... Is that one of the reasons at the bottom of Charles' thinking?
Tit-for-tat?!?! Really!?!?! It only takes about half a brain cell to realize where that leads. Oh! You took some of our rights, so we're going to take away some others from your side.
Great! Just great. How long until government has made life miserable for everybody?
Yes it is
ONE contributor to my position here.
It only takes half a brain cell to realize what happens if one side can impose its will on you without ever having to suffer ever having your will imposed on itself.
My position on this is not much different than those who argue we'd be better off bringing back a draft with zero exclusions. It is easy to engage in endless and undeclared wars when it is just poor kids from the inner city or the rural sticks getting sent home in body bags. But when attending an Ivy League college won't get the congressmen's sons out of the line of fire, congress may think twice about how often we really ought to be engaged in a war.
Put another way, one way to get bad laws repealed is to demand 100% equal enforcement. Is that not what many here argue regarding qualified immunity for cops? If cops had to live under the same laws of self-defense as do commoners, would not the self-defense laws change a bit...while simultaneously, cops might change some of their conduct a little as well?
Another example: How many police officers have stood shoulder-to-shoulder with us, supporting some kind of nation-wide carry provisions since they got their special exemption that let's them carry coast-to-coast, on duty or off, even in retirement, without regard to local laws?
If you think the statists on the left are going to come to some grand intellectual enlightenment to respect your rights because you are so good at respecting their rights, you're are simply not dealing with reality. As Heinlein reminds us,
Never appeal to a man's "better nature." He may not have one. Invoking his self-interest gives you more leverage. (- Lazarus Long, from "Time Enough For Love")
What is the self interest for liberals to respect your rights? Or to at least stop and think before demanding any more of your rights? Being forced to participate in homosexual "weddings" has been a huge eye opener for many conservatives. What do you think is a better eye opener for liberals than being forced to permit gun packing rednecks into their businesses just as they have forced conservative business owners to associate with some groups they'd rather avoid?
Did you want to effect actual political and social change such that many more persons respect your rights? Or did you just want to engage in so much of a mental exercise? Invoke a man's self interest. And until you demonstrate that you
CAN and WILL infringe his rights just as much as he infringes on yours, your promises to respect his rights are pretty meaningless. What is the benefit of a promise you are powerless to break? The promise gains him nothing. You cannot negotiate from a position of weakness, only from strength. MAD may be an insane strategy, except for its proven track record of keeping all sides from launching a first strike. If the other side is going to make you miserable, your only hope for a peaceful solution is to demonstrate your ability to make him equally miserable on equal grounds.
NOW, he has a reason to sit down and come to a mutually agreeable resolution with you. Whether that be your foolish vision for anarchy (leading to communism), or whether it is merely setting some bounds on how far each side will intrude into the other's business and property, you at least have some reasonable position from which to negotiate.
Not to mention the fact, that in the case of anti-discrimination, the liberals have convinced me. Society is far better if we can all go about out daily business free from discrimination on the part of businesses open to the public. So let's have a level playing field and make sure that gun owners are no more discriminated against in the procuring of routine goods and services than are homosexuals, women, democrats, Catholics or Jews, blacks or Hispanics.
Charles