http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/social_issues/jan-june13/keene_01-15.html
Here one point of view. We all agree that we cannot fully limit number criminals and mentally ill who will have at some point have access to guns. In fact, well meaning citizens may be pushed to do criminal activity and they may become mentally ill, due to old age for example (Alzheimer, dementia, etc.). Thus, full prevention is impossible.
The idea of NRA is to put guards in schools, other public places, and basically give more guns to "good people". But because there will always be subset of future criminals and mentally ill in the pool of "good people", by increasing ownership we increase number of people who can potentially be dangerous with guns. This in turn means that we need more people having guns to protect against increased future threats. That will again increases the pool and increases the chances of the future criminals and/or mentally ill to have access to guns, and so on and so forth. In the end everybody should really own the gun and police force should become irrelevant, except for serving as guards for hire.
When everybody has a gun and police force is irrelevant, there is no force that can protect property rights for individuals. Thus, either we militarize society to make sure there is at least one force that is stronger than any individual, or we have to accept lawlessness in the form of "law of the gun" - who has better weapon or successfully shots first is right. Neither option is desirable. The former defeats the purpose of having guns in the first place, and second brings less security.
Finally, because we can never catch up by having more guns in the hands of "good people" to protect us against "bad people" with guns, inevitably we become less safe (somewhat counter-intuitively), and the shootings should become more common and violent. The idea here is that by having more guns we undermine the institutions which protect us, thus in instead of being more safe, we compromise our security.
There is another interesting point to be made. NRA says that criminals and mentally ill are as dangerous with guns. However, criminals will use guns with intent and they are safer for people in a sense that criminals will allow for negotiations in exchange for extraction of goods and services. On the other hand, mentally ill use guns not as threat but as a means to kill people, the one and only goal of their activity. Thus, if no citizen would have gun then surely we will all be vulnerable to gun-owning criminals, but we would be safer against being attacked by mentally ill because they will have less access to guns.
And as for statistics, violence and violence are not equal to each other so it is not correct to say that less guns did not decrease crime. We have to specify which crime, number of gun-related victims, and especially how often guns were used in criminal activity.
http://heathenrepublican.blogspot.com/2013/01/guns-conservative-principles-and-three.html?showComment=1359526484051#c3504739903062696948
Tuesday, January 29, 2013
Wednesday, January 2, 2013
Grover Nodquist and Bush tax cuts
http://piersmorgan.blogs.cnn.com/2013/01/02/grover-norquist-this-is-obamas-pound-of-flesh-because-he-won-the-presidential-election/
While Blitzer suggested that Republicans supporting the deal would essentially be backing a tax increase, Norquist disagreed and clarified:
"They're not voting for a tax increase, they're voting to save tax cuts for as many people as they can over Obama's objections."
Okay, so let's clarify. The bill increases taxes for some but preserves old taxes for the rest. Grover says that Republicans vote only for one part, which is to preserve old taxes, but not vote to tax increase. But hey, it is the same bill! Republicans did not vote for parts of the bill, but for the WHOLE bill!
By that definition Republicans will never vote for ANY tax increase. Say, there is a bill that both increases taxes and changes the date of the Daylight Saving Time. Then Grover can always say that Republications only voted for the Daylight Savings Time, but not tax increase. This is classic BS.
By the way, I think his argument would be true if the bill that is voted would ONLY lower taxes on the middle class which previously increased (when Fiscal Cliff really happened). But that is not what happened. The bill was clearly related to expiring Bush taxes and made some permanent and some .
Besides, why majority of Republicans in the House voted against it by claiming it is tax increase? Are they confused?
Finally, here is Grover Nordquist himself clarifying that actually what happened was a vote for tax increase. So he reversed his position for the convenience of the situation.
=============================
All but a handful of congressional Republicans have signed — and strictly adhered to — Grover Norquist’s pledge to “oppose any and all efforts” to raise taxes or revenues. But the White House’s insistence that President Obama will veto attempts to extend all of the Bush tax cuts creates a new incentive for Republicans to cut a deal with Democrats after the election. For that reason, Norquist is insisting on an interpretation of his pledge in which failing to prevent a tax increase — or even voting to partially cut a lapsed rate — would constitute a violation.
“I think the American people would look at anything that raised taxes from where they are today to be a tax increase,” Norquist told TPM Monday. “Everybody knows this has been coming.”
===============
Other:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/07/21/grover-norquist-bush-tax-cuts-tax-hike_n_905624.html
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/01/02/1175852/-Grover-insists-Democrats-are-the-party-of-low-taxes
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-politics/wp/2013/01/01/grover-norquist-vote-for-deal-is-vote-to-cut-taxes/
- so are the heroes, those who voted for or against the bill?
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)