Carpe Datum

It's a good speech. Recently I've started wishing he'd won.

Damn shame that Democrats want to take away my guns.

Ok, what's REALLY a damn shame is both the lack of honesty in the current administration, and the wholesale departion from fiscal responsibility.

I don't want to take away your guns, Hummer. I want to take away illegal gun sales and sales made at arms shows without background checks. That's all.

By definition you can't take away illegal gun sales.

I thought I read a statistic somewhere that basically said nearly zero crime is committed with gun show sale guns, that's mostly gun nuts selling to each other, rather crime guns are usually either bought at gun stores legally or more commonly bough from criminals who stole/fenced them.

I don't know how gun-owners, who are incredibly worried about invasive government activities (like handgun registration, etc.), can possibly support this administration and everything it is doing with the Dept. of Homeland Security. It's about as anti-Libertarian as you can get, and the streak of Libertarianism *was* just about the only good thing about the Republicans. I'm still waiting for the gun nut conservatives to lash out and harass Bushco...

(crickets chirping)

Hmmm. Interesting. Oh well.

I'll do a gun post sometime when I can't think of anything better to write about, maybe after I finally get around to renting "Bowling for Columbine" (which isn't out yet, I don't think). There's a lot to be said on both sides. For me, I just don't see how the gun issue can be a deal-breaker unless someone is trying to pass a law banning all handguns forever or something.

Anyway, I was reminded today of the conservative argument after 9/11 to the effect of, "Boy, I'm sure glad Bush is president now instead of that namby-pamby Gore so we feel secure and we can go kick some ass." It was abysmally stupid to say that then, and now I am left to wonder just in how many ways the world would be a better place if the 2000 election hadn't been fixed.

I don't know how liberals pick and choose which parts of the constitution they support. It's like people who claim to support free speech, but in reality they support free speech that doesn't make them uncomfortable.

Unfortunately, we seem to have the flip side of the historical "Solid South" phenomenon. There are large blocs who continue to be nominally Republican (and vocal GOP supporters) even though the in-power Republican agenda has evolved to be actively against what those blocs want. The libertarian elements and the people who believe in fiscal restraint are the most obvious.

It took about 15-20 years after the Civil Rights Act for the South to wake up and realize that God would not strike them dead if they voted for a Republican (which had been true since the travesty of Reconstruction), and when they made that realization, they went whole-hog.

Those who believe in fiscal responsibility, and certain types of civil-liberties advocates (and I am going to shoehorn "gun owners" into that) haven't figured out yet that the current Republican regime/junta/cabal/inner circle is in fact actively opposed to the items those groups hold dear. They're still providing them with money and votes, and they probably will for another decade or so.

Not to get into the whole gun debate with you, Hummer, but I will say that I agree that a correct reading of the 2nd amendment says that people have a right to be armed to the teeth, especially including military hardware. Part of the point of that amendment, if you read the federalist papers and other founding father documents, is that the citizens should be able to take up arms and have a chance to violently overthrow the government should they want to.

With that said, I would support a constitutional amendment to vastly reduce and limit the language in the 2nd amendment. Times have changed, Ben Franklin quotes about "freedom and security" notwithstanding. Not that such an amendment is likely, of course.

Maybe I'll do a post on strict constructionists sometime. It is an interesting debate, full of hypocrites on both sides. Like I said, though, I just don't see why handgun issues should be a deal-breaker in choosing a candidate. There's just not a vast difference in the laws whichever party is in power (in theory, there might be, but not in practice).

BTW, blogs are reporting that conservatives blanketed the airwaves to say Gore's major points were not true. For example, they are saying that Bushco went to great lengths to disavow any possibility of any connection between Saddam and Al Qaeda. I almost choked when I read that bullshit. Those guys will say anything ... ANYTHING! They just don't care about the truth.

That last comment by Observer is the reason that I consider the web in general and blogs in particular -- with the exception of those where I personally know the individual doing the blog -- to be content-free. It's Joe Goebbels' dream: you can say anything you want, especially if it's untrue, and the worst thing that can happen is people will stop paying attention and leave you to do what you want.

Actually, it wasn't a blogger making stuff up. In this case, it was a blogger calling a conservative pundit on making stuff up. I find blogs a lot more reliable than pundits, especially the widely read blogs, because they are checked (and corrected) in real time via comments.

See The Daily Howler for an example of what I'm talking about. Great blog.

"I don't know how liberals pick and choose which parts of the constitution they support."

Funny, isn't that part of the problem with all of the new "Homeland Security" laws? Lots of constitutional problems with that, but (as Observer will frequently point out) the "liberal" media isn't reporting those inconsistencies.

I'm a liberal, and I fully support the second amendment, just as I fully support the right to be free from illegal search and seizure. The problem is that the Fed keeps moving the bar on what constitutes "legal" searches and seizures.

I don't see the point of changing the 2nd Amendment - there are other countries where guns are legal and they still don't have our murder rate. I also note with interest that the US has more knife deaths than other countries as well, despite the fact that there are plenty of sharp knives available in other countries.

So there's something going on in the US that creates more lethal violence. I can't say for sure what it is, but I don't think you can blame it on guns. We need to find out what that other thing is and fix it. Guns are a distraction.

No, I don't own a gun, and I don't want one, but I really think this issue is yet another red herring.

Oh, yeah, I forgot to say that I AM A LIBERAL and I still don't think we need to change the 2nd Amendment.

And if the librul media were prepared to tell the truth, they would have started by admitting that Gore won the election.