The decline of American journalism since the legacy media decided to stop so much as pretending to be non-partisan tellers of truth and became proud and wholly-owned subsidiaries of the Democrat Party, has been rapid and ugly. As a result, I’ve often turned to the British press, whose insight into American politics and culture, and whose journalistic ethics, have been a viable alternative. But no one and nothing is perfect, and deeply ingrained cultural beliefs commonly sneak into reporting. A recent story by American Ana Marie Cox in The Guardian is a case in point . . .
Titled “The NRA Has Declared War on America,” it promises a non-partisan look at a cultural phenomenon, but delivers predictable stereotypes.
“As the annual meeting of National Rifle Association members started here this weekend, the gentleman seated next to me said to settle in: ‘It’s mostly administrative stuff. We vote on things.’ He paused for emphasis: ‘It’s the law.’
He’s somewhat mistaken, of course. The NRA doesn’t have any state-mandated obligation to hold an annual meeting. What’s more, the NRA has very little respect for the law. A half an hour later, at that very meeting, NRA executive vice president Wayne LaPierre exhorted the crowd to a morally obligated vigilantism. He drew a vivid picture of a United States in utter decay and fragmented beyond repair, Mad Max-meets-Hunger Games, divided by Soylent Green:
We know, in the world that surrounds us, there are terrorists and home invaders and drug cartels and car-jackers and knock-out gamers and rapers, haters, campus killers, airport killers, shopping-mall killers, road-rage killers, and killers who scheme to destroy our country with massive storms of violence against our power grids, or vicious waves of chemicals or disease that could collapse the society that sustains us all.
LaPierre’s bleak vision is exaggerated dystopianism in service of sedition, a wide-ranging survey of targets that put justice against the intrusions of the IRS on a continuum with (as an advertisement he ran during his speech put it) workplace ‘bullies and liars.”
It is not an auspicious beginning. The “gentleman” was obviously referring to NRA bylaws, which do, in fact, require an annual meeting, regular elections, and votes on a variety of issues. Considering that Cox is in the very business that thrives on breathless and often sensationalized reporting on terrorists, home invaders, drug cartels, campus killers, etc. it’s a bit disingenuous of Cox to claim that LaPierre’s mere mention of what she and her colleagues cover every day—if it didn’t exist, would it be news?–is somehow paranoid and dangerous.
Cox would apparently have us believe that sedition amounts to no more than holding a negative opinion about government, a view fully in line with the Obama Administration and American Progressives. Fortunately, the law is rather more narrowly construed. 18 USC 2384:
“If two or more persons in any State or Territory, or in any place subject to the jurisdiction of the United States, conspire to overthrow, put down, or to destroy by force the Government of the United States, or to levy war against them, or to oppose by force the authority thereof, or by force to prevent, hinder, or delay the execution of any law of the United States, or by force to seize, take, or possess any property of the United States contrary to the authority thereof, they shall each be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than twenty years, or both.”
Obviously, affirmative actions, actual steps toward violating the law rather than merely speaking disparagingly about political issues of national interest, is required. That darned First Amendment just keeps getting in the way. Cox, writing for a British paper, which does not enjoy the protections of a First Amendment, might be forgiven for not recognizing that distinction.
I suspect few Americans would meaningfully disagree with the assertion that the IRS under the Obama Administration are “workplace bullies and liars.” It is an epithet the IRS under Barack Obama has worked assiduously to earn., and more than justifiably so
Cox, while accusing the NRA of narrowly defining all Americans, engages in precisely that:
“The NRA is no longer concerned with merely protecting the Second Amendment’s right to bear arms – the gun lobby wants to use those arms on its fellow citizens. Or, as the NRA thinks of them: ‘the bad guys’.
It is useless to argue that the NRA is only targeting criminals with that line, because the NRA has defined ‘good guys’ so narrowly as to only include the NRA itself. What does that make everyone else?
‘I ask you,’ LaPierre grimaced at the end of his litany of doom. ‘Do you trust this government to protect you?’
This is not one of the items the membership voted upon. Indeed, Wayne LaPierre’s confidence in making this question rhetorical is one of its most frightening aspects, though of course it’s his prescription that truly alarmed me:
‘We are on our own. That is a certainty, no less certain than the absolute truth – a fact the powerful political and media elites continue to deny, just as sure as they would deny our right to save our very lives. The life or death truth that when you’re on your own, the surest way to stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun!”
Notice that Cox does not provide any NRA definition—narrow or otherwise—of “good guys.” She also fails to understand—or pretends not to understand—that American trust in the Federal Government is at an all time, abysmal low, and more than justifiably so. In addition, the NRA, and all responsible gun owners, understand that one does not use deadly force unless it is lawfully justified by the actions of murderous criminals. They have no difficulty telling genuine good guys from bad guys.
And what “truly alarmed” Cox is nothing less than a fact of law and life, not only in America, but in England as well: government has no obligation whatever to protect any individual citizen. LaPierre is quite correct: when it comes to preserving our lives and the lives of those we love, we are, in law, practicality and fact, on our own. Politicians of a certain kind claim to care deeply for “the people,” but their actions—and the law—make plain “the people” are an abstraction. And while Cox and similar thinker dismiss it with a sneer, there is no question that “the surest way to stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun.” In fact, this is the secondary purpose of the Second Amendment. Cox, unsurprising, does not agree:
“You cannot defend this as anything other than the dangerous ravings of a madman. LaPierre’s description of the world is demonstrably untrue, and not just in concrete, objective terms. To cite just one example: crime rates in the US have been falling for 20 years – a statistic that some gun rights advocates brandish as proof of the selectively defined cliché, “more guns, less crime.” Just as troubling is LaPierre’s internal inconsistency about what it means for NRA members to be “on their own”.
He rattled the audience with a listicle of abuses of power that included Solyndra and and Benghazi (those are Second Amendment issues now, I guess!), but consoled those gathered with the factoid that there are 100m gun owners in America – a third of the country. He railed against “the elites'” rejection of the NRA’s “more guns in schools” solution to Sandy Hook, but reassured his listeners that “city after county after school board after statehouse” adopted the strategy anyway.
You cannot have it both ways. You cannot be both winning and losing, alone but united, the minority but the majority. It is almost (almost!) as if Wayne LaPierre intended to mislead his audience with this whiplash oratory, intended to dizzy them into acceptance of his underlying message, which is almost disappointingly mundane: give us money. Give the NRA money. Give us money so we can create the legal environment that allows gun manufacturers to make more money so that they can give us more money.”
And how, pray tell, is LaPierre wrong? Solyndra and Benghazi are only two of a great many bits of evidence of a lawless government slouching toward tyranny, a matter of concern to the NRA, all organizations that exist to defend the Constitution and all aware Americans. What Cox dismisses as “factoid” is in fact, fact. The “selectively defined cliché” is the title of a famous book by Scholar John R. Lott in its third edition that proves conclusively that higher rates of gun ownership have a substantial crime suppressive effect. Elites have indeed rejected the mere idea of arming school staff, even of armed security guards, while across the nation, schools and state governments are warming to and implementing the policy.
As to the winning and losing distinction Cox tries to draw, I’m reminded of a 2007 article by James Taranto:
The Chicago Tribune editorializes on “Illinois’ Crime Riddle”:
“No one theory explains why crime rates have declined in Illinois and around the country since the early 1990s. A decline in drug and alcohol abuse has been a welcome contributor. Community policing has been effective in many places. Crime tends to be an occupation of the young, but the population is aging. More people have been locked up and kept off the streets. The economy has been strong, unemployment low.
All have been factors in a welcome reduction in crime.
What’s harder to explain is why, though crime has fallen so sharply, prison admissions have continued to rise.”
Hmmm. More felons in prison; less crime. Could there be a correlation? In the same way, if criminals know that anyone they accost could be armed, could that contribute to a lower crime rate? Obviously, such elementary cause/effect relationships are too simplistic for the elite and highly nuanced.
As one might expect, Cox throws in an obligatory mention of income inequality in causing all societal woes. Of course, LaPierre ignores that most important issue, but he, according to Cox, well knows his audience of unsophisticates:
“The members of the NRA who cheered LaPierre, I’m quite sure, don’t think that they’ve turned against their country; they believe the country has turned on them – a distinction that the seceding states of the south made as well, but the distinction only really matters after the war is over and someone gets to write the history.”
Surely Cox isn’t playing the race card? Perhaps she is unaware that it was the Democrat party that held sway in the slave and segregated south, and the gun control is deeply rooted in denying Black Americans their civil rights? A great many Americans, including members of the NRA unquestionably believe the current Administration has turned against America, and no less a luminary than Progressive law professor Jonathan Turley agrees.
“My view [is] that the president, has in fact, exceeded his authority in a way that is creating a destabilizing influence in a three branch system,’ he said.”
But it is not Mr. Obama’s usurpation of the constitutional roles of the Legislative branch that concerns Cox:
“I could scare you with a sketch of what America might look like in a world where LaPierre’s urging leads to concrete and lasting political change. I think it would be grim and dangerous, though not as dangerous to LaPierre’s allies as it would be to everyone else. But that dystopia is beside the point, because I don’t believe LaPierre and his cronies actually want an armed uprising, or complete political supremacy.”
Despite Cox apparently finding an America where government stays within the boundaries of the Constitution to be “grim and dangerous,” she doesn’t believe that the NRA is pursuing sedition, but she makes the thinly-veiled accusation nonetheless.
Cox tries to be at least moderately even-handed, and expresses surprise that people at the convention are polite and friendly and less than paranoid, but accuses them of paranoia anyway:
“And throughout, I marveled: these are friendly, apparently prosperous people, surrounded by physical evidence that their belief system is thriving – Over 9 Acres of Guns and Gear! – both economically and culturally. Why are they so incredibly frightened?”
The analysis that eludes Cox is that they are not frightened. They are instead among the best-informed, most educated and prosperous Americans. As a consequence, they realize that LaPierre is correct: they are on their own, government is overstepping its boundaries, and they accept personal responsibility. They do not expect anyone to provide for or to rescue them. They voluntarily associate themselves with the NRA because it exists to support and defend the Second Amendment, without which, American could easily devolve into just another banana republic.
The NRA exists because more than five million patriotic Americans were willing to invest their time and money in the organization for the primary purpose not of imposing their political will on others, but to uphold the Constitution for all. This is the exercise of democracy and liberty.
Free nations have to deal with crime and violence. It is a consequence of freedom. NRA members of any political stripe believe not in paranoia but in preparedness. And even those of a more statist bent understand that government will not be there—it cannot be there—to protect them. Cox appears unable–due to culture or philosophy–to acknowledge this.
The story is told of a young, eager newspaper reporter interviewing an elderly and well-armed woman.
“You have all these guns; what are you afraid of?” asked the shocked reporter.
“Not a damned thing,” she calmly replied.
I suspect Cox wouldn’t get that either.
Mike’s Home blog is Stately McDaniel Manor.
Well, she’s an American liberal, writing in a liberal English newspaper. Are we surprised? Better reads in better papers to be had in Britain–even the obits in The Telegraph are well done and interesting.
Calling the Guardian liberal is like calling the NYT centrist. In truth, they are anti-Western Culture, Marxist, and Totalitarian in inclination.
No, she’s an American liberal, writing in a left wing English newspaper. In Britain, as here in Australia, the term “liberal” has not been captured, co-opted, deformed and repurposed the way it has in the U.S.A. Outside the U.S.A., the occasional and rare liberal really is liberal.
True that, I am still confused (and amused) by the fact that your conservatives are more liberal while your liberals are pro-government.
The Liberals (with a capital “L”) are the government at the moment, so U.S. sense “liberals” are against the government. And it’s not that the conservatives are Liberal, but the other way around (many conservatives are in the National Party, forming a coalition with the Liberals but definitely not merged with them in most states and not at Federal level, though they have formed a Liberal National Party in Queensland).
She’s not batting on a full wicket.
Right you are, ol’ chap!
Hear, hear.
I’m all out of givadamn for what the Brits think about Americans and guns. They have squandered an empire – one that founded the idea of the western revolution – and instead of climbing back, they waste time opining about the perceived ‘flaws’ of others. I’m surprised she didn’t throw in a cheeseburger joke.
The only things to respect about the British are historical, and the only thing they need to remember about Americans with guns is what our Founding Fathers taught them.
I’m not sure I look at empires as fondly as you do but I’ll agree that I’m all out of interest for how Britains feel about us and our guns.
And this, coming from a guy named Hannibal?! Kidding, of course.
Granted, my tone was off, but fondness and awe aren’t the same thing. Empires aren’t necessarily a bad thing – after all, their sending people to ‘new lands’ is what gave us our own great experiment. You can’t look at a tiny, mostly dreary island and NOT be impressed by what a relatively small group of its people were able to accomplish with essentially no resources from their own land. They conquered the world, with grace and style (ok, and opium and genocide helped…). It’s sad that they went from being the greatest power in the world to, well, what they are now.
With apologies to all natives and current inhabitants – your country has slid far enough that you’ll need a new Cromwell to get things started again, albeit with Parliament in his sights this time around.
I am kinda glad it happened, then again i never was a fan of imperialism.
Face it, we were lucky as hell in being colonized by the British versus the French or Spanish.
But hey that was hundreds of years ago and today they are now just circling the drain. They will just be a part of Eurostan.
Reminds me of the episode of THAT 70s SHOW, when the Brit music teacher, played by Roger Daltrey, makes the cheeseburger quips. Then they get him stoned in the basement.
Next cut is Daltrey eating a cheeseburger, saying, “this cheeseburger is bloody BRILLIANT!”
Brits tend to forget how many times American citizens have sent their personal firearms to them so they can defend themselves in times of war.
This article was nothing more than Miss Wonkette’s screed on why she hates men.
Ralph, you beat me to noting AMC was once Wonkette. Did not like her perspective then, don’t like it now.
Let’s see: she first gained notoriety as an editor at suck.com, then went on to Wonkette, that bastion of quality political journalism where she gained fame writing about certain, shall we say, types of extracurricular amusement in DC. Then on to Time.com, and now it appears she’s almost come full circle.
Tell me why I should give a rat’s back end what she writes? Other than the unfortunate fact that there are people who actually take her seriously. . .
You answered your own question.
Because other people will take her seriously, she needs to be publicly debunked and ridiculed for spewing idiocy at every turn. Every non sequitor she publishes must be called out.
Wouldn’t it be great if someone did a Google search on her name and found THIS page and MM’s good discussion of her article?
I think so.
She built her “career” writing about prostitution and buttsekks in the most salacious manner possible. Nuff said.
And here I was trying to be delicate in my phraseology.
You did a much better job than I did.
Another liberal using nothing but emotional whining to try to get her way. Not working anymore.
As a British person who is interested in all things gun related, I hope that people who are reading this do not think all Brits are as silly as her.
I am a avid support of the right to own firearms and get slightly agitated whenever a British journalist attempts to give their opinion on guns, which is mostly allways is ‘guns are evil, ban all of them, think of the children’
Brilliant website by the way, really enjoy reading it.
Welcome, enter freely and of your own will.
I have a nice conversation with about 5 British officers a few months ago. They talked about guns and they were very unhappy with the current draconian laws barring ownership of arms for self protection and even fun! I know you can’t take that as a representative of the country but I am sure there are a lot more Brits who feel the same as you, and the same as them.
As an American who loves British newspapers (long time Economist subscriber), I’ve learned to roll my eyes and ignore the blatant bias of British journalists in favor of gun control and government run healthcare. Also, I find it highly ironic that British journalists support people in Third World countries having weapons to overthrow their oppressive governments, yet they demand that people in First World countries be disarmed so that they cannot overthrow their oppressive governments.
As an Irishman now living in the Mid-West I respect and endorse what you have to say
In my experience the British adore guns. Indeed much of the City’s young elite aspire to weekend house parties and a bit of shooting. The uppers did succeed some time back in anathematizing guns in the hands of plebs. It seems rather backward to me. I’m certain it’s the titled and very rich who should be forbidden to own guns, lest they anchor their power permanently. Ah. Too late. Got it.
How can that possibly be construed as seditious? It’s pretty much exactly the same line the government has invoked time and time again to justify some power-grab or other.
Except for the “haters” part. I have no idea why LaPierre thinks we need to defend ourselves against bitter and envious comments with deadly force.
Yeah… She’s an american, an ex -Air America staffer, who happens to be writing for a British paper…
Not all from the other side of the pond are twits. Some of the ones who come to mind worth reading are:
Daniel Hannan
Lord Moncton
Niall Ferguson
Mark Steyn (Canadian raised in UK)
I’m British. She’s an idiot and does not represent the views of the UK – only those of the left wing Guardain readers who are happiest with big government and lots of welfare. Ignore her and her ilk – which includes that moron Piers Morgan – and continue to ensure that our 2A rights (I proudly live in the USA and have no desire to return to live in the UK) are not taken away from us by anyone.
If we ignore Piers Morgan then we won’t have as many interesting choices for home made targets at the range. I think I might print a few of his pictures for if I go shooting this weekend.
I “found” some great P.M. targets, if you want the .jpg file, just let me know!
Pfffft.
The last time any Englishman’s opinion of American firearms law mattered was well over two centuries ago.
I say the proper response to this is to ignore it completely.
The Daily Caller also analyzed this piece a couple of days ago:
http://dailycaller.com/2014/04/29/british-publication-claims-the-nra-has-declared-war-on-america/
This woman is ridiculous. Sedition? Really? I wish I’d never read that. I wish I could delete the memory of these insipid ramblings from my mind. Good God, this hack is clueless.
Who needs facts when you have moral superiority?
Holy shit, I just typed the first thing that popped into my head on the matter, but that actually perfectly sums up the antis, not to mention that the problems with that mentality are evident in the way I worded that.
You do that too, huh? Sometimes it works out, sometimes… Yeah.
18 U.S.C. 2384 – Seditious conspiracy, It’s good to know that our founders didn’t propose this as part of The Constitution since they felt it would definitely be used eventually as a violation of the Bill of Rights. This was enacted in 1956 as a knee jerk reaction to the McCarthy era. That worked out real well……..
England is a nice little island jail, full of sheeple and other types of slaves….
Hey everybody!!!! Click on the link to the actual article … there is a picture of a real Glock .9mm semi-auto handgun!!!!! I always thought those comments about .9mm were a joke.
Does Mike know that the Guardian was the mouthpiece for Sir Anthony Wedgewood Benn when he was vying for control of the Labor Party during the early to mid Margret Thatcher period?
The Guardian is about far left as you can get.
This is how left ‘The Guardian’ is:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Gott
“Richard Willoughby Gott (born 28 October 1938, Aston Tirrold, England) is a British journalist and historian. A former Latin America correspondent and features editor for the British newspaper The Guardian, he is known for his radical politics and a connection to Che Guevara. He resigned from The Guardian in 1994 after claims that he had been a Soviet “agent of influence”, a tag Gott denied. Gott admitted taking money from the KGB.”
I don’t really care what the British think of America, it’s citizens OR our guns…we kicked their collective asses once, and are more than capable of doing again, and again, and again…
With a biggoted attitude like this do you wonder why people from other countries make these assumptions about Americans, talk about head up your own arse, luckily most of us can see beyond people like you.
Please don’t believe any of the rubbish you read in the guardian or infact any of the UK papers as they are mostly anti gun and regularly run bad articles about us UK gun owners to make us look as bad as possible to the majority of the public and try to pursuade the authorities to introduce even more laws against us. You guys are lucky to have a very strong lobbying group in the NRA to fight for your rights, we don’t have that luxury over here.
blah, blah, blah…
No. We don’t have any reason to wonder (or care) what the British (or anyone else) think of us. I don’t assume you’re all the same, either – I’ve been around the world and met all types. It simply doesn’t matter that you even have an opinion, or where that opinion originates. That doesn’t mean I wouldn’t buy you a beer, either.
Good luck with your representatives. I fear you’ll lose your entire country before you have a chance to straighten it out.
Hear, hear…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RAA1xgTTw9w
Is my response every time one of these high minded idiots separate their lips.
I’ve used this periodically
http://memecollection.net/what-to-do-with-your-opinion/
Thanks for that. I can think of a few uses for that illustration.
Ah, classical Progressive doctrine from Ms. Cox: all of our nation’s problems are a result of not enough big government. If we could somehow just turn everything (and I mean everything) over to big government, all of our problems would disappear. Thus, we can blame people like the NRA for all of our problems because they are preventing us from turning everything over to big government and thus the only reason for our problems. Excuse me while I go puke.
Although she is 99% wide of the mark, it is extremely counterproductive for the head of the NRA to be discussing Solyndra…. Stuff like that just causes tune out…
I couldn’t wade through this s!#t. What a load.
I don’t need to read the whole article to know that this pseudo-reporter came in with her mind made up in the following way:
Guns are inherently evil and deadly in the hands of civilians, and they should never, ever be allowed to own one. Therefore, any organization that advocates for civilian guns is inherently evil and deadly. Any action the organization takes is inherently evil and deadly. Anyone that supports the organization is inherently evil and deadly. Anyone who unsuccessfully opposes the organization is a victim of an abhorrent act.
In short, each and every word or action will automatically be twisted to fit her worldview. Facts are merely a nuisance and are to be ignored.
I find the title of this article to be ignorant and kind of upsetting really. I know that people from the States aren’t as bigoted and unknowledgable as popular culture would make them out to be. But this isn’t the “British view” at all. I live in Britain, in Scotland to be specific, and I wish people in my country could have the security to feel safe as you guys can.
Oh man, what I would give to publish “The American View of Brits and Gun Control” in that same paper. And to see her face as she reads each paragraph.
Why do we care what the British think? Didn’t we fight to be free of them? Didn’t we save them in WW1 AND WW2? What did they do? Turn around and give up all defense. They are subjects. WE ARE CITIZENS.
“didn’t we save them” that is possibly the most hilariously ignorant thing I’ve ever heard. The US quickened the end World War II, by no means did you save anyone, not to mention you didn’t even take part in the wars so don’t take credit haha
Because british subjects would be speaking German right about now without us?
Nope. Hitler in 1940 started with the same problem Napoleon had in 1805, summed up by First Sea Lort St. Vincent: “I do not say the French cannot come, I only say they cannot come by sea”. The Kriegsmarine had about ten destroyers to escort the invasion fleet (itself a desperate hodge-podge of improvised craft) against a force of thirty-six Royal Navy destroyers; that’s not the RN’s total strength, just the four flotillas assigned to nothing but attacking the invasion force, there were another hundred destroyers, thirty cruisers and a dozen battleships a day or two away from the fight if they were needed.
On land, the best German plan was to get elements of eleven divisions of light infantry across in two weeks, assuming the weather and the Royal Navy didn’t intervene: these would be facing twenty-nine divisions of British & Commonwealth forces in the UK. (The British Expeditionary Force had been defeated in France – not the entire Army – and over a quarter of a million troops had been lifted out of Dunkirk to fight again)
A measure of how desperately scared the UK military leadership *really* were, is that during the “invasion scare” where we were supposedly helpless and vulnerable… we moved a couple of divisions to the Middle East, including several tank brigades, to stop and push back the Italian offensive there. (So successfully that at one point, Wavell was being told his forces had captured two acres of Italian officers and fifteen acres of other ranks… hence why Germany rushed the Afrika Korps across, which while low in fighting numbers took a huge bite out of Germany’s motor transport and helped the failure of Barbarossa)
The key issue wasn’t military, but political; there was a strong undercurrent of “we tried, we failed, make peace and guard the borders” in the UK after Dunkirk, and a definite whiff of Communist enthusiasm for peace; at that point Hitler and Stalin were apparently best mates (having gleefully carved up Poland between themselves) and both were working to overthrow the capitalist oppressors and establish workers’ paradises. (Remember, Hitler ran the National *Socialist* Party…) Avoiding defeatism and maintaining some fighting spirit were key issues at the time. (It didn’t hurt at all that Hitler then tried area-bombing cities and submarine blockade, which made it much easier for Britons to remember that there was still a war on)
Britain couldn’t have beaten Germany alone, and there’d have been no Second Front without the US (so by 1946 or so, most likely outcome is the Soviets in Berlin and then controlling everything in Europe to the Channel… hard to see how that helps the US) but the reality is that in 1940, Operation Sealion would have been a suicide run for the Germans. (Presented with the plans, the head of the German Army despairingly declared “I might as well put the troops through a sausage machine!”)
Gee, is that why PM Churchill spent so much time and energy begging Roosevelt to actively enter the war… because he wasn’t as smart as you?
Sans American support, England would’ve come to terms (even as it was, the issue was close) and invited the Germans right on in rather than starve. You’re welcome.
No, Jason Lynch above has the right of it. Without U.S. support the most likely outcome would still have been a German defeat with the Iron Curtain going all the way to the English Channel, the Pyrenees and Scandinavia, but without Britain being forced to run down the British Empire as the price of U.S. support (after all, it wasn’t the U.S.A. that kept the food convoys getting through – even as it was, most of that work was done by Britain and Canada). Churchill’s efforts to get the U.S.A. in were partly because he didn’t appreciate that price at the time, and partly because the situation looked riskier without our advantage of hindsight. So Britain doesn’t owe the U.S.A. any gratitude for what it actually did, since the U.S.A. got more than its money’s worth in return and didn’t make Britain better off than it otherwise would have been (the rest of Europe, though, was indeed better off for that).
If she is talking about the future America, where our civil rights and liberties have been taken away, where we are subject to search, seizure and surveillance at the whim of a state soldier, where the truth is hidden and the lies are held up as truths, then yes, I hope the NRA declares war on that America. Because that is where we seem to be heading.
‘The Guardian” non-partisan?? Hahahaha. Anyone with a passing familiarity with that statement knows that to be a lie. The British, especially their left leaning press, always views the US as their less intelligent cousin
Here is her journalistic history;
“Ana Marie Cox is political columnist for the Guardian US. The founding editor of the blog Wonkette, she has written about Washington and national politics for a variety of outlets, including Playboy, GQ, Time, the New York Times and the Washington Post. Ana is also a regular guest commentator on MSNBC and NPR, and is the author of the satirical novel Dog Days. She lives in Minneapolis-St Paul, Minnesota”
http://www.theguardian.com/profile/ana-marie-cox
What Progressives continue to fail to understand is that for me to have the liberty to do what is good and right someone else must have the liberty to do wrong.
To deny the choice to either of us is the true evil.
The BBC “used” to be a good news media organization. Now, it is mostly a biased left-leaning pro-nanny-police-state entity. Even the documentaries are now biased and partisan.
Like the shoes, she most likely carries, beware all should carry.
Over the years I know a.number of British & Irish officers that would love to leave the socialist country they live in to become police in the U.S.A. friends with a few that have also.
Proves the N.R.A. is not 1 sided
by giving press credentials to all. Even those who specialize in trying to destroy the freedoms we enjoy. Especially after pulling them out of having to speak German in 2 wars.
I’d have never made it passed the first paragraph. I don’t usually continue reading once I realize I’m being lied to. I used to have a sub S corp and I was required by law to hold annual meetings with myself. Since I was the president, vice president, treasurer, secretary and the sole share holder no one else had to be there, but I was required to take and keep minutes.
And what on Earth is that thing on her foot? MRSA?
I just want to say that whoever Matthew Huntly is, he did a beautiful job in the comment section.
Turning a mirror on the common prohibitionists hatred, rage and bigotry, all qualities that I am sure they utterly abhor to their politically correct limits no doubt, isn’t really that hard. But he did it with incredible style and grace.
Does slandering millions and millions of your fellow citizens really advance the cause of civil disarmament?
My sister and her husband will be coming here from the UK in august.
Can’t wait to take him shooting. Show him freedom.
Godvernment lovers will always hate Americans (as opposed to Amerikans) and will always hate the NRA. Always. This is not news.
Ok you woke me up so let’s review.
1. The mission of the American Media is to control how society thinks and behaves.
2. The mission begets the truth.
Ok I’m going back to sleep now.
The people who own the media control what you hear and read. And as most all part of the NEW WORLD ORDER , they are what we call change agents …when you won billions , you desire to be a player …control the SHEEPLE…. we used to call them the ROBBER BARONS…but they never went away … took a low profile by control of the MEDIA… that is history ………. same for education and government is all under control a few……….The next plan is to start WW3 with Russia and China. as they are dumping the petro dollar ….follow the MONEY!
“the British press, whose insight into American politics and culture, and whose journalistic ethics, have been a viable alternative.”
–WOW! I don’t know what British press you’ve been reading and watching, but it sure isn’t the British press in Britain!
Ahhhh, Yes. The British press. Ahhhh, Yes ! Ummmmm, if I recollect what I read in the vast majority of history texts correctly, weren’t the British the folks who originally took control of America just a handful of generations ago ? And the British just up and LEFT this prodigious country for those born here to form their own nation and . . . errrrr, wait a second. Didn’t they have to use their flintlock muzzleloader muskets to Blast those who would kiss the royal . . . hand, back across the Atlantic ? Oh, yeah, lets hear some more of their . . .news.
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