Do folks here or on other gun related forums believe that smugly expressing themselves as better than others really help to support our cause toward second amendment rights when the expression of such comes off as smug, self righteous, pontificate, or pompous? Please note that this is a question - this is not an accusation.
I am truly wondering about this because sometimes there seems to be a smug sense of self righteousness that comes across from gun owners who seem to think they are better than others either morally, ethically, intelligently, strength of character wise, religiously and so on. I am not talking about very generally accepted ethics and beliefs along these lines. For example I do not mean a belief such as: We believe murder is bad therefore we are better than those who commit murder. What I mean to say is that it seems to me that some people apparently think they are better than others along the above lines because of their narrower specific belief systems such as religious beliefs, narrow ethical beliefs, ethnicity, nationality, and so forth. Therefore some people (and remember this is specifically about people on gun forums) seemingly become insulting, degrading, scornful, against the other person whenever that other person expresses other beliefs. Those beliefs can be expressed outright or inoffensively by the person with the other belief yet, there seem to be those, on every gun site with forums, who immediately have to go on the offensive and become nasty or scornful in reply and do so with an air of smugness and pomposity. They apparently become so self inflated in their own self satisfaction that is cocooned by their own belief system that they find it needful to ridicule all others even if they only do so in somewhat muted terms.
Is this something that others of you see happening also? If so, is this good for the cause of protecting our constitutional rights, specifically our right to keep and bear arms or; does such an attitude only go to alienate us from our own potential allies and make us a weaker target for our opposition? If it is happening as much as I believe it to be, why is it that we are not more able to become united under our single cause while leaving the degradation at home? Why is it that besides being against the opposition we also apparently have to be against one another? Remember again please, I am not talking about the difference between being supportive of generally accepted taboos such as murder, pedophilia, rape, oppressive tyranny, criminal acts, religious oppression by the state or by a religion and so forth. I am speaking to the fact that many of us have differing belief systems regarding much more benign things that even though practiced still allow the practicioner to be a good person. Yet, it seems evident that some of us have to attack those different beliefs of others when they are not malignant at all and; the attack is quite often along the less than desirable manners described above as opposed to by way of intelligent and respectful opposing debate.
What do you folks think?
All the best,
Glenn B
I am truly wondering about this because sometimes there seems to be a smug sense of self righteousness that comes across from gun owners who seem to think they are better than others either morally, ethically, intelligently, strength of character wise, religiously and so on. I am not talking about very generally accepted ethics and beliefs along these lines. For example I do not mean a belief such as: We believe murder is bad therefore we are better than those who commit murder. What I mean to say is that it seems to me that some people apparently think they are better than others along the above lines because of their narrower specific belief systems such as religious beliefs, narrow ethical beliefs, ethnicity, nationality, and so forth. Therefore some people (and remember this is specifically about people on gun forums) seemingly become insulting, degrading, scornful, against the other person whenever that other person expresses other beliefs. Those beliefs can be expressed outright or inoffensively by the person with the other belief yet, there seem to be those, on every gun site with forums, who immediately have to go on the offensive and become nasty or scornful in reply and do so with an air of smugness and pomposity. They apparently become so self inflated in their own self satisfaction that is cocooned by their own belief system that they find it needful to ridicule all others even if they only do so in somewhat muted terms.
Is this something that others of you see happening also? If so, is this good for the cause of protecting our constitutional rights, specifically our right to keep and bear arms or; does such an attitude only go to alienate us from our own potential allies and make us a weaker target for our opposition? If it is happening as much as I believe it to be, why is it that we are not more able to become united under our single cause while leaving the degradation at home? Why is it that besides being against the opposition we also apparently have to be against one another? Remember again please, I am not talking about the difference between being supportive of generally accepted taboos such as murder, pedophilia, rape, oppressive tyranny, criminal acts, religious oppression by the state or by a religion and so forth. I am speaking to the fact that many of us have differing belief systems regarding much more benign things that even though practiced still allow the practicioner to be a good person. Yet, it seems evident that some of us have to attack those different beliefs of others when they are not malignant at all and; the attack is quite often along the less than desirable manners described above as opposed to by way of intelligent and respectful opposing debate.
What do you folks think?
All the best,
Glenn B
