wv wrote:

A rightwing response to Kimmel:

WV,

I didn’t hear a single truth escape from Shapiro’s mouth. Not one. Not one of his criticisms of Kimmel was true. And I always find it utterly laughable when right-wingers claim “the left” is attacking the right solely on issues of “intent” or “motives.” Anyone who has spent any time online, arguing against folks on the right, knows at best, on their best day, the right does that at least as much. My own experience is that they do it far more, are more hysterical about it, and more vicious. On balance, “the left” is far more measured and more likely to discuss the issues, instead of the person.

But the most important lie he delivers is to say no regulation could have prevented this. I list several above that would have saved most, if not all of the people who died, and most, if not all the gun shot injuries. And none of that would run afoul of an actual objective reading of the 2nd Amendment, which people like Shapiro can’t do. They can only do the usual right-wing revisionist reading. A great example of this is their bizarre insistence that the founders wanted everyone to have “military grade weaponry” and that this somehow is future-proofed to include all new technological improvements.

First of all, there is NOTHING in the amendment that remotely points to that fantasy, and second, the difference between “civilian” and “military grade” in the 1780s was non-existent. It was all single-shot, load powder and ball one at a time. Maybe, if you were super fast, you could get off two or three shots a minute, and it made no difference if you were a hunter or a soldier. Same weaponry.

In short, he’s full of shit.

Waterfield,

Interesting idea. I was listening to NPR this evening, on my way toward some communing with Nature and reading — we have a pretty cool new arboretum nearby — and I heard some interviews of gun-rights folks in the Vegas area. Most of what they said made me want to punch a hole through the roof of my car, but in retrospect, one of the more “moderate” interviewees had an interesting comment along the lines you raise.

He talked about the rush people get by firing those automatic weapons, and he basically, kinda sorta, suggested the reporter should do so. Again, I’m thinking about punching a hole through my car roof as he’s saying this. I’m saying to myself, your blankety blank pleasure in firing those guns isn’t worth one single life, and that IS the trade off in existence. No one’s “freedom” to blow up shit is worth a single life. Not one. Not even one single injury. It’s the height of extremism and selfishness to put your pleasure above other lives.

But . . . hmmm. Not that they would agree to this, cuz the vast majority of gun-rights folks are absolutists and won’t budge an inch. But if they’d trade their guns for the ability to rent ’em and use ’em in one spot, in a shooting range, etc. etc. . . . I could go with that. Make them illegal to own, to have in one’s possession, except in designated, licensed places ONLY, and maybe there’s some room for compromise.

But if they say no, then I think the only answer is to match their absolutism with our own. Ban all bullets.

That, as mentioned, goes beyond the issue of militias. Even if you remove that clause, there is still no “right” to a loaded weapon, or bullets, or firing of those weapons. All it says, with or without the militia clause, is “keep and bear arms.”

Not a word there about ammo or actually using the weapons. Not even implied.

Hope all is well, W.

Another major point here: Even Republicans in Congress accept that we can ban automatic weapons. Right off the bat, that blows anyone’s argument that gun rights are absolute and we can’t regulate them. The ban on automatic weaponry blows that insane idea out of the water. It sets a limit. So the issue starts out with regulations already in place, and it’s just a question of WHERE we draw the line.

If it can be drawn at automatic weaponry, it can be drawn at detachable ammo containers. It can be drawn at six bullets max per gun, with hand-loading, one at a time, being necessary. It can be drawn at limiting range, and quantity, and lethality. It can be drawn at no armor piercing bullets, etc.

Get folks to the table for compromise on this by being every bit as maximalist as the gun nuts. You want to stick with your absolutism? We have an answer. We ban ALL bullets. Want to get some of those bullets back? Come to the table and negotiate in good faith.

TSRF wrote:

From Sandy Hook to Los Vegas: I grieve.

I’m more than heart-broken, TSRF. I’m outraged. And in my view, the blood of the dead is on the hands of anyone who fights against gun control — from either party. Strict gun control. They are indirectly responsible for all 59 deaths and everyone injured. And I don’t give a shit about anyone saying it’s not time to talk about guns. It’s ALWAYS time to talk about our insane laws, or lack thereof, that make this possible.

The Second Amendment doesn’t protect anyone’s right to slaughter Americans. If it did, then that’s all the more reason to end it. There is no Second Amendment protection for buying unlimited weapons, with unlimited firepower, world without end. All that amendment says is that if you’re in a state militia — which no longer exist — you can keep and bear arms. It doesn’t protect bullets, or using arms. Just keeping and bearing them, and bearing them meant presenting them at the time in military processions.

We can do serious gun control under the SA, now. The ONLY thing standing in our way are right-wing, anti-American, hate-filled, gun fanatic cretins who only care about their own gun fetishism and their own desire to compensate. There are zero legal obstacles to serious gun control, and that would include banning any kind of weapon we want to. As long as we leave just ONE kind of gun on the market, we fulfill the “keep and bear arms” part of the SA. And since the amendment offers NO protection for bullets, or usage of guns, we could also ban the thing that makes them usable.

My own suggestions for saving tens of thousands of lives each year are the following:

1. Test, license and register all guns/gun owners. Just like car and driver. Retest them yearly.
2. Ban all detachable ammo containers. Ban the parts. Ban all guns that can use them. Ban all magazines, clips, etc.
3. Limit guns to internal chambers only. Must hand load bullets, one at a time. Limit of six chambers per gun.
4. Universal background checks. No exceptions
5. Smart gun tech. Required on all guns.
6. Mass, nationwide gun buyback program. Melt them down.
7. End the ban on government studies of gun violence. Establish permanent departments for year-round study in the CDC, HHS and NIH, completely independent from partisan interference.
8. Push Hollywood to stop glorifying guns and gun violence. If they don’t voluntarily change, establish restrictions via ratings and taxation. Make it very, very expensive for Hollywood to continue depicting slaughter if it’s gratuitous and romanticizes violence.
9. End conceal carry laws in all states through a federal override. End all open carry laws through a federal override. End all “stand your ground” laws through a federal override.
10. Educate American kids that gun ownership radically increases the risk of death, in the home and on the street.

For starters.

Thanks, ZN.

That article is spot on. Direct, to the point, and spot on.

I think it’s rather stunning how the political right has managed to spin this and redirect the narrative their way.

Boiled down, the political right can trash certain Americans up and down, back and forth, morning, noon and night, and it’s not, supposedly, “an attack on America.”

They can say the most disgusting, vile, heinous things about people of color, leftists, feminists, environmentalists, antiwar activists, union activists, gay people, etc. etc. . . . harass them, oppress them physically, discriminate against them, lie about them, demonize them and worse, say they’re destroying America, blame them for every bad thing that has ever happened . . . and that’s apparently not an “attack on America.”

But a black athlete, speaking out against social injustice? That’s an “attack on America”?

America has lost it’s fucking mind. And that article reminds us, this insanity goes back to Day One.

zn wrote:

I think you always have. I don’t believe in “historical inevitability/necessity” and I’ve mentioned that several times.

And that is not what I said BT. Or anything like it.

You’re misreading as much as you seem to conclude I am.

People misread all the time. It’s the net, it happens. It’s part of the net. You’re doing it now, in what I quote. It’s not something we take umbrage at, or get personal about. People either straighten it out assuming good faith, or they drop the subject.

Okay,

So we’re both really messing up!!

;>)

Let’s start over, then.

Have you read any good books lately?

zn wrote:

Basically, you completely miss that I AM talking about pragmatics, practical matters, in context, and how things function with other competing factions, views, policies, programs, etc. etc. historically.

Not the same way I do. You have a tight view of historical logic, one that can lead to rational deductions. I just don’t think that way, like at all. The only thing in common there is the word “history,” which then in each of our cases means something completely different. When I say “history” I do not mean the same thing you do. For me history is not something that produces a logic and a pattern that can support rational deductions about what will work in the future that way.

And…this isn’t me “arguing.” Just talking about how I see things. There’s really nothing there to take umbrage at. Or if it were an argument there would never be a “winner.” Just 2 people comparing how differently they see things.

I don’t see history that way, either. Again, you misread me. I think you always have. I don’t believe in “historical inevitability/necessity” and I’ve mentioned that several times.

Ironically, I argue against the folks who say, “See, Socialism was tried in the USSR, and look what happend!! It must always fail, wherever it’s tried.” Ironically, they’re the real believers in historical necessity. I, on the other hand, think that context is everything, and that an attempt at actual socialisms in, say, America right now, couldn’t possibly result in the same kind of society as Russia after 1917. And that’s even if I accept their premise that Russia DID try socialisms back then, and I don’t. Not in any way, shape or form.

Contrary to your misunderstanding of my views, I see historical changes as contingent — I’ve read my Rorty too — and I think that’s just common sense. Different environment, different inputs, different human beings, different concatenation of events, are always going to lead to different results.

Seriously, I have no idea where you got the impression that I have this strict view of historical necessity. I’ve demonstrated that I don’t for years and years, so the only thing that makes sense to me is that you’ve been skimming what I’ve read — including follow ups like this.

Not that you owe me your undivided attention here, ever. Not saying that. But I wish you’d accept my word for my own vision of things, and it strikes me you just dismiss that.

Beyond all of that, I’d be interested in going back to the original discussion. Why do you think “socialisms” have been tried or even exist today? I still think we’re not seeing socialisms in the same way at all.

More irony: I think our view of history is similar.

WV,

I really like your posts when you talk about your own experiences. I wish you’d do more of them. Your video links are cool, too. But I can find most (but not all) of that stuff anywhere.

There’s only one WV, though. One Nittany, _X_, PA Ram, ZN, TSRF, Zooey, Jack, Dak, Mac, etc. etc.

Along the lines of the above post. I’d highly recommend this movie, The Headless Woman. It shows the trap of the poor like few other films I’ve ever seen, and it does it without preaching. It doesn’t have to.

Personally, I think being more concerned about rituals and symbols than people is deeply alarming. These players have received death threats for daring to speak out about systemic racism and police brutality.

The other side can’t point to anything of importance, IMO. Nothing. At least not relative to the oppression of human beings.

And you can’t “disrespect” a piece of cloth, an inanimate object, an abstract symbol of another abstraction (nations). It’s logically impossible. You can “disrespect” human beings, but not things.

I honestly can’t see how or why anyone could let an emotional attachment to a thing override a sense of compassion and empathy toward fellow humans. It makes no sense to me whatsoever.

Symbols versus humans. What really matters?

Beyond all of that, none of the players are talking about the anthem itself, and that puzzles me too. I think they have a legit gripe about it being played at all, especially because of its third stanza, championing slavery, and its author, Francis Scott Key, being a slave-owner and someone who later defended slave-holders, in court, seeking to recapture escaped, former slaves.

It’s time we jettison all the political, pregame pomp and ceremony and just play the game.

zn wrote:

Billy_T wrote:

As for “democratic socialism.” Just my take, but I don’t think that term really fits anywhere, either. Primarily because democratic socialists also are anticapitalists, and want social ownership of the means of production, instead of private ownership.

See we’re fighting over semantics. That will eternally bore me.

If I say the Nordic democratic socialist model works fine, 2 things happen.

I get chided by right-wingers.

I get chided by left purists. That’s an emphasis on “purist” there since I am left.

Well actually 3 things happen. Some people agree with me.

Calling the Nordic model democratic socialism is fine with me, as is the Nordic model itself.

I dont’ engage much beyond that because I found out a long time ago that arguing about these things never accomplishes anything of value.

Fair enough?

I’m fine with you not wanting to talk about terms. But it puzzles me a bit, because you brought up the term, “democratic socialism” in response to my earlier comment. Didn’t you do so as a way of saying I was incorrect in claiming there have never been any “socialisms” in place, on the national level?

Also, I think these conversations are more productive when we don’t add labels like “purist.” If you think I’m wrong about the terms, please explain why. There’s just no need for the “purist” shot. I take that — whenever I hear it — as a shortcut attempt to dismiss a point of view. The accusation of “purist” and various scoldings like “don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good” are the frequent go to silencers used by centrist Dems, when it comes to leftist critiques leveled against their platforms, as I’m sure you know. I imagine you’ve been on the receiving end of that for a long, long time, coming from folks to your right.

Anyway . . . personally, I think political terms are really important. If two “sides” are using them in completely different ways, it’s nearly impossible to forge any understanding at all. And when it comes to “socialisms” this is rampant, in my experience. I’m a thousand and one times opposed to the state capitalist forms of the USSR, China, NK, to their dictatorships, to their authoritarianism, etc. etc. . . . which is why I advocate for actual socialisms. But most Americans hear “socialist” and immediately and erroneously jump to “You’re a Stalinist!!”

No. The vast, vast majority of socialist theory (for well over two centuries) is and was in direct opposition to everything he stood for, and socialist theory(s) calls for the opposite of what he did.

How can we have even slightly fruitful discussions if we mean totally different things by these terms? Boiled down, most right of center Americans view advocates of “socialisms” as supporters of the worst kind of tyranny and oppression, while we socialists view it as among the very best antidotes to tyranny and oppression. We see it as a solution to those problems, while they see it as the cause.

If we could at least agree about political terms . . . .

Anyway, hope all is well, ZN.

• This reply was modified 7 years, 1 month ago by Billy_T.

definition excerpt of democratic socialism from wiki.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democratic_socialism#Definition

Democratic socialism is defined as having a socialist economy in which the means of production are socially and collectively owned or controlled alongside a politically democratic system of government.[6]

Some tendencies of democratic socialism advocate for revolution in order to transition to socialism, distinguishing it from some forms of social democracy.[9] For example, Peter Hain classifies democratic socialism, along with libertarian socialism, as a form of anti-authoritarian “socialism from below” (using the term popularised by Hal Draper), in contrast to Stalinism, a variant of authoritarian state socialism. For Hain, this democratic/authoritarian divide is more important than the revolutionary/reformist divide.[10] In this type of democratic socialism, it is the active participation of the population as a whole, and workers in particular, in the management of economy that characterises democratic socialism, while nationalisation and economic planning (whether controlled by an elected government or not) are characteristic of state socialism. A similar, but more complex, argument is made by Nicos Poulantzas.[11] Draper himself uses the term “revolutionary-democratic socialism” as a type of socialism from below in his The Two Souls of Socialism. He writes: “the leading spokesman in the Second International of a revolutionary-democratic Socialism-from-Below [was] Rosa Luxemburg, who so emphatically put her faith and hope in the spontaneous struggle of a free working class that the myth-makers invented for her a ‘theory of spontaneity'”.[8] Similarly, about Eugene Debs, he writes: “‘Debsian socialism’ evoked a tremendous response from the heart of the people, but Debs had no successor as a tribune of revolutionary-democratic socialism.”[12]

In contrast, other tendencies of democratic socialism advocate for eventual socialism that follow a gradual, reformist or evolutionary path to socialism, rather than a revolutionary one.[13] Often, this tendency is invoked in an attempt to distinguish democratic socialism from Marxist–Leninist socialism, as in Donald Busky’s Democratic Socialism: A Global Survey,[14] Jim Tomlinson’s Democratic Socialism and Economic Policy: The Attlee Years, 1945-1951, Norman Thomas Democratic Socialism: a new appraisal or Roy Hattersley’s Choose Freedom: The Future of Democratic Socialism. A variant of this set of definitions is Joseph Schumpeter’s argument, set out in Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy (1941), that liberal democracies were evolving from “liberal capitalism” into democratic socialism, with the growth of workers’ self-management, industrial democracy and regulatory institutions.[15]

The Democratic Socialists of America’s purpose is defined as “We are socialists because we reject an economic order based on private profit, alienated labor, gross inequalities of wealth and power, discrimination based on race and sex, and brutality and violence in defense of the status quo. We are socialists because we share a vision of a humane social order based on popular control of resources and production, economic planning, equitable distribution, feminism, racial equality and non-oppressive relationships. We are socialists because we are developing a concrete strategy for achieving that vision, for building a majority movement that will make democratic socialism a reality in America. We believe that such a strategy must acknowledge the class structure of American society and that this class structure means that there is a basic conflict of interest between those sectors with enormous economic power and the vast majority of the population.” [16]

The term is sometimes used to refer to policies that are compatible with and exist within capitalism, as opposed to an ideology that aims to transcend or replace capitalism. Though this is not always the case. For example, Robert M. Page, a Reader in Democratic Socialism and Social Policy at the University of Birmingham, writes about “transformative democratic socialism” to refer to the politics of the Clement Attlee government (a strong welfare state, fiscal redistribution, some government ownership) and “revisionist democratic socialism,” as developed by Anthony Crosland and Harold Wilson:

X,

Thanks for telling part of your story. I’ve seen my own times of poverty, and experienced actual homelessness when I went back to get another degree.

Again, just speaking for me, I don’t want to try to change your mind about your own beliefs. Most of the time, in these debates, I’m really fleshing out my own view of things, kind of on the fly, so to speak. If others find something that interests them, that’s cool, too. Even better, if they spark something that expands my own intellectual journey into places I haven’t thought of going. Actually, that’s a really great thing. But I also realize that that last part seldom if ever happens when people feel under attack. If that’s how you feel here, then I fully “get” that you want out.

That said, another aspect that’s important to me, and I think it’s likely a residual effect from having teachers as parents . . . I just have this (bad) habit of wanting to “correct the record.” So when someone says that socialism has always failed, I have to say, no. It hasn’t. Cuz it’s never been tried. And that’s factually the case. No modern nation has ever, not once, not ever, implemented socialist theory. No truly socialist nation has ever existed on this planet, because that would mean the entire economy was democratized, that the people, not “the state,” literally owned the means of production, and that society was working toward an elimination of all class divisions.

The next step from there — and I don’t see any of these steps as historically inevitable, btw — the next step is doing away with the state apparatus itself, because we’re ready to roll without any training wheels. We’re ready to truly self-govern, and there’s no need for the state any longer. At this point, we have theoretical communism in place, with no ruling class, and no other classes, period. Pure D democracy and self-rule, and an egalitarian society to boot.

The issue of same exact pay even when people work at different speeds, skill levels, effort levels? I find that concern interesting, but I think it’s a point of grave misunderstanding, politically. IMO, the issue isn’t trying to keep compensation exactly the same. The issue is preventing it from being wildly out of whack, relative to the actual differences between human beings. Capitalism can’t. It’s not built that way. It’s built to invent and then wildly exaggerate our differences, and via zero sum logic, concentrate the vast majority of wealth and power in the hands of the few.

There are vastly better ways to organize economies and societies. We really don’t have to have a top and a bottom so grotesquely separate that it’s as if we’re dealing with different species, humans and crustaceans, say. There really just isn’t any way to logically, rationally or morally justify the divisions between the Haves and the Have nots on the merits. The gap is too great.

Hope all is well, X.

Another key thing to remember: Jefferson, Madison, Franklin and Adams, among other “founders,” were deists, philosophically. They believed in Newton’s god, the watchmaker god, not a god who ever interfered in human lives. A god who set everything in motion and then went away. They didn’t believe in the Trinity, or the divinity of Jesus, and some of them even mocked the idea, like Adams the Unitarian deist.

Jefferson rewrote the gospels, removing all aspects of the supernatural and the miraculous. He saw Jesus as human only, not a god or God, and admired him greatly.

This saying by him rings so true to me, whenever people push for the non-existent Christian origin stories:

Notes on Virginia (1782)
“The legitimate powers of government extend to such acts only as are injurious to others. But it does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods or no God. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg.”

— X — wrote:

Billy_T wrote:

Well, actually, this nation wasn’t founded on “Christian principles” in the slightest.

That’s a fact, is it?
When was that decided?

In 1982 Newsweek magazine published an article entitled, “How the Bible Made America.” It concluded, “historians are discovering that the Bible, perhaps even more than the Constitution, is our founding document.” 55 founding fathers who worked on the constitution were members of orthodox Christian churches and many were even evangelical Christian. And out of the 56 signers of the Declaration of Independence 24 of them were seminary graduates.

John Jay, a Founding Father, and the first Chief Justice of the United States (1789–95) said, “The Bible is the best of all books, for it is the word of God and teaches us the way to be happy in this world and in the next.
Continue therefore to read it and to regulate your life by its precepts.”

You probably have no inclination to, but read “The Myth of American Individualism: The Protestant Origins of American Political Thought.”

And finally, there is no such phrase as ‘separation of church and state’ in the Constitution, because the Founding Fathers never intended for church and state to be completely separate. They saw religion as indispensable to the moral foundation of the nation they were creating. And I firmly believe that instruction in peaceful religion is probably the only way for people to peaceably coexist and repair the rapidly deteriorating moral fiber of this Country. Attacking it because “Religion bad” is what’s causing much of the discord, IMO.

I googled for that Newsweek article, X, and I discovered something kinda weird. Could only find it mentioned on religious-right sites, and they didn’t even mention the authors of the article, or go beyond small snippets. Who were the authors, and what are their credentials? And why choose one single article from 35 years ago to make their case?

As PA mentioned, and I knew, Jefferson was quite specific about the wall between church and state, putting that down in writings prior to the revolution. Madison was even stronger on the issue than the already strict vision of Jefferson, and he was the primary author of our founding docs.

I’ve read several biographies of Washington, Jefferson, Madison, Franklin and Adams, and more than a half dozen studies of the revolutionary period. It’s one of my “things.” Authors such as David McCullough, Joseph Epstein, John Ferling, Gordon S. Wood, Ron Chernow, William Lee Miller and Stacy Schiff. In none of these works — and all the above authors are considered “mainstream” historians, not leftists — is Christianity considered a significant influence on the structure and construction of our nation.

And why would it be? The Constitution never mentions god, God, Jesus or Christianity, and it expressly bars religious tests. The First Amendment says, flat out, we can’t establish a religion. If we were “founded as a Christian nation,” that would be in the Constitution. It would be explicit and implicit. Quite the opposite case happened.

If you’re interested in a good starting point for further debate, I’d recommend critics of David Barton, who is basically the poster boy for pushing the myth of our Christian founding. To prevent this one from getting too long, I’ll list some links in the next post.