This Is the Man Congress Fears
Posted on May 3rd, 2013 in Uncategorized | 8 Comments »
The NRA’s new president, Alabaman Jim Birmingham Porter, who talks in this video about the “war of northern aggression,” why being “pro-gun” is crucial to fighting tyranny, and our “fake president,” Barack Obama.
How is it possible that Congress is cowed by such dangerous idiots?
8 Responses
5/4/2024 11:12 am
Did it ever occur to you that it might be that:
1. The extraneous opinions of the President of the NRA are not raw material for assessing any legislative proposal;
2. Members of Congress are concerned with the opinions of their constituents, on which the extraneous opinions of the President of the NRA constitute a weak influence;
3. Members of Congress do not think any of the proposed regulations will have a discernable influence on rates of homicide, robbery, or aggravated assault, or that the influence will be too inconsequential to merit the inconvenience it imposes on common-and-garden gun owners;
4. Members of Congress consider the possibility that proposed restrictions on gun ownership might have an inverse effect on crime rates (much of the scholarly work of John Lott having been devoted to elucidating counter-intuitive relationships of this sort).
5. Member of Congress regard the words of the 2d Amendment as carrying their plain meaning: a personal right to keep and bear military arms, and are thus loath to put statutory law in any poorly demarcated territory;
6. Members of Congress distrust the political opposition, and suspect they have ulterior motives;
7. You might give some consideration to the idea that your political opposition is motivated by some force other than stupidity or venality? You have been practicing political journalism since 1986, no? You can and should do better.
5/4/2024 2:49 pm
No question this will cause a lot of comment.
“During a recent question-and-answer session at a conference in California, I made comments about John Maynard Keynes that were as stupid as they were insensitive.
I had been asked to comment on Keynes’s famous observation “In the long run we are all dead.” The point I had made in my presentation was that in the long run our children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren are alive, and will have to deal with the consequences of our economic actions.
But I should not have suggested – in an off-the-cuff response that was not part of my presentation – that Keynes was indifferent to the long run because he had no children, nor that he had no children because he was gay. This was doubly stupid. First, it is obvious that people who do not have children also care about future generations. Second, I had forgotten that Keynes’s wife Lydia miscarried.
My disagreements with Keynes’s economic philosophy have never had anything to do with his sexual orientation. It is simply false to suggest, as I did, that his approach to economic policy was inspired by any aspect of his personal life. As those who know me and my work are well aware, I detest all prejudice, sexual or otherwise.
My colleagues, students, and friends – straight and gay – have every right to be disappointed in me, as I am in myself. To them, and to everyone who heard my remarks at the conference or has read them since, I deeply and unreservedly apologize.”
Niall Ferguson.
5/4/2024 6:23 pm
They employed fact checkers at The New Republic and George, no? Your dissertation advisor gave you instruction on different strata of reliability in assessing sources, no?
Your link - to Gawker - incorporates a video of a man named James Porter, not James Birmingham. The reference to the ‘War of Northern Aggression’ is ironic (and unsurprising in a Southern partisan). His reference to the President as ‘fake’ might be assented to by anyone who has noticed that he is fond of the sound of his own voice, lacks policy chops, and makes decisions by checking boxes on option lists cooked up by his staff. The discussion of widespread gun ownership as an antidote to tyranny is far-fetched and some of his contentions about lawfare in international fora may be in error, but otherwise what this fellow Porter says is fairly unremarkable.
5/4/2024 6:24 pm
No question this will cause a lot of comment.
Niall Ferguson plays the capon. What of it?
5/5/2024 7:37 am
It’s an interesting time when several faculty at the Econ Department embarass themselves as ideologues, rather than social scientists. Particularly given the very high percentage of Harvard college students who are econ concentrators.
http://www.theatlanticwire.com/national/2013/04/umass-student-exposes-serious-flaws-harvard-economists-influential-study/64357/
http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2013/05/04/niall_ferguson_harvard_professor_apologizes_for_gay_keynes_comments.html
Caught between Deans without integrity, professors who don’t give a shit about students, and professors who have no respect for evidence, but much state for raking big bucks at investors conferences, one has to wonder what exactly is Harvard’s contribution to undergraduate education. Perhaps this will be better articulated as the University goes into the public phase of the Campaign… or maybe not.
5/5/2024 7:59 am
AD-Mea culpa on getting Porter’s name wrong. This is a one-man show here, and I value the input of readers to point things out when I get facts wrong. Y’all are basically my fact-checkers.
As for the rest of your comment—while you may find this stuff far-fetched, apparently a lot of NRA members don’t. Which is a little scary. And to my mind, when you start talking about tyranny and a fake president to a bunch of gun nuts, you’re venturing into dangerous territory.
5/5/2024 4:23 pm
And to my mind, when you start talking about tyranny and a fake president to a bunch of gun nuts, you’re venturing into dangerous territory.
“Gun nuts”? I think if you looked into it you might discover that the prevalence of gun ownership was inversely proportional to homicide rates. I lived for quite some time in the nexus of two non-metropolitan counties where hunting and marksmanship were standard hobbies. The homicide rate therein was about 1/5th the national mean.
There is nothing ‘dangerous’ about speaking of the President dismissively. The discussion of ‘tyranny’ refers to unlikely contingencies. The thing is, the sort of national narratives common among bourgeois academic types - whether they be Arthur Schlesinger’s or Howard Zinn’s - are not universal. In Mr. Porter’s case, a mess of farmers defending the autonomy of their local communities against the central government is the salient tale. Since the 2d Amendment was adopted just a decade after the close of a general insurrection, five years after a localized insurrection in New England, and less than three ‘ere another rebellion in Appalachia, that is not unreasonable.
5/5/2024 7:06 pm
How are we to assess this newspaper editor from Colorado:
http://www.aurorasentinel.com/opinion/perry-we-can-only-save-ourselves-from-kidnappers-at-the-nra/