Joe Doakes from Como Park writes:
The Left’s new chanting point (Angry Clown, Dog Gone) is Republicans would give guns to bad people but stop good people from voting which is wrong because voters aren’t killers.
No, voters aren’t DIRECT killers. They do it by proxy, electing Barak The Fearsome Terrorist Slayer and Al Franken, the 60th vote needed to pass ObamaCare That Will Have No Death Panels. I don’t think the direct-proxy distinction makes a difference.
Conservatives think bad people shouldn’t have guns and bad people shouldn’t vote, either. Liberals agree with less than half of that.
Joe Doakes
Como Park
It’s not so much that libs don’t think bad people should vote. To put the most positive, pollyannaish possible spin on it as possible, it’s that their unexamined belief is that processing the maxiumum possible number of ballots on election day is the greatest possible good. Ensuring that those ballots are from real people, or people legally entitled to vote, or people who have only voted once, falls well below in the priority list. And that’s if you assume that there isn’t massive fraud, which I do not.
This is much easier, you’re right; I don’t have to edit a tweet for 1 minute just to try to make it fit.
I really just take issue with your attack on the “direct-proxy distinction” as Joe seems to see it.
He pretty explicitly states in the beginning of the 2nd paragraph
“No, voters aren’t DIRECT killers” and goes on to illustrate how they instead kill people by proxy. There is a clear implication that voters are, in fact, killers albeit “enablers” more than killers perhaps. He then details whom the “direct” killers would be (apparently Obama and Franken), but then ends the paragraph with “I don’t think the direct-proxy distinction makes a difference.” This means that the previous distinction that he made “voter’s aren’t DIRECT killers” is no longer relevant and was only for rhetoric. Voters are in fact, according to the second paragraph, “killers” since saying that they’re “direct killers” or “proxy killers” (as I referred to them, “enablers”) doesn’t matter.
Am I just reading this terribly?
It seems a pretty clear implication to me. Perhaps I’m incorrect, but I’d like to see how.
For one thing, the two problems are unrelated. Bringing them up in one conversation is an effort to deflect our attention (whether it’s a chanting point from the left or a blog entry from the right). Mitch’s assiumption aside, these two issues are about whether we should fix a problem that has not been proven to exist (and for which little evidence exists) and ignore a problem for which substantial evidence exists (and the deaths of many people would indicate is – indeed – a problem).
The first (voter ID) is an issue driven by political ideology. The second (gun control) – it seems to me – transgresses political lines and should not even come up in a context of liberal vs. conservative.
Putting these two issues together – as has been done by both libs and conservatives – is an effort to deflect our attentions or at best confuse our collective reasoning.
Smoked fish it is…
Terry?
EKlemm,
Not to speak for Joe, but as you put it yourself, I believe you did in fact read it pretty terribly 🙂
The point isn’t “Voters are Killer!”. The point is that Democrats like to have other people do their dirty work for them.
PJ O’Rourke related a story that one of the Gore daughters told when Algore was in his first term as Veep. They were driving the family limo through the city, and one of the daughters saw a homeless man. They pointed it out to one of their parents. The parent responded “Wow, that’s bad” – and started talking about legislation to deal with homelessness, third-hand.
Joe’s point, I think it’s fair to say, is that from defending your life to making tough health choices to sending drone attacks to kill those who’d kill us to solving the deficit, Democrat voters prefer to vote for candidates who just make the hard stuff happen by magic.
Not, as you seem to have read it, that “voters are killers”. Joe identified the subject of his letter in the first paragraph; ignoring that to focus on the subject of the second paragraph misleads you as to the subject.
Hope that helps.
a problem that has not been proven to exist (and for which little evidence exists)
Plenty of evidence exists.
The second (gun control) – it seems to me – transgresses political lines and should not even come up in a context of liberal vs. conservative.
Indeed, it should not. The debate has taken place over the past thirty years, and the verdict, reached by a bipartisan majority of voters and elected reps, is clear; “gun control” that burdens the responsible and law-abiding, and yet doesn’t affect the law breakers, is stupid and useless. The very few holdouts against this national consensus – DC, Chicago, Los Angeles – happen to completely prove the majority’s thesis for them.
The debate is over. The gun controllers lost. They are trying to bring it back, but it isn’t going to work.