Beatnik said:
My understanding of the firearms issue is that banning is borne of socialism.
Not really. In fact, I don't think I've ever seen a political ideology that has "ban guns" as a core value. While there are some extremists (as there are in any political movement), the "gun control" advocates are only advocating gun control because there
is a problem with violent crime committed using guns in primarily urban areas. "Banning guns" is not the goal - reducing violent crime is the goal. Banning guns, or certain types of guns, is seen as a means of accomplishing the goal.
People are free to have different opinions about how to solve the problem, but painting people who want to reduce violent urban crime as indiscriminately anti-gun is counter-productive. (Yes, there are some people who
are indiscriminately anti-gun, but they
are a minority, even on the political left. And in most cases, those people are just unaware of the reasons why people might need a gun beyond "commit crime". "Self defense" is a hard sell, even with high violent crime rates, because (a) if reducing the availability of guns reduces the violent crime rate, you've already solved the problem, and (b) the likelihood of any one individual being a victim of violent crime is statistically improbable.)
Beatnik said:
As stated, voters are generally people who have been rewarded by capitalism.
I'm not so sure that there is a direct relationship there. I think the direct relationships are between education and voting, and education and wealth (tho in the case of the second it isn't always clear which came first).
Beatnik said:
I don't believe that the poor "non ruling-class" are voting for social agendas either.
To some extent, they (er, we? I suppose I should acknowledge which side of my bread is buttered.) do. I think the GOP's resurgence came on the backs of working-class social conservatives... who traditionally voted Democratic for economic reasons. But the idea that Dems are directly buying the votes of welfare recipients is pretty silly.
Beatnik said:
I read in the early 90's in Rush's book The Way Things Outta Be his theory of why so many rock gods and movie stars are flaming liberals: guilt.
They've been rewarded beyond anyone's wildest dreams for comparatively little work, and they get to feeling guilty about it.
I'm not so sure "guilt" is the right word for it. Many of the uber-wealthy
have gained their wealth not thru hard work, but thru privilege (luck, basically). And they've got so much money that "tax rate" is essentially meaningless (if you take 20% or 80% of Warren Buffet's annual income in taxes, it's going to make a lick of difference to his lifestyle). That probably has something to do with why millionaires break GOP, while multi-multi-millionaires break Dem.
Beatnik said:
Now back to socialism: I think the gun control thing was alluded to in the article. It's a topic because we don't trust these poor unfortunate non-ruling-class to handle affairs for themselves. We need the state to step in and take care of it. And obviously, the easiest way to prevent gun violence is to take away the guns.
I think you're missing the boat here. There is no "ruling class" in socialism. There's no socio-economic "class" to speak of. That's kinda the point. I think people tend to conflate political and economic theory. Democracy != capitalism, and authoritarianism != socialism. In fact, you can't really have socialism without democracy. (More later.)
4v50 Gary said:
Absolutely right and they (the socialists) are not in control for long. Generally, there's confiscation followed by a purge until someone is in complete control (dictatorship of the proletariat). Worked for Stalin, Mao & Pol Pot.
Kinda underlining the point that they weren't really socialist countries at all. Some ruthless dictator stepped in and took advantage of the situation to install themselves as dictator of an authoritarian state.
Ash said:
Well, no Christian I know has argued for a theocracy and there are many Christians in government today and they don't impose theocratic requirements on the people.
Weeeeeelll..... Christian Reconstructionists sure like to dance around the edges of this topic quite a bit. And one look at the GOP primaries shows that you have to have belief in the right type of God to even have a chance. I think the Republican Party now is fundamentally different, if you'll excuse the pun, than what it was pre-Reagan. That difference is the overwhelming influence of theocratic fundamentalist Christians.
What Kennedy had to deal with as a Catholic running in a primarily Protestant country feels very different to me - an ex-Catholic, no less - than what Romney has to deal with in the GOP primaries. It doesn't help much that Romney punted when he gave his "freedom of religion" speech; while Kennedy defended his right to be non-Protestant, Romney had to defend Mormonism.
We're skating on some thin ice here, and I know this can be a difficult thing for evangelistic Christians to see, so I'll just remind everyone of the old Jefferson quote: "The price of freedom is eternal vigilance."
Ash said:
As to topless, gasp gasp and horror of horror, why stop there? Sex on the beach is the ultimate demonstration of personal liberty, right? It's natural, right? An expression of love, right?
Laws must have a secular purpose. If you can come up with a legitimate secular purpose for banning female toplessness, go right ahead. Frankly, I wouldn't mind a law banning
male toplessness. Like I want to see some overweight hairy dude with his shirt off, right? It's a threat to public safety - people could go blind.
Ash said:
Indeed, but reality is what it is, and support for any person on the left will add to a loss of firearms freedoms.
Absolutely untrue. This assumes that parties don't pay attention to the policies of the people who win elections. They do. Parties are not unchanging monoliths of policy. A quick look at our own history confirms this fact.
WildeKurt said:
Not only is it not a left/right issue, the whole concept of left/right is too simplistic.
Absolutely correct. I've had people who don't understand this (and the difference between economic and political theory) tell me that "libertarian socialism" is an oxymoron, without bothering to understand the theory.