Calling these guns what they are

12.17.12 - 5:21 pm | Tim Redmond |

(247)

We spent a trillion dollars and almost 5,000 American lives trying to root out non-existent weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. We fret about Iran getting a WMD, and we worry that North Korea already has one. Nuclear nonproliferation has been a key part of US foreign policy since the end of World War II.

Nobody says that we should stop trying to control WMDs because a crazy ruler of a rogue state could declare war on someone else anyway. Nobody says that "nuclear bombs don't kill people, people kill people." Everyone agrees that there's a difference between conventional weapons, which are bad, and WMDs, which are horrific.

So why can't we make the same distinction with guns?

Seriously: I'm not saying that an assault rifle is a nuke, but in the world of domestic murder, it's somewhat equivalent.

If Adam Lanza had entered the elementary school in Newtown, CT, with a run-of-the-mill rilfe or handgun, he might have shot half a dozen people. Maybe more if he could reload really fast. Some of them might have survived.

Instead, the 20 kids, six-year-old kids, were all shot multiple times, from a semiautomatic rifle that carried special deadly ammunition. None of them had a chance. In all, he killed 28 people before the cops could get there. That required a 30-shot clip and a gun that fired really fast. A gun that belongs on a battlefied. A gun his mother bought, legally, to fend off the apocalypse and the collapse of civil society.

There's a difference between the guns Sen. Manchen uses for hunting (which carry at most three rounds) and these weapons of mass destruction. There's no good use for a military-style assault rifle; you can't hunt with it and if you think it's really going to protect you against the end of civil society (or the black helicopters of the United Nations Army Of One World Government), you're too looney to have a gun anyway.

I'm not big on guns anyway, as all of you who hate me know. But can we please at least agree: Standing armies and conventional warfare, which we're not about to abolish soon, can do serious damage. Weapons of mass destruction do horrific damage. That's why we treat them differently. Can't we do the same for guns?

Comments

Was there anything more predictable this Monday than the

inevitable piece from Tim wanting ever stricter gun control?

Even though gun control is already as strict as it can be under the Constitution, at least in places like San Francisco and New York?

We've had mass murderers who used handguns, shotguns, rifles and almost any kind of gun. The Virginia Tech killer killed more with handguns. You're missing the point.

And another point too. The founding fathers wanted a well-armed militia to defend the homeland against foreign invaders. We've never been invaded. And for another important reason too - to protect us against our own government.

But if you don't like the 2nd, the founding fathers thought of that too, and furnished a methodology for repealing the 2nd via a constitutional amendment. I find it fascinating that a week earlier you argued that the 14th amendment allows gays to marry, but now when another amendment doesn't suit your ideology, you do a 180 and think we should pretend it doesn't exist.

Posted by Anonymous on Dec. 17, 2012 @ 6:21 pm

Wrong website

The 2nd Amendment is not nearly as black and white as you imply. And unlike 1789, we're now spending almost 1/2 of our national budget on "defense" - with almost 100% of it borrowed from the 1%ers - so the need for a citizen army to repel a North Korean, Venezuelan, Canadian, or other hostile government invasion isn't so necessary. And if needed we can fight our own govenment tyranny by refusing to engage in the mainstream economy, depriving them of taxes, and by organizing, protesting, and even voting to find politicians that better reflect our values and priorities. If countries in the Middle East and former USSR can overthrow tyrants, I think US residents can do likewise if the need ever arises.

If you reread the 2nd Amendment carefully it says nothing about restricting reasonable regulation of the ownership and use of guns, and it doesn't say that every US resident is entitled to own and use assault weapons that are only designed to kill other humans.

Greg has already made some of the best points about reasonable gun regulation. You need to find another thread because you're now grasping at straws. Better yet, you should look for other websites that are a better match for your perspectives since somehow you seemed to have landed in an alternative universe.

Posted by Guest on Dec. 18, 2012 @ 10:17 pm

The Bill of Rights doesn't say anything like that because it is

essentially a list of laws that the government cannot pass. It says nothing about how people can or should behave - it's purpose is to limit the government's ability to deprive us of fundamental rights.

One of those cited fundamental rights is the right to bear arms. "Bear" in the context means not just ownership but the ability to carry them with one's person, both for self-defence AND to repel both foreign invaders and, if necessary, our own government.

Posted by Anonymous on Dec. 19, 2012 @ 8:55 am

this of course would be

this of course would be easier to swallow if it were true, or there was any real scholarship that even pointed in this direction. of course I often forget that the founding fathers were known for carrying rifles and pistols with them at all times, and how they expected every other member of the local citizenry to do likewise.

Posted by Guest on Feb. 16, 2013 @ 1:19 am

Weapons of the time period

"...and it doesn't say that every US resident is entitled to own and use assault weapons that are only designed to kill other humans."

One thing that you have to think about is thetime period. You imply that the so-called "Assault Weapons" need to be tightly regulated, well, they have been pretty much banned and regulated since 1934. The fact that Adam Lanza used a Bushmaster Semi-Automatic rifle is a moot point. We would not be having this discussion if he had used a semi-automatic handgun with 15-18 round magazines. They can shoot just as fast as the Bushmaster that was used and are just as deadly. But I digress...

If law-abiding citizens shouldnt be allowed to own these so called Assault Weapons (Which they are not. An assault rifle is a military rifle that utilizes an intermediate-power cartridge, and that generally is capable of select-fire i.e. capable of BOTH semi automatic and FULLY-AUTOMATIC fire) then how come the federal government never banned the British Land Pattern Musket, better known as the Brown Bess. These weapons were the "Assault Weapons" of their day.

Its not the weapon that did the killing. It was the person behind the weapon. A Ruger Mini-14 ranch Rifle is not considered an assault weapon by your definition, but it shoots the same ammunition, and operates with the same principle of the "Assault- Weapons." It is semi-automatic. It just doesnt look as scary as an AR-15 or a semi-automatic AK pattern rifle.

Let me pose this to you. Let us say that ownership of these so-called "assault weapons" is completely banned. What would say if someone took a Remington 700 in .308 Win, or .30-06 Springfield with a scope on it, took aim from, say, 200 yards away, and killed 28 children... Would you then call for the ban of all "High Powered Sniper Rifles? Even though this is an extremely common hunting rifle?

Where deos it end?

Posted by Guest on Dec. 30, 2012 @ 11:33 am

http://www.youtube.com/watch?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GzFWRPiNXOI

Posted by marcos on Dec. 30, 2012 @ 11:53 am

I still don't get why I can't

I still don't get why I can't have explosives or a rocket launcher. I mean a rocket launcher is just a weapon/arms and I have the right to bear it last I checked.

Gotta love the government trying to be our parents all the time.

Posted by Guest on Jan. 07, 2013 @ 11:17 am

Two cases

Item 1:
Mentally disturbed man attacks a primary school in China, stabbing 23 children and one elderly woman:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chenpeng_Village_Primary_School_stabbing
Weapon: knife
Injuries: 24, deaths: 0

Item 2:
Mentally disturbed man attacks a primary school in the United States several hours after this incident.
Injuries: 2, Deaths: 28
Weapon: assault rifle

The difference is that in China, individual gun ownership is severely restricted. The only real exception is for people who possess a valid hunting license.

Listening to right wing radio, you can already hear the handwringing about how we can't do anything, how this is just in the national culture, etc. The cheap slogans... "guns don't kill people, people kill people,"... "if they banned guns then only criminals would have guns"... and my favorite "if this guy wanted to kill innocent people, there's no law that could stop him -he could've just used a knife..."

Such cheap, disingenuous bullshit. See the incident in China to see how this would've likely turned out if he only had access to a knife.

Look, honestly I don't know if the answer is to ban all guns except for hunting. If we're going to do that, we also need to demilitarize the cops, who often act like an occupying army in poor neighborhoods.

But can we at least stop pretending that gun restrictions aren't effective at saving lives? We can have an honest debate about the wisdom of more gun restrictions. I'm not sure where I'll draw the line myself. But we need to start with the intellectually honest position that these laws can be tremendously effective at saving lives.

Posted by Greg on Dec. 17, 2012 @ 6:22 pm

I agree to an extent

The only thing is for example I live in pittsburgh and we had about 10 shootings in the past 3 weeks that people got shot or killed and thats only what gets reported. I'm not really against this ban, but what will it accomplish as far as criminals? NO lie we have shootings all the time here:( saddens me, but i'll be honest I don't carry, but I do have one hand gun in my home, because what would happen if say one of them decides to come in my home? Read pittsburgh news it happens a lot here and I hope if they do ban guns their gonna have a lot harsher laws for criminals and I haven't heard that subject even touched....Maybe nobody cares about inner city youth; sorry but this is how I feel and this is how it is. I wish they would maybe put a plain clothes security guard in all schools i'm sure it couldn't possibly cost that much more and im' sure that might have helped. The point of this message is just to point out if where gonna take all the guns that are registered than we need harsh penalties for anyone that commits a crime with one.

Posted by bobs on Dec. 20, 2012 @ 8:42 pm

Even if it was a good diea to ban all guns what are you going to

do about the hundreds of millions of guns already owned? Try taking those off people and you have a civil war. and a lot of dead sheriffs, who would be charged with collecting them. It's a non-starter.

And moreover, in the CT case, the guns did not belong to the shooter who, in fact, would have been denied purchase of firearms. He simply used his mother's guns.

If you are barred from buying a gun, you can simply find someone else to get you a gun. Gun control, as written, acts only at purchase. It does nothing to control people giving or selling guns to others, not prevent anyone making such firearms available to others.

Gun control isn't just wrong because it is unconstitutional - it's wrong because it can never work.

Posted by Anonymous on Dec. 17, 2012 @ 6:32 pm

Where there's a will, there's a way

Sure, if you go door to door confiscating guns, you might get some serious pushback from some sectors. But that's the stupid way. You don't have to do everything in the most back-assed manner possible, you know. You could declare a gun buyback program, then a general amnesty for a while until a ban kicks in. The ban might not be total. There could be exceptions that allow gun ownership with a proper hunting license, for example (and maybe proof that you actually hunt). Then after that it might be illegal, but maybe you'd only enforce it as a "secondary" offense -that is, if you're caught doing something else and you have an illegal weapon, you could be charged. Within a generation, I think there would be few guns left under that scenario, and very little pushback.

I'm not necessarily comfortable with such strict rules. I think it was you who accused me of hating America on the other thread, in part because I don't support gun rights. In reality, I'm pretty moderate on gun rights. I actually voted against Daly's popular initiatve to ban guns (mostly because it only applied to individuals and didn't do anything about police militarization). But whatever the reason, that actually put me in a more "pro-gun" position than at least 58% of the population.

All I'm saying is that gun control is workable and it does save lives. I don't know exactly how much I'd restrict it. But I do think some reasonable controls such as waiting periods, licenses, restrictions on assault weapons and other military-style hardware, more restrictions on mentally disturbed people and people who live with them... are all things that need to be considered.

Posted by Greg on Dec. 17, 2012 @ 6:57 pm

Amnesties have very limited success and usually only frees up

guns from the weakest hands. Anyone who wants a firearm, which is maybe at least 100 million Americans, is not going to hand them over. If anything, were gun sales banned, people would be even more determined to keep what they already have.

And we'd need a police state to enforce that which, as you appear to udnerstand, is even worse.

Anyway, the problem isn't universal gun ownership. Every household in Switzerland has a firearm and they don't have this problem, so clearly the issue is unstable, crazy and criminal people, and not the private ownership of weapons.

I'd support more restrictions on crazy people before I'd be willing to give up the 2nd. Gun control, insofar as it is effective at all, simply deprives law-abiding folks of the means to defend themselves

Posted by Guest on Dec. 17, 2012 @ 7:17 pm

The Myth of Switzerland

Actually Switzerland has half as many guns per capita as the United States. The US is #1 in gun ownership rate, by a long shot.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Number_of_guns_per_capita_by_country

Clearly it wouldn't hurt us to do with fewer guns.

Posted by Greg on Dec. 17, 2012 @ 7:51 pm

Your data on Switzerland does not contradict mine.

I said every household in Switzerland has a gun, which is true. What we have in the Us is households owning many guns, hence the bigger relative number of guns.

But the point is that Switzerland proves that you can have a country where almost everyone has access to a firearm and not have the problem that we do.

So, to use that cliche again, it really is about people and not guns.

Posted by Guest on Dec. 17, 2012 @ 7:55 pm

I suppose it's possible

I suppose it's possible to have a culture in which people have guns but don't use them. Maybe in Switzerland there isn't as much hate radio fanning the flames, or as many crazy people with access to guns, or maybe the universal health care keeps crazy people adequately connected to health care and maybe there are laws to separate the crazies from the guns. And I don't think they necessarily allow military style assault weapons.

Point is, for whatever reason the Swiss don't have many of the same problems we do. Those reasons are likely complex and for us to be able to have the same level of safety coexisting with widespread gun ownership as Switzerland, would involve extensive cultural and legal changes that I don't think you'd be willing to make.

OTOH, if you look at countries where guns are very restricted, like the Chinese example above, you can clearly see that even when some crazy person decides to go on a rampage, the lack of widespread gun ownership proves VERY effective indeed at limiting the slaughter.

So... either we can extensively rework society after the Swiss model, or we can restrict guns. I wouldn't mind the former, but I think the latter is a bit easier in the short term, no?

Also... there's another possibility. Maybe the Swiss don't have so many of these incidents because they're just lucky. They have a small population, and it hasn't struck them... yet. It did happen in Canada. And boy did it happen in Norway. Hasn't happened in Switzerland... yet. But it hasn't happened in Minneapolis yet either. Maybe they're just playing Russian roulette and it's just a matter of time.

Posted by Greg on Dec. 17, 2012 @ 8:36 pm

true

but long ago a Swiss man on another forum also stated the fact that they don't have as much poverty as the states either.

Posted by bobs on Dec. 20, 2012 @ 8:48 pm

The gun fired each time the trigger was pulled

That's not actually "really, really fast."

Posted by Lucretia Snapples on Dec. 17, 2012 @ 6:33 pm

Exactly, and in fact more died at Virginia Tech even though

the shooter used manual weapons AND the targets were adults more capable of evading or fighting back.

Posted by Guest on Dec. 17, 2012 @ 6:39 pm

I'm a believer in licensing

and other forms of gun control actually. But there's a lot of hyperbole around this issue.

Posted by Lucretia Snapples on Dec. 17, 2012 @ 7:15 pm

Yeah, I'm not totally oppose to a register of firearms.

But that doesn't really solve the problem of people giving, lending or privately selling guns to others. The gun laws apply to licensed dealers, not to private traders. If you've ever been to a gun show, you'll know how easy it is to transfer guns. Plus, in this case, it only took one member of a family to have a gun and all members of the family, plus friends, relatuves etc also have access.

In the end, all we can do is arm ourselves, so the crazies can be subdued.

Posted by Guest on Dec. 17, 2012 @ 7:26 pm

Licensing the users is an excellent idea

One far past its time. No responsible gun owner is opposed to a requirement that gun owners be licensed.

Posted by Lucretia Snapples on Dec. 17, 2012 @ 7:36 pm

Owners and users are two different things.

We do license owners in many places. We do control gun sales at licensed gun dealers.

We do not regulate the ability of one person to use a gun belonging to another, which was the problem in CT. And in fact it is hard to see how we could do that.

Posted by Guest on Dec. 17, 2012 @ 7:43 pm

Hard to see

Yes, which is why gun control is only part of the solution to this out-of-control violence.

Posted by Hortencia on Dec. 18, 2012 @ 3:19 pm

But we already have gun control and so clearly the problem is

elsewhere. The worst policies are made in an over-reaction to one-off events.

Posted by Guest on Dec. 18, 2012 @ 4:45 pm

We already have gun control?

In a country where it's legal to buy weapons built specifically for warfare, we don't have sufficient gun control.

Posted by Hortencia on Dec. 19, 2012 @ 8:01 am

Yes, at least in major cities like SF and NYC, it is either

very hard or impossible to get a permit to "bear arms" even though the 2nd supposedly guarantees our right to do just that.

And in case you haven't noticed, there are few if any gun shops in SF, and only one firing range to my knowledge.

You have to go out of the City to get a decent choice of weaponery, and probably out of the State to really be free to own, carry and use arms.

Posted by Guest on Dec. 19, 2012 @ 8:36 am

So true

It would be nice, and i know some gun enthusiasts don't like it, but I been to the range many times and seen how dangerous some people are with new guns. You should have to be tested just like you do for a car.

Posted by bobs on Dec. 20, 2012 @ 8:51 pm

There's a very real need for owning assault rifles.

A crazy mob tries to invade your property. An ordinary handgun might take one or two of them out, but then they would over-run you. Only an automatic weapon gives you the stopping power to repel a mass home invasion.

The thugs will use them anyway. Laws only prevent us from fighting back.

Posted by Guest on Dec. 17, 2012 @ 6:36 pm

Right. And we need them for the coming Zombie Apocalypse too!

Very true, Guest. There are always downsides and upsides to every action.

Downsides of not having assault weapons:
-Can't defend against a crazed mob invading my house
-Can't defend against an army of rabid vampire zombies
-May not be adequately prepared for the collapse of civilization in the event that I'm one of the few survivors of a killer plague, nuclear holocaust, meteor, or similar extinction event.

Upside of not having assault rifles in the general population:
-Massacres such as those in Newton, Tucson, and Colorado will be a lot less common and less lethal.

Considering that crazed mobs, cannibal zombies, and extinction events are relatively rare, while massacres involving deranged gunmen are quite common... I think we'll probably save more lives by not having the assault weapons around.

Posted by Greg on Dec. 17, 2012 @ 7:06 pm

You also need guns to keep the government in check.

The original premise for the right to bear arms was at least partly to provide for local militia's that serve as a check against a government that exceeds it's authority and seeks to repress it's own people.

Part of why our government listens to the people as much as they do is because, unlike in many other coutnries, they cannot bully the populace. And part of why they cannot do that is because we the people can defend ourselves against the state.

Posted by Guest on Dec. 17, 2012 @ 7:20 pm

And our government *never* bullies people.

No, never. Our government never does mass arrests of hundreds of people at peaceful demonstrations. Our government never brutally breaks up union pickets with thugs. Our government never infiltrated and murdered members of popular self-determination movements like AIM or the Panthers. Our government doesn't imprison a higer percentage of its people than any other in the world. Oh no, that must be some other government.

Becuase our gun-owning population prevents all that from happening.

And of course our government is so afraid of the wrath of its people that when the overwhelming majority of people polled say they want higher taxes on the rich, an end to the wars, and the preservation of social security without cuts or increases in retirement age, as well as a public option for healthcare... well the government totally listens, because unlike in "dictatorships" in Europe and Latin America, *our* government fears its people!

Please, pass whatever it is that you're smoking. I can use some of that right now.

It's very rare that anywhere in the world an armed citizenry has played any role at all in preserving freedom against a government run amok. There *are* actually a couple examples I can think of, but you probably won't like those.
1. The Black Panthers -for a short while, their conspicuous display of weapons in public played a role in mitigating the police acting like an occupying army in the black community. In the end, though, the state put the kabosh on that.
2. In Venezuela, during the US-backed coup to overthrow the democratic government there, the people came out into the streets and turned it back. While most of the protests were peaceful, there was an incident where armed thugs fired on Chavistas marching for the preservation of democracy. As it turns out, many Venezuelans carry guns in public, so instead of what could have been a one-sided massacre, people within the march were able to return fire. That said, the course of events was probably not likely changed by the fact that people were armed.

Truth be told, a professional army has little to fear militarily from a bunch of rednecks parading around with guns. That's why back in the real world, our government *doesn't* listen to the people and routinely *does* bully people.

Posted by Greg on Dec. 17, 2012 @ 8:15 pm

The Black Panthers are a terrible example

Not that either of us is old enough to remember, of course. But the analogy I was thinking of more is the popular uprisings that gave at least some freedom to some parts of the Arab world recently, and which helped free eastern Europe 20 years ago.

The simple fact is that the widespread ownership of guns in the US means that we could never have a police state here. If a US government, whether left-wing or right-wing, tried to tear up the constitution and suppress freedoms, there would be millions of people with arms to prevent that.

And you may recall that when Obama was first elected, WalMart sold out of guns and ammo within hours. I doubt that he forgot that.

Posted by Guest on Dec. 17, 2012 @ 8:27 pm

Really, where?

I told you that you wouldn't like my examples. Not that yours are any better.

In Egypt and Tunisia, the dictatorships were overthrown with peaceful protests. Guns would have been ineffective and completely counterproductive. Mubarak even fomented violence in order to justify a crackdown in a last ditch attempt to save his rule. In Libya, overthrowing the government required intervention of a military alliance of the most powerful countries in the world. And in any case, I don't think you can exactly characterize the result as an "improvement."

The Wal-Mart thing is just a reflection of the fact that there are a lot of racist hicks in this country. I don't think Obama gave a crap.

As for the police state... well I would say that one of the measures of a police state is what proportion of its population the state imprisons. And by that measure, in case you haven't noticed we're the world's biggest police state there is already. We may not have some of the trappings of more traditional police states... then again, maybe we do. Limited debate? Check. Extensive spy network? check. Torture? Check. Just because we have the trappings of elections (between candidates who largely agree on economic and foreign policy), we allow *some* political debate and have good ways of marginalizing opposition so that the oligarchy doesn't feel an immediate need to kill them (though that option is available too when needed), and we don't officially imprison people for disagreeing with government policy but rather use the trappings of "criminality," "terrorism," and the drug war, doesn't mean we're not a police state. We're just more smooth about it.

If it's a police state you're concerned about, you've lost that war already.

Posted by Greg on Dec. 17, 2012 @ 8:55 pm

People rushed to buy guns when Obama was elected not because he

was black but because there was a fear that he would try and regulate guns more. That was a logical fear and has nothing to do with being a "racist hick".

An armed populace is a deterrant against crime, foreign invaders and an overbearing police state. We should not want to give up that safeguard.

Posted by Guest on Dec. 18, 2012 @ 6:49 am

Where are these millions of armed people

protecting our freedoms as the state continues to take them away?

NDAA--no armed uprising.
Occupy--peaceful unarmed protesters disbanded by overwhelming paramilitary force--no armed uprising.
Patriot Act--no armed uprising.
Warrantless wiretapping and data mining--no armed uprising.
Stop and frisk--no armed uprising.
Extrajudicial police killings--no armed uprising.

I'm sure I'm forgetting some recent examples of the erosion of our civil liberties and the strengthening of the police state.

I'm not for strict gun control, but your argument about the state being afraid of an armed populace is false. They're not scared at all. If they feel threatened by any popular uprising, they will happily use force, subversion, dirty tricks or whatever to destroy it. See COINTELPRO. Ask David Koresh, the Black Panthers, AIM, Malcolm X, Martin Luther King, etc.

To ignore that we live in a rapidly increasing police and surveillance state is to be in denial.

Posted by Eddie on Dec. 17, 2012 @ 8:58 pm

Ah, I see we're on the same wavelength

I'm sitting at the kitchen table reading some of these right wingers, and my better half is asking me where do they find these people... here in San Francisco of all places?

I guess they just come out of the woodwork, repeating the same tired cliches you hear on Hannity and Rush. Personally I'm not convinced they're from San Francisco. I think they're freepers from da flyover, sitting in their pajamas somewhere in their mom's basement, maybe being paid to post...

Posted by Greg on Dec. 17, 2012 @ 10:06 pm

I think Greg and Eddie are the same person

Since their posts are eerily alike.

Posted by Lucretia Snapples on Dec. 17, 2012 @ 10:34 pm

Nope. Great minds just think alike ;-)

Look at the times -almost simultaneous. I'd have to type really fast to get both of those posts out within 3 minutes of each other.

You and matlock, OTOH... similar type of nasty sarcasm, similar focus on other posters rather than ideas, always against everything while being in favor of nothing, same MO pretending to not be conservative all the while hating on everything progressive. I'm starting to think both handles are just alter-egos of Matt Smith.

Posted by Greg on Dec. 17, 2012 @ 11:01 pm

Lucretin's speculation regarding others' sock-puppetry

it is an example of the most childish form of dissembling or misdirectional camoflage.

As I remember KPFA's Larry Bensky remarking, back in the 60s and 70s when CoIntelPro was coming into full bloom to tamp down on free-thought and political oppositon to the military-industrial complex, the true government infiltrators in any organization could be spotted because they would be the *first* to accuse others of being so.

Posted by lillipublicans on Dec. 18, 2012 @ 6:56 am

Ah yes, "gvernment infiltrators". LOL.

Some here think that Lilli is a right-wing mole who posts utter garbage here to discredit the left.

Posted by Guest on Dec. 18, 2012 @ 7:16 am

Yes. Government infiltrators. "LOL"

http://vault.fbi.gov/cointel-pro

Posted by Guest on Dec. 18, 2012 @ 3:29 pm

Considering what you used to accuse me of...

...that's pretty rich.

Posted by Hortencia on Dec. 18, 2012 @ 3:23 pm

change for the sake of change

or class crazed ravings?

Not the kind of change that works out for anyone but your self esteem.

I'm in favor of cutting the cities payroll and killing off useless commissions and departments so that you and the rest of the "progressives" can stop begging. Your quiting begging would do wonders for your self esteem.

I'm for, abortion, gay marriage, not having to look at gross naked dudes, Eric Mar raising his own kids without the city doing his parenting for him,

I'm not for, meaningless policy statements by the BOS, more taxes to pay for all the new jobs and departments that the city can not afford... jobs and departments designed to serve some loser constituency, crazy sheriffs who think that they are battling Jim Crow in SF, school district lawyers turned supervisor who think he ended segregation in SF in 2000 etc...

What Greg is for, a world view based in being a victim and entitled self pity, blaming the state for all the ills of the world while wanting the state to solve all these problems.

Posted by matlock on Dec. 18, 2012 @ 7:04 pm

And the purpose of this shrill, incoherent rant is...

exactly what????

Posted by Greg on Dec. 18, 2012 @ 7:24 pm

poor Greg

You wondered what I was for and against

"You and matlock, OTOH... similar type of nasty sarcasm, similar focus on other posters rather than ideas, always against everything while being in favor of nothing,"

Posted by matlock on Dec. 18, 2012 @ 7:42 pm

Not only could Greg and Eddie be the same person but they

could both as if repeating nonsense somehow makes it valid.

Posted by Guest on Dec. 18, 2012 @ 6:51 am

I skimmed the comments before

responding to the post about armed uprising so I missed Greg's earlier comment. Later, when I read the comments more closely, I noticed that some of my points were similar to Greg's (not counting the nearly simultaneous comments.)

I'm glad that Greg didn't accuse me of plagarism just of being on the same wavelength. I'm not Greg; Eddie is my real name.

I don't know where the right wing zealots, Guest and/or Anonymous, are from nor do I care. Their ideology is so flawed that it needs challenging, especially on a "progressive" site like sfbg.com.

While I disagree with much of what they write, some of the other "conservative" commenters like Lucretia Snapples and Matlock appear to be able to think for themselves unlike the automatonic responses posted by Anonymous, Guest, or "Heartless, Brainless, and Cheap."

Posted by Eddie on Dec. 18, 2012 @ 3:10 pm

Eddie/Greg, the problem is that you're not open to contrary

ideas and, like Lilli, you get personal with anyone who expresses such opinions. real debate starts with respect for those with contrary views.

Posted by Guest on Dec. 18, 2012 @ 4:47 pm

Neither Eddie nor Greg have ever made personal comments,

and I have only done so in answer to a variety of disrespectful behaviors up to and including personal attack. That I might have a reputation for such is both indicative of how often I am attacked and the forcefulness and skill with which I can respond. (Thank you for the compliment, but I already knew I was pretty good.)

One exceedingly common form of personal attack which I'd like to see stopped is the mischaracterization of what others have said or written; false attribution is the same as slander.

Two more generally disrespectful behaviors common here include ignoring points that have been made and instead repeating false claims while refusing to provide any evidentiary support for them when asked.

In a civilized debate it is rude to stick your fingers in your ears and yell "nyah, nyah, nyah, nyah" whenever the other person is talking.

Posted by lillipublicans on Dec. 18, 2012 @ 5:37 pm

You're the LAST person to talk about "civilized debate."

You spend the vast majority of your time here trying to deter readers from reading various commenters while insulting those who leave comments with which you disagree. You're a nasty troll who's a right-wing plant designed to make progressives look bad. Everyone knows.

Posted by Lucretia Snapples on Dec. 18, 2012 @ 5:43 pm