[MD] Here come the censors

Arlo Bensinger ajb102 at psu.edu
Wed Nov 12 10:14:50 PST 2008


[Ron]
My Question is, which Arlo is drawing what lines?

[Arlo]
The Arlo that is speaking here, of course. If it was another, how 
would you have heard him?

[Ron]
Arlo is questioning the validity of the right to "keep and bear arms" 
in this country under the idea of defence against a corrupt government.

[Arlo]
I'm not question the validity, as much as I am the pragmatics. IF we 
accept that the purpose of allowing citizens to hold weapons is to 
defend against invading armies or tyrannical governments, then my 
point is that we are severely undercutting their ability to do so by 
not allowing them military weapons. It seems illogical to me to say 
"you have the right to bear arms as "being necessary to the security 
of a free State", but we are only allowing you to have pop guns and 
pea shooters while the threats you will face will have tanks, 
missiles and a nuclear aresenal".

Instead, we as a society opt for a volunteer army that would serve as 
our defense, and to those persons we entrust the great responsibility 
and care of managing the use of weapons of mass destruction. In my 
opinion, this is how it should be.

Woods, having seemed to fall into a paranoiac rabbit hole, no longer 
trusts the idea that some people (the military) should have access to 
weapons that others (civilians) do not. I don't know if its the black 
helicopters of the One World Order, or watching Red Dawn reruns on 
Spike TV, but he seems to think it'd be a safer world is everyone 
(dissolving the "civilian"/"military" duality) had equal access to 
all weapons. If the military has nuclear weapons, then the civilians 
must have them as well (to protect themselves from said military).

So here is the breakdown, taken to the extreme to dislodge those who 
would pretend to ride a high horse.

(1) The military has nuclear weapons.
(2) Because of this, should everyone have the ability to own nuclear weapons?

If you answer "no", then we are simply drawing our lines at different 
points in the field. I draw mine at explosives and weapons designed 
to destroy targets of any size ranging from cars and houses on up. We 
can argue about where that line should be, of course, but we start 
from the vantage of recognizing that there must be a line.

If you answer "yes", then we are no longer on common ground, and 
we'll have to agree to disagree. If you think a world where every 
person can buy and own their own nuclear weapon would be "better", 
"safer" or "freer" than our present one, then go ahead and make that 
case. This would be the position of there should be NO LINE.

You'll also notice that Micah, Platt and Woods have failed to answer 
that simple question, relying instead on distortive and distractive 
rhetoric. Now why do you think that is? (I know why, so that's a 
rhetorical question. And that Platt can only limp along with even 
more grossly hypocritic rhetoric is something that should surprise no one).





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