Interestingly, when I made my post about seeing a poor future for our republic yesterday, nearly everyone in the comments section went on at length about gun rights. That's a problem, from where I see it.
The state I just left, Tennessee, has some of the better gun laws in the nation. Reasonable CCW, NFA weapons are okay, no special permits required to own or purchase, et cetera. In fact, its gun laws have been steadily getting better over the last ten years, with constantly loosening restrictions on CCW and other victories.
On the other hand, it's seen confiscatory increases in taxes and sales tax enforcement, draconian smoking laws, red light cameras, all on the state level, as well as all the plethora of post 9/11 fed.gov intrusiveness. Children pass through metal detectors as they carry their clear or mesh bookbags to school.
I can see an America in ten or twenty years where we have a national ID card with biometrics and an integral RFID chip, asset forfeiture is still rampant, we're still losing a never-ending War on Drugs, tobacco and trans-fats are banned, minimum wage is $10/hr, and taxes are at European levels to support a European-style public health system...
...but we have national CCW reciprocity.
We're winning on the gun front. What about the other fronts?
Books. Bikes. Boomsticks.
“I only regret that I have but one face to palm for my country.”
Wednesday, August 06, 2008
What I meant was...
From my comment at Sebastian's:
So long as we win on the gun fronts, the rest can come, in time. Without the gun front, all the rest are guaranteed losses.
ReplyDeleteThey took a look at the fact Saddam managed to keep the well-armed Iraqi populace in line and realised they didn't need to worry about serfs with guns after all.
ReplyDelete"I can see an America in ten or twenty years where we have a national ID card with biometrics and an integral RFID chip, asset forfeiture is still rampant, we're still losing a never-ending War on Drugs, tobacco and trans-fats are banned, minimum wage is $10/hr, and taxes are at European levels to support a European-style public health system..."
ReplyDeleteyeah, based on current trends, that could be, but...
"gun laws have been steadily getting better over the last ten years, with constantly loosening restrictions on CCW and other victories...We're winning on the gun front."
ten years ago, who'da thunk you'd be writing those words today?
We're winning on the gun front.
ReplyDeleteTam, what you don't understand is that when it comes to our other rights, there IS no "we" to be winning.
I was very discouraged and pessimistic about the state of our union last year. Since then, we have seen Heller, the continued expansion of CCW. At this point, I am feeling encouraged.
ReplyDeleteEvery day, I see people who are getting fed up with the continued loss of basic rights. I see more people getting angry as the implementation of Real ID causes women enormous hassles at DMV, turning what used to be a 10 minute license renewal into a months long process involving several state and county agencies.
People are beginning to see the need to push back, and I think that will accelerate. I see more people putting aside blind party politics, and vote for principles.
I know a lot of people who have begun to question the MSM, and seek out truth for themselves, rather than accepting what the puppet theatre tells us.
I also see a lot of gun owners coming to the realization that while gun rights may be an excellent indicator of how a politician views the populace, it is not the end all of civil rights.
People have begun to realize the ridiculousness of the situation we are in, and that has to be a good thing.
You may be winning on the gun front in Tennessee, but there's still no CCW in Wisconsin.
ReplyDeleteI think that og has a good point. Americans who are willing to fight for the right to keep and bear arms are probably willing to fight against having to have their papers in ordnung or let the gubbmint steal their property. We're not sheep... yet.
ReplyDeleteAmericans who are willing to fight for the right to keep and bear arms are probably willing to fight against having to have their papers in ordnung or let the gubbmint steal their property.
ReplyDeleteIn just about every state to have passed "shall issue" CCW, 3% or less of the eligible population has jumped through the (low) hoops necessary to actually get a permit.
How many of those do you think are "willing to fight against having to have their papers in ordnung or let the gubbmint steal their property"? I'm not so sanguine.
And I've said so, on numerous occasions.
Here's the thing, in order to keep that CCW you have to keep your paperwork in ordnung and your nose clean of god knows what laws.
ReplyDeleteIt's easy enough to screw around with all the other laws to make gun ownership onerous, and to make every last thing that could be a crime something that completely dis-qualfies you from possesion, much less CCW.
While the gun things is nice, it's everything else that needs serious sustained work.
As to papers, the days of hopping on a plane or crossing over to Canada to have lunch overlooking Niagara Falls are gone. It's here, with or without RFID.
ReplyDeleteGun rights are ascendant because there are 50-80M gun owners, plus a bunch of sympathetic non-owners. It became bad politics to try to grab the guns.
I don't see a similar natural constituency to resist smoking bans, fatty foods, war on drugs, etc.
Until it's possible to apply regular, open mockery to the nannys, it's death by a thousand cuts.
Tam, your snark is a precious national resource. Your country needs you! ;-)
I think more bloggers, stepping up and speaking up, questioning the media slant and stories, asking real tough questions of future politicians - like if we can build a County Golf Course, why can't we build a shooting range beside it? And what is your relationship with that developer? But you almost have to go write letters, visit forums in person and get signatures... real world. Isn't that a set back. At least we are looking and asking - but to the wrong audience - anyone tried to get a rifle team in the high school, looked at the history books, etc?
ReplyDeleteThat was my point, we won't "fight" for gun rights either. Look at history, people don't resist the nanny state, they select it.
ReplyDeleteAnd you're way too optimistic. In ten years, MW will be over $20, in 20 it will bump $50. At LEAST.
The 2nd secures the rest of the rights, right? So when is it that the unwashed masses rise up and fight for those other rights?
ReplyDeleteIt takes actual action for the 2nd to secure those other rights. Fighting for the 2nd while letting the rest fall is madness. And no, this ain't Sparta...
I am more pessimistic. I see the gun rights crowd as the last little band of die-hard libertarians. The vast masses seem to be screaming for an ever more smothering Great Nanny.
ReplyDeleteFirst, I think pax is right when she notes there is no "we" - although RKBA is part of the "package deal" for both libertarian and trad-conservative mindsets, there's not *necessarily* any united front on any related issues.
ReplyDeleteHOWEVER... the up-and-coming generations do I think average out more conservative on both spending/size of gov't issues and RKBA that the Boomer generation - once they hit the "couple years out of college, and finally have to pay their own taxes" period I mean.
Also the more passionate folks on BOTH sides of the spectrum are pretty upset with the whole privacy tech thing, each imagining demons in the other's skin. So there's at least some hope on that front.. though not much I grant.
On the tax side.. I think that's where we're most likely to see a fairly major shift policy-wise within our lifetimes. All the promises we've made are starting to come due, and will continue to as the Boomers come into SS payout age. I simply don't think what we have now *can* survive the next generation unchanged.
As to the form of that change or what else will be involved? No idea - I'd like to think it won't come to blood, but well... I've never quite got over the feeling we're about due.
Maybe not though. I've been happily surprised before. Reckon we'll see.
I can see an America in ten or twenty years where we have a national ID card with biometrics and an integral RFID chip...
ReplyDeleteWon't need an i.d. card or papers. It will all be subcutaneous,inserted with a tool that, operated by a twist of the wrist, leaves a small scar that looks like a 6...
tell me if you've heard this story.
kevin: In just about every state to have passed "shall issue" CCW, 3% or less of the eligible population has jumped through the (low) hoops necessary to actually get a permit.
ReplyDeleteHow many of those do you think are "willing to fight against having to have their papers in ordnung or let the gubbmint steal their property"? I'm not so sanguine.
Depends on how you define "fight". The fact that enough Americans have successfully fought (politically) for the right for a tiny minority of their fellow Americans to carry a concealed pistol is pretty encouraging to me. Our gun rights are of course by no means secure (libs are tenacious), but we're quite a lot better off now than we were twenty years ago because Americans fought against that particular manifestation of the nanny state.
Americans also fought successfully against shamnesty a couple of years ago. A decade earlier, the fight was welfare reform.
At any rate, it doesn't take a huge fraction of the American people to get things done. A dedicated and hardworking minority can do quite a lot, especially if it has money to buy off politicians. Libs know this; hence their sugar daddy Soros and the groups he funds. There aren't that many people in ANSWER or ACORN or NARAL, and most normal people would be repulsed by the REAL goals of such organizations. However, they've got money and organization (and a sympathetic ear in the media) so they often get at least some of what they want. There's no reason that we can't do the same sort of thing; indeed, we do in the form of the NRA.
The war goes on. Victory is by no means certain... but neither is defeat.
The young generations (Gen X and beyond) for the most part have no sense of what privacy is about. This blog is a case in point. All your thoughts for the world to see. MySpace pages with embarrassing pictures. Centralized databases of all of your credit card purchases, checks written, loans requested. We've all done it, we've all bought into it. For the most part, it makes life easier. For all our grumping, how many of us failed to cash our "economic stimulus package" check?
ReplyDeleteAmericans are soft and lazy. When the ZOG comes for your guns, most people will hand them over. Few Patriots will understand that death before slavery is more than a slogan.
ReplyDeleteWe live in a Police State right now and most people don't even know it. As long as the TV works and the Beer's in the fridge, it's all good.
If you don't think then you will have to feel. I suspect a lot of people are going to be feeling very, very soon.
Oh, noes! Not teh ZOG!
ReplyDeleteGo Jew-bash someplace else, you ignorant f$cking nazi.
Hey Orion, WTF are YOU doing about "the police state"? Nothing? Didn't think so. Armchair patriot...
ReplyDeleteChris
"the TV works and the Beer's in the fridge" Oh, I dunno, there's about 139,999 young Americans who would LOVE some TV and a cold one. The last one (me) will settle for just the cold one. :) See you at Temple.
ReplyDeleteIs it odd or perfectly normal that "Orion" would expect everyone to know what "ZOG" stands for? (I do.)
ReplyDeleteIs it because if you are any sort of a gunnie, you just bump up against the anti-Semites and racialists now and then?
Gul durn it, If only we had some of that book lerning. We could talk about things we hadn't directly seen.
ReplyDeleteChas- a gunnie AND a libertarian, which, if you are any sort of well-known, put the odds of encountering this particular brand of asshole at roughly one.
ReplyDeleteFor history's sake, Tam had a particularly pestilent neo-Nazi troll awhile back, whom I will not name. I would not be at all surprised if he had spread her name around his, ah, social circles. He was a very creepy "fan".
@ Chas S. Clifton,
ReplyDeleteWell I know what zog is, but I'm not the average person. I've read widely but perhaps not well. every little tin-foil hat tale and ol' Andrew Macdonald's funny farm seems to catch my obsessive-compulsive reading disorder's interest.
Hey, did you know they let Catholics into the klan nowadays? Now that's some affirmative action there. Since the Japanese are Honorary Aryan, perhaps they'll be the ones allowed to join next?
In case anybody wants to know where the pseudonym "Orion" came from, it's an acronym meaning "Our Race Is Our Nation." This slogan faces the problem that currently races have no legal authority, no actual power, and most people are not loyal to the races they belong to. It is not a descriptive slogan but a prescriptive slogan. It is a matter of plans instead of reality. If racists insist on retaining this idea, I recommend that the slogan be replaced by the slogan: "Make Our Race Our Nation."
ReplyDeleteDevising the acronym for the above slogan will be left as an exercise for the reader.
Put a warning in there will ya Joseph?
ReplyDeleteJoseph, I dunno about you but I'm totally loyal to my race. If those cows ever get guns, I'll be there fighting back turnin' em into hamburger.
ReplyDeleteHuh, the future is here, folks.
ReplyDeleteCheck out http://www.tsa.gov/what_we_do/layers/twic/index.shtm .
I already have my national ID, complete with RFID.
When a a place gets so crowded that you need an identification card, it's time to move on. The nice thing about space travel is, when a planet gets so that you need an identification card, you can move on.
ReplyDelete-R.A.H
I think we need to either find an effective way off the planet, or figure out how to viably compete with the Sheep.
The sheep can't take care of themselves, the wolves won't take care of the sheep and the sheep-dogs breed too slowly. Some of the sheep have decided that if somebodies gotta be shorn, it's sure not gonna be them, and they've set themselves up as the kingsheep.