The author of yesterday’s quote of the day kept on tweeting his idiocy for most of the day, capping off a long string of personal attacks and ad hominems with the accusation that I am an "angry" person and have "anger issues". I cannot see as how that is particularly relevant to the discussion of "gun control"’s many failings and failures, but it got me to thinking…
If the government were to forcibly abridge your right to free expression, or threaten to do so, because of something someone else said or wrote, would you be angry?
If the government were to forcibly infringe upon your right to worship whatever god you observe in whatever fashion you desire, or threaten to do so, because of something someone else did in the name of their god, would you be angry?
If the government were to forcibly invade your home and confiscate your belongings, or threaten to do so, simply because someone else might have owned something illegal, would you be angry?
If the government were to forcibly torture you in order to extract a confession, or threaten to do so, simply because someone else refused to admit to a crime they committed, would you be angry?
If the government were to forcibly execute summary judgment and punishment upon you, or threaten to do so, simply because someone else escaped justice through a fair trial, would you be angry?
I am willing to wager that, for most people, the answer to all of those questions would generally be, "Yes," and justifiably so.
With those questions posed and answers assumed, allow me to ask you one last question: if you would be understandably angry about the unjust, capricious, and unreasonable abrogation of the above Constitutionally-protected rights, then why is anger such a surprising and apparently offensive reaction to intolerant bigots encouraging the government to whimsically destroy your rights to keep and bear arms?
Once again, we see that "gun control" extremists are inveterately incapable of being logically or internally consistent.
(Note: I do not ascribe to the unspoken assumption that "anger" is automatically and always a bad thing, any more than I believe that "violence" is always a bad thing. Both can lead to disastrous outcomes, but both also have their beneficial uses.)
It’s also amazing that you can vent your anger constructively through your writings than by burning cars, busting storefronts, assaulting cops, sitting in the streets, constructing tent cities, raping women, heckling schoolkids, smoking a bowl, and shouting meaningless phrases.
I thought that is what angry people do!
Oh, and type in ALL CAPS!
@ alcade:
I think this is exactly it, it’s projection. They can’t express anger in a responsible manner and they know it, so they think everyone is like that.
Most people aren’t going to get into a shootout over parking spot. Seriously, who does that? I’m going to risk prison for something so trivial?
So yeah, when you act like you’re angry, they think it’s a precursor to a violent act and would then justify their need to disarm you.
Are you linking your twitter friend to your responses here? It might be somewhat. . . insightful? . . enlightening? . . . ah: *futile* to see what he has to say.
On some level I keep thinking that it is just a matter of presentation to get those kind of people to see the rational points of our arguments. Some part of me does not want to believe that there are whole groups of people who are militantly and willfully blind to reality, and who passionately desire to foist that blindness on others at any cost. Just once I want to see them respond to the points we bring up without resorting to a giant tangle of logical fallacies (the dictionary definition of logical fallacy, not what they define as a logical fallacy) or bringing up a point that was refuted at the beaning of the discussion. I don’t think they know how happy I would be if they get their oft repeated desire for them to have their own separate world. . .
And of course they don’t want debate they just want submission, and anger and outrage is NOT submission. They HATE that.
You wasted more time trying to talk to that babbling fool than I would have. I get bored too easily with drivel like that from mentally incompetent idiots.
@ alcade: Bwahah! Indeed… if “writing snarky corrections to anti-rights cultists’ idiocies” constitutes “anger”, then what does all of the many crimes perpetrated by Occupy $Location idiots equate to?
@ Pyrotek85: Considering that the halfwit in question was attempting to forcibly dominate the conversation by putting words in my mouth the entire time we were talking, it would not, at all, surprise me if he had some barely-repressed aggressively violent tendencies of his own. Such are the tactics of schoolyard bullies who never grew up.
Yes, I am angry that my rights are being threatened. Does that mean I am going to haul off and shoot someone over it? Of course not.
@ lucusloc: I would, except the enlightened sophont went and blocked me once I realized I would not let him sockpuppet me. Oddly enough, he does not want to hewar what I have to say when I am actually saying it. Should you have a Twitter account, though, you are more than welcome to do so
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Unfortunately, I think it is very likely that there is a non-zero number of people who we are never going to be able to reach, either through militant denial of basic facts and realities on their part, or an inability to identify them – by way of examples, Michael Bonomo generally personifies the former, while Joan Peterson exemplifies the latter.
I wish we could help them in some way, but there is that whole horse/water thing.
@ Weer’d Beard: Bingo! You can see in the previous post how he was attempting to dominate the conversation by telling me what my positions were, and how he reacted when I pointed that out to him.
@ BobG: Yes, well, as you can see, folks like that do provide blogfodder
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I prefer this solution to the parking lot argument.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uYFKgI5Pk5U
Well, she did ask her to put the car down right now…
>> If the government were to forcibly , because of something someone else [did]…<<
It does that all the time. In fact, that's the *majority* of what it does.
I'm angry a lot.
In the immortal words of Ren – "What's wrong with being angry? I *like* being angry."
Unfortunately, that is too true… But, as you point out, there is no reason not to be angry about it. There is a sizeable difference between “angry” and “violent”, and employing that anger to motivate yourself and others to fix problems in our country/government/society can hardly be viewed as a bad thing. Unless, of course, you like those problems…
[...] it any wonder why we fight them on every front? Is it any wonder why we "get angry"? Is it any wonder why I refer to them, and people like them, as [...]