Courage not cowardice; balls not bluster

[Tiassa]

Instead, they will create a false middle ground to inhabit. "Look, I'm not an extremist on either side; I don't really support the tactics of the Nazis, and I don't believe the claims that the mainstream press makes about the Holocaust. I'm a moderate who will look at both sides of the story and then decide what to believe."

Point taken; that is, I'm not contesting. Still, though, it seems worth mentioning that it was only January↱ when I had occasion to write (blog):

... yes, really, the difference made a difference, once upon a time. Quite obviously not so much to the people who had to endure the existential menace, that, yes, Holocaust exaggerationist diminution was supposed to be the escape hatch: "No, no, I'm not denying that the Holocaust happened," #notaNazi would reassure, "I just think it's a shame how the liberal conspiracy with Jewish elites diminishes the reality by wildly exaggerating the death toll!" It was a fairly superficial maneuver, tacitly asserting two points, that one is on your side and not a Nazi, and, hey, they are smarter than you are so feel lucky for the chance to be enlightened. And, for instance, Godwin's law is Godwin's law, but the corollary about losing the argument seems, in hindsight, nearly an inevitable shield for actual Nazi advocacy. And the distinction between outright denial and revisionist diminution is part of what that shield would seem to have protected. The idea was that one wasn't a Nazi; that is to say, one was not dangerous. And now, here we are with the explanation that a terroriste poseur "identified with Adolf Hitler and suggested 'the Holocaust was exaggerated'."

Because of course he did.​

The poseur's safe harbor is eroding quickly, these days. A constant river of pissing all over everything will do that, of course.

Never mind; it's not really so important in the moment.

 

[iceaura]

If you wish to constantly claim opposing sides exist then they will always be in opposition.

It's an observation of fact - forty years of recorded fact.
They aren't going to go away because you deny their existence. Besides: Denial of reason and reality favors power and money. That's why the one side of the bothsides jamb gets what they want from the stalemate of discussion.

The pro-gun lobby is promoting violence and the anti gun lobby is not.

Authoritarian law enforcement in the US is violent. Owning a gun is not. You are being simplistic, and misleading yourself.
When we talk about general gun ownership in the US and the civil rights involved, we are not talking about promoting violence.
And when we talk about favoring sane (increased, necessarily) gun control, we are not talking about "the anti-gun lobby". There are several factions involved in this issue, and almost all of them (all but one) favor increased gun control among other measures to reduce gun violence.

It takes great courage to take a stand against the utilization of right to bear arms.

I find it requires very little courage of me to do that.

It's more the "there are two extremes and I'm a moderate" fallacy.

In my case, it's nothing at all like that.

I'm simply pointing to forty years of recorded political history in the US. In the gun control issue, and in almost no other issue, there actually have been two opposed factions arguing irrationally, making haywire claims loudly and defending them to the nth degree, calling for extreme and threatening actions with little likelihood of net benefit and large side effects of damage and harm, and generally doing the wingnut dance together in the middle of political wreckage and destruction of sane policy.

I don't want a compromise or middle position between them - they are both on the same end of of the crazy/sane policy spectrum, there is no sanity "between" them*. I want them both pushed aside, isolated, and sane governance unrelated to either one of them established.

Courage is not a middle position between two wings of cowardice. Reason is not a middle position between two factions of willful irrationality and propaganda.

(*Need illustration? They agree that the 2nd Amendment as written is a primary obstacle to gun control. They agree that the significant role of guns in self defense is found in the shooting of criminals or combat against the military of a tyranny. They both push garbage "statistics" and bullshit for arguments.)

 

[Quantum Quack]

Not much point in getting all complicated if one fails to acknowledge the simple hard truth that pro-gun lobbying is promoting violence.

 

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Not much point in getting all complicated if one fails to acknowledge the simple hard truth that pro-gun lobbying is promoting violence.

NRA TV doesn't blush at that.

 

[iceaura]

Not much point in getting all complicated if one fails to acknowledge the simple hard truth that pro-gun lobbying is promoting violence.

That's an easy truth, not a hard one - about the appropriate faction, of course.
And since that was acknowledged for the relevant fraction of the "pro-gun lobby" long ago and throughout, we can return to the supposed complications and consider the points at issue.

One of them is that the jambing factions, the sides of the bothsides jamb, are both crippled by cowardice - and apparently to similar degrees, at least as it affects their arguments and flinch avoidances, their odd rejections of reason.

And note that the stakes risked by cowardice are not equivalent, in the jambing sides: the NRA leadership side has power and money backing it, and the status quo in its favor. It does not need to win the argument, merely abet the jamb - ruin reason - to get what it wants.

 

[billvon]

Not much point in getting all complicated if one fails to acknowledge the simple hard truth that pro-gun lobbying is promoting violence.

Some of it is. Some is the result of people wanting to keep their gun collections. Some is just riding FOX News coattails, or is the result of people getting worked up about the latest Trump tweet.

 

[Quantum Quack]

NRA TV doesn't blush at that.

So there shouldn't be any problem when violence breaks out then should there?
reap as you sow....

Pseudo Fiction:

Young lad lives with dad in a city somewhere in Te*as. Dad often justifies his gun collection which includes a pump action shot gun and a side arm by repeatedly claiming that gun violence is sometimes the only solution. Young lad gets the hots for a young gal and is rejected in class in front of his peers. He is humiliated and sees no other solution to his problems other than violence and goes to school armed with the shot gun and side arm. The first person to die is the gal who rejected him. All told 10 people die and his father blames bullying for the outcome.​

Why did he do what he did?
He obviously blamed the gal of his dreams for his own failings.
IMO because violent solutions are being promoted, condoned and even often recommended by the community he belongs to.

As an outsider looking in, the strength of the inclination to use violence as a way of solving self esteem issues is the USA's primary problem. The NRA and pro-gun lobbies and others that promote violence as solutions are responsible.
The fire and fury campaign of the POTUS is a classic example. Whether it be by military or economic means.

That's an easy truth, not a hard one - about the appropriate faction, of course.

It is not about a particular group, it is about the whole notion that violence is an appropriate solution and how the USA gun culture promotes it. (of course the USA is not the only nation in the world enduring the same problem)
The pro-gun lobby is just a more obvious and pernicious aspect.
...and until this pro-gun/pro-violence culture is firmly acknowledged as underpinning the outcomes and kept constantly in mind when debating the issue, the USA will not progress into a more civilized and courageous way of dealing with it's problems both internal and abroad.

 

[Quantum Quack]

And note that the stakes risked by cowardice are not equivalent, in the jambing sides: the NRA leadership side has power and money backing it, and the status quo in its favor. It does not need to win the argument, merely abet the jamb - ruin reason - to get what it wants.

and needs to be held to account legally when it does get what it wants...
It blocks reasonable debate/change to promote violence... simple....

so ...any one can clearly state that:
The NRA poisons/blocks reasonable debate and subsequent change to promote violence and is therefore legally/morally liable for outcomes it is promoting.

 

[billvon]

so ...any one can clearly state that:
The NRA poisons/blocks reasonable debate and subsequent change to promote violence and is therefore legally/morally liable for outcomes it is promoting.

I'd be careful with that approach.

Let's say some anti-pollution protesters manage to get a coal power plant shut down for upgrades to their stack scrubbers. Then that winter there is a power outage and a few people die of hypothermia. Are the protesters legally/morally liable for those outcomes?

Or let's say some anti-Trump protesters manage to sway public opinion towards impeachment, and the House/Senate immediately sway to the prevailing wind and impeach him. Then Pence becomes president and starts a war with North Korea. Are the anti-Trump protesters legally/morally responsible for that war?

 

[Quantum Quack]

Or if the anti gun lobby succeed and knife homicides increase due to the lack of guns. (sarc)
I understand your point but there is huge problem with it.
I can not recall the legal terminology.
Suffice to say that my proposition could very well be limited by the distinction between "inciting" and "promoting" violence. Surely the NRA are not directly inciting violence, one being considerably closer in proximity to the violent outcomes than the other.
(M)

 

[Quantum Quack]

As far as Trump and Pence are concerned we can only deal with what is known (evidenced) not with what is unknown.

 

[Quantum Quack]

The key to the NRA's liability is in it's deliberate attempts to block or otherwise obstruct reasonable debate and subsequent reform.

 

[Quantum Quack]

If a big pharma. promoted opioids claiming rightly that it is not the opioid but the user that is responsible for self restraint and not the law what do you think would happen in court?
My guess is that you would end up with iceaura,s bothsides jamb.
(Sorry for multiple posts. Am on mobile)

 

[iceaura]

It is not about a particular group, it is about the whole notion that violence is an appropriate solution and how the USA gun culture promotes it

You have attributed a particular group feature to some kind of "gun culture" I don't think you have considered carefully. You continue to overlook the racial component, for example - always a blunder, in US politics.

As an outsider looking in, the strength of the inclination to use violence as a way of solving self esteem issues is the USA's primary problem. The NRA and pro-gun lobbies and others that promote violence as solutions are responsible.

You have the cart before the horse, I think.

What, for example, are you talking about with "violence is an appropriate solution"? Solution to what? There is an American cultural bent to violence, but its overlap with guns is far from complete - in my own midwestern heartland background, for example, this is a very common feature of the American "violence culture": https://homelessonthehighdesert.wordpress.com/2018/05/20/only-pussies-carry-guns/
That's how I was raised, by the village that raised me. That was a cultural norm. And those folks liked football and boxing, celebrated male (manly, masculine) capability for violence - here's their masculine icon in a movie that did good box office: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Quiet_Man

If a big pharma. promoted opioids claiming rightly that it is not the opioid but the user that is responsible for self restraint and not the law what do you think would happen in court?
My guess is that you would end up with iceaura,s bothsides jamb.

You can't end up with "my" bothsides jamb in court.

The key to the NRA's liability is in it's deliberate attempts to block or otherwise obstruct reasonable debate and subsequent reform.

Unfortunately, the NRA can point to the easily established (using reason, invoking liberal values) fact that it has obstructed unreasonable debate and wholly unworkable, ineffective, even dangerous or damaging, "reform".

That leaves us with the necessity of arguing caveats (such as "also"), and nuances, and "not all gun control advocates", and so forth - just as one must when dealing with their dance partners on the authoritarian ( i.e. likewise inherently imbued with cowardice) otherside; appealing to reason, and getting shut out of the argument by mutual agreement of the contending bothsides.

That's how a bothsides jamb survives, works. And the net of a bothsides jamb is usually whatever is status quo.
Here even more strongly: a conflict dominated by power and money on the bad side rather than reason on the good, especially one in which bothsides feature unherent cowardice and are motivated by irrational fears, is going to resolve toward the power and money side - normally the status quo - most of the time. Cowardice favors power and money, just as irrationality and unreason does.

But if the power shifts enough to oppose the money - and we do live in a democratic republic, regardless of recent developments - the cowardice comes along with: and then the status quo can be broken - but without any victory of reason, in the service of the authoritarian (cowardly, unreasonable). Hard to celebrate that, even if it marks a short-term incremental improvement in something.

 

[Truck Captain Stumpy]

A gun is a weapon of violence.... it is a device that is used to perpetrate violence

then technically speaking, using your tactic and method of description, so are:
knives
fists
hammers
cars
sticks

your inability to read posts with out jumping on your pro-gun/pro- violence agenda is utterly amazing

I may be pro gun, but I am not pro violence
a gun has many other uses that even your government acknowledges

tip for iceaura:
pro-gun lobbying = pro-violence = cowardice.

tip for Quantum Quack
anti-gun lobbying = refusal for a society to allow a person responsibility or the ability to defend themselves = cowardice

You're going to hide behind that? Really?

not hifing. it's a fact, plain and simple
don't believe me?
see also: Blacks law, Cornell or the CFR's

I don't think the technical and legalistically defined status of who is a "civilian" - when professionals and military are off duty or on leave, say - is relevant to this topic, and I'm absolutely certain it's not the intended implication of its use in gun power claims of "armed civilians"

it's absolutely necesarry because any and all shootings eventually (hopefully, except under extreme circumstance) come to the legal definition
it will always be an issue in the implication of armed civilians

The specific discussion was specifically about two specific terms. You introduced two other, different terms as if I were discussing them as well. I was not, I had not mentioned them, and you have been clearly and repeatedly reminded of that.
ASOL.

asked. answered. explained.

The US gun culture is unique, in several respects: its roots in racism,

sorry, but I have explained this to you.
repeating your claim doesn't make it truer just because you believe it to be so

That's very strange, that bizarre level of confusion. You have lost the ability to reason, right out in public.

subjective interpretation without facts

And along about here, remember when we were told that rural adult men in the US needed 30 round magazines to feel safe when confronting "predators"?

1- your argument was against high capacity magazines, in which statutory definitions vary, while ignoring feedback or data
2- it isn't about a "need to feel safe"
3- intentional misrepresentation of the discourse falls under the above discussion we were having about your bias

 

[Dr_Toad]

4- trolling to keep the inane argument alive.

I meant ice of course, not you, Stumpy.

He's mentioned that he used to teach. Sad for his students if the course had anything to do with history or civics...

 

[billvon]

then technically speaking, using your tactic and method of description, so are:
knives

Knives are used every day primarily to cut things. They are very, very rarely used as weapons, and 99% of knives are not designed to be weapons.

fists

People use their hands every day to write posts, open doors, drive etc. They are very, very rarely used as weapons.

hammers
cars
sticks

See above.

Handguns, on the other hand, are designed to kill.

Look at how they are marketed compared to the things you listed above. For cars they market how cool they look, how efficient they are, how well they handle and how reliable they are. For hammers you get a lifetime warranty for a good hammer with ads showing how effective they are for putting up sheetrock etc.

For handguns? It's stopping power. And they are not talking about being able to stop a car.

They are NOT just like cars, or fists.

 

[Dr_Toad]

So what? A tool for self-defense can't reliably be distinguished from a tool for killing?

Sorry, let me turn in my tactical nukes and ton of VX right now, but don't fuck with my hammers, sticks and guns.

 

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Stumpy, can you post the definition of "false equivalence"?

 

[billvon]

So what? A tool for self-defense can't reliably be distinguished from a tool for killing?

No, it's pretty easy for most reasonable people. Guns are tools for killing; hammers are tools for building things.

Sorry, let me turn in my tactical nukes and ton of VX right now, but don't fuck with my hammers, sticks and guns.

Well, I guess not everyone is a reasonable person.