The Democratic Party’s disconnect from reality
Three stories today once again illustrate better than anything the leftwing Democratic Party’s profound disconnect from reality:
- Most Now Oppose an Assault Weapons Ban; Doubts About Stopping a Lone Wolf Run High (Poll)
- House Democrats Introduce Bill to Ban Manufacture of ‘Assault Weapons’
- Victory! New York stops sale of toy guns, levies massive fines
The first story is a new poll of the public’s opinions on the subject of gun control and the idea of banning “assault weapons” (whatever those might be). Not surprisingly, the public opposes future bans, and the trend lines show a continuing and nonstop shift away from gun control and towards gun rights that has been on-going since the 1990s.
A majority of Americans oppose banning assault weapons for the first time in more than 20 years of ABC News/Washington Post polls, with the public expressing vast doubt that the authorities can prevent “lone wolf” terrorist attacks and a substantial sense that armed citizens can help. Just 45 percent in this national survey favor an assault weapons ban, down 11 percentage points from an ABC/Post poll in 2013 and down from a peak of 80 percent in 1994. Fifty-three percent oppose such a ban, the most on record.
Indeed, while the division is a close one, Americans by 47-42 percent think that encouraging more people to carry guns legally is a better response to terrorism than enacting stricter gun control laws. Divisions across groups are vast, underscoring the nation’s gulf on gun issues.
The second story describes how, despite the above very broad and obvious poll numbers, ninety-one House Democrats today introduced a bill to ban the sale and manufacture of “assault weapons”. In announcing the bill, its lead sponsor, David Cicilline (D-Rhode Island), made this vague effort to define “assault weapon”:
Assault weapons are designed for the sole purpose of killing as many people as quickly as possible.
Since all guns are expressly designed to kill people, with some doing it faster than others, this definition is really a bit silly. At what speed of killing does Cicilline draw the line between what is or isn’t an “assault weapon?” 5 murders a minute? 10? 15? 20? 1000?
And then there is the third story, where New York’s attorney general has successfully imposed a ban on the selling of certain toy guns in New York, imposing total fines of $27K on 30 online retailers. As the writer notes,
We may not be able to put the actual criminals in jail at a reasonable rate, but by golly we’re going to stick it to those toy retailers. The 30 or so retailers are paying fines which total more than $27K. (That’s on top of [the attorney general’s] move back in August when he nailed Amazon, Kmart, Sears, Wal-Mart and ACTA for $300K, so if nothing else the state coffers are getting fatter.) If these scofflaws want to peddle their dangerous wares in the Empire State in the future they will have to be colored “white or bright red, orange, yellow, green, blue, pink or purple.”
Though the obvious goal here is to make sure a toy gun in the hands of a child cannot be mistaken for a real gun, the focus on banning toy guns, as if that will make the people of New York safer, illustrates well how reality-challenged leftwing Democrats are. New York is one of the nation’s highest crime regions (as are most places nationwide that impose strict gun control laws). Rather than focus on catching the bad guys who do this, the attorney general is spending his time going after honest businesses.
But then, this pattern is national. Democratic lawmakers everywhere are always more focused on attacking innocent citizens instead of going after the bad guys. When terrorists kill dozens, the knee-jerk response of all leftist Democrats it so ban innocent Americans from owning guns. And they are making this one of their central campaign promises at a time that Americans nationwide are making it very clear they are very strongly opposed to such bans.
This kind of disconnect from reality baffles me. Then again, it might be a very good thing, because it is going to result in many Democrats losing many more elections, something that needs to happen if we are ever going to reform that generally very corrupt and increasingly fascist political party.
One additional thought: Since the Democratic Party and the intellectual class of the United States are generally one and the same, this disconnect from reality sadly also applies to our most educated class of citizens. At a time when we need thoughtful muscular and blunt honest analysis from our intellectual elites, we instead have academics who want to hide from differing opinions because those different opinions might offend them.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The print edition can be purchased at Amazon. from any other book seller, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
I’m very surprised there hasn’t been a link established between the Democrat party and terrorism. Been Ghazi appears to be an arms deal gone bad that the Democrats could have prevented have they just answered the phone. Isis received the best weapons our nation has.
Fast and furious put mud on both parties. But it was made worse by the Obama. The cover-up is still ongoing.
Now there’s the little child psychologist from Berkeley that was caught buying weapons from the south pacific for resell to the public to fund his election campaign. He was already the number two guy in the California Senate.
Leland Yee won the Brady award for his work making California gun laws harder.
I wonder if his party threw him under the bus when he got caught in this clandestine weapons of war smuggling operation which would’ve been the crux that they needed to ban guns. Google “California Democrat shoulder fired missiles”
This operation was much bigger than just one man… It would not surprise me if Obama gives him a pardon, and Hillary nominates him gun czar after the Hacked/preprogrammed election computers gives her the election…
Related:
One of my customers is a criminal supreme court judge (D), he never initiates any political conversation with me. As soon as he came in today he was sooo offended and enraged that he begins with ” did you hear what your favorite president has been doing?”
Apparently he has heard that the president and his minions have been pumping Syrians into the country to the tune of 100K + for over a year, and he sited the DHS policy of not being able to view any social media. Not of an American citizen, that you most certainly can and must do, we are the criminals, but of anyone attempting to come to America from another country.
This is an indication (one presidential election too late) of how even the Dems are sick of his un American activities.
And further related:
The necessary stupidification of the American citizen.
http://www.foxnews.com/us/2015/12/16/yale-fail-ivy-leaguers-caught-on-video-clamoring-to-kill-first-amendment/
Have bucket near by because you want to vomit at the learned ignorance that is displayed in our country’s and the world’s “highest” of the high educational institutions, Yale. Attending these American institutions of high learning should now be an automatic disqualification to run for any political office.
Robert wrote: “Since all guns are expressly designed to kill people, …”
I hope that was intended to be sarcastic, here. Some guns are weapons of war, others are weapons of hunting. Shotguns that fire bird-shot and buckshot are expressly designed to kill wildlife, not people.
Even the infamous machine gun is a defensive weapon, or it was originally designed as such. Its first purpose is to prevent a marching army from reaching the side that is firing the machine guns (fired at angles so that the lines of fire cross and prevent the marching army from proceeding farther), which is intended to kill any people marching on a position or trench.
The other purpose of a machine gun is to keep the enemy’s heads down, as demonstrated in the following film clip.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RjlDRTemjzQ (1 minute)
Machine guns were re-purposed and put onto fighter planes because a large number of bullets were needed to ensure a few hit the moving target. This is one of the few — yet inefficient — uses of machine guns for offensive purposes.
Sometimes, however, machine guns are used to concentrate fire onto a single position, but the RPG was expressly designed for that purpose.
To say that all guns were expressly designed to kill people, even though few do, is similar to saying that all knives were expressly designed to kill people, because a few do. We could say the same for other deadly tools, such as cars, which are even deadlier in America than guns of all sorts.
Robert wrote: “When terrorists kill dozens, the knee-jerk response of all leftist Democrats it so ban innocent Americans from owning guns.”
This is the same as blaming and punishing the victim for the crime. The bad guy still has the guns (he does not care about following the law, otherwise he wouldn’t be a murderer), and since drugs are easily and commonly smuggled into the United States, we know that any type of gun or “assault weapon” can just as easily be smuggled in, too.
Robert wrote: “At a time when we need thoughtful muscular and blunt honest analysis from our intellectual elites, we instead have academics who want to hide from differing opinions because those different opinions might offend them.”
These “smart” people are not as smart as they think they are, and they usually assume that the rest of us aren’t as smart as they are. Jonathon Gruber is one such “intellectual.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G790p0LcgbI (1 minute)
The headline should actually read “The parties disconnect from reality”
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/2015/12/paul_ryan_s_first_deal_is_just_like_john_boehner_s_old_ones.html
So much for Paul Ryan, another Nancy Pelosi tool.
I think it is reasonable to now confidently assume that she has a “revealing” meeting with each and every new speaker where they are both locked in a secret, secure room where Pelosi peels off her outer skin to reveal her reptilian under core. This technique must be soooo scary for the speaker of the moment that they do what ever she says for fear of having to watch her eat his wife and children before his eyes and then finally himself if he does not tow her line.
Or something similar, its all in those eyes.
I have seen first hand at my MD legislature that the banning of so called assault weapons was directly a result of what they look like. The AR-15, firing a .223 round, is evil looking and was banned for purchase. The Ruger Ranch rifle fires the same .223 round and looks like a Ruger 10-22, which fires a .22 rim fired round; both can still be legally purchased. the MD law did not take away the right to own previously purchased firearms as has CA. The Ranch also takes a 30 round magazine, now illegal to purchase in MD. The legislators banned what they banned because the rifles look evil and war like even though they are semi-automatic firing not automatic; and since so many people are not knowledgeable about firearms, it looks like these politicians are doing something worthwhile. The largest outpouring of citizens in MD history showed up to oppose this MD law but was ignored by the legislature; yet almost all the same progressive Democrats who voted for this law were re-elected. You can fix stupid.
Though I have very limited experience with guns in my lifetime, I have fired (at a gun range) both a handgun and an M-16 shotgun. Firing the M-16 was easy and I generally felt I could ensure my safety and that of those around me very easily. By contrast, using a handgun was actually quite terrifying. One twist of the wrist and a bullet is going way off target. You could also, for instance, turn the gun on yourself. Plus, unless you are a guitar player, it would be very hard to sneak a big scary gun into a public place without being spotted.
Though I do not purport to argue one way or the other on gun control generally — I think a fear of “big guns” is wholly misplaced.
Sorry, you can’t fix stupid, not can fix
Once New York’s politicians have put an end to all the make believe murders perhaps they might find the time and resources to prevent the real thing.
My only surprise is that Gavrilo Princip has not made an appearance. I don’t want to see him. I am not calling for him. But that fact that he has not appeared here or in Europe is rather astounding.
The so-called “intellectual class” of the United States is neither educated nor particularly intelligent. It is merely credentialed.
Well, I think that as long as Mr. Trump is leading the Republican polls, you’d have a hard time singling out the Democrats as removed from reality.
JD– “M16 SHOTGUN?”
“Since the Democratic Party and the intellectual class of the United States are generally one and the same…”
Nope. Not even close. The Democratic Party is filled with the “lettered class”, that is true. However, a PhD in gender studies is not a sign of intellectual prowess. It is, in fact, a sign of intellectual laziness. The very fact that a majority of university graduates that are in the #Occupy movement think that all Bernie Sanders has to do is increase an income tax on “the rich” and he can eliminate their college loans, pretty much proves that every single one of those graduates is a moron.
To top it off, the undereducated and uneducated make up a majority of Democrat voters because they want free stuff.
Edward 9:59 pm 12/16
Banning “innocent Americans” from owning guns is not an example of “blaming the victim.” It is not based on blaming the innocent American for doing or not doing something to invite criminal attack. If you disagree, saying that the “something” is the allowing of any guns at all to be in civilian hands, I say that this is analogous to allowing any men at all to have penises.
I’m all for the Second Amendment, but bad analogies only give our opponents opportunities to mock us.
Singling out a democrat candidate more removed from reality then Trump? Yeah that would be hard. Sanders, Clinton O’Malley…. Nope could not SINGLE one out they are all further removed.
Worst thing is I don’t even like Trump. My top 3 would be Cruz, Carly, Carson.
Most liberals labor under the illusion that they have more control than they do. The thought that they can’t stop someone intent on killing from doing so torments them, so they placate themselves by controlling anything as a substitute, all to allow them the self satisfaction of knowing they “did something.”
Democrats disconnected from reality ??
ARE YOU F’N KIDDING ME ??
AND TO WHICH REALITY ARE YOU REFERRING?
The dems have a very, very good chance of putting Hillary in the WH. They have gotten Ocommie elected TWICE as president, and he has been able to accomplish much of what is communist, hate America first agenda demands.
And it appears that about 50% of the electorate will vote democrat in 2016.
Yea, the dems are disconnected from reality the same way the Lenin’s Bolsheviks were disconnected from reality.
But THEIR reality is not ours; THEIR reality is assuming and consolidating POWER. POWER is their reality, and when it comes to taking it, their reality is very , very well connected.
Smoking Frog,
You wrote: “Banning ‘innocent Americans’ from owning guns is not an example of ‘blaming the victim.'”
Who do you think is being blamed, since the shooter is not blamed (gun-law proponents acknowledge that existing and proposed gun laws do not and would not prevent mass shootings)?
Because they do not care to ensure the bad guys do not get guns but do ensure that the victims were and are less and less able to defend themselves against past and future attacks, it looks for all the world as though the past and future victims are the ones being blamed. Other than male vs. female anatomy, do you see this differently?
(BTW, there are “intellectuals” who insist that the mere existence of a penis makes one a rapist, sexist, and several other -ists. They blame people, merely for being the “wrong” sex, not for actions.)
It’s getting beyond the point of just winning elections. The Democratic Party is ever more inclined towards totalitarianism and needs to be thoroughly purged, especially its academic base. They don’t play by Marquis of Queensbury rules and in the end the people who are not sheeple may have to do the same.
People should remember that in the run up to the American Revolution, the British Parliament backed down twice when it repealed the Stamp Act and the Townsend Acts in the face of large-scale passive resistance. If either the Hildabeest or Vladimir Bernie is elected in 2016, people who consider themselves still free may have to do the same.