If I had the time and inclination, I could locate dozens of trenchant quotes from Orwell and others making the same crucial point: fear is the enemy of liberty, and that aspiring dictators recognize that a population in fear of its safety will inevitably bargain away the freedoms and the autonomy of themselves and others. “I prefer dangerous freedom over peaceful slavery” was the way Thomas Jefferson put it, although usually in Latin. The idea behind America and its crucial unique rebellious character was that as a people we are worthy of democracy because we have the guts and fortitude to resist the siren song of peaceful security. Hence Ben Franklin’s much-quoted, “Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.” FDR, clever and cynical, inveighed against the dangers of fear (“We have nothing to fear but fear itself!”) even as he made brilliant use of fear to make himself the nearest thing to a dictator the U.S. has ever had.
The progressives who visit Ethics Alarms freaked out yesterday over a post in which I referenced the current mutated U.S. Left’s increasingly blatant drift toward totalitarianism…you know,
There was more traffic on that post than there has been on any post here not linked by some mega-site like “Instapundit.” The truth hurts. Ironically, I just stumbled upon an example of our now thoroughly corrupted scientific establishment wielding the tactic of fearmongering by the device of arguing that the public is denying the truth, with the truth being, “EVERYTHING IS TERRIBLE! THE WORST EVER! WE’RE DOOMED IF THE SMART PEOPLE DON’T RESCUE US! FAST!“
Hilariously, if it weren’t so ominous, the screed titled “We’ve Hit Peak Denial. Here’s Why We Can’t Turn Away From Reality” was published under the guise of a scientific essay by poor, rotting Scientific American, which has abandoned its mission in recent years for partisan woke advocacy. The thesis: Americans are insufficiently terrified, and it’s important that they recognize how bad everything is.
In fact, there is nothing remotely scientific about the article, authored by “a senior research scholar at Stanford University” and a leftist Brit, Maxim Voronov, a professor of “sustainability and organization” at the Schulich School of Business at York University. Normally its risible introductory paragraphs would cause me to stop reading, but I’m in a self-abusive mood these days:
Objectively speaking, we are living through a dumpster fire of a historical moment. Right now more than one million people are displaced and at risk of starvation in Gaza, as are millions more in Sudan. Wars are on the rise around the globe, and 2023 saw the most civilian casualties in almost 15 years. H5N1 bird flu has jumped to cows, several farm workers have been infected, and scientists are warning about another potential pandemic. According to data from wastewater, the second biggest COVID surge occurred this winter. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates at least 24,000 people have died of COVID so far in 2024.
Last year was the hottest ever and recorded the highest number of billion-dollar weather and climate disasters. Not to mention that over the past few years, mass shootings have significantly increased, we’ve seen unparalleled attacks on democracy and science, and mental health issues have skyrocketed.
No bias there! A similar paragraph could be written, indeed probably was written, about more periods in recent history than we could tally, except it wouldn’t have been so funny in most cases. These “experts” are seriously citing CDC “estimates” after that body thoroughly disgraced itself during the Wuhan Virus Ethics Train Wreck? Later, its cites as authority the even more disgraced (and political) WHO. Why yes, mental health issues have “skyrocketed,” in great part because of the hysterical reaction to that virus resulting in our socially isolating children, wrecking businesses and lives, and causing epic leaps in drug and alcohol use.
How does “the most in 15 years” translate into unprecedented catastrophe? “Scientists are warning of another pandemic”—seriously? “Scientists” are always warning, especially politically motivated scientists. Science has been “attacked”? Gee, I wonder why; this article makes it clear why: junk science like the article. Most, if not all, of those “billion dollar climate and weather disasters” were convincingly debunked as not being climate-related except to the confirmation biased. Using the term “mass shooting” is intrinsically misleading and designed to be: while the mind leaps to tragedies like the Uvalde massacre, the database the authors rely on calls an incident where four people are wounded in an exchange of gunfire a “mass shooting.”
“Everything is terrible” is, I would think obviously, a political position rather than a scientific one. Indeed it is one of the “Big Lies of the Resistance,” (#5) which I began cataloguing in 2019.
There are so many tells in this “scientific” essay that tags it as pure politics. The authors are still fearmongering over Wuhan and its relatives: Hey, let’s’ have another lockdown! More masks! More restrictions on travel, business, social contact and election security! “More than 73,000 Americans died of COVID in 2023, a higher number than from car accidents or influenza,” we are told. FROM the virus, or with the virus? We’re on to that game (I hope).
Later, the piece references “insurrections,” plural, as one of our maladies: guess what the link refers us to. Of course! The non-insurrection!
My favorite, I think, is this: one of the three alleged martyrs to societal denial cited in the essay to prove that “people are regularly punished for being accurate” is “NFL player and social justice advocate Colin Kaepernick.” Colin Kaepernick! What was he “accurate” about? He was a failing quarterback on the way out of the NFL who hit on the device of imposing incoherent protests on spectators who paid to see football games, earning himself cheap publicity, product endorsements and celebrity that he could no longer maintain with his athletic abilities. Never was he able to articulate exactly what he was protesting: any scientists who call a huckster like Kaepernick “accurate” should have their PhD’s revoked.
The thing ends with this noble call to action: “To counter the new normal’s assault on normalcy, we must double down on our duty to know, to speak up, and to remember.” How can anyone take such an exhortation seriously from authors in the act of flagrant misrepresentation and distortion, fueled with an ideological agenda? They want everyone to be sufficiently terrified that phony “experts” like them will acquire the power they crave.
Science!
Ethics Alarms 
Ironically, I had just read an article (link: https://www.slowboring.com/p/elite-misinformation-is-an-underrated) that discussed the very problem you cite, which is “elites” citing information that is misleading to boost their chosen cause.
His focus is on misleading statistics about fossil fuel subsidies. Because the writer is a liberal, he gave credit to the New York Times for providing the truth behind the cited statistics in an article about fossil fuel subsidies, which they did in the ninth paragraph. What he doesn’t seem to recognize is that this inclusion shouldn’t be “credited”, but is a common media ploy. Studies have shown that most people reading articles online stop reading around paragraph three. As a result, most news articles bury any relevant information that contradicts the headline in the later paragraphs, knowing that most readers won’t reach the “inconvenient” parts.
The worst example of this I can remember is in the articles about the Trump Administration sending unaccompanied teens to private detention centers, where they were subsequently abused. The article inspired airlines to stop working with ICE, and investigations in Congress, and Virginia (where one of the detention centers was located). It was yet another example of Trumps racism and hatred of brown people. However, the 6th or 7th paragraph stated that the information had come from a 2016 lawsuit.
We have never learned of any findings of the investigations.
My favorite was a misleading headline from several years ago that stated that a man had been sentenced to life in prison for a two-cent robbery.
Obviously, we were supposed to be outraged at the harsh sentencing of someone who netted such a paltry sum.
Two or three paragraphs down, the article finally admitted that the perp had beaten the victim who later died of his injury …and had only gotten 2 cents out of it.
Since you brought up yesterday’s conversation I was really hoping you would respond to JD’s outstanding questions to you. Wanted to see your response there.
You know, I lead all bloggers in my willingness to engage with commenters, because that’s the design here. I also get over a hundred comments or more most days, and contrary to popular belief, Ethics Alarms, which profits me not one cent, is not my sole priority and I do not sepnd all day and night perusing comments. I frequently miss some. Or I don’t have time to respond to them.
Short version: if you want a specific response to a specific question posed by someone else, include it in your comment so I don’t have to go searching for it. That’s not too much to ask.
Sorry, it was this one:
jdkazoo123
Jack–you’re a lawyer, and an ethical expert, and a theater expert.
What you just said is so gobsmackingly wrong about US Foreign Policy that I’m stunned.
***
A President telling a foreign leader, “Do me a favor, find out what went on here” is, again, not a crime, not a misdemeanor, not even unusual.
***
This was so weird when it happened that a career military guy took it to the IG at CIA and he immediately said–that’s a HUGE violation of the law, must be reported.
You have just made a howler equivalent to me saying, in your areas of expertise “there’s never been a good musical that featured a female lead” or “lawyers don’t need to worry about ethics, as long as they stay on the right side of the law.”
This is just wrong all the ways something can be wrong. It is so unusual for a president to bring up a political rival with a foreign leader and ask him to investigate it, and get evidence about it, that I cannot think of a single other example. Not one. So for you to say it is “not unusual” is just WRONG. It’s unprecedented. It’s oxygen turning into gold rare.
We’re now at a point of testing for you–are you going to be able to admit that this act of reducing Trump’s acts to normal is just false?
I’m really interested to see if you can admit you’re wrong.
Patty: I cross posted this to JD on the other thread:
I can and have admitted that I’m wrong, here and elsewhere. Not on this topic. And as juror 8 in “Twelve Angry Men” says to the members of the jury still voting GUILTY, I’d love to know how you can be so sure.
To begin with, characterizing Biden as just a “political rival” is fatally misleading. He was the previous Vice-President, and dealt directly with Zelenski, while having a corrupt son who was influence-peddling in that nation using his father’s position and influence. The potentially illicit activities of a recent VP with a foreign power is absolutely a matter of national interest, and that fact that Biden was a potential candidate against Trump—and at that point, it was far from certain that he would be the nominee–should not have insulated him from Trump’s legitimate concerns. (That was a theory some even put on paper. Nice!) Maybe Trump was only concerned with Biden because of his potential candidacy, but since there were other legitimate reasons for his call, only the intractable Trump-demonizers can be so certain that this was the motive.
Meanwhile, the “whistleblower,” Vindman, was and is a Democrat with a history of going around the Chain of Command, as Tim Morrison, the National Security Council’s senior director for European affairs, described him in testimony under oath. Article II, Section 1, Clause 1 of the US Constitution is clear: “The executive power shall be vested in a president of the United States of America.” It is not an army officer’s role to second guess the President’s decisions. As was done an epic number of times to this President, Vindman took it upon himself to interfere with Trump’s ability to be President. A lieutenant colonel has no right to interfere with the President’s discretion or attempt to undermine the President’s authority over policy disagreements. Vindman testified that he never discussed his concerns about the call with Trump, which he had an obligation to do if he was so concerned about it. He knew that the Democratic majority was hunting for a justification, however strained, to impeach Trump, so he leaked a conversation he was honor- and legally bound not to reveal.
You trust this dubious character who was engaged in a legal and ethics violation—he’s now running for office by appealing to Trump-haters—over a President of the United States because you just don’t like Trump. The jurors in Manhattan did the same thing, trusting one of the least credible witnesses in litigation history, Michael Cohen, because they hated Trump more.
What is unusual, and my study of Presidents and their use of power informs me so, is highly sensitive, back-channel communications with foreign leaders being leaked and unethically revealed by Presidential subordinates. You want to draw the line so tightly that nothing fits—OK, no previous Presidential arm-twisting of a leader of a leader of a country receiving foreign aid to have him investigate a highly dubious former VP with an influence-peddling son and who was also a possible nominee by the other party in the next election. But there have been plenty of deals using questionable tactics and promises that exceeded proper channels and legal authorization in Presdential history. I wonder where we would be, if anywhere, if an ambitious 1962 Vindman type who was an ally of Curtis Lemay decided to “blow the whistle” on JFK’s secret promise to Khrushchev to pull our missiles out of Turkey to resolve the Cuban Missle Crisis.
Hmmm..why didn’t Congress impeach Lincoln for relieving McClellan from command of the Union forces? It was well known that the General was critical of Lincoln and positioning himself to run against him in 1864: did Abe abuse his power, removing a qualified leader in a desperate Civil War because he wanted to make sure he didn’t become a more formidable Democratic candidate with battlefield triumph? Why didn’t Congress impeach him? The answer is that the Congress then was not actively looking for a way to “get” Lincoln, and wasn’t stacked with assholes. Other examples of Presidential arm-twisting behind closed doors and mouths? We don’t know about them because once Presidential aides and subordinates understood the duties of loyalty and confidentiality.
Thanks. I’m confused though you say “Maybe Trump was only concerned with Biden because of his potential candidacy, but since there were other legitimate reasons for his call, only the intractable Trump-demonizers can be so certain that this was the motive.”
but then say “The jurors in Manhattan did the same thing, trusting one of the least credible witnesses in litigation history, Michael Cohen, because they hated Trump more.”
These are conflicting thoughts. You can you be so certain the jurors just hate Trump, but not certain of Trump’s motives.
I honestly can see no possible reason other than complete bias for jurors in that case, with such a vague set of charges, and two such untrustworthy prosecution witnesses, coming to a verdict as quickly as they did. Besides, my opinions regarding the jurors doesn’t subject them to any adverse consequences. Could I be sufficiently sure of their motives to impeach them or say they deserved sanctions? No.
“I honestly can see no possible reason other than complete bias for jurors in that case…”
But why can’t this apply to JD’s theory about Trump (who also gave a lot more evidence for mistrusting Trump than you did for the jurors)?
You don’t see the inconsistency here?
The only adverse consequence of everyone assuming Trump’s motives in the Ukraine case would have been that he would have stopped being president a year earlier than he did, and Mike Pence would have filled that role.
A biased and foolish, as well as untrue, statement. A president is elected by the pubic to serve 4 years. Partisan plots to force him out of office before that Constitutionally determined time is unethical, anti-democratic, and a destructive precedent. The fact that you don’t see that as an ‘adverse consequence is telling. The list of all the theories, plots and devices attempted by the “resistance,” Democrats and the news media to unravel the results of the 2016 election are compiled here.
A justified impeachment–as I have shown this was, with evidence I have now providing several times with zero refutation–can’t be unethical or destructive. And no impeachment is “anti-democratic,” as it runs through our most democratic branch, the legislative.
That zero presidents have been impeached in our entire nation’s history is a much more destructive precedent than impeaching Trump would have been. Clinton should have been impeached. The only reason Nixon wasn’t is because he resigned in disgrace and faded into obscurity. We, and Trump, should be so lucky.
And a quite obvious potential adverse consequence of spreading the unfounded narrative that the jury ruled on anti-Trump bias rather than the evidence is that one of the jurors gets killed by some Trump-supporting whacko.
“as I have shown this was, with evidence I have now providing several times with zero refutation”
This is bullshit. You haven’t shown anything, and you’re wasting my time. You just make grand assertions like “zero presidents have been impeached in our entire nation’s history is a much more destructive precedent than impeaching Trump would have been.”
You don’t even know what impeachment is, and you’re arguing with me, when I do. Trump, Andrew Johnson and Clinton were all impeached. They were not convicted by the Senate. You are obstinate and ignorant at the same time.
You’re banned for wasting my time, being arrogant without justification, and not knowing when to shut up.
Bye. You might have learned something, but you didn’t come here to learn anything. You think you know it all.
There were no legitimate reasons for the specific investigations Trump requested on his call.
This is what Trump said about Joe Biden, specifically:
“The other thing, There’s a lot of talk about Biden’s son, that Biden stopped the prosecution and a lot of people want to find out about that so whatever you can do with the Attorney General would be great. Biden went around bragging that he stopped the prosecution so if you can look into it… It sounds horrible to me.“
Nothing Trump says here is true. Biden never stopped “the prosecution” of anyone. He did brag that he got a specific prosecutor fired–one who was so notoriously lazy and corrupt that the IMF, the EU, anti-corruption activists in Ukraine, and both Republican and Democratic members of Congress all were calling for his removal, as part of the larger campaign to root out corruption in Ukraine. Trump actually praised this corrupt prosecutor in his call with Zelensky; if he were actually concerned with corruption in Ukraine, he would not have done this. And if Biden had been motivated by protecting Hunter from prosecution in Ukraine, he would not have called for the removal and replacement of Shokin, as that would make more aggressive prosecution of Burisma more likely, not less.
It is also worth noting that Zelensky did say he would investigate the situation Trump referred to in the phone call, but Trump did not release the aid until after the House investigations began. This is because, as we know from the leaked phone calls from Rudy Giuliani, what Trump wanted was an announcement of an investigation, not just an investigation itself, and that this was the condition he was placing on delivery of the aid. The only reason that condition would be necessary would be to politically smear Joe Biden based on the false claim that he had Shokin fired in order to protect his son from prosecution.
But let’s look at the other investigation Trump asked for:
“I would like you to do us a favor though because our country has been through a lot and Ukraine knows a lot about it. I would like you to find out what happened with this whole situation with Ukraine, they say Crowdstrike… I guess you have one of your wealthy people… The server, they say Ukraine has it. There are a lot of things that went on, the whole situation. I think you’re surrounding yourself with some of the same people. I would like to have the Attorney General call you or your people and I would like you to get to the bottom of it.“
At this point, multiple investigations, including Mueller’s (whom Trump bashes on the call) had confirmed that Russian agents hacked into the DNC servers. 12 Russians were indicted for this. Trump and those around him were committed to instead blaming Ukraine, our ally, for these hacks, based on nothing. And Trump was willing to withhold badly needed weapons from our ally until they announced investigation into these baseless claims.
I find it outrageous to argue that the problem here is that a whistleblower filed a complaint to report this corrupt behavior, rather than the clearly corrupt behavior itself. At the very least, the American people deserved to know that the president was unilaterally making foreign policy–acting outside our system of checks and balances by secretly withholding congressionally approved aid–based on deranged conspiracy theories. The “server in Ukraine” conspiracy theory is even more lunatic than the Biden one–forget impeachment, that should have been 25th Amendment time. It’s coocoo bananas. So no, there was nothing “legitimate” about Trump’s actions here.
Speaking of totalitarian minded people using fearmongering to control “We the People”…
Does anyone remember how COVID-19 was declared a public health crisis and how they used that to justify all kinds of totalitarian controls of society and curtailing your individual rights; well, the Surgeon General just called gun violence a public health crisis.
Notice how the core of the advisory is focused on victims, fear mongering and pure firearm paranoia. Notice how the advisory uses statistics throughout, must be their uncontestable “science”, to support their points. This advisory includes the political left’s major fear mongering groups, children, race, and remarkably they’ve added in that everyone is now suffering some level of PTSD because of violence but of course it’s only when that violence includes a firearm.”
Now remember, a firearm is just a tool that’s accessible to humans that could be used to inflict injury or death on others like a hammer, knife, sword, fist, poison, car, etc but it’s the intentions of the morally bankrupt human being behind the tool that uses it illegally to violently injure or kill other human beings that’s the real problem. How about we start dealing with the utter moral bankruptcy of criminally minded people that break existing laws and seem to see no value in the lives of others.
I think it’s very interesting that Biden’s Surgeon General would come out with this kind of fear mongering rhetoric just prior to a presidential election and at the 11th hour before a presidential debate.
How do you think the political left will try to use this statement from the Surgeon General?
How do you think Biden will use it in the debate?
How do you think the anti-gun public at large will use the statement?
Ironically, Bill Clinton fired then-surgeon general Jocelyn Elders specifically because she was using the position as a bully pulpit and, among other things, was talking about making gun violence a public health issue.
At the time, who knew that BIll Clinton would be, in many ways, better than every single president who followed him?
Clinton wasn’t the beginning of the rot but he did contribute extensively to it. He governed by polls, his campaign initiated the rationalization that private conduct was not a valid indicator of trustworthiness (“It’s the economy, stupid!”) and he (or, rather, his wife) coined the phrase “vast, right-wing conspiracy” that’s still being used today to combat any concerns expressed by Republicans…ignoring the fact that the so-called conspiracy theory was absolutely true.
He accelerated the rot significantly. He governed by doing just enough to skate through today’s news cycle and this year’s election cycle, and a lot of that was because he was too busy chasing anything in a skirt to really do aggressive income redistribution. He didn’t have the first clue about foreign policy, and treated it as optional. He also deliberately separated character from the office and tried to make it seem like committing adultery in the Oval Office, while allowing a moon-faced intern access that not even his closest advisors had, was no big deal. Oh, and he was also the first president to knowingly perjure himself and to be disbarred. Bill Clinton was reasonably effective, and didn’t tank the economy like Biden or hold it back like Obama, but he was pond scum.
I find an amazing parallel with the left and right as they argue over gun rights and drug legalization. You can take many of the arguments and substitute the two phrases, and so often people will flip flop politically over using the exact same argument.
To answer your specific question: The left is trying hard every way they can to ban guns, but wow is the horse out of the stable. Guns outnumber people in the US. What we’ve had for decades now is various threats of bans, but they never live long. In between the ballot box and the courthouse, the bans end. And when they do, a segment of society is driven to buy more. When bans are threatened, they buy more. The left have only succeeded paradoxically created more ownership. In particular, they have created more ownership of the very guns they hate.
Guns will never be banned in America…oh, the left can and will try, but it won’t work. The 2nd Amendment doesn’t establish my right to keep and bear arms. It states that the right shall not be infringed. That means my right exists regardless of what any politician or President says…and regardless of the status of the 2nd Amendment.
Joel, you obviously don’t live in New York State.
In New York State Rifle & Pistol Association, Inc. v. Bruen, the SCUS ruled that a 1913 NYS requiring persons applying for a Concealed Carry must provide a justifiable reason that should be granted the permit. The 1913 law changed a Constitutional Right into a NYS Privilege. When the law was struck down NYS countered that permit holders could not carry in sensitive areas. The State then essentially declared almost the entire State a sensitive area.
Additionally, the county sheriff is empowered to construct a multitude of hoops that permit requestors must jump through to submit an application and get it approved. Applications must be reviewed and approved by the sheriff before submission to a judge. If you have one error in your submission you have to correct the error(s) and go back to the end of the line. The error could be as simple as the blue instead of black ink. It could be the date of one of four Personal references attesting to your good moral character and more is out of date. The sheriff can slow-walk your application review. If you are fortunate to get the application before a judge they must rule on your application within 6 months of receipt. If you are lucky, you might get a decision 12 months after submission to the sheriff. If you are coming from out of state or out of the county you reside you are looking at 24 months. The village I live in makes it unlawful to carry any firearm, Bow and arrow, BB Gun within the village limits. It is worded so that carrying a weapon on your property is a violation of the law. Don’t like the law? You either move or take the state to court. The State basically told the SCUS take your ruling and stick it.
Has New York bastardized the 2nd Amendment so much that it only applies to possession in your own home?
A while back I heard that the firearm laws in New York city are so strict that if you are flying in the north east (not to New York) and you’re legally transporting a locked and unloaded pistol in your stowed luggage and you get diverted to an airport in New York city for some reason that it’s quite possible that if they find out you have that pistol in your luggage that they’ll arrest you, put you in jail, and throw the book at you. Being someone that appears to be very familiar with New York firearm laws, can you confirm or contradict that?
Furthermore; what are the laws for transporting firearms through the state of New York in vehicles. For instance what if you’re moving from a state that’s north east of New York to a state that’s south west of New York, there are no roads to go around the state of New York so how do the laws apply to transporting firearms?
Steve,
I am not an attorney so you should contact a competent attorney if you are traveling through New York with a handgun or a scary-looking rifle or shotgun. That being said New York laws are complicated and their prosecution can vary by municipality. Basically, if you are a gangbanger or a “friend” of state officials you are probably OK.
The statute in my village reads as follows: Although not specifically mentioned I think Nerf Guns are illegal too.
75-1Firearm and weapon discharge prohibited.
It is prohibited within the Village of Fayetteville for any person to carry a firearm, shotgun, rifle, air gun, any bow or other instrument that can discharge a projectile, when loaded, except in the course of official duty or as otherwise permitted under the applicable federal and state provisions, including, but not limited to, New York State Penal Law. It is prohibited within the Village of Fayetteville for any person to discharge, or cause to discharge, a firearm, shotgun, rifle, air gun, any bow or other instrument that can discharge a projectile, except in the course of official duty or self-defense, or as may be otherwise permitted herein, or as otherwise permitted under the applicable Federal and State provisions, including, but not limited to, New York State Penal Law.
The below link shows NYS Firearm Law complications.
https://www.atf.gov/firearms/docs/guide/new-york-firearms-statutes-and-codes/download
Because of the variability of prosecution in NYS, the Federal Code below might not prevent you from being arrested or prosecuted by a zealous DA or AG I refer you to former president Trump’s legal woes in NYS.
It is suggested that if you need to travel through the state of New York with firearms, you should carry a copy of Title 18-Part 1-Chapter 44 926A of the federal code.
Title 18 Section 926(a) The Peaceable Journey Act, under Part 1, Chapter 44, states:
”Notwithstanding any other provision of any law or any rule or regulation of a State or any political subdivision thereof, any person who is not otherwise prohibited by this chapter from transporting, shipping, or receiving a firearm shall be entitled to transport a firearm for any lawful purpose from any place where he may lawfully possess and carry such firearm to any other place where he may lawfully possess and carry such firearm if, during such transportation, the firearm is unloaded, and neither the firearm nor any ammunition being transported is readily accessible or is directly accessible from the passenger compartment of such transporting vehicle:
“Provided, that in the case of a vehicle without a compartment separate from the driver’s compartment the firearm or ammunition shall be contained in a locked container other than the glove compartment or console.”
That’s a good point about the flip-flop. That reversal on what people call the principle of personal freedom happens is because humans are calibrating the same general principle to their different specific fears.
The Left is more afraid than the Right is of trusting the wrong people with firearms, while the Right is more afraid than the Left is of people developing destructive habits as a result of drugs.
These different fears are based on what people are confident they can deal with. However, by applying constructive principles to make the situation better over time, we don’t have to worry as much about having to choose which fears to address. People can establish ways to get what they want in ways that don’t invoke other people’s fears.
Does that make sense?
I am pro second amendment despite not owning any firearms. I am willing to allow anyone to die from their own choices if they wish to consume intoxicants. Guns used for defensive purposes do not independently impose third party costs on society anymore than cars, or other devices that can injure when used properly, as drugs tend to do. Providing Narcan or hospitalization for those OD’ing from engaging in drug use for the purpose of intoxication or the avoidance of withdrawal symptoms, imposes costs on society with no social benefit attached. I also do not believe that government should profit from the sale of such drugs. If you argue that tax revenue from drugs provides a social benefit in excess of the social costs I would like to see how one calculates the costs of social decay
Thank you, Chris and Steve, for adding nuance to my generalizations and highlighting some of the common ground between the Left and the Right.
Extradimensional Cephalopod wrote, “The Left is more afraid than the Right is of trusting the wrong people with firearms, while the Right is more afraid than the Left is of people developing destructive habits as a result of drugs.”
Don’t you think you’re doing a bit of stereotyping?
I don’t think anyone actually trusts the “wrong people” with firearms, but the problem with your stereotyping is who defines “wrong people”, see below?
Even though some recreational mind altering drug users actually do develop destructive behaviors, I honestly don’t think that it’s a forgone conclusion that many on the right believe that anyone that uses drugs is going to develop destructive habits.
As far as defining the “wrong people” goes. Many on the left (not all) are scared to death of firearms (pure paranoia) and firmly believe that anyone that owns a firearm, or want’s to own a firearm, is mentally unstable and therefore not trustworthy. There are others (not all) that state that anyone that simply possesses a firearm will get a sense of indestructability and power and the firearm will make them mentally unstable, it’s as if the firearm is evil and it possesses the operator and makes them a criminal murderer. These are actually arguments that have been seriously presented by anti-gun fanatics and screamed at protest rallies. With that said, it’s a bit easier to see that for many on the left (not all), everyone fits into the “wrong people” category mentioned above with the exception of the individuals defining who the “wrong people” are, they are obviously grandfathered in as being the “right people”.
Matthew B wrote, “I find an amazing parallel with the left and right as they argue over gun rights and drug legalization.”
This parallel is not evident to me, not at all.
Matthew B wrote, “You can take many of the arguments and substitute the two phrases, and so often people will flip flop politically over using the exact same argument.”
Please provide specific examples of this.
Let’s use that protesters sign I posted above as just one example. Your Gun Ownership Is Hazardous To My Health vs Your Drug Use Is Hazardous To My Health. Let’s be very literal, “ownership” is a noun and doesn’t logically equate to “use” which is a verb. Use is an action and ownership is simply possession and doesn’t imply any action whatsoever. The ownership argument against guns is complete nonsense and is detached from reality where the use argument against drugs at least has some basis in reality because drugs do in fact impair an individuals ability to do things like operate a vehicle.
I have a much more Librarian view of recreational mind altering drugs than others do but there is one major unequivocal difference between these two things, one is an enumerated Constitutionally protected right and the other is not; therefore, banning recreational mind altering drugs doesn’t violate the Constitution but banning firearms does. We clearly have something that states that “…the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.” but we do not have something that states “…the right of the people to keep and use mind altering drugs, shall not be infringed.”
Please support this segment of your argument.
“Gun violence” as a public health crisis is pretty much outright nonsense. We’ve gone through the numbers here before, but deaths caused by gun violence constitute about .2% of all the deaths in America.
It’s possible that there is a health crisis in America, but it’s more likely to be found in the 99.8% of deaths caused by other factors.
Joel Mundt wrote, “‘Gun violence’ as a public health crisis is pretty much outright nonsense. We’ve gone through the numbers here before, but deaths caused by gun violence constitute about .2% of all the deaths in America.”
Speaking of those gun statistics numbers that we’ve gone through before around here…
A few quotes from some of my previous blog posts.
Another…
You can’t twist completely overwhelming and verifiable statistics like that to justify infringing on 2nd Amendment rights. So what did the cult of anti-gunners do, they resorted to “public safety crisis” fear mongering and when that one didn’t get their desired result they switch it up to “public health crisis”. Their end goal is to make the public so damned fearful of guns and gun owners that they can effectively abolish firearms regardless of the 2nd Amendment.
Also, whenever you hear anti-gunners present their “not one more death” morality argument you can know that they’re wielding a massive double standard of morality based on reasonable logic. The argument is trying to put the anti-gun cult on a moral pedestal that they cannot support, they don’t seem to give a damn about any of the lives that are lost via other killing machines.