Left vs. Right and divide on gun control, freedom, crime, etc.

[mountainclmbr]

An interesting article from Canada where the left is stronger than here in the USA. Interesting ideas about why crimminals and crime are tolerated, but law abiding citizens had a gun registry pushed on them.

Quote "A generation ago, or a little more by now, it was broadly assumed that the whole of society had an interest in preventing crime. This is no longer true. The Left has "evolved" to a position where it now realizes crime itself, in its most direct forms -- murder, mayhem, violent robbery, for instance -- also help to reduce the honest citizen's sense of control. Too much of it, and even the state would lose its purchase; the problem is to arrange for "just enough". With the right amount, it is possible -- as we have seen in Canada -- to push through things like the gun registry, thus clawing away at the citizen's ability, as well as right, to defend himself in an emergency.

Indeed, the most obvious contemporary way to distinguish between a "liberal" and a "conservative" is in their views on any passing spectacle of crime and punishment. The "liberal" instinctively identifies with the criminal, the "conservative" instinctively identifies with the victim. The liberal instinctively accuses the conservative of lacking compassion, or of wanting vengeance against the criminal, with whom the liberal has identified. The conservative instinctively remembers that the criminal showed no compassion to the victim with whom he identified."



Here is the link:

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2006/06/left_vs_right_the_great_divide.html

 

[Henry Bowman]

Wayne LaPierre (NRA) accused Bill Clinton of the same back in the 1990s. The Left came ungluded.

 

[bumm]

I think this comes down to one of the basic differences between liberals and conservatives... Most often, in the liberal view, the purpose of government is to "take care of us." This generally involves large government programs, detailed managment of our businesses and lives, restrictive regulations, and no need to defend ourselves. The conservative more often wants government out of our hair, out of our pocket books, and to be left to take care of ourselves. Not much surprise which side tends to be more in favor of gun control.
At the risk of making broad generalizations, this explains a bit why women tend more often to be liberal than men. They are more often willing to give up freedom for percieved safety.
Marty

 

[Gordon Fink]

It depends on the “crimes” and the “criminals,” doesn’t it?

~G. Fink

 

[Monkeyleg]

While the terms "liberal" and "conservative" are very subjective, I think the analysis in the article is very close to being accurate.

Over the Memorial Day weekend, there were 28 shootings in Milwaukee.

Aside from the usual anti-NRA rhetoric, the solutions proposed by the liberals both within and without city government were predictable: more youth programs, youth centers, outreach programs, etc.

All of these presume that the sociopaths who are doing the shooting and the maiming and the beating have any interest in going to a youth center to play whatever games might be available. Or that a member of Gang X who knows he's being targetted by Gang Y is going to talk to pastor at a storefront church.

No, he's going to get a gun and shoot any member of Gang Y that comes near him.

In my days as a low-grade punk, I know I wouldn't have gone to a youth center. It wouldn't have been "cool."

The other predictable response to increased violence is a call for more laws. But we already have laws against murder, with additional penalties specific to the race, religion, sexual orientation or occupation of the victim. We have all sorts of laws. We even have laws dictating how much water our toilets can hold.

Those of us who feel that we have more than enough laws and that we need to enforce those laws are called "unfeeling." When feelings began to trump logic, I don't know. But feelings rule, so the liberals break out the candles and hold their vigils. Then they go home.

Waitone's awful story of the murder of his grand daughter is just one example of this thought process.

Another example is a case from several years back in Milwaukee where one teenage girl shot and killed another for her coat.

The killer's attorney, Robin Shellow, argued that her client suffered from "urban psychosis," a term she just made up. The jury practically laughed at the argument, and convicted the killer.

Liberal appellate judge Lyn Adelman, though, bought into "feelings," and sympathized with the killer. He viewed her as some kind of victim, and overturned the conviction.

I suspect that the liberals cannot embrace the idea of our society producing people who hold no regard for human life, because to do so would require them to reject the very social programs they have been creating since the 1960's. Rather than admit they were wrong, they persist in creating new programs which, like new laws, are redundant.

The net effect of creating one redundant social program after another is to create an inefficient and expensive bureaucracy that forces property owners and businesses to flee the city, resulting in a drop in property values, tax revenues and jobs.

In other words, the programs actually cause the very problems they were supposed to solve.

 

[BFWE]

Deeper still

What do you think about this?

Liberals identify most closely with those that imagine themselves to be fit to rule others... i.e. the Nobility. With the birth to such a class comes the responsibility of "taking care of the lesser people".

Conservatives more closely identify themselves with the ideas of individual liberty and responsibility. Their belief is that the individual should rule themselves and not be ruled by others.

Taken to this extreme it is the continued battle between those who would rule and those that would not be ruled.

Just a thought... In practice, the two major parties of the current political system are labeled "Liberal" and "Conservative" and neither is in reality truly different from one another. They are both of the "Rule the Masses" flavor - just different sides of the same coin.

 

[TallPine]

It depends on the “crimes” and the “criminals,” doesn’t it?

Just what I was thinking, or else I must be a liberservative

The guy down the road growing and smoking weed is of no consequence to me, but the guy sneaking around my yard trying to abduct my teenage daughter ought to be sentenced to 20 years in the electric chair.

 

[mountainclmbr]

I also view this as a control vs. liberty issue. Many Republicans can compete with the Democrats in the control freak quotient. I think laws should protect citizens from being harmed by others. The laws should not consider what will bring the government the most loot. Sadly, this is what it has become. With the sins on the hands of both ideologies, it has been primarily the left that has comitted genocide against their own citizens. Therefore I fear them the most.

In Boulder, CO I often see bumper stickers that say "Crime Equals Poverty" or something like that. I guess that I give a would-be crook that last push every time I pull a 70 hour work week. It seems clear that socialism would cure crime as a side benefit to stopping global warming.

 

[mordechaianiliewicz]

monkeyleg just exclaimed why the socialism lite of the left in the US fails. Ultimately, it is the heavy bureacracies.

I've discovered something in studying history current and past. In the old days when the kings taxed their people between 3%-20% of what they earned, depending on the time, and the culture, the grain, or coin representing it (or the labor) done they did so to support armies which would expand empires, creating a greater tax base, etc.

Well, the army consumed grain, it had to trade for their weapons, and equipment, and ultimately, the protection afforded by the tax rarely matched with the ammount.

Today we have a different dynamic, and a different set of goals. We also have a higher tax, over 50% for the upper middle class!

Yet, the government bureacracies are just as inefficient. For every one of them you have teams of 40-60k salary folks getting paid to regulate this, control that, make sure ban on this or that stays in force. Help this group of people, help that business. And what does it end up really meaning? More or less freedom? The armies of old attacked the countryside, and destroyed their own countrymen just as readily as foreign countrymen.

A law that helps one business over others does so at the cost of others. A law that helps one citizen over another does so at the cost of another. Because we use the government's force to destroy each other, we all become the architects of our own demise.

 

[shooter94]

Excellant analysis Gentalmen...

 

[cookekdjr]

Guys, liberals are the ones who have championed the prosecution of child molesters, rapists, and wife beaters. Liberals are the ones who created rape shield laws, child advocacy centers that treat child abuse and child molestation victims (as well as conduct fornesic interviews of the children that are turned over to police to aid in prosecution), and who push for tougher prosecution of human trafficking cases (human trafficking involves enslaving women and girls into forced prostitution).
Its just ignorant to say that liberals are pro-defendant and conservatives favor the prosecution. Many criminal defense attorneys are Republican, by the way. They make alot of money in their efforts to help child molestors, rapists, and murderers go free, and they want to make sure their profits from helping these scumbags are taxed at a low rate.
I think both the NRA and the Democratic party have missed the boat in assuming the 2nd Amendment belongs ot the GOP. There are lots of gun-toting liberals (like me) who believe the 2nd Amendment is the key to the working man's liberty and personal protection. The rich know they will always have access to guns (as they do everything else).
-David

 

[Hayward Juhbuzzoff]

"Liberals identify most closely with those that imagine themselves to be fit to rule others... i.e. the Nobility. With the birth to such a class comes the responsibility of "taking care of the lesser people".

Conservatives more closely identify themselves with the ideas of individual liberty and responsibility. Their belief is that the individual should rule themselves and not be ruled by others."

Actually, in terms of left vs. right, it is just the opposite... the "right" traditionally stands for the institutionalized power, whether it's a religious theocracy or wealthy aristocracy, and the "left" traditionally stands opposed to that institutionalized power, by representing the common person.

 

[Kim]

I would disagree that the left wants to prosecute child molestors. They do not want to put them away at all in some cases. They of coarse think they can treat them to give up their behavior. Liberals do not like long prision sentences for rape either. And the violence aganist womens law is discrimatory aganist men. And it takes away many mens second amendment rights ie Lautenberg amendment. As a woman I am aganist the legislation. I know women very well and they can be vicious. They also lie alot and in divorce cases do so without abandon in many cases. Most egged on by the lawyers. Men just say the heck with it and move on. The woman never forgets and she will jump back in court to cause more harm and pain all in the name of the children which she really is using for a pawn in her revenge.

 

[mountainclmbr]

The leftists do not have such a great record. The NY Times got a Pulitzer for favorable coverage of Stalin's Soviet Union and the Peoples State, but they knowingly omitted the mass murders and made it seem rosy. Other fabulous leftist "experiments" include: (Russia already stated), Germany (Nazi was National Socialist Party), China, Vietnam, N Korea, Cuba, Venezuela, Bolivia. In the last 100 years these governments have killed more of their own citizens than all people killed in the wars of the same period. To those who think that the left is right, I would ask that they move to a compliant country as I have listed. But, the left is not interested in a society with opportunities, they want groveling scum that they control from their ivory tower. They want to play god to feed their egos.

 

[cookekdjr]

"Republicans think every day is July 4th.
Democrats think every day is April 15th." Ronald Reagan

"Rebellion to tyrants is obedience to God." Thomas Jefferson

Jefferson was a Democrat.

 

[cookekdjr]

The leftists do not have such a great record.
Not everybody can be as good as the fascists.

 

[cookekdjr]

I would disagree that the left wants to prosecute child molestors.
Fine. Disagree. When's the last time a Republican gave money to help fund a child advocacy center? Do you even know what a child advocacy center is?
Look, I contribute money, I go to the fund raisers, I see who is there. The overwhelming majority of contributers are liberals.
Folks, for the most part, crime is NOT a partisan issue. Easily half of the prosecutors where I have worked for the last several years have been Democrats.

 

[JesseJames]

I believe in the power of the individual to help him or herself. I extoll personal responsiblity. And to those who can not take care of themselves; we will tend to them as charitable people.
I abhor a 'bloated government' prying its nose into the citizen and wasting the taxpayers money. I want effective government; not a bloated bureaucracy.
To some extent a government rife with social services is an indication of a failing society or people.
What have we become?

 

[Silent-Snail]

Jefferson was a Democrat.

Compering President Jefferson to a modern Democrat is an error on the same magnitude
as comparing a Grant era Republican to our current President.

 

[Nehemiah Scudder]

The way I see it, the deal with the Left vs. Right on prisons isn't so much on who deserves to go to prison. Both pretty much agree on that.

It's once you throw someone in prison what you do with 'em that differs. Generally, the Left likes the concept of rehabilitating prisoners, and the Right likes the idea of punishing prisoners. Though, this is kind of a big generalization.

 

[Lone_Gunman]

I hope this discussion is in regards to the theoretical differences between liberals and conseratives, as some of the statements made in this thread clearly don't apply to the current crop of politicians who consider themselves "conservative".

Take for example the comment that conservatives stand for individual freedom. Maybe that was the case 20 or 30 years ago, but no longer. The conservatives today are happy to take away your rights in the name of public safety or morality.

Neither side really stands for personal liberty and personal responsibility any more.

 

[mountainclmbr]

I agree that both parties have done little to limit the intrusion of government into individual lives. Bush the elder was terrible for the 2nd Ammendment. I remember voting for Perot (Hoping desperately to see someone go in and smack come congress critters around) and we got Clinton who was 10X worse. One of the reasons I am a registered Libertarian.

 

[utahminirevolver]

One Canadian suggested that we have a cage fight between the aborginals who want everybody off their land (that's all of Canada), and the Islamofascists who want everybody who isn't one of them, dead.

This would present lib-lefters, who currently cheer on each of these groups against conservatives, with a little problem: which side to take here? In my daydream, the leftists would split up supporting both types of troublemakers, join in the fray, and they could all take each other out.

 

[GoRon]

When's the last time a Republican gave money to help fund a child advocacy center?

Conservatives in the form of their church ministries are doing plenty on the ground.

They aren't sitting around patting themselves on the back for funding a group that lobbies the government for more re-distribution of the countries wealth.

Just because conservatives don't want the government to fund something doesn't mean they want the group or activity to stop.

I remember voting for Perot (Hoping desperately to see someone go in and smack come congress critters around) and we got Clinton who was 10X worse. One of the reasons I am a registered Libertarian.

That is some unusual logic. You voted third party once and got someone 10X worse so now you vote exclusively third party?

 

[Zen21Tao]

Guys, liberals are the ones who have championed the prosecution of child molesters, rapists, and wife beaters. Liberals are the ones who created rape shield laws, child advocacy centers that treat child abuse and child molestation victims (as well as conduct fornesic interviews of the children that are turned over to police to aid in prosecution), and who push for tougher prosecution of human trafficking cases (human trafficking involves enslaving women and girls into forced prostitution).
Its just ignorant to say that liberals are pro-defendant and conservatives favor the prosecution. Many criminal defense attorneys are Republican, by the way. They make alot of money in their efforts to help child molestors, rapists, and murderers go free, and they want to make sure their profits from helping these scumbags are taxed at a low rate.
I think both the NRA and the Democratic party have missed the boat in assuming the 2nd Amendment belongs ot the GOP. There are lots of gun-toting liberals (like me) who believe the 2nd Amendment is the key to the working man's liberty and personal protection. The rich know they will always have access to guns (as they do everything else).
-David

Wow, are you kidding?

Jessica’s Law – A law that imposes much sticker punishment and require registration for sexual offenders. This bill was proposed and championed by Ginny Brown-Waite R-Florida. (Notice the R, that means Republican). Take a look at a state-by-state map of those states that have adopted Jessica’s law and a political party state map. Of the 16 states that have passed Jessica’s law only 4 of them are heavily blue states.

Recall the recent child rapist that was given probation because he was too short to go to prison? This is just one example of a recent wave of Judges like John Connors that have taken upon themselves to deliver extremely light sentences to child sexual offenders/preditors. Take a guess as to the political affiliation of this recent wave of judges that have been giving child molesters, child rapists and even child murder’s light sentences and even no jail time. Nope, they weren't Republican judges they were Democrat judges.

Most of these sexual offenders are released because the judge thinks that they suffer from a disease and need treatment not punishment. It is funny how liberals tend to see everything as some type of disease. If you get road rage you have “Intermittent Explosive Disorder” and if you were depressed after the 2004 spanking of John Kerry you suffered from “Post Election Selection Trauma.”

People with diseases are usually said to be “suffering from X disease.” By declaring that some people has a disease liberals can treat them as victims. But why do liberals insist on seeing everyone as victims? My belief is that they do this so that they can appear to be their champions coming to their rescue. Everyone likes to have a hero that fights for the weak but it is kind of sad that the “weak” that liberals fight for includes the vilest criminals out there.