In a nutshell, here is the general paragraph of disgust summing up the Conservative reaction to Barack Obama’s umpteenth Kabuki show, today announcing an anti-gun sauce made of 23-flavors that will cost a fortune and accomplish nothing in relation to mass shootings and/or dead children. Understand, I’m disgusted by this as well and these thoughts have gone through my head as well, but that’s not the takeaway for me:
Well, color me shocked that Barack Obama used children as props while spouting straw-men about ‘there are those who…’ as he makes his first big play for guns! How does a guy who supposedly taught something law-ish, or perhaps law-like, have the gusto to speak such things. That line about weapons used in theaters of war not being present in movie theaters – is he aware what actually sells in terms of Hollywood films? The 2nd Amendment has nothing to do with hunting and sport and is only incidentally about self-defense: it is about preventing tyranny, the kind he seems to be developing a growing taste for as he gets better at doing it without half the country even being aware of it and of the half that are aware of what he’s up to, half are for it.
That about it sums it up, no?
Here is the problem that is, as I see it, unlikely to correct itself. Barack Obama is a vessel (not a new observation, I know) and of the half of the country that pays attention to him, they are all for what he’s doing. Far more Conservatives watch, to cite an example, Piers Morgan on CNN, and their/our disgust at what he is saying and the manner in which he is saying it is unnatural – what is confounding is that we don’t seem to understand or refuse to accept that Morgan’s view, same as Obama’s, is perfectly mainstream. This is the problem.
Ignorance of the 2nd Amendment and why it exists is a problem.
Ignorance of history – not just American history – and what has happened when government’s have either seized guns outright or made law-abiding gun-owners criminals by stroke of the pen, is a problem.
Barack Obama is doing what he’s elected to do in the manner he was elected to do it by the bulk of the kind of people who would vote for a man like Barack Obama. He is making law by fiat – he may not even realize it yet, but the vast swath of people who voted for him would spill blood to make him Caesar.
Why is this shocking or surprising to anyone? Why is the debated in snark? The tricky part about using the Alinsky rule of “holding your enemies to their own standards” is that it is ineffective for American Conservatives, in part because it flies in the face of what we actually believe and how we expect people to behave. Listening to Liberals excuse the POTUS by squealing that “Bush did it” is funny, but listening to Conservatives throw that back in their faces is becoming increasingly tedious. Liberals control this style of conversation and, with the help of the media, are far more effective at it.
I can’t find the piece, but I think it was Bill Quick who made reference to speeding the decline – in short, we can pull the bandage of our countries mortal wound quickly or slowly. We can cross our fingers and hope Republicans win one fight in a dozen, or we can throw our bag of nickels in the fuckitbucket and say “let them have what they want and then we can watch the world burn.”
I’ve been in the second category since the POTUS’s re-election. I want people with money – the upper-middle-class types who voted for the POTUS as a matter of pride – to witness what happens to their childrens’ futures as the Donkeys get more and more of what they want, with fewer and fewer tangible results. I’m all for speeding the decline. Barring Sarah Palin (or a Palin-type Conservative who could command the same media attention at his/her zenith), I’ll never vote for another GOPer. No, I’ll not vote for a Donkey, but I’ll have no issue wasting my vote on a Libertarian/Green/Constitution Party type.
Being surprised that Barack Obama would use EOs to try to limit access to certain gun accessories and tie that into Obamacare is to be painted a fool. I would’ve been shocked had he not stood on that stage with children – that is his style. What a decent human being sees as shameless he sees as a football spike.
I think most outspoken Conservatives were quite aware of what this man was prepared to do a long time ago. What I would proffer is the best strategy not being so shocked by it. A smug “I told you so” will do just fine. If a person needs to be told why the 2nd Amendment exists, they’re not likely to ever vote for anyone you like, and that’s a fact. They are the product of an American public education, a person who never sought any different way of thinking that challenged any idea they ever had. Think I jest? To this day, mention the name “Ayn Rand” around the more educated of these people, and watch the meltdown ensue.
They won’t come for your guns for a long time. What they will do, what they’ve already started doing – ineffective so far, but wait – is equivocating gun-ownership with the worst of the worst in the popular mind – pedophilia, gang-rape, genocide, etc. They will use the schools to ensure your children will look at you like the villain in a Bond film for owning a gun, and they will turn your children into little snitches regarding your gun ownership.
Mind you, it will work. Everything they’ve been plotting for a half-century has come to fruition, although in often unexpected ways. I had a bit of faith in the people of this country, but that last wisp of idealism was swept away in the tide of Hopenchange 2.0. Now get me my fiddle – we have a country to burn.
To close, here’s the kind of country – rhetorical and otherwise – that we’ve turned into: that turn of the phrase I have to caveat, because many people wouldn’t get the joke if this went viral, and many more would assume I was being literal ie I plan on burning shit down.
I don’t. I produce for a living, I don’t have a taste for destruction.
Palin or Rand Paul, I’m all in.
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