Topic: It's Crap Like This That Prevents Me From Supporting The NRA Anymore

[trapeze]

LINK

The NRA sold out the Second Amendment during the Patriot Act fight, criticizing Senator Rand Paul's amendment to exempt gun purchases from search provisions of the Patriot Act in e-mails to Congress while sitting on information showing the need for Paul's amendment. The information shows that the FBI and the federal government's Joint Terrorism Task Force have already begun trolling the records of law-abiding gun owners, using the excuse of terrorism surveillance.

Me? I just want profiling of muslims and middle eastern men between the ages of 15 and 45. All this other crap can take a hike.

[Pandora]

I don't understand why they get involved in stymieing this sort of legislation when they could just do nothing if they can't support it.  Which I don't understand them not supporting it in the first place.

It seems to me that they believe they need to be seen as in favor of "reasonable" gun control measures in order to belie the "extremist gun group" propaganda, but that doesn't work; they're seen as extremist anyway and they just piss off people like us.

[rickl]

GINOs?  "Guns In Name Only"?

[Pandora]

GINOs?  "Guns In Name Only"?

SASINOs?  "Second Amendment Supporters In Name Only"?

[rickl]

It should be painfully obvious by now that the Patriot Act was an enormous usurpation of power by the Federal government.  Dozens of proposals that libertarians had been opposing for years were all rolled up in a ball in the wake of 9/11 and passed in one fell swoop.

And as with more recent atrocities like Obamacare, it was done in haste in a crisis atmosphere and anyone who opposed it was considered pro-terrorist.

There are way too many "conservatives" who worship at the altar of Law Enforcement and believe the police can do no wrong.

[Pandora]

"The War on Drugs" has turned into a war on the American people; in many respects the "conservative" support for LEO stems from a position against drug/crime rings.

I'm not in favor of drug use, but this "war" has to got to be stopped; there has to be another way of dealing with addicts.

eta:  In many ways, the refusal to focus on just who is using and selling vs American citizens at large (guilty until proven innocent) is mirrored in the identical refusal to focus on just who the terrorists (islam) are, thereby spreading around the potential guilt.

[rickl]

"The War on Drugs" has turned into a war on the American people; in many respects the "conservative" support for LEO stems from a position against drug/crime rings.

I'm not in favor of drug use, but this "war" has to got to be stopped; there has to be another way of dealing with addicts.

That's right; it's like an arms race.  The tougher the penalties, the more adamant and brutal the drug gangs get.  And then the authorities up the ante.  Rinse and repeat.

Back in the day, it was peaceful hippies who tried to sneak a bag of pot across the border.  Those days are over, since they're easy to catch.  Now the smugglers are hardened criminals who have nothing to lose.

ETA:  It was the War on Drugs that legitimized the use of "no knock raids", since God forbid a perp might flush his stash down the toilet.  But wouldn't that get the drugs off the street in any event?  If that was the goal, then the police should just go around banging on doors and yelling "Police".  Lots of drugs would be removed from circulation without anyone's home being invaded.

[Glock32]

"The War on Drugs" has turned into a war on the American people; in many respects the "conservative" support for LEO stems from a position against drug/crime rings.

I'm not in favor of drug use, but this "war" has to got to be stopped; there has to be another way of dealing with addicts.

Pretty much my position as well.

Hard drugs like heroin and cocaine have been outlawed since the 1920s, yet they're just as prevalent as they've ever been. In other words, nearly a century of enormous public expense and usurpations of liberty ostensibly in the service of battling these chemical substances has had little real effect on their availability. But those ballooning police budgets and loss of civil liberties are very real indeed.

Call me a cynic, but the "War on Drugs" has always been more a vehicle for the expansion of the State's police powers than it has been for the actual elimination of drugs and the various ancillary crimes associated with that black market.

I think to a certain extent the desire to achieve an altered state or experience a self-induced euphoria is a part of human nature that has always existed and always will. That doesn't mean it's harmless, but I simply grow weary of freedom and money being thrown into the gaping maw of these efforts at pissing against the wind. Right now I literally think the existence of junkies sticking needles into their arms is less harmful than the massive police state we've been building in the (failed) effort to eliminate them.

[Dan]

Pan: "...there has to be another way of dealing with addicts."

Yeah, let them rot and display them for all the world to see. That oughta' scare a few kids straight. Don't offer a safety net which only encourages the behavior. Make folks suffer the consequences of their behavior. It's called personal responsibility and it can be equally rewarding if the right decisions are made. If they want help, there are plenty of religious and secular groups offering counseling and other help. At least there would be if Gov't had the right approach to charities rather than being hostile to what they see as competition.
I don't know if I'm for total legalization, because I know it can't be good to have crack-heads and junkies wandering around willy-nilly, but the idea that "It's for their own good" is an argument that has no limit. At the very least, if there are going to be laws, they need to be enforced. None of this libiotic "extenuating circumstances" exemption that soft judges are pushing.

[Dan]

But to the point, I'll never rejoin the NRA. They're using our rights as bargaining chips to increase their own political fiefdom.

[John Florida]

But to the point, I'll never rejoin the NRA. They're using our rights as bargaining chips to increase their own political fiefdom.

 I can find better places to spend my money.

[Glock32]

I can't remember who said it, but it's something akin to Moore's Law: once an organization reaches a certain size, its #1 priority becomes the furtherance of the organization rather than the issues that prompted its formation in the first place.

[trapeze]

I used to be a member. Never again.