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Kalit posted:The only outcome of the NFAC protests was they ended up accidentally shooting each other He's talking about the Black Panthers. Multiple major gun restrictions were signed into law in California as a direct result of Black Panthers showing up armed to "observe" police actions. Edit; At least, I assume that's what the OP was referencing.
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Jun 2, 2022 20:14
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Cpt_Obvious posted:He's talking about the Black Panthers. Multiple major gun restrictions were signed into law in California as a direct result of Black Panthers showing up armed to "observe" police actions. I know? I was pushing back against the [presumably facetious] insinuation of that being an effective and/or the sole way gun control gets passed in our country.
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Jun 2, 2022 20:36
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Cpt_Obvious posted:At a certain point talking about gun control in the United States feels a bit masturbatory. It's been almost 25 years since columbine and it's only getting worse. I'm not saying it's hopeless, but I think the question of "what" to regulate is far less important than the "how". For example, there is a large bipartisan consensus for universal background checks and yet there doesn't seem to be a way to get it passed. What mechanisms can feasibly be used to curb gun violence and how can more be created or exploited? In therms of "how", one idea I've heard here https://openargs.com/oa599-our-massive-gun-problem-what-can-we-do/ is repealing the liability protections that were established for the gun industry. The idea being that even if it doesn't bankrupt a manufacturer, the civil suits could reveal all sorts of lovely behavior that could help build a public case for actually doing somethin.
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Jun 2, 2022 21:01
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Cpt_Obvious posted:At a certain point talking about gun control in the United States feels a bit masturbatory. It's been almost 25 years since columbine and it's only getting worse. I'm not saying it's hopeless, but I think the question of "what" to regulate is far less important than the "how". For example, there is a large bipartisan consensus for universal background checks and yet there doesn't seem to be a way to get it passed. What mechanisms can feasibly be used to curb gun violence and how can more be created or exploited? Obviously, outright banning the ownership of all guns with the possible exception of bolt action rifles and break-action shotguns would be the most effective solution. I don't particularly see one solution as any more tenable than the next, but if we're pretending there might be solutions that aren't directly restrictions on what you can own, I'm partial to requiring active membership in a gun club in order to purchase and own firearms. That way, you're enforcing some sort of regular interaction with others before anyone can purchase a firearm, and hopefully that can act as a barrier to folks who are actively noxious to those around them. Clubs would be required to report membership information on attendance and sales, and you'd run them through an auditing process aimed at drumming out straw purchasers. Obviously it creates some of its own problems, not the least of which being a potential for becoming its own radicalization path. However, you stand a much greater chance of holding those enablers to account when one of their members is involved in a mass shooting than you do some discord server.
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Jun 2, 2022 21:40
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A few additional resources regarding gun control: 2013 WaPo article about the "Revolt in Cincinnati" by which Wayne LaPierre et al took over the NRA. Well-cited Kristof piece in NYT on different regulatory options and their likely effects on violence. BATF: A recently finalized rule on the definition of firearms that's a big deal; it was previously part of gun control bills, and its passage through admin law makes it easier to overturn, but realistically also makes gun control legislation easier to pass. This is often reported as responding just to "ghost guns", but it's a much broader overhaul of the core definitions used by the agency. CDC: Firearm Mortality by State Firearm stats hub, including links to related research. Note the CDC being allowed to study firearm violence is a recent change pushed through following past mass shootings with funding for such research starting in the last year or so, overturning a bar known as the "Dickey Amendment" in past budget bills. Coverage: The Trace is a nonprofit group that does advocacy journalism focused entirely on firearms. It's funded by Everytown for Gun Safety, which is itself largely funded by Michael Bloomberg. The Dems have so many gun control bills that I can't find a good single source for the currently active ones; the uniform limitation is the Senate.
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Jun 2, 2022 23:34
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mobby_6kl posted:I mean, yeah, after Sandy Hook it kind of is. Biden just came out in favor of this. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JPh4847Zm1A I also want to see tracking of where guns are coming from and who is selling to whom, and mandatory insurance for gun owners to pay for bullshit their toys cause the rest of us.
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Jun 3, 2022 00:47
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Solkanar512 posted:Biden just came out in favor of this. Well luckily he's got a MUCH bigger plan than that! https://twitter.com/JoeBiden/status/1322976702419636225 (USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)
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Jun 3, 2022 00:53
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I mean the reality is that political will to enact gun control never meaningfully developed in this country. What's the big win people point to, the AWB? It's the single greatest loss the gun control platform ever took, because it radically encouraged the gun community to come together and fight for their rights. With the AWB everyone pat themselves on the back and moved on, but the other side of the argument turned into a loving monster. People talk about poo poo like ghost guns and bump stocks, but they never actually consider them as physical things that people have. Do you know how stupid and useless a bump stock is? People sometimes call the full auto setting on a gun the giggle switch, because it's fun to just go brrrrr and dump a magazine......once or twice. Then you realize it's actually kind of expensive to be constantly spending money dumping mags for no real purpose, and a lot of folks don't have that much money to go around. So why the hell did so many people buy a bump stock when they were a thing? Because gently caress the ATF. That's why. The government made it tedious to get a full auto gun, so people do whatever they can to legally get something like fully automatic fire. Will most people that got one have used it once and never again, or maybe twice a year with friends? Yep. Still got one, gently caress the ATF. Most 'ghost guns' are just lovely frames you put completely generic Glock slides or AR-15 uppers on, entirely unworthy of time and money spent getting one. Why do it? gently caress the ATF. There are people who couldn't give less of a poo poo about guns that taught themselves electrochemical rifling to 100% make a gun on their own, just to say gently caress you to the government. To make the point you will literally never stop me from having a gun if I want one, because I can make one by myself. gently caress anyone that tries to constrain my rights, real or imagined. And that is a minority of gun owners, but it's the most dedicated and motivated section. And frankly there isn't an equivalent in the gun control side. And not only is the energy level wildly unbalanced between the two positions, one side is running on nothing. There's been no real meaningful gun control since the AWB, but the level of fervor on the more pro-gun side of the argument still goes strong. They are still pushing the limits, fighting any vague law that could constrain them. Conversely a mass grave of dead children hasn't meaningfully pushed the needle in favor of gun control actually happening. I imagine in 7 years nothing will have been done by the gun control community, but someone will have made a package on how to spend 3k on various 3D printers and chemical tools on how to make literally every single part of a gun, including bullets and primers, at your home completely automated. Maybe 2K, depending on how prices fall. You can kind of do it now but it's not entirely automated, so it's not available to anyone. Just anyone willing to put in the effort. The elimination of "Put in the effort" is coming, and will really crack that open. That's when I'm calling the death of gun control in America, when the gun community has so lapped the gun control side that it's actively made getting a gun as easy as pushing a button, and has done so purely out of spite. Even though they will have never faced meaningful legislation or push back, even though they'll have won most every meaningful fight they ever got in, they will push the limits as far as is possible to make sure that gun control never, ever, ever has a chance. No matter what.
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Jun 3, 2022 01:54
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It would be good for you to take a bit and read the BATF rule I linked above, Mulva. This has already been addressed.
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Jun 3, 2022 02:34
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Mulva posted:I mean the reality is that political will to enact gun control never meaningfully developed in this country. What's the big win people point to, the AWB? It's the single greatest loss the gun control platform ever took, because it radically encouraged the gun community to come together and fight for their rights. With the AWB everyone pat themselves on the back and moved on, but the other side of the argument turned into a loving monster. People talk about poo poo like ghost guns and bump stocks, but they never actually consider them as physical things that people have. Do you know how stupid and useless a bump stock is? People sometimes call the full auto setting on a gun the giggle switch, because it's fun to just go brrrrr and dump a magazine......once or twice. Then you realize it's actually kind of expensive to be constantly spending money dumping mags for no real purpose, and a lot of folks don't have that much money to go around. So why the hell did so many people buy a bump stock when they were a thing? If we lived in the time of a theoretical new assault weapons ban, how many people do you really think are going to go through the hassle of actually building a gun from scratch? Even with how easy it would be with 3D printers. How many 18 year olds that want to shoot up a school will have the money to buy all that 3D printing poo poo to build a gun? Yes of course there's going to be some people doing it, but if the only way to get an assault weapon is literally build it (illegally I might add) versus just going to the neighborhood gun store down the street that alone is going to stop 99% from getting a gun. And to go back to the illegal part. Most people don't want to be on the wrong side of the law. Even fervent gun nuts that talk a big game about how they will keep their guns even if they get banned like most things they say they are full of poo poo. A felony conviction that you can never get rid of is too big of a risk for most people. My point is of course you're not going to solve the problem 100%. But you're acting like it's not worth doing even if it makes a serious dent in the problem.
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Jun 3, 2022 02:42
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Mulva posted:I mean the reality is that political will to enact gun control never meaningfully developed in this country. What's the big win people point to, the AWB? It's the single greatest loss the gun control platform ever took, because it radically encouraged the gun community to come together and fight for their rights. Democrats have been trying to pass Gun Control legislations for decades but have been defeated constantly because the "core" of the Republican Party refuses budge in any meaningful way. There's plenty of will. Democrats haven't been able to get enough leverage in Congress but with the imbalance in the Senate, Gerrymandering, etc. it's not exactly a surprise either. Gucci Loafers fucked around with this message at 03:08 on Jun 3, 2022 |
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Jun 3, 2022 03:04
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Discendo Vox posted:It would be good for you to take a bit and read the BATF rule I linked above, Mulva. This has already been addressed. ......literally nothing about defining a PMF or how it needs to be marked or registered has the slightest bit of impact on how easy it is to make one, and will continue to get to make one, or the ATF having any loving idea you did it. Moreover the point isn't the item, the point is that one side is pushing it's ability to the degree where you can get a gun as easily as possible, and the other side is doing nothing. At all. Not even the slightest bit. Not one thing. Nor is there any sign a single thing, at all, on any level, will be done. The ATF legislation doesn't even say you can't print a gun, it just has to be in the system. Your FFL can absolutely sell you a PMF and the ATF is fine with that. The ATF did nothing in it's clarifications to impact the practical reality of home gun making in the 21st century. It is a wild and increasing disparity in power. Charliegrs posted:If we lived in the time of a theoretical new assault weapons ban, how many people do you really think are going to go through the hassle of actually building a gun from scratch? Even with how easy it would be with 3D printers. How many 18 year olds that want to shoot up a school will have the money to buy all that 3D printing poo poo to build a gun? Yes of course there's going to be some people doing it, but if the only way to get an assault weapon is literally build it (illegally I might add) versus just going to the neighborhood gun store down the street that alone is going to stop 99% from getting a gun. There's a reason I said 7 years from now. Today if you wanted to make a semi-automatic [Pistol or rifle doesn't particularly matter much, it's slightly easier to make a pistol due to printing space but it's not a deal breaker] it's like.....maybe 3K in the US? You can go up or down as much as a thousand dollars depending on sales or your own technical ability, but that'll get you everything. Including making your own rifled barrel. If you wanted to do that 10 years ago, it'd have been a lot more money and lot less reliable. And 7 years from now it'll be a lot cheaper and a lot more reliable. It will be as simple as pushing a button at some point to do the entire process. And it's not that far away in the grand scheme of things. And again, it's not a question of it defeating the law. It's that it's not going to have to and people will push for it anyway. Nobody needs to come up with some new laws to start pushing in light of the latest mass shooting [Which isn't the latest mass shooting, there's been more since then]. They can push all the other laws we already came up with and didn't enact. They can push one of the thousands of things people have already said they would do. That Biden ran on doing. They could pick any given issue and start fighting for it. Have they? Do you think they will? That they are waiting on something? One side of this fight is doing nothing, and the other is doing everything they can. That's the thing about fights, they are generally against something. You are not having an ideological discussion in a white room, there are people that oppose you that are fighting much harder. And objectively it'd seem that they are a tiny minority, and most people support in the abstract "Gun control", "More regulations", "Stricter background checks", all sorts of things....that they've supported for years and years and years. Nothing happens though, does it? More people die, nothing happens, nobody changes their strategy beyond screaming "Do something!". And nothing gets done. Crosby B. Alfred posted:Democrats have been trying to pass Gun Control legislations for decades but have been defeated constantly because the "core" of the Republican Party refuses budge in any meaningful way. There's plenty of will. Democrats haven't been able to get enough leverage in Congress but with the imbalance in the Senate, Gerrymandering, etc. it's not exactly a surprise either. Within your lifetime the Democrats had all the power they needed to do anything they really wanted. Obama had a stacked deck and they could have loving ran with all sorts of things. They didn't because they didn't care. That's it, nobody held them back but themselves. Party leaders in the Democratic party don't consider it a pressing issue, and the majority don't care enough to fight for it. And the general public doesn't feel it's an important enough issue to hold them to task for it. Whereas a lot of people will absolutely single issue go "But guns though!" on the other side. "They would if they had more power" is a lie, because when they had the power they didn't act. They will never act. They don't want to. Mulva fucked around with this message at 03:22 on Jun 3, 2022 |
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Jun 3, 2022 03:19
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"Gun control to Major Tom...." Sorry, had to do it. I do think the only thing that can possibly even start to put a dent back in things is a combination of a buyback like Eric Sewell proposed and promises to disarm the police in transitionary stages. It feels to me very hard to discuss this topic without also talking about the military-industrial complex that frequently doubles as a domestic weapons manufacturer as well as the militarization of the police. The peripheral regulations will eventually be circumvented or even overruled if they ever get onto the floor at all. I still think that radical rethinking of an America worldwide and local still has to be reckoned with, but any attempt at gun control that also doesn't try to draw back the police power is always going to leave many communities that would be very easy allies leery.
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Jun 3, 2022 03:23
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Mulva posted:Within your lifetime the Democrats had all the power they needed to do anything they really wanted. Obama had a stacked deck and they could have loving ran with all sorts of things. They didn't because they didn't care. That's it, nobody held them back but themselves. Party leaders in the Democratic party don't consider it a pressing issue, and the majority don't care enough to fight for it. And the general public doesn't feel it's an important enough issue to hold them to task for it. Whereas a lot of people will absolutely single issue go "But guns though!" on the other side. "They would if they had more power" is a lie, because when they had the power they didn't act. They will never act. They don't want to. During Sandy Hook they tried to pass legislation in '13 but a quick search shows me that it was 40-60 with almost every Republican voting against it expect for one. What was Obama and the Democratic administration supposed to do exactly?
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Jun 3, 2022 03:30
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Assuming the futility of regulation or gun control, and working backwards, is just internalizing and restating the rhetorical playbook of every regulated industry seeking to dismiss the viability of regulation. As others have stated, the fact that it is possible to violate a regulation or print a ghost gun does not make it somehow equally trivial or easy. Time to repost the reactionary rhetorics for a third time, I suppose: Since I originally developed it with examples from the NRA, and since the thread is currently functioning as a menagerie exhibit for them, here's a lightly updated version of my effortpost on rhetorical methods used to shut down and poo poo up policy discussion from the media thread. Hirschman's rhetorics, Or: how to poo poo up a policy discussion In this post we’re going to be looking at some arguments used by bad faith actors to short-circuit policy discussions. Identifying and diagnosing bad faith requires interpreting the mindset of the actor, and as a result it can be labor-intensive. This is as true in the press as on the forums. One way to approach this problem is to identify ill-formed arguments that are frequently deployed for this purpose. Trying to grapple with the seeming disconnects that led to the rise of conservatism and neoconservatism in the 1980s, Albert Hirschman attempted to identify the common roots of arguments against social change. This effort was supported by an analysis of historical writing around the time of events such as the British and French revolutions, including some of the classical canonical texts of political philosophy. The resulting book, The Rhetoric of Reaction, is the primary basis for this post (I’ve gone through and given some parts clearer names and more up-to-date examples). Hirschman ultimately identifies three "rhetorics of reaction", common reactionary forms of argument that are specifically deployed to argue against and ultimately derail policies of change. Hirschman also describes how the inverses of these arguments can be used to speciously argue for change, which he refers to as the three "progressive rhetorics" (unfortunately he spends much less time on these, since there are fewer examples from the historical periods he was focused on). Both kinds of rhetorics are, in Hirschman’s words, “arguments that are in effect contraptions specifically designed to make dialogue and deliberation impossible”. It’s important to emphasize at the start here that although these are called “reactionary” and “progressive” rhetorics, they’re not right and left-wing arguments. “Reactionary” in this case means argument against reform or change- any kind of reform or change. This is a conservative position only in a specific and limited sense. The progressive rhetorics are similarly applicable to left- or right-wing positions, depending on what policies they are arguing for or against. Bad faith sources can mix and match both kinds, because the effect is to paralyze discourse, not actually drive a particular change. The reactionary and progressive rhetorics are useful shorthand, but they should not be confused for complete or comprehensive tools of analysis; these rhetorics aren’t necessarily signs of bad faith on their own, and there are many other indicia of bad faith that can be discussed. Reactionary Rhetorics  Rhetorics of Perversity “Perversity” doesn’t necessarily mean gross or weird; it’s really arguments claiming that a given change will have the opposite of its intended effect. Reactionary positions often involve arguing against a popular movement, and there’s no better way to short-circuit advocacy for a popular idea than by telling its supporters that it will backfire. “If you ban guns, only the criminals(or the police) will have guns”. “If you give handouts, no one will want to work”. Advocates become forced to debate these claims, and from there the bad faith actor can deploy other methods to distract and derail the effort. Hirschman attributes the rise of these arguments to Burke and the effects of the French Revolution, but he also goes to great lengths to show how they were used to attack efforts to expand suffrage, as well as in arguments over welfare programs in the United States. In modern terms, these arguments often work by treating the potential limited backfire effects of a policy as if they will overwhelm the positive effects, and can play upon stereotypes about the people involved. A classic example is the 1980s “welfare queen”: a bullshit argument based on a single example that was transposed to the entire population.  Rhetorics of Futility Related to argument from perversity is argument from futility- that whatever you are trying to accomplish is destined to fail. Hirshman notes that over time, both of these rhetorics have shifted from appealing to divine order to appeals to human nature; where once a given progressive change was destined to fail because it struck against the “natural order” or would be undone by “providence”, nowadays we’re more likely to blame “people” or “society”. In the context of gun control, it's common to pretend that US gun culture is universal and immutable. Modern arguments from futility frequently deploy ill-structured, fundamentalist claims about criminality or human nature, and often make the buried assumption that the purpose of any change is to completely solve the problem on its own. Efforts to penalize toxic waste dumping will just make companies do it abroad, or they’ll just pay the fine. Putting pressure on organized crime in one area will just cause it to go underground or change locations, etc. Bad things are inevitable, or “bad” people are fundamentally bad. Efforts at change cannot succeed, and, according to the person abusing the rhetoric of futility, reflect the advocate’s ignorance of reality.  Rhetorics of Jeopardy Tax reform will destabilize the economy. Gay marriage will threaten to wreck marriage rates. [$politician] is going to tear up [$founding document]. The rhetoric of jeopardy argues that even if a proposed change seems desirable on its face, it will have other side effects that will destroy the current order. Note that these aren’t necessarily slippery slope arguments (though they can be). The rhetoric of jeopardy is about more than just a threat to the status quo; it’s about undoing other accomplishments. Hirschman provides, for one example, Friedrich von Hayek arguing about how vesting the government with welfare power could be used to threaten freedom: Freidrich von Hayek posted:Freedom is critically threatened when the government is given exclusive power to provide certain services—power which, in order to achieve its purpose, it must use for the discretionary coercion of individuals. Next, I’m going to go over the progressive rhetorics, and cover how to consider, identify and address cases where these lovely arguments are seeing heavy use in media or discourse. Hirschman’s progressive rhetorics Or: yes, these are also bad arguments Rhetoric of Synergy (or the rhetoric of “mutual support”) The new state of Puerto Rico may not vote Democratic. The kids of Latino immigrants in border states may not either- and if you invest everything in getting them a better life, you may be in for a deeply unpleasant surprise when they reach voting age. Inverting the the jeopardy thesis, the synergistic fallacy assumes that any change benefitting or improving any one group or policy area is automatically a net good that will last over time and benefit other policy efforts. This can be a root issue of naïve approaches to intersectional policy change, or of ultimatums for specific policies, often more divisive ones that limit the viability of other actions. Sophisticated political actors will actively encourage the use of wedge issues along the lines of the synergistic fallacy, because it winds up destroying support (and the voterbase) of their target group through infighting. Many of the focal issues of culture war topics are driven along this line. The synergistic fallacy often papers over backlash effects, or the presence of intersectional privileges or biases in benefited populations. A policy might truly benefit and lift up a group in need- but that doesn’t mean they’ll vote for other reforms, or that pursuing this policy doesn’t cost other, greater opportunities. A conservative example of the synergistic fallacy might be the interaction of anti-abortion activists with the Republican party, and the assumption that once the cause of an abortion ban is achieved, it will further benefit the broader regressive goals of the party. It doesn’t consistently work out that way, because satisfying the demands of this single-track group can mean they’re not activated to work for the benefit of other conservative goals. Rhetoric of Imminent Danger The jeopardy thesis can also be used to argue against inaction. Hirschman struggles to provide examples of the inverse of this aspect of the jeopardy argument, because the use of a similar framework to demand change is, well, still an argument from a sense of jeopardy (and the historical material he's working with is limited). In the straightforwardly pro-change context, though, this can be understood as a Moral obligation of immediate and complete change, requiring the replacement of prior, threatening sources of order with a new, privileged theory or reasoning. Reasoning from this thesis calls for immediate, no-questions-asked action: building the third temple, killing the nearest police, or invading the capitol building. This concept is also closely linked to accelerationist arguments, demanding the worsening of conditions and direct, immediate effects in the pursuit of transformative change. Rhetorics from this position demand that the audience “immanentize the eschateon”; in other words, hasten the apocalypse. In function, this goes hand-in-hand with the progressive perversity thesis, covered a bit later. In response to the conservative and progressive forms of the jeopardy thesis, Hirschman argues that the appropriate evaluation of policy requires a middle ground: “there are threats in both action and inaction. The risks of both should be canvassed, assessed, and guarded against to the extent possible.” Hirschman also emphasizes that threats aren’t known with the absolute certainty prescribed by “alarm-sounding Cassandras”; those who use the certainty of mutual support, or of a perceived threat, to dictate their arguments don’t want to let a discussion of the uncertainties happen. Rhetoric of Historical Law (“having history on one's side") ”Theodore Parker” posted:I do not pretend to understand the moral universe; the arc is a long one, my eye reaches but little ways; I cannot calculate the curve and complete the figure by the experience of sight; I can divine it by conscience. And from what I see I am sure it bends towards justice. ”Albert Hirschman” posted:If the essence of the “reactionary” futility thesis is the natural-law—like invariance of certain socioeconomic phenomena, then its “progressive” counterpart is the assertion of similarly lawlike forward movement, motion, or progress. Rhetoric of Ultimatum ”Albert Hirschman” posted:By insisting on the perfectibility of existing institutions as an argument against radical change, [Burke’s] Reflections may have contributed to a long line of radical writings that portray the situation of this or that country as being totally beyond repair, reform, or improvement. The short version: identifying the rhetorics in the wild The below basic definitions are modified from a table Hirschman provides. Rhetoric of Perversity: The proposed action will backfire and have the opposite of the intended effect. Rhetoric of Ultimatum: Anything but the proposed action will make things worse. Rhetoric of Jeopardy: The proposed reform or action will undo or threaten previous gains. Rhetoric of Synergy: The proposed action will automatically and mutually reinforce past actions and benefit future ones. Rhetoric of Imminent Danger: The proposed action must be undertaken immediately and strictly to address the problem, which is of singular importance. Rhetoric of Futility: The proposed action attempts to change permanent or natural rules; it is therefore bound to be worthless. Rhetoric of Historical Law: The proposed action is rooted in inescapable historical or religious forces; opposing them would be futile and pursuing their course is destiny. Weaponizing the rhetorics The progressive and reactionary rhetorics rarely appear one at a time. Instead, they arrive together in a jumble of attacks and assumptions, creating a powerful draw from which a discussion of reality struggles to emerge. At root, this is because all of the rhetorics involve counterfactual claims; assertions about what will happen in an alternative situation that isn’t presently true. This shifts an impossible burden onto opposing speakers; they must address a shifting hypothetical and, simultaneously, has to deal with the moral freight that the rhetorics provide: the user of the rhetoric is primed to attack them for, e.g., “threatening the American Way of Life” or “not caring about the people this would help”. Disgareeing is simultaneously amoral, futile or ignorant of the nature of the world, and will backfire to cause greater harm. On the other hand, a source making one of the arguments described in this post is not automatically wrong in a specific case; individual policies can be futile! But to work, their argument needs to be backed up by some form of empirical evidence, and the evidence needs to match the strength and breadth of the claim. If the argument uses the rhetorics to make an absolutely certain claim that can’t tolerate alternatives or discussion, it's not a meaningful contribution; it’s someone taking an ideologically motivated sledgehammer to good faith discussion. How to respond to Hirschman’s rhetorics The solution and method for addressing these rhetorics is to break the counterfactual with shades of grey: provide specific, factual information that addresses the underlying hypothetical. If the policy claim can’t be grounded in terms of its effects, and if those effects aren’t clear and limited and capable of falsification, then its claims aren’t really valid. Getting specific, getting details, and determining the actual consequences of a proposed action are good ways to turn a counterfactual into a claim that can be interrogated (more on claims in a future post). People in politics have read Hirschman; you will sometimes see the reactionary arguments deployed deliberately, in sequence, in whitepapers or political coverage. The rhetorics have filtered into broader culture and formed the basis of many people’s identities. Dogmatic, thought-terminating arguments are internalized and use to end conversation (the widespread distribution of reactionary rhetorics through new media forms is the phenomenon that drove Hirschman to write the book). Even if they're deployed accidentally, if a writer is routinely falling into a pattern of deploying these arguments, it's a sign that they're either caught up in an ideological framework that makes them immune to countervailing information...or they're doing it deliberately to poo poo up the discussion. Either way, they are not participating in good faith and have nothing to contribute. As mediating sources, they should at best be viewed with massive skepticism.
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Jun 3, 2022 03:36
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I do love how you have to go to 2013. No, the point is 2008, when the Democrats had a super-majority and couldn't be stopped from doing anything they wanted for a few months. That was prime time to pass their most important, most pressing issues. Nobody could stop them, they were at the height of all possible power in this government. Why didn't they? Because they didn't want to. Not like gun violence wasn't an issue then, not like we didn't have mass shootings, not like there wasn't talk by people about doing things. They just....didn't. They don't care. This latest shooting doesn't make them care any more. Nobody you can vote for cares. And the demographic breakdown of the country and gerrymandering means you are always going to have so many Republicans that you are fighting a massive uphill battle. The best possible chance to do something was 14 years ago, and they didn't. And now you are left hoping that the stars align and enough of the right type of Democrats win against the odds and have the will to do something. Which might be quite literally impossible. It's certainly improbable. This is the one fight in all of American politics that I think is closest to unwinnable, and even if not nobody has shown any signs that they can win it. Too much is stacked against change, and nobody is rising to the occasion.
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Jun 3, 2022 03:42
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What is the Rhetoric of Ultimatum called when the proposed solution will also make things worse?
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Jun 3, 2022 04:25
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Mulva posted:I do love how you have to go to 2013. No, the point is 2008, when the Democrats had a super-majority and couldn't be stopped from doing anything they wanted for a few months. That was prime time to pass their most important, most pressing issues. Nobody could stop them, they were at the height of all possible power in this government. Did you actually pay attention to the bills passed and the difficulties involved in the 58ish working days of the 2008 majority? Treating it as simple as "technically there were 60 dems for a few weeks therefore if they didn't pass every bill ever Every single democrat is evil and doesn't want good things" doesn't really help anyone and completely misunderstands basic politics.
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Jun 3, 2022 04:30
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Bel Shazar posted:What is the Rhetoric of Ultimatum called when the proposed solution will also make things worse? It's the rhetoric of perversity when proposed solutions are supposed to backfire or cause harm in some generic sense. It's rhetoric of ultimatum when they are dismissed in this way relative to some more extreme counterfactual which will usually involve completely reshaping society and ignoring all perverse effects or uncertainty about outcomes, e.g. "the only solution is burning down the courts so that the gun nuts are finally put in their place". This is my best interpretation; Hirschman spends a lot less time on the progressive rhetorics, and the inverse of the perversity rhetoric is especially limited (it's like 4 pages). It may help to say that he gives the example of revolutionary writings reacting to Burke that "portray the situation of this or that country as being totally beyond repair, reform, or improvement". Hirschman muses that the reactionary and progressive rhetorics sort of feed off of each other's categorical assertions in this way. In practice, a bunch of the rhetorics , progressive and reactionary, are deployed in combination, e.g. "Regulations will do nothing to actually stop guns and will also galvanize the gun nuts. The only solution that matters is revolution". Discendo Vox fucked around with this message at 04:44 on Jun 3, 2022 |
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Jun 3, 2022 04:38
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Mulva posted:I do love how you have to go to 2013. No, the point is 2008, when the Democrats had a super-majority and couldn't be stopped from doing anything they wanted for a few months. That was prime time to pass their most important, most pressing issues. Nobody could stop them, they were at the height of all possible power in this government. Gun violence was not a major issue for voters while staring down the worst recession in 100 years, no. I assure you that people were more worried about the jobs and houses they were losing in 2008. If Democrats took their two month supermajority to tackle what were, at the time, a bunch of pet issues that weren't popular with voters, they wouldn't have just been beaten in Obama's first midterm, they would have handed a supermajority to the GOP. This "devoid of context, in a bubble, all other things being equal, in hindsight" assessment of political history is asinine. Choosing some tiny point in history where it was theoretically possible by process to pass something, and then summarily declaring that because it didn't happen, it's actually not something that anyone wants to do, ever, for the rest of time, makes absolutely zero logical sense. Xombie fucked around with this message at 14:07 on Jun 3, 2022 |
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Jun 3, 2022 14:02
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That's all very interesting, but I've found over the decades I don't loving care about the excuses people trot out for why they failed. I don't even care if they are true. It doesn't make them less of a failure, and I remember a bunch of those 2008 guys making bones in 2007 in the run up to their elections about what they'd do to make sure another Virginia Tech didn't happen. And I have 14 years of seeing the result of that big talk, and the answer is nothing. They did literally nothing to prevent the next Virginia Tech. Most of them wouldn't even try to pretend they wanted to do anything about it. Tell me what's changed to make it more likely to get gun control passed in the years since. When you, rational and logical being that you are, admit the answer is "Nothing" we can circle back to the more important question: Why the gently caress did you take time out of your day to go to bat for people that literally could not care less if you live or die? Decorum? Boredom?
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Jun 3, 2022 14:47
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A fantastic example of why gun control doesn't happen. The entire purpose of this incredibly high effort post was to feel smart, and have other posters tell you how smart you are. If you're quoting loving Hirschman and von Hayek you are so far off base that you probably had to call an Uber to get there. This kind of masturbatory argument feels good to you, but convinces nobody. Tell me how what you want improves my life. Because the pro gun people are doing that all the time. That's their only argument. "Guns are fun, freedom is fun, laws are stupid." They're not quoting a bunch of dead euros. (USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)
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Jun 3, 2022 14:47
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It's great say there's all sorts of ways to counteract an argument from futility but you also have to actually be able to do so and it doesn't look like we're actually getting gun control anytime soon no matter how much it's l good and we want it
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Jun 3, 2022 14:50
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Xombie posted:Gun violence was not a major issue for voters while staring down the worst recession in 100 years, no. I assure you that people were more worried about the jobs and houses they were losing in 2008. If Democrats took their two month supermajority to tackle what were, at the time, a bunch of pet issues that weren't popular with voters, they wouldn't have just been beaten in Obama's first midterm, they would have handed a supermajority to the GOP. I generally have little interest in defending Democrats, but yes, there was no public interest in gun control then, let alone Congressional interest. The collective response to VATech was "meh?" Public support for gun control measures was at a low in 2008-2011, it was right after Heller, and despite this the right was going absolutely loving bonkers buying up guns. There was absolutely no way they would have spent time on something that controversial when they were already so busy failing at health care. If they were going to fix something that would end up heating up the culture war, they were going to go with something like the Freedom of Choice Act, which was far more popular with the base. We didn't see a revival of interest in gun control until Aurora and Sandy Hook caught our attention. Data: https://news.gallup.com/poll/1645/guns.aspx poo poo, it was so off-the-radar that they stopped a couple of the poll questions for a few years. BRAKE FOR MOOSE fucked around with this message at 14:56 on Jun 3, 2022 |
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Jun 3, 2022 14:54
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Blaming the public for being insufficiently concerned with Doing the Good Thing after the Democrats colluded to implode the economy is a cop out. Congress does plenty of things the public doesn't give a poo poo about.
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Jun 3, 2022 15:02
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Mulva posted:Why the gently caress did you take time out of your day to go to bat for people that literally could not care less if you live or die? Decorum? Boredom? i think they're just pointing out facts about reality that undermine your argument and if this causes you to fly off the handle then this is your responsibility to manage your emotions, not another posters responsibility for making an argument which upset you managing what is achievable given current priorities among the electorate is an important part of a democracy, turns out. this is true whether or not it makes you unhappy
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Jun 3, 2022 15:08
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Mr. Fall Down Terror posted:managing what is achievable given current priorities among the electorate is an important part of a democracy, turns out. What's that gotten you? Because the hilarious chart that just got brought up to defend the Democrats as "Gun control not even being an issue in 2008." also has those 2008 numbers being remarkably similar to....the current 2022 trend. Which has been trending downward for like 5 years at this point. So I guess what, the thing that is achievable given current priorities among the electorate as far as gun control goes is "Nothing", and threads over and we all go home?
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Jun 3, 2022 15:15
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Mulva posted:... Caring about facts? Like, I get that you're angry about the state of things and taking it out on people in this thread is about as constructive as writing a letter to your senator. But how do you type something like "I don't care if it's true" and not just cancel the post and go take a walk or jerk off or something?
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Jun 3, 2022 15:15
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Rent-A-Cop posted:Blaming the public for being insufficiently concerned with Doing the Good Thing after the Democrats colluded to implode the economy is a cop out. Congress does plenty of things the public doesn't give a poo poo about. It's not blaming the public at all. It just was not viewed as an objective good by the base unlike other culture war issues like reproductive rights and LGBTQ rights, and Congress couldn't even make progress on those issues, so why would it happen? You absolutely can make this argument with a lot of Good Things, but with gun control measures, it's like asking why Congress didn't pass UBI in 2008. Mulva posted:What's that gotten you? Because the hilarious chart that just got brought up to defend the Democrats as "Gun control not even being an issue in 2008." also has those 2008 numbers being remarkably similar to....the current 2022 trend. Which has been trending downward for like 5 years at this point. So I guess what, the thing that is achievable given current priorities among the electorate as far as gun control goes is "Nothing", and threads over and we all go home? What direction do you imagine that poll would be going right now? BRAKE FOR MOOSE fucked around with this message at 15:19 on Jun 3, 2022 |
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Jun 3, 2022 15:17
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Mulva posted:That's all very interesting, but I've found over the decades I don't loving care about the excuses people trot out for why they failed. I don't even care if they are true. Unfortunately "I don't care" isn't an argument. The topic of conversation is not "does poster Mulva care?" or "what can we do to make poster Mulva care?". quote:. It doesn't make them less of a failure, and I remember a bunch of those 2008 guys making bones in 2007 in the run up to their elections about what they'd do to make sure another Virginia Tech didn't happen. I don't know who you think you remember doing something in 2007 in the "run up to elections" that occurred in 2008, but congress already did pass a background check law in 2007. As VT was the first major mass shooting since Columbine, there was absolutely no public will to push among voters for more gun control measures beyond this. No one was running on a gun control platform, at least not anyone that won in 2008. quote:Why the gently caress did you take time out of your day to go to bat for people that literally could not care less if you live or die? Decorum? Boredom? OP, this is a politics forum for discussing politics. Sometimes, people discuss politics. I don't need to be friends with politicians to discuss them. Xombie fucked around with this message at 15:21 on Jun 3, 2022 |
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Jun 3, 2022 15:19
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Mr. Fall Down Terror posted:managing what is achievable given current priorities among the electorate is an important part of a democracy, turns out. this is true whether or not it makes you unhappy Public opinion has effectively zero effect on policy.
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Jun 3, 2022 15:20
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Mulva posted:What's that gotten you? Because the hilarious chart that just got brought up to defend the Democrats as "Gun control not even being an issue in 2008." also has those 2008 numbers being remarkably similar to....the current 2022 trend. Which has been trending downward for like 5 years at this point. So I guess what, the thing that is achievable given current priorities among the electorate as far as gun control goes is "Nothing", and threads over and we all go home? If you're trying to argue that this thread achieves nothing of substance in the real world, I'm sorry to break it to you but that is true for all threads in this forum whether you agree with the prevalent opinions or not. And it certainly makes no impact on the validity of anyone's opinion.
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Jun 3, 2022 15:24
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Mulva posted:What's that gotten you? nothing, which is disappointing, but thats not the fault of anyone posting in this thread. getting pissy at people who bother to take you seriously just incentivizes them to write you off as an unwell person with nothing useful to say, who would be unrewarding to interact with i also wish the democrats would take sweeping action on gun control, but my desire to see this happen is balanced with my understanding of why it has not yet happened. you cannot manifest change into the world through sheer outrage alone, decades of posts in this very forum prove that point. if you're just looking to yell at the nearest person who happened to glance in your direction then my advice would be to not do that
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Jun 3, 2022 15:24
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Rent-A-Cop posted:Yeah remember when there was a huge bipartisan effort to bail out banks, hedge funds, and insurance companies? That was the result of a massive upswell of public support for Lehman Brothers right? I got some bad news for your example (2008 poll):  https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2008/09/23/57-of-public-favors-wall-street-bailout/ Kalit fucked around with this message at 15:29 on Jun 3, 2022 |
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Jun 3, 2022 15:26
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Blue Footed Booby posted:But how do you type something like "I don't care if it's true" and not just cancel the post and go take a walk or jerk off or something? Because I'm stuck at this computer for the next 3 hours and I don't have slightest twinge over being unfair to politicians in the United States, who have universally earned far more than some rando on the internet being mean about them doing a bad job. Not even think twice about it in fact. BRAKE FOR MOOSE posted:What direction do you imagine that poll would be going right now? As far as I'm concerned it's always been Calvinball with little relation to reality. Like it's trended down when we've had some massive shootings in the past, and trended up when the level of shootings we've had is....well slightly less terrible I guess? What I'm more concerned with is this: If 2008 is showing acceptance for stronger laws that rates it as "Not on the radar" and makes it entirely rational that the Democrats didn't take up that fight, why would a 2022 where they have less power and it's polling about the same be different? That's a nice objective and rationality based question, yes?
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Jun 3, 2022 15:30
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Kalit posted:I got some bad news for your example (2008 poll): This issue might be problematic.
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Jun 3, 2022 15:33
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America is so far gone at this point you might as well give up on the idea of meaningful gun control. Like it or not, a gun represents power, and that little scrap of power represents agency and peace of mind to person facing all the chaos and uncertainty in this country. Its a self-reinforcing loop, each mass shooting introduces more uncertainty and fear and places you further from your goal. Same thing with the news' nightly doom-cast. People who hear that the crowd cheered to Ted Nugent and Trump talking about going berserk on Democrat skulls aren't thinking about surrendering their pistol, they're mulling over the idea of buying a second. If you want to talk about why it won't happen in political terms, it's because Democrats will never give up the filibuster and after midterms Republicans will enjoy a permanent majority due to voting rights being sabotaged at the state level. You have about 6 months of congressional control left, as a party, period. But lets say you passed universal background checks or raised the age for weapons. That might do some good but it won't stop most of the mass shootings because most of the guns used in these shootings were acquired legally. If you did pass a ban (you won't), if that didn't immediately kick off a civil war, sending feds to kick in doors to collect weapons would. Police, being almost universally far-right, aren't going to help further than use it as an excuse to torment communities of color. A buyback program won't work either because a gun represents more security than a check for a couple hundred dollars. People like to talk about the masturbatory fantasy of gun ownership but so is the idea of our untrustworthy government seizing property without causing massive civil unrest and making the GOP more popular than ever. Bishyaler fucked around with this message at 16:15 on Jun 3, 2022 |
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Jun 3, 2022 15:55
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Bishyaler posted:after midterms Republicans will enjoy a permanent supermajority due to voting rights being sabotaged at the state level. Your argument is that there will be no gun control because the GOP will win senate seats in four of: Vermont, New York, Illinois, Maryland, California, Washington, and Hawaii?
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Jun 3, 2022 16:03
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Xombie posted:Your argument is that there will be no gun control because the GOP will win senate seats in four of: Vermont, New York, Illinois, Maryland, California, Washington, and Hawaii? Obviously not. the Dems aren't getting the 60 votes they need.
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Jun 3, 2022 16:13
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Xombie posted:Your argument is that there will be no gun control because the GOP will win senate seats in four of: Vermont, New York, Illinois, Maryland, California, Washington, and Hawaii? Super majority was likely a bad word choice but Republicans will get rid of the filibuster (or have some other loophole) to where it is effectively the same result.
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Jun 3, 2022 16:14
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