by The Annoyed Man » Sat Jan 05, 2013 12:26 pm
I find these "round and round and round" discussions where people seem to be intellectually incapable of separating principle from strategy to be extremely frustrating.
Why is it that some people refuse to see that this is merely an Internet poll? Nobody is asking respondents to actually VOTE FOR REAL. Nobody is asking respondents to GIVE UP A RIGHT. Nobody is saying CHOOSE ONE, AND WE'LL NEVER DEAL WITH THE OTHER ONE AGAIN. Nobody is saying WE CAN'T ULTIMATELY PASS BOTH.
What IS being asked is basically this: political realities being what they are, if you had to choose to tackle one of these two issues in this legislative session, with the understanding that we'll tackle the other issue in a subsequent legislative session, which would be your priority? You may have the goal of eating a hog, but you can't bite it on the butt and on the shoulder at the same time. You have to choose to pick the butt and work your way forward, or pick the shoulder and work your way back. In the end, the entire hog gets eaten, but it requires a strategy to get it done—because the hog is made up of a whole series of cuts of meat which need to be cooked in different ways to be edible. Similarly the RKBA is a simple concept, just like a hog is a simple concept, but in actual application it is very complex because we cannot deny, for instance, that LOTS of people who have no problem with gun ownership are at the same time very uncomfortable with the idea of guns in schools or being worn in the open. It doesn't matter if they're wrong.....they're still citizens who vote, and who elect representatives who represent their viewpoints, not necessarily our viewpoints.
Those who refuse to answer the poll because they refuse to consider political reality are in effect saying: "In a perfect world, the legislature would grant me all of my wishes in one fel swoop; but since this is NOT a perfect world, it would be better to refuse to participate at all than to choose to pass one first, and then to pass the other. Those who choose not to participate in a consensus usually end up getting nothing.......which is what they deserve, since they won't fight for any one part of it. They would rather not have a bite off the hog at all if they can't get the legislature to stuff the whole hog into their mouths at once.
Think of it in terms of WW2. As powerful as the allies were in their accumulated might, they did not have the resources to simultaneously land in North Africa, Italy, Sardinia, Normandy, Norway, Alaska, all the islands in the Pacific, and Japan all at one time. If they had possessed the resources at the time to do that, which I'll call "Military Capital," they would have surely done so and shortened the length of the war by at least a couple of years. But they did not have those resources. THAT WAS THE MILITARY REALITY OF THE SITUATION. so they planned their invasions and used their military capital wisely, in progression, choosing to implement one invasion now, and the other later; but in the end.....the Axis was defeated and the war was won by the Allies.
Now, let's compare that to people who won't make a choice if they can't have all of it at one time. If everybody were like them and refused to choose a legislative priority, nothing would ever happen, and they would get nothing.........except whatever benefits accrue to them on the backs of the work done by other people, which they cynically have no problem accepting for themselves. I'm willing to bet anything that those same folks who refused to participate in prioritizing for the purpose of judicious use of political capital would have no problem exercising the newly won freedoms that they had refused to prioritize. IF your thing is open carry, but you refuse to pick that over campus carry; and campus carry got passed before open carry, don't stand here and lie to the rest of us and say that you would refuse to carry a gun on campus until open carry ALSO gets passed. In fact, if you principles are indeed SO high and mighty, then you should turn in your CHL and refuse to carry a gun at all until Constitutional Carry gets passed.....because THAT is the logical extension of your position.
When you play "all or nothing" games based on principle, then the logical extension of that is a moral burden, which you place on yourself, to NOT take advantage of any gains until ALL gains are passed. High minded principle is a good thing, but lack of wisdom in its application will ultimately challenge your integrity. If you stake your personal integrity on an all or nothing approach, then your personal integrity will ALSO depend on refusing to accept any benefits won on your behalf until ALL of them have been won. Otherwise, your high and mighty principles turn out in the end to be actually subjugated to your cynicism..........which doesn't speak highly of your principles if you're not willing to stand up for them IN FULL.
In case you haven't figured it out...... Charles works actively behind the scenes on all these legislative proposals, and often has a hand in actually writing them. He also spends of a LOT of his own capital (in voluntary time and relationships built) trying to figure out which legislators can be counted on to support which bills. It ought not be a surprise to everyone here that the legislature is made up of a few people who are fervently pro-gun rights in all matters, a much larger majority who are only moderately pro-gun rights, and a small but significant group who will resist anything to do with expanding the RKBA, and will trample on the 2nd Amendment at every opportunity.
We can count on the first group pretty much 100%, and they're not the issue. You could probably get them to support all things at once......so long as it didn't interfere with their constituents' other priorities.
We can't worry about the third group too much because their opposition is a given, and we have to take that automatic opposition into account in our strategies.
But that majority middle group is where our political capital must be used wisely. The full expression of the 2nd Amendment is rich food, and if you try to force too much of it at once down their throats, they will choke on it, and ALL of it will come up and be rejected. This is political reality folks. If you're unwilling or not able to accept this as fact, then you are destined to be self-destructive of your own ends. THIS FORUM represents a very sizable group of active supporters of the RKBA, and as such, Charles has come to us with a question: NOT "if you could only have one, and never have the other;" but rather "if you had to get one passed first and then get the other passed in the next session, what would be your pick?" He would then use the results of his poll to help him determine a direction, and to help him inform the politicians whom he lobbies. If you refuse to acknowledge the political realities, do you seriously think that he's going to take that refusal back to the legislature and beat these middle-grounders over the head with it? NOT if he wants to keep those lines of communication open, he won't.
What some of you can't seem to understand is that this is about strategy, not principle. Nobody is asking you to compromise on your principles. Even so, SOME of you are saying, "I have principles, and my personal integrity allows me to only play 'all or nothing' games, so I refuse to strategize and play the 'prioritizing game' because it is violation of my principles." My answer to those of you who are doing this is, "Fine, if one or the other issue passes first despite your refusal—ON PRINCIPLE—to help Charles with that prioritizing by answer this poll, will you then maintain your personal integrity and refuse to take advantage of any gains until all have been won?"
Personally, I won't be holding my breath.
I would like to see both bills passed. In fact, I would like to see Constitutional Carry passed. But I'll be hanged if I'd rather see nothing passed because I was too politically unrealistic to make myself cowboy up and make a choice to do things in a certain strategic order.
"Freedom had been hunted round the globe; reason was considered as rebellion; and the slavery of fear had made men afraid to think. But such is the irresistible nature of truth, that all it asks, and all it wants, is the liberty of appearing." --Thomas Paine, Rights of Man, 1791
