That 70s Show
(posted by Jim Henley)
A lot of today’s fighting young progressives probably won’t really believe that movement liberalism ever did have any genuine “excesses” that helped turn voters away from the Democratic Party. But my God, the hysteria greeting the Heller decision among some parts of Netrootsia and Greater Liberalism makes me think some of today’s progressives are determined to repeat even the pointless mistakes of Leftism Past. The practical legal effect of Heller will be minimal. The practical effect on crime will be likewise. Mark Kleiman has made this case for years, persuasively to my view. (Unfortunately his current post on the topic is not link-rich, so you’ll have to do your own digging.) I say this as someone who was disposed to find evidence on the other side - statistical proof that more guns, as they say, meant less crime. What I could see of statistics from Britain and the US and elsewhere was that gun laws had no material effect whatsoever on the level of violent crime. The effects of gun control on the one hand and shall-issue concealed-carry on the other were utterly swamped by other factors, especially demographic ones.
But even liberals who, today, grudgingly acknowledge the inefficacy of gun control, like Eugene Robinson in today’s Washington Post column, still invest it with almost magical power. It feels like doing something. Get beyond the Post into a typical blog comment thread and you find an attachment on the part of rank-and-file liberals to gun prohibition that I thought Democrats had put away after Al Gore’s Tennessee and West Virginia losses in 2000. What the hell happened to Matt Welch’s “Deadwood Democrats?” They all get their throats slit?
Let me say a couple things: 1) If there’s going to be any kind of “liberal-libertarian fusionism,” you gotta give this one to the libertarians. As Kleiman points out, it won’t actually cost liberals anything. Crime is going to be whatever crime is going to be. 2) Don’t be fvcking morons, people! In states you need to win - states along the Ohio Valley; states in the Intermountain West and the Northern Plains - people like guns. Antonin Scalia has done you a favor by taking away the specter of “confiscation” as an electoral issue. Barack Obama himself plainly realizes this. If Democrats are stupid enough to campaign against Heller it will cost you votes and entire states. It’s worth incurring political pain for an issue that matters. Gun control simply doesn’t matter for the things progressives claim to care about: levels of violence in society, especially cities. But if progressives want to lose the election on empty symbolism and the gut-level conviction that some legislature somewhere should be able to stop you from doing absolutely anything, you’ll have to do it on your own.
June 27th, 2008 at 7:44 pm
[...] Over at AOTP, I get impolitic about the politics of Heller. Posted by Jim Henley @ 9:44 pm, Filed under: Main « « NASA to qualify for farm subsidies | Main | [...]
June 27th, 2008 at 8:08 pm
Jim, help me out here. I’ll readily admit I haven’t been exercising my mad googling skilz at finding this out, but do you have any links showing that there’s this massive anti gun movement among progressives? Is there a huge up welling of politicians ready to go on the warpath over this?
I did hear from Chicago’s mayor Daly, which did sound that way, but he’s a mayor. Same from Bloomberg, but he isn’t a democrat and if someone claims he is, he certainly isn’t a progressive…
So…. I’m not saying your wrong or anything, but I really need something other than blog speculation to back this up. Is it a feeling of yours? What’s it based on….
Kind of a reverse bleg…
June 27th, 2008 at 8:14 pm
Hal, I would suggest going to memeorandum and setting the time parameters to the day the Heller decision came down. I almost wrote about it myself, but lacked time. Anyway, memorandum will have links to liberal blogs that are unhappy with the decision.
June 27th, 2008 at 8:51 pm
Hal: You mean a bunch of people whingeing on blogs is NOT a movement? Shit.
But seriously, three of the Post’s liberal columnists maundered about Heller today. And there are the mayors. Is there a massive anti-gun movement seizing control of the DNCC right now? No. Is now the time to keep liberals from going apeshit for gun control? Yes.
June 28th, 2008 at 12:25 am
Good post, Jim. I have nothing to add.
June 28th, 2008 at 6:42 am
Anyway, memorandum will have links to liberal blogs that are unhappy with the decision.
Odd, I can’t seem to find any that are meaningful at all. Certainly nothing that even begins to count as a *movement* - proto or otherwise. But that’s undoubtedly because of my lack of skilz in this area…
You mean a bunch of people whingeing on blogs is NOT a movement?
Well, my request was simply pointers to such. Rather than provide *any* I’ve just been treated with “hey, try memeorandum” without even a query and a pile of snark. I mean, saying that you’ve discovered an elegant proof but you have no room to write it down in the margin is one thing… but geebus.
But seriously, three of the Post’s liberal columnists maundered about Heller today.
Okay. But that is meaningful because of? I mean, as far as I can tell, the Post is a neo con organization that has an incredibly hostile relationship with progressives. Given that the post seems to be Lieberman’s bitch, they hate democrats, and will most likely be rooting for and backing McCain in the election, I fail to see how this is anything but a small bit of smoke mostly from burning straw.
Is now the time to keep liberals from going apeshit for gun control? Yes.
Great. I’m sure now is the time to prevent Mars from building their laser weapons as well.
Again, what I’m doing is asking for some references so I can see this “going apeshit” for myself and do my own part as a good liberal to prevent said apeshit. Rather than getting any pointers, I’ve just gotten snark.
Either there is no “there” there, and you’re just being chicken little reacting to what you *think* is going to happen, or there is some beginnings of a movement and one would think that a few links could be provided.
Given the lack of any in the responses, I’ll just have to assume that this is all reaction to imagined wisps of smoke and that, other than Debbie Howell’s fainting spell around a few columns in a neocon paper, there’s nothing else here going on.
Again, if there is *anything* I’d be interested in seeing it. But so far, bupkiss.
June 28th, 2008 at 8:20 am
Hal, I suppose I should be honored that mine are the only blogs you read. It’s the only way you could have missed the phenomenon, though if you’d even gotten so far as the comment thread on UO you’d have seen Jesurglisac and abb1, among other, weeping over Heller. Also, it’s just an asshole move to pretend that, because the Post has become a “neocon paper,” that specific individual columnists - EJ Fucking Dionne! - are not liberals, even though they’re . . . liberals! You don’t just owe yourself better; you owe me.
June 28th, 2008 at 8:49 am
Short answer: They never really existed in the first place. It was more wishcasting than anything else.
That said, I think you could find an equal cache of lefty commentary sort of shrugging at this. On the (persuasive-to-me) theory that the Supreme Court is actually a lagging indicator of society, it seems to me that the country, and even the left, has been reconciling itself with the Individual Right business for a good long while now. I can’t remember the last Democratic presidential candidate who didn’t have some awkward look-ma-I’m-shooting-a-gun! moment. In some ways the big news about Heller might be that it wasn’t big news at all.
June 28th, 2008 at 8:50 am
Jim:
I think it’s probably true that establishment liberals are by and large going nuts about Heller, especially liberal newspaper columnists. But I have read every liberal site I could find, both at memeo and through my regular bookmarks. As far as I can tell, about a third of the liberal blogosphere actually supports the decision, about a third appears largely indifferent, and about a third is taking the vehemently opposed route. Reading through the comments threads, this breakdown seems to hold true. So I think this is actually an issue where there is a divide between the traditional liberal establishment and the more activist liberal blogosphere (that is more representative of the up and coming generation of liberals).
June 28th, 2008 at 9:33 am
you’d have seen Jesurglisac and abb1,
Wow. you found some comments! By Jes and an anonymous poster. Sounds like a movement to me that must quickly be squashed.
are not liberals, even though they’re . . . liberals!
And they have zero party standing, aren’t running for any office and will be ignored by the progressive community because they really have drifted far, far away from that movement. Sure, they’re liberals. I’m sure that and $4.50 will get you a venti mocha at Starbucks. Get back to me when you have any politician in the democratic party running on this as even something that is casually connected to them, not even a part of their campaign. Then I think you have to start worrying.
You don’t just owe yourself better; you owe me.
Yes, that’s why you continue to have solid links and tons of evidence behind you. Again, I’m not the one getting up in arms about stuff. I’m not the one running around screaming the sky is falling. You wrote a post trying to convince liberals they should do shit. You provided jack other than snark. When asked to provide more, you provide even more snark and argument by innuendo.
As Matt Welch sez above, this was wishcasting. Other than the scrotal inflaters, it’s just not going to even be a part of any democratic campaign. Blog commenters and random blogs so far down the power curve that they have even less hits than my abandoned work not withstanding.
June 28th, 2008 at 10:56 am
Hal, you’re misreading Matt Welch’s comment. He’s saying “Deadwood Democrats” never really existed in the first place, not anti-Heller Dems.
June 28th, 2008 at 11:02 am
[...] Jim Henley: Hal, you’re misreading Matt Welch’s comment. He’s saying “Deadwood Democrats” never really existed in the first place, not anti-Heller Dems…. [...]
June 28th, 2008 at 1:16 pm
I remember around 2006 sometime, while working at Barnes and Noble in Berkeley, a copy of The Nation magazine with an article called “The Liberal Case for Guns” (or “…Gun Rights”, etc.).
It referred to the story of Robert F. Williams and his attempt to bat off racist mobs in the south while, in many cases, the NAACP poo-pooed his efforts from cozy offices in the North. And I’m not sure if the Pink Pistols have attracted more attention in recent years, but they’re also notable in the liberal/gun reconciliation discusison.
June 28th, 2008 at 2:55 pm
Get back to me when you have any politician in the democratic party running on this as even something that is casually connected to them, not even a part of their campaign.Okay, here’s Senator Dianne Feinstein weighing in. Does that count?
June 28th, 2008 at 3:02 pm
Here’s an AP roundup of congressional opinion on heller.
Two of the quotes back Jim’s concern:
“Today, President Bush’s radical Supreme Court justices put rigid ideology ahead of the safety of communities in New Jersey and across the country. This decision illustrates why I have strongly opposed extremist judicial nominees and will continue to do so in the future.” — Sen. Frank Lautenberg, D-N.J.
“I am profoundly disappointed in Justice Roberts and Justice Alito, both of whom assured us of their respect for precedent. With this decision, 70 years of precedent has gone out the window. And I believe the people of this great country will be less safe because of it.” — Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif.
June 28th, 2008 at 3:12 pm
Good to see that the Congressional Democrats are finding an issue where they can stand up to Republicans.
Now I know the real reason why Scalia wants guns legal in DC: So that Democrats can shoot themselves in the foot.
June 28th, 2008 at 3:16 pm
I don’t read as many just-plain-liberal blogs as I used to, and I can’t say much for movements, but I can speak as someone who lives in New York City and has mostly liberal friends and relatives, and yeah, I know plenty of liberals, even now, who’ll talk as if gun ownership is an obvious sign of lunacy. (I’ve also met at least one conservative who carried on as if not owning a gun was craziness, but he was a gun dealer.)
June 28th, 2008 at 3:38 pm
Avram:
That is one recurring example I’ve noticed from the more vocally anti-gun liberals online. They basically assert that anyone who supports the 2nd Amendment has fallen for a conspiracy by gun manufacturers & dealers to pump up their profits. I’ve even seen some tie that in to supposed deliberate encouragement of ghetto violence to keep minorities and the poor “in check”!
The types that would make the latter claim, I wonder how they can do so with a straight face while still claiming moral high ground on race relations. If minorities are supposed to be so dumb that they can’t be trusted with firearms, then aren’t they just making a fancier version of the same claims that the racists on the Right have been spewing?
June 28th, 2008 at 4:06 pm
“If there’s going to be any kind of “liberal-libertarian fusionism,” you gotta give this one to the libertarians.”
Is there any interest in “liberal-libertarian fusionism” from the liberal side? Of those people with that interest, do any describe themselves as seeing this working in any way other than those weirdo libertarians gaining the good taste to vote for the Team Blue candidates they’re told to? Do any express a willingness to “give” anything at all to the libertarian side of such a “fusion”?
I’m just not seeing that; it all looks very, very much like the traditional relationship of a lot of right-leaning libertarians to conservatism and Team Red over the years.
June 28th, 2008 at 5:32 pm
Eric, yes, there is enormous interest on the liberal side in forging select coalitions with libertatins. As I wrote below about the ACLU’s “Strange Bedfellows” alliance, that org — and a host of liberal bloggers who noticed in awe how the Ron Paul machine generated “money bombs” — is joining with activists from the Paul campaign, represented by Break the Matrix’s Rick Williams and Trevor Lymon to stop the pending FISA bill that will both legalize warrantless eavesdropping on Americans’ foreign telephone calls and emails, as well as grant retroactive immunity to the telcoms who aided the Bush govt in violating the warrant requirement for years. Such amnesty would moot several current, righteous lawsuits.
June 28th, 2008 at 8:17 pm
Come on, Eric, it’s just that so many of us saw what cheap dates the libertarians were for the GOP,
and want to get some of that for ourselves
We heard that you libertarians are flat-out freaks, while all we got are the Greens. The Greens are (a) batsh*t crazy, (b) ugly, and (c) don’t put out
, even after we buy them a nice veal dinner 
June 28th, 2008 at 8:53 pm
Well no wonder the Greens didn’t put out, you bought veal for vegetarians!
June 28th, 2008 at 9:28 pm
Quoted for truth!
June 29th, 2008 at 5:20 pm
“Eric, yes, there is enormous interest on the liberal side in forging select coalitions with libertatins.”
For one, the interests of the ACLU are not “enormous” on the liberal side, else they wouldn’t be looking for libertarian support in the face of the actions of liberal politicians. (And Hell, I might still be a liberal if civil liberties were that important there.) For another, having “select coalitions with libertarians” on a few issues is *completely* compatible with “give nothing to libertarians that they weren’t going to do anyway”. The ACLU working with Paulistas doesn’t at all require the other 99% of liberals to ease up on gun control or throw any sort of bone at all to libertarians.
People (including Jim, above) talk about “fusionism” as if it means something more than a handful of civil libertarians of different political stripes being willing to cooperate on things they entirely agree on. But if that’s all it takes, then I guess we have fusion.
June 29th, 2008 at 8:16 pm
Eric, I don’t really disagree with you.
June 30th, 2008 at 1:43 pm
Dang, Jim. Why can’t anyone say that sort of thing when I’m being optimistic?
June 30th, 2008 at 4:00 pm
The “left’s” — more like proto-fascist “leftists” — attachment to outright gun bans has always been one of its downsides.
Maybe, it partially springs from the influence of anti-Vietnam war era appeals to pacifism or something.