A lot of anti-rights advocates have this cute little “oh woe is me” act they put on when people start shutting down their ideas as being flagrantly oppressive, blatantly bigoted, and intentionally designed to control and limit basic human rights. They start saying non sequiteurs like “why would anyone oppose (common sense|reasonable|rational) restrictions?” or “do you really want (criminals|terrorists|nutcases|children) to be able to get guns” or other such nonsense.
In reality, though, they are intentionally misrepresenting words in the first example, and maliciously wielding a “false dichotomy” logical fallacy in the latter… and, all the while, they are likely putting up a sickly-sweet, wounded-martyr, sniveling “I am just doing this for everyone’s good” front. Combining historically-racist, speciously-described, undeniably-controlling legislation with a sanctimonious-but-scurrilous, martyr-syndrome-laden attitude is just about the perfect way to have and present a losing argument, but that certainly does not stop them from trying…
And speaking of trying, one of the favorite not-really-common-sense angles anti-rights advocates like to take is that anyone who is on the “No Fly List” should be barred from purchasing or owning firearms. After all, those people on that list are obviously threats to the country, and “allowing” them to purchase firearms is just a recipie for disaster, right?
My son Joshua e-mailed me this morning.
I wonder if this is why I am on the “No Fly List”
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/31/us/31militia.html
Here’s the part of the article he was talking about:
A ninth member of a Michigan-based militia accused of plotting to kill law enforcement officials was arraigned Tuesday. The accused, Joshua M. Stone, who was arrested Monday evening after the other members appeared in the Federal District Court here, was ordered held without bond until a hearing Wednesday. [emphasis added]
He was told he was on the No Fly List last summer when he went to Florida with his family.
So basically, according to the Brady Campaign and some members of congress, my son, an aspiring teacher and upstanding citizen with a degree in Music Education (he’s currently substitute teaching in Virginia Beach), should, with no due process or possibility for appeal, be denied basic fundamental rights of citizenship (gun ownership) because he has a name similar to a whack-job in Michigan who aspires to blow up cops with pipe bombs.
Ayup. Just because he shares a name with someone on the “No Fly List”, various anti-rights advocates around the country firmly and immutably believe SailorCurt’s son should be barred from exercising his naturally-granted, Constitutionally-protected rights. And that makes sense… how, exactly? What crimes has Joshua committed? What crimes has he ben convicted of? What trials has he been afforded? What due process has been pointed his way?
None. And yet certain halfwitted morons would use his name (but not necessarily him) being on a list as a reason to abridge his human rights.
Oh, and that list? It is secret, you have no way of knowing if your name (but not necessarily you) is on the list until you have some “minor difficulties” getting on a flight one day, and removing your name is effectively impossible… at least for us not-politically-connected proles.
So what are the odds of someone with an identical (or nearly similar – the “List” does not require exactness) name as yours doing something that receives sufficient federal attention that the someone in question ends up on the “No Fly List”? According to whatever databases are used to generate the information, there are about 400 folks with Joshua’s name in the States. Equivalently, despite having fairly common first and last names, there are about 400 folks with my name in the States, and if you include a fairly common permutation of my name, that number increases by a factor of 10.
I wonder how long it will take before I encounter some problems boarding a plane. For that matter, I wonder how long it will take for anti-rights advocates to develop a streak of honesty and admit that we are opposing them as often as we can, in as many ways as we can, because “ideas” like the one above are simple and absolutely ludicrous, and about as far from “common sense” as you can get and still be on the same planet.
Me, I am betting on the former happening before the latter.
Linoge,
You Piker — Only 400?
My name generates over 3,100 matches.
The most common version/permutation of my name generates nearly 43,000 matches.
Maybe we should run with the idea though.
If we are going to deprive people of their 2nd Amendment Rights, let’s revoke their right to free speech — Now how do we go about getting people named Hamm, Sugarmann, Brady, Helmke and others on that No-Fly list?
[...] if the world was an honest placethe pistolero on mumblemurgleLinoge on words have meaningBob S. on brady’s listLinoge on quote of the dayLinoge on anecdotes and all thatLinoge on go baby goLinoge on [...]
Well, with a first name of Bob (or one of its various root originations), I would venture to say that you already have something of a head start on me
.
But, anywise, do you not know? The rights protected by the Second Amendment are somehow different and separate from the rights protected by all of the other Amendments, so no comparisons, parallels, or equivalents can be drawn… As such, it makes sense to unilaterally and arbitrarily abridge only a person’s Second-Amendment-protected rights on the basis of an unchecked, unverified, and uncontrolled name on a list.
Or something.
Unfortunately, the halfwits you name probably have enough political pull to get any versions of their names added “corrected”.