TRUDEAU: "From today forward, it is no longer legal to buy, sell, or transfer a handgun in Canada." pic.twitter.com/aGzqhBmblg
— Townhall.com (@townhallcom) October 21, 2022
Jaybird
Jaybird is Birdmojo on Xbox Live and Jaybirdmojo on Playstation's network. He's been playing consoles since the Atari 2600 and it was Zork that taught him how to touch-type. If you've got a song for Wednesday, a commercial for Saturday, a recommendation for Tuesday, an essay for Monday, or, heck, just a handful a questions, fire off an email to AskJaybird-at-gmail.com
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But what will they do in Schitt’s Creek when they are invaded by 30-50 feral hogs?Report
Dirty Harry notwithstanding, if I have to deal with a feral hog herd, I want something a whole lot bigger than a handgun.Report
Hunting weapons are, of course, still perfectly legal in Canada. I would expect if you unloaded a handgun at a feral hog it’d probably run over to you in hopes of getting more pleasant scritches.Report
A 44 Magnum placed properly will bring one down.Report
Placed properly is doing a lot of work there. Hunting feral hogs isn’t restricted in Colorado. If it were, they would be in a weight class that doesn’t allow handguns. Even in a rifle the 44 Magnum round is kind of iffy for meeting the required energy delivered at 100 yards.
Colorado is still, I believe, the only state that has managed to eradicate a feral hog population. We got on it before they had a chance to get too firmly established. A few still stray in from neighboring states, and from time to time we arrest someone trying to bring some in to release for hunting.Report
Well done, Canada.Report
Since the exchange got nuked, let me re-enter it into the record that leftists lack a limiting principle, and are going to support the gun-grabbers when they’re the ones grabbing the guns. I liked the formation I used last time: given enough time and opportunity, every leftist is a potential future war criminal or future ex-leftist.Report
As a side note, I wonder if the removal of non-regulars’ comments makes lurkers feel like they’re not welcome. We don’t get a lot of new blood here.Report
As far as I can tell, the majority of the non-regulars’ are a single instance of a particular regular non-regular.Report
Understood. But it’s bad optics when anyone who has a different name than the usual gets struck.Report
Agreed!Report
There’s a vast gulf of difference between no longer selling or transferring, and seizing. No guns have been seized by this action. Rifles and shotguns remain untouched.
And as for limiting principals – The left sees life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness as foundational bedrocks – which are regularly impinged by a gun soaked culture. To that end, preventing the further sales of an existing type of weapon that’s responsible for most gun related suicides as well as gun related homicides make a lot of sense. You can’t pursue life, or happiness, or really be at liberty if you have to run and hide . . . .Report
(insert comment that will inspire someone else to yell “SLIPPERY SLOPE!” here)Report
As I said in the comment that disappeared, the left side of the aisle has principles, and individual leftists can have principles, but the lack of a limiting principle leaves the left prone to the things that the other commenter had said.Report
What would be an example of a limiting principle, for either the left or right?
If I said the right has no limiting principle, how would you counter?Report
By yelling “BOTH SIDES DO IT!” and then declaring rhetorical victory.
No! Wait!
I think that the argument would be something like “there should be spheres that are seen as outside of the business of everybody else and here are examples” and then they’d give examples that you wouldn’t agree with in the first place and could probably find an example of a Southern Baptist somewhere arguing against.Report
The tension between society and the individual is seen as a good thing. The idea of a written Constitution. The checks and balances therein. The whole idea of the democracy of the dead. Beyond that, the (US) right just doesn’t have a collectivist impulse.
(busy now – second paragraph later)Report
The left doesn’t actually reject any of that. We just think it means we have to act in a certain way that diverges from the way the Right seeks to act.Report
Part 2 –
You recently asked, what issue would make you vote for a scumbag? You were upset that I said nothing outside of existential national threat. That’s an example of limits. I know that the system restricts how much damage a person can do, and I can live with the idea of a person who disagrees with me being in office. Your side doesn’t have a principle that restrains you. Anything you can convince yourself is a threat becomes a hill to die on (or kill, or burn down cities).Report
Democratic politician = scumbag. Got it. Interesting limiting principle there.
Except as we learned under and after Mr. Trump, the system may not actually be capable of limiting the damage one person can do, especially when they are aided and abetted by the other two branches of government.
And that aside, if you are comfortable with a person who disagrees with you being in office, why are Democrats scumbags?Report
No. That’s not fair. Chip’s example was: “Imagine Candidate A, who is a thoroughly repellent human being- wife beater, child abuser, crooked and selfish.” It was asked to both sides. It wasn’t a Democrat.Report
Mea culpa – I had lost track of that question.Report
You’re not actually giving us much of a definition of limits, so much as just restating the assertion.
I mean, the left also believes in the Constitution and checks and balances.
Let’s define “Limiting Principle” to mean “The principle which halts or limits the application of the general rule.”
E.G. “General Rule is that the free expression of speech must not be abridged.
Limiting Principle 1: Slander/Libel
Limiting Principle 2 thru n: Credible threat, time place and manner, etc.”
So pretty much everyone has a limiting principle, except ideologues.Report
But you don’t, not really. If something is on your “essentials” list, then you don’t care what it takes to advance it. That’s not merely my accusation, either. You’ve stated it explicitly. Your whole scumbag scenario was built on that idea. And the Constitution? You don’t think much of the 2nd Amendment, or the Electoral College; I don’t remember what you think of the Senate, but there are plenty of liberals who put that on the same list: the list of things they don’t mind in principle until they get in their way. The Supreme Court, states’ rights, Senate rules, if they’re an impediment, they’re optional (or proof of racism and have to be destroyed). You can’t pretend we’ve never had a conversation before.Report
If your charge is that we will stop at nothing and willing to inflict oppression to get our way, then you would need to support that with examples of liberal oppression.Report
You really mean it? You’ll hold the football still this time?Report
I’ve asked you for examples of oppression, meaning victims and all you ever come up with are things you personally think are bad.
But yeah, try again.Report
The first time I tried this you ignored the unborn as victims of abortion, and the Asians, Jews, and whites as victims of affirmative action. Those were my first two examples. If they’re too far off-subject for this thread, that’s fine, but don’t say I didn’t give you any.Report
Those are your strongest examples and I’ll grant you the “agree to disagree” on abortion.
So that leaves “Asians, Jews, and White” as victims of liberal oppression.
Happily, we have two of those three groups right here on this very blog, who can offer personal testimony of their oppression.
And we can all put this testimony next to the history of Jim Crow and other oppression which affirmative action was intended to remedy, and we can all make our own assessment of whether one justifies the other or not.Report
The football! It moved! How could I have foreseen it?Report
You set the goalposts then.
Show us this oppression.Report
I’m saying The Left has no limiting principles, you’re asking about liberal oppression. Those are your goalposts. But anyway, I was thinking more about Lucy pulling away the football, not moving of goalposts.
I’m not going to agree to pretend that your position on abortion is moral. I can agree that we’re not going to resolve it today though.
We’ve talked about affirmative action before, and you’ve said that you have no problem with the government systemically discriminating on the basis of race, as long as it’s in support of your position. That may have been the first time we talked about limiting principles. There’s nothing that you can point at and say hey, I don’t care if it suits my beliefs, government shouldn’t be doing that.
And it it systemic racism. It’s usually not easy to spot, and its victims may be ok with it, or not feel like they can complain, but it’s a policy with victims.
Going back to gun rights, The Left hates guns in the hands of their enemies, and loves guns in the hands of their friends. There’s no principle underneath.Report
Ok if the victims are OK with their oppression, are you sure it’s really oppression?
This sounds an awful lot like leftists talking about false consciousness or jihadis talking about apostates.
And I’m not at all understanding your gun comment.
But we can just skip ahead to your definition:
“There’s nothing that you can point at and say hey, I don’t care if it suits my beliefs, government shouldn’t be doing that.”
By this definition, no one has limiting principles. No matter what action you care to offer, there is some situation in which virtually everyone agrees it is justified, even if the justification is something far fetched like a meteor.
I mean, the Flight 93 narrative says this explicitly, that drastic action is needed to forestall something worse.Report
Maybe Pinky disagrees with me, but I think if Justin Trudeau was actually principled he would also prohibit the Mounties, or whoever it is that guards the prime minister and other politicians from acquiring any new handguns, from here on out. But we know that won’t happen. Hence it’s not about handguns, just about who has access to one.Report
Yeah, I’m curious as to who gets an exception.Report
Maybe they will prove me wrong but my guess is that any VIP or politician of any significant stature will have access to all of the handguns he or she needs, even if they happen to be wielded by a government agent or some other private security.Report
…”if Justin Trudeau was actually principled…”
What “principle” are you describing?Report
He specifically said in Spring when this was announced: ‘Other than using firearms for sport shooting and hunting, there is no reason anyone in Canada should need guns in their everyday lives.’
If he believes that then I would think he also believes no Canadian law enforcement should be walking around with firearms (or at least with handguns). Including the ones that guard him.Report
Well then, if he were principled, he would forbid the Canadian military from possessing firearms.
Truly, staggering hypocrisy on display here.Report
I’m not trying to be crazy but in certain ways I think that’s absolutely right.* This is Canada of course so it isn’t on remotely the level of hypocrisy we have in the US but I find it tough to take seriously moral appeals about privately owned weapons from people who themselves have massive amounts of weapons at their disposal.
*For the record I don’t believe civilians should be able to own any darn thing they want, just that the weapons the state has collected for itself are a very relevant consideration in all of this.Report
Well, what, and bear with me here, the actual principle is “Only people who demonstrate a reasonable need for deadly weapons are allowed to have them?”
After all, this is the same principle governing explosives, certain toxic chemicals and deadly pathogens.
Certain people are allowed to handle anthrax spores while regular people aren’t, but is that also hypocrisy?Report
“Only people who demonstrate a reasonable need for deadly weapons are allowed to have them?”
Who is in charge of deciding what is “a reasonable need”?
Because if this ends up with Gwynneth Paltrow’s bodyguards being able to carry but a lady who has a restraining order against her abusive ex-husband isn’t able to get her hands on a gun, I’m going to suspect that the deck is stacked.Report
Who decides who gets to have a fully automatic rifle?Report
I wasn’t talking about fully automatic rifles but handguns (which, I’ll note, is what Justin Trudeau was talking about).
But to answer your question…
Here, let me google that for you.
One of the links goes through the process:
You’re probably wondering if “prohibited person” is a loaded term. Luckily, that’s defined too!
There’s also something called an SOT can can allow you to build your own fully automatic rifle.
But, the *REAL* answer is that you can decide that you want to turn your semi-automatic rifle into a fully-automatic rifle and do it yourself if you (redacted). Seriously, you can do it in your basement with (redacted). It’s illegal but (redacted) is legal and if you (redacted), you can turn your semi-automatic rifle into a fully-automatic rifle.Report
I don’t believe that’s really what’s happening with the kinds of personal firearms in question. It’s just making one set of assumptions about the needs, the competence, and the benevolence of the state that I don’t think are merited, and other assumptions about private individuals that I also don’t necessarily think are merited either. Which isn’t to say I couldn’t ever possibly be convinced otherwise, it would just take pretty major changes in how the government operates. I got into it a billion years ago here:
https://ordinary-times.com/2016/11/22/confession-of-a-liberal-gun-owner/
Anyway I don’t think it’s hypocritical for me to accept different rules for explosives or deadly viruses or nuclear bombs or whatever else that are different in too many ways to count.Report
This is where you guys need to drop the absolutist language about rights and speak more about a negotiated position justified by logic..
Like,, a logic which can explain why you are comfortable having a government bureaucrat decide you are not allowed to have a fully automatic rifle, but you somehow see it as an abridgement of rights to deny you a semiautomatic.
Maybe there is a logical line, but it isn’t anywhere in the Constitution so you need to summon it up out of the emanations and penumbras.Report
Chip, in this case, our problem isn’t “you somehow see it as an abridgement of rights to deny you a semiautomatic.”
Our problem is “how come Gwynneth Paltrow’s bodyguard gets to carry a handgun but the lady with the restraining order against her husband can’t get one?”
I’m pretty sure that you’ll find us saying “if you’re going to deny one to her, you should also deny one to him”.
We need you to explain why your position is nuanced enough to entertain the rich and powerful having laws that don’t apply to them but apply to the poor.Report
It certainly creates some serious questions about what kind of negotiated settlement we’re talking here. Like is it any wonder people might object to a deal where wealthy people and politicians have all the guns for hire they want, and every alphabet federal law enforcement agency down to the local yokel county police force gets bearcats and unlimited select fire rifles, but the average person is limited to muzzle loaders? I don’t see why it’s irrational to have some concerns about what’s going on with that, no matter what the constitution says.Report
“Of *COURSE* we’re going to have *EXCEPTIONS*. Only an *EXTREMIST* would think that rules should apply to *EVERYBODY*.”
“So who are we going to be making exceptions for?”
“Rich people, famous people, and politically connected people.”Report
Your scenario is the exact opposite of what I said, and in fact you’re strengthening my argument.Report
Oh, I see.
Well, perhaps you can strengthen your argument even more and make me look like a fool by explaining why the folks in charge of choosing who has “a reasonable need” will not have their thumbs on the scale in the way that they’ve done so in the past.Report
Heh, and I might say that you should engage with the possibility that it’s fully possible to have negotiated settlements that result in very bad outcomes!
I’m not an absolutist. And for the record a person can legally obtain an automatic weapon in the United States. It just requires a different transfer process and fee, and is really cost prohibitive for most people. I’m fine with that as well as the restrictions on new ones being sold on the civilian market beyond the ones already out there because there really is a functional difference that justifies it, at least in my opinion, and which is simple to identify and categorize for regulatory purposes. They’re also harder to operate safely and there really is a pretty bad danger to utility ratio for most civilian uses, other than the joy of causing a lot of smoke and noise at the ranges that allow for it.
But there are no such rational lines to draw for semi-auto which would not allow for a ban on everything. Unlike fully automatic, semi-auto also has a very strong ratio of utility for civilian purposes to ability to operate safely. That’s why it’s where most people on the gun rights side hold the line.
All of this I think is far more rational than just saying well of course the police need them, they’re the police! I also think it’s more than fair to bring up that there’s all kinds of crap they have that there’s no rational case for, but that never seem to be part of the gun control conversation, and to wonder why that is.Report
“But there are no such rational lines to draw for semi-auto which would not allow for a ban on everything.”
That is demonstrably false.
Consider your exchange with Jaybird where you both are laying out the logical reasons why one person should have a gun and another should not.
Or consider how we establish subtle gradations of which types of things are available “on demand” versus “restricted in some cases” to “only allowed in extreme cases”.
Again, virtually all developed nations control access to guns and yet remain both free and safe.Report
Free is a ridiculous word for restricting freedom of movement of the general populace and throwing children into detention camps.
Or is Australia not a developed nation anymore??
New Zealand as well.Report
I don’t understand what you’re arguing. Other countries that do that have all but prohibited private firearm ownership. I do not support that outcome in the US, at least under currently existing circumstances. While I agree that there should be rules about what weapons citizens can possess I think the right place to draw the line for small arms, based on safety and utility, is between auto and semi auto. Other than maybe with respect to silencers, I think the NFA is a pretty sound law. This seems like exactly the nuanced position, based in logical assessment of functionality, that you’re accusing me of not having.
I don’t know what the free and safe thing has to do with it. I have loved my visits to Germany, understand it to be a free and safe country, but nevertheless do not agree with every policy decision they’ve made. Again, nuance.Report
“I don’t understand what you’re arguing.”
His argument is that once we’ve said OK to literally any form of gun regulations, then we’ve said OK to gun regulations and can no longer supportably claim that we’re concerned about the concept of gun regulations in discussions of this-or-that extension of them.
Like, it’s the joke to which “we’ve established what you are, now we’re just haggling over the price” is the punchline.Report
What you’re doing here is what I support, that is, you’re not arguing for a right to a gun on demand, no questions asked.
Instead you’re setting out a logic test for why and when a gun should be allowed.
This is all I’m asking for, that we think of deadly weapons the same way we think of any other deadly tool.
And pretty much everyone does anyway.
When we talk about automatic rifles everyone applies the “negotiated common sense” logic, but when we talk about handguns the argument shifts to “absolute right upon demand” sort of argument.Report
Imagine, if you will, a board that merely asked “are you a violent felon?” before deciding whether someone could own a gun. If the person had no record, that would be enough. (Maybe put a waiting period in there, sure.)
Would this be okay?Report
To which the 6 year old boy says, “No, Sir” .Report
Put an age limit on it, then.
You must be 25 to purchase a handgun, 21 to purchase a long gun.
We good with that?Report
As long as we are past the “upon demand” then I’m getting OK.
But maybe a couple more:
“Are these your Facebook posts saying “Kill all the Pigs”?
“Do you have children in the home, and a gun safe?”
“Can you produce character references attesting to your ability to responsibly control a deadly weapon?”Report
Perfect. When you apply for X, you must submit your social media.
There’s quite a few folks we should be able to prevent from full participation in society.Report
Consider your exchange with Jaybird where you both are laying out the logical reasons why one person should have a gun and another should not.
No, we were saying that we wanted to see the logical reasons why Gwynneth Paltrow’s bodyguard was allowed a gun but the woman who had a restraining order against her ex-husband couldn’t get one.
We’re still waiting, for the record.Report
You should find the person who proposed that because I have the same question.
I agree that gun permits should be granted by reasonable need, not wealth.Report
Did you ever read the Heller decision?
As it turns out, Heller was a DC special policeman who was authorized to carry as part of his job but was not authorized to have a privately-owned gun in his house.
Do you believe that Heller was correctly decided?Report
No, I don’t. Heller – in his professional capacity – was carrying a hand gun as part of a “well regulated militia.” In his home he was no longer part of that militia. No matter how the NRA wishes to twist this, none of the Founders believed in an individual right to own anything other then a musket, and even then only in either a hunting or trained militia capacity. Sure, you could use it to defend your home, but even the best shots of the day could only fire twice a minute, making using long guns as a defensive weapon and a mechanism to commit violent crime very challenging.Report
Dude, you should read the Heller decision!
Here, I’ll give you an excerpt:
Emphasis added.
But, and here’s the point, we’ve found an argument for a bodyguard carrying a gun and just a generic woman not being able to have one:
The bodyguard would be acting in a capacity similar to that of militia. The woman would not be.
Easy peasy.Report
You asked if Chip through Heller was decided correctly. I.E. does he agree with its reasoning. I don’t – and your example doesn’t change my mind.Report
I’m not asking you to change your mind, Phil.
Thank you for being honest.
For the record, I do not expect to agree with any “in practice” body who is in charge of deciding who has a “reasonable need” for a gun.Report
“The security guards hired to work in a government building are considered an armed militia force” is a surprising view for a liberal commentor, in this age of concerns over the militarization of police forces.Report
Why does a liberal stating the obvious surprise you? Especially when its a policy statement in context of the Constitution?
I mean there’s a uniformed FBI police guarding their HQ, across the street from DoJ which has a separate uniformed police force to guard it.Report
Phillip H believes it’s okay to arm any governmental official. Including the IRS, which has been given a ton of guns recently, as a rather obvious workaround to giving them to people qualified as “militia.”Report
NO, the IRS hasn’t been given a ton of guns lately, though that comments tells us where you lie on the political spectrum. frankly if it were ok to arm all government officials you’d see weather people packing. They don’t.
And reading the Federalist Papers, tons of historical analyses by actual historians, and collected writings of the Founding Fathers leads me to conclude they did not want massive unrestricted gun ownership, nor could they conceive of modern handguns (which cause far more death in the US then rifles or shotguns). They expected gun owners to be responsible – which was easier back then since leaving a loaded musket lying around for a toddler to encounter and kill someone with wasn’t nearly as easy as it is with a modern Glock.
They never wanted or needed or advocated for the type of weapons soaked, devil may care society we have now.Report
You may be right about the intentions of the Founders, or maybe not, but ultimately I think this demonstrates why originalism is more theology than legal theory.
Trying to ascertain how James Madison would regard an tripod mounted 50 caliber machine gun and how he might consider it in relation to a TEC 9 is a bit like asking what Jesus would think about a Mac versus a PC.
First we can’t possibly know. There aren’t any historical comparisons that aren’t arbitrary and contrived so it really amounts to taking our personal opinions and inserting them into the.mouths of long dead people in a vain attempt to embellish them with unearned legitimacy.
Second, it avoids letting the opinion stand on its own.
If a long lost clay tablet were unearthed where it was Jesus’ brother Brian who gave the Sermon on the Mount, would the words no longer have the same meaning?
If a letter were to be found where James Madison says the 2nd is a collective right, would conservatives all suddenly do an about face like a school of fish?Report
We’ve been over the stats on this recently; the accidental gun death is a rarity. You shouldn’t bring it up as if it’s common.Report
“Why does a liberal stating the obvious surprise you?”
lol
“militarizing the police is OK when I need to argue with somebody on the internet”Report
At no point have I said it’s ok – I simply pointed out an occurrence of it happening.
Apples and ice cubes dude. Apples and ice cubes.Report
One of the best ways to avoid discussing the upsides/downsides of any given event is to ask, instead, about the internal emotional states of the people witnessing it.
Does this surprise you?Report
He’s not asking how I feel about something – he’s deflecting to something I never said to try and impugn what I did say.
And no, neither form of deflection surprises me. Its still deflection and still merits response.Report
“none of the Founders believed in an individual right to own anything other then a musket”
I’m going to need something to support that claim.Report
The founders believed in an individual right to have a “sod off” gun.
They did not believe one should saw off a shotgun.
(apologizes to any sodomites in the audience. I assure you the association is long since irrelevant.)Report
Nearly everyone has a deadly weapon. It’s called a motor vehicle. They kill many more people per year than guns, often by suicide.
To be able to launch commercial fireworks, one must fill out a multiple choice exam to obtain a blasting license. This is considerably less difficult than most driving exams.
And I do not believe most driving exams are effective at screening out the people most likely to kill someone. They certainly didn’t screen out Terry Davis.Report
Are you familiar with the circumstances under which members of the military are allowed to carry a handgun?
To be honest, you’d be better off arguing “I think that civilians should be able to bear the same guns as are allowed by the military! And they must have the same rules to put them in the holster and take them out of it.”Report
Only Military Police officers son duty are allowed to carry handguns (or any weapons) routinely on domestic bases. Even then they have to return them to the armory at the end of their shift.
Otherwise, active duty military only carry when conducting specific firearms training on base, after checking them out and signing for them. The process reverses at the end of the training. They don’t walk around on post just carrying, and aren’t allowed to take them home.
Not sure how that helps or hurts the case however, since they too are active in a Well Regulated Militia.Report
“active duty military only carry when conducting specific firearms training on base, after checking them out and signing for them. The process reverses at the end of the training. They don’t walk around on post just carrying, and aren’t allowed to take them home.”
this applies to government-issued firearms on the base premises, not to personally-owned firearms carried off-base while on leave.Report
yes and?Report
I hear what you’re saying but not sure I agree. For example I don’t know of any limiting principle on the right that prevents them from completely scrapping the New Deal and load bearing columns of the 1960s welfare state if they ever got enough power to do it. I think the natural outcome of that would be incredibly immoral. The control on that (at least today) isn’t principled Republicans who see that as going too far, it’s public opinion and the Democratic coalition, which of course includes people on the fringes that believe in a level of confiscation and redistribution that would also be incredibly destructive. The hope of our system I think is that these forces check each other to maintain an acceptable level of equilibrium. It helps a lot when principled moderates are also a factor but I would say our system anticipates that they won’t necessarily be.Report
Just focusing on the political ideologies themselves and not how people who may self-identify as a member of a group might act, I think the thought process is: when evaluating potential government action, conservatives would weigh the proposed action against the longstanding cultural wisdom of the people, and libertarians/classical liberals would weigh it against individuals’ rights to liberty (understanding the the tendency of governments to overreach); but what in the liberal philosophy inherently pushes back against government action? Contemporary liberalism doesn’t seem to have any similar sense of “here are reasons why government should be bounded” — everything is evaluated as a case-by-case basis, and so immature/unrealistic ideas about what governments can actually accomplish will not have any natural pushback.Report
I disagree with the premise that we can totally separate out the ideology from how its adherents behave or what they do with power. It leads us to a place where we argue over abstractions unrelated to what policies are actually implemented or actions taken. To me that makes no sense.
I am more of a classical liberal than a progressive liberal but I don’t think there’s 0 push back on what government can do, even if they think about it differently. I just think they’re part of a coalition that won all of their big battles on that front over the late 20th century, both legally and culturally. So now it’s limited to, I don’t know, believing that any remotely coercive government attempt to handle homelessness or urban disorder is wrong. With the big 1st Amendment battles curbing religion in the public sphere there isn’t much left for them to do.Report
After the first few iterations, it becomes Charlie Brown’s fault for continuing to agree to the game.Report
For what it’s worth, I listed some issues, and I said this was a problem of The Left, not the left-side of the aisle.Report
To be fair to Pinky (who in no way deserves fairness, of course), accusations of nihilism, which is effectively what he is accusing “the left” of, are pretty common from both the right and the left, and have been for about a century and a half using that term specifically, and much longer with less precise terminology. And obviously, in some individual cases it is true, on both sides of the left-right divide (Trump, e.g., is a nihilist, as I’m sure are many liberal politicians). As a generalization about either side, though, it’s lazy and ignorant, and anyone who makes it is signaling that they can and should be ignored.Report
Trump, e.g., is a nihilist, as I’m sure are many liberal politicians
Part of the problem is that you’ve got people willing to defend nihilist politicians.
They don’t agree with the politicians, mind. They just see them as preferable to the other guys. If it were up to me, we’d have good candidates and not bad ones!
But… well, you have to understand.
And, let’s face it, it is kinda understandable why someone would defend their nihilists in the face of worse-than-nihilists. Or, at least, not attack them. Maybe even vote for them.Report
My cousin, a young, very conservative Evangelical in Atlanta, posted on Facebook the other day, “I care way more about Warnock’s future than Walker’s past,” or something to that effect, and it reminded me that he and a lot of other conservatives I’m friends with on Facebook were saying similar things throughout the Trump candidacy. I suspect it’s a part of the calculus anyone who votes in a two-party system has to make, because while the person may be horrible, another vote for your party’s agenda 95% of the time is better than another vote against it 95% of the time. I don’t know a way around that within the two-party system. It seems to be an inherent flaw.Report
I can’t imagine trying to defend Warnock’s evictions.
I could only do so by bringing up Walker and how bad he would be and how Walker would be worse.
I imagine that that would eventually get depressing.Report
Oh hey, if we’re going after landlords, we’re now finally into my politics. 😉Report
Your friend is bullsh!tting you.
They use the “other side is worse” because, as we’ve seen right here, forcing people to tolerate gays and abortion and black folks IS the worst possible oppression they can imagine.
Literally, it’s the Flight 93 scenario, the Armageddon moment justifying anything.
They can’t quite come right out and say it, so they hyperventilate and wave their hands and produce a Gish Gallop of nonsense, but in the end, it’s the loss of dominance that is the existential threat.Report
Nihilism in practice just sounds like sociopathy.Report
Only when they do it.
When we do it, it’s tribalism/loyalty.Report
Yes, we get it. You have a superior moral viewpoint untainted by personal bias unlike the rest of us with our blinkered vision.Report
Yeesh. His whole point is that everyone’s blinkered. That insight provides the best limitation of all, wariness against certainty.Report
Is, Jaybird saying that Jaybird is blinded by tribal loyalty?
Is Jaybird telling us that Jaybird is a hypocrite who refuses to accept his own faults?
Is Jaybird telling us that Jaybird is willing to inflict oppression on some hated Outgroup?
Or is this just the guy sitting in the front pew telling us that unlike everyone else, he is humble, in fact probably the most humble guy in church.Report
I think he’d say that he tries not to be blinded by loyalty, and doesn’t particularly have loyalty to any side, but nevertheless shouldn’t be trusted. I’m sure he’d say it in a more oblique way though.Report
I’d probably say something that deliberately pivots myself to be morally superior.
“I don’t have a side. I only have principles!” or something like that.Report
Every conversation, for an INTP, is like a little opportunity for arson.Report
The pivot that demonstrates one’s own moral superiority is a move that you really ought to learn to recognize when you see it.
It’s easiest to see when someone else has completely different values to the point where they can’t comprehend someone else not having them, but it’s a move that works somewhat well when you’re arguing with someone with whom you have 80-90% agreement.Report
The only pivot I want to see is the holder to turn the football so the laces are out. That’s all I want! A chance to kick!Report
(acclaim?)Report
It’s at least antisocial, sure, but I think there are a lot of ways to arrive at it: narcissism, sociopathy, or just extreme cynicism, to name a few.Report
I think you’d be surprised about the diversity of opinions on guns among leftists (and liberals, for that matter, but especially leftists). There are leftist gun groups, and then there are folks like me, who wish we could rid the world of them entirely. I am actually in the minority on this, among leftists. I can’t imagine how this makes me a future war criminal, but I don’t get the impression you’ve really thought this, or much of anything, ever, through.Report
If the stated goal is confiscation of civilian guns, then the limit is reached when guns are no longer in private hands.
Analogously, if the stated goal is to accept Roe v. Wade as settled law, then the limit on cases involving abortion has already been reached (to use your case below).
Slippery slopes can be turned either way.Report
GoodReport
One thing I will say: If you look at the homicide numbers, you’ll see that stuff like “assault weapons” are a lot lower than their name suggests and “handguns” are pretty high up there.
Here’s a government report’s numbers:
If you want to tackle homicide, you’re going to focus on handguns. Not “assault weapons”.Report
And the reason they’re the ones used in urban crime and gang/drug warfare is because they can be concealed.Report
Hang on a second, would a Tec-9 be legal?Report
The gun or the rapper?Report
If he calls himself “he” when rapping, then both, I guess.Report