“Tolerance” has become a big deal in our society, but what does the word actually mean? Well, I have written lots of posts on the subject (see a list of some of those posts at the bottom), but I have never written for this series. Since I have gained a new insight, now seems a good time for that post.
What is this new insight? Some people just want to get their own way, and they don’t like anyone who gets in their way. If they gave the matter any thought, such people would define “pragmatism” as getting their own way and destroying the opposition. This is seriously vicious and stupid, but let’s start off with the seriously funny part of it. Enjoy the video.
Am I going to try to explain the intolerance of the supposedly tolerant? No. Don’t read minds. I will just use illustrations.
Pete Buttigieg is a man who sounds, at least when compared to the rest of the Democratic presidential field, reasonable. He isn’t. He sounds like he is trying to stand for something, but his real campaign skill is making intolerance sound reasonable.
Here is a video of Buttigieg sounding reasonable.
Here are more articles demonstrating how Buttigieg attacks his opponents.
- ‘He knows better’: Pete Buttigieg has made Mike Pence his target, and the vice president isn’t pleased (washingtonpost.com).
- Judge Pete Buttigieg Wisely (johnbranyan.com)
- Pete Buttigieg doesn’t get to make up his own Christianity (washingtontimes.com)
- Pete Buttigieg: Mike Pence Has Gone From Religious Conservative To “A Cheerleader For The Porn Star Presidency” (realclearpolitics.com)
Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC)
What is the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC)? The SPLC was famous for identifying “hate groups.” The problem is that they were not doing a very good job.
- When the bully gets smacked (washingtontimes.com)
- The Reckoning of Morris Dees and the Southern Poverty Law Center (newyorker.com)
- Claims of workplace racism, harassment stretch back decades at Southern Poverty Law Center (al.com)
- THE SOUTHERN POVERTY LAW CENTER IS EVERYTHING THAT’S WRONG WITH LIBERALISM (currentaffairs.org)
- Southern Poverty Law Center president resigns after a co-founder was fired (cnn.com)
Congresswoman Ilhan Omar
What’s our last example? Ilhan Omar speech about “some people did something.”
It is kind of interesting that progressive women of power, congresswomen of all people, expect to be taken seriously when they constantly attack others and then portray themselves as victims. The funniest thing about this whole hullabaloo is Democrats’ complaints about Omar receiving death threats. After all the nonsense Democrats have repeated about President Donald Trump and other Republicans, they are worried someone might receive death threats? Do they worry about that when they charge Trump with absurd crimes and compare him to Hitler?
By the way, the organization Congresswoman Omar was speaking about, CAIR, actually is associated with terrorists.
- Is CAIR a Terror Group? (nationalreview.com)
- ‘Some people did something’: Rep. Omar’s remarks in context (washingtonpost.com)
- Ilhan Omar’s pathetic bid to play victim after she downplayed 9/11 and Ocasio-Cortez defends Omar over 9/11 comments, rips Post cover (nypost.com)
- Ilhan Omar has had spike in death threats since Trump attack over 9/11 comment (theguardian.com)
What does tolerance look like? Check out The Intolerance of Tolerance (str.org).
Previous posts on tolerance.
- TOLERANCE VERSUS AFFIRMATION
- WAS IT ABOUT TOLERANCE? NO. IT WAS ABOUT FORGIVENESS
- WHEN “TOLERANCE” IS BASED UPON LIES, WHAT IS VIRTUOUS ABOUT IT?
- ZERO TOLERANCE FOR TWAT TWADDLE?
- A BIT OF POETRY: RATED T FOR TOLERANCE
- HOMOSEXUAL RIGHTS AND LIBERTY — ENFORCED TOLERANCE VERSUS FORBEARANCE
- AN EXAMPLE OF TOLERANCE
- HOW “REASONABLE” PEOPLE EXCUSE THEIR INTOLERANCE
For additional posts in this series, see OF TWISTED WORDS => FEMINISM.
Citizen Tom 
Why do you care what Joe Biden accuses Trump of? Did you care when Trump accused Ted Cruz’ father of being part of JFK’s assassination? Did you care when Trump accused a federal Judge of bias simply because of his Hispanic heritage? What about Trump’s accusation that Obama was not legitimate because of his African American heritage?
Spare yourself the outrage brother. Trump spews enough unsubstantiated hatred for anyone who opposes him all by himself to keep his loyal acolytes in a frenzy until the election. I expect the Democrats will react the same way. You really need to pace yourself for the long haul. 🤬
@tsalmon
More whataboutisms?
Exactly!😊
@tsalmon
You still don’t know the meaning of that word.
I don’t claim your excellence, but words have been my stock and trade for much of my life.
Words have the meaning we give them. Communication requires objective agreement on that meaning. However, in this case, as is often the case, definitional meaning seems to subjectively depend upon tribal status.
On the semantic issue at hand, because of the way that they define the word, Democrats don’t think that they can by definition be “intolerant” (bigoted) because bigotry is only what the less enlightened tribe does (those “deplorables”). Because of the way that they define the word, Republicans see no virtue in “tolerating” even the slightest infraction of those rules that they selectively consider moral absolutes.
In my better angels, I recognize that we are all capable of tribal intolerance, often when we fool ourselves into believing are being the most tolerant side. And I also am grateful that God loves me more than He loves his rules. If God had no such mercy, I could not possibly be saved.
I would be interested to see an example of such a such a Republican “rule.”
In the meantime, the clearest examples of progressive tolerance come in the form of the attacks they regularly launch against blacks, women, gays, et cetera. The Democrats have kept the idea of a “ni&&er joke” alive, running them in the editorial cartoons of the Washington Post. And in their graphics department, such as when they ran a photograph of Condoleeza Rice for an article, but hat Photoshopped her lips and teeth to exaggerate them closer to the stereotypical image of “dumb ni&&ers” they so deeply despise. It was later fixed, but I still have the modified version.
The Democrats have a team of people whose specific mission is to find closeted gay persons, out them, and destroy to the greatest extent possible their lives and livelihoods.
There are no counterparts to such people, and such attacks, among those on the right. Republicans politicians even tolerate others in their ranks taking contrary positions. They carp about this, but there is no enforcement action such as is a regular part of the leftist political cadre. For the first time, in recent months, the Democrats are seeing some internal rifts — and they don’t like it one bit.
So tell me more about this Republican intolerance.
===|==============/ Keith DeHavelle (@DeHavelle)
Here we go again with deep state conspiracy theories and secret handshakes… yet all Conservatives know they exist. Any chance you could be an exception and prove some sinister groups do exist for the sole purpose of giving Trumps and Trumpians a hard time? I might want to join!
@tsalmon
Of all the things that Biden could have picked as a reason to roll out his campaign, he picked a well documented lie. Why? He wanted to play the race card, and you resorted to whataboutisms to excuse that. Why? Apparently, you don’t want to accept the fact you alligned yourself with some awful people, people who intentionally con us by taking advantage of our prejudices and feelings of guilt.
Well, YOU were certainly convinced with all the fear Trump tossed out there off all these threats to American freedom, that don’t really exist except in Trump’s fantasies and biases. No one needed to convince me one darn bit that I needed to dislike him being President. I tended to develop that on my own. Conversely… you compromised your Christian ideals of morality for his political agenda. I had to make no such compromises to find him an incompetent fool.
Keith, the examples where we conservatives, especially we Christian conservatives, love our rules more than we love each other are legion, but the outrage at gay sex (and therefore gay marriage) is perhaps the easiest to see, if one can one can just recognize that both sides are more interested in an escalating an outrage arms race than anything else.
Your an historian Doug. Think of Lincoln. I was recently reminded that toward the end of the Civil War, when it became obvious that the North would prevail, Lincoln would have been justified in venting his outrage upon the South, blaming southerners for all the northern blood that was needlessly spilled and proclaiming that punishment would be extracted. However, Lincoln loved the Union more than he hated slavers. He turned to love and tried to nurture the healing of the entire nation, including the South.
Because Lincoln died, both sides continued to foster their grievances and their outrage for another 150 years. As Faulkner wrote about this history, “The past is never dead. It’s not even past“. Your liberal conspiracy theories prove that this continues.
If Lincoln could turn in love toward his fellow Americans when his outrage was far more justified than our petty issues deserve today, shouldn’t we consider following his example? If not where do you think this blind hate fest on both sides is headed?
I sometimes run two laptops at different locations so I can be delayed in seeing a reply, Tony.. as apparently I have here with you. Apologies.
You mentioned Lincoln’s love… and I would totally agree. I follow a couple very “pissed” right wing blogs that don’t tolerate my replies at all.. who prefer their own words of hate. I am following them to keep tabs on the anger being displayed by right wingers. But let’s carry this out away from the typical right wing voter. Because I am a registered Republican I get all the campaign “please send money” emails. It’s huge actually. The Republican party just hammers away using the fear button to try and get those who want to be afraid to send money for the cause. But the real scary emails are from the Tea Party. You’d think these folks were trying to start a civil war with all the fear and hate they are spewing.
No, Tony, I’ve said more than once that the 40% for Trump are indeed fellow Americans.. I’ve stated that on many posts. I do not like when even Liberal politicians kinda hint that Trumpsters are somehow “less than”. We can all be pissed at Trump if we want.. and for me that’s the ONLY focus of my dislike of him as President. The politics of Trump we can debate later. The difficulty has been separating the Trump supporter from Trump the man, and far less about Trump’s politics. A far number actually do worship him politically for any number of reasons. But so far I’ve not heard one single Dem candidate express any policy for trying to capture Trump supporters by addressing some of the issues that made them support Trump to begin with.
“Of all the things that Biden could have picked as a reason to roll out his campaign, he picked a well documented lie. Why?”
I don’t know. I have not even seen it, but I’ll concede that, on some level, you may be right.
“He wanted to play the race card, and you resorted to whataboutisms to excuse that. Why?”
Yes, indeed I did. Why? To show you that, in bringing up Biden out of the blue, that’s exactly what YOU are doing. The fact that that blew right over your lovely head my brother just proves my point. “What about this outrage” gets hit by the other side with “Oh ya, then what about this outrage.” Do we think we are opening minds to Jesus’ light of love or are we just hardening our minds and closing our hearts against each other. Tell me honestly Tom, have you actually converted a single sinful Democratic soul here to seek the grace of God’s loving mercy with your outrage? Maybe I missed it.
Up until now it’s been equally mystifying to me why, no matter what outrageous thing Trump does or says, you just respond by screaming your own outrage by the Democrats. We are both intelligent, reasonable brothers who share a common Christian belief system, but this game that we are playing to each prove our superior right to outrage is only working to make enemies out of all of us.
“Apparently, you don’t want to accept the fact you alligned yourself with some awful people, people who intentionally con us by taking advantage of our prejudices and feelings of guilt.”
I’m trying in my own feeble way to align my heart in fidelity to Christ’s, not to the Democrats or the Republicans, sometimes it means I vote for one and sometimes for the other. However, as to the last part, exactly what “prejudices and feelings of guilt” do you feel are being taken advantage of?
@tsalmon
Out of the blue? 🤣
Biden made his announcement today. He is a former Vice President. He is currently ahead among a huge field of contenders for the Democratic Party’s nomination.
What you are saying about outrage is also ridiculous. Democrats have been out for Trump’s blood ever since he won the nomination, and you are right in there with the rest of the pack.
That’s a question coming from someone who has not bothered to listen to Biden’s speech, but is outraged that I criticized it.
When someone lies, calls people vile names, and then expects us to vote for them, we should be outraged. Bank robberies should outrage us too. Do we send people to prison for nothing? Deo we execute people for nothing?
We don’t have to apologize for being outraged by sin. We just have to calm ourselves and deal with the situation appropriately. Anger is not a problem. Allowing our anger to cause us to sin is a problem.
Have I converted any Democrats? Most preaching is done for the sake of the choir. Only God can save a soul.
Of course, converting someone from Democrat to Republican does not save their soul. Moreover, not all Democrats are lost, and not all Republicans are saved. Still, it is apparent that the religious beliefs Democrats and Republicans differ considerably. Ask Obama. He can tell you about those folks clinging to their guns and their Bibles.
Does God use us to save souls? Yes, but He uses us, not the other way around.
“That’s a question coming from someone who has not bothered to listen to Biden’s speech, but is outraged that I criticized it.”
No. Still not having bothered watching Biden’s speech, I agreed with you that I would not be surprised if you were right in your perception that it is over-the-top in it’s outrage against Trump on the issue of racism. Everyone on both sides these days are virtue signaling their Party loyalty with over-the-top outrage. Trump is a master at this while Biden is a clumsy novice. You’re so trip wired to claim outrage at my supposed outrage that you can’t even take yes for an answer.😏
Seriously, you don’t think your “what about Biden today” was peddling a new outrage?
I don’t disagree that outrage at real attrocity is probably a useful emotion when it does not lead to sin, but don’t you see that we can overplay it when everything all the time is an outrage? At some point, when we see everything our brothers do as a greater outrage, then nothing we do can be that outrageous. When this is tearing Americans apart at the seams and we are constantly amplifying that disunity, isn’t that some sort of selfish sin?
You claim to be the scriptural scholar these days. Do you think that Paul spread the message of Jesus far and wide by mostly emphasizing his hate and outrage against nonbelievers’ sins or by offering them a community of mercy and love made up of redeemed but equal sinners like themselves? Sure, Paul preached to the choir, but he and the other Apostles must have done quite a bit of preaching and converting of sinners and nonbelievers too. How far do you think that would have gone if their focus was all 24 hour screaming outrage every day.
At what point does the Christian, unilaterally if he has to, disarm in this outrage arms race against, literally, his own brother?
As an aside, that Mexican-ancestry judge had joined an affiliate of the La Raza racist organization. A lot of La Raza’s work (they’ve recently renamed themselves) has been done through lawyers and law schools. They trained Villarigosa as a lawyer, for example.
The bias accusation was not, it seems to me, unreasonable.
The Cruz business was simply an idiot political ploy, but this was obvious to most people at the time.
===|==============/ Keith DeHavelle (@DeHavelle)
Why do you care what Joe Biden accuses Trump of?
Normally I wouldn’t care, but this particular hoax has resulted in divisiveness and fueled the violence of Antifa. A group Biden praises. By contrast, no one is wielding clubs to prove that McCain was born in the US, or Obama was born in the US (a question of legitimacy of birth, not race as you claim). No one is waging a de facto race war over a Ted Cruz’s father canard.
Did you care when Trump accused a federal Judge of bias simply because of his Hispanic heritage?
Questioning a judge’s potential impartiality is a legitimate legal strategy. This was during the time the media had successfully framed Trump as being racist against U.S. residents with Mexican roots.
Correction above, “was born a US citizen”. McCain was born in Panama if memory serves.
Remember when even self-described liberals would say stuff like, “I Disapprove of What You Say, But I Will Defend to the Death Your Right to Say It”?
Try wearing a MAGA hat anywhere….but I think it should be metted out as a punishment to traitors in someplace like Chicago. Anyone with the temerity to wear a Make America Great Again hat on the streets there wouldn’t last long. Thanks in large part to the media perpetrated Charlottesville hoax which Biden is now proudly peddling while supporting the club wielders.
Obama was very much the original “birther.” Earlier in his career, he evidently believed that it gave him a sort of “underdog advantage” to be from somewhere else. As he (and others who knew him) related it, he would tell others in his Hawaii upscale school that he was actually an African prince. Later, he told his publisher that he was born in Kenya, which they carried in their “authors’ bios” materials for seventeen years. This resulted in a number of articles, in the US and in Africa, that carried this information uncritically. As our current Somali and “Palestinian” Congresspersons demonstrate, nation of birth is no impediment at that level.
Obama did not change his bio until about the time he announced his run for the presidency. He certainly sowed the seeds of the later controversy. His own history added to this, as he traveled on an overseas flight shortly after birth to Seattle and Canada at a time that infants days old were almost never permitted to fly. It was easy to guess that his could have been flying from Kenya instead of Hawaii. The airline had no records from the period, but his infant time in Seattle and Canada was much touted as favorable “Obama human interest” media, and is still visible online.
I am unsurprised that many people were confused by this; it seemed quite plausible for a while.
===|==============/ Keith DeHavelle (@DeHavelle)
True enough Liz. But I’m not sure how your feelings of moral superiority based mainly upon what you perceive as the greater outrages of your fellow Americans in the loyal opposition does anything but prove the point that I am trying to make. Is your object here to actually convince a liberal Democrat that you are morally perfect and he is hopelessly flawed, or is it just to prove your uncompromising fidelity to the your Republican team? If it’s the former, do you actually see that as working? If it is the latter, then bravo! you’re definitely doing your thing to divide America, don’t you think?
Let’s see…If I wear a MAGA hat (or pro Trump shirt), I am going to have to worry about getting physically attacked. Meanwhile, I could wear a “Obama”, “Biden”…even an Omar (who insulted our US service people and country) without having to worry about being physically assaulted.
I’m not sure how the above is some virtue signaling of my perfection. It’s a simple fact.
You know, MAGA hats are not the only political “trigger” in history. Back in the 1960’s bumper stickers were all the rage.. and operatives would case the parking lots of K-Mart and strip malls and put bumper stickers on all the cars… until people started to complain of damage to personal property to the campaigns. In the end bumper stickers and other paraphernalia drifted away for fear of damage to cars (keying) opposing sides. No one says it’s fair.. just the way it is.
For some reason.. Conservatives are so totally oblivious about the reaction Liberals have regarding Trump’s general behavior and performance. “But he’s so great and has given us so much, I can’t believe he’s not loved by everyone!” Yeah.. sure.
In a perfect world it shouldn’t matter… and in a Trump-free world it likely would not matter as much. But the man’s existence brings out these emotions. Not fair.. just how it is.
That practice in the 60s cannot have been very common.
But by the time of GWB, having a Republican indicator on your car would get it keyed. An American flag was temporarily acceptable after 9/11, but it took only days for the media to turn on this symbol. Bu 72 hours later, the media were saying to their employees “Don’t wear the flag — we’re neutral!” They weren’t, of course, and it’s worse now.
The ratio of Republican campaign offices being vandalized versus Democrat ever since Bush runs dozens to one. I’m assuming that it happened to some Democrat office at some point, I just don’t happen to recall one.
Ah, I do remember an attack on a Hillary office, but the attacker was a leftist.
===|==============/ Keith DeHavelle (@DeHavelle)
Off topic: My spouse just texted me this meme. Thought it was pretty funny. I guess he had a bad landing. 😆
https://memegenerator.net/instance/81159108/contemplating-kermit-i-wonder-if-my-bad-landing-is-still-thinking-about-me
@Liz
Ha, ha, ha! I think some of mine must still be hiding under the covers somewhere.
@Liz
Let’s see…If I wear a MAGA hat (or pro Trump shirt), I am going to have to worry about getting physically attacked. Meanwhile, I could wear a “Obama”, “Biden”…even an Omar (who insulted our US service people and country) without having to worry about being physically assaulted.
I’m not sure how the above is some virtue signaling of my perfection. It’s a simple fact.
You obviously don’t live in my neighborhood. Ironically, a gun control bumper sticker might get me shot at here.
@tsalmon
I wondered what possessed you to move back to Mississippi. Still, you are a lot safer with a gun control bumper sticker than with a MAGA hat.
Consider. When someone attacks someone wearing a MAGA, the news media joins in the assault. When someone attacks someone with a gun control bumper sticker, that becomes a hate crime.
Apparently, being shot for a gun control bumper sticker is fairly obscure.
I just did a search for news items anywhere that had “shot” (or variations) in the same article with “bumper sticker.”
I could not find any examples to support @TSalmon’s assertion.
Biden, however, I have great hopes for. With any luck, he will win the nomination, as he should be utterly simple to clobber in the general: He has both a decades-long pattern of amazing lies about himself and his history, and a decades-long pattern pattern of multi-hundred-million dollar bribes by, for example, the Ukrainians and Chinese in exchange for favorable treatments in defiance of US interests and security.
I wonder if his Democrat candidates will use these things. They probably will, taking away President Trump’s “fun” with this multiply brain damaged and utterly corrupt and dishonest candidate.
===|==============/ Keith DeHavelle (@DeHavelle)
“Days of rage”, eh?
I’m aware.
https://status451.com/2017/01/20/days-of-rage/
Only a couple of days after Congressman Lieu excoriated Candace Owens for ostensibly being a Hitler apologist, racist, et al….he tweeted a message along the lines of “see here #MAGA folks! Trump has nearly doubled H-2B guest visa program, doubling the number of Mexicans!” (or some such…it has since been edited).
On the one hand it’s “He’s racist and hates Mexicans!” and the other….”Looky he’s bringing in more Mexicans!!” (legally, the message purposely avoids).
At any rate, the racist meme is a little hard to support based on actual facts.
But that doesn’t stop ’em from trying.
Remember when the Democrats had actual issues and voting rights for incarcerated felons wasn’t one of the top 3?
C’mon, Liz.. Trump has a lot more to worry about these days than defending his “racist” accusers.
Oops, my response above was to Doug’s post, specifically this bit:
You know, MAGA hats are not the only political “trigger” in history.
“I wondered what possessed you to move back to Mississippi.”
Obviously, I came because there are so many souls to save.😉
@tsalmon
Fish soles? Like flounder?
“Apparently, being shot for a gun control bumper sticker is fairly obscure.”
Keith,
In Mississippi, it would take an insane soul to even try. If one is going to virtue signal, she ought to pick her battles.
Anyway, it was my poor attempt at showing the absurdity of this whole outrage exchanging reality show.
I own guns. I’ve hunted (badly-we called it “duck frightening”) most of my life. All my best friends are packing all the time. But like most gun owners, I still believe in reasonable gun regulation. It’s just hard to put the real nuance of such issues on a bumper sticker to virtue signal my non-outrage. It’s also not very productive.
Interesting, considering your assertions about relative factual issues. Evidently, you did not intend for me to experience comparative outrage over the issue of leftists being shot for bumper stickers.
In your years of contemplating “reasonable gun regulation,” did you ever come up with a regulation that would have addressed and stopped any of the small number of US mass shootings, or the orders of magnitude higher incidences of US gang shootings in inner cities killing tens of thousands of black people?
===|==============/ Keith DeHavelle (@DeHavelle)
C’mon, Liz.. Trump has a lot more to worry about these days than defending his “racist” accusers.
Does he?
I’d say the false racism canard makes up the vast majority of dissenting opinion. You’ve indicated that you don’t even believe the Nazis were defeated.
I can’t think of a better example than that.
If you label the opposition as Hitler, it justifies basically anything.
The ethics of killing baby Hitler is a well know intellectual exercise along with the train experiment.
I personally could care less at all about whether or not he’s racist. He’s been mentally deficient well before he became President. Hitler was defeated, Nazism, as a social philosophy and political doctrine wasn’t. What’s all this Hitler stuff have to do with anything Trumpian?
By the way.. I’d not dwell too much on Biden’s “racist” claims being some mainstream idea for ousting Trump. There are 19 other people who are going to attack Trump on actual issues and performance. Best to just sit and watch cause it’s going to be one wacky campaign… because of one singular reason.. Trump is going to try and attack 20 different ideologies with Tweets galore. All in the shadow of investigations, legal challenges, and threats of impeachment.
Oh.. by the way.. being a Boomer I do tend to like old rock and I enjoy a good parody song to one of the old tunes.. even if it’s not completely aligned with my own political proclivities… so here’s a couple I found quite by accident you all might enjoy…
No. It was meant sarcastically, not seriously.
As for gun violence, it is a complex problem. Like most complex problems, it involves conflicting rights and responsibilities. The best we get in such situations is compromise solutions aimed at incremental change. Perhaps, the most meaningful change begins, not in government, but in the hearts of individuals acting together in communities. Maybe it’s a combination of top down and bottom up approaches. But in this screaming hyper partisan absolutist environment, that ain’t likely to happen now, is it?
You intended to aim that as me, I take it.
My question was very specific. I will simplify it and break it in half:
Did any of the “reasonable gun regulations” show that it could have stopped even one mass shooting?
Did any of the “reasonable gun regulations” show that it could significantly reduce the much larger problem of blacks killing blacks with illegal guns?
===|==============/ Keith DeHavelle (@DeHavelle)
@tsalmon
One of the main thrusts of the Constitution is to limit the ability screaming hyper partisan absolutists achieve their goals. That’s why screaming hyper partisan absolutists don’t much like the Constitution.
Ok Keith,
I understand what you are asking, but please excuse me if I ask why you are asking? Are you asking if I personally know how to solve the problem of gun violence?
If that is the case, let me save you some time then my friend. The endemic problems of gun violence is not my life’s work. I’m just a gun owner who doesn’t think crazy people and fanatical terrorists on either the left or the right should have unfettered access to military grade assault weapons. As an attorney, I know enough about the law to know that no right is absolute, and that some incremental improvement is at least possible within the rule of law, and as a Christian I know that Jesus can open the hearts of individuals and communities to His love in the most miraculous ways.
Beyond that, if your looking for a whipping boy, may I suggest that I am not your enemy?
You misunderstand.
I have encountered large numbers of people and organizations touting “reasonable” or “sensible” or “common sense” “gun control,” and yet not one of them offered a solution that would actually have addressed the issue. Not a single one.
And all ignored the much larger issue of blacks killed by blacks with illegal guns.
You are both articulate and civil, and I thought you might have a different result.
Apparently not.
===|==============/ Keith DeHavelle (@DeHavelle)
@tsalmon
Military grade assault weapons? Machine guns are already outlawed. What are you talking about?
Heh, Doug. Thanks for the parody videos. Very entertaining. 😆
Cool.. thought they were funny myself. 🙂
Kieth,
No. I don’t have any special expertise on the subject.
It is a constitutional right so regulators have the burden to demonstrate a substantial state interest that outweighs the infringement on the constitutionally intended practice of that right. The SCOTUS has allowed reasonable regulation but won’t allow a broad bans on common weapons.
Absent the draconian enforcement that has been successful at stopping gun violence in some other developed democracies, I would imagine that regulation will achieve only an incremental curbing of certain types of gun violence in certain places. However, given that preservation of life and public peace are at stake, even small incremental changes could have a profound impact.
Also, like so many of our big, intractable problems, improvements to the socioeconomic root causes could make a bigger difference than piecemeal regulating at the effects. Canada mirrors our country in access to guns, but they don’t seem to have our level of gun violence. Perhaps this is because the Canadians are doing a better job at the root cause level, but I don’t know.
Regardless, the increasing outrage escalation by those who would ban all guns on one side and those who want unfettered access by everyone to even the most lethal military style weaponry is drowning out the reasonable positions. Instead of working together to solve problems, legislators’ chains are being yanked back to either side of the battle lines by absolutist special interests and fanatics.
@tsalmon
Gun violence isn’t a huge problem in this country. We just have a solution for a problem that does not exist.
When is gun violence a big problem? When only the wrong people are allowed to have guns.
BTW Kieth,
Apologies for misunderstanding the intent of your question. I’m not whining about the sometimes heated nature of the debate here, but sometimes I get a little gun shy.😉
“One of the main thrusts of the Constitution is to limit the ability screaming hyper partisan absolutists achieve their goals. That’s why screaming hyper partisan absolutists don’t much like the Constitution.”
Very good way to put it Tom.
At the extreme of the Left, they don’t want to recognize any constitutional right to gun ownership. At the extreme on the Right, they see rights as absolute and unlimited in a way that does not recognize that the actual Constitution is a complex and imperfect institutional “process” for balancing rights just as much as it is a generalized and simplistic codification of those rights. The odd thing is poling data suggests that these actual extremists appear rare and yet the everybody on one side thinks everybody on the other side belongs to the extreme.
Reasonable people can and should disagree while still appreciating the Right involved and respecting the process. It seems to me that the problem right now isn’t that reasonable people can’t agree, but instead that the the demagogues own the media megaphones in both parties, and on one side they are wrongly claiming that every Democrat wants to take all our guns away and on the other side that Republicans want hand out military style weaponry to every crazy person, criminal, fanatic and terrorist that wants one.
Are both sides equivalent in their demagoguery or their unreasonableness? No, but do you think it helps for us to answer a mischaracterization with more mischaracterization, thereby joining in with the demagogues in Balkanizing us with escalating accusations?
BTW I watched Biden’s video. I agree with Biden’s call for a return to basic middle class values, but I agree with you that the characterization of Trump as some tiki torch carrying, jack boot stomping white supremacist is way over the top. Trump is not a white supremacist ideologue. That would require Trump to embrace an actual ideology, which, I may be wrong, but he does not actually appear to do? As such, Biden’s video just continues to escalate outrage upon outrage and he risks alienating just the working class voters that Biden would normally appeal to by calling anyone who has supported Trump a racist.
@tsalmon
What is Trump’s ideology? I don’t know. His actions suggest he is an instinctive Conservative, but he does not necessarily espouse a clear philosophy. Most politicians don’t see much advantage in labeling themselves. Trump tends to concentrate on issues where he thinks most people will agree with what he wants to do. Given the ferocity of the opposition, he doesn’t have much choice.
I think that Trump actually is well educated and brilliant. His campaign rallies are mostly just fun, but he has made some very thoughtful policy speeches.
I was casually sucking on a diet Coke with lots of ice (since I’ve been more than warm these days nursing my TDS) and when I read that last paragraph, Tom.. I nearly coughed it all up on my screen. We certainly ARE occupying different worlds.
“Military grade assault weapons? Machine guns are already outlawed. What are you talking about?”
At the risk of getting down into the weeds on military weaponry, the lethality that makes an assualt style weapon attractive to law abiding gun enthusiasts and would be terrorists alike isn’t just the fact that an AR-15 style assault weapon is easily convertible to automatic fire with a readily available kit or a bump stock. If you do some research on the amazingly destructive ballistic capabilities of these weapons, you’ll find that they are elegantly designed to explode and shred bone and flesh in exactly the way that a military person like yourself wants in order to immediately kill and maim the enemy, thereby taking them quickly out of action. They do so with incredible effectiveness that does not exist (nor would you want it to) in a hunting weapon. The ballistic destructiveness of these weapons are so effective that it leaves first responders and emergency room doctors almost in a state of immediate anguish in their efforts at stabilizing triage and in repairing the damage. I can try to find a link to an article on this if you are interested – it’s as fascinating from a military perspective as it is tragic from a civilian perspective. When the bullets from the high power cartridges hit the body, they actually roll. They can go in at one point and travel up or down the body leaving a broad swath of trauma and an incredibly large exit wound.
@tsalmon
That’s what guns do. They shoot bullets.
When we shoot a deer or a person, we want that deer or person dead. The issue is safe operation. Without considerable trouble, machine guns cannot be fired safely, especially in a populated area. Semiautomatic weapons get the job done without spraying the countryside.
Is an AR-15 the best choice for home defense. Since my wife is afraid of guns, I use the baseball bat version.
The reply process does not work well. There is no way to actually reply directly to @TSalmon’s comment.
That entire screed about the “exploding” super lethality of “military grade assault weapons” is so much horse manure. There are hunting weapons, in use for more than a century, designed to bring down animals that greatly out-mass humans, and when used against a human produce not only death but frankly a large disorganized mess.
Compare this to the trend in military weapons, where the intended result has been to wound rather than kill. Note that modern military weapons fire small-caliber bullets, just at higher speed and (hopefully) higher accuracy. The rationale is that a wounded soldier requires more resources to take care of than does a dead soldier.
You mentioned conversion kits to easily turn a civilian AR-15, a plain old hobbyist / hunting / target shooting gun, into a fully automatic machine gun. The assumption is that this would make it an even more evil, dangerous weapon.
Let’s look at the reality: To the best of my knowledge, AR-15 and other civilian gun conversions have been used in precisely zero mass shootings, gangland shootings, or even simple crimes in the decades I have been interested in the issue.
For a pointed example, there was no “select fire” conversion used even in the Las Vegas mass shooting.
Rifles are used in only about 4% of homicides. An unknown but obviously smaller percentage of those rifles would qualify as “assault weapons” because they were painted black or had scary-looking “sticky outie” accessories as one benighted legislator put it. (I would recommend the AR-15 in the famous “Hello Kitty” finish or, more a more “toxic masculinity” vibe, the one dolled up as a Makita power tool.)
Private, law-abiding citizens, because they were armed, stop about 2.5 million crimes per year from happening, mostly without firing a shot. The so-called “assault weapon” ban, making it illegal to possess a gun in the style of a gun used in the military, clearly accomplished nothing. Look at the stats! Even the Obama administration’s report on this called it ineffective.
And gun violence HAD been dropping for decades … until Obama decided to crank up race hatred again in the United States. Now we have big (and obviously Democrat-controlled) inner city crime rates spiraling up to the levels of the old days, as we’ve drawn targets on the backs of the police and made it clear that they were unwelcome, even to city leadership.
While Baltimore, Chicago, St, Louis are examples of this phenomenon, Portland, Oregon is something new. There, a city government has encouraged leftist fascists to take over the city and has made clear that they utterly despise their own police force. It is no surprise that cops are leaving that small force at a rate of nearly two every day.
Of course, as mentioned, no gun grabber has offered any “reasonable” regulation that would have stopped even one of the mass shootings, which are frankly a small part of the problem. Not one proposed reg would have stopped one actual mass shooting. Every one of them would have simply made it difficult for law abiding citizens to obtain weapons.
That’s your “incremental” solution: To expose law-abiding citizens completely to the criminal activities stoked by leftists. And should the leftists completely get their way, only they and their guardians would be allowed to possess weapons. And, of course, criminals, who could give a rip about silly laws.
This can be encapsulated in your handling of “gun-free zones,” a bizarre euphemism for areas in which a would-be murderer knows he can operate unopposed. Such signs stop only law-abiding citizens, of course. But still you insist on these. And the results? The Orlando shooting. Assault weapons? No, just handguns. The Virginia Tech shootings. Handguns again. The Navy Yard shooting. A shotgun, this time.
And all those schools, who are forbidden by law from protecting themselves.
Did you know Columbine was never intended to be a mass shooting? They had built bombs to kill the students. They set one off in a field a couple of miles away, minutes before the attack, to draw all law enforcement away from the school. That worked. Then they sat out front and waited for the school bombs to go off. They never did. So the two thugs, who had already broken laws to obtain guns, when in and started shooting. At one point they even shot one of their bombs, trying to get it to go off, without result.
They would not have been stopped or even inconvenienced by any “reasonable” “gun control” law. They were criminal psychotically disturbed thugs — what would they care about such things?
So I am not surprised that you came up with nothing useful, despite claiming to have had solutions (however incremental).
What is the actual solution? First, remove the artificial impediments to weapon possession. Background checks are okay, despite the lies told about them by leftists, but not the multiple/extended/dragged out procedures. If you really believed in them, you’d actually process and prosecute felons attempting to obtain guns. Instead, you brag about the huge number of false positives, but don’t actually deal with the real (and rare) problems. Inner city law-abiding blacks will finally be able to defend themselves, and that crime rate will reduce.
Second, the larger problem is a cultural one. The culture needs to make several things clear to all citizens, in rough order of impact:
• America is a great country with a few flaws, not an evil terrorist nation.
• The idea of America — “out of many, one” — encompasses all races and peoples.
• Becoming educated and working for a living is not “acting white.”
• Speaking American English in America is not being a traitor to your culture.
• Gun ownership is a right, and part of America’s heritage.
• Use of an illegal gun in a crime will get you serious jail time.
• Don’t be a criminal — it’s not society’s fault if you make dumb decisions.
• Cops are good guys.
• Soldiers are good guys.
• The government’s role should be as outlined in the Constitution.
• The government is not supposed to be competing with charities.
• Minimum wage laws cause unemployment and criminality — kill them.
===|==============/ Keith DeHavelle (@DeHavelle)
@Keith
Great comment. Don’t forget illegal immigration depresses the wages of the unskilled.
Agreed. And illegal immigration also increases gun homicides directly, as does various “sanctuary” policies.
Legal immigration can be good or bad, depending upon (in part, but a crucial part) whether the immigrant becomes an assimilated American. But we do not need anywhere near the levels currently prescribed.
And I have written about birthright citizenship, which is being wrongly anticipated according to the Supreme Court:
https://is.gd/DeHavelle_14thAmendment
===|==============/ Keith DeHavelle (@DeHavelle)
@Keith
There over 150 comments. Usually do not get that many.
Actually, point of order… man may pull the trigger but only God knows where the bullet is going.
@Doug
The odds are good I will hit what I aim at, but I will admit only God has absolute certainty.
Seems like power over life and death to me.
@Doug
Matthew 10:28 New King James Version (NKJV)
28 And do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. But rather fear Him who is able to destroy both soul and body in [a]hell.
If you were to take that as a literal guideline, you would not hesitate to wander through Bedford-Stuyvesant in the middle of the night. It seems that more prudence is called for than this line conveys.
===|==============/ Keith DeHavelle (@DeHavelle)
Yeah.
Well, like “they” say.. God is my co-pilot.. right T?
@Doug
That is one dumb bumper sticker. God is “flying” all of creation. We don’t even know where we are going.
Actually it was a title of a 1945 movie.
@Keith
Everything is relative. The point is that if we fear God we don’t have much reason to worry needlessly. Check out the context of the verse.
I certainly agree with most of that, except the part that any real hunter would find these weapons very sporting. The idea in hunting isn’t to kill an enemy, it’s a sport that values skill and accuracy over just reaping destruction on the evil ungulates of the world. I don’t know a deer hunter who who doesn’t eat what he/she kills – assault rifles destroy too much meat. If all one wants to do is use weapons to kill for the sake of killing, then he should just bomb hell out of the poor animal from the air or send in an artillery barrage.
What you said about safety is true. I’m not against using these weapons. In fact, I personally would love to go to a licensed and bonded gun range under the supervision of a qualified instructor and shoot all kinds of weapons, from assault weapons to 50 caliber machine guns. In fact, although I don’t claim to have researched the idea, I wouldn’t mind exploring the possibility that every able bodied, mentally sound adult person in the country get some level of military training and discipline,, including on the use of military weapons.
The thing to keep in mind about safety, however, is not to make perfect the enemy of just better. Just because speed limits don’t completely stop speeding doesn’t mean we shouldn’t have speed limits. By the same token, just because we can’t perfectly stop traffic deaths doesn’t mean we should try to ban all cars.
Well, unless the traffic deaths are due to road rage given more and more people will CCW themselves and decide to administer prompt judgement and appropriate punishment to other drivers deemed stupid.
How many road rage incidents resulted in licensed CCW folks opening fire on someone else?
===|==============/ Keith DeHavelle (@DeHavelle)
Dunno at all. But if it happens just once.. then it’s a statistic. I wasn’t arguing CCW.. I was simply presenting a sidebar effect to it all… and that all road incidents are not limited to accidents.
@tsalmon
Where does the Second Amendment talk about deer hunting? The Second Amendment is not the best worded of the amendment, but the history of it makes it clear it involves the right of the People to defend themselves.
If you shoot someone, don’t worry. If you have a gun, you can also shoot any jackass who insists you eat the people you shoot.
“Gun violence isn’t a huge problem in this country. We just have a solution for a problem that does not exist.
When is gun violence a big problem? When only the wrong people are allowed to have guns.”
That depends upon how much gun violence one is comfortable calling “not a problem”, don’t you think?
I get what you are implying about the potentially in last part of what you said, but once again that erroneously assumes an outrageous conspiracy on the other side that they really just want to make that happen when the actual problem is that most people, whether it is statistically justified or not, now just wonder about the safety of going to an outdoor concert, of going to church or of sending their child to school.
Reasonable people can make reasonable incremental and constitutional changes, and if that does not work, they can adapt and adjust. Isn’t that how the process of all progress occurs, whether it is in business or science or the progress of democratic governing that began here in 1780?
@tsalmon
Since the amendment clearly states the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed, what reasonable incremental and constitutional changes are you talking about?
Kieth,
I don’t recall offering any particular solutions. I just said that incremental solutions, many of which have nothing to do with the government, are possible. In as little as I know about the subject, most of what you said sounds good to me.
As for the AR-15, I don’t advocate a ban mainly because I don’t know enough about it to say one way or the other. You sound like you know what you are talking about, but I would have to research other opposing opinions before I could have an informed opinion on practical laws. This attitude does not come natural to me as my tendency is to think way to highly of my opinions long before I know what I’m talking about. If your intent is to keep me honest in this regard, then it is appreciated.
On whether the special ballistics and the ability to convert these weapons to rapid fire make them particularly terrorizing, I don’t think that you actually pointed out where I said anything inaccurate. Perhaps the Las Vegas mass shooting provides the best example. Once again, however, I’m not making any argument for banning anything, just that greater lethality should perhaps come with some sort of greater reasonable regulatory scrutiny. Statistics that I’ve seen lead me to believe that the majority of Americans, or even the majority of gun owners, agree with such reasonable regulation, including the background checks that you talk about.
In law school, I wrote a paper on the economic effects of legalized gambling. I was surprised to find that just legalizing gambling increased gambling addiction in the areas where it was legalized from 2-3 percent to double digits. Simple access alone increased the prevalence of the pathology. What does that mean?
Well, although that, in and of itself, does not provide a reasonable argument for legally banning gambling or legalization of it (there were many other moral and economic arguments for not legalizing gambling). However, it does show two things: (1) regulation can have an incremental positive or negative effect, and (2) you can’t really know how many gun deaths were prevented by decreasing access any more than you can know how many addicted gamblers will be created simply by increasing access. A lack of something isn’t always conclusive proof of something. Statistical evidence is mostly corollary, not causation. Do you see what I mean?
“Since the amendment clearly states the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed, what reasonable incremental and constitutional changes are you talking about?”
Tom,
Ah, the absolutist argument.
First of all you really would have to read all the argumentsabout the original intent of this Amendment, including why it one clause grammatically supports the other and not the other way around.
Notwithstanding that, all constitutional rights are limited. It’s the reason why we still have laws against slander and libel, and laws against yelling “fire” in a crowded theater, and laws against inciting a riot, despite the fact that the 1st Amendment appears far more explicit than the 2nd Amendment.
My argument regarding the Second… back in 2016.
https://dougsboomerrants.wordpress.com/2016/08/10/my-uncommon-sense-that-quirky-2nd-amendment/
You based your entire analysis on assuming the conditions of a world long gone by the time the Bill of Rights was written. This amendment was not composed in 1776, during the “colonial” times you wrote so much about. They were written after the 1789 Constitution was ratified (which took a couple of years). The new, independent United States had long since won their war and the new Congress under the new Constitutional system of government was in session.
The combination of phrases that now forms the second amendment was essentially a drafting error. At the state level, the “militia” and “right” lines were separate (the former being simply a “nota bene”). Madison thought to save some space by (awkwardly, as it turns out) combining them — forming a run-on situation. And confusion among some leftists.
But if you want to go back before the Constitution, note that the Federalist Papers and the Anti-Federalist Papers ALL support the right of private gun ownership, and these were written by many people with different viewpoints on the Constitution as a whole. Hamilton in the Federalist Papers jeers at Europe because they were too frightened to allow their citizens to have guns. No one on either side of the Constitutional debate connected the gun ownership right to being in a militia.
I have written a set of proposed Constitutional amendments, and one of them strips out the first clause to avoid leftist confusion. But SCOTUS has never taken the position that militia membership is required (ridiculous, since this would be asserting a military power’s right to have their military actually be armed, and that this was stuck in with a bunch of individual rights). Instead, the argument has simply been what sort of weapons could a citizen “bear.” That notion not unreasonably excludes, say, tanks, which would be addressed by separate statute. (I have an acquaintance who owns quite a few of them.) At times, it was considered to apply to machine guns or sawed-off shotguns.The latter was justified because the military didn’t carry them. But this was wrong; the military did indeed carry and use sawed-off shotguns.
Your argument is an anachronistic fallacy and an anti-gun leftist fantasy. No wonder you hate the current American administration.
===|==============/ Keith DeHavelle (@DeHavelle)
Not a fallacy at all, but that’s not surprising you think that. It was ratified in 1791. But I am very curious as to the reason you enjoy it so much. And… no… forget the “it’s part of the Bill of Rights”.. that’s obvious. My post had a number of reasonable fantacy-fears (from the NRA of course) a typical Conservative gets all wrapped up in his gun ownership to the point of imagining every threat imaginable that it will be taken away. SCOTUS ruled on it’s current application and that’s the law. I’m certainly not disputing that one bit. It’s the mindless obsessiveness of this one singular amendment.
I am absolutely fine with.. “I want my gun so I can shoot stuff and watch things blow up from my back porch… and do it all as fast as I can pull the trigger and not re-load frequently.” I’m in that catagory. Well, ok.. I like trap shooting, too.
It’s the other reasons that have more holes in it than a range target.
@tsalmon
No militia. No Second Amendment right to bear arms. Is that your absolutist argument?
Anyway, as fun as this is, I really have no desire to be either a poster boy or a whipping boy for gun control. My position on this, in so far as it goes, just isn’t that extreme, unless you are so far on the Right or the Left horizons that most of the rest of the country looks miles away.
Thanks Tom for letting me come out and play, but my wife says I should take a break. I don’t know how you get away with this brother – my wife complains that retirement means half the pay and twice the husband, but she still sometimes gets jealous of my time elsewhere. Marriage is often a choice between whether one wants to be right or one wants to be happy.
Cheers and blessing to everyone here, especially you Kieth – your intellect was missed when you weren’t participating.
The etymology of the word in this discussion could expose some the real underlying confusion here. If you look up the definitions, “intolerance” is not purely the antonym of “tolerance”. The latter defines out as patience in withstanding something uncomfortable while the former basically has evolved to simply denote bigotry. This makes an important moral distinction depending upon which term one is using to describe himself or others.
“Tolerance” in and of itself is morally neutral. The moral ramifications of tolerance are situational and depend upon what someone is actually tolerating. For example, if someone is standing by and just tolerating genocide, then I think most of us would see that sort of tolerance as immoral. On the other hand, if someone is tolerating great pain or hardship in sacrifice for others, I think most of us here would agree that that is perhaps the highest form of moral action of all.
In contrast, if we say that someone is “intolerant” then, correctly or not, we’ve pretty much already deemed that that person’s words or actions amount to immoral bigotry. At that point, the name caller has already decided that further tolerance of the bigotry has reached the point where such further forbearance amounts to the immoral type of tolerance, or in other words, to a permissiveness of evil rather that a sacrifice for good.
Obviously, this analysis of the semantics alone won’t convince anyone, but it might it could be illuminating of the problem. At what point is my toleration of something that I may find objectionable a moral sacrifice because the harmony that it brings is greater than the harm that my forbearance causes to the myself or others, including the person doing the thing that I find objectionable? Except in the most extreme harm, isn’t the morality really a difficult balance? Because I believe that love is the God given foundation of all morality, how does love fit into a weighing each question of the morality of tolerance in a given case? Or put another way, when is forbearance (if not acceptance) the greater loving act or omission and when is opposition the greater loving act or omission? When the harm is low and/or disputed, is it moral that we lean toward tolerance, or do we refuse to tolerate everything that we determine as evil on pure principle and without regard to actual harm?
@tsalmon
I have too have observed the difference between tolerance and forbearance. The folks demanding tolerance know the difference too. In an earlier era sinners demanded forbearance of their vices. Latter generations insisted upon tolerances. This crooked generation demands affirmation of its sins.
The mass media often operates in lockstep. Why? I spend much time scratching my head about that, but I suspect kids high school would have a more instinctive grasp of this behavior than I do. I have never understood how — had what folks call the social graces — to be popular, but I do understand that the folks in the mass media require this skill. “Forbearance” did not suit their agenda. “Tolerance” did.
When we are talking about government action, there are distinctly difference consequences when the government insists upon intolerance, forbearance, tolerance and affirmation. To determine which is appropriate, we have to define individual rights. When government starts creating positive rights instead of just protecting our “negative,” God-given rights, we make things very complicated.
The more government-given rights our government creates, the more we involve our government in what should be individual decisions of morality. Eventually, government demands the right to be our conscience and our god. Effectively we end up trading freedom of religion for government-given positive rights.
I agree with your presentation of the societal problem. Many of the books that I’ve read in the recent years points the blame to this at the aggrandizing of a selfish form of individualism that sacrifices “finding oneself” and “being all that one can be” for your own sake rather than for some higher, more meaningful purpose. These authors agree that this glorification of the individual has infected every aspect society, including government, and because of it, we are losing the institutional trust, otherwise known as social capital, that even capitalism requires so that it does not degrade into chaos.
This leads to a constant expectation of tolerance (or “forbearance”) and even, as you say, the “acceptance”, of all sorts of selfishness. But the tolerance itself isn’t necessarily the root problem.
As I said tolerance, in and of itself is morally neutral. Rather it is the selfishness and the lack of unselfishness that are at the heart of the problem.
I think it’s good to remember too that, although tolerance may not inherently be moral or immoral, “patience” is a indeed a moral virtue. And as with all virtues, patience is a virtue because it manifests love.
I’m sure that you have heard the characterization of some certain person that “he doesn’t suffer fools well”. It sounds admirable, but I have had some high energy, otherwise industrious and well meaning friends who’s greatest foolishness was that they didn’t suffer well a little foolishness in others. They often breed unnecessary resentment that makes them insufferable to others. They did not have to applaud anyone’s foolishness, but they would have been more successful in getting people to do what they wanted if they had only suffered everyone’s small foibles with a better attitude.
I recently read someone describe marriage as an institution that voluntarily assigns oneself to a lifetime of almost continuous surveillance by someone else. As such, I know that my wife must love me because she’s been suffering a good deal of my foolishness up close and personal for going on 40 years, and for some strange reason still continues to do so. Now there’s a high level of selfless patience that we could all learn from.
@tsalmon
Some people do seem to think it is government’s job to control selfish individualism. To some extent that is true. We do have to lock up bankrobbers and murderers. Most of the problem with selfishness, however, is taken care of by the fact that nobody wants to be around people who love only themselves.
What enforced acceptance by the government does is eliminate the possibility of voluntary ostracism. That is, only government is allowed to discriminate. Since the motives of politicians often have more to do with political calculations than morality, we are usually better off leaving most moral decisions related to discrimination to the individual.
Can you imagine Uncle Sam telling you and your lady how you MUST resolve all your marital disputes?
“Can you imagine Uncle Sam telling you and your lady how you MUST resolve all your marital disputes?”
Funny you should say that because, for most of human history, even in this country, government pretty much did. Most people don’t realize what a new thing “no fault divorce” is. Which do you think historically will be seen to have had a more dramatic effect on traditional marriage, the legalization of same sex marriage or the legalization of quick and easy no fault divorce? I tend to think the latter, but in either case, it seems to me that our democratic government isn’t so much imposing it’s will on it’s citizens as, for good or for bad, mostly giving most of us what our selfish hearts’ desire. I think we give government way too much credit and let ourselves way too much off the hook if we either blame every social ill on government or expect government to solve every social ill.
Rather than scapegoating government or the media or corporations or Democrats or Republicans or Trump or Obama, maybe we should, individually and as a society, just take a good hard look in the mirror. It seems to me that that is where the real hard changes will have to happen. If moral progress does happen in ourselves first, all the rest, including government, will inexorably follow. If it doesn’t happen in each and all of us, all the rest of it, including government, will degrade too.
Until we figure this out, then it seems to me that both sides of this debate are just projecting their own shadows everywhere else but where the darkness really belongs, But that’s what we do when we don’t want to face our own sins, now isn’t it? Wouldn’t you say that that pride is as old as Adam and Eve, as Cain and Abel?
Welfare.
Specifically, as put forward with LBJ’s “Great Society.”
===|==============/ Keith DeHavelle (@DeHavelle)
@tsalmon
As Keith observed, there are other issues, like welfare.
So are you correct when you observe it is an issue of the heart? I think so. I think that government works best when we do the right thing without being forced to do so.
When do we do the right thing? That’s when we have sufficient knowledge and wisdom.
We acquire knowledge and wisdom via education and experience. Since politicians cannot be trusted, it is foolish to put them in charge of educating us. I think it is also accurate to observe that a secular education system can only impart knowledge, not true wisdom. The wisdom of God far exceeds our own.
“government works best when we do the right thing without being forced to do so”
Sound like a great bumper sticker – make one up and I’ll stick it on my trade marked Ford Pickup with the patented eco boost turbo charged engine that has more power and uses less of that gas that comes from leased government land, and that away I can virtue signal my rugged. individualism to everyone when I drive the public roads and stop at the public stop lights on my way out to the Air Force Base where I get my medical care.😎
@tsalmon
Try this on for size.
Isn’t that’s the sort of government dreamed of by Liberal Democrat politicians?
If you’re going to expect me to put that on my bumper, then I’ll have to get a bigger truck.
@tsalmon
You are a lawyer, remember? That’s the sort of stuff you put in small print.
This is a nice exposition, and I generally agree with it.
From an American free speech perspective, the tolerance should be large. Short of incitement to violence, speech that you don’t like must still be permitted.
The intent of my own comment above was to show that Leftists use yet another definition for “tolerance,” with throws the dictionary definition you capably described right out of the window.
Speech they don’t like, even the presence of persons they think represent such speech, is “violence” in their eyes. Thus, they feel justified in using real violence against such speakers. This dangerous trend is a serious threat to America.
===|==============/ Keith DeHavelle (@DeHavelle)
Tolerance goes both ways. Do we really need to get into a debate over which “side” contains the more “violent”?
Last I heard.. both sides were human… in spite of all the bravado, arrogance, and self-appointed patriotism.
Agree. There is no reason to debate which side is more violent.
The answer is obvious.
If you say so.
@Doug
If you any doubts about the matter, try wearing a MAGA hat.
If you any doubts about the matter, try wearing a MAGA hat.
Yep.
Hope you all have a blessed Easter Sunday. He is risen!
Indeed, both sides are comprised of humans. The leftists among them are armed with baseball bats, bike locks, masks, and (pace Citizen Tom) an utter lack of tolerance for any free speech or free expression they happen not to like.
Equipped with their tools and their hostility, they consider even an expression of support of America or its president to be the veriest violence, and they respond in the manner they feel appropriate.
Conservatives simply don’t do that. We don’t put people in the hospital for expression support for leftist notions.
As you said, there is no debate needed.
But what can be offered as a solution?
===|==============/ Keith DeHavelle (@DeHavelle)
We can ignore the recent line of mass shootings being done by those favoring Right wing politics.. even as recent today some nutjob was arrested for threatening three elected officials. Yeah.. ok.. you’re likely going to bring up Antifa.. and to listen to those tales one would think they were more successful than ISIS has been.
Look.. Trump Conservatism preys upon fear to stimulate the base.. and fear can bring out violent tendencies, no question. I have no answer.. you have no answer. Very likely this is going to have to run its course and I have no idea how long that run will be. None of this is about free speech, Second Amendment, Immigration, abortion… it’s about the re-defining of the soul of America… and is entirely about fear. None of this is really about the tolerance everyone in here has been jabbering about lately. Trump DID manage to build his wall.. smack dab in between America. He’s going to have to deal with all the post-Mueller politics and he will see himself cause his own end. The rest of us have to start dealing with each other. We aren’t there yet.
@Doug
Wherever something bad happens, the Crazy News Network (CNN and the like) immediately blames it on Trump and Conservatives. Like it or not, Trump has been thoroughly investigated. Nothing found. All you have is whatever muck you can glean from the Mueller Report, a document written by Liberal Democrats. Like it or not, Conservatives advocate Classical Liberalism. We strive to protect everyone’s rights, including the rights of our opponents. We don’t promote mass shootings. We also don’t promote “free love” and infanticide.
On the other hand, tsalmon just advocated “private censorship” against Hitler-like politicians. Think of the irony. Hitler was a Socialist. He wanted big government. Hitler’s brownshirts exercised “private censorship.” That’s Antifa! That’s Democrats paying people to disrupt Trump’s rallies.
Where does “private censorship” lead? The end justifies the means. First we demonize opponent. Then, because we haved convinced ourselves our opponent is evil, we can selfrighteously abuse the powers of the IRS, the FBI, the CIA, and so forth. It is all for the good of the country, which is too stupid to realize what we are doing to save it.
“Like it or not, Trump has been thoroughly investigated. Nothing found.”
??? What Report did you read that determined that? Barr is an idiot.. and works for Trump and he absolutely knows not what he says. But he did say the things Trumpsters wanted to hear… based on his own conclusions. Mueller deferred carrying his findings further to Congress given he couldn’t indict a sitting President… stating himself that Congress can determine how to handle the corruption and abuse of power.. after documenting 10 instances of obstruction. BTW.. Mueller is Republican. But.. see, you know all that… and simply choose otherwise. All this was expected.. the Mueller Report falls along party lines on how much you choose to believe it.
There’s another Republican running against Trump. I would willingly vote for him.
@Doug
A prosecutor’s job is to investigate a crime. Shortly after his appointment Mueller should have known there was no evidence Trump had conspired with the Russians. If he did not think his purview included investigating what the Clinton campaign had done, he should have declared his investigation complete.
When the DOJ issued indictments against certain Russians actors, Rosenstein announced there was no evidence Americans had conspired with the Russians. In addition, Rosenstein declared that what the Russians had done had not effected the election. So why didn’t Mueller quit then?
So what is the Mueller Report? Opposition research for the Democratic Party paid for by American taxpayers? It would seem so. When ethical prosecutors don’t have evidence of a crime, they have nothing to report. It is not their job to dig up dirt and trash people. That’s muckraking.
You continue with that thought, Tom.. it follows the fear Trump keeps tossing at you that he will fix everything that you are afraid of. In the meantime, the snowball is rolling and not melting. It may down the line.. but not before making a splat on Trump. One thing of which I have NO fear… Trump will do himself in as he has caused all this himself.
@Doug
😕Trump is peddling fear. He is “peddling” MAGA.
Meanwhile, what are the people you listen to selling?
1. Trump is Hitler.
2. Republicans and Conservatives in particular are white supremacists.
3. Global warming.
4. Capitalists are selfish monsters.
At the same time these clowns demand the right to tax and spend and spend and spend…. The national debt is absurdly high. We cannot keep this up.
Seriously, when Democrats and the national news media tries to demonize high school boys and pretend the government can spend all it wants, isn’t time to stop taking that crowd seriously? Why do you want to share such delusions?
So nice to see you here again Kieth. I agree with what you say about free speech with a couple of caveats.
1. As you know, constitutional free speech ONLY protects speech from government limitation, not private limitation, and even then the governmental ban is not unlimited.
2. Because the word “tolerance” causes confusion, I will just say that the most virtuous thing to do is to be patient with speech that we disagree with. For the most part we should let all speech compete in the marketplace of ideas. However, as in most things, there are limits. Rather than constantly hearing him out, wouldn’t it have been more virtuous if people would have shown up at Hitler’s rallies to jeer him, ostracize him and shout him down? When white supremacists show up at a rally to spew their hatred, don’t orhers have a right, even a duty, to show up to peacefully oppose them?
These are tough questions. However, there is a line where patient tolerance becomes immoral appeasement. The hard part is figuring out where that line is.
@tsalmon
“Private limitation” done by violence is not supposed to be allowed. But there is a constant drum-beat of violent attacks on conservatives.
And colleges are (almost entirely) not “private.” They take federal funding, which the US Supreme Court has held means that they must obey Constitutional rules. And yet, they are the institutional bastions of free speech limitation.
I specifically pointed out how the Left defines “tolerance” as being quite relevant to the discussion.
===|==============/ Keith DeHavelle (@DeHavelle)
Let’s try this Mr. Keith… why do you think there IS a constant drumbeat amongst the Left toward Conservatism? (No.. it has nothing to do sour grapes with Hillary not winning.) Because until we can understand where each side is coming from we certainly are not even going to get close to ending this.
@tsalmon
See => https://citizentom.com/2019/04/16/of-twisted-words-tolerance/comment-page-2/#comment-87476
“On the other hand, tsalmon just advocated “private censorship” against Hitler-like politicians.”
Not exactly. I simply pointed out the fact that the constitutional protections of speech are against “government” infringement. For example, a private employer may fire its employee for racist, homophobic or sexually harassing speech.
Second, I said that there is no inherent right, legal or otherwise, to say anything one wants to in public without someone heckling you, booing you, shouting you down or otherwise ostracizing you, as long as the opposing speech is nonviolent and does not violate some other law. It might be rude not to let the other person have their say or it might be highly proper, even courageous, to speak out and show one’s outrage and disdain for certain kinds of speech, depending upon the situation. And I gave the hypothetical example of someone who might have been brave enough to boo Hitler down.
I think that you may be conflating the constitutional right to speech with some absolute right. There is no such thing as an absolute right to speech, and even the constitutional protection against. government infringement has limits. This isn’t a partisan issue – it’s just the facts. One can believe all sorts of nonsense about their supposed rights and responsibilities regarding speech and be in either political camp.
@tsalmon
Going to one of the other side rallies just to be disruptive is just asking for trouble. There is nothing especially brave about it.
If the other side isn’t violent, trying to disrupt the other side is at best rude. If the other side is violent, it is stupid.
What matters is what we are for, not what we are against. We best defeat the other side by promoting our own cause, not by destroying the other side.
When do politicians have the greatest tendency to focus on what is wrong with the other side? That is when they don’t have a cause worth promoting.
The Sturmabteilung (aka brownshirts) played a role in Hitler’s ascension to power in very much the way you describe…intimidation tactics and assembly/rally/meeting disruption.
Note that masses of protestors are not showing up at Rachel Madcow’s home to intimidate her and her family. Nor are masses of conservatives storming lawful (city ordinance obtained) scheduled liberal rallies with clubs.
Sounds like you are trading some pretty fine outrages here. It’s a big country and we have 24 hour new and internet, so you should have enough material on both sides to keep you busy forever.
I read recently that outrage is a very important part of virtue signaling, and virtue signaling is a very important part of group cohesion. When we signal our outrage to others within the group, we let the group know that we can be reliably counted upon to hate all the right things that the group hates. In other words, sufficient outrage at common enemies communicates who can be trusted within the group.
According to several books and articles that I’ve recently read, humans signal virtue in the form of outrage back and forth so as to bond the group together toward common group goals, even to the point where individuals are willing to irrationally act against their individual self interests and sacrifice themselves for the group.
You do realize that the inexorable end point of rising group outrage is violence, don’t you? This outrage building is absolutely necessary when we must join to confront an existential threat, but what do you suppose will be the end result as this outrage, often artificially amplified by the media, continues to build between Americans who actually need to work together toward common goals and against real enemies? What would Jesus do?
So if the point of signaling your outrage at the Democrats is to convince yourselves and your tribe that Doug or I are not reliable Republicans and that the intensity of your outage proves your tribal fidelity to the Party, then you’re doing great – Bravo! On the other hand, if your point is to convince an independent thinker that your moral outrage is actually justified because liberal immoral behavior is actually more outrageous than, say Trump’s behavior, I just don’t see that happening here. Honestly, do you? And where do you actually think that this screaming of outrages at each other actually ends up?
Soundly put, Tony.. It’s one reason I initially was against impeachment… the possibility of some level of violence. I did a post recently to explain my my recent shift of that opinion, if interested.
https://findingpoliticalsanity.com/impeach-or-not/
@tsalmon
Well, if that non sequitur serves any purpose, it is to underline the need for thoughtful due process. That is not something you exhibited with all that weaseling.
The next time you see Liberal Democrat politicians and the Liberal Democrat news media trying to stir up moral outrage against their opponents and ignoring the crimes of the thugs they support, just tell us you don’t support abusing politicians you don’t like with name calling, disruptive and violent counter demonstrations, and trumped-up legal accusations. Pun intended.
Victor Davis Hanson, sums up Trump’s appeal to voters very succinctly at the 36 minute mark.
The video in its entirety summarizes the Mueller probe very well.
Guess you have to consider the source. Not sure why it took 36 minutes to convey the message.
@Liz
Enjoyed the video. Thanks!
Guess you have to consider the source.
Agreed. In this case the source is a historian who writes for the National Review (not a pro Trump publication), and teaches at Hillsdale College, founded in the early 1800’s. He lives in California – 3rd generation farmer in the wine country. He writes political, military and current history. He is a fellow at the Hoover institute.
He’s a bit more credible than, say, Anderson Cooper or Rachel Madcow or a person who believes incarcerated felons should have the right to vote in the pokey.
Not sure why it took 36 minutes to convey the message.
I have no idea what you’re talking about here. But thanks for not watching it. I didn’t expect you too….THAT would’ve been surprising. I can’t stream on my mountain, so I had to go to a coffee shop 40 minutes away to view it, but it was worth it.
In fact I didn’t listen to ALL of this nonsense. It was before the report release, hence everything he said is pure speculation and feeds the Trumpian narrative. Again.. the same old Right wing litany of comparing to previous administrations. It was sickening because this guy (who I never heard of before, nor his book, he is actually trying to be some sort of Trump Whisperer in interpreting and explaining all of Trump’s actions as having some supreme plan and that Trump is some genius. Sorry.. it’s appalling to me when someone pretends to understand Trump and imply it’s some sort of grand worship of the man. I tended to like Obama… but I NEVER worshiped the guy nor any other politician. I’m republican but I NEVER “loved” republican presidents to the misguided degree people love Trump… and pay homage to every utterance (or Tweet). Now he’s supposed to be a victim?? Sheer idiocy.
..and the clock on Trump is ticking.
I think the position that Trump was an unknown, potentially unstable person might’ve had some merit when he was first elected. We didn’t really know what would happen. His performance in actual results has been so good (with the exception of illegal immigration…that’s getting worse as politicians work in tandem to shut down all attempts to control it) it’s a very hard position to support now.
If he’s an unstable maniac, what do unstable maniacs do as president? What would our GDP be if someone else was president? Would unemployment be lower? How about Isreal? Are we closer to war with the DPRK? We’re getting away from destabilizing military interventions rather than into them. Short of actual real results based examples, the ranting seems to just become more extreme.
I think of Trump sort of like Pappy Boyington, who was a very flawed person, but exactly the right personality for that job. In today’s military he would never be allowed to fly, but the country would be poorer for it.
I guess you’ve been sleeping during all the Mueller indictments, and the report suggesting his complicity in any number of things he can’t be indicted for, being tossed toward Congress. Sorry.. every single thing you outlined he had NO overt influence to be measured as ANY sort of HIS accomplishment. But.. he apparently has sold you on the fear he promotes. In all my years I have NEVER given any politician the worship his base gives him for absolutely NO reason. It completely boggles the mind.
“Well, if that non sequitur serves any purpose, it is to underline the need for thoughtful due process. That is not something you exhibited with all that weaseling.”
You seriously didn’t understand the relevance?
“The next time you see Liberal Democrat politicians and the Liberal Democrat news media trying to stir up moral outrage against their opponents and ignoring the crimes of the thugs they support, just tell us you don’t support abusing politicians you don’t like with name calling, disruptive and violent counter demonstrations, and trumped-up legal accusations. Pun intended.“
I learned in law school that “due process” does not mean no one is allowed to accuse anyone of anything – it just means the accused gets a constitutionally acceptable “process”. Who do you think isn’t getting his/her due process? Trump? Hillary? Surely you’re not complaining that they have a right not to even be accused?
Anyway, I don’t I claim innocence of feeling outraged by Trump. Trump gives most of us outrage overload and then, eventually, there is the outrage exhaustion.
Today the Buffoon-in-Chief stated that in the event he falls under impeachment he will take it to the Supreme Court. Someone needs to read the Constitution. So far he’s tossing every imaginable roadblock to fight all the actions and subpoenas just to run the clock out toward the election. And Conservatives think we all need to adhere to the rule of law the way the Founding Fathers wrote it? You might wanna clue the Prez into that.
@Doug
You actually read part of the Constitution? WOW!
I expect the so-called mainstream news media will correct Trump. Of course, Trump will have to read the Constitution to make sure the actually got something right.
@tsalmon
Joe Biden just kicked off his campaign. What does Biden stand for? Trump is a racist. How do we know Trump is a racist? Biden quotes Trump out of context. So now all good Democrats can shout down deplorables. Yeah, I get it.
Sorry.. every single thing you outlined he had NO overt influence to be measured as ANY sort of HIS accomplishment.
Then please give me some direct example (or examples) of something (or some things) you believe the president has overt influence over, Doug, that would be a measure of accomplishment in your estimation.
Here ya go. A post from this last December where I actually gave him some credit for something.
https://findingpoliticalsanity.com/even-a-broken-clock-is-right-twice-a-day/
You realize the last president who was impeached just ignored it and walked back into the office.
Okay, so there are five items you believe he influenced and did well on. Which doesn’t really refute my points. It’s a little odd to assert that the president has no direct influence over our defense policy but direct influence over…some comparatively much smaller matters like the music industry.
Per your other points in the writeup:
Now, he has raised some interest in the opioid epidemic but so far there’s nothing formal going on.
Yes, there is something formal going on. China, the foremost supplier of counterfeit and tainted fentanyl in the world, is starting to crack down. This is a huge step in the right direction.
I’d personally love to see an effort for a national mental health policy, but given 2019 is likely to be rather tenable for Trump there’s no breath-holding here.
The above is a little too vague. Not sure what you mean by a “national mental health policy”
At any rate, to be continued on another shorter thread I guess….