« Cartoons | Home | Recent Comments | Categories | Tom Ridge on National Security After 9/11 »
When Protesters Bring Guns to Health-Care Town Halls
[Quote:]
On Aug. 17, about a dozen people carried guns a block away from the Phoenix convention center where President Obama was speaking, including one man with an AR-15 assault rifle slung over his shoulder. The neatly dressed man carrying the AR-15 — who also had a holstered pistol on his hip — identified himself to a reporter from the Arizona Republic only as Chris as he argued with supporters of Obama’s health-reform efforts. Asked why he had brought the guns to the gathering, he answered, “Because I can do it. In Arizona, I still have some freedoms left.”
If gun ownership is a right then why aren’t these 2nt amendment organizations giving out guns to poor people who can’t afford them? If gun ownership is a right we should see to it that guns are widely available to all.
I suspect, though, that the pro-gun people really only want white people to have guns.
Cartoons
|
Caro’s Roulette System #1
[Quote:]
I’m going to give you a secret roulette system that really works. It will cut the house advantage to literally nothing, if you believe in it enough to never get frustrated and switch tactics. What I’m going to say may seem strange, but here goes.
First, never bet simply red or black. Also don’t bet odd or even. These are equally poor, consistently losing wagers.
Second, don’t be suckered into betting zero or double zero, despite what some experts may suggest. This may seem like you’re betting with the house, but for technical reasons you are actually betting against the house — and you are taking the worst of it.
So, in order to negate the house advantage, you MUST stick to straight non-green number bets. All odd red numbers turn out to be bad choices, based on over two trillion computer trials. Don’t bet them.
All even black numbers fair poorly, and cannot be bet, for much the same reason, which I won’t explain here.
Let’s get straight to the money-saving advice. Any bet you decide to make MUST cover only even-red or odd-black numbers. There are no exceptions.
Finally, you need to be very disciplined in excluding the number 30 and the group of consecutive numbers that begins with 11 and continues clockwise through and including 14.
This system may seem mystical, but I take gambling quite seriously, and this works for me.
|
I guess that even of the readers of this blog (on average, of above average intelligence) there are those who cannot think their way out of a paper bag.
Uh, logical non-sequitur? The right to gun ownership is not the right to a gun, just like property rights don’t entitle you to anything that you didn’t come by on your own.
Of course not – but those same 2nd amendment people will tell you that “everybody” (well, everybody in the US) has the right to freedom because the constitution says so, and are usually very proud of people who make sure that literally everybody in the US can enjoy those rights (as in, “support our troops”). Why should they, in the same vein, not try to ensure *everybody* can enjoy one of the other rights talked about in that same constitution? What makes the right to freedom different to the right to bear arms? Why shouldn’t they, in a similar vein to freedom, try their best to ensure that *everybody* can enjoy the right to bear arms? They may not succeed in getting everybody a gun, just like they’re not really succeeding in giving everybody freedom – and these failures are likely caused by different reasons – but the general idea isn’t that different. Yet, they loudly proclaim their support for people who try to give everybody one right, but don’t do much to give everybody another right. Actually, given that thought, maybe you’re right and they should try to give everybody property rights as well – wait, they already feel everybody should be able to own a home – it was once a GOP point of view (that eventually led to the mortgage crisis, but that’s another story). So why not try to get everybody guns as well?
As I said, I don’t really think they really want *everybody* to own guns.
How about the “self-evident” right to life? Oh wait, I forgot, that right is already confined to “unborn babies”. After they’re born, the conservatives don’t seem to care if they die, especially if it will help some businessperson say “I’m advancing the interests of my shareholders”.
Maybe you should have a looked at the picture of the guy with the AR-15 before you made your white people comment.
http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/08/17/obama.protest.rifle/index.html
John,
I appreciate your sentiment, but think that for many, the right to bear arms is a certain sort of guarantee that the person is ultimately sovereign. Are they a statistically more racist demographic? I would be willing to bet that they are.
More importantly, however, I think that assuming motivations of people or groups is profoundly damaging since most of the political racket is caused by fear of the slippery slope. A sensible gun control bill–hell no, they want all my guns. A restriction on very late term abortions–hell no, they want to control my repoductive freedom. A sensible restriction on financial institutions…etc. etc.
When we act on the fear of what we believe they really are thinking, we are discounting all of their ideas and vise versa.
Matt,
if you’ve been reading here for a long time, you’d notice that I tend to “respond in kind”. In this case, the people bringing their guns in are acting out their fear, so what I’m doing is responding in kind and showing how ridiculous that is – I don’t expect distribution of guns to be a valid point at all, and I certainly don’t expect most of them to be racists. But these people are so blinded by their fear that rational argument isn’t likely to work – first getting them back to earth with a bit of ridicule may work for some of them..
I think you’re shooting blanks here, John. Even if I thought there was much persuasive logic in your argument (which I don’t), you’d have to tackle the fact that gun rights advocates tend to work to make it easy to buy guns–for everyone. That’s not quite the same as handing out free guns to all comers, but it sure lowers the barrier without discrimination.
I’m with Matt.