Your dealings with republicans may differ from mine because I’m dealing with the ones in the deep south. You know, the ones the republican party caters to now.

Those are the kind of Republicans that seemed to infest most of my life. So utterly ignorant I have no idea how they navigate life.

Not only am I now mostly free of them (excepting a close family member), I’ve actually met intelligent, thoughtful Republicans and conservatives lately. They actually exist. But they better getter their party in order, as Dr. S suggests.

If I have a sign or are shouting something, the words can’t directly kill a few people standing nearby. Not so with the gun.

Right. If you weren’t out in the streets with your gun on your hip over the Patriot Act and FISA, you need to step off, sit down, and shut. the. fuck. up.

I don’t think that we’ll see the intelligent and rational conservatives walk away or take back the Republican Party. It’s a shame, but i just don’t see it happening. America runs on fear; in many ways that’s all we have left. It’s symptomatic of a great nation in decline. A place that used to have everything finding itself with less and less is likely to become ruled by fear. I don’t agree with a lot of Sara Robinson’s piece, but one facet of fascism ascendant is definitely fear as the major political motivation.

The fear, by the way, runs strong through both parties and their attendant political factions.

Yoda said it best, “Fear is the path to the dark side. Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to Hate. Hate leads to suffering.”

@Retro Hound: Funny, the libertarians have been tilting pretty racist of late for pretty much the same reason republicans are. They hate black people for being on welfare and Mexicans for taking our jobs and everyone from everywhere else for being socialists. At least that’s how the world works in their twisted minds. On the upside, you don’t have to be a homophobe to be libertarian, so I guess it’s an improvement.

@Patrick: Yeah, guns aren’t a weapon any more than rainbow flags are. We all remember that rally where the gay men fired their rainbow flags into the crowd and killed dozens of people. If you don’t remember that rally, it’s because it never happened. Guns are for one thing and one thing only: Putting a bullet in something. You can frame it however you want, but it doesn’t change reality and they don’t belong at protests. (This comes from someone that probably owns more and bigger firearms than you do.)
So if the president sent a convoy of tanks to make sure the idiots protesting with guns didn’t start a massacre, would you call it armed intimidation or a peacekeeping force? Do I even have to ask?

Second, it’s a hell of a lot harder to kill someone with a gay rainbow banner or a nazi flag or a poster board sign.

Third, can you honestly say that Bush would have permitted protesters at his rallies to carry loaded assault weapons and handguns? And would you have complained when the Secret Service or local police escorted those armed people away from the area where the President is?

Fourth, William Kostric wore his handgun and carried a sign that said “It’s time to water the tree of liberty,” a reference to the Jefferson quote “The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of tyrants and patriots.” And this guy, if the Salon article is accurate, is not only a Birther, but he’s a Free State member and someone who has defended the right of drug dealers to shoot police officers.

And finally, there’s not a single right guaranteed by the Constitution that isn’t subject to certain limitations. Freedom to assemble is limited by requiring permits due to public safety concerns. Freedom of speech is limited by libel, copyright, and incitement laws. Freedom to own firearms is limited too. And barring firearms from the area around where the President is going to be seems an entirely reasonable limitation to me, whether the President be Clinton, Bush, Obama, or whomever comes after Obama.

You assume a great many things that are not accurate. For instance, have a look at “The Ballad of a Progressive Gun Owner.”

Wonder where else you’re substituting dogma and assumption for fact…

Unfortunately both of them do not carry much weight in the party of loons. The scary part is that up till about 1979, ronnie reagan was considered scary, radical right wing. Then people were fooled into believing he was respectable. The immense damage done on his watch has not yet started to be repaired. If one of these psychos, lile palin, rush, santorum, imhofe,bachmann etc. were to pull the wool over people's eyes it could be all over. Of course a good many of them are following in the footsteps of george wallace. wallace as a person,rather than politician was quite reasonable but after having an election taken from him by race baiters said " No one will outnigger george wallace again."

Just because you don’t like guns doesn’t mean that the right to own and carry them should be abolished.

Use a little common sense man. An individual carrying a legal firearm at a rally is no different than an individual carrying any other polarizing political icon (nazi flag, gay rainbow banner, etc.).

We need to learn to trust the populous with the rights they have. Police with guns don’t make us nervous, so why should a law-abiding citizen with a gun make us nervous. Many of them are better trained and better educated than a police officer and are much more restricted in the use of their firearms.

Change your perception. Quit looking at guns as a sign of violence and start seeing them for what they are: a statement of protection of personal liberty. You don’t have to own guns. You don’t even have to like guns. But if you can’t grasp what the meaning of the “right to bear arms” means, then don’t complain when the other “rights” are taken away by people who think just like you… that they know better than you how you should live your life.

I encourage you and interested readers to pick up Dave Neiwart’s book, The Eliminationists: How Hate Talk Radicalized the American Right.” Dave very thoughtfully and delicately explores a radical and marginal group of people who exhibit many fascist tendencies and how they have taken over much of the discourse on the right… moving the fringe into the mainstream in ways that threaten us all, regardless of our political views.

Best,

Joe

He died less than a week after the republican majority was seated, but he spent the last two and a half months of his life mortified at what was coming and powerless to stop it.