An explanation for Markley’s Law

Via email from Mike B. (AlphaMike in Idaho) who reports his wife thought it was good reading. I agree. We have a possible explanation of the mindset of anti-gun males:

He’s scared of the thing. That’s understandable–so am I. But as a girl I have the luxury of being able to admit it. I don’t have to masquerade squeamishness as grand principle-in the interest of mankind, no less.

A man does. He has to say things like “One Taniqua Hall is one too many,” as a New York radio talk show host did in referring to the 9-year old New York girl who was accidentally shot last year by her 12-year old cousin playing with his uncle’s gun. But the truth is he desperately needs Taniqua Hall, just like he needs as many Columbines and Santees as can be mustered, until they spell an end to the Second Amendment. And not for the benefit of the masses, but for the benefit of his self-esteem.

He often accuses men with guns of “compensating for something.” The truth is quite the reverse. After all, how is he supposed to feel knowing there are men out there who aren’t intimidated by the big bad inanimate villain? How is he to feel in the face of adolescent boys who have used the family gun effectively in defending the family from an armed intruder? So if he can’t touch a gun, he doesn’t want other men to be able to either. And to achieve his ends, he’ll use the only weapon he knows how to manipulate: the law.

There is a lot more. Good stuff.

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9 thoughts on “An explanation for Markley’s Law

  1. I saw something like this recently. Someone saying that wordsmiths, journalists and pols and the like, people who make their living with WORDS, but lost a lot on the school playground and have little physical courage, have a similar problem: they value only what they are good at (words, not DOing) and denigrate all else. They want to bring everyone to their level, to the playing field where they think they can always win. I’ll see if I can find the article again.

  2. I agree for the most part, but the mechanism is not fear per se in all cases. Whether the self image problem is because of fear, or due to a lack of skill, the inability to buy something expensive, or other possible reasons, the reaction is often to denigrate the thing or quality you don’t or can’t have. I believe that most of it is envy driven, whether it is envy toward someone else’s lack of fear, envy toward someone else’s better skills, wealth, etc.

    You could make the case that fear and envy go along together most of the time, but what about the reaction to the guy with the nice car, boat, plane, etc.? “He’s obviously compensating for something” is just as readily directed toward him, but I don’t think it can be out of fear.

    It could be as simple in some cases as envy toward another person’s lack of apparent social pressures– the ability to act without “permission” from one’s social group. You can say that it’s fear-driven, in that some people are afraid of what others will say about them, but I think that in all cases it comes to envy of someone else’s independence. And right there I believe we can place almost all of the motivation for leftist/authoritarian ideas. Hatred of independence fueled by envy. Fear is only a piece of that puzzle.

    We might boil it down even more by saying that it’s hatred of innocence. Isn’t the left always trying to impugn someone? We’re to believe that humans are all either too stupid or too evil to have liberty. That’s innocence denied. We’re all guilty, and so we don’t deserve these so-called “rights”. Why, they’re not even real rights, are they? No; they’re “negative rights”, they say, and that doesn’t even make sense…

    Look closely at any and all leftist assertions and tell me they aren’t all directed against independence and/or innocence. The very things everyone wants but very few actually have. A lot of people see themselves as completely incapable of having those things. Envy. And major portions of our culture have been nurturing it, one way or another

  3. The difference between self esteem and self respect is the difference between liberalism and conservatism.

    • I thought Self Esteem is what a Blood or a Crip had, and Self Respect was what a Marine had.
      Or, Self Respect was doing or not doing what was good, while Self-Esteem was taking what you deserved because “I am ME”.
      There are other definitions, but these are ones that apply after January 1, 1990.

  4. I think it is probably much simpler. Some antis are at ease lying through their teeth about an “assault weapon” being full auto, they’ll lump suicides together with homicides to try to inflate statistics, they’ll lie about what the laws currently are, they’ll lie about the our motivations, they’ll lie about the effects gun control will have, etc…

    That they include ad hominen attacks in their repertoire is no surprise. They do it for the same reason they lie : because it often works.

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