I wrote out a whole reply to your various points (which I’ll send if you want) but one thing in your post caught my eye as the most vital and important…
I want training and licensing, universal registration and background checks, widespread mental healthcare, and poverty intervention. I want to see that immediately.
I’m fairly pro-gun (if you hadn’t figured that out already). I also DESPERATELY want widespread mental healthcare and poverty intervention. I want to see these things IMMEDIATELY and in great quantity. As in, let’s pass a bill today and start this vitally important work tomorrow. This to me is vital to the health of the nation that I love, because the nation is made up of its people and too many of those people are poor and suffering. I don’t think it is (or should be) the American way to just sit and laugh at our fellow countrymen and women and let them suffer while we live the high life.
We disagree on everything else, but I think we agree on this. So why don’t we set aside arguing over the things we disagree on, and focus on implementing the things we DO agree would benefit our nation?
And that was the meat of my original point. When it comes to guns, I suspect you and I are fairly opposite. But I suspect that when it comes to taking care of our fellow humans, you and I are not so different.
Yet the political machines on both sides have us at each others’ throats over gun rights vs gun control, while they push for their own power. What we (people on both sides of the aisle) SHOULD be doing is TALKING to each other, figuring out what we agree on, and focusing on getting THAT done.
But top of just about everyone’s list is end corruption in Washington, so there’s a vested interest in making sure we keep fighting each other rather than working together. And right now that interest is winning.
If you could push a button to make a deal, that was ‘you give up further pushes for gun control, but in exchange we get universal mental health care and poverty intervention’, would you push that button?
FWIW, in the opposite- ‘would you codify gun regulations as they currently are, but in exchange get universal mental health care and poverty intervention’ I’d push that button in a heartbeat.
Anyone who comes into politics with an absolute no-compromise position is the enemy of progress. They’ve substituted politics with religion and religion has no place in governance.
If “pro-gun” people came to the table and agreed on the kinds of laws that would be effective to prevent death and have minimal on the ability to own and have guns - the things that have overwhelming public support like universal registration and background checks - it’d be passed right away. But they don’t. They get real cagey then make up disingenuous horseshit arguments about how this is a slippery slope that surely ends with an authoritarian state where you have no right to self-defense which is a moronic idiotic stupid dumb thing to believe. They refused to come to the table because saving lives and making a better society isn’t a conservative goal.
Because guess what? I’m not anti-gun. At least not in my politics, though probably in my personal life. It’s the consequences of a society flooded with guns with minimal regulations and safety nets causing widespread panic and death that I’m against. But when the pro gun people don’t come to the table on more difficult-to-pass policies, the progressives are going to go for low-hanging fruit solutions like a somewhat capricious assault weapons ban that they can at least pass in that moment thanks to some national tragedy of the week cowing enough no compromisers.
The next time you say that both sides are in any way equally guilty here do me a favor and retire to a hermitage on a mountain for the rest of your life. That’s a bald-faced disingenuous argument. There’s only one “side”. There’s only one group treating this like a team sport where you have to root for the home team. And that side is the people who believe in no compromise. It’s the conservatives. There is no competing side. Everyone else is engaging in honest debate on issues and trying to make the world better through small changes. Everyone else is taking things one step at a time and is prepared to make small mistakes – and reverse them – along the way to making a brighter world. The only people who refuse to do this are conservatives because the objective of conservatism is not policy it’s tribalism.
Your enlightened centrism enables bad actors to act badly.
So no, I absolutely fucking wouldn’t push a button that takes away our ability to make rational policy. I won’t push a button that gives conservatives everything they want in this moment especially because conservatives won’t honor that in the future. I won’t push a button that forces us into a no-compromise position. And anyone who would is the enemy of progress. Is the enemy of the entire human race.
I won’t push a button that forces us into a no-compromise position. And anyone who would is the enemy of progress. Is the enemy of the entire human race.
I don’t EVER suggest no compromise. I don’t EVER suggest that nothing should ever change (and I agree that is anti-progress). I suggest that ignoring a previous compromise is disingenuous. I say that it’s valid to say ‘we compromised last year, we’re living the compromise today, why should I compromise again if I get nothing in return?’ And I suggest we should focus on doing what we agree on, rather than fighting over what we don’t.
So here’s a compromise I (as a pro-gun person) would agree to.
You get universal background checks. Every permanent gun transfer between people requires one. Per existing law, these checks can never be used to build a database. The government must provide the check for free (right now it costs about $50 to do the check at a gun store). And there’s an exemption for temporary transfers between known people, and transfers between family members (IE, I can lend my buddy a rifle for a hunting trip without ‘transferring’ it to him and then back to me), and father can pass guns down to son without paperwork).
In exchange, gun owners get national reciprocity. That means if they get a carry permit from their home state, that permit is valid in all other states, just like a drivers license. They must comply with all applicable laws of the state they visit, for example magazine size limits and where it’s permissible to carry.
That IMHO is a real compromise. You get something, I get something. What you get has a few limits from what I want, what I get has a few limits from what you want.
So basically, your position is that you have to get something. The fact that a given piece of policy is designed to reduce crime and save lives and does you no harm isn’t good enough, it ALSO need to materially benefit you specifically.
Sadly, we’ll never be able to negotiate on terms like that. I view the field of policymaking as pointing towards a better future. You see it as a way to win at team sports. Good thing I am not a politician because that kind of compromising I view as heinous.
What you’re proposing doesn’t worry me at all. The guns already walk across state lines however they please. It would change nothing, saying a license in one state is valid in another – so long as that license was honestly issued with training and care and the guns identifiable and registered. So sure, I’d take that deal, but you don’t get to have that be the end of it because work still needs to be done.
Fortunately, there is a political party full of politicians willing to make those kinds of compromises for better policy. They’re the Democrats. They’ll compromise anything and everything to move an inch forward. So vote for them, they’re who you want.
I wrote out a whole reply to your various points (which I’ll send if you want) but one thing in your post caught my eye as the most vital and important…
I’m fairly pro-gun (if you hadn’t figured that out already). I also DESPERATELY want widespread mental healthcare and poverty intervention. I want to see these things IMMEDIATELY and in great quantity. As in, let’s pass a bill today and start this vitally important work tomorrow. This to me is vital to the health of the nation that I love, because the nation is made up of its people and too many of those people are poor and suffering. I don’t think it is (or should be) the American way to just sit and laugh at our fellow countrymen and women and let them suffer while we live the high life.
We disagree on everything else, but I think we agree on this. So why don’t we set aside arguing over the things we disagree on, and focus on implementing the things we DO agree would benefit our nation?
And that was the meat of my original point. When it comes to guns, I suspect you and I are fairly opposite. But I suspect that when it comes to taking care of our fellow humans, you and I are not so different.
Yet the political machines on both sides have us at each others’ throats over gun rights vs gun control, while they push for their own power. What we (people on both sides of the aisle) SHOULD be doing is TALKING to each other, figuring out what we agree on, and focusing on getting THAT done.
But top of just about everyone’s list is end corruption in Washington, so there’s a vested interest in making sure we keep fighting each other rather than working together. And right now that interest is winning.
If you could push a button to make a deal, that was ‘you give up further pushes for gun control, but in exchange we get universal mental health care and poverty intervention’, would you push that button?
FWIW, in the opposite- ‘would you codify gun regulations as they currently are, but in exchange get universal mental health care and poverty intervention’ I’d push that button in a heartbeat.
Anyone who comes into politics with an absolute no-compromise position is the enemy of progress. They’ve substituted politics with religion and religion has no place in governance.
If “pro-gun” people came to the table and agreed on the kinds of laws that would be effective to prevent death and have minimal on the ability to own and have guns - the things that have overwhelming public support like universal registration and background checks - it’d be passed right away. But they don’t. They get real cagey then make up disingenuous horseshit arguments about how this is a slippery slope that surely ends with an authoritarian state where you have no right to self-defense which is a moronic idiotic stupid dumb thing to believe. They refused to come to the table because saving lives and making a better society isn’t a conservative goal.
Because guess what? I’m not anti-gun. At least not in my politics, though probably in my personal life. It’s the consequences of a society flooded with guns with minimal regulations and safety nets causing widespread panic and death that I’m against. But when the pro gun people don’t come to the table on more difficult-to-pass policies, the progressives are going to go for low-hanging fruit solutions like a somewhat capricious assault weapons ban that they can at least pass in that moment thanks to some national tragedy of the week cowing enough no compromisers.
The next time you say that both sides are in any way equally guilty here do me a favor and retire to a hermitage on a mountain for the rest of your life. That’s a bald-faced disingenuous argument. There’s only one “side”. There’s only one group treating this like a team sport where you have to root for the home team. And that side is the people who believe in no compromise. It’s the conservatives. There is no competing side. Everyone else is engaging in honest debate on issues and trying to make the world better through small changes. Everyone else is taking things one step at a time and is prepared to make small mistakes – and reverse them – along the way to making a brighter world. The only people who refuse to do this are conservatives because the objective of conservatism is not policy it’s tribalism.
Your enlightened centrism enables bad actors to act badly.
So no, I absolutely fucking wouldn’t push a button that takes away our ability to make rational policy. I won’t push a button that gives conservatives everything they want in this moment especially because conservatives won’t honor that in the future. I won’t push a button that forces us into a no-compromise position. And anyone who would is the enemy of progress. Is the enemy of the entire human race.
I don’t EVER suggest no compromise. I don’t EVER suggest that nothing should ever change (and I agree that is anti-progress). I suggest that ignoring a previous compromise is disingenuous. I say that it’s valid to say ‘we compromised last year, we’re living the compromise today, why should I compromise again if I get nothing in return?’ And I suggest we should focus on doing what we agree on, rather than fighting over what we don’t.
So here’s a compromise I (as a pro-gun person) would agree to.
You get universal background checks. Every permanent gun transfer between people requires one. Per existing law, these checks can never be used to build a database. The government must provide the check for free (right now it costs about $50 to do the check at a gun store). And there’s an exemption for temporary transfers between known people, and transfers between family members (IE, I can lend my buddy a rifle for a hunting trip without ‘transferring’ it to him and then back to me), and father can pass guns down to son without paperwork).
In exchange, gun owners get national reciprocity. That means if they get a carry permit from their home state, that permit is valid in all other states, just like a drivers license. They must comply with all applicable laws of the state they visit, for example magazine size limits and where it’s permissible to carry.
That IMHO is a real compromise. You get something, I get something. What you get has a few limits from what I want, what I get has a few limits from what you want.
What do you think? Would you take that?
So basically, your position is that you have to get something. The fact that a given piece of policy is designed to reduce crime and save lives and does you no harm isn’t good enough, it ALSO need to materially benefit you specifically.
Sadly, we’ll never be able to negotiate on terms like that. I view the field of policymaking as pointing towards a better future. You see it as a way to win at team sports. Good thing I am not a politician because that kind of compromising I view as heinous.
What you’re proposing doesn’t worry me at all. The guns already walk across state lines however they please. It would change nothing, saying a license in one state is valid in another – so long as that license was honestly issued with training and care and the guns identifiable and registered. So sure, I’d take that deal, but you don’t get to have that be the end of it because work still needs to be done.
Fortunately, there is a political party full of politicians willing to make those kinds of compromises for better policy. They’re the Democrats. They’ll compromise anything and everything to move an inch forward. So vote for them, they’re who you want.