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Marissa's musings about liberty, individual rights, justice, grief, loss, and other random things
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The anti-rights organization, Brady: United Against Gun Violence, recently made a social media post which read: “It may seem like a small hand gesture, but when those who have a platform use even an imaginary firearm for celebration, it sends a message that guns are cool and fails to recognize their lethality or that they’re the #1 killer of kids. We can do better.”
My question for Brady: What exactly is wrong with sending the message that guns are cool? In my opinion, guns are cool. And judging by the comments on the post, many other people feel the same way. There is absolutely nothing wrong with thinking that guns are cool. People have a wide variety of different interests. Some people find Disney movies cool, some people find horses cool, some people find rap music cool, and some people find guns cool, to give just a few examples. There is absolutely nothing wrong with any of this. People have a right to like things, to be interested in things, and to find things cool. Guns are no exception to this.
Regarding the claim that using imaginary guns for celebration “fails to recognize their lethality”… I fail to see why this is a problem. First of all, guns arguably do not have any “lethality” at all, because it is the people who use guns who are responsible for any deaths that may occur, rather than the guns themselves. But even if one accepts the claim that guns possess lethality, this does not create any obligation for people to “recognize” this. As mentioned above, people have a right to like things. People are not obligated to actively recognize every negative aspect of the things that they like, every time those things are mentioned.
Regarding the claim that guns are “the #1 killer of kids”… this strikes me as ageist. If guns were the #1 killer of adults, would this somehow be less bad? Additionally, as mentioned above, one could make the argument that guns are not a killer of anything, because it is the people who use guns who are responsible for any deaths that may occur, rather than the guns themselves.
In conclusion, it’s Brady that needs to do better. Criticizing people who have done nothing wrong is unacceptable. The people at Brady need to respect the full spectrum of human diversity, rather than criticizing and shaming people who have different likes and dislikes than they do.
A pretty cool AI (I assume) creation from Confederate Coffee Company:
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I certainly hope so. And I particularly appreciate the hashtags #Inclusion and #TrueInclusivity. Indeed, contrary to popular belief, Confederate symbols are symbols of inclusion, because the Confederates were rebels who fought back against authority, and their symbols therefore signify rebellion, resistance, and nonconformity in all their forms. There cannot be true inclusivity without including the Confederates.
Another excellent post from the Firearms Policy Coalition:
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“What a sea change it would be for Americans to finally have some peace of mind, knowing that a dedicated government entity exists solely to protect their rights, not infringe upon them.”
The establishment of the Second Amendment Task Force is great news indeed. The federal government is actually working to protect our rights, rather than working to violate them. What a revolutionary concept.
Thank you, Rep. Higgins, for stating this truth so perfectly.
No person should ever need to provide a reason or justification for refraining from receiving a medical procedure.
Refraining from receiving a medical procedure is a fundamental right. Period. Full stop. End of story.
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Source here
A monument vandalized and destroyed by people who only care about the perspectives, the rights, and the feelings of the majority; who only tolerate the existence of people like themselves; who deliberately inflict harm and pain on people who are different for no other purpose than to inflict harm and pain:
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“The importance of preserving history and heritage, even in the face of controversy and loss.”
Amen to that. Every day, I strive to continue on in defiance of the people that I described above. On many days, this feels impossible. The pain reaches unbearable levels and my efforts feel pointless. Yet I keep trying to take meaningful steps to honor the historical figures that matter to me, and to find a meaningful path forward despite the horrific losses that they have inflicted. Because no matter what the people described above might think, preserving history and heritage are truly important.
I’ve been reading various articles about transgender ideology lately, and one thing mentioned in many of these articles is the concept of “social justice” movements and how their “goalposts” (for lack of a better term) are constantly moving. What this means is that activist movements emerge with a particular goal, but then once they achieve this goal, move forward to a more ambitious goal, and then another, and then another, ad infinitum. In this way, successful activist movements cause the “frontier” to keep moving. The movement keeps winning, succeeding, gaining ground, while its opponents continue to lose, fail, and lose ground.
This, of course, isn’t a bad thing in and of itself. Movements can have ideologies and goals that are either good or bad. The proponents of a movement might be in the right, or their opponents might be in the right. That depends entirely on what the movement is all about and what its goals are.
What is a bad thing is when a movement, throughout this entire process, denies that it has gained any ground at all. Despite winning victory after victory, and gaining more and more ground, the movement claims that things are “as bad as ever.” I’ve noticed this phenomenon happening a lot regarding several movements with which I disagree. And quite frankly, it’s a form of gaslighting towards the opponents of the movement. Opponents, who lose more ground every year and are thwarted in their goals time and time again, are portrayed as always getting their way, and therefore having nothing to be upset about. The members of activist movements claim that they (or the people they claim to champion) are the only ones who have a right to be upset. In reality, nothing could be further from the truth.
An example of this is the gay rights movement, which began by advocating merely that being gay be legalized. The goal of this movement was for gay people to be able to live their lives without fear of being arrested and/or jailed. Once this goal was achieved, the gay rights movement pushed for increasing levels of social acceptance, and then for legal protections that were the same as what would be given to straight couples. It was demanded that gay couples be allowed to adopt children, to form civil unions, and eventually to marry. As the infamous Masterpiece Cake Shop case illustrates, the gay rights movement demanded that businesses be legally required to serve gay couples just as they would straight couples. As queer people have gained nearly universal social acceptance, and same-sex marriage has been federally legalized, the focus has turned to trans rights. Today, LGBTQ+ advocacy centers around not only increasing social acceptance of trans people, but also increasing the availability of trans-related medical procedures for people of all ages. Gay rights organizations, their goals having been realized, have, well, transitioned (no pun intended) to trans issues as their next frontier.
Race-based movements have followed a similar trajectory. What began as a movement to abolish slavery turned into efforts to secure voting rights, citizenship, and equal treatment under the law for black people. In the 1960s, protesters were marching in the streets for equal access to public accommodations such as buses, restaurants, schools, and water fountains. At some point in this process, demands for equality of opportunity transformed into demands for equality of outcomes. Demands for protection from discrimination turned into demands for discrimination against others. Equality became “equity,” affirmative action became the norm in schools and workplaces, and political correctness silenced dissenting views. All while activists claimed that the current state of things was merely “the new Jim Crow” and that no meaningful improvements had been made for black people. Now, among the goals of “anti-racist” movements is the obliteration of all statues, memorials, holidays, place names, and monuments honoring historical figures who had anything to do with anti-black racism in any way. This is an issue that is very important to me, because I’m an autistic person who happens to be white, and whose special interest is history and statues. Race-based movements started out with goals that no one in their right mind would disagree with. But after achieving these goals, they gradually morphed into mean-spirited campaigns to invalidate the struggles of others and to actively inflict harm on people who are truly oppressed and disadvantaged, such as myself.
Logically, it makes sense that a movement would do this, because if a movement admits to having achieved all of its goals, then it would be admitting that it no longer has any need to exist. This would understandably be a difficult pill to swallow for people who have built their identity around advocacy for a particular movement, as well as for organizations that have offices, employees, fundraising apparatus, and infrastructure dedicated to their advocacy work. But to enjoy success while pretending otherwise, is not fair to a movement’s opponents. Getting your way while claiming to be as oppressed as ever is inexcusable gaslighting of those who think differently than you do. Too often, movements for social justice transform into movements for injustice, demands for equality turn into demands for preferential treatment, advocacy for inclusion becomes advocacy for exclusion, and protests against oppression and discrimination morph into demands for oppression and discrimination against others.
The Virginia Flaggers made a great post, in honor of Confederate History and Heritage Month, quoting from the book “A Confederate Catechism” by Lyon Gardiner Tyler. In the book, Tyler answers commonly asked questions about Confederacy. Here’s an excerpt:
6. Did the South fight for slavery or the extension of slavery?
No; for had Lincoln not sent armies to the South, that country would have done no fighting at all.
7. Did the South fight for the overthrow of the United States Government?
No; the South fought to establish its own government. Secession did not destroy the Union, but merely reduced its territorial extent. The United States existed when there were only thirteen States, and it would have existed when there were twenty States left. The charge brought by Lincoln that the aim of the Southerners was to overthrow the government was no more true than if King George III had said that the secession of the American colonies from Great Britain had in view the destruction of the British Government. The government of Great Britain was not destroyed by the success of the American States in 1783. Nor would the government of the United States have been destroyed if the Southern States had succeeded in repelling the attacks of the North in 1861- 1865. Had the North refrained from conquest, its example would have been felt by Germany and there would have been no World War costing millions of lives. A group of Northern States in 1861-65 assumed the imperialistic attitude of Great Britain in 1776 and Germany in 1914, and substituted the armed fist for the American principle of self-government. Universal peace will never ensue till the principle of self- government, which requires no armies to maintain it, is recognized throughout the world.
(emphasis mine)
Once more for the people in the back: Secession did not destroy the Union, but merely reduced its territorial extent.
This is an excellent rebuttal of the brainless, hackneyed, repeated-ad-nauseam lie that the Confederates tried to “tear the country apart” and “destroy the union.” The Confederates attempted to leave the United States. And there is literally absolutely nothing wrong with that, whatsoever. People have a fundamental right to leave something if they want to. Leaving something is not the same as destroying it. Just as it doesn’t destroy a team, or a friend group, or a get-together, or a party, or a class, or a club, or a company, or an organization, for one person to leave, it doesn’t destroy a country for states to secede from it; it merely makes it smaller. You don’t have a right to force other people to remain part of something against their will. It really is that simple.
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