Quote of the day—Robert Spitzer

They’re not going to attract women, they’re not going to attract ethnic minorities, they’re not going to attract mainstream Americans, because they’re too far down the path of kind of rabid, apocalyptic, angry, defensive style that has increasingly been their meat and potatoes for 20 years. I don’t think the needle’s going to move a whole lot in the year to come.

Robert Spitzer
December 30, 2018
Professor at SUNY Cortland
2018 Was A Bad Year For The NRA, And The Worst Could Be Yet To Come
[Those who call the NRA extreme always make me smile. Just keep thinking that.

I know lots of gun owners who refuse to join the NRA. Without a single exception it is because the NRA gives in too easily.—Joe]

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11 thoughts on “Quote of the day—Robert Spitzer

  1. …which reminds me, I need to write a check to GOA and SAF. (I also support the latter via Amazon Smile. Still a little amazed that Amazon hasn’t shut them out.)

    Happy New Year!

  2. Nothing like not knowing what you don’t know…

    And not being aware that you don’t know.

    Something that was drilled into us during multiple military schools.

    Jeff B.

    • Oh come now; this kind of language is not and has never been about what the anti-liberty forces know or don’t know. This is a tactic. A style of battle, in a battlefield outside of the one in which bullets and bombs, or ships, trucks, aircraft, supplies and tanks are useful.

      Surely your military schools would have touched upon the effective use of propaganda, deception, misdirection, outright obvious lies and agitation, and other forms of psychological manipulation in war. And surely they’d have brought up the tactical use of false opposition against false opponents as a distraction from the real war that’s being fought somewhere else entirely.

      No doubt you’re aware of the phrase, The pen is mightier than the sword. Reiterated; we might say, Words carry more power than brute force, for brute force has little subtlety, and is thus more easily recognized for what it is.

      If someone walks up at random and punches you in the face, you know right away that you’ve experienced an act of criminal aggression. If on the other hand someone uses subtle lies and other acts of manipulation and distraction over a period of years, and those lies germinate and take root in your mind, then after enough time you may end up with whole paradigms of thought and perception which lead you in all directions other than the right one. THAT is vastly more effective in this war of doctrine and ideology than any punch to the face, a bomb to your house or a bullet to the spine.

      If you believe that this Spitzer quote is born of ignorance then you’re a casualty in the war of words. You’ve taken a bad hit. Buck up, Soldier! Heal up those wounds and get back out to the front.

  3. Robert Spitzer wrote an article on the topic of firearms?

    Will someone please contact John Roundnose or Stephen Boattail for a rebuttal?

  4. Mm hmm;
    Attack liberty on all fronts, then criticize us for becoming defensive and for sounding the alarm, warning others that liberty is under attack.

    I would say that it is a very clever attack, but then again; every elementary schoolyard bully understands and employs this tactic.

    But then yet again; why stop using it if it just keeps working? It’s an opportunity that presents too much of a temptation for certain people, and surely if we keep falling for it, then we deserve it, right? That’ll be their justification, exactly as it is for the little bully on the school playground who’s father in turn bullied him. It’s a niche, and it’s always there, from kindergarten to graduate school and beyond, and some poor bastards have to occupy it because they themselves have been bullied, deceived into believing that it’s the only haven available to them.

  5. If I were planning the war against liberty in America, I would want all of my “major opposition” to be on my side. I would set up organizations tasked with speaking juuuuust enough truth, and providing juuuuust enough credible opposition to my anti-liberty movement to be convincing, so as to rally as many would-be protectors of liberty to them as possible. And of course I’d speak out against them with a particular zeal! I’d say crazy, stupid things about them, to bolster their status among my opposition!

    Thus, by diverting the bulk of the libertarian forces, and their hopes, trust, attention and resources, into my own anti-liberty organizations I would have the best possible chance of overthrowing the most free, most noble, most prosperous, most confident and powerful country in the world.

    Short of having said “pro liberty” (wink wink) organizations in my back pocket from the outset, I would have them infiltrated by my own operatives, trained in the language and thinking of the libertarian, and slowly but surely corrupt them toward impotence, if not outright serving my needs.

    That, I believe, is the purpose, or fallen state (take your pick, it doesn’t matter which), of the Republican Party, the NRA, and most of the ostensibly “Christian” churches, charities and quasi-secular fraternal organizations. They’re structured, or re-structured (for it doesn’t matter whether your soldiers are willing, knowing participants or dupes) to distract and redirect the truly well-intentioned (but less than vigilant) into putting their resources into organizations and initiatives that are convincing enough, but ultimately ineffective at stopping the enemies of liberty.

    Call me paranoid but they really are out to get us, and what better way?

    And of course, whether I’m right about this or whether I’m wrong, I’ll be attacked for being on the wrong side, from both sides. So that’s another brilliant feature of this sort of deception. Shut up and let the ruse play out, don’t look at that man behind the curtain because you’re crazy if you do.

    How then does one sort it all out? It isn’t complicated; use the dreaded “litmus test”. Thus the very notion of ideological litmus tests in politics or religion is attacked and maligned (that is, if you favor liberty; the leftists-authoritarians-fascists-papists et al have their litmus tests and they know how to use them, but they’ve convinced us that such scrutiny and resultant clarity will be self-defeating). Heh!

    • Let’s go with the assumption that the NRA and others are as you say. Now what? What is your plan of action? Or is there only inaction?

      Have you talked with any of the NRA board of directors, their lobbyists, their grass roots coordinators? If so, is that how you came to your conclusion? If not, then don’t you think that would be useful in arriving at conclusions of this nature?

      Some people readily agree they are paranoid and yet ask the question, “But am I paranoid enough?” In your case, I’m pretty sure I know the answer.

  6. The same people who call the NRA extreme are the same people who consider Trotsky to be extreme right-wing.
    Danger on the right, there is no danger from the left.

  7. This fool has not been to a shooting range recently. So many of the groups he says are not interested in firearms are shooting. This is the type of insulated leftist who can not understand how the Hildabeast lost.

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