“A true liberal position, the place to start, is to call for domestic disarmament. That is the banning of the sale of all guns to private parties coupled with a buyback of those on the street (Mexico just moved to so control guns). Collectors can keep their guns as long as they remove the firing pin or fill the barrel with cement. Gun sports can be allowed — in closed shooting ranges. And hunters can be allowed to have long guns (if they pass background checks) with no scopes, which are not sporting.” – Amitai Etzioni in Gun Control? We Need Domestic Disarmament [via huffingtonpost.com]
*sigh*
there’s no fool like an old fool. sadly proven yet again.
On the other hand, the comments following this article of HuffPo are strongly pro-2A. It’s heartening to see how well represented the pro-2A forces are in virtually every public forum attached to these anti-2A hit pieces.
Amen to that brother.
Anyone want to screenshot this? I’m semi-curious to read his idiotic ramblings, but I don’t want to give ad revenue to the Huffington Joke.
I’m so glad someone discovered Amitai Etzioni & his “communitarianism” theory which is nothing more than soft fascism with one’s neighbors as the local Gestapo (“Bill, we keep hearing rumors that you own a lot of guns. Mind if we come in to take a look at your collection? Is your hobby really safe for your children and ours?”)
His “Domestic Disarmament” article was published in 1991 when the original AWB movement was gathering steam in Congress. Google it; the hatred for gun owners just pours off the page.
More recent & more dangerous is a paper by White House fascist Cass Sunstein called “Libertarian Paternalism” (2003). The oxymoronic title is deceptive, it is more garbage about ignorant gun people needing observation & control by their liberal “betters” and in my opinion it is what drives Obama’s urge to marginalize gun rights supporters.
Both of these screeds reveal much about the elitism & condescension of our Ruling Classes when they wag their scolding fingers in our direction.
This is NOT a true liberal position! A true liberal position would be to allow everyone the humanity of being able to defend themselves with whatever means they wish. I’m so sick of the lies.
Exactly. The root of the term liberal is someone who upholds liberty and freedom. The cautionary tale though is its origin is in the French Revolution, and while it began as a movement to liberate the people from the tyranny of Monarchy, it rapidly devolved into the liberal use of the guillotine to remove people’s heads under the tyranny of Robespierre and his Committee of “Public Safety”.
The libtards took over in the mid 60’s.
Liberalism (now) is a mental disorder.
That is why I don’t often use the political prerogative “conservative” vs “liberal”. It should be “Classical Liberal” (individualist) vs “Modern or Neo-liberal” (statists/collectivists).
FOAD. No seriously.
Groupthink in progress. Welcome to the USSA.
Finally a “spilling the beans” statement of what they want – face it!
They know exactly what they want – it’s time we did the same. I’ve been working on a “Bill of Rights” for our side and I think it’s time we had such a guide.
Here is my quote of the day: “Eat A Bag of Dicks”
Ha! +1
Just like they’re French fries
I’ll deliver an extra bag for him. Wouldn’t want his big mouth to go hungry!
Oh I get it. Anything short of total disarmament will be called a compromise and hailed as a success in gun-control debate by both parties. Thanks, but no thanks.
There was a time when I would get outraged about quotes like this. Now, I just get sad and feel like I die a little bit inside as I think about where my country is going…
That was my exact feeling and thought too.
If you look up this guy in Wiki, you see he was a victom of the Nazi’s who survived. I do not understand how he has come to he current line of thinking given his past.
His thoughts and books on “Communitarian” have been largly discounted as being narrow minded and yet he has been allowed to lecture in many universities. He denounced the Apollo Space program because to much money in his view was being wasted where instead they could go to you know, just giving the money away to people who do not work or contribute to society. He is in esence a communist because in his view in a book he penned is that everyone should be “assigned” a “highly specialized” job by the government. He believes that USA has made the “mistake” of trying to spread “democracy” around the world. He adopted the USA as his home in the 50’s and from what I can see has pretty much tried to spread his views to destroy it ever since.
This is as far left as you can go and IMHO, just as the very far right are quacks, this guy is a quack and his views are unrealistic in the context of society as it really is today.
I find Jewish Fascism to be very ironic.
As a descendant of people who kicked the Nazis out of their country, I find it disgraceful. My family didn’t loose 50% of its members so scum like this can keep dishonouring their memories. FOAD is too mild a statement.
Had never heard of this chap so I googled and here are the first lines of the first links that popped up:
In 1933, Amitai Etzioni was only four years old when the Nazis rose to power in Germany. He was separated from his …
After receiving his Ph.D. in Sociology from the University of California, Berkeley in 1958, Dr. Amitai Etzioni served as a …
Amitai Etzioni served as a senior advisor to the Carter White House; taught at Columbia University, …
Amitai Etzioni ((ah-me-tie et-zee-oh-nee), born Werner Falk, 4 January 1929, Cologne, Germany) is a German-Israeli-American sociologist.
With just that knowledge, I could pretty much predict what his article says…but then I am pretty smart for a gun hugging, bible toting redneck.
Etzioni’s “communitarianism” isn’t far removed from the Stasi relying on swarms of informants to identify those deviating from the Party line. And since liberalism is based on emotion rather than reason, he shows his profound contempt for those who disagree with his collectivistic model for society.
One would think that a refugee from Nazi Germany would know better.
“Never Again” should be All of our’s Motto.
Exactly. You cottoned onto his schtick faster than most.
If you read The Spirit of Community…, his book from ’93 (I think) that “introduced” his “communitarian” ideals to the public, and you get rid of all the post-modernist academic babble festooned upon his idea like barnacles on a ship’s keel, you find he’s proposing “communism with a friendly face.” That’s it in a nutshell.
This guy is a marxist goon. Full stop.
He’s good at hiding this fact behind all manner of academic po-mo babble, and that’s why he gets press space – because the ‘liberals’ in the media think he sounds terribly smart, when in fact, there’s nothing new in his codswallop. It’s just more marxism with different color wrapping paper.
We should also ban reading glasses because they are not sporting…. See, I can have ignorant opinions to!
Wait…did he use Mexico as an example of effective gun control?
At first, I thought he was writing satire. Then I became terrified; this guy is a lunatic. Who signed off on giving him page space?
He is appealing to the truly naïve, cosmopolitan liberal who finds him or herself constantly wishing that the USA could just “do what other countries do.”
There is a significant subset of American liberals who are so self loathing that they reflexively wish to turn this country into something else. They believe that everything that makes this country free and distinct is an anachronism to be swept aside by the march of “progress” toward a false technocracy through ever increasing government direction.
And through all of these disarmament measures he states, criminals will still have guns. Guess he didn’t think that through.
seriously, good job Etzioni. Wayne LaPierre may be paranoid, but that does not mean they are not out to grab guns.
You don’t need to waste your time on it, I scanned the article and could not bring myself actually read the whole thing. So I don’t think you are missing out, however the comments are a treasure trove of ignorance I guess.
One person suggested that they charge $100 a bullet and then for ” Cop Killer Bullets” $1000. I found this last part to be very intriguing and I did not know that my hollow point bullets were cop killer bullets. I would have figured they would kill anyone if they were placed in the correct place. I mean were does this kind of stupid come from who comes up with the names for this stuff a cop killer, really?
Makes you wonder about people…
Ironically, hollow point ‘cop killer bullets’ are far less likely to actually penetrate a bulletproof vest. ‘Cop killer’ used to mean very dense, steel-core bullets that were good at penetrating bulletproof vests. Somehow the term got totally perverted, and now it means the exact opposite. Imagine that o.0
“Cop killer bullet”, like so many other catch-phrases in the civilian disarmament debate, is nothing more than a scare tactic that means whatever the speaker wants to ban at that particular time.
Everyone is ignorant from time to time, but there’s no excuse for willful ignorance. This guy doesn’t believe this because he thinks it will make us safer, he believes in this because it makes the people subjects rather than citizens, and fancying himself as part of the ruling class that enhances his position.
Gun control is stuff old white [liberal] people like.
I was talking with a 70+ year old family member a couple of days ago. About my kids. Out of the blue he mentions that he just caught wind of a rumor that one of his neighbors owns 16 guns!
He felt he had a right to know about the collection and to be reassured that guns were all locked up. “I’m not against hunting or anything,” he said. “But that’s just not right.”
“So you don’t own a gun?” I asked him.
His immediate response, “Of course not!”
“If I was in your position I would absolutely have a gun. You live up on the hill with all of those other nice houses. You’re at least 8 minutes from the police station if you ever had a problem and needed help. Learning how to handle a gun is probably the best thing you could do for protection.”
The conversation ended about a minute later.
At least the guy is honest about what he believes. He can still go f*** himself for it, but at least he isnt trying to bulls**t anyone.
I read the whole article, and honestly, I think it helps our cause. He basically says that the current liberal approach of compromise is defeatist, and they should stop doing that and go for what they really want, which is total domestic disarmament. Frankly, I’m in agreement with him. I think they should stop compromising, and go for all or nothing. I think they should try to ban all guns, everywhere, in every legislative session they have the opportunity to do so. It will make separating the wheat from the chaff so much easier.
Absolutely. That’s what it will take for some people to finally wake up and realize what this is all about. There are too many people with their heads in the sand who refuse to believe that total disarmament is what their end goal is.
Come and get them.
I’ve been reading the posts on this story and I must say I’m surprised at the reaction. This isn’t some anomaly – this is what they’re aiming for – he’s just more honest about it.
They’ve already achieved it in Great Britain, once the home of an armed yeomanry of expert bowmen – a key factor in the winning of many battles, and in a later era proud of it’s Rifle Brigade and marksmen (the original NRA was founded in England), had an extensive program of Junior ROTC programs and rifle clubs including “assault weapons” until recently when it was overwhelmed by the grabbers after several heinous mass killings.
This is exactly what’s planned for the USA and don’t be shocked – take action.
This is a man who’s familly suffered at the hands of the Nazis. His so called “Communitarian” (comunist/socialist/WTF) stance leaves me with a WTF? He must not have been paying attention.
Scopes may or may not be “sporting” depending on your own definition, but they are certainly more humane than iron sights. When properly calibrated, and zeroed, they allow a trained hunter to kill the targeted animal quickly, with a single shot, limiting the animal’s suffering.
+1, very well said. scopes= humane kills
Okay, you loon, the liberal (classical liberal, google it) is NOT to disarm the people. The liberal position is not the statist position because you see, you loony word shifter, is to focus on INDIVIDUAL LIBERTY, first and always. Will disarming people make them free, independent and personally responsible? No, therefore it fails the liberal test.
The root word of the Liberal is LIBERTY.
You are correct, of course, in that “Classical” Liberalism is founded in Liberty. Even today “looser” laws regarding whatever are described as “liberal” and this harkens back to a time (18th Century) when liberals indeed called for less control from what was then a right-wing establishment of church and state. The Founding Fathers were liberals in this sense.
This was some to change, from being kibitzing outsiders they gained power and – under the influence of various socialists, reformers, and social engineers – soon evolved into the Libs of today. Controlling, managing and guiding along a basically good populace but one who needs to be protected from itself – the little dears.
It’s therefore with sadness that I heap abuse on the Liberals of today but there it is.
This guy’s a piece of work. He escaped 1930s Germany when the Nazis
came to power. This was his first encounter with rabid socialism
and apparently he liked it. His subsequent academic career reads like a
how-to manual for creating a liberal elitist. BA and MAs in Sociology
from Hebrew Uni (in Israel) then a PhD from Berkeley followed by a
Professorship a Columbia. His claim to fame is his work in socio-
economics, where (if you haven’t guessed already) he was a huge
proponent of all the social engineering programs that came out of
the ‘60s and redistribution. He’s been using the term communitarian
to describe himself for decades. Communitarianists generally view
themselves as community oriented centrists. Many others view them
as little more than closet communists. There are charges that
communitarians, due to their “centrism”, have a high degree of moral
relativism. It’s impossible to read Etzioni’s book “The Limits of
Privacy” without getting some serious NAZI vibes; and as we know
the NAZIs had rather large moral failings.
Check out his book if you want a chilling read
The Limits of Privacy, Basic Books. 2000 – ISBN 978-0-465-04090-2
“……A place to START”?!?!?
What does this guy do for an encore except lock up and then kill all former gun owners?
In a holocaust survivor, this is nothing less than certifiable insanity.
Second Amendment. /thatargument
Bill of Rights trumps foolish opinions.
The old geezer should stick with his knitting. Its a little hard to wrap my head around a perfect brady world where you just wait for the next good guy to get off’d. He does have that nice brady “death smile” though, thats seems to say, I’m a good guy & I’m going to kill you, Randy
I think you missed the larger picture.
This is his knitting.
These types of marxism-by-all-other-name twerps have infested the American academy since the mid/late 60’s. Every now and again, one or more of them make the mistake of poking their Orwellian porcine snouts out of their ivy-covered walls into the public sphere… where people get to see who and what is really going on inside academia.
I was wondering if this yahoo was still around, because he was peddling this pablum in the mid-90’s as well. He’s like Michael Lerner – a guy way out there on the political left wing fringe, who waits until a ‘friendly’ political climate comes on the scene to start peddling his nutty ideas. We were hearing from both of them in the mid-90’s AWB era.
Mikey Lerner was the guy who coined the meaningless phrase “the politics of meaning” (seriously, ask yourself “WTF does that mean) and it was Etzioni spouting his theories on how American society should be re-ordered into collective communities with a paternalist state (sound familiar yet, folks?) in his book “The Spirit of Community” in the early part of the Clinton administration.
Lerner just repackaged something Mussolini wrote a 100 years ago. If you are a totalitarian of any color read your Mussolini. Il Duce rocks!!!
Another old fascist PIG. RF quit giving them the speaker here.
There comes a time when you’re not useful even to yourself and, sadly, Amitai Etzioni has reached it.
My mom is 2 years younger than this dude, and she can’t balance a check book or figure out what telemarketers on the phone want. The world has moved on. Nuff said!
Charlie
Etzioni has been a ruling-class member and “theologian” thereof for decades. Basically, he’s an ordinary to left-of-center Liberal ( = statist) and always has been. If you’re Liberal (in this sense), he utters True Wisdom. If not, then not so much.
He’s one of their house intellectuals, nothing more.
FOAD, loser.
Zyklon-B huffer, and future pelvic ashtray.
Etzioni represents a particular type of German Jew. It is almost like they end up identifying with their oppressors. Even Hanna Arendt, famous for her coining of the phrase “The Banality of Evil” to describe the functionairies in Totalitarian societies, was not immune from this trait. As a student she was the unrepentent Nazi Martin Heidigger’s lover who remarkably went back to him after the war despite the fact that he remained proud of his service to the Third Reich until the day he died.
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