A Word From The Token Liberal
To my conservative/libertarian friends: Chill the fuck out. It’s a bad day for you — and believe me, after 2000, 2002, and 2004, I know exactly how you feel — but the world doesn’t end because of this election. Remember how you told us, upon the expiration of the AWB, that there wouldn’t be blood in the streets because of that? And remember how you were right? Well, I can tell you: You’re going to get to keep your guns. You’re probably not even going to see a renewal of the AWB — you’ve got enough Senators for a filibuster, and you’ve got Feingold. So you’re going to be fine.
Yes, you’re going to get some liberal social policies that you don’t approve of. Them’s the breaks. But I expect more of a return to the “horror” of the Clinton years than anything like the Carter years. And I expect Obama will waste no time moving to the center and disappointing his leftier base on some issues. So even that won’t be as bad as you might think.
Where to go from here? Use this as an opportunity to do what my party, the Democrats, wasted too much time not doing — you could argue from about 1994 to 2005 — cleaning up your own house. Get rid of the dead weight. Your side should be every bit as embarrassed by the Ted Stephenses as mine should be by the Robert Byrds. And while you’re at it, start lobbying the other party on the issues you care about — if guns are your thing (as they are for so many here), then angle for more Feingold Democrats.
And maybe — just maybe — we can actually see about finding some common ground. And maybe I’m a Chinese jet pilot.*
Anyway, it’s not the end of the world, and this too shall pass. You’ll get over it. And if you wait long enough, the Democrats will screw themselves, as parties in power always do, and it will once again be your turn to fuck everything up royally.
Note to Uncle: Thanks to outstanding beer bets, we now officially owe each other a beer. I’ll have to make it a point to get to East Tennessee, so we can each drink two beers, and then keep right on a-drinking. And then, after several beers, in the true spirit of the South, go shootin’! 
Gloat err, Note to Tam: Where’s your Palin now? “See ya at the polls,” indeed! 
* Bonus points for getting the reference without the benefit of Google.
November 5th, 2008 at 1:32 am
>Get rid of the dead weight.
Unfortunately it looks like all the live wood failed to get reelectd last night, and all we have left is dead weight.
PS – The Quote is parodying Edward G. Robinson from ‘The 10 Commandments’ right?
November 5th, 2008 at 1:37 am
Anything is possible, sure. However, Obama’s record to date makes Carter’s pre-1976 record seem moderate by comparison.
Agreed. The problem is that our fuck-ups are easily reversed when you guys take power. Your fuck-ups tend to be permanent. It only took Carter four years to establish a Department of Education, create a Ninth Circuit that made the Warren Court blush, give away the Panama Canal and convert Iran from a benign dictatorship into the world’s greatest state sponsor of terror, none of which 12 straight years of Republican rule could fix.
November 5th, 2008 at 1:45 am
I must admit, you are a more gracious winner than I expected, and I do sincerely HOPE
you are correct in your assertions.
None-the-less, in my case, experience trumps hope. I bought 2 ARs and 3k rds last week, and I’m buying 15 hi-cap mags tomorrow morning.
If you’re right, I’ll have a lot of fun with them, if you’re wrong, they’ll become part of my retirement plan, after the Dems raid my 401k.
November 5th, 2008 at 1:46 am
Nice call out to Tam. Good to see you classy in victory. Shows your character.
November 5th, 2008 at 1:53 am
joe:
Tam’s a big girl and good sport, and I’m sure she’ll take it in the spirit it was intended (and no, that spirit wasn’t nasty, unless you think her instigating comment was intended as nasty — I certainly didn’t). She can dish it out, and she can take it.
anon:
Nothing wrong with taking out a little insurance. I expect that an Obama victory is actually going to be quite a boon to gun shops. They really should vote Democrat, for many of the same reasons that all those Hollywood elitists really ought to vote Republican.
Xrlq:
If you think a half a trillion dollar deficit, a trillion-plus dollar banking meltdown, a political vacuum in Iraq, an eleven trillion dollar national debt, and eight years of watching America not practice what it preaches vis-a-vis rights and freedoms of the accused all constitute things that are “easy to fix,” you’ve got a massively different perspective than I do…
P.S. Wait, I thought the problem was that Obama didn’t have a record…
Stormy:
Nice try, but nope.
November 5th, 2008 at 1:56 am
Please explain to me using small, simple words – for I am just a dumb racist flyover state dweller – why I should be happy about more democrats like Feingold who are actively hostile to the first amendment.
And if any Chinese jet pilots happen to ram our aircraft in the next 11+8 weeks or so, I will remain completely unsurprised.
November 5th, 2008 at 2:00 am
well put.
November 5th, 2008 at 2:01 am
Stingray:
The Feingold remark was aimed at the Second Amendment nuts: he’s been pretty consistently pro-gun, with a couple of minor exceptions. But I’ve never understood the whole “hostile to the first amendment” thing — that seems to be a charge with all hype and no substance — but then, I’ve never understood the whole “money is exactly the same thing as speech” argument, either.
November 5th, 2008 at 2:06 am
Army of Darkness reference… one of my all time favorite movies.
November 5th, 2008 at 2:11 am
With respect to guns, I have no doubt that a few Feingolds are much match for Feinstein combined with Barry’s record.
As far as being hostile to free speech, when it comes to telling people, as Barry did during his campaign (i.e. against ads pointing out his position on firearms), that you can’t say X because that counts as a campaign contribution, I find it hard to read that as much other than infringing on the political speech 1A was set out to protect.
November 5th, 2008 at 2:29 am
I don’t have much to say, but: How could I not get the Army of Darkness reference? I have the DVD! See, common ground already.
November 5th, 2008 at 3:26 am
Oh the AWB will rear its ugly head within before 2010. We’ll see if it gets past congress. If it does, Obama will sign it. Mark my words.
I’ve got to pick up a lower tomorrow. And a new barrel. And some regular cap magazines. Dangit!
November 5th, 2008 at 3:52 am
O-ba-ma
O-ba-ma
USA
USA
USA
There I got it out of my system. A wonderful evening indeed and a great night for America and the world.
November 5th, 2008 at 4:33 am
I can only hope you’re right. I can live with most liberal laws, I just hate seeing gun laws ratcheted down (since they never seem to go away, and since Obama argues in his acceptance speech for an AWB).
November 5th, 2008 at 7:29 am
Why should we be expected to when the liberals still have never gotten over having the past two Presidential elections “stolen” from them (when, of course, no such thing happened)? Or is this just another instance of the wonderful, “Do as I say, not as I do,” liberal mindset?
November 5th, 2008 at 7:35 am
“If you think a half a trillion dollar deficit”
The Dems controlled Congress for the past two years. Why didn’t they control spending?
“a trillion-plus dollar banking meltdown”
That Bush, McCain, and others tried to avert in 2003 and 2005. Look up Barney Frank’s role in blocking reform.
“a political vacuum in Iraq”
You mean the country that was liberated from a dictatorship and has a constitution and free elections. That Iraq? The one that Democrats voted troops into?
“an eleven trillion dollar national debt”
I’ll give you that one. Bush has been a crazy mad spender.
I don’t have much hope of Obama and a Dem-controlled shrinking the deficit, though, especially with Obama promising health care and every social program under the sun while also cutting taxes for 95% of American taxpayers (a promise I don’t believe for a minute, BTW).
November 5th, 2008 at 7:55 am
If they were Republican fuck-ups, they’d be relatively easy to fix, or more likely, easy to have avoided in the first place. Iraq largely was fixed, despite the best efforts of the party committed to seeing us fail there. And to blame the financial crisis on the party that tried but failed to to rein in the GSEs rather than on the party that actively opposed such oversight on three separate occasion is chutzpah on steroids.
Part of the problem is he doesn’t have much of a record. The other part is that what record he does have is consistently far left. Can a single candidate have both problems? “Yes, he can!”
November 5th, 2008 at 8:16 am
“You’re probably not even going to see a renewal of the AWB…”
This is suppose to prompt me “chill out”??? I think not….
tgirsch: our outstanding public debt is not very large as a percentage of GDP when compared to other industrialized nations. I forget the percentage, but e.g. Japan got as high as 190% after their crash, we’re below 100%.
Stingray: that particular Chinese jet pilot was well known as a run close to the margins hot dog. No one I know of thinks that was a planned incident (although it was something they didn’t mind allowing the conditions to create it to exist for a long time).
But your basic point is well taken.
tgirsch: please. McCain-Feingold outlaws core political speech in 30 or 60 day periods before an election. Money is also an big issue (can’t effectively “speak” without it), but in principle nothing compared to something we haven’t seen in Federal *law* since the Alien and Sedition Acts.
(In executive action, I’ve e.g. seen a plausible figure as high as 100,000 for the dissidents to our entry in WWI that Wilson threw into jail.)
November 5th, 2008 at 9:04 am
A McCain-Feingold-like state law has been used against a gun catalog that discussed politics on an editorial page. There were motions to do the same against the NRA and other pro-gun groups with McCain-Feingold — while they attackers usually chickened out, it still goes pretty damned far into the chilling free speech thing.
Feingold. Pro-gun.
We are talking the one that voted for the Brady bill. Voted to “close the gun show loophole”. Voted against protecting gun manufacturers from stupid and groundless lawsuits. Voted for Assault Weapon Ban v1. Feingold was not as bad as Obama is — he voted against a ban on all semiautomatics, and thought the Second Amendment something before Heller — but…
Yeah, that’s pretty consistently pro-gun, it is. Just as pro-gun as you are, tgirsch. I bet he even has a CCW permit, too, and there’s no way to argue against that.
November 5th, 2008 at 9:33 am
When you own the press, you cannot have free press. I took my small flag down at work as I am convinced I do not live in america any more.
Make sure you turn out the lights when you leave.
November 5th, 2008 at 10:21 am
Maybe with an Obama administration, conservatives will actually rediscover how to say “No, I won’t. What are you going to do about it?” I’m not holding my breath, though.
November 5th, 2008 at 10:47 am
If the government passed a law saying that, while abortions are legal, it is against the law for a doctor to accept payment for them or to spend money on performing, would you categorize that as an attempt to restrict abortions? Does that mean “money is an abortion”?
November 5th, 2008 at 11:25 am
a return to the horror of the clinton years?
yes, please…if bo will concentrate on getting his bell rung and making great speeches while bestowing benign neglect upon everything else for the next four years, we just might make it through this horrible lurch.
and thank you for your service, george bush; i often couldn’t see the method to much of the madness and you (like most real people) are absolutely horrendous at public speaking…but the war and the terror was kept away from our soil on your watch, and that makes you a hero and a success in my eyes, and i think too in the eyes of history.
jtc
November 5th, 2008 at 1:47 pm
Tgirsh …. expect us to be just as well behaved during the next four years as the far left had been during the previous eight.
This next term is going to be fun … Obambi won’t know what hit his sorry ass.
We’ll be the ones going home to f*ck the Prom Queen in 2012.
November 5th, 2008 at 2:29 pm
damaged justice – Conservatives might rediscover how to say “No, I won’t” – but I’m not so sure about Republicans. Generally CA Republicans are indistinguishable from CA Democrats in their anti-gun voting and Sacramento corruption, only then Democrats have the bigger numbers and greater success at corruption since they get all the Union money to play with.
But he’s wrong, the Democrats don’t screw themselves. They’re busy making money hand over fist in Sacramento at Freddie-Mac levels while the much vaunted State economy – the eighth largest (once the sixth largest, shrunk by Democrats since ‘03 – who cares!?!?) – tanks and people leave in droves, and they still squeeze the dime for blood and run multi-Billion dollar Bond propositions for projects that will never happen (the money gets siphoned, you’ll never see the high-speed rail…) and that we can’t possibly pay off in even forty years, as taxes rise.
Sorry you guys are stuck with Pelosi, Boxer and Feinstein. Geting rid of the Ted Stephenses and the Robert Byrds won’t help much either, not if the John Murthas stick around.
Cleaning up the Democrat Party and getting rid of the detritus is illusory when the Party runs the State, protected by Security, when the districts return inherited offices, when the Party listens only to itself and MONEY (like $600-magic-million unverified). Welcome to California – you don’t have a vote or a voice in The Gerrymander.
November 5th, 2008 at 3:15 pm
“Chill the fuck out.”
Well, taking you at face value, fuck you too. I haven’t seen any Republican riots yet.
November 5th, 2008 at 3:58 pm
Two words. Excutive orders.
No more surplus ammo coming in. No more mil. surplus firearms being imported. No more parts kits. Wanna make any bets on that tgirsch?
I didn’t think so. As far as I’m concerned you can take your markist and enjoy the next four yeats. Me, I’m trying to figue the best way to get my IRA out of the country.
November 5th, 2008 at 4:27 pm
Adam:
Are all men from the future loud-mouth braggarts?
Linoge:
I promise to try not to make the mistake of pretending that a noisy few represents the whole group if you promise to do the same.
Xrlq:
I see you’re still choosing to lay it all at the feet of the GSEs. We’ve been around and around on this, and only one of us is honest enough to acknowledge that it was a thoroughly bipartisan fuckup. Dems and Repubs were complicit in the evisceration of our regulatory framework. I mention the financial crisis only because the particular president we had didn’t believe in enforcing the few remaining regulations we had.
Also, didn’t you write something about at least conservatives not threatening to leave the country when they lose? I refer you to some of the comments here on that count.
Gatt:
I’ll give you this: on further review, Feingold’s record on guns is more mixed than I had thought, but he’s consistent on the “individual right” part, and he did vote against the AWB renewal. He’s never going to get an NRA “A” rating (or anywhere close), but he ain’t a gun-grabber, either. As to the lawsuit thing, I thought you conservative/libertarian types were supposed to be opposed to special corporate protectionism, so I would have expected to like Feingold’s position there. I forgot that when it comes to guns, other principles are out the window.
[Seriously, I could see modifying the law to more rigidly define liability, but taking away the right to sue? That seems undemocratic to the level of fascist.] And as I’ve written many times before, I just don’t see what the big deal is on the gun show loophole thing. It seems like a reasonable enough bone to throw, unless you’re perpetually cowering in ever-present fear of the slippery slope, no matter how narrow.
Les:
The Dems controlled Congress for the past two years. Why didn’t they control spending?
The Republicans were the ones who let it get out of control in the first place. And where were the Democrats going to find half a trillion to cut? Under a pillow somewhere? You might be able to imagine how you could cut 16% of the federal budget overnight, but I doubt you could do it in a way that could pass both chambers with no filibusters and no veto.
To their credit, the Dems did at least institute paygo. It isn’t much, but it’s a start.
[A financial meltdown] That Bush, McCain, and others tried to avert in 2003 and 2005.
See my response to Xrlq. Bottom line is, if you think that reform would have prevented this, you’re kidding yourself. It may have softened the blow. A little bit. But that’s it.
You mean the country that was liberated from a dictatorship and has a constitution and free elections.
I mean the country in which we’ve been continually bribing the insurgents to wait until we leave before resuming their insurrection. The one whose political stability absolutely depends upon our unending large-scale presence there.
a promise I don’t believe for a minute, BTW
On that, at least, we can agree. If you think either McCain or Obama would live up to their tax promises (or that Congress would pass their plans as currently described, even if they did try to live up), you’re a moron. I do believe, however, that for at least 90% of American families, their taxes will still be lower than they were under Clinton, even after the inevitable tax increases.
Harold:
our outstanding public debt is not very large as a percentage of GDP when compared to other industrialized nations
Try applying that same standard to our spending.
McCain-Feingold outlaws core political speech in 30 or 60 day periods before an election.
Tell that to SBVT or Right Change or any number of other groups that don’t seem to have any problem at all getting their message out there.
something we haven’t seen in Federal *law* since the Alien and Sedition Acts.
Mmm, Hyperbol-O’s, the breakfast of champions!
Paul:
I am convinced I do not live in america any more.
Now you know how I’ve felt for the last 8 years…
Stormy:
Nice try, but as both a medical procedure and commerce, abortion is already regulated to the hilt. And, again, if McCain-Feingold does anything to effectively prohibit political speech, I sure as hell haven’t noticed it. Regulate political spending? Sure. Infringe political speech rights? I’m not buying it.
Pawnbroker:
Lest you forget, the worst act of anti-American terrorism in our history happened on George Bush’s watch, while he was busy obsessing about missle defense or some such nonsense. And I’m supposed to give him a ton of credit because al Qaeda didn’t get lucky twice? They only got lucky once in the first year of Clinton’s term, too, so I’ll be sure to hold my breath while I wait for you to give Clinton credit for the resolve it takes to not get bombed in the continental US twice in two terms…
Kristopher:
expect us to be just as well behaved during the next four years as the far left had been during the previous eight.
I expect you to be just as “well” behaved as you (collectively) have been during the previous eight years. Which isn’t very.
Saladman:
You’re welcome.
November 5th, 2008 at 4:52 pm
Tgirsh,
Screw you. There will be no unity. Enjoy your victory.
I hope Hussein gets tested in the harshest possible manner, right after taking office.
Whatever it takes, baby. I don’t give a shit what happens to him, as long as it is something nasty.
November 5th, 2008 at 4:57 pm
I think feingold started out anti-gun and then had a revelation. He has written about it before.
November 5th, 2008 at 5:08 pm
Wow, the libs sure like to shutup opposition quickly. Not even one day to sulk. Oh well, from the same idiots that brought us the Clinton gun ban and the ‘fairness’ doctrine. I wonder what other amendments the liberals will gut when Obama gets into office.
November 5th, 2008 at 5:10 pm
I stopped reading at “Chill the fuck out.”
If that’s the respect you have for me, I see no value in reading your opinions.
November 5th, 2008 at 5:21 pm
No, he just voted for legislation to… grab guns. He’s better then Obama, but he’s not a goal state; he’s what we need to start with and push into a sane position.
If you’d prefer, I could define it as limiting the liability of gun manufacturers for the proper functioning of the items they sell to zero. But I think you have a functioning brainstem, so I’ll assume that when I say “protecting gun manufacturers from groundless lawsuits”, you can remember what the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act actually does rather than pulling “right to sue” out of your backside.
If you think the court cases of that type — often put forward by Big Government type officials in the first place like Bloomberg or even the entire city of New Orleans — aren’t government intervention, I think you need to check the dictionary again. I’m not a libertarian, but last I looked, government intervention is the keystone libertarian point, not “protectionism”. They’re rather a fan of protecting most corporations from the government. The only one it’s been especially relevant for, though, is the firearms industry.
Yet you’re pro-gun. Really. Got the permission slip and everything.
After all, what possible problem could people have with calling a line and waiting, potentially for days? What problem could people have with getting an FBI okay every time they purchase something (and in some cases, getting extra paperwork to fill out)? It’s not like there are gun owners who, even with that nice little CCW permission slip, still get stuck with a five day wait anyway (typical for TS/SCI folk). And it’s not like any of the attempts to close this ‘loophole’ end up closing every other type of private sale. It’s not like the very name is misleading or anything. No Pro Gun person could find that problematic.
Tell me what the human rights movement gets in return, and I’ll tell you if it’s a damned reasonable trade. Throwing a hundred small, perfectly harmless bones is a great way to toss a whole person out, and we’re not talking small or harmless in a lot of these cases.
November 5th, 2008 at 5:37 pm
Oh, I get it. Disagreement with TGirsch == dishonest. Why didn’t you say so?
Just for the record, laying a substantial portion of the blame at the feet of the GSEs is not the same as laying it all at the feet of the GSEs. The GSE portion was a unilateral Democrat fuckup. To the extent that Gramm-Leach-Bliley was also a significant part of the problem (as honest guys like you believe but lying sacks of shit like me question), that fuck-up was truly bipartisan. Neither, however, is consistent with your implication earlier in this thread that “a trillion-plus dollar banking meltdown” was a purely (or even primarily) Republican fuck-up.
I don’t think so. The closest I recall was facetiously advising those who might want to leave to take a test and see if they qualify for German citizenship.
November 5th, 2008 at 5:49 pm
Right, ‘cuz everyone knows conservatives are big fans of crazy lawsuits, and we would have gotten away with if it wasn’t for you meddling, tort-reforming liberals.
I suppose that makes sense in liberalspeak, where “fascist” is an all-purpose synonym for “I don’t like it,” but I’m frankly at a loss as to how anyone can use the f-word to describe a law aimed at protecting a lawful industry against lawsuits specifically aimed at making lawful, non-defective products illegal. Want to ban guns? Then repeal the Second Amendment and ask your legislature to ban guns. But until that happens, the only suits anyone should be bringing against gun manufacturers are suits alleging that a specific firearm was manufactured improperly, not that it is inherently improper to manufacture firearms.
November 5th, 2008 at 5:58 pm
A new AWB? I don’t think so, not with the NRA yelling “Remember 1994″ in their ears. It will be proposed and the Dems will make a show of supporting it, but will be afraid to actually pass it.
The real danger from Obama will be prosecutorial intimidation of anyone who disagrees with him. He showed his colors during the campaign with the lawsuits he filed against everyone who attacked him.
He may not be able to convict you, but he can bankrupt you with legal fees fighting bogus cases.
November 5th, 2008 at 6:50 pm
gattsuru:
After all, what possible problem could people have with calling a line and waiting, potentially for days?
Licensed firearms dealers are already required to perform background checks on buyers before making sales at gun shows, with the blessing of the NRA, by the way. Why would a show-provided service to do exactly the same thing take “days?”
Pop quiz: How many legitimate gun owners would be prevented from buying/selling guns if gun shows were required to provide an instant background check service for all sellers? I’m guessing the number is pretty damn close to zero. But to some gun nuts, apparently, if it causes so much as a minor inconvenience to a gun owner, then it must be opposed, period. All attempts to keep guns out of the wrong hands are doomed to failure and must therefore be resisted. Apparently.
And it’s not like any of the attempts to close this ‘loophole’ end up closing every other type of private sale.
Yep, there’s that slippery slope I’ve been expecting.
Yet you’re pro-gun. Really. Got the permission slip and everything.
See, you’re a fine example of the problem I have with gun nuts: if someone doesn’t agree with you on absolutely everything concerning guns is anti-gun.
I’m sorry if I’m not pro-gun enough for you, but that doesn’t make me anti-gun, and if you think otherwise, that’s your right, just as it’s my right to invite you to enjoy a nice warm mug of Kiss My Hairy White Ass.
Xrlq:
To the extent that Gramm-Leach-Bliley was also a significant part of the problem (as honest guys like you believe but lying sacks of shit like me question)
Well, honest guys like me, and people we call “economists,” but that’s another matter. And I don’t think you’re a lying sack of shit; disingenuous bastard, maybe, but not lying sack of shit.
Just for the record, laying a substantial portion of the blame at the feet of the GSEs is not the same as laying it all at the feet of the GSEs.
And yet, somehow, it’s the only thing you ever mention until pressed. Of course, it’s against the rules to point out the “failure to mention” problem, so never mind.
Neither, however, is consistent with your implication earlier in this thread that “a trillion-plus dollar banking meltdown” was a purely (or even primarily) Republican fuck-up.
The appointment of “regulators” who didn’t believe in enforcing regulation was neither a Republican fuck-up nor a Democratic fuck-up, but a George W. Bush fuck-up. Whether Republicans and Democrats were complicit in that fuck-up is debatable, I suppose.
I don’t think so.
Must have read it somewhere else, then. Probably here, actually. Sorry for any confusion.
November 5th, 2008 at 6:52 pm
I suppose that makes sense in liberalspeak, where “fascist” is an all-purpose synonym for “I don’t like it,”
Jonah Goldberg is a liberal? Who knew?
November 5th, 2008 at 7:37 pm
tgirsh: We have been on good behavior.
You have no clue how bad our behavior can get.
November 5th, 2008 at 7:51 pm
If you seriously think that it has only been a “few” liberals/Democrats who have been clinging to the “stolen” election theory for the past eight years, you are truly clueless.
November 5th, 2008 at 8:26 pm
Because the current method can and does take days? Go ahead and ask one of the many gunbloggers who get flagged with a delay every. fudging. time. Or do a fecking google search and select the first item.
Oh, well that’s wonderful. Tgirsch’s magic CCW-based 8-ball says that matter wouldn’t prevent a single legitimate gun owner from buying the service. After all, the NICS system is never down, nevermind for entire days on a yearly basis.
There’s no costs involved, and the NICS system has nearly zero false positives. After all, it’s not like the FBI has an overworked appeals staff constantly fixing false positives or anything, with a delay stretching into *months*.
You keep using that phrase. I don’t think it means what you think it means. To be precise, a slippery slope argument is arguing against a matter because it might lead to related but distinct matters. That’s not the case here; “similar” laws including several of the amendments proposed to the “close the gun show loophole” attempt.
Yes, after all, that’s why I’ve started the attempt to excommunicate David Codrea (friggen nuts and machine guns), Sebastian of Snowflakes in Hell (machine guns), Saysuncle (you), Sebastian of PGP (liberal friggen nuts)…
Oh wait, actually… no, I read those people and, at worst, respectively disagree. It may be an amazing concept to the same folk who threw Lieberman out on his White Hairy Ass, but surprisingly there are solutions to the matter.
On the other hand, last I checked, I’ve seen all of those posters do something other than play lapdog for gun banners like Obama, Kennedy, or their ilk. Simply wanting a few “minor” concessions is not a pro-gun position.
November 5th, 2008 at 8:53 pm
How many days waiting-period you guys got there? None? Hehehe, Hahahaha – what about when it becomes Federal?
November 5th, 2008 at 8:53 pm
Don’t worry, you can still have 10-round magazines.
November 5th, 2008 at 9:12 pm
That would be relevant, except there was never any danger that the sunset of the AWB would cause blood in the streets, whereas there is not only danger but promise of socialism, etc. with the New Order.
November 5th, 2008 at 9:58 pm
There is way too much typing being wasted on this Tgirsch troll. I know he is Unc’s guest, but a troll nevertheless.
Tgirsch is not a gun owner; he is a liberal that happens to have guns, much like a housewife has silverware.
He is an Apparatchik, he needs a democratic authority to tell him what is permissable. He doesn’t get it, and won’t.
November 6th, 2008 at 2:35 am
gatt:
I’m really trying not to be a dick about this, but you’re making it awfully difficult. But let’s see if I’ve got this straight:
- I firmly believe the second amendment protects and individual rather than a “collective” right.
- I support gun safety education and CCW training/permits
- I oppose a renewal/resurrection of the AWB
- I oppose any attempt to ban the manufacture or sale of firearms
- I believe that most gun control legislation is ineffective, and that most of the problems with gun violence actually stem from things in no way related to guns
… but because I don’t object to requiring background checks for all sales at gun shows instead of just some of them, or because I don’t think a blanket ban on lawsuits (of any kind) is a good idea, or because I don’t obsess day and night about cold, dead hands, I’m somehow “anti-gun?” I’m sorry, but I just don’t get it.
And I don’t think it’s fair to say that I “[want] a few ‘minor’ concessions,” because that would presume that I give a lot more of a shit about the gun issue than I actually do. As I’ve said before, it’s just not all that hot-button for me, which is probably why we’ll never see eye to eye on this. You seemingly can’t comprehend how anyone could possibly think anything at all in this world is more important than your 2A right, so my relative apathy probably looks a lot like hostility to someone like you.
As for the background check system, if there are problems, fix them, don’t eliminate the system. As I recall, the NRA supported the instant background check.
Finally, I must be operating from a different definition of “lapdog” than you are — I’ve been critical of Obama on several issues, notably FISA, farm subsidies, and health care. But despite these disagreements, I’m somehow still his lapdog.
TJ:
Coming from you, I’ll take that as a compliment. Oh, crap, I shouldn’t have written that — I didn’t have “democratic authority to tell [me]” that writing that comment “is permissible.” Whatever the hell that’s supposed to mean…
November 6th, 2008 at 12:26 pm
Well, since you consistently choose to pull biased anti-gun definitions out of your White Hairy Ass, that’s usually not something I’d consider “pro-gun”. I keep thinking that you have a functioning brain stem, yet you keep bringing up phrases like “blanket ban on lawsuits” or “taking away the right to sue” instead of what the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act actually does…
No, it’s the part where despite claiming to oppose a new Assault Weapon Ban, favor CCW laws, oppose gun bans, think most gun control legislation is not effective, despite all that, when you come up and list your critiques of Obama, we see :
We see you casually toss out inaccurate or misleading at best information to defend the man’s horrible track record on guns laws. We see you casual ignore the subject.
Okay, perhaps you just didn’t look at the text of the Kennedy amendment Obama voted for. As you keep pointing out, it’s just apathy on your side. I keep assuming you’re smart enough to not make a liar out of yourself, but that’s your prerogative.
But it doesn’t make you pro-gun because you don’t give a flying shit about the matter, only deigning to touch the subject every so often with wonderful sacrifices that the human rights movement should make.
November 6th, 2008 at 12:59 pm
Would it make you happy if I started describing my self as “gun neutral” instead of “nominally pro-gun?” Is the label what really has this bee in your bonnet?
I’ve said repeatedly that I generally prefer pro-gun positions, but that the gun issue isn’t very high on my priority list. If that makes me “anti-gun,” or at least, not “pro-gun,” then I guess that’s what that makes me. Apparently.
Look, if I had the chance to vote for a viable candidate with similar positions to Obama on other issues, but pro-gun, I would have done so, happily. But I didn’t have that choice. Unlike many here, I’m not a single-issue voter, so I’m not willing to ignore energy, foreign policy, the abortion issue, the environment, etc., just so I can get the lesser of two evils on the gun issue.
November 6th, 2008 at 1:00 pm
P.S. It’s “Hairy White Ass,” not “White Hairy Ass.”
November 6th, 2008 at 1:24 pm
tgirsch, I go both ways, but I really don’t care to know the condition of your backside or what order you prefer it described in.
I’m not a libertarian, but I do share their dislike for false advertising. That’s doubly true when you start off with the description, and then go on a long and either counterfactual or misleading rant about the matter you claim to be on the side of. Some people call it Mobying or a false flag operation.
Proudly proclaiming yourself to be pro-gun when, once pressed, the best argument you can provide is that you think X but honestly don’t give a shit, well…
November 6th, 2008 at 3:11 pm
Proudly proclaiming yourself to be pro-gun
Which I’ve done exactly where? When have I ever pretended or even implied that it’s in any way a defining issue for me? I have said that I generally prefer pro-gun positions (which isn’t the same thing as saying I unconditionally support all NRA-backed proposals or unconditionally oppose all Brady-backed proposals), and I have stated that I’m a CCW holder, and that I enjoy recreational shooting, but I can’t recall that I’ve ever “proudly proclaiming” my gun nut bona fides. (I’ve also said that I almost never carry, because I don’t feel properly qualified to do so — but that’s a personal choice. And I’ve also said that I generally come down on the “shooter” side of the hunters/shooters divide, even though I think that divide is silly and counterproductive.
But all that said, I stand by my original assertion. The problem isn’t that I’m somehow anti-gun. It’s that I’m not sufficiently pro-gun enough for you. And I’m sorry, but if your interactions with me — somebody not actively hostile to many of your positions on the gun issue — are in any way typical of gun rights advocates, it’s no wonder people call you “nuts.” You obsess about the differences of opinion, rather than trying to find, and expand, the common ground. Actively fostering polarization, and being an asshole to people who don’t fully agree with you, are not good ways to advance your cause.
November 6th, 2008 at 10:43 pm
Of course he’s a liberal. All those Jews are. Seriously, though, I am not aware of a single instance in which Goldberg has called anyone or anything “fascist” simply because he didn’t like it. If memory serves, he was never a big fan of the Democrats and Libertarians who ran around with their hair on fire upon learning that the Bush Administration had authorized wiretaps on international phone calls with suspected al-Qaeda members, but I don’t recall him describing this opposition as “fascist,” either. Generally, the term is reserved for those who advocate unduly strengthening the government and unduly limiting freedom, not for those who oppose such measures, even under circumstances where most non-fascists would agree that they’re warranted.
In this case, it is arguably hyperbolic to decry politically motivated lawsuits aimed at bankrupting the firearms industry as “fascist,” but to use the same word to describe efforts to rein in such suits is downright Orwellian, as is your characterization of such laws as “a blanket ban on lawsuits (of any kind).” Were I a liberal, I’d be tempted to accuse you of lying, or at least being disingenuous. Since you’re the liberal, I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you simply don’t know what you are talking about. Too much freedom may not always be a good thing, and in some cases e.g., civil rights for terrorists) it may be a horrible thing, but if there’s one thing too much freedom never is, it’s “fascist.”
November 6th, 2008 at 11:27 pm
Hey, he’s the one who wrote a book pretty much equating every liberal policy he doesn’t like with “fascism” — and displayed splendid taste in cover art while he was at it.
November 7th, 2008 at 12:14 am
Every liberal policy, or every liberal policy that calls for heavy-handed government? Big difference.