Oh, really?

[aadler]

 
Quote from an article I read today:

Conservatives are living fossils, trapped in a time when lying was considered a bad thing, taking other people’s property was a sin, spending money that doesn’t exist was a self-destructive folly, and believing you could “build that” was a sign of adulthood.

Today’s liberals —

(Oh, excuse me, they call themselves ‘progressives’ now, since decades of bad policy turned ‘liberal’ into an insult … which is funny, since the use of ‘liberal’ came about precisely because the Progressives of the early 20th century gave the label such a bad name.)

— today’s ‘progressives’ are so far advanced now beyond such antiquated notions.

Comments

[skarman.livejournal.com]

Oh, I agree with you wholeheartedly that both sides have their share of liars. And the fact that they LIKE the size of government because it allows them to line their pockets, just like all those special-interest groups do.

The thing is, unlike here in Europe, where we all grumble about the waste of the European Parliament, on how our elected leaders are selling our freedoms and wealth off just so they can get that seat on the board or get re-elected, the people of the United States can do something about it.

The current run of anti-gun laws is the focal point. Unlike the US we've been disarmed and all we can do is grumble but keep on paying, giving our hard-earned cash to those holding up their hands and demanding their 'fair share'. In the US, however, people are fighting back. Companies are fighting back. They vote with their pocketbooks. For instance, MagPul has announced that it will leave the state it's in if the anti-gun bill the state government is drafting gets made into law. It will take 600 jobs plus eightyfive million dollars worth of tax revenue with it. Other companies have stated they won't be selling their products to New York law enforcement since they won't be able to sell them to the lawful citizens.

Boehner seems to be gathering a group of congressmen and representatives behind a bill that will stop all payments to congress if they don't actually start working on the economic problems the country has. States are reasserting their independence, something they had given away for decades. Local law enforcement is plainly stating its opposition towards Federal Edicts.

I know big business is in bed with both sides, paying good money to have it their way but when the people themselves start to say "Enough" in the USA? Things will be happening. I can't say which way it will change but I can say that it will happen. And I hope it won't but I think it will be a second revolution, just as big and bad as the first one. The lines are being drawn. The government is using their media arm like a club. Watching MSNBC is like watching scenes from the movie 'V'. The US government has become that totalitarian machine.

[lostboy-lj.livejournal.com]

The latest anti-gun push doesn't worry me so much, to be honest, mostly because I already know it will fail to produce the desired effects. For one thing, Obama is arguably the nation's most successful gun salesman, with over 65 million gun sales since 2009, and -- due to the latest rumblings about greater gun regulation -- with every major dealer either operating at full capacity or unable to meet current demand. For another thing, the 300 million guns in the hands of private citizens, many of them in states that won't comply with federal gun grabs, will preclude any kind of Euro-style mass disarmament. Disarming legally armed Americans would be just as daunting a bureaucratic and executive task as deporting all illegal immigants, which is the reason I know we won't do either.

It seems to me that the main political goal of the current gun mania is to nip at the heels of the gun lobby in order to satisfy a few interest groups and give off the illusion of big, powerful government action. Banning the AR-15 "assault rifle" won't move the needle one micrometer on gun murders in this country at all, but that was never the point. I don't doubt there are sincere Democrats who believe that it will, but I think that's because they cling to certain unexamined, false premises, and because they often let their emotions overpower logic when it comes to policy.

I can't speak to Europe's political situation, when it comes to guns. I know that their gun laws vary from country to country, but their larger continental problem seems to be linked more closely to all those big bets they made on post-war communal entitlements, without regard to the individuals whose personal ambitions and work ethics make those entitlements possible. It's hard for freedom to flower when the dreams of the current generation are yoked to the debts and excesses of the previous one.

(OTOH, I think that Europe's Sick Man is swiftly becoming America's, these days, so I've been paying much closer attention to their woes in recent years.)