TShoes, I agree, and here's what I would say to my fellow gun-owning, RKBA-believing, but otherwise liberal and somewhat Dem-sympathetic TFLers as to why we MUST vote for Bush: The basic reason goes back to the whole point of the second amendment to begin with, and why it is the FIRST amendment among eqauls (in importance): When it comes to all other social issues, policies, freedoms, amendments, what have you - regardless of what side you're on, and whether it be the 1st amendment and other non-RKBA civil rights that you may hate Repubs for (as I do), or any other issue, whether foreign policy, taxes, environment, education, whatever - on all of these issues, the pendulum tends to swing back and forth over time, and when a bad policy is in place for a number of years, the people recognize it, and change the policy (due to the democracy system we have. As long as we have freedom, then we will have a democracy and an ability to "undo" what societal ills the Dems and Repubs cause. BUT, and this is a very big BUT (much like my aunt Hazel's), the Second Amendment freedom is the only freedom that, sinces it secures itself AND all other freedoms (by protection from tyranny by keeping the ultimate power in the hands of the populace), which if itself were to be abridged/eliminated, we the people have absolutely no means of ultimate redress to undo this infringement. Which is precisely why IT (the RKBA) must be fought harder for through the normal political process than any other right. If the gov't tomorrow were to outlaw speech (or gradually over time), the would be a revolution with guns - we would speak our minds with force if we were unable to at the ballot box to undo the speech ban. BUT, if the second is elimated, and guns are no more (which btw, can easily happen over enough time without any confiscation - it is happening now, in fact), then there is NO means, either political or forceful by which to re-secure the right. There is no forceful means without small arms in the hands of many for revolt, and history shows plainly that societies/majorities NEVER have the political will to REDUCE the amount of small arms control (this is mostly because the politicians/tyrants in power have a strong interest in maintaining strict gun control). And if the second is effectively eliminated, then there is no way in hell enough people will support a new amendment to the Const. re-establishing the right, which is why the Founders put the second in the BOR to begin with - they knew that governments over time had a way of infringing the RKBA, so they wanted to require a super-majority to delete the right - what the Founders did not foresee was that their arguably ambiguous language would be twisted and misinterpreted by the courts to the point where virtually no right exists (this remains to be seen, actually). So there you have it. That's why I vote Republican, though socially "liberal" to a moderate degree. I for one am all for strict environment protection (we got exactly ONE earth, folks), but that's not germane to our common goal here, and dwelling on these others issues would only lead to argument. Interestingly, though, Ralph Nader would take strong issue as to whether Algore really believes in strong environment, since his record of voting for what he writes about wanting is dismal.
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What can YOU do? Take a kid shooting, join NRA & GOA, and VOTE!
-Danny Stoner, NRA Life, GOA, SAF, ORA, OKCGC
