I'm a libertarian[/QUOTDear Joe,
Is this something further right than a conservative or what??
Glad your not left of left."
lol interestingly when I debate a "progressive liberal" on a topic and they don't agree with me like social security or firearms they call me a paranoid conservative.
And when I debate a conservative on a topic when they don't agree with me like unchecked war on terror or government banning gay marriage they call me a dirty liberal.
When in my mind I was being Libertarian consistant to live and let live stay out of people's lives philosophy.You can't demand protection for your rights while demanding government intrude on someone elses because you don't agree with their lifestyle.Yet this happens often.
Simple. Liberals want to institute a better world for us all, to save us from ourselves. It is only logical to them to do away with guns. If there were no guns, there would be....peace and harmony. If only they could get rid of all the guns. Unfortunately, that is where it all breaks down. First of all, they should start with the criminals. When they take the last gun from the last criminal, then they can come after mine. Of course, they can just outlaw guns, thus making me a criminal, and then come for mine.......
"Pro-choice" is a meaningless phrase.this is such a silly thread- ooh ooh! if liberals are agains personal freedom, the conservatives MUST be pro-choice
Joe Demko said:Thus, sweeping statements about the antis are seldom true. Are there some who want to disarm you in the interest of unfettered state power? Yes. Is that what all of them want? No. Most of them? I doubt it.
It's easier (and lazy) to lump them all together as a homogeneous "they" and rail about the most extreme beliefs of a few as if they were the goals of all, though, than to find out the true beliefs.
See, when the lady across the street is an anti because she believes fewer guns in circulation would result in fewer people being shot, which she considers desirable, but you respond by ranting about political beliefs she does not hold or by questioning her intelligence/sanity, you are doing a fine job of acting like the whackjob guncrank stereotype.
Joe Demko said:Yes, you can do that. "They" vote, though. Whether you like it or not, converting some of them to our side and making still yet more of them neutral, at least, on the topic of guns is crucial to long-term preservation of the 2A right. You do not convert people to your point of view, generally speaking, by calling them irrational or stupid. You do not convert them to your point of view by ascribing beliefs to them that they do not have and then going into red-faced-and-spitting screeds about those beliefs.
Joe Demko said:It is intellectual laziness to write off your opposition by claiming their position is too irrational to bother trying to understand it. This is exactly like the people at DU who paint gun owners as dangerous paranoids who must be disarmed. They figure they don't have to bother listening to you because you are crazy.
Both sides are fond of painting the other side as irrational. Both sides may be right.
Joe Demko said:Dark mutterings about solutions on the battlefield play well to some on our side. I, however, prefer to use other methods. If things go to your battlefield, I'm reasonably certain the resulting civil war will not yield results that will make either side believe they actually won.
And even if gun control "worked", all it would do is lessen crimes committed with guns. My godsister would be just as dead, since her boyfriend stabbed her to death. If she'd lived some place besides Chicago, she could have had a gun with which to defend herself. Gun control made it MORE likely that she would die. It's pathetic to see some anti-gunner in one breath, deny that an elderly woman or someone with a physical handicap could defend themselves with a firearm... then claim in the next that they could defend themselves WITHOUT one. Apparently 110lb. women are too weak to keep 210lb. rapists from "taking their gun away and using it against them"... but strong enough to whip those same 210lb. rapists barehanded. It's the "thought" process of a five year old who's seen too much "Xena".But gun control doesn't limit crime -- just the opposite. It mades crime easier and less risky because the victims are defenseless.