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This is my head talking to David Frum

Tue, 03/17/2009 - 1:35pm

My latest bloggingheads diavlog is now online, with NewMajority's David Frum. Topics discussed include David's takedown of Rush Limbaugh, the future of the GOP, why Glenn Beck is one crazy motherf***er, and whether past political history is any guide for thinking about the future.

Go check it out.

Daniel W. Drezner | Permalink |

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politics | bloggingheads | Republicans

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About halfway through, and

by blue13326 on Tue, 03/17/2009 - 3:44pm

About halfway through, and one point you made struck me, and just drove the point home to me about the huge gap in understanding between the ivory tower class that you belong to and ordinary Americans.

You talk about conservatives buying/hoarding guns and ammunition and cite a story that this is being done in response to wild rumors that Obama was going to take away their guns, put them in FEMA concentration camps, etc.

For better or worse, I actually interact with these types and beyond the media reports and the very fringe cases, these people are actually quite rational in their thinking: Obama has appointed an AG who has filed amicus briefs in major cases siding against the 2nd Amendment (and perhaps coincidentally or not, played a key role in the gunpoint, night-time kidnapping of Elian Gonzalez, and then lied about it).

http://volokh.com/posts/1227228105.shtml

Now, we find out that Obama is reversing the rules on re-selling used bullet casings. From now on, they cannot be sold for remanufacturing, but rather must be liquidated at scrap value. The government is taking an 80% cut in revenues with this new rule — and that doesn’t count the extra effort and expense of mutilating the casings in the process. In response, the remanufacturers are cutting back business drastically, if not closing up shop entirely. In a time of economic crisis, this has the potential to destroy the entire industry.

http://www.theshootist.net/2009/03/dod-ends-sale-of-expended-military.html

So, you have an AG who has come out against the 2nd Amendment, played a key role in a paramilitary raid on the home of a private citizen, part of an administration that is aiming to destroy the private ammunition industry in this country without any kind of judicial or legislative review (and cutting into its own revenues for this purpose at a time when any extra dollars are needed).

If guns are your thing, then why wouldn't you be hoarding/buying guns and ammo while all this is going on, considering the obvious consequences are that guns and ammo will be harder and more expensive to purchase. Of course, it's much easier for the ivory tower/chattering class to think of these people are kooks and paranoids.

Just because someone's paranoid, doesn't mean they're wrong.

Not acceptable to speak with Mr. Frum

by Kenneth Sorensen on Wed, 03/18/2009 - 10:40am

He should be shunned for the rest of his life for what he has done. It was he who wrote the diastrous words about the 'Axis-of-Evil' for Bush' State-of-the-Union-address on 29 January, 2002. The words were modelled after the 'Axis-pact' of WW2, showing the skewed world-view of these people; they actually thought (and some of them still think) that the threat posed by Saddam was comparable to that of the greatest Tyran in history, Adolf Hitler, who wanted to take over the world.* These people should be shunned and never trusted with public offices or any other position were they might come into contact with honest people.

*) This laid the ground-work for the invasion a little over a year later, this fatal undertaking that far from reducing terror, made terror flourish as never before in Iraq, from where it spread to Iran's Kuzistan-province, Saudiarabia, Turkey, Spain and Great Britain. Hundres of thousand of innocent iraqies have died, 4,500 US servicemen have died and ten times as many injured and maimed for life, and the whole affair have costed the US economy more than 2 trillion Dollars.

It made Saddam uncooperative (perhaps this was the intent?), it made North Korea restart its reactor in december 2002, and it made the Iranian Priesthood choose a hardliner as President, cause they all reasoned: "Since we apparently belong to this 'Axis-of-Evil" we might as well be uncooperative from the start."