun violence, any more than there is car violence, or rock violence, etc, etc. "Gun violence" is just a fancy catch phrase by the anti's to try to blame inanimate objects instead of people so they can hopefully take guns away. Twisting the debate to take the focus off the real problem.
Neither did the equally misguided do-gooders about alcohol in 1920's. Any blanket legislation that affects population in general using problems caused by a tiny minority as an excuse is bound to backfire in a monumental scale. So is using propagadistic terms like "assault weapons" of objects functionally identical to anything that has been commonly available for the better part of a century if not longer.
"Assault" implies action and using it as a descriptive term of an inanimate object tells much more about the person using the word than the object. This would be a perfect time to play a historically accurate H-card, but I can't even be bothered. Everyone already knows what "assault"/"Sturm" was all about.
AlexanderA
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Eternal vigilance. I also have to say that the U.S. is not comparable to Venezuela. I know people from Venezuela. Their entire society is polarized into the haves and have-nots. The people complaining now are mostly the haves. The Chavez-Maduro regime is the result of the previous regime not having done enough to promote social justice. The lesson that enlightened conservatives can draw from Venezuela is the one stated by the Italian conservative Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa: "things must change in order that things can stay the same." If you don't have reform eventually you get an explosion.
Funnily enough, "social justice" as described by US progressives is exactly what Chavez/Maduro have been practising all along. Same playbook, same inevitable end results.
Zerodefect
member
Run for office, if you have leadership to offer.
No one wants to be in politics. The way our current president is being treated, is why.
If I was wealthy (wealthier), would I want to be pres? Heck no, I'd be on a Caribbean island somewhere. Would take an act of god to compel me to help this nation, and deal with the press and all of the dirtbags.
AlexanderA
Member
This is where we part ways. I consider myself a liberal and yet I own a whole bunch of so-called "assault weapons." And I'm not a threat to public safety. How do you draft a law that protects public safety yet allows people like me to keep their freedom? That's practically impossible. If the choice is between safety and freedom I would err on the side of freedom. (Besides that, gun control regimes are not effective in accomplishing their stated goals of actually removing guns and reducing crime.)
No, we're not.
AlexanderA
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Sistema1927
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It is touted to an ignorant public as "free" and then stolen from the productive to give to the idle. Margaret Thatcher rightly described Socialism when she said: "The trouble with Socialism is that eventually you run out of other people's money."
The fatal flaw with socialism is the fact that the productive quit producing and the entire nation falls into an equality of poverty. Too bad they don't teach basic economics these days, and as a result the young think that "free stuff" grows on trees.
"The Liberal", you are aptly named.
Neither does what's commonly called "social justice" these days. There's nothing social in it and it's the polar opposite of justice.
The main difference between a Republic and a democracy rests in the limits placed on the government. This matters for minority rights. It wouldn't matter if we were talking about the Second Amendment and owning firearms or some other Constitutional Right.
A Republic and a democracy are exactly the same in every aspect except one. In a Republic the sovereignty is in the individual person. In a democracy the sovereignty is in the group ... the majority.
In a Republic a Constitution protects the inalienable rights that cannot be taken away.
In a pure democracy the majority (the mob) cannot be legally restrained and can impose its will on the minority.
In a Republic if the majority attempts to illegally impose its will on fellow citizens then those citizens can defend their rights. Either through the court system, at the polls or from the roof tops. In a pure democracy they basically wouldn't have any recourse.
Your view is slanted.
Your posts have always been a bit off, now I know why.
A Republic and a democracy are exactly the same in every aspect except one. In a Republic the sovereignty is in the individual person. In a democracy the sovereignty is in the group ... the majority.
In a Republic a Constitution protects the inalienable rights that cannot be taken away.
In a pure democracy the majority (the mob) cannot be legally restrained and can impose its will on the minority.
In a Republic if the majority attempts to illegally impose its will on fellow citizens then those citizens can defend their rights. Either through the court system, at the polls or from the roof tops. In a pure democracy they basically wouldn't have any recourse.
Your view is slanted.
Your posts have always been a bit off, now I know why.
lionking
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Just make sure my cats don't get out , they are indoor only
lionking
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I have been careful not to use the terms "liberal, "conservative", "Democrat" or "republican" on this thread knowing that either can support 2nd amendment rights , in the last few replies it shows that those that call themselves "liberal" don't even agree with each other when it comes to it.
Without going into the semantics of the definition of "assault rifle" , the terms "assault weapon", "weapon of war" and "military grade" are terms that have been conjured up and sensationalized by the anti's to promote propaganda toward the unknowing public.
If violence in America is at a high situation , that is a social problem not a gun problem. As far as "assault weapons" the nutjob kid in Texas killed as many using a revolver and shotgun than other nutjobs have using a AR-15 style rifle. Banning the Ar-15 or other style rifle isn't going to stop these killings, there needs to be a social and moral reckoning to resolve it.
The U.S.A is nowhere near like Venezuela in terms of corruption and or oppression, nor will it likely ever be. U'S.A has a good constitution with checks and balances and elections that transfer power peacefully and most Americans take pride in that. There probably will never be a need to take up arms against the government, and if such a thing spiraled down that much, it is doubtful most armed forces would comply with orders as such. However that said, nothing is impossible and to ignore such a possibility seems ignorant.
What is alarming though are certain actions some politicians would like to take such as demanding passwords from gun license applicants to search social media and emails history before allowing the ownership of a gun which some politicians in NY recently proposed. How far does concern for public safety go, how far down the rabbit hole will it go? You say you support owning a gun, but not "assault weapons" so much. Out there is someone who doesn't think you should own your style of gun handgun or shotgun or whatever. After that there is someone out there who doesn't think you should own a gun at all. It's that slippery slope.
Capt.Roll
Member
True. Wasn't it Mao that said "Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun." The guns of the Russian Communist Party created socialism back in the Marx, Lenin, Stalin days. The Venezuela citizens were duped by Maduro and largely unarmed have little means to oust him from power.
First gun registration then confiscation. It will be interesting to watch Boulder, CO over then next few months. Residents have until December 27 to "certify" their gun(s) with city authorities. I bet that doesn't go very well.
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AlexanderA
Member
Wrong. You get an "F" on your political science quiz.
It appears that we are talking past each other. "Republic" and "democracy" can't be compared because they are describing two entirely different things. A "republic" refers to the governmental structure (i.e., the lack of a king), whereas a "democracy" refers to the ultimate source of power (i.e., the people). You can have a democratic republic, you can have a democratic monarchy, but you can also have a despotic republic or a despotic monarchy. Think of a republic as an organizational chart and a democracy as the philosophy behind it. Guarantees of minority rights are simply part of a well-designed democratic system.
You are also confusing democracy (an ordered rule by the people) with ochlocracy (mob rule). The operative terms are demos versus ochlos. The ancient Greeks, who invented these terms, were quite clear on the difference.
I think you need a refresher course on political theory.
(BTW, I notice that you are from the Dallas - Ft. Worth area. I lived in Ft. Worth in 1957, as a 12-year-old, when my father was a professor at TCU. Did you know that Ft. Worth had a Socialist mayor in the 1930's? I actually met him when we lived in Ft. Worth.)
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You've already been proven to be incorrect on multiple things in this thread, so pardon me if I don't take your word for it.
No, actually I'm not.
I'm informally equating a majority hellbent on denying a minority their rights with a 'mob'. (Pitchforks, lanterns, noose's ... the whole bit)
You are correct on one thing though, we're talking past each other.
Once I found out exactly what you are I was basically done.
I think that you need to give up your guns and move to Venezuela.
You apparently agree with their government.
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