If guns don't prevent violence then how come the same liberals who are willing to attack ladies wearing fur, empty SUV parking lots and businessmen at the WTO aren't out attacking the local NRA meeting?
I would really like to know how you define "liberalism." Based on reading your blog over the last few weeks, the only pattern I can see is that you apply the label "liberal" to pretty much anything and anyone you disagree with.
Not directed at anyone in particular - though Daniel's the most common invoker of the label - but your response was quite interesting. Thank you.
('Fore I forget: of the three nations you named, only in the UK did the gun prohibition have a negative impact on gun crime; in the other two, the crime rate, already low and in decline, was relatively unaffected by the ban. Danke schön, Wikipedia.)
In your eyes, then, liberalism is idealism over realism. Valid. For what it's worth, though, I've found that support for the Iraq War et al. is based more on emotionally-driven patriotism than any realistic analysis of its causes and effects, regardless of whether said analysis actually exists.
Gun control is an interesting example. Going by a strict interpretation, the uninfringed right to bear arms is an extremely liberal idea, especially as a constitutional insurance - and especially in the modern world; the U.S. is seen as a particularly conservative nation, but is in fact quite a ways beyond even Western societies in terms of gun freedom. Yet to defend the Second Amendment is, colloquially, a conservative trait. Curious, isn't it?
So yeah, I hate labels in practice. I am liberal, but if I identify myself as such, you and others invariably draw some conclusions about me that aren't true. There's a lot of variation, and it isn't a problem - in real political discourse, people are happy if not eager to explain their beliefs and their ideas, and the only niche labels have in that is to burden participants with fluctuating preconceptions that force us to waste time misunderstanding each other when they turn out to be inaccurate.
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I need a gun
I would really like to know how you define "liberalism." Based on reading your blog over the last few weeks, the only pattern I can see is that you apply the label "liberal" to pretty much anything and anyone you disagree with.
Not directed at anyone in particular - though Daniel's the most common invoker of the label - but your response was quite interesting. Thank you.
('Fore I forget: of the three nations you named, only in the UK did the gun prohibition have a negative impact on gun crime; in the other two, the crime rate, already low and in decline, was relatively unaffected by the ban. Danke schön, Wikipedia.)
In your eyes, then, liberalism is idealism over realism. Valid. For what it's worth, though, I've found that support for the Iraq War et al. is based more on emotionally-driven patriotism than any realistic analysis of its causes and effects, regardless of whether said analysis actually exists.
Gun control is an interesting example. Going by a strict interpretation, the uninfringed right to bear arms is an extremely liberal idea, especially as a constitutional insurance - and especially in the modern world; the U.S. is seen as a particularly conservative nation, but is in fact quite a ways beyond even Western societies in terms of gun freedom. Yet to defend the Second Amendment is, colloquially, a conservative trait. Curious, isn't it?
So yeah, I hate labels in practice. I am liberal, but if I identify myself as such, you and others invariably draw some conclusions about me that aren't true. There's a lot of variation, and it isn't a problem - in real political discourse, people are happy if not eager to explain their beliefs and their ideas, and the only niche labels have in that is to burden participants with fluctuating preconceptions that force us to waste time misunderstanding each other when they turn out to be inaccurate.
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