A Windegg
And here is an example of stupid thinking, the Regress Problem in action:
Shen quotes Chairman Ward on CNN:
FOCUS | Arming Black People Would Have Prevented Slavery?
Aviva Shen, ThinkProgress
Shen writes: "Larry Ward, chairman of Gun Appreciation Day,
argued that if African slaves had been armed,
they would have been able to prevent slavery from ever happening."
Aviva Shen, ThinkProgress
Shen writes: "Larry Ward, chairman of Gun Appreciation Day,
argued that if African slaves had been armed,
they would have been able to prevent slavery from ever happening."
"[I]f African Americans had been given the right to keep and bear arms from day one of the country’s founding, perhaps slavery might not have been a chapter in our history."
How does one even begin to address this absurdity? Would the slaves, which of course they were, have kept their flintlocks in their Plantation shanties? No -- slaves do not get to own guns. Maybe Mr. Ward can work from that premise and construct something.
But MAYBE, if you did not deal in slaving -- if you did not OWN slaves -- they would not have had to fight not to be slaves. But once in America, they could not retroactively have prevented themselves from the facticity of their slave-ness.
Now, maybe if they had guns in Africa (prior to enslavement), those might have trumped spears and any other wiles their captors imposed, and they might have avoided ever becoming slaves. And if pigs had wings ...
It just hurts my head, these weak attempts at imposing potential historical revisionism based upon stupidity. The National Rifle Association needs to ally itself with some vocal intelligent people; gun owners are not all, or probably even mostly, ignorant buffoons as the liberal press would wish to portray them. Ward's statement is so embarrassingly ignorant and transparently exploitative, it simply reinforces the stereotype and keeps the divide in place.
It seems the "best" refutation the conservatives can front is of the sort done by Alex Jones versus Piers Morgan (CNN; Piers, Mr. Rescind-the-2nd-Amendment -- Alex, Mr Let's-Run-Piers-Out-of-the -US-on-a-Rail.) It is terrible, sloppy, and such grotesque show, but the people eat it up. As a staunch Civil Rights advocate, I am embarrassed for my Republic when I see such things, on both sides. Where is the rigor? The respect, for any thing or any one?
Per the hapless Mr. Ward, it is Blaxploitation redux.
But MAYBE, if you did not deal in slaving -- if you did not OWN slaves -- they would not have had to fight not to be slaves. But once in America, they could not retroactively have prevented themselves from the facticity of their slave-ness.
Now, maybe if they had guns in Africa (prior to enslavement), those might have trumped spears and any other wiles their captors imposed, and they might have avoided ever becoming slaves. And if pigs had wings ...
It just hurts my head, these weak attempts at imposing potential historical revisionism based upon stupidity. The National Rifle Association needs to ally itself with some vocal intelligent people; gun owners are not all, or probably even mostly, ignorant buffoons as the liberal press would wish to portray them. Ward's statement is so embarrassingly ignorant and transparently exploitative, it simply reinforces the stereotype and keeps the divide in place.
It seems the "best" refutation the conservatives can front is of the sort done by Alex Jones versus Piers Morgan (CNN; Piers, Mr. Rescind-the-2nd-Amendment -- Alex, Mr Let's-Run-Piers-Out-of-the -US-on-a-Rail.) It is terrible, sloppy, and such grotesque show, but the people eat it up. As a staunch Civil Rights advocate, I am embarrassed for my Republic when I see such things, on both sides. Where is the rigor? The respect, for any thing or any one?
Per the hapless Mr. Ward, it is Blaxploitation redux.
Labels: blaxploitation, guns, rebellions
posted by Lisa at 6:47 PM
6 Comments:
Almost all imported slaves were captives from wars and raids in Africa by Africans.
Hundreds of thousands of blackpowder firearms were exported to the area of Africa with intense slavery, and these guns did not only not keep Africans free, they were instrumental in enslaving them.
Thanks, SO. Indeed, how else were African slaves obtained?
Guns may be instruments of capture and incarceration or of keeping oneself free. I guess it's like Nathan Bedford Forrest said , it's about who gets there firstest with the mostest (and has the best vantage point and skill set.)
"...gun owners are not all, or probably even mostly, ignorant buffoons as the liberal press would wish to portray them."
There's a certain delicious irony in this quote being embedded in a post about a gun owner (one assumes, or, at the very least, someone who is taking a public stance in "support" of gun ownership) saying something that any press, liberal, conservitive, or Martian, or any sentient human being, for that matter, could consider as anything other than ignorant buffoonery.
It's hard to parody many of the people trying to support the notion of "the armed citizen" because of stuff like this.
And, as is always the case with weaponry, context is everything. Had the Ashanti, or the Ibo, had the guns, germs, steel, and transoceanic navigation that the Europeans had in 1492 THEY might have had a jolly old time whoppin' their white slaves, pointing out the inherent silliness of these counterfactuals
Chief,
That's what I'M sayin'!
Why must the gun owners be represented by such buffoons, making this an "us or them" issue? It really does seem to indict a biased press.
OTOH, it may just indict general human stupidity that people imagine such vitriol to be representing their better selves.
Yup ... my trip Wakulla County reinforces the thought that the great mass of humans are none too bright, hence shooting themselves in the foot at every opportunity.
Not sure if the "press" is the culprit here, Lisa; the story appears to be a straightforward report of what this numbnuts said.
And I'm the last one to defend our courtier press. But the "liberal press" trope falls apart as soon as you look at who OWNS the presses.
Not a wild-eyed hippie in the bunch.
There's much to say on the failure of our press to be a disinterested conduit for the news.
I do feel we're jerked around, and the press chooses what stories we get to see, and like good puppetmasters, they pull our strings to elicit the wanted response.
I s'pose I'll just sight for right now.
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