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You don't seem to grasp the method toward "total" control of the people employed by "soft tyranny" or "soft despotism." A soft despot is one who believes he has the well-being of the people as his goal, but that the people do not know what is best for them. He must convince them that he knows best and should be trusted with their welfare more than they themselves. He does that with language, often Orwellian, more than with weapons. As Woodrow Wilson said in his "The Study of Administration":
"Whoever would effect a change in a modern constitutional government must first educate his fellow-citizens to want some change. That done, he must persuade them to want the particular change he wants. He must first make public opinion willing to listen and then see to it that it listen to the right things. He must stir it up to search for an opinion, and then manage to put the right opinion it its way."
In America he must effect that change in its Constitution by transforming it from an immutable law that protects individual inalienable rights inherited by their nature and granted by nature's God, to a living and changeable system of government which grants those rights and without which there are no rights. And that government will be by men, not by law, and by men who are "experts," who will be the trustees and administrators of the good that will be regulated for and to the people.
And, as competent admistrators, the soft despots must not allow the people to become fat and diabetic, for that would create a financial, distributive, and moral burden on society, and especially on the administration. Limit and regulate the amount of fats and sugars in packaged foods, for instance, and regulate the size of soft drinks and tax and regulate destructive behaviour such as smoking, etc.
I see, so the majority doesn't want stronger gun control because it's a rationally thought out position...but because their feeble minds have been controlled. Nice...
It's interesting you've quoted Wilson as some thought leader in progressive manipulation as casually as ScottW likes to trot out Saul Alinksy.
I like the text that precedes your quote:
Quote:
Wherever regard for public opinion is a first principle of government, practical reform must be slow and all reform must be full of compromises. For wherever public opinion exists it must rule. This is now an axiom half the world over, and will presently come to be believed even in Russia.
Context is important here as at the time Alexander III was brutally cracking down on dissent against the will of the people.
That implies that there is a larger goal which they do not think they can accomplish now. Perhaps later. After they make incremental "accomplishments" along the way.
This assumes a collective agreement to seek the ban on all guns, I don't think there's any evidence that more than a tiny fraction of people (perhaps as small as Little Cats X, Y and Z) who really seek this aim. I don't believe President Obama even cares to tread here.
Wait, I thought this had nothing to do with his kids...now even their own lobbyist agrees??????
-spence
...talk about utter distortion....
'Wait, I thought this had nothing to do with his kids"...straw man...this has been covered...pay attention
"...now even their own lobbyist agrees??????"...he said it was "ill advised"...given the feigned indignation and the media devotion to all things Obama it might have been pedicted to be something that they could launch an assault with...and did, ignoring the obvious point and hypocricy as you continue to do
[QUOTE=spence;981767] I'm just not paying attention. QUOTE]
interesting caption under Obama's picture in your article...
Fulfilling a promise made in Newtown one month ago, President Obama is set to reveal proposals to curb gun violence, which will reportedly include universal background checks, a crackdown on gun trafficking, and a renewed assault weapons ban. NBC's Chuck Todd reports
I'll ask you again Spence...which of these new proposals that "fulfill a promise made at Newtown", would have prevented the gun violence at Newtown......?? are any of these going to "curb gun violence" in Chicago??
This assumes a collective agreement to seek the ban on all guns, I don't think there's any evidence that more than a tiny fraction of people (perhaps as small as Little Cats X, Y and Z) who really seek this aim. I don't believe President Obama even cares to tread here.
-spence
If the real goal was not to stop or diminish gun violence like that of Newtown, why did they use that as the springboard to this new goal of doing what they think they can accomplish? Are they trying to accomplish simply for the sake of accomplishing? Is it merely gathering a feather in their cap? To demonstrate that they are able to "accomplish?" Are they trying to limit large caps and create tighter background checks for no other reason than to limit large caps and create tighter background checks? Very convincing.
I see, so the majority doesn't want stronger gun control because it's a rationally thought out position...but because their feeble minds have been controlled. Nice...
I don't know what you think I was responding to, but it was to your "If the goal is total control over the people I think you'd want them as fat and sickly diabetic as possible." Ergo my note on soft despotism and the Wilsonian quotes. And so how soft tyranny would not "want them as fat and sickly diabetic as possible."
It's interesting you've quoted Wilson as some thought leader in progressive manipulation as casually as ScottW likes to trot out Saul Alinksy.
I have quoted other founders of the progressive movement, and none of it was casual. Nor do I think ScottW casually "trot" out Saul Alinsky. He does so with thoughtful application. Your attempt to marginalize by ridicule is Alinsky-like.
I have quoted Wilson, Dewey, Goodnow, and Croly, because they were intellectual and philosophical founders of the progressive movement. And especially Wilson because he was the most influental, especially as President.
I like the text that precedes your quote:
The text you cite speaks about public opinion ruling and reforms being slow and full of compromises. So what follows (and that which I quote) explains why it is necessary to bend popular opinion to that which would fit the desire of "whoever would effect a change . . ." Wilson was all about changing opinion about our system of government, and knew it would be difficult because it was so entrenched in the American mind. He said in the next paragraph of the same essay:
"Institutions which one generation regards as only a makeshift approximation to the realization of a principle, the next generation honors as the nearest possible approximation to that principle, and the next worships as the principle itself. It takes scarcely three generations for the apotheosis."
He was not an admirer of the common man's intellect, and was an elitist (as well as what liberals would now consider a racist). But he was, as were most progressives of the era, a moralist and a church goer, and was also, when he wrote "The Study of Administration," a believer in maintaining Americanism and its Constitution. Except that the Constitution was to be transformed into a living document, and government was also to be a living organism not merely a static structure.
But he also evolved into a lesser admirer of the Constitution, especially as President when he attempted to apply his progressive ideology. It was in his 1913 essay "What is Progress?" that he expounded his idea of a living Constitution that must evolve with time in a Darwinian fashion and that progress called for the elimination of obstacles such as checks and balances which interfered with the efficient administration of Central governance.
The progressives of today have evolved beyond Wilson and the early founders of the movement. They are not so careful of trying to maintain Americanism, or even a Darwinian Constitution. Quoting the progressives after Wilson would remove the idealism of progressive thought and expose it to be simply a hypocritical massive power grab by central authorities, ostensibly with the same ideal as service to the people, but not with the honor to American principles that Woodrow Wilson thought he espoused. His first disciple to achieve the presidency, FDR, governed in a way that Wilson disapproved. In his 1908 essay "The President of the United States" Wilson said:
"There are illegitimate means by which the President may influence the action of Congress. He may bargain with members, not only with regard to appointments, but also with regard to legislative measures. He may use his local patronage to assist members to get or retain their seats. He may interpose his powerful influence, in one covert way or another, in contests for places in the Senate. He may also overbear Congress by arbitrary acts which ignore the laws or virtually override them. He may even substitute his own orders for acts of Congress which he wants but cannot get. Such things are not only deeply immoral, they are destructive of the fundamental understandings of constitutional government, and, therefor, of constitutional government itself. . . . Nothing in a system like ours can be constitutional which is immoral or which touches the good faith of those who have sworn to obey the fundamental law."
It is in exactly these immoral ways that FDR brought into concrete existence the administrative state that Wilson so wanted, and the ways that president's, even more so progressive presidents, have ruled since. Wilson had too much faith in the progress of history which he believed had arrived at a point where we no longer had to fear powerful centralized government such as had existed under monarchies and ancient tyrannies. He said, also in "The Study of Administration,": "There is no danger in power, if only it be not irresponsible." And that it would be forced to be responsible the more it was centralized rather than dispersed because dispersion would hide it and centralizing it would make it "more easily watched and brought to book." It seems now, on the contrary, that blatant immorally unconstitutional actions by central authority are either not noticed or accepted as the way it should be.
That he favored central control of governance above constitutional checks and balances is also evident in his essay "Socialism and Democracy." In it he is approbative of socialism and he says:
"The thesis of the state socialist is, that no line can be drawn between private and public affairs which the State may not cross at will; that omnipotence of legislation is the first postulate of all just political theory. . . For it is very clear that in fundamental theory socialism and democracy are almost if not quite one and the same. They both rest at bottom upon the absolute right of the community to determine its own destiny and that of its members. Men as communities are supreme over men as individuals."
It is that socialistic strain that engenders the need for central authority and which has remained and expanded in progressive ideology. And not only is power not to be feared but neither is there fear of taint by implanting a powerful foreign 19th century German/French administrative system of governance into the American constitutional way. He said "We borrowed rice but we do not eat it with chopsticks." But governing is not like eating rice. You don't have to eat rice. But you cannot resist a government that is more powerful than you and is decreed by a "living Constitution" to do for you rather than being constrained by a legal Constitution which decrees what it must not do.
The progressives of today have evolved far beyond Wilson's vision, taking on that of FDR and becoming the foreign thing that Wilson thought was not possible. The benevolent central state operates in the way he said was immoral and by a more ancient top down authoritarian way that is antithetical to the Founders "American" way. And in this manner we have been progressively governed from FDR to his disciple Obama. And, like Wilson, we refer to ourselves as a Democracy not a Republic. And, as Wilson said, "in fundamental theory socialism and democracy are almost if not quite one and the same." That minute distinction "not quite" has diminished even further. And progressives are now becoming more open about not just adhering to a "living" Constitution, but about discarding the hypocrisy by openly abandoning constitutional shackles , as the constitutional law professor Seidman proposed in his NY Times op ed.
Context is important here as at the time Alexander III was brutally cracking down on dissent against the will of the people.
-spence
And the obstinate American will could not be cracked down by such harsh tyranny, but had to be persuaded by a softer one which saw "to it that it listen to the right things . . . and then manage to put the right opinion in its way."
I get tired of the he said, she said.
Here is a subject that has not been discussed by either side, of course it is from a fringe publication............
Frasier: Niles, I’ve just had the most marvelous idea for a website! People will post their opinions, cheeky bon mots, and insights, and others will reply in kind!
I get tired of the he said, she said.
Here is a subject that has not been discussed by either side, of course it is from a fringe publication............
Lot of sense in the article. But it misses the point that Spence brought up that the real goal wasn't to curb mass shootings, but the real goal is to accomplish what they can accomplish.
Lot of sense in the article. But it misses the point that Spence brought up that the real goal wasn't to curb mass shootings, but the real goal is to accomplish what they can accomplish.
You're not suggesting that this was a plan waiting for the right disaster, are you?
There is also a interesting opinion piece by David Mamet in Newsweek, of course he is now a brain dead conservative rather than a brain dead liberal.
A paragraph that I love from that:
The Left loves a phantom statistic that a firearm in the hands of a citizen is X times more likely to cause accidental damage than to be used in the prevention of crime, but what is there about criminals that ensures that their gun use is accident-free? If, indeed, a firearm were more dangerous to its possessors than to potential aggressors, would it not make sense for the government to arm all criminals, and let them accidentally shoot themselves? Is this absurd? Yes, and yet the government, of course, is arming criminals.
Frasier: Niles, I’ve just had the most marvelous idea for a website! People will post their opinions, cheeky bon mots, and insights, and others will reply in kind!
Lot of sense in the article. But it misses the point that Spence brought up that the real goal wasn't to curb mass shootings, but the real goal is to accomplish what they can accomplish.
it only took 1 sentence to miss it... but it at least points out the fact that much of the violence that they claim to address in this unleashing of government letters, memorandums, incentives and such... is actually the (un)? intended consequences of 50 plus years of previous letters, memorandums, incentives and progressive attempts to "solve" our society's problems as they progressively debase our culture....
"President Obama took 23 executive actions on Wednesday to curb firearm-related deaths. That and his proposals to Congress for new gun laws are a necessary response to the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn."
if you just read the bold..... "publish a letter"..it's pretty comical.... the rest is just blather and more progressive power grab
The President is announcing that he and the Administration will:
1. Issue a Presidential Memorandum to require federal agencies to make relevant data available to the federal background check system.
2. Address unnecessary legal barriers, particularly relating to the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, that may prevent states from making information available to the background check system.
3. Improve incentives for states to share information with the background check system.
4. Direct the Attorney General to review categories of individuals prohibited from having a gun to make sure dangerous people are not slipping through the cracks.
5. Propose rulemaking to give law enforcement the ability to run a full background check on an individual before returning a seized gun.
6. Publish a letter from ATF to federally licensed gun dealers providing guidance on how to run background checks for private sellers.
7. Launch a national safe and responsible gun ownership campaign.
8. Review safety standards for gun locks and gun safes (Consumer Product Safety Commission).
9. Issue a Presidential Memorandum to require federal law enforcement to trace guns recovered in criminal investigations.
10. Release a DOJ report analyzing information on lost and stolen guns and make it widely available to law enforcement.
11. Nominate an ATF director.
12. Provide law enforcement, first responders, and school officials with proper training for active shooter situations.
13. Maximize enforcement efforts to prevent gun violence and prosecute gun crime.
14. Issue a Presidential Memorandum directing the Centers for Disease Control to research the causes and prevention of gun violence.
15. Direct the Attorney General to issue a report on the availability and most effective use of new gun safety technologies and challenge the private sector to develop innovative technologies.
16. Clarify that the Affordable Care Act does not prohibit doctors asking their patients about guns in their homes.
17. Release a letter to health-care providers clarifying that no federal law prohibits them from reporting threats of violence to law-enforcement authorities.
18. Provide incentives for schools to hire school resource officers.
19. Develop model emergency-response plans for schools, houses of worship and institutions of higher education.
20. Release a letter to state health officials clarifying the scope of mental-health services that Medicaid plans must cover.
21. Finalize regulations clarifying essential health benefits and parity requirements within ACA exchanges.
22. Commit to finalizing mental-health-parity regulations.
23. Launch a national dialogue led by Secretaries Sebelius and Duncan on mental health
he's gonnna need a vacation after he gets done with all of this launching and letter writing
I think the real goal is to toughen up background checks more than anything else. There shouldn't be much opposition to closing the gun show loopholes etc...
-spence
You wont get any argument here, but down south , they will have a problem with that.
This isn't about a single event, nor does it mean that there's a desire to restrict assault weapons by many.
-spence
Again you are correct, since Feinstein has been telling everyone since last summer she was going to reintroduce this legislation once Obama started a 2nd term..
Lot of sense in the article. But it misses the point that Spence brought up that the real goal wasn't to curb mass shootings, but the real goal is to accomplish what they can accomplish.
That would be an Alinksy-like manipulation of what I said.
Again you are correct, since Feinstein has been telling everyone since last summer she was going to reintroduce this legislation once Obama started a 2nd term..
don't encourage him...these were non-answers that he vomited up in response to direct questions...
Quote:
Originally Posted by scottw
you've really got your sneer on today...
add large cap mags to the list and tell me which of the "real goals as in what they think they can accomplish" would have prevented the incidents that they/you are attempting to build your/their case with?
Quote:
This isn't about a single event, nor does it mean that there's a desire to restrict assault weapons by many.
-spence
maybe this one??
21. Finalize regulations clarifying essential health benefits and parity requirements within ACA exchanges.
But as for gun control, it's certainly been studied and found that more guns = more gun crimes
I know there are some studies that make that statement, but when one examines them, you see all manner of massaging and imprecise data being cobbled together.
To me, "more guns = more gun crimes" is a very simple premise that demands a simple proof. Once you read those studies and find you need to consider subjective controls and regression coefficient or internalizing externality, you have moved past being able to present that simple premise to us regular clods at face value.
When one actually examines the numbers we find "more guns = more gun crimes" really can't be argued at all, even with all the econometric funny business.
In 1986 13,029 people out of a population of 240,133,048 were killed with a gun.
In 2006 12,791 people out of a population of 298,754,819 were killed with a gun.
20 years + 60,000,000 people + 80,000,000 guns = FEWER HOMICIDES?
How can that be?
Quote:
Originally Posted by spence
and stricter gun laws employed in other country has indeed had a significant impact on gun violence.
Those nations that have strict gun control (usually Britain without Ireland, wink, wink is cited) have had it for centuries and it was enacted and enforced for political reasons not crime control.
That a subservient, obedient, well mannered population doesn't commit much murder isn't so noteworthy. The laws that have been more recently enacted in response to crime have not been all that effective. Trying to control criminals with an over representation of recent immigrant Eastern European and Jamaicans, who have no allegiance to the British traditions and live in separate criminal syndicate enclaves from the British people, is not an easy task no matter how strict the laws are.
Quote:
Originally Posted by spence
the Feinstein proposal does cite several studies of it's benefits.
I am very interested in this never before known attribute of AR-15 rifles the Evil Queen herself was talking about today.
"The more you have these weapons, these military style weapons, that with a single slide stock on the AR-15 can be made fully automatic, the minute you have that, in like the Sandy Hook killer's hands, you have a devastating weapon."
Senator Diane Feinstein (D-CA)
Sunday, January 27, 2013
CNN's "State of the Union with Candy Crowley", @ 6:20 mark (until it is scrubbed)
Between the Evil Queen's full auto stock slide and McCarthy's "stock thing that goes up" barrel shroud, I think these two could go on the road, doing an Abbott and Costello act about these amazing fantasmagorical Chitty Chitty Bang Bang AR-15's.
Idiots, absolute idiots taking charge over our rights . . .
You can’t truly call yourself “peaceful” unless you are capable of great violence.
If you are incapable of violence, you are not peaceful, you are just harmless.
I know there are some studies that make that statement, but when one examines them, you see all manner of massaging and imprecise data being cobbled together.
To me, "more guns = more gun crimes" is a very simple premise that demands a simple proof. Once you read those studies and find you need to consider subjective controls and regression coefficient or internalizing externality, you have moved past being able to present that simple premise to us regular clods at face value.
When one actually examines the numbers we find "more guns = more gun crimes" really can't be argued at all, even with all the econometric funny business.
In 1986 13,029 people out of a population of 240,133,048 were killed with a gun.
In 2006 12,791 people out of a population of 298,754,819 were killed with a gun.
20 years + 60,000,000 people + 80,000,000 guns = FEWER HOMICIDES?
How can that be?
Those nations that have strict gun control (usually Britain without Ireland, wink, wink is cited) have had it for centuries and it was enacted and enforced for political reasons not crime control.
That a subservient, obedient, well mannered population doesn't commit much murder isn't so noteworthy. The laws that have been more recently enacted in response to crime have not been all that effective. Trying to control criminals with an over representation of recent immigrant Eastern European and Jamaicans, who have no allegiance to the British traditions and live in separate criminal syndicate enclaves from the British people, is not an easy task no matter how strict the laws are.
I am very interested in this never before known attribute of AR-15 rifles the Evil Queen herself was talking about today.
"The more you have these weapons, these military style weapons, that with a single slide stock on the AR-15 can be made fully automatic, the minute you have that, in like the Sandy Hook killer's hands, you have a devastating weapon."
Senator Diane Feinstein (D-CA)
Sunday, January 27, 2013
CNN's "State of the Union with Candy Crowley", @ 6:20 mark (until it is scrubbed)
Between the Evil Queen's full auto stock slide and McCarthy's "stock thing that goes up" barrel shroud, I think these two could go on the road, doing an Abbott and Costello act about these amazing fantasmagorical Chitty Chitty Bang Bang AR-15's.
Idiots, absolute idiots taking charge over our rights . . .
Thats awesome, I like how he asks her flat out what a barrel shroud is, idiots....
While I am not for any more laws with regards to our 2nd ammendment rights, there is a stock that can turn an AR into an almost full auto.
Vic
curious that this is "ATF Approved"...I thought they were all caught up in "curbing gun violence"...or maybe that's just since Sandy Hook
I was curious exactly when this was "approved" and to know more about it's approval...the Wiki link regarding "bump fire"...provides a reference and a link to the ATF approval letter but the link doesn't work....this is apparently a 2011 product so I guess we can't blame it on Bush or the Bush ATF ....and ATF has approved but then reversed decision on previous such devices "Akins Accelerator "
The inaccuracy, difficulty, and ammunition costs render the practice uncommon.
curious that this is "ATF Approved"...I thought they were all caught up in "curbing gun violence"...or maybe that's just since Sandy Hook
My understanding is that they fall into a grey area when it comes to the ATF definition of automatic weapon. Technically, the gun still functions within their definition - only one bullet ejected from the barrel per pull of the trigger.
From what I remember, the ATF has tried to leverage "physical effort" in order to make a ruling against the stocks. Interestingly, many current models of the stock ship with a copy of the ATF letter stating the aftermarket stock has been evaluated by the ATF and is currently legal.