Quote of the day—Barry Snell

An anti-gunner reads a book though, or sees a documentary on TV — or perhaps worst of all, gets a degree — and suddenly they have the almighty authority and expertise to tell us how we ought to live our lives, replying to our objections to their onslaught by throwing pictures of dead kids in our faces and commanding us to shut up, because we’re just a bunch of stupid radicals and liberals alone know what’s best for America.

Barry Snell
May 3, 2013
Snell: Waking the dragon — How Feinstein fiddled while America burned
[An even larger point is that liberals believe in a planned/controlled society and I don’t. I believe in free association and exercising free will as long as you don’t infringe upon the rights of others to do the same. I want government out of not just my bedroom, my body, and gun safe but out of my house, my bank, and my contracts with others. The job of government is to protect rights and enforce contracts, not infringe rights and invalidate contracts.

See also my comments from when I first quoted from this same article.—Joe]

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8 thoughts on “Quote of the day—Barry Snell

  1. I wish we could stop referring to authoritarians as “liberals”. Sure; authoritarians call themselves “liberals”, and a criminal may very well attempt to portray himself as a saint, too, but that doesn’t mean we have to go along with it.

    It’s worse than the magazine verses clip issue. If you’re going to call a magazine a clip, then what do you call a clip? “Bullet holder thingy” could apply to both, and yet they are different. Clips are used so seldom by comparison that it usually doesn’t matter if we conflate the two, until you need to actually make the distinction; then instead of simply using one word properly, now you need to have a conversation just to get to that basic understanding of one word. If you’re going to call an authoritarian a liberal, then what do you call a liberal? “A person with some outlook or other or who advocates something” could apply to both, but they are far from being the same thing. I’M a liberal and YOU are a liberal, and so you and I are the same thing as an authoritarian? Or are advocates of liberty so rare that we are usually safe in lumping them together with authoritarians?

    “[The Texas fertilizer plant explosion] was on TV for a day, tops, while we’re still hearing about Boston and will for many weeks to come.”

    It’s very, very VERY simple– If it can be used to further the cause of authoritarianism, it is “newsworthy” to the authoritarian journalist. If not, it isn’t.

    The authoritarian cause needs fear, mistrust, frustration, anger, hate, weakness, etc., to spread and multiply itself, and so it “reports” those things, and in such ways, that further those ends. Ask any average, low information American and he’ll tell you that violent crime is on the increase, while we know that in fact it’s on the decline and that anyone who, actually cares to snap out of their trance and look, can find the facts easily. That inability to think, perceive and realize, even for a millisecond, beyond the authoritarian narrative is the result of “news”.

    If Barry Snell would like to offer some balance, he can very easily find at least one legitimate, defensive use of a firearm in America every single day, and report that. Glenn Beck is doing that right now on the Blaze though, and is quickly overtaking all other news outlets. That’s a monopoly by default. Other “journalists” have apparently had no interest in, or have been afraid of, reporting the truth. I believe it’s mostly due to fear.

    • Exactly, Ryan. These people are not liberals. They’re statistics, authoritarian thugs. The term liberal suits them just fine, because it provides a mask for them.

  2. The anti-gun side wonders why the pro-gun side won’t take part in a “national discussion,” but fails to realize the discussion has been going on for some time. They wonder out loud why we won’t come to the table after they’ve spent their whole adult lives deriding us, our values, our traditions, and our way of life. They wonder why we – who haven’t done anything wrong, and in some cases may have SAVED lives – won’t just accept that we’re bad people.

    This reminds me of the “peace talks” between Israel and Palestine. People wonder why Israel won’t accept any of the Palestinian proposals, when the reality is every Palestinian proposal thus far is predicated by the denial of Israel as a Jewish state. The reality is that each time foreign negotiators (e.g. the U.S. and U.N.) sit down to talk Israel is the first at the table, but Palestine won’t show up unless their demands are met first. Then, Israel’s proposals – predicated on international recognition of Israel as a Jewish state – are rejected immediately, Palestine is accused of negotiating in bad faith, and the whole farce falls apart.

    There’s a lot of parallel between Israel-Palestine talks and pro-gun-anti-gun talks. When we have to give up our dignity in order to be recognized at the table, it ceases to matter that we were the first ones there, or that we appeared in good faith. When our primary request – for the antis to acknowledge our legitimate rights and way of life – is refused, the rest falls apart.

    • It is not insignificant that the people who hate the right to keep and bear arms in America are generally the same ones who hate Israel and tend to uphold and repeat all the lies about Her. They’re also, generally speaking, the same ones who favor coercive re-distribution and all manner of authoritarian, big-government rule.

      Nor are any of these issues new to the 20th century. They’re as old as human civilization itself.

      So what are we really dealing with here? I say it has nothing to do with any particular current “issue” (media defined) or any assertions related thereto. I say there is only one issue, manefesting itself in myriad ways as required to get through to the culture of the day.

      • “The study of history is a powerful antidote to contemporary arrogance. It is humbling to discover how many of our glib assumptions, which seem to us novel and plausible, have been tested before, not once but many times and in innumerable guises; and discovered to be, at great human cost, wholly false.” — Paul Johnson

        One of my favorite quotes.

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