Thursday, August 09, 2007

Reasonable Compromise

The following comment appears after the article. Not sure why they ID'd me as "Anonymous," since I submitted my name and got back an email from their News Editor thanking me for my comments. I noticed the links didn't translate into their form either.
John, it's real easy to call for "compromise" in a generalized way and expect to come off sounding like you're "reasonable".

Maybe if you'd define some of the specific compromises you'd like to see, we could let you know if we agree.

How does John Mecklin define "reasoned common ground"? And how can we "collaborate" with people who--despite your and Ray Ring's apparent beliefs that they can be sated, do indeed want to disarm us?

Conspiracy hysteria? Hardly. Don't take it from me, take it straight from the sources, compiled and verified by Eugene Volokh, Professor of Law, UCLA Law School, including:

"1. Quotes from gun control proponents praising the slippery slope, and urging mild restrictions as steps toward a total ban.

"2. Citations to laws that in fact ban all guns or all handguns.

"3. Quotes from politicians urging gun bans.

"4. Quotes from leading media figures and institutions urging gun bans.

"5. Quotes from advocacy groups urging gun bans."

(See: http://www.gunscholar.org/gunban.htm)

Why not write another opinion piece? Let us know how you intend to find a solution to such a seemingly "intractable" agenda through "compromise".

Those of us who believe in reasoned discourse can't wait to hear your proposals.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I am adamantly in favor or reasonable compromise. You read that correctly, I support "reasonable" compromise.

It is not reasonable to agree to violate the Constitution as the Supreme law of the land, nor is it reasonable to infringe that which is guaranteed in the Constitution to not be infringed.

Why do we not reach reasonable compromise on bank robbery? How about we agree to let robbers only rob 50% of teller windows as "reasonable" if they will give up their ambition to rob them all. Then a few weeks or months down the road the bank robbery lobby can call for more "reasonable compromise" and expand their alloted teller windows to 70%, as long as they don't rob them all. Then a few weeks or months down the road.....well, you get the idea.

Illegal to rob banks, you say? Well so is infringing upon the constitutionally guaranteed rights of citizens. So why the Hell not?

Reasonable compromise means we all obey the law and observe all the rights of each citizen. There are no collective rights in a free society. A free society must respect and protect the interests of individual citizens. Any violation of the individual by the collective is nothing more than mob rule. When mobs rule there is no law and no one is safe, not even the members of the mob.

This concept is not that hard to grasp for the moderately intelligent or even the marginally moral.

Anonymous said...

"A free society must respect and protect the interests of individual citizens. Any violation of the individual by the collective is nothing more than mob rule. When mobs rule there is no law and no one is safe, not even the members of the mob."

Absolutely. Freedom means that not everyone will be happy all the time. Problem is, these freedom abolitionists point to the problems and offer tyrannical solutions. The mob will never be happy, so why destroy freedom in that pursuit?

I would be quite depressed about our bleak future, but blogs like yours David, and the campaign of Ron Paul give me hope. There are a lot of us out there, who have not yet given up on freedom.