Alexandria

Been away a couple of days and missed Firebird’s exquisite rant to which I will respond shortly. But first, her rant – and it was really a good one – was predicated on a Chris Matthews rant. Now normally I would have no reference to this since I don’t listen to Chris Matthews, but just this afternoon I happened to be over at someone’s house where that was showing.

Bear in mind that this was the first time I had ever heard him and Matthews was ranting about gun people and how they want an America where everyone is armed to the teeth and at bars and just can’t wait for shooting to break out.

Well, first I said to myself – well that’s really stupid, he can’t be serious. Then I thought to myself – where have I seen this before?

Chris Matthews is just a guy doing what he imagines is what a left winged version of an unholy mixture of Ann Coulter and Rush Limbaugh.

Firebird – you’re getting outraged over the left wing equivalent of “Michael Savage”.

Okay, I’m now going to respond to Firebird’s list from my point of view of being libertarianly inclined, but not hardcore like my esteemed Fellow Author H-A, inclining to the general left on social matters, but not hardcore like my esteemed Fellow Author Hector. As always – gun issues excepted. More on that in the response. Finally, I favor pragmatic solutions over ideological purity.

I’m also going to comment on whether or not I see ‘right wing’ types, to grossly generalize, around me who are concerned about these issues.

1. We don’t ‘THINK’ the government, the left is coming after our guns, we KNOW you are because you have TOLD us you are.  We don’t live in an ethereal world of concepts; we live in a real world where we not only hear what you say, but see what you do.

As alluded to above, I’m with Firebird on this. We’ve seen what happened in Australia and the UK to say nothing of Europe generally, Switzerland as always excepted.If a State such as California or New York wants to impose restrictions on weapons within their borders, I think that they should have that right. I think a good case to be made that very large municipalities such as New York City also ought to be able to regulate restrictions within their borders.But ‘shall not be abridged’ applies to the Federal Government, but yet I see a lot of folks in the FedGov introducing bills to do just that.Maybe a grand bargain could be reached – the social conservatives agree to stop pushing anti-abortion laws if the social liberals agree to stop pushing gun control.This gets a high match on the “I see right-wingers who do this” or ICRW index.

2. We don’t give a shit about gay marriage.  If two flannel shirt wearing, steel toed boot wearing, 200 pound women want to get ‘married’…I don’t care.  At least that action takes two people out of the gene pool that won’t re-produce.  We are not mad about gay marriage…..we are mad that you want us to be mad about gay marriage.

I have no idea what that bolded part means. I’ve been trying to think of any reason why ‘the left’ would want ‘the right’ to be mad about gay marriage, but got nothing.

I’d also suggest the Firebird’s position of indifference towards gay marriage is not representative of all in ‘the right’.

Clearly there must be some segment of ‘the right’ that is very much against gay marriage, since people fight to stop it. The American Family Association sends me e-mail every day about how important it is to America that gays not marry.

I think that what ‘the left’ wants is for people to be able to marry the person they wish to marry, not for Firebird to be mad about gay marriage. That doesn’t even make sense to me and I hope she addresses these points.

This also gets a high match on the “I see right-wingers who do this” or ICRW index in that almost everyone I meet in real life is pretty much indifferent to gays getting married. But perhaps Firebird will concede that there is a large market for groups like The AFA to solicit and collect a lot of money from people who do care.

3. I think we ARE mad about racism…….YOURS.  If you are a white, elite, liberal or a Jesse Jackson clone…….we find your racism offensive.

There’s not much to say here except that I have no idea what Firebird is talking about here.

I don’t think I can fairly evaluate this on the ICRW index without further clarification.

 

4. We are mad that every single policy of socialism that you are implementing is failing as you trumpet it as a success.

I can’t evaluate this without a clear definition of what is meant by ‘socialism’. Are Clean Air and Clean Water regulations part of socialism? They seem successful.

I don’t think I can fairly evaluate this on the ICRW index without further clarification.

5. We are mad that you think just because we live in Kansas, or Idaho, or Oregon or Alabama, you think that we do not see the disintegration of our national fabric.  We are mad that you think that your living in New York, Chicago, LA, makes you more sophisticated than someone else.  I will take living in small town North Carolina, where NOBODY was murdered last year, over living in Chicago where 1.5 people were murdered a day, on average!!!!  There is your sophistication.

In the first two sentences, Firebird is angry about something that she believes ‘the left’ thinks about her and people like her on ‘the right’. Unless I’m mistaken, that’s just a strawman she’s made up and is kicking the stuffing out of it.

ICRW index – low. I’ve never seen any right-wing person around me get upset about what they believe ‘the left’ thinks about them until now.

Firebird then goes on to express her preference for small town life. Here I heartily agree. This has a very high ICRW index seeing as how I live out in a rural area and folks around here like that sort of life.

6. We are mad at the taxes.

Well yeah, but who isn’t? Again, I heartily agree with Firebird on this issue. Very high ICRW index.

7. We are mad at Obamacare - the largest tax ever imposed on mankind.

For different reasons, I also agree with Firebird. I am unsatisfied with Obamacare because I would prefer to see a single-payer system such as Canada’s, or at the very least, I would want to see a more rational public/private system such as found in Switzerland.

Very high ICRW index – typically more for Firebird’s reasoning than mine.

8. We are mad that the government thinks that it has a right to decide what and how much we can eat and drink.

If you tossed in ‘and smoke’, I bet you could get a large segment of ‘the left’ to agree with you.

ICRW index – middling. I haven’t met anyone who is actually ‘mad’ about this issue. Here in Texas, that sort of regulation is just a punch line in a joke about those wacky New Yorkers, but it is talked about, if only in a derisive way.

9. We are mad that our elected leaders cannot recognize a problem, its cause and come up with an appropriate solution.  This one is getting particularly offensive.  ‘Twenty six people killed in a school shooting by a psycho?  NO DRINKS LARGER THAN 16 OZ!!!!!’  Our elected officials can’t figure out shit, from dog catcher to President.

Well, I think we all agree with the sentiments in the first two sentences, but then Firebird goes off on a tangent where two unrelated things are mentioned without explaining how they are connected? Did some elected official somewhere suggest that banning large drinks would do something about school shootings?

ICRW index, high on the first two sentences, low on the sodas and school killings.

10. We are mad that the Senates’  budget to cut the deficit adds $1 trillion in taxes and includes no cuts in spending.

I don’t know if this is actually the case, but if so, I’m not mad about it because I accept that as part of the bargaining that goes on during budget talks. Would I prefer if if politicians didn’t grandstand while their aides negotiated details behind the scenes? Sure I would, but that isn’t how the world works.

ICRW index – low, first time I’ve seen this claim made.

11. Veterans are mad that the military cut funding for tuition assistance and that the government plans on making their insurance plan too expensive to afford in order to get them into Obamacare, after making promises to them about lifetime coverage to get then so sign on.

Again, I don’t know if these cuts actually happened or if these plans are in the works. However as someone who would like to enjoy an old age pension and subsidized medical care where I turn 65, I think the the Federal Government should not disavow these sorts of promises if they were made no matter how much it costs.

ICRW – low since this is the first time I’ve seen these claims.

12.  We are furious you cannot SEE the destruction all this is causing to the once-greatest experiment in freedom ever to grace the earth.

I’m a ‘pendulum theory’ kind of guy. The thing about ‘if things keep going this way’ is that things never keep going that way.

Eventually ‘the left’ will over-reach, probably most immediately with gun control and the ideas of ‘the right’ will gain ascendency. and then they’ll overreach and those of ‘the left’ will rise. We see the same sort of thing going on with abortion legislation. ‘The left’ had thought abortion on demand was a settled issue. ‘The right’ pushed the discussion back the other way, but is inviting pushback against stronger restrictions against abortion and invasive requirements and waiting periods before an abortion can be performed.

This sort of push and counter-push is Democracy in action.

ICRW – sadly, high, unless I’m wrong about the pendulum theory and this current round of politicians <i>will</i> cause the destruction of the Union, then – fortunately, high

Tags: point-counterpoint