“You only attack liberals, what about the other side?!?!”
I haven’t heard this (strawman quote?) myself, but my answer is I rarely think people further "right" than liberals are worth discussing politics with. Outside of special circumstances, I skip arguing with anti-liberal “conservatives” and neo-nazis and go straight to denying speech (both peacefully, and where appropriate, forcefully). They generally have no interest in good faith or truthfulness, those concepts are silly, idealist and weak self-restrictions to them.
“Never argue with an idiot, they will only bring you down to their level and beat you with experience,” - Mark Twain.
Liberals, on the other hand, sometimes value other people, the search for truth and a better society as much as us. So it makes sense to discuss our disagreements so long as each side reciprocates that respect. We can actually learn from each other.
Relevant quote from Jean-Paul Sartre on antisemites (1946):
“Never believe that anti-Semites are completely unaware of the absurdity of their replies. They know that their remarks are frivolous, open to challenge. But they are amusing themselves, for it is their adversary who is obliged to use words responsibly, since he believes in words. The anti-Semites have the right to play. They even like to play with discourse for, by giving ridiculous reasons, they discredit the seriousness of their interlocutors. They delight in acting in bad faith, since they seek not to persuade by sound argument but to intimidate and disconcert. If you press them too closely, they will abruptly fall silent, loftily indicating by some phrase that the time for argument is past.”
And a point of notice: it’s worth acknowledging that some people share worker-class values but have adopted the language or even talking points of mass-media bigotry. I’ve even seen this in some unions, for example. I don’t automatically consider them a lost cause like I do with nazi scum, even if their ignorance or careless word choice suggests they’re “the other side” - the sides are drawn by the class war, not a culture war.
I see people calling “tankies” right wingers for this reason all the time on linked to me threads on shit like “meanwhileongrad” threads. The thought is since leftists attack democrats and liberals but never trump and conservatives, we are in support of trump and conservatives and are the actual right wingers. It is part of the horseshoe nonsense. The real reason I don’t waste my time making fun of republicans and reposting anti-trump memes is that everyone in my target audience is already against them and its just a circlejerk at this point. Trump and conservatives don’t deserve to be given validity at all but the liberals are caught up on the if you’re not actively against something you support it.
“It costs $400,000 to fire this weapon…for twelve seconds.”
One is a job and the other’s a mental sickness!
Liberals can be influenced by words and memes, fascists need something stronger.
“when you go far enough left, you get your guns back”
I’m just getting pushed further into the liberal-hole.
sad to see, its quite disempowering
For leftists?
for you, but also all of us in a way.
Agree. Shame there is only like 12 civilian transferrable examples that rarely come up for auction and the last one sold for $600k a few years back.
Opening the registry might bring them down to the “Mini gun or V10 Lambo” range.
Please explain why there are "only’ 12 “civilian transferable” to a non-us… Because here I stood thinking the ar15 already was the epitome of civilian wtf.
Prior to 1986, any US citizen could buy pretty much any machine gun they wanted so long as it was registered and the tax on the transfer was paid.
After 1986, you could not buy a new machine gun but could buy a “transferrable”(registered prior to 1986) machine gun as long as the tax was paid and you pass a background check.
This lead to a ton of registrations of various means to covert a semi auto gun into a full auto gun, some as simple as two pieces of metal sheet.
Post '86 machines guns are not transferrable between civilians unless the civilians have a special type of license that qualifies them as a manufacturer or demonstrator of certain weapons.
The demonstration class requires you to be actively demonstrating the firearms to law enforcement or government agencies as certified by a letter expressing interest or demand. So you have to have a department advocating on your behalf so that you could take transfer of a post 1986 machine gun.
For manufacturers, there is the expectation of demonstration, so you can’t just make a machine gun for your own usage, it has to be demonstrated.
So there are only 12 m134 “gatling” guns that were registed prior to 1986 that can be purchased by your average Joe with a clean record. Most are prized pieces in a collection and will likely only see the auction block once a generation. They fire 2,000-6,000 rounds a minute, an M4(full auto AR-15) fires 700-970 rounds per minute.
There are supposedly also 6 transferrable mk19 automatic 40mm grenade launchers out there which go for over $600k. Problem with those is each round costs between $400 and $3000 and takes 9-18 months to transfer.
It’s because in the USA you could legally own machine guns before the 1970s(?). Since the USA rarely retroactively makes things illegal… all the transferable miniguns were made before then and are registered to the ATF.
They’re talking about the minigun
