Josh Marshall writes:
But a huge amount of the current gun debate, the argument for the gun-owning tribe, amounts to the gun culture invading my area, my culture, my part of the country.
That is where I think that Marshall goes wrong in his whole essay. No part of the country belongs to his “tribe” any more that it does to the “gun owning tribe.” I’m no more part of the gun culture than Marshall (I think), but the Supreme Court has ruled gun ownership (subject to numerous restrictions both potential and actual), a constitutional right. For the whole country. People owning and carrying guns (subject to the rules of a given jurisdiction) are no more “invading” his part of the country than would be people organizing a legal protest in favor of a political cause Marshall strenuously opposes. Marshall’s consciousness might be raised by attending a gun pride parade. Or maybe not, as Marshall writes:
But it captured a mentality that does seem pervasive among many more determined gun rights advocates — basically that us non-gun people need to be held down as it were and made to learn that it’s okay being around people carrying loaded weapons.
Actually attending a gun pride parade (or just watching one go by) might be an opportunity for Marshall to learn something. No, that something isn’t that “non-gun people need to be held down as it were.” The “as it were” does all the work since Marshall never wrote that anyone has suggested to touch a hair on his head. Marshall could learn that public spaces are not designed to suit only his particular preferences and, as a result, he will sometimes see things that that will make him uncomfortable. He could learn that his expectation that attitudes and actions that he finds unpleasant (though legal) cannot not be confined to only those regions of the country he chooses to avoid. He could learn that his comfort zone is not the extent of pluralism, and that his fellow citizens engaged in legal behavior do not need a license from him to engage in legal and peaceful behaviors in those public places Marshall mistakenly believes to be his own.
January 19th, 2013 | 11:08 pm
Pete, aren’t you being a bit naïve in taking seriously the left’s talk about “pluralism,” “tolerance,” and “diversity”? I don’t think that they are sincere about any of those concepts. They just find them useful for bringing about the cultural, political and economic changes they want.
January 19th, 2013 | 11:15 pm
DJF, maybe I am, but maybe he also has a blind spot, and if he is cynical, pointing out the seeming inconsistency seems worthwhile in any case as some people who are liberals or who don’t have strong ideological identities do take pluralism, diversity etc. as having more than tactical political value and there is probably some real common ground to be found with them. And in any case, I still think that the post is based on an error. Marshall isn’t entitled to have public spaces any more gun-free than the combination of constitutional and local laws demands. He isn’t allowed to ban disputes over the extent of gun ownership in the parts of the country he thinks of as his own (and we are debating federal gun legislation.) The same obligation to tolerate pluralism is true for pro-gun owner’s-rights activists in areas where gun ownership is more prevalent and popular.
January 20th, 2013 | 1:52 am
djf,
I think your instincts are right. I believe the professed sentiment on the left in support of pluralism falls into that category of Cliche of which Jonah Goldberg discusses in his book Tyranny of Cliche’s. The left is pluralistic when pluralism suites them, and never otherwise.
January 20th, 2013 | 3:09 am
Pete, I wasn’t arguing against pointing out the inconsistencies in the arguments of Marshall and others of his ilk in the hope of winning over some people in the middle. By all means, do that; knock yourself out. My point was that informed conservatives should by now realize that the “liberal” component of the American “liberal Left” is window-dressing. Glad you agree, Pseudoplotinus.
January 20th, 2013 | 6:15 am
Indeed, Pete.
If the liberals had more familiarity with accidental discharges in their own neighborhoods, they might start to respect life more and rethink their stand on baby-killing.
http://livewire.talkingpointsmemo.com/entry/five-accidental-shootings-at-gun-shows-mark-gun
January 20th, 2013 | 8:58 am
[...] Josh Marshall writes: But a huge amount of the current gun debate, the argument for the gun-owning tribe, amounts to the gun culture invading my area, my culture, my part of Source: Postmodern Conservative [...]
January 20th, 2013 | 9:25 am
DJF, I think that you are right about some folks and maybe Marshall is one of them. I do think there is this sense among one of them.
Michael, no on several levels.
January 20th, 2013 | 1:13 pm
nice catch! this is excellent.
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