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kleinbl00  ·  2691 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: America's addiction to the politics of anger

Oh FFS Damon.

    Take the response to David Brooks' Tuesday column in The New York Times. It seems like the most anodyne argument imaginable: If liberals want to make progress on passing gun control measures in the wake of last week's awful school shooting in Parkland, Florida, which left 17 people dead, they should stop demonizing those on the other side of the gun issue and try to engage them in respectful conversation and debate about matters of common concern (like how to keep everyone's children safe).

David Brooks' column was "let's find crazy gun nuts on Facebook and make them hang out in rap sessions with liberals." NOWHERE does he suggest this will change things. What he does say?

    After the stereotypes are discussed, the room feels different. As one Red in Ohio told Lawson, “I think we are all pretty clear on one thing: Don’t tell us who we are and what we think.” Another Red was moved almost to tears by the damage categories do. “We’re not just cookie-cutter people; we’re individuals. Just because you don’t like something, you don’t have to ridicule it — you probably don’t understand it,” she said. “When someone’s heart is full up with something, and then you demean it without even listening to them — I hate that.”

You know where the terms "liberal" and "conservative" come from? The French Revolution by way of John Locke and François-René de Chateaubriand. "Liberals" were those that argued natural law, in that all men are created equal and no monarch could rule other men without their consent. "Conservatives" argued that the House of Bourbon was God's chosen ruler of France. Liberals were "liberating" humanity. Conservatives were "conserving" God and Country.

Two hundred years now liberals have been about suffrage, healthcare and universal human rights. Two hundred years now conservatives have been about gentry, prayer in school and bathroom bans.

At some point, it has to be acknowledged that one side is right and the other is wrong.

In this case, the wrong side is the one that believes the right to go plinkin' with a militarily-derived weapon outweighs the right to not get randomly shot in the face.