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avevale_intelligencerHere.
I wish I believed that anyone who didn't already agree would be listening...but history has shown, time and again, that enough of us cherish our ability to choose to do harm to other human beings that it will never be sufficiently controlled while we remain human to prevent such incidents as the shooting of Gabrielle Giffords.
And democracy dictates that if I were to form a party whose goal was to enact a law permitting the evisceration of any person wearing a red shirt on odd Tuesdays in September, and if I were to keep quiet about that bit while campaigning, and if I were to gain enough public support to mount a sufficiently persuasive campaign to gain victory in an election, there would be nothing to stop me enacting said law. (And perhaps liberals would tell each other "well, it's only two or at the most three days a year, and you can always leave the red shirt in the closet on those days, so maybe it won't be so bad." Wait till next year.)
It seems as clear as the weather outside my window today, to me as a liberal, that however reasonable and sane and well-intentioned and humane and generous billions of conservatives across the world may be, and they are, conservative (EDIT: and quasi-conservative, cf. new Labour) political parties are in general (EDIT: as they are constituted now, based on my interpretation of their actions in America from 2000-2008 and in Britain from 1979 to the end of bloody time, apparently) founded on principles which have no place in any enlightened government; in any government which exists to further, insofar as it can, prosperity and peace and freedom and security for ALL its citizens, not merely the ones with the most money and the biggest guns. And yet there can be, under a democratic system, no law to restrain those conservative parties from seeking, and from gaining power...because if there are enough people who want to be oppressed and exploited, who want to be slaves in all but name, who want to be deluded with false promises into collaborating with the promoters of poverty and exclusion, and who will give up the right not to be shot at with a gun in return for the right to have one themselves so that they can shoot back...then democracy dictates that that is the government the people want, and the rest of us must submit and endure. Cue Heinlein quote about democracy; I'm sure someone here has it at his or her fingertips.
I'm not saying there is a solution; I am saying there is none. Freedom of speech must include hate speech. The fact that that freedom confers a responsibility to govern one's own tongue is not something that can be forced into the minds of those who will not entertain it. Democracy must mean that the people get the government they want, however stupid, however greedy, however dishonest, however evil. The fact that the freedom to choose a government confers a responsibility to choose one that will benefit not merely you and your friends but everyone in the country--even the people you don't like--again, cannot be forcibly implanted in minds which refuse to get it.
(EDIT: And here I should say that many conservative supporters do get it, and while I may think they are mistaken, I would never say that they have not thought about the matter. There are minds such as I have described, but they are hopefully relatively few.)
The only solution, the only way to ensure one kind of government over another, would be to abandon democracy, and there is, as far as I can see, no alternative that seems significantly better.
I would love to believe that Sarah Palin, and Jesse Kelly, and all the others Keith mentions and does not mention, would be repudiated by their party, whichever that might be, and forced by such repudiation to seek a livelihood outside politics; that one country in this world might, in this year of grace 2011, take a first faltering step towards outlawing violence of all kinds against fellow human beings, whatever the cause, whatever the provocation. I would love to believe that, just as we are, finally and possibly too late, starting to look into alternatives to burning the substance of our planet to provide our energy, so we might begin to look into alternative solutions to war, and execution, and torture, and the ever-growing prevalence of horrendous weapons of personal destruction from a distance.
But it won't happen. We love the violence too much.
To paraphrase Keith: Violence, or the threat of violence, has no place in our civilisation, and I apologize for and repudiate any act or any thing in my past that may have even inadvertently encouraged violence. Because for whatever else each of us may be, we all are human beings.
And now there'll probably be another row. But hopefully a non-violent one.
I wish I believed that anyone who didn't already agree would be listening...but history has shown, time and again, that enough of us cherish our ability to choose to do harm to other human beings that it will never be sufficiently controlled while we remain human to prevent such incidents as the shooting of Gabrielle Giffords.
And democracy dictates that if I were to form a party whose goal was to enact a law permitting the evisceration of any person wearing a red shirt on odd Tuesdays in September, and if I were to keep quiet about that bit while campaigning, and if I were to gain enough public support to mount a sufficiently persuasive campaign to gain victory in an election, there would be nothing to stop me enacting said law. (And perhaps liberals would tell each other "well, it's only two or at the most three days a year, and you can always leave the red shirt in the closet on those days, so maybe it won't be so bad." Wait till next year.)
It seems as clear as the weather outside my window today, to me as a liberal, that however reasonable and sane and well-intentioned and humane and generous billions of conservatives across the world may be, and they are, conservative (EDIT: and quasi-conservative, cf. new Labour) political parties are in general (EDIT: as they are constituted now, based on my interpretation of their actions in America from 2000-2008 and in Britain from 1979 to the end of bloody time, apparently) founded on principles which have no place in any enlightened government; in any government which exists to further, insofar as it can, prosperity and peace and freedom and security for ALL its citizens, not merely the ones with the most money and the biggest guns. And yet there can be, under a democratic system, no law to restrain those conservative parties from seeking, and from gaining power...because if there are enough people who want to be oppressed and exploited, who want to be slaves in all but name, who want to be deluded with false promises into collaborating with the promoters of poverty and exclusion, and who will give up the right not to be shot at with a gun in return for the right to have one themselves so that they can shoot back...then democracy dictates that that is the government the people want, and the rest of us must submit and endure. Cue Heinlein quote about democracy; I'm sure someone here has it at his or her fingertips.
I'm not saying there is a solution; I am saying there is none. Freedom of speech must include hate speech. The fact that that freedom confers a responsibility to govern one's own tongue is not something that can be forced into the minds of those who will not entertain it. Democracy must mean that the people get the government they want, however stupid, however greedy, however dishonest, however evil. The fact that the freedom to choose a government confers a responsibility to choose one that will benefit not merely you and your friends but everyone in the country--even the people you don't like--again, cannot be forcibly implanted in minds which refuse to get it.
(EDIT: And here I should say that many conservative supporters do get it, and while I may think they are mistaken, I would never say that they have not thought about the matter. There are minds such as I have described, but they are hopefully relatively few.)
The only solution, the only way to ensure one kind of government over another, would be to abandon democracy, and there is, as far as I can see, no alternative that seems significantly better.
I would love to believe that Sarah Palin, and Jesse Kelly, and all the others Keith mentions and does not mention, would be repudiated by their party, whichever that might be, and forced by such repudiation to seek a livelihood outside politics; that one country in this world might, in this year of grace 2011, take a first faltering step towards outlawing violence of all kinds against fellow human beings, whatever the cause, whatever the provocation. I would love to believe that, just as we are, finally and possibly too late, starting to look into alternatives to burning the substance of our planet to provide our energy, so we might begin to look into alternative solutions to war, and execution, and torture, and the ever-growing prevalence of horrendous weapons of personal destruction from a distance.
But it won't happen. We love the violence too much.
To paraphrase Keith: Violence, or the threat of violence, has no place in our civilisation, and I apologize for and repudiate any act or any thing in my past that may have even inadvertently encouraged violence. Because for whatever else each of us may be, we all are human beings.
And now there'll probably be another row. But hopefully a non-violent one.
no subject
Date: 2011-01-09 07:38 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-01-09 10:25 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-01-10 01:36 am (UTC)As I always say, two Beatles were attacked in two different countries. One lived, the other died. The one who died was shot by a gun, a more effective weapon than a knife. There are crazy people everywhere. The ones with guns are just more effective.
no subject
Date: 2011-01-10 03:28 am (UTC)Of course the reason guns are easily available in the USA stems from the American Revolution, but in Arizona it is more recent - the citizens of the Wild Wild West™ needed to defend themselves against horse thieves and bandits as there were not enough trained lawpersons to go 'round.
But as British Intelligence has been telling air travelers for several years now, a person can make a small but powerful home-made bomb from household chemicals, and do a lot more damage than a handful of bullets can do.
I am devastated by the loss of a promising 9-year-old girl, but I do not think anything short of a police state confiscation of all privately-held weapons would have made a difference, and probably not even that, given how easy it is to hide a weapon. Free mental health care might have helped.
no subject
Date: 2011-01-10 08:13 am (UTC)Guns are available because of the huge power of the gun lobby. This police state/anti-police state bipolar threat used against the population overlooks what we need -- sane, practical gun laws without ideology and an atmosphere in which gun violence isn't tolerated. Beyond that, we need free mental health care, as you've said, and real social safety nets. Gun violence in the US is a very complex problem.
no subject
Date: 2011-01-10 12:06 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-01-10 03:16 pm (UTC)