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Culture War Roundup for the week of August 19, 2024

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You're painting with too broad a brush. 20% of Democrats and Democrat-leaning independents own guns compared to 45% Republican and Republican-leaning. Even if a majority of people in the Democratic-coalition believe that the Second Amendment should be appealed and gun rights seriously impaired (which I'm not sure is the case - there's a big difference between "I want background checks, mandatory gun safety classes, and for convicted perpetrators of domestic abuse and other violent crimes to have their guns confiscated" and "I don't think anyone anywhere should have any guns under any circumstances") - I don't think you could defend this policy as a serious proposal, since it isn't actually the case that the group of people doesn't recognize themselves as having the right.

The point is to make someone live with the consequences of their own stated beliefs, whilst minimizing collateral harm.

If they won't accept THIS deal, then I refuse to accept any other proposal they could offer because its clear they DON'T actually believe that gun control measures would reduce crime and death, or else they'd jump at a chance to enact a partial gun ban.

If they can't get gun control passed any other way, surely those 20% of Democratic gun owners (who are an astoundingly small minority overall, so its not a big loss!) will sacrifice their rights for the greater good.

Or not, and force a reckoning.

Literally, I will accept any proposed gun control measure, background checks on down, as long as the caveat "only applies to registered Democrats" is appended to it.

Find me one they'd accept.

My point is that there is no "they" you're negotiating with, though. "Democrats" do not speak with a single voice. Even if you look at majorities, that Pew survey I linked indicates that a majority of Republicans agree with preventing people with mental illnesses from owning guns, raising the minimum age to buy a fire arm to 21, and oppose allowing people to carry a concealed fire arm without a permit. Put that way, there is no party that is universally against gun rights or for gun rights.

The Democrat blob is not a monolith, and neither is the Republican blob.

If you're trying to make a point that Democrats who won't pass their preferred gun control policy (but limited to registered Democrats only as a compromise) are being hypocritical, I'm not sure the argument straightforwardly gets off the ground. First, I don't think the vast majority of gun rights advocates would be in favor of such a compromise, so you're not putting forward a live proposal that is really worthy of consideration. And second, there's reasons for wanting to oppose such a proposal apart from believing in gun rights. It's stupid to unilaterally disarm yourself, in a society where 40% of your "enemy" is legally armed.

First, I don't think the vast majority of gun rights advocates would be in favor of such a compromise, so you're not putting forward a live proposal that is really worthy of consideration

Nobody has made this proposal seriously, so perhaps this is simply a matter of it not being considered at all yet.

Why not change that.

It's stupid to unilaterally disarm yourself, in a society where 40% of your "enemy" is legally armed.

Wow, maybe there's certain advantages to owning guns that THE SECOND AMENDMENT WAS MEANT TO PRESERVE?

I GUESS THE SECOND AMENDMENT IS GOOD FOR SOMETHING AFTER ALL.

/sarcasm

So this argument now convinced me that I should oppose ALL gun control measures.

Debate over, as far as I'm concerned.

Wow, maybe there's certain advantages to owning guns that THE SECOND AMENDMENT WAS MEANT TO PRESERVE?

I GUESS THE SECOND AMENDMENT IS GOOD FOR SOMETHING AFTER ALL.

/sarcasm

I agree that there are advantages to owning guns, but the 2nd Amendment is about more than an "advantage" it is about a supposedly inalienable right. I would imagine that we should hold rights to higher standards than merely being "advantageous", as there are plenty of advantageous things that aren't rights. Cars are advantageous, for example, but there is no recognized right to car ownership or operation.

I'm weakly pro-gun rights, because I think that gun ownership is one of the more likely ways for minorities to protect themselves against right violations by the majority (i.e. a black man during segregation, or the Black Panthers following cop cars in the 70's), but I honestly have trouble mapping the limits of acceptable political violence within that framework. What is the dividing line between the 1954 attack on the United States capitol by Puerto Rican nationalists and the January 6th riots? What is the dividing line between trying to assassinate Hitler or Pol Pot and trying to assassinate Kamala Harris or Donald Trump? If cops are a representative of the force and will of the state, who gets to decide when cops have crossed the line into tyranny and it is thus morally justified to kill them?

Because I am pro-civilization and anti-violence, I have trouble with my tepid support of gun rights. It seems great to be able to defend against a tyrannical majority in the abstract, but how do we balance that against the fact that any state (tyrannical or not) is going to defend itself and attempt to delegitimize resistance by the oppressed? Why do we consider the Revolutionary War and the Founding Fathers good, but the Whiskey Rebellion or the Civil War bad and illegitimate?

What is the dividing line between the 1954 attack on the United States capitol by Puerto Rican nationalists and the January 6th riots?

"Don't shoot at congresspersons" seems like a pretty bright line?

I suppose I didn't make myself clear. I am somewhat sympathetic to motives of the Puerto Rican nationalists of 1954, and I don't have a great argument for why they should have seen political violence as beyond the pale given their island's relationship to the United States. The ordinary means of political redress were denied to the Puerto Ricans, and violence seems reasonable enough under those circumstances, even if I prefer if Congress would not be attacked by people for the sake of stability.

While I don't think January 6 posed all that great a risk to the country given how badly executed it was, I tend to be less sympathetic to the January 6 rioters. A big part of this is because I don't think the thing they were angry about - stolen elections - were a "legitimate" complaint, if we don't engage in a motte and bailley about what we mean by a "stolen election."

However, what makes one "acceptable" and one "unacceptable"? I would prefer if there were easy and widely accepted principles for when political violence was considered acceptable, but the mainstream answer seems to "never, except in retrospect."

However, what makes one "acceptable" and one "unacceptable"?

Like I said, for me it's the 'shooting up congress' bit that's unacceptable -- if the Puerto Ricans had held it to breaking a few windows whilst yelling and milling about in restricted areas, it would not seem like a very big deal? (either)

Do you believe there are ever any circumstances where it is okay to attack the US congress? Do you believe that there are any actions that the US congress could commit that would ever make violence against them acceptable?

I think the difficulty I have is that we in the United States aren't a nation. The United States isn't and has never been defined by being a single ethnic group sharing a common birth. We are a civic state, defined by our ideals and institutions. (This is the reason American conservatives are so different than "blood and soil" European conservatives. By and large, even the conservatives are classical liberals in the United States.) Because we got our start in a bloody revolution justifying itself based on a conception of natural rights, it must be the case that there are circumstances where it is alright to attack a government and its representatives. But despite this being a core part of the ideology under-girding the United States, I'm dissatisfied that the vast majority of people seem to think that it is never okay to rebel or engage in violence against the state and its actors.

If one of the justifications of the 2nd Amendment is that capacity of violence against the state needs to be preserved to lessen oppression and tyranny, why is it that in practice the set of "tyrannical acts that would justify violence against the state" seem to always be an empty set? Is it because America truly is the freest country ever conceived with no hints of tyranny and oppression anywhere in its 200+ year history? When is violence against the state ever justified?

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