Monday, December 10, 2012

Gun "Hypocrisy"? Certainly we're looking at one confused "libertarian."

Inigo Montoya: You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.
A screed from a self-described "libertarian" AND "gun control enthusiast."
As to the roughly, at most, 100 million American gun owners, keep fighting more gun control laws. Keep buying even more guns, keep the multibillion dollar gun industry thriving. Keep screaming about your Second Amendment rights. Keep voting for Republicans. Keep listening to Limbaugh and Hannity and all the other idols that are among the richest Americans. Keep deluding yourselves that you are the only hope for the nation. Don’t face your hypocrisy. Delusion is the opiate of the right.
Or, just give up, bite the bullet and shoot yourselves. Make us gun control enthusiasts happy.

10 comments:

Anonymous said...

The words of fear. The fear that comes from knowing that we are more than 200 million.That they have lost America. The fear that comes with knowing that un-regesterd gun owners out number regesterd gun owners. The antis are terrerfied, because anything the do could spark CW2. The last "election" was rigged, as a last desperate gammbel to take our guns and usher in the great communist utopia. What this guy is saying is just more tired neo-communist BS .

Anonymous said...

Meh....the author clearly ISN'T a "libertarian", first and foremost.

He's also wrong on some points, i.e., increasing gun ownership DOES correlate to lower crime rates, etc. and that all or even most gun owners are slaves to the Republicrat party....most that I know are libertarian constitutionalists (*actual* libertarians).

He's right about most of what he says though. By and large, the vast number of American gun owners are apathetic and unwilling to give up their comfort, their lives, or their prosperity for the cause of liberty. If it were not so, the country would have experienced revolution in the early 1900s (probably before; not counting the Civil War) and several times since had our forefathers revolted every time a tyrannical new law or oppressive measure was passed by our federal government.

Like it or not, this author largely speaks the truth about American gun owners who will not be bothered to do anything more than complain loudly on the interwebz about the injustices our government foists upon the people of this nation and ones around the globe. I am as guilty as those of you reading this message.

The truth is: the author is right. It's largely empty rhetoric...

Oh sure, we all are waiting for the "right time" or "right incident" to muster....but we've had a laundry list of offenses to others where we've sat by and watched the machine grind our brethren into grist for the mill.

I'm not calling anyone to action...just stating that I hope for all our sakes that we don't wait for an event "we'll all recognize" that will come too late to win the fight.

God help us.

J.E. Andreasen said...

"Self Described" is the key, here. For authentic libertarian views on the ethics of firearms ownership see the writings of L. Neil Smith or Vin Suprynowicz.

Scott J said...

You really are a fan of cognitive dissonance aren't you?

Captain Prax said...

You can't argue with folks who are on the far Right, yet promote gun control positions. Gun violence was minimal during the early years of this country (aside from the use of firearms by the British in aggression, and of the colonists for defense against that tyranny). Gun control started out here as a way to keep the black slaves and later freemen defenseless against the tyranny of the state (primarily white until the mid twentieth century), but gun control still has little to do with guns, and more about control.

The state does not exist. All actions are individual ones. We only need to have a sense of morality, not an overabundance of laws with which few concern themselves. It's time to let go of the idea that a violent democracy has any social benefit for those of us at whom the state is point the barrel. That is the violence inherent in the system.

db said...

Probably a troll. Definitely not a libertarian. The commenters on the article agree. No libertarian could deny an individual's right to self-defense.

Captain Prax said...

You also can't really argue with folks on the far Left...

Maybe Anonymous is simply ignorant of Spooner's refutation of the social contract theory (be it Rousseau, Hobbes, or Locke), and that the idea of giving up liberty to gain security is a fallacious argument.

"Recall Mill's view that we exercise liberty only when we act freely, voluntarily, and
with adequate information." Those social contract promonents believe that when we consent to authority, we in turn are granted those liberties we have given up, but that is simply not the case.

If the social contract must be enforced at the point of a gun, it is not voluntary, as it violates the non-aggression principle, something that libertarians and voluntarists alike understand quite well. No man has the right to initiate force against another. Why we believe that those acting on behalf of the "state" are exempted from this basic principle is beyond me.

I won't even start to delve into Anonymous' fallacious position that gun control leads to reductions in violent crime. We only have to look at post-ban UK to see a nearly exponential increase in crime over only a few short years.

Left and Right are both Wrong.

Anonymous said...

I am a libertarian (as I understand it) and I will kill, or try to kill anyone that takes or tries to take away my ability to defend my family, myself, or my property. This is not a new or radical concept- it was formalized in English common law, but predated common law by a couple thousand years. Slaves can't have weapons, citizens can and do protect their lives. Every creature great or small has the inborn desire to preserve their lives- the statists want to reduce us to less than an amoeba, paramecium, e.coli bacteria- all of which will try to live.

Paul X said...

Hirschhorn is no libertarian.

Captain Prax said...

Hirschhorn is quite far from libertarian, much more of a statist who hasn't quite separated themselves from the idea that centralized authority is necessary in a free society. The two are mutually-exclusive concepts that fail miserably in application together. It only takes a few minutes reading articles on various sites to see that his views are hardly libertarian. He complains about Obama in one article, while at the same time refraining from criticizing Obama's actions in a way that nearly every libertarian or anarcho-capitalist would.

Ironically, I had a RSS feed for one of the sites he writes for, but find myself wanting to remove it from my reading list now. He is a statist masquerading as a libertarian, a lemming in sheep's clothing. He has spent so much time in public sector positions that he no longer sees the world from outside that paradigm. He supports the state and dismisses the natural right to self defense, so I'd say he is quite a bit further Left than I am inclined to believe real libertarians are.

He claims we need to Stop Delusional Thinking, but his criticisms cast aside voluntary views on society that many libertarians promote. It's as if he almost gets it, then falls back on statist views, a comfort zone he's not quite ready to step away from. His volume of work is significant, but finding logic beyond blind criticism takes more effort than I'm willing to give him.

Hirschhorn is no libertarian, but could be one if he would simply wake up.