[lit-ideas] Re: Mark Steyn on Gun Control
- From: "Lawrence Helm"<lawrencehelm@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Mon, 23 Apr 2007 21:38:53 +0000
Cho was insane, but one doesn't need to be insane to discover Obama being
illogical.
Note that Obama places resisting violence on the same level as violence. What
does that mean? Is the violence a policeman uses to apprehend a criminal
wrong? Is the violence a mother uses to fend off a wild animal attacking her
baby wrong? And if someone in that fatal "gun free zone" of Virginian Tech had
exerted violence and stopped Cho, would that have been wrong? He is engaging
in a little pious nonsense, albeit quoting Bobby Kennedy to do so. By the way,
Bobby Kennedy never balked at violence, as biographers have informed us.
2) Note that he says "we make it easy for men of all shades of sanity to
acquire whatever weapons and ammunition they desire. As has been explained,
Federal Laws are in place that would have prevented Cho from acquiring a weapon
-- had the law been complied with. A rule was in place declaring Virginia Tech
a "Gun Free Zone." It is illogical to use Cho as a springboard for new
anti-gun legislation when existing legislation would have prevented Cho from
getting the guns he purchased had it been complied with.
3) Obama says, "we do accept violence, in various forms, all the time in our
society. We glorify it, we encourage it, we ignore it, and it is heartbreaking
and it has to stop." What does this mean? He hasn't defined what sort of
violence he is talking about. There are certain sorts of violence which are
commendable. He doesn't distinguish between using violence to resist an
attacker and the violence of the attacker. And who is this "we" that
glorifies, encourages, ignores (to glorify and encourage while at the same time
ignoring violence seems rather difficult) violence, and what sort of violence
is being encouraged, glorified and ignored?
4) When we watch movies, do "we" still root for the good guy to be victorious
over the bad guy, even if he has to use violence to do it? I hope so. But
apparently Obama disapproves. He apparently doesn't like the idea of resisting
the bad guy. His solution for making the bad guy give up his violence? He
says,"it is heartbreaking and it has to stop." Gosh, Obama. I don't think
that's going to work.
5) And then Obama gets to verbal violence. I have commented several times
right here on Lit-Ideas that some of the most verbally violent people I've ever
encountered are Leftist-Pacifists. I have pointed out the inconsistency of
someone claiming to believe in pacifism while at the same time engaging in
verbal violence against the people disagreeing with him. So I was interested
in seeing Obama object to verbal violence. He is being consistent so far. I
haven't heard him engaging in verbal violence. I have no problem with the
consistency of his pacifistic stance as presented in this speech thus far. What
I do have a problem with is his building his anti-violence pacifistic polemic
upon the foundation of Cho -- a nutcase. "We" does not include Cho. He is an
exception to "We." He is a nutcase. Laws prevent his having guns. He should
have been locked up. Making laws against "We" to prevent "Cho" is illogical.
It would be logical to make laws against Cho to prevent Cho. Fortunately, such
laws already exist.
6) Also, piously declaring "it has to stop" is an impossibility. How do you
get madness to stop? How do you get psychoses to stop? He doesn't propose
more money for mental health studies. Why not? Wouldn't that make, or at
least try to make "it stop"?
7) And then he includes some more of his party platform under the rubric
'violence': The violence of Capitalism that starts & stops & moves about
businesses violently disrupts lives. Also, it violently doesn't have a high
enough minimum wage. Good grief!
8) Later on he suggests that it is okay to use violence -- sort of. He says
"we base our decision in terms of sending our young men and women to war not on
the necessity of defending ourselves . . ." Well, he'd batter say it is okay
to defend ourselves violently or he'll never be elected president. If he were
to declare that he opposes the violent defense of our nation, he would give his
opponent, whoever he or she might be, the most lopsided win in a presidential
election ever. However, his pacifism does become inconsistent at this point.
8) The rest of his speech drifts even further from the title as he covers more
of his campaign issues. I don't have a problem with his doing that -- only
with his building all of his assertions upon the foundation provided him by a
nutcase.
Lawrence
------------Original Message------------
From: "Judith Evans" <judithevans1@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Date: Mon, Apr-23-2007 9:42 AM
Subject: [lit-ideas] Re: Mark Steyn on Gun Control
Here's the text (for people who have problems with videos). I
can't see how anyone sane
could disagree with it.
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2007/04/barack_obama_on_virginia_tech.html
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