Posted on 11/03/2014 5:41:04 AM PST by BobL
Something about the term "Common Sense Gun Control" has been bugging me for a while, and I think that I finally understand it now: If you oppose "Common Sense Gun Control", then you are irrational, since you obviously don't have any "common sense". Needless to say, the definition of the term "common sense" is in the eyes of the beholder. No doubt when the government of Australia pretty much rounded up the last of the privately owned guns, they also looked at that as "Common Sense Gun Control", since, without any other privately-owned guns, there was no need for the holdouts to still own them. To them it was "common sense", but to the lady who was forced to pickup a table lamp to try to defend her children from a rampaging man who had broken into her house (as stated on The View a couple of months ago), "Common Sense Gun Control" has a totally different meaning.
But why should Democrats own the term? Why can't we start using it to. Such as "Common Sense Ebola Control" - which starts with not allowing the Thomas Eric Duncans to enter the United States from Liberia on a TOURIST VISA. How does still allowing foreign "tourists" to enter the US from Ebola hotspots help in preventing the spread of the disease to the US? Seems like "Common Sense Ebola Control" would include ending those tourist visas, and also quarantine health care workers when they come back from those countries. Since the above is based on "common sense" then anyone arguing otherwise is irrational.
Likewise with "Common Sense Voter Identification". It seems to be common sense to require ID from anyone wanting to access government goodies like Food Stamps, yet we shouldn't require the same for people that want to vote? We are told that there are over half a million Texans, mostly poor, that don't have ID. But then how do they feed their kids, since they need ID to get their Food Stamps? Of course they have ID. Maybe a few don't, but part of "Common Sense Voter Identification" might be to help out those 14 or so Texans that legitimately have trouble obtaining ID. Maybe that should be done well before the next election, rather than whining about it in the days prior. Maybe the Republican National Committee (RNC) can make that offer, for people with legitimate problems...maybe the Texas Legislature can fund a few million dollars so that those 14 or so Texans can get the help they, need, or get a waiver if really needed. But for the rest of the people, yea "Common Sense Voter Identification" REQUIRES showing your ID to vote...and anyone objecting is a kook, without common sense. If you really want to see how extreme our honor system is, look up "Mexican Voter ID" on Google. You'll see pictures of the IDs with thumb prints, photos, magnetic strips, and holograms. That is what you need to vote in Mexico...and no one complains there.
Every dictator has used this kind of Volkishness: appealing to “common sense”.
There is no such thing as common sense gun control.
For instance, restricting felons from possessing guns. Almost all gun crimes are committed by felons who are already restricted from having guns.
Simply another Prog tactic to abuse vocabulary to win the argument by deceit. Just more of the same lies from the left.
The way the left uses the language is akin to lying, something they are very prolific and very good at, because they have no moral core, no ethical compass that tells them that lying and deceiving are wrong.
What about “common sense education”?
What about “common sense real estate laws”?
What about “common sense policing”?
What about “common sense taxation”?
What about “common sense legislation”?
Common sense is only practiced by lefties. They are the only humans blessed with common sense. Unfortunately, their version of common sense is coupled with fascism.
Ditto with ‘reasonable’ and ‘responsible’ and some others. Anyone who opposes ‘reasonable gun control’ is necessarily branded ‘unreasonable’ by this tactic. Anyone who opposes ‘responsible’ measures must be, therefore, irresponsible. It’s a rhetorical trick, and, because it is very widely used, I suspect it works on a lot of people. It’s designed to create contempt of those who disagree.
Whenever I hear the phrase “common sense” from this administration I know it’s time to BOHICA. How can there be any “common sense” solutions from an administration with no common sense?
“What about “common sense education”?”
Good point - perhaps WE should use something like that. Like: “All we are asking for is Common Sense Arithmetic” (rather than crap from Common Core). How can anyone argue against that?
>> There is no such thing as common sense gun control.
Of course there is! For example, I saw firsthand this weekend that you should control the stiffness of your grip on your semiauto handgun, especially if it has a polymer-frame, or else it might jam.
That’s only “common sense gun control”, but it’s hard to remember when you get a little sore after firing lots of rounds, practicing your precision gun control.
:-)
When you are dealing with communist DemocRATS, “common sense, reasonable and responsible” mean “the camel’s nose”.
I’m a fan of common sense gun control. That includes proper grip, breath control, trigger control, sight picture, and plenty of range time.
I’m also a fan of common sense voter ID. That includes a valid voter ID issued by the motor vehicle department, without cost for those with no official ID who can prove lawful residence. That includes mandatory fingerprint scans and photographs as people vote, including for early voting and for absentee voting, with all sides able to conduct a nationwide check for repeat and illegal voters, and a huge mandatory fine plus a minimum of six years in prison for vote fraud.
You got the idea...why should they own the definition of those terms?
How about we play at their level, rather than be presumed to be kooks?
The current Administration and its handlers have become adept at that tactic.
The term "shared prosperity" is another such misuse of the language.
Using a commonly friendly word like "shared" to describe a government policy of force and coercion is despicable on its face. Then, again, isn't that descriptive of how all totalitarian regimes initially present themselves in order to gain power?
In the course of his research for "Solzhenitsyn: A Soul in Exile" (Harper Collins), Joseph Pearch traveled to Moscow to interview the writer. The excerpt below is from that interview:
Solzhenitsyn: "In different places over the years I have had to prove that socialism, which to many western thinkers is a sort of kingdom of justice, was in fact full of coercion, of bureaucratic greed and corruption and avarice, and consistent within itself that socialism cannot be implemented without the aid of coercion. Communist propaganda would sometimes include statements such as "we include almost all the commandments of the Gospel in our ideology". The difference is that the Gospel asks all this to be achieved through love, through self-limitation, but socialism only uses coercion." Solzhenitsyn
Even the current President, at a National Prayer Breakfast, attempted to tie his policy of forced "sharing" to Jesus's appeal for voluntary charity.
Coercive "taking" power, when wielded against the citizenry by either the government alone (taxing), or in combination with another power (unions), is destructive of freedom and prosperity.
The following statement by Sir Winston Churchill, upon leaving office as Prime Minister in 1945, was prophetic for Great Britain, and as it turns out, the United States and the world:
"I do not believe in the power of the State to plan and enforce. No matter how numerous are the committees they set up or the ever-growing hordes of officials they employ or the severity of the punishments they inflict or threaten, they can't approach the high level of internal economic production achieved under free enterprise. Personal initiative, competitive selection, and profit motive corrected by failure and the infinite processes of good housekeeping and personal ingenuity, these constitute the life of a free society. It is this vital creative impulse that I deeply fear the doctrines and policies of the socialist government has destroyed. Nothing that they can plan and order and rush around enforcing will take its place. They have broken the main spring and until we get a new one, the watch wil not go. Set the people free. Get out of the way and let them make the best of themselves. I am sure that this policy of equalizing misery and organizing society--instead of allowing diligence, self-interest and ingenuity to produce abundance--has only to be prolonged to kill this British Island stone dead."
In the early days of America's experiment in liberty, its Founders warned of oppressive taxation by those elected to represent the people. Under their "People's" Constitution, the people were left free, and the government was limited.
The Bill of Rights is, itself, a simple and "common sense" Constitutional protection for "the People's" unalienable rights.
Citizens do not need a reinterpretation of its provisions by those who would use semantic maneuvers in order to pervert the principles and enslave "the People."
" If these Commentaries shall but inspire in the rising generation a more ardent love of their country, an unquenchable thirst for liberty, and a profound reverence for the constitution and the Union, then they will have accomplished all, that their author ought to desire. Let the American youth never forget, that they possess a noble inheritance, bought by the toils, and sufferings, and blood of their ancestors; and capable, if wisely improved, and faithfully guarded, of transmitting to their latest posterity all the substantial blessings of fife, the peaceful enjoyment of liberty, property, religion, and independence. The structure has been erected by architects of consummate skill and fidelity; its foundations are solid; its compartments are beautiful, as well as useful; its arrangements are full of wisdom and order; and its defences are impregnable from without. It has been reared for immortality, if the work of man may justly aspire to such a title. It may, nevertheless, perish in an hour by the folly, or corruption, or negligence of its only keepers, THE PEOPLE. Republics are created by the virtue, public spirit, and intelligence of the citizens. They fall, when the wise are banished from the public councils, because they dare to be honest, and the profligate are rewarded, because they flatter the people, in order to betray them." - Justice Joseph Story (Final Paragraph of "Commentaries on the Constitution. . .. .")
Words mean something. If we reject NewSpeak and demand that words (even what the far left treats as ambiguous terms, such as “common sense” or “marriage”) be used with their real meanings, the left will lose their leverage.
Common sense tax revolt?
I see tremendous possibilities.
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