It has come to my attention that some of the usual useful idiots amongst the anti-rights community are trying to renew their impassioned, and all-too-specious, calls for representatives amongst the pro-rights community to meet them at a “middle ground”. This line of self-serving rhetoric, specifically and intentionally crafted to make the bigots appear more “reasonable”, has always amused me for one simple, little reason:
We are already at the “middle ground”.
I want to exercise my Constitutionally-protected rights to self-defense, engaging in commerce, and associating with those I choose by strolling into the WalMart down the road from me and walking out with a fully-automatic, suppressed, newly-manufactured Glock 18 that I can legally carry anywhere in this great nation of ours, and the only paperwork I want to exchange with the salesperson is cash on the barrelhead. Unfortunately, I cannot do this, due to a collection of laws that continue to infringe – in the original definition of that word – on my individual rights.
On the flip side, the anti-rights community does not want me to ever own automatic weapons or suppressors, they do not want me to be able to carry any kind of firearm anywhere, they would prefer it if my firearms were kept locked up at the local range, they would prevent me from owning certain types of firearms based off purely aesthetic features, they want to impose arbitrary and nonsensical capacity limits on firearms and magazines, and they want all firearms (and possibly even ammunition) registered, tracked, and accounted for in every single transaction. Fortunately, they cannot do those kinds of things in most states, thanks to laws, regulations, legislation, and court cases that continue to support and defend my individual rights.
As you can undoubtedly see, with those two extremes articulated we are, indeed, already at the “middle ground”.
The problem is that the anti-rights nuts are attempting to misrepresent our current positions as the starting positions for any kinds of negotiations or compromises, and, as Bob S.’ recent post indicates, that is simply not true. We pro-rights activists have been “compromising” for over 70 years now, and what have we received for our troubles, other than more restrictions, more regulations, more persecution, and more infringements? Not a damned thing. Sure, we have spread “shall issue” across the land, but that never should have even been an issue – “constitutional carry” was the national standard, and if it were not for meddling hoplophobes and politicians, we never would have had to fight that battle.
If anti-rights nuts honestly wanted to reach some sort of accord, their piteously mewling posts whining about “middle grounds” would start off with a list of gun control legislation they are willing to give up in exchange for other restrictions or regulations – that is only common sense. Unfortunately, however, this is not the case. In fact, the “give” portion of “give and take” never comes up for the anti-rights nuts. That is not compromise – that is extortion and should be treated accordingly.
[mount fake high-horse]
Linoge, you are so full it. You have no idea where the middle ground is. If you would have given the issue even a small amount of thought you would realize where we are is far, far from “the middle”.
Here is the middle.
You are a traitor to the cause.
[dismount fake high-horse]
I agree with Joe. It will take a lot to back up to “middle ground”. However, your point is well made. And with the one exception, I agree with you.
The tactic is often used by liberals and diplomats (it’s like haggling with people of Chinese or Indian descent)….You give, they take and then begin to negotiate from that point, until you give in again, at which time that point is where they begin to negotiate from.
If you are foolish enough to play the game, they are smart enough to take advantage of you.
in the past, the gun rights folks have fallen for this trap.
Thus, even you have come to think that where we are now is “middle ground”.
No matter where your stance is, it will be percieved (and spun as) unreasonable, and a point from which compromise must be made.
@Joe Huffman – So, what caliber for high horses?
@Mr. B – I think the problem, such as it is, stems from a difference in definitions. I see the “middle ground” as something of a range between the two extremes, while you (and others) may see it as more of a point… For me, I envision it as the “no-man’s land” between two sets of trenches, and no matter where you are on it, you are still “over the top” and in the middle.
To be certain, we are definitely more towards one side of that crater-pocked landscape than the other, but we are still somewhere in the middle.
Additionally, nowhere did you see me even imply that the “middle ground” was a good place to be – in fact, any student of World War I will tell you just how sucky the “no-man’s land” really was. But the anti-rights nuts are going to have a very hard time telling people that they are just looking for a “middle ground”, when we are quite obviously already between the two camps.
I don’t really see a problem with being in the middle ground. My point is that we are a LONG way from the middle ground. The anti-rights people (and to a large extent our own people) don’t realize where the middle ground really is. The middle ground is no gun laws at all.
It’s like compromising with a potential rapist. The rapist wants to accomplish the act with no interference. The potential victim wants the attacker in jail (or perhaps dead). A reasonable compromise is the potential rapist doesn’t lay a finger on the proposed victim and the victim doesn’t put a bullet in the rapist’s brain for thinking “bad thoughts”.
For a compromise to be anything close to fair we need to be very close to that true middle ground on the gun rights issue. And to get the point across we need to keep our legislators and our opponents informed on where we see the middle ground being.
And that is the definition problem – “middle ground” is, by definition, between two extremes (where “extremes” is used in the literal sense, not the political). There is absolutely nothing past “no gun laws at all”, and there is nothing past “a complete and utter ban of all privately owned firearms everywhere”, so those are, by definition, the extremes of the situation.
An extreme cannot be the middle ground.
That said, neither does an extreme necessarily have to be a bad thing – as you say, the “extreme” of a woman remaining unraped is hardly something to be averse to.
I think the problem is less that I have been duped into thinking that we are at the middle ground now, and more that we have all been duped into equating “extreme” with “bad”, at least to some extent. Regardless, we are all pointed in the same direction – in that we need to move more towards the pro-right of whatever spectrum we use, and ride society and our politicians until that happens – so minor quibbles over vocabulary are just that
.
I’m all for “extreme” liberty. To hell with “middle ground”
we should no more expect to compromise with such people than blacks with the KKK or the Nazis with the Jews.
You can’t compromise with someone who wants to see everything you most value wiped out (at times that means up to & including your life)
Err that should be “Jews with the Nazis”
Linoge,
You need to read that first link I posted. No guns laws at all is NOT the extreme. It is precisely in the middle.
@Mike W. – And that is the other side of the coin – what motivation do we, people who are interested in freedom, have for negotiating? Not only have things been taken from us by force without any recompense for the past 70+ years, but every further step will only greater limit those freedoms we hold dear. Hell with that.
@Joe Huffman – On the scale of “firearm ownership”, perhaps. On the scale of “authoritarianism/totalitarianism”, which is the scale I am significantly more interested it, it is not.
[...] we’re not at the middle ground. We’re a little too far toward the anti-gun side for my taste. Others agree, hence all the [...]
“The person who compromises on their existing ‘Right’ has lost everything, while his opponent has lost nothing.”
True “compromise” requires BOTH parties to give some ground in order to achieve a goal. Exactly WHAT does the anti-gun/anti-liberty crowd ‘give’ in this process other than moving their NEXT compromise effort to a starting point closer to their ultimate goal?!?
Linoge, it looks like you and Joe are going to continue to disagree. Not because you’re not thinking in essentially the same direction, but because you’re using different scales to determine what the “middle ground” actually is. You both make good points, though. I tend to agree with your starting point, for the same reason you give – the personal liberty aspects.
I do, however, have to disagree with you on one key point. You said:
What you described there is not their starting position, it is THEIR “middle ground”, and it is, in fact, the absolute farthest they are willing to compromise. Their starting point is a total, absolute gun ban, with only the military and special police units (following the British model) having any access at all to any sort of firearms, period. In fact, I expect that even police and military access to guns is a compromise on their part, and only because even they can’t figure out a way to avoid it being necessary.
They will also never truly compromise, even if we concede all the way to their “middle”. They will continue to push for a total ban, even if they have won all the concessions you listed. That is why it will never be a compromise – they will only ever agree to compromise as another step toward their extreme.
We are, as you say, somewhere in that “middle ground” between our starting position (no gun laws at all) and their starting position (total gun ban). We are also, as others point out, far, far from the middle point, and far, far too close to their side. Fortunately, we’re working our way back, slowly but surely.
I find I simply must add my 2 cents worth. I agree 100% with Joe Huffman. Middle ground is NO gun laws at all. The 2nd Amendment is clear when it says “the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed”. Beyond that there should be NO other laws pertaining to firearms.
We are way too far from middle ground today.
I agree with Joe. And I’ve said so on various message boards for years now.
deadcenter56 - That is pretty much the exact point of this post… Through the anti-rights nuts beating us into submission by way of society for the past 70 years, we have been giving up point after point, and have received absolutely nothing ourselves. As such, their continued cries for a “middle ground” fall flat when they have forcibly abused us into that middle ground, and continue to want more, more, more, moremoremore. Sorry, boys and girls, but we have had about enough of that.
Jake - My decision to use those delineators to describe the anti-rights position was a three-fold self-serving move on my part.
First, it is a literary construct to provide a point-counter-point to my previous paragraph, and establish continuity.
Second, it is using their own tactics against them – they want to think of our current position as our starting position, well how about theirs?
Third, we can relatively easily point out examples of anti-rights nuts supporting all of the positions I described, while it is relatively difficult to cite hoplophobes (at least ones in anywhere near “large” positions) calling for complete bans – oh, sure, if you put together enough individual statements on their own, that is obviously their endgame, but they have yet to come out and actually say so yet. Surely not fooling anyone yet.
Susan -
I am not disagreeing, but that statement does not substantiate your point that the Second Amendment is the “middle ground”. As stated before, on the scale of “liberty-to-totalitarianism”, the Second Amendment exists as one extreme – a total absence of laws pertaining to a certain topic – and an extreme can never be a middle ground (unless, of course, we are talking about a scale consisting of one and only one point).
pax - That is great, except I do not care exclusively about firearms. I care about liberty/freedom/individual self-governance/what-have-you in its entirety (while firearms are a large subset of the same, they are not the only), and in those terms, mandating that all people everywhere own firearms is just as totalitarian as mandating no firearms for anyone anywhere, which continues to leave the Second Amendment at one extreme of that particular equation.
Linoge~
You are right: both of the “extreme” positions are unconstitutional. That’s what makes them extreme.
Did you ever go into a hostile business negotiation and not stake out a little territory at the beginning that you fully intended to throw away later?
(Although I don’t hold this view, it’s also quite possible a convincing argument could be made that the position of “every citizen has to own a gun” isn’t as unconstitutional as your gut thinks it is when the subject first comes up. A well regulated militia is armed, after all.)
*sigh*
Ok, I think we are continuing to talk past one another… So I made a cute little graphic:
Consider the left-most endpoint to be the anti-rights nut’s wet dream (a total ban on firearms, though, obviously, this does not mean no one will own firearms), the low point to be the Second Amendment, and the right-most endpoint to be the government-mandated “everyone owns firearms on penalty of death”.
You and Joe appear to be most concerned with the X-axis, and thus maximizing the rate of firearm ownership amongst Americans – as such, the Second Amendment becomes the middle ground for you.
On the other hand, as I said, I am most concerned with minimizing the totalitarianism/authoritarianism of a society (i.e. the Y axis) – as such, the Second Amendment becomes one extreme, and both your and the anti-rights nuts’ positions become the other extreme.
My objection to your position is not the prima facie unconstituitonality of it, but rather that, from my perspective, it is just as bad as the anti-rights nuts’.
In the end, we are all pointed in the same direction, though, so there is that.
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