The Other Side

I feel compelled to address a broader issue in this country:  rampant hostility.   Since the Florida shooting, I’m seeing a plethora (!) of memes on both sides, tinged with contempt for opposing viewpoints.  I’m pro-gun, myself, but I don’t assume my opponents are idiots simply for disagreeing with me.   And calling each other idiots really doesn’t get anything done.

Gun Control.   When someone shoots up a school, we have to wonder how they acquired access to the weapon in the first place.  Naturally, the weapon itself didn’t kill all those people.   Every day, lawful owners of AR15 do not kill other people.  Criminals kill people with illegally obtained weapons – mostly handguns – and as usual criminals by their nature ignore the laws, including gun control laws.  Knife attacks occur all too frequently.  And again, in the aggregate, more people successfully defend themselves from violent crime with legally owned weapons than are killed in school shootings.   The Armed Citizen, a feature in the NRA’s American Rifleman magazine each month, chronicles exactly that – lawful use of weapons by private citizens in legitimate self-defense - complete with cites to the original news source.  But somehow I doubt gun control advocates are reading the American Rifleman each month – if at all.

Sometimes they cite a combat veteran as being against the Second Amendment.  “I’ve seen what my own M4 carbine rounds do against the Taliban and other enemy combatants, and it boggles my mind how anyone can argue that civilians should have access to weapons like these.”  Combat veterans are in a position to see the damage these weapons can do, and are as entitled as any of us to their political opinions.  But this isn’t Starship Troopers:  you don’t need combat experience to have the right to vote.  Timothy McVeigh was a combat veteran:  does that make his attack in Oklahoma City OK?

Anyhow.  I don’t blame people for wanting to solve the problem.  However, I will oppose any effort to disarm lawful gun owners who aren’t killing anyone or causing problems.   Restrictions on guns for children or the insane, strikes me as a reasonable compromise which is reasonably calculated to address the problem without affecting the rights of sane adults.

Fact: there are highly intelligent Trump voters.  There are highly intelligent Hillary voters.  There are highly intelligent Sanders voters (they’re not all clueless theater majors).  Hell, there were highly intelligent Marxists, and highly intelligent Nazis and SS officers.   That also applies to many senior Al Qaeda and ISIS leaders.  Of course, highly intelligent doesn’t necessarily mean “moral human being”, but it does mean “not an idiot”.

I also see people on MY side use ad hominem attacks – insults instead of arguments – and proffer poor and easily refuted arguments to support my side.  I have to shake my head as being ineptly defended is just as bad as being competently attacked. 

Donald Trump.  I’ve noted earlier that he’s no Hitler.  I’ll add that while I’ve seen my share of inarticulate, misspelling ALLCAPs MAGA maggots, there are others who can spell properly and form coherent sentences who did vote for Trump.   Generally these are people who held their nose to vote for Trump because they disliked Hillary Clinton.

Hillary Clinton.  Remember her?  She hijacked the Democratic nomination from Bernie Sanders, arrogantly asserting that it was her turn to be President, after seeing Barack Obama take what she felt was hers back in 2008.   Arguably more hawkish than Trump, and recall it was a Democrat, LBJ, who sent US troops to Vietnam in 1965 and a Republican, Nixon, who took them out.  As popular as her husband may have been, no one really likes Hillary.  Trump got less votes than Mitt Romney, and he still won, which means Trump was elected as much because Hillary was unpopular as because he himself was so compelling as a candidate. 

Gary Johnson.  Of course, I didn’t vote for either of them:  I voted for the Libertarian candidate, Gary Johnson.  Of course, he wasn’t particularly charismatic and didn’t do himself any favors by not knowing where Aleppo was – he should have known someone would ask him about US’ proper role in the Syrian conflict.  But he got 3% of the vote.  That may not sound like much, but it’s 3x his 2012 vote tally of 1%, which itself roughly matched the prior record for LPA, the 1980 Clark-Koch ticket. 

By now I’m solidly Libertarian.  I have to shake my head, though, that many Libertarians refused to support Johnson.    Up until 2012, he was a Republican, albeit a successful two term state governor of New Mexico.  

 Was he a solid, 100% Libertarian?  Did he rise through the ranks of the party and do his time in the trenches?  No.  But his closest competitor for the LPA nomination, Austin Peterson, was 35  years old – the bare minimum to qualify for president – and had zero political experience.  

Here’s a news flash.  About 1/3 the country’s voters are Democrat, 1/3 Republican, and 1/3 independent.  This means to win, a candidate has to appeal to independent voters.  A candidate who ONLY appeals to his or her own core constituency will be giving a concession speech on Election Night. 

If the Republicans and Democrats can’t elect a President on their own, certainly the Libertarians, who could probably fit in a football stadium, can’t.   Expecting everyone else to vote for your guy because he’s ticked all the boxes yet has zero relevant experience at any level of government is not realistic, though our current President may either be the 800 lb gorilla exception to this or a growing trend.  We'll see.

ANYHOW.

Let’s work together here.   Don’t assume your opponent is an idiot because he or she disagrees with you.  Don’t insult your opponent because he or she disagrees with you.  Make some good faith effort to find a mutually agreeable solution.  If you can’t, agree to disagree and leave it at that.  (Then call your local congressman.  :D)