Subscribe To
Posts
Comments
11:55 PM | 
Posted by
kender
I am reposting this because the HTML from the newsletter that wonkied up my site has me needing a bit of levity. The following is a true story, and a damned funny one at that. Just yesterday I found out that Jerry Doyle has used the atheist argument as well. Seems I am in good company.
Linked to the title is the story of San Francisco wanting to ban handguns in the city.
The day this story broke I called the Southern California chapter of the ACLU and, in a voicemail, asked them to march straight up there and sue the hell out of S.F. for being ballsy enough to try to steal our Second Amendment Right to Keep and Bear Arms.
I really didn't expect a return call.
Imagine my surprise when they did indeed call me back.
The conversation wasn't very long. In all fairness it WAS an intern that called me back. He started off by asking me if I still needed their help.
This is an edited version of the conversation, with some boring stuff taken out, and it is as close to verbatim as I can recall it. Although they probably recorded the call and may sue me after this.
Intern: So do you still need our help?
Me: Oh yes, most definitely.
Intern: What can we help with?
Me: I want you guys to grab your lawyers and go stop S.F. from taking away our 2nd amendment rights. They did it in DC and now that is the murder capital of the US, so purely from an economic viewpoint we can't let this happen. S.F. is a huge tourist destination. If tourists started getting shot left and right it may adversely affect the economy in some measurable way. Can you guys do this?
Intern: Well, I can make a note that you called about it.
Me: Good deal. Listen, while I have you on the phone can you tell me if the ACLU has ever defended our 2nd amendment rights?
Intern: I don't really know, but I can look into that and try to get back to you.
Me: You do that. Another thing I was wondering about, since you guys seem to be so good at defending our civil rights and the Constitution and all, maybe you could help me in another matter. You guys are doing a bangup job of getting all references of religion out of our lives, what with working to get crosses off of public land, threatening to sue cities for putting up nativity displays at Christmas time, and stopping little kids from singing songs that have any mention of God in them, so maybe you could help me on this one. You see, crosses have pretty much been claimed by the Christians, and of course the Jews have the Star of David, Islam its' Crescent thing going, and I noticed that we hear alot from the atheists these days, like that one in northern california that is trying to stop Bush from having a prayer at his inauguration, you have heard about that right?
Intern: Yes I have heard of that.
(at this point he is sounding a bit suspicious)
Me: I figure hey, it's his inauguration, if he wants a prayer, hell why not?
Intern: I can see that yes.
Me: Well, anyway, it seems that the symbols of atheists would be nothing, wouldn't you agree with that?
Intern: (warily) Yeeess, ok.
Me: Well, when I don't see a religious symbol of some kind that says there are people that believe in a creator I get offended, so what I would like for you guys to do is to sue the atheists and make them pay to put up religious symbols all over the place. Can you guys do that?
Intern: Weeeelllll.....
Me: I don't really care what religious symbols they are, I just get offended by a lack of them. You see to me it says we are sliding into an abyss where nobody believes in a creator,and that life is truly absurd and it doesn't matter what we do because it is all meaningless, and I think that will lead to a society that is doomed from selfishness and hedonism, kinda' like ancient Rome, and America will be destroyed and fall away just like the old roman empire. You guys don't want America to go the way of the Roman Empire do you?
Intern: Uuummm...no, not really.
Me: O.K. then, so make a note about that too would ya'? Have it say that I want you guys to sue the atheists to force them to put up some kind of religious symbols so I am not offended all the time ok?
Intern: O.K., I'll make a note of it.
Me: Cool. And try to get back to me about the ACLUs' history of defending the 2nd amendment too.
Intern: O.K., I'll look into that.
Me: Cool, thanks for all your help and for calling me back, and God Bless you man.
I don't really expect a second call.
Linked to the title is the story of San Francisco wanting to ban handguns in the city.
The day this story broke I called the Southern California chapter of the ACLU and, in a voicemail, asked them to march straight up there and sue the hell out of S.F. for being ballsy enough to try to steal our Second Amendment Right to Keep and Bear Arms.
I really didn't expect a return call.
Imagine my surprise when they did indeed call me back.
The conversation wasn't very long. In all fairness it WAS an intern that called me back. He started off by asking me if I still needed their help.
This is an edited version of the conversation, with some boring stuff taken out, and it is as close to verbatim as I can recall it. Although they probably recorded the call and may sue me after this.
Intern: So do you still need our help?
Me: Oh yes, most definitely.
Intern: What can we help with?
Me: I want you guys to grab your lawyers and go stop S.F. from taking away our 2nd amendment rights. They did it in DC and now that is the murder capital of the US, so purely from an economic viewpoint we can't let this happen. S.F. is a huge tourist destination. If tourists started getting shot left and right it may adversely affect the economy in some measurable way. Can you guys do this?
Intern: Well, I can make a note that you called about it.
Me: Good deal. Listen, while I have you on the phone can you tell me if the ACLU has ever defended our 2nd amendment rights?
Intern: I don't really know, but I can look into that and try to get back to you.
Me: You do that. Another thing I was wondering about, since you guys seem to be so good at defending our civil rights and the Constitution and all, maybe you could help me in another matter. You guys are doing a bangup job of getting all references of religion out of our lives, what with working to get crosses off of public land, threatening to sue cities for putting up nativity displays at Christmas time, and stopping little kids from singing songs that have any mention of God in them, so maybe you could help me on this one. You see, crosses have pretty much been claimed by the Christians, and of course the Jews have the Star of David, Islam its' Crescent thing going, and I noticed that we hear alot from the atheists these days, like that one in northern california that is trying to stop Bush from having a prayer at his inauguration, you have heard about that right?
Intern: Yes I have heard of that.
(at this point he is sounding a bit suspicious)
Me: I figure hey, it's his inauguration, if he wants a prayer, hell why not?
Intern: I can see that yes.
Me: Well, anyway, it seems that the symbols of atheists would be nothing, wouldn't you agree with that?
Intern: (warily) Yeeess, ok.
Me: Well, when I don't see a religious symbol of some kind that says there are people that believe in a creator I get offended, so what I would like for you guys to do is to sue the atheists and make them pay to put up religious symbols all over the place. Can you guys do that?
Intern: Weeeelllll.....
Me: I don't really care what religious symbols they are, I just get offended by a lack of them. You see to me it says we are sliding into an abyss where nobody believes in a creator,and that life is truly absurd and it doesn't matter what we do because it is all meaningless, and I think that will lead to a society that is doomed from selfishness and hedonism, kinda' like ancient Rome, and America will be destroyed and fall away just like the old roman empire. You guys don't want America to go the way of the Roman Empire do you?
Intern: Uuummm...no, not really.
Me: O.K. then, so make a note about that too would ya'? Have it say that I want you guys to sue the atheists to force them to put up some kind of religious symbols so I am not offended all the time ok?
Intern: O.K., I'll make a note of it.
Me: Cool. And try to get back to me about the ACLUs' history of defending the 2nd amendment too.
Intern: O.K., I'll look into that.
Me: Cool, thanks for all your help and for calling me back, and God Bless you man.
I don't really expect a second call.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
13 comments:
You just screwed up a liberal intern for life. On the bright side he may actually think a bit about the points you were making.
I could kiss you, man... then again, maybe not.
So, what you're saying is; anytime we see 'nothing' it's actually a public display of the Atheist Religion? Hmmmmmmmmmm, It's just warped enough that it might work.
yeah thanks for the checkback and such but i haven't been so politically minded as of late.
same merry christmas and happy new year to you of course.
or whatever it is to celebrate of.
it sounds as though you had an interesting phonecall.
those are fun. sometimes i'll argue people who believe in what i believe in just to see what they'll say. overall it enhances every argument.
for my communist two cents though...
given the chance i'd bury every gun in the world deep in the ground and leave every nuclear weapon at the deepest point in the ocean. a lot of people are going to feel the same.
for all the stupidassed slogans and dope-chants they got one thing right: that humans have never invented a weapon that they never used.
2nd amendment but who cares. that was written way back when, when the british tried to regulate the amount of guns available to the revolutionary forces and thereby regulate the amount of resistance.
nobody wants the king of england walking into their house and pushing them around.
but now...now? from what i hear it's insanity down there. people would be far less inclined to kill if they couldn't do it from a safe distance. can you imagine your president settling a difference with an old-fashioned fistfight? he'd run away and try and find his red button. the one that drops bombs on countries while he golfs.
the argument is that if guns are made illegal, then only criminals will have them. so what you do is you take down the places that manufacture bullets. if you stop making bullets, wait a simple 100 years and so many lives would be saved.
international solidarity on the issue would render the option of distance-weaponry impossible after so long.
but what about hunting they say. and target practice. it's so fun. it makes you a man. all i'm saying is that if it saves just one life to give it up then step down.
chris rock made a good joke about raising the price of one bullet to about 4000$ each. (then war can become the upper-class sport that it deserves to be.)
if they're making so many weapons and so many bullets. um. obviously they want somebody to use them. i'm the left-leaning robot in the equation here, i suppose. and why do we even need them anymore? i thought we were already home free.
okay that was about 8 cents.
still an entertaining phone call though :)
and some good ideas too.
Ryan, welcome back.
Taking down the ammo companies wouldn't work. alot of people reload their own. Imagine the black market for reloading supplies.
It is a well proven fact that violent crime drops where gun control laws are loosened.
Armed citizens you know.
Well done Kender, I don't expect you'll get a call back either.
Kender - do you have any numbers on that? Any facts? Its not what I've heard or seen.
Banning guns is not the solution either - banning always creates black markets, mystique, and places the banned substance firmly in the realm of the criminal, where we really don't want it. (Think drugs)
Anyway, what do you think should be done Kender? Should everyone get a gun for their 18th birthday? Maybe that is too old...16th birthday? Do you think there are any controls that should be in place, or should all people have access to guns all the time?
Interesting phone call. As we've talked about before, people have gone overboard in their need to not be offended by someone else. I still think this is largely reactionary and will not, in the end, lead to a secular society or any real lasting damage.
Still waiting on those numbers about illegal immigrants being a large part of the healthcare problems we have...
LOL that is hysterical! I wonder if the ACLU intern shared this call with any of his cronies. If so they most likely told him to forget about the call. The ACLU is a bunch of hypocrites for sure.
Kat.....well said. Outstanding. Perfect. Thank you.
Dude, that was just funny!
I think they should defend the right to bear arms. Can you imagine the NRA and the ACLU in a joint rally? Michael moore might just get a stroke!
Kat - I wish I lived in reality, in the same world that you appear to live in in your mind. In your mind, you appear to live in a world where the government's technology is not so vastly superior as to make your measly handgun pathetic. Perhaps you don't own a handgun. Maybe you own a shotgun or a semi or fully automatic gun. What is your plan when the tanks start rolling down the street? Do you have a bazooka? Maybe you should look into getting one...
In a few years (shorter perhaps?) they won't even have to kill you if you start getting a little uppity:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2004/09/19/wirq319.xml&sSheet=/news/2004/09/19/ixworld.html
(I read about that first on CNN or something, but couldn't find that same article again. The technology is the point though)
So, maybe you think you could take out the truck with the ADS system on it with your bazooka? Soon they will be able to do this from the air:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6182817/
Perhaps we should each have our own SAM unit in our backyard. You know - just in case we have to defend ourselves from our own government.
The truth is, in a war between the government and the citizen, we already lost before it has ever came to pass...and, its only getting worse.
So, what is the solution? Where do we find our balance? It seems that no access is not the answer. It seems that full access is not a good solution either.
Kat, I truly wish we still lived in the times when everyone pretty much had equal access to equal technology. Our founding fathers, while brilliant people, could not have imagined or planned for the kind of weapons we now have available. I don't know what the answer is, but ignoring the threat of violent crime and saying that the dialog does not need to take place because you shouldn't "talk about crime and statistics. Talk about your rights and protection thereof." is living in a different world than the one the rest of us have to live in.
Kat,
You made some very nice, well-written points there. I also appreciate the cordial tone.
However, most of your post seems dedicated to arguing against a point I did not make. At no point did I say that we should not have guns. Actually I've made my position on guns known a few times at different places in this blog. (In a quick, incomplete nutshell: better background checks, required training prior to ownership, re-evaluation of age requirements, etc.)
My point was that crime needs to be a part of the national dialogue concerning guns. It cannot be ignored. It is this dialogue that has led to some of the restrictions that we have today (7 day waiting period, background checks etc.). These restrictions do not stop most people from arming themselves - either for protection or sport - but they do cut down on violent crime. Perhaps you have been fortunate not to lose anyone you know to a violent crime. Perhaps you have and this is one reason you own a gun yourself. I don't know, but I'm inclined, based on your arguments, to think the former is the case. I would think that if such a thing had happened to your best friend, your significant other or your child, you would not be discounting the need to talk about how crime is related to guns and what precautions should be taken. If we can still maintain our rights and yet do so in a smarter way that saves some lives from crime, should we not do so?
Even though I was not saying that we should not have guns, I did want to make one comment on the revolutions. You are correct that many revolutions have succeeded against vastly superior technology. However, both examples that you gave (American Revolution, fall of Roman Empire) were largely successful due to poor supply lines. Imagine if the American Revolution had instead been the English Revolution and it had taken place inside of Great Britain. Would it have succeeded? What if the Roman empire had not been the great sprawling mass that it was and had instead been one very powerful and smallish country (I know, it was what it was because of its size, I'm just saying if it had been same technology difference but not so spread out.). You can give other examples of successful revolutions (French, Russian) but the technology difference was not so great in those examples. You are possibly right that American's could lead a successful revolution if such a need arose, so I will admit to being wrong when I categorically said that we had already lost such a revolution. I do still believe that, due to the technology difference, such a revolution would be more difficult to accomplish than any other in history.
Side note: Yes, I know what catapults and ballistae are. Catapults = big rock throwing thingy. Ballista = oversized crossbows. See, and people say you don’t learn anything from video games… :-)
This is awesome man!
I actually had written up half of my response to that enormous comment by Kat, but by the time I got to it, this post had moved so far down the list that I didn't bother to finish it. Anyway, here is what I had written:
Kat,
Another very well-written and thorough comment. Thanks. Its nice to find bloggers who can be cordial and informative in their arguments.
I'm also pleased to hear that you surely did not vote for Bush. While you didn't specifically say this, I inferred it from your understanding of what the Patriot Act has done to our rights and that Bush and his administration has been the champion of degrading our rights for four years and will undoubtedly be even worse in the next four years. I also wanted to clarify something that you said in your first comment in this post. You said:
"When the democrat party demanded UN observers and then dispatched 10k lawyers in preparation to contest the vote, I understood..."
The part of this that is missing is that both parties had swarms of lawyers all over the country ready to contest the vote should the need (or opportunity) arise, so try to avoid throwing invalid arguments against one side or the other.
I do not think that someone needs to have personal tragedy due to firearms to be able to discuss it, I was just trying to guage your own experience and frame of reference. I do not have direct personal experience either (Fortunately). Actually less than you. I had a friend in middle school who had a gun put to her head. Also, my senior year of high school was the same year the the tragedy at Columbine happened (I went to a nearby school). And before you argue this point, I am aware that gun control laws would probably not have stopped Columbine.
I'm glad you brought out that poem by the pastor during WWII. It does fit very well into this conversation. I also see how you make connections to some gun control and a possible total loss of gun rights. The issue I take with this argument is that it seems that you wish there to be no gun control at all. Free reign. Gun racks in 7-11.
That was as far as I had gotten. I did want to step back at this point though and say that I did learn some excellent points from your well-written (and lengthy) comment. It is not so much that I think that guns should be regulated or that I think I have any good solutions. I just find the idea of total lack of regulation to be a bad idea. Do you have a better solution? With your superior knowledge of this subject, Kat, I think you might if you read this.
Post a Comment