Some of us would view this "progressivism" you speak of as socialism. It's no secret that modern lefty's like yourself espouse Marxist views and have little interest in preserving individual liberties, but thanks for clarifying.

I just finished reading Harvey Manfield's apology for tyranny at the WSJ. Sounds like you and he would get along great. He's also contemptuous of constitutionally protected civil liberties, and he also thinks the Constitution is an obsolete piece of paper.

We need to move past the rights of the individual....We don't need rights; we need responsibilities....

This is exactly why I've come to a recent decision that I will not be voting for ANY Democrats again. I've found this anti-constitutional, statist ideology to be pervasive among so-called "progressives," especially when it comes to guns. The Bill of Rights is not a salad bar. I'm certainly not going to vote for a party that treats it as such.

With attacks on civil liberties from both the right and the left, it's amazing we have any freedoms left at all.

T.A. Barnhart We need to move past the rights of the individual, just as we've moved past the conservative principle that tradition should dominate public policy. JK: If individual rights should not dominate, then what should? The shifting whims of public opinion? Maybe we should re-instate jim crow if individual rights don’t matter.

Without an absolute bill of rights, we fall into the trap of rights being dependant on current, popular delusions and the manipulation of public opinion. It becomes a matter of which side (the commies or fascists) makes the most appealing arguments. Are you arguing that it was OK for Germany to have persecuted jews because that was the dominate public opinion?

Without iron-clad guaranteed rights, our rights are only as safe as government in power. That is what you are arguing. I hope that was not your intent.

T.A. Barnhart Progressivism, as I see, takes us beyond these important but insufficient political philosophies to one that is necessary to save us from ourselves. JK: Save us from what???? Save us from freedom? Great idea - maybe we all should move to Cuba or N. Korea. (We need saving from Bush, Kulgonoskwi and other power hungry dictators, not from ourselves.)

T.A. Barnhart We don't need rights; we need responsibilities — we need to be accepting and living up to public and private responsibilities. JK: Who gets to define the “ public and private responsibilities”? You or me? Or some elite little group in a back room? The loudest voice? Those most able to buy off politicians? See above.

T.A. Barnhart I do not believe this is inherent in liberalism, but it is in 21st Century progressivism. JK: That is why I am a liberal, not a progressive. Your definition of Progressive is just mob rule. In Portland that mob is the developer class. Is that your goal?

T.A. Barnhart And how would that progressivism view the 2nd Amendment? JK: Probably like the rest of our rights - something to change at the will of the political class.

T.A. Barnhart Do guns build a better community? Does gun ownership make better citizens? JK: That is the wrong question. You are proposing to take away a freedom, so it is your job to show that there as actual harm to owning guns. Got some real data, not the BS coming from Braidy et al?

T.A. Barnhart How responsible are we to one another owning automatic guns, teflon bullets and enough weaponry to outfit Lithuania? JK: Where does responsibility to some one else come from? The question should be does it hurt some one else.

T.A. Barnhart How necessary is it that individuals own guns in order to maintain the militia? JK: The second amendment is not about militia, it is about a balance of power between the government and the people. You can see a bit of that play out in Iraq, with a small minority of an armed populace raising hell with a foreign army.

T.A. Barnhart If the liberal argument is that gun control laws violate the 2nd Amendment, then we can add one more casualty to American gun lust: Liberalism. JK: Huh? Liberalism is about power to the people as is the 2nd amendment. What is you problem with people having power? (Yeah, I know - it gets in the way of your grand scheme to rebuild the world in the failed vision of Marx.)

Thanks JK

As for gun control, I hope that acknowledgment that the government can't take a citizen's gun away means that those citizens will no longer hysterically oppose reasonable laws to register guns and license gun owners in the same way we register cars and license drivers. But I'm not holding my breath.

As for the greater tenor of the article, I'm appalled that, after the horridic failures of 20th Century ideologies that subsumed the individual to the collective, Mr. Barnhart so blithely trashes the demeans the rights of the individual in the search for collective justice. Down this road lies disaster, and anyone who ignores this past is condemned to repeat it.

And, by the way JK, if you are for the rights of the individual, why do you so persistently ignore the rights of a large percentage of our populace to choose a high density urban housing type of their choice. Instead, you want to force them to live in your suburban wet dream dystopia. You are a fake "liberal."

Urban Planning Overlord As for gun control, I hope that acknowledgment that the government can't take a citizen's gun away means that those citizens will no longer hysterically oppose reasonable laws to register guns and license gun owners in the same way we register cars JK: Sounds good to me. Just like a car, I won’t need to register it unless I wish to use it (ie: shoot it) on public property. Note that I do not need to register a car to carry it on public property (typically by towing, or on a flatbed truck because of a car’s size and weight being to much to put in my pocket)

Urban Planning Overlord and license drivers. JK: Yep, just like cars: get a license to use it (shoot) on public streets.

Urban Planning Overlord But I'm not holding my breath. JK: But we agree here. No need to register or license a gun unless we plan to shoot it on public property.

Urban Planning Overlord As for the greater tenor of the article, I'm appalled that, after the horridic failures of 20th Century ideologies that subsumed the individual to the collective, Mr. Barnhart so blithely trashes the demeans the rights of the individual in the search for collective justice. Down this road lies disaster, and anyone who ignores this past is condemned to repeat it. JK: agree

Urban Planning Overlord And, by the way JK, if you are for the rights of the individual, why do you so persistently ignore the rights of a large percentage of our populace to choose a high density urban housing type of their choice. JK: That is a blatant misrepresentation of my position. Perhaps you think that when one has a right, the government has an obligation to supply that thing. Not so for a printing press for you to exercise your right to a press. Why would you think that the government should supply that “high density urban housing”.

The government should get the hell out of the entire field of choosing which type of housing to build and should NEVER, except for charity, pay for it. However, I am open to voluntary zoning where the COMPLETE control is in the hands of the property owners in the immediate area being affected, subject only to civil liberties.

Les you bring up that tired old lie about the government building roads, just about everyone except the fringe radical enviro’s know that roads, unlike mass transit, are almost completely paid for by user fees.

Urban Planning Overlord Instead, you want to force them to live in your suburban wet dream dystopia. You are a fake "liberal." JK: Good debating trick - accuse the other side of what your side is actually doing. You must have studied Goebbels.

Thanks JK

Those of us who are progressives, and recognize that genuine progressivism is in fact deeply rooted in the liberal tradition (which itself is quite distinct from libertarianism) on which the country was founded, need to point out that the T.A. is actually espousing a naive and simplistic version of a distinctly different late 20th century political ideology known as "communitarianism".

Communitarianism, and the communitarian movement it has spawned, is a political theory developed by a small segment of American academics in the late 20th century, addressed to a credulous segment of American society who have a limited and false understanding of the nature of traditional societies on which communitarian theory is based. As T.A. has demonstrated here, communitarian proponents explicitly reject the ideological basis of the American system as explicitly articulated before and during the founding of our nation. They frequently, and mistakenly, point to the our current state of affairs as demonstration why that progressive/liberal tradition is wrong, without fairly ackinowledging that we find ourself in this state due to the predations of people who share their fundamental rejection of true respect for the individual as articulated by our founders.

Communitarians are elitist not only because their privilege as academics allows them the opportunity to organize and to articulate their views, but also because in a society emobodying their regressive ideoloty they would have a privileged place regardless of their genuine intellectual merit. However, their movement cannot fairly be used as a condemnation of American academia or a liberal education. Objectively speaking, they themselves have not distinguished themselves by their work in their own fields as leading intellectuals, and certainly not in the wider culture. Their arguments are frequently, widely, and, in my mind, convincingly refuted by many of their clearly more gifted peers inside American academia and out.

Communitarian ideology is not, in theory, a disreputable ideology. The problem comes lies in the fact that advocates espouse a strikingly naive admiration for the ideological principles of societies which become repressive to some degree over time due the realities of human nature. This is not the place for a thorough critique of the failings of communitarian thought. Folks just need to be aware what T.A. is advocating is an ideological movement that is quite distinct from progressivism. You should study the movement and reach your own conclusions.

Interestingly, even as communitarians depend on an environment of free inquiry as only provided by liberal/progressive society to organize and espouse their ideology, the very spirit of free inquiry and the challenges to socio-political orthodoxy free inquiry continually engenders really is fundamentally contradictory to their core rejection of individual choice in favor of community harmony.

I love how terms in American politics have become so confusing. Liberals (in Political Philosophy sometimes we say "large L," as opposed to Conservatives) are not ideologically closer to the "liberal tradition" than Conservatives are. It might give you a warm and fuzzy feeling if you dig John Locke, but it's misleading. Both sides in modern American ARE liberal, with some different bits of the republican tradition tossed into each one. However, both the left and the right in this country are indisputably liberal. It's common for people to refer to the left as "liberals," so in that sense you could ask if they're the same as progressives. However a comparison with the liberal tradition makes about as much sense as comparing progressives with modern day Republicans (the party, not the philosophy.)

--

Now if I might step aside from political philosophy for a moment. Your piece is riddled with assumptions that no longer carry weight in research fields. You simply assume that communities are better with tighter gun control, when research research in the field has found the opposite. It is also interesting that you describe a debate involving small arms, with "automatic guns, teflon bullets and enough weaponry to outfit Lithuania."

I also find it intriguing that you simply don't call for a repeal of the 2nd Amendment. Wouldn't that be the responsible way to get rid of it if it truly is harmful? Sounds like you've moved far enough beyond classical liberalism that constitutionalism doesn't mean much to you. If that's "progressive," than no thanks.

Luke, although I don't quibble with most of you what you say, you initial claim that Liberals are no closer to the "liberal tradition" than Conservatives is somewhat sophistic, if you give those terms something approaching the modern day (or even post-Civil War) meanings. The standard usage of "liberal tradition" refers to a mix of economic liberalism and political liberalism. Modern day Liberals are hardly economic (e.g. laissez-faire) liberals, and modern day Conservatives (not neo-cons) have developed a palpable level of opposition to political liberalism with it's relatively expansive and primary emphasis on civil rights when those are in tension with property rights.

It's much more important to recognize communitarianism and liberalism/libertarianism are political philosophies opposed on the principle of individual rights, and in particular individual civil rights. Communitarianism being a political philosophy is not at all at odd with economic liberalism to the extent that community values are enforced by favoring local, and even predatory, laissez-faire economic activity.

People need to be careful in reading communitarian movement advocates to not be taken it by what appears to be a leftist slant on economics: Communitarians have no problem with the concept of a socio-economic elite, and generally allowing them a free hand to act in their own interests, so long as certain "positive rights" are guaranteed for all. They are social conservatives in the strong sense of the word both because that insures harmony, AND because it provides socio-economic elites with stable protection of their elite status.

Good discussion.

What is most striking and worrisome is T.A.'s willingness to move beyound individual rights. (To what?)

In other words to junk the Bill of Rights.

What is most reassuring is the strong and confident rejection of his views on this blog among its readers who chose to comment.

Liberals and Conservatives may disagree on the exact and specific nature of individual rights, but agree on the need for individual rights and the prime importance of the "Bill of Rights" as a foundation of Americans' Constitutional rights and protections.

T.A. views are exactly why the Bill of Rights are so important. It is evident there will always be people "who know better than the common man" what is right, proper, and necessary for the betterment of society.

I only pray that his distinction between Progressivism and Liberalism is inaccurate because the number of people who call themselves "Progressives" today would be disturbing if they all shared T.A.'s ideological belief of moving beyound individual rights.

Fortunately I am confident they do not share this belief.

The New York Times:

There used to be an almost complete scholarly

Bob T: Well, an opinion maybe

The New York Times:

and judicial consensus that the Second Amendment protects only a collective right of the states to maintain militias.

Bob T:

The flaw in that "consensus" was and is that if it was all about the right of state governments to maintain militias, then it wouldn't have been in the Bill of Rights but would would have been in the main body of the Constitution. And the amendment wouln't have used the term "the people". After all, "the people" is used elsewhere and is considered to mean "individual persons" in those other references.

The New York Times:

That consensus no longer exists — thanks largely to the work over the last 20 years of several leading liberal law professors, who have come to embrace the view that the Second Amendment protects an individual right to own guns.

Bob T:

Excuse me, but this seems to leave out the long standing opinions of those who always had that opinion.

Oh, by the way, liberalism is not the same thing as progressivism. We could have avoided a lot of confusion in America had the progressives/New Dealers and others called themselves Labor instead of liberal.

Bob Tiernan

je T.A. views are exactly why the Bill of Rights are so important. It is evident there will always be people "who know better than the common man" what is right, proper, and necessary for the betterment of society.

I only pray that his distinction between Progressivism and Liberalism is inaccurate because the number of people who call themselves "Progressives" today would be disturbing if they all shared T.A.'s ideological belief of moving beyound individual rights. JK:Unfortunately, the Progressives have indeed moved past individual rights into the realm of the state passing out rights on the basis of popular delusions. To wit:

• Private property rights used to be subject only to health and safety regulations. Now this right is subject to the whims of planner’s delusions as to what should be built where. If your land happens to be in an area declared “open space” too bad about you having put your lofe savings into that land. It has become some one else’s free viewshed. Conversely your neighbor hit the jackpot with all that free backyard because he was on the planning staff. (That is the reality of decisions when the individual is secondary)

• Want to defend you self? Too bad per the original article in this thread.

• Want to own a car? You are evil according to Portland’s Progressives.

• Want a large lot? You are evil according to Portland’s Progressives.

• Don’t want to take transit? You are evil according to Portland’s Progressives.

• Coming soon: Many Progressive restrictions on heating your home, driving your car and where you can live and work in order to reduce man’s, under 10% responsibility for the release of a trace gas, responsible for at most 30% of the greenhouse effect. That puts man’s portion at under 1%, but that is good enough for Oregon’s progressives to want to tell everyone how to live.

Frankly, I get less shit being an atheist among Republicans than I get advocating personal freedom on Blue Oregon. Sad.

je Fortunately I am confident they do not share this belief. JK: I’m not.

Thanks JK

To JK May 7, 2007 1:14:41 PM You make salient points.

The collective of all those views you outlined above sure suggest disinclination to individual rights.

Yet, and maybe my confidence is misplaced, ask these same Progressives if they believe in individual rights and the Bill of Rights, they will tell you they do.

This is the hope anyway, of persuading individuals that preserving individual choice and expanding acces to that choice is not an exercise in increasing governmental power.

But that increasing governmental power decreases choice and even the access to choice which is at the heart of individual liberty.

Certainly, there are important exceptions where the role of government is essential to ordered liberty. But, by and by, government control is a higher threat to liberty and individual rights than individual's decisions and choices in the market place.

Just to confuse things:

This is the actual text of what constitutes a "militia"

In other words, the framers of the constitution saw fit to enable a class of folks with the tools to overthrow a government IF it became onerous. They also assumed that we wouldn't allow foreign invaders on our soil, and depended on a fall-back position.

In case someone wants to toss the old "its an outdated" canard out...this section was last updated by...Clinton! so its recent :-)

Sal Peralta: If 6 years of the Bush Administration has taught us anything, it should be the need for strong adherence to the Bill of Rights.

Bob T: Well, that's what all of the past, oh, 15 or so administration have taught us. Unless you're partisan. Odd, isn't it, that blues think the Bill of Rights remains intact when a Dem is president. Open your eyes. They all ****. If you remain partisan, you're part of the problem.

Bob Tiernan

When Congress wrote the Second Amendment, the Senate considered adding the limitation thus, ...,the right of the people to keep and bears [for the common defense] shall not be infringed. This proposed ammendment was rejected by the Senate. At the time, in 1788, the Senate did not record, word by word the debate or speeches of the members. But considering what is known about the Congress in that period of time from diaries and personal letters, this is what I think happened. The Senate proposed adding the words and rejected them in order to establish their intent that they were protecting the individual right to keep and bear arms. The D.C. Court of Appeals seems to believe the original intent rarther than the opinion of the Kansas cort from a 1905 case Salina that looked at tye Kansas constitution and Kansas bill of rights. The Kansas court was wrong in the interpretation of the Kansas bill of rights which was wriiten to maintain the rights of indiviuals to keep and bear arms vut not allow armed gangs, such as John Brown or William Clark Quantrel to claim a right.

This is one comment that cannot go unchallenged:

lestatdelc responding to jim karlock

Want to defend you self? Too bad per the original article in this thread. Want to own a car? You are evil according to Portland’s Progressives.

• Want a large lot? You are evil according to Portland’s Progressives.

• Don’t want to take transit? You are evil according to Portland’s Progressives.

What unmitigated horshit.

Get this straight: Many of the PDX "progressives" responsible for the policies misrepresented here, and many commentators here, have prostituted the term "progressive" for their own purposes. They are NOT progressives, they are COMMUNITARIANS that reject true progressivism for their own selfish goals, and who actually are conservatives in close philosophical agreement with right wing nut jobs like Alito and Scalia, in that they advocate the principle that community will trumps individual liberty in the sphere of civic life Karlock cites. I often find it amazing to listen to 620KPOJ public radio and here the two male hosts spouting what are not even close to true progressive positions, and hearing genuinely ignorant PDXers lapping it up.

True progressives have always made individual rights and liberty of humans beings the foundation of any policy position in the public sphere the advocate. They do not challenge the fundamental precepts of liberty in the Constitution, but rather the twisting and abuse of those precepts to deny liberty and rights. That is NOT the core principle of a lot of NW "progressives" who have stolen that word to misuse it for their own purposes, and one can cite hundreds of examples of that by many official posters and the commenters. I think that has a lot to do with their poor educational background, but that is another matter entirely.

Bob Tiernan:Well, that's what all of the past, oh, 15 or so administration have taught us. Unless you're partisan. Odd, isn't it, that blues think the Bill of Rights remains intact when a Dem is president. Open your eyes. They all ****. If you remain partisan, you're part of the problem.

Sal Peralta: No administration in recent memory, not Clinton, not Reagan, not Carter, not Bush I, -- no one -- has threatened the bill of rights as consistently or as egregiously as the current administration has.

Bob T: wup, here we go again. Qualifiers are added. Now it's "recent memory". I'm thinking primarily of Woodrow Wilson and FDR, both presidents greatly admired by progressives then and now. You ought to read what was going on during their admins with regard to dissent in particular, and I'm not even counting (yet) their economic controls.

As for "recent memory", you might very well be correct when looking at net loss, but then we need to think about what would go on had 9/11 occurred during the admins of the Presidents you mentioned (and no, I'm not interested in any arguments that it could not have happened).

Another problem is that Bill of Rights abuses are often officially NOT abuses because the USSC calls an abuse "Constitutional", such as Kelo, a decision compatible with the so-called thousand friends of Oregon and most progressives I've knon for many years.

Sal Peralta: Pointing out that fact does not make me a partisan any more that pointing out the corruption of this administration or the lies that they told the American people to move us to war makes me a partisan.

Bob T: Sorry, but it does.

Sal: What it makes me is a champion of the obvious.

Bob T: It makes you a Kool-Aid drinker.

Bob Tiernan

No one is being partisan in condemning Bush's disasterous Presidency.

I know many independents like myself who he has horribly alienated. And I know many Republicans who hate him immensely. Look, he is practically single-handedly destroying the Republican Party!

This insane war in Iraq has alienated most of the world against us, and has increased world-wide terrorism greatly. Our country is definitely LESS SAFE than it was in 2001. Bush's economic policies have been extremely harmful to the middle and lower classes. The huge war debt Bush has created is going to harm our nation economically for a full generation.

Bush had a Republican contolled Congress for six years, and what did he accomplish during all that time to better our nation??

2008 is going to be a Republican bloodfest. As a registered Independent, I usually vote for people from both parties. But nowdays, it is becoming harder and harder to support ANY Republicans.

Lance in Lane County

Ol' Webster defines a "Progressive" as someone who supports progress (paraphraised). Unfortunately few in the "new progressive movement" actually supports progress (unless luddite regression is the new progressivism).

How and when did "Progressivism," born of the centrist working class (remember Teddy Roosevelt?), become the name for the fringe left?

About the same time that Conservatism became the name for the fringe right (which is neither conservative in its views of individual rights or in conservation).

Thus the terms "neo-progressive" and "neo-conservative." Many use this term to describe a bunch of mostly lilly-white petty bourgeoisie elitists who claim to be "progressive" or "conservative," but in reality practice the philosophy of imposing their will on the working-class under the guise of "we know what is best.".

True progressives know that the US Constitution and the Bill of Rights are living documents, solid yet evolving. To say that the First Amendment must be interpreted as the exclusive right of the individual, but the Second Amendment is not, well, that smacks of hypocracy (as is the other way around). It is the success of liberals in guaranteeing the Bill of Rights to individuals, especially in the face of our current fearless leader who would like othing more than to recind those rights in the name of "national security" that has led to the reinterpretation of the second amendment.

True progressives know that absolutism is the enemy of progressivism.

Personally I believe that the Bill of Rights is meant to be a counter-balance to the political dogmatic-driven hot air vented by neo-progressives and neo-conservatives, depending on which side is in control. It means individual rights when neo-progressive collectivism is in vogue, and it protects society from neo-conservative anarchism.

Just as I believe that speech has its limits (time, place and manner), I believe owning guns should have limits that balance the rights of the individual to own guns with the needs of society to protect itself individually and collectively. It is a tenuous tug-of-war to balance the two, and that the middle is always shifting as time moves forward and circumstances dictate.

Fortunately, the true progressive knows that moving forward is what true progress is all about.

Lance don't try to build credibility by pretending to not be a democrat. In one post, you claim that bush has "alienated" republicans, and yet you find it "harder and harder to support ANY Republicans." lol... which is it Lance?

"COMMUNITARIANS that reject true progressivism for their own selfish goals"

Serious oxymoron alert!

Of course, it is not an oxymoron at all (from this it is unclear whether torridjoe knows what "oxymoron" means and/or is trying to rebut that with which he disagrees).

The Communitarian movement is a political and social agenda, conscious or not, of a group of people that espouse a view that the community will unequivocally trumps individual rights and liberty. In real life, a person who espouses communitarian values inevitably believes that what he or she, and those of like mind, want should be the community will. Particularly if he or she shares the beliefs of the majority. That most definitely is not what our Constitution is about.

Communitarians true progressivism, which is about making progress towards achieving the ideals of individual liberty, civil rights, and social justice enshrined in our Constitution. Instead, they embrace a form of true regressivism in which they believe that our Constitution and laws should be radically altered to restructure society in a way which promotes the selfish interests they share as the elite.

No oxymoron, just the complexity of reality.

On another point, people here really would do themselves a favor by getting the distinction between civil rights and property rights clear in their heads. And, perhaps, take some time to understand the long history of debate in American politics about which should have primacy in disputes that involves tension, rather than harmony, between the two. A fair bit of the argument here demonstrates a lack of clear understanding about this.

This sentence should read:

Communitarians REJECT true progressivism, which is about making progress towards achieving the ideals of individual liberty, civil rights, and social justice enshrined in our Constitution.

It sure seems that the word REJECT was in the "Preview" in my browser, but it didn't show up in the post.

t.a. barnhart i am not a communitarian. just in case anyone wonders what the writer of this post thinks. hell, i couldn't even tell you what they (whoever they are) espouse JKL: They appear to espouse personal freedom, rights and liberty. Things dismissed by your article and most Portland “progressives”.

Thanks JK

Sal Peralta: Pointing out that fact does not make me a partisan any more that pointing out the corruption of this administration or the lies that they told the American people to move us to war makes me a partisan.

Bob T: Sorry, but it does.

Sal Peralta: No. It makes me deeply concerned about the most dishonest and corrupt administration in my lifetime.

Bob T: Well, you're selective - I'll give ya that.

Bob Tiernan

I'm not sure I understand Karlock's comment. Communitarians DO NOT espouse personal freedom, rights, and liberty, although they will tell you they "support" those concepts. True progressives DO espouse personal freedom, rights, and liberty. There is a difference between "supporting", and SUPPORTING.

T.A. whether you believe you are Communitarian, you have espoused a communitarian framing of community will having presumptive standing over individual rights in disputes where tension exists between the two. True progressives believe individual rights and liberty have presumptive standing over community will in disputes where tension exists between the two. You can Google "communitarian" and find quite a bit about the academic theory and political movement. This is a formal school of political thought which has more formal and informal adherents working on influencing social policy in their own ways than you might believe if you honestly don't know of them. Their academic spokespeople and adherents, as well as local policy initiatives in many communities, have been profiled in all of MSM many times over the last decade.

As one example, the New Urbanist movement explicitly identify themselves as having communitarian values and as being in step with the academic community defining the political ideology of the Communitarian movement. Jim Kunstler is perhaps the leading New Urbanist figure, he has quite a supportive following amongst NW urban planning advocate. When I heard first him talk about a decade ago in Portland, and certainly ever since, I thought he was a snake-oil salesman just peddling books, but I found out a lot of the type of folks responsible for the policies cited earlier, 1000 Friends of Oregon types many of them, believe him to be a real visionary.

At the risk of really stirring up the New Urbanist hornets, I'll resurrect a description of communitarian that really torqued some Kunstler fans when I first met them: "Kindler, gentler, demagogued mob rule". The problem is that the mob doesn't have the same desires community to community, and genuinely doesn't necessarily support individual liberty and freedom as a primary value. The mob becomes the majority that demands people to conform to their will.

Communitarians talk about people of diverse viewpoints coming together in a small community context to define a shared set of values, but their actions are all about a belief people will be bent to see it their way in a peer-pressure context, and that legislation can take care of those who don't. Ask anybody who is a social outsider in a small town just how oppressive that is, and why that is an completely untenable model for a large community. For the property rights crowd: One of the problems New Urbanists have is not with zoning laws, but with unaggressive zoning laws that don't reflect their idiosyncratic views. The land use laws repealed by Measure 37, some of which hopefully will be reversed in this next election to restore some balance, were to them contemptably weak versions of what they believe our land use regulations should be.

"communitarian"--someone who, in your general words, wishes to superordinate the 'will of the community' over the rights of the individual.

Wrong, and not my words. Communitarian in the context I used it is was descriptive of a shared belief system, and as a shorthand label for a member of the category of people who have that shared belief system. Since you are actually playing word games, I'm pretty sure you won't get the difference.

"selfish goals"--someone who wishes to superordinate their own desires, disregarding those of others.

Wrong. There is nothing in the definition of "selfish" that restricts the adjective to the single individual. Selfish is an adjective that can be applied to anyting which can be labelled as an identifiable entity: Communities can have selfish goals.

The construction raised here is tantamount to saying that an altruist is only in it for themselves.

Finally, wrong again. You are demonstrating an example of a juvenile logic game that illustrates you don't understand something in philosophy and logic called the theory of "types" or "categories". Your claim of an oxymoron is really a reflection of your own mis-definitions and mis-applications of the words as adjectives that only apply to an individual, rather than also to a collection of individuals (as well as to a the entity - community - representing the collection of individuals).

You fail the undegraduate logic class, you need to spend more time listening rather than spouting, and it's not all that clear you have a very good grasp of the semantics of English (since otherwise you are just being deceitful here in twisting someone else's words).

lestatdelc:

Jim Karlock:

• Want to defend you self? Too bad per the original article in this thread.

• Want to own a car? You are evil according to Portland’s Progressives.

• Want a large lot? You are evil according to Portland’s Progressives.

• Don’t want to take transit? You are evil according to Portland’s Progressives.

lestatdelc:

What unmitigated horshit.

Bob T:

I think that's what JK was saying, i.e. that such views are horseshit.

Bob Tiernan

torridjoe, now you are just being foolish.

First, a couple of quotes from the same dictionary.com I think will illustrate how your sophmorically narrow reading of "selfish" as only applying to individual human beings is simply wrong:

"Let us understand what our own selfish genes are up to, because we may then at least have the chance to upset their designs." [Richard Dawkins, "The Selfish Gene," 1976]

Second, I like this definition with a usage example by abolitionist Maria Weston Chapman because it gives some idea of the semantic subtleties in using the word

Concerned chiefly or only with oneself: "Selfish men were . . . trying to make capital for themselves out of the sacred cause of human rights" (Maria Weston Chapman).

This is talking about a collection of people, organized or not, who act for the same goals because those goals are aligned with their own personal goals, much like people in the communitarian movement who believe the community's will should prevail because they believe the community's goals would and should align with their own.

Finally, back to your own quoted definition:

1. devoted to or caring only for oneself; concerned primarily with one's own interests, benefits, welfare, etc., regardless of others.

your argument hinges on your failure to understand that "one" in this context is a pronoun that refers to:

16. a person or thing of a number or kind indicated or understood: one of the Elizabethan poets.

22. something or someone of the kind just mentioned: "The portraits are fine ones. Your teachers this semester seem to be good ones."

Thus is it is quite proper English to talk about a one thing, like one political movement among many, say the communitarian movement, as having selfish interests. Furthemore, it is also quite appropriate to talk about the community interest (note the proper use of the singular) of a group of people as being selfish, as well as describing individuals as being selfish in advocating the community interest when it is aligned with, or directly reflects, their own interests over the conflicting interests of others.

Good luck in your new career as a spokesman for the Republican Party. It seems you'll do well.

What a putz. I don't know if you self-identify as a progressive Democrat or not, but for those of us like me who are, frequently the biggest obstacle we have to overcome in achieving political goals is the arrogance and stupidity of NW/Portland "progressives".

Besides, Second Amendment detractors apply the wrong meaning to the word "regulated" in that amendment. The Bill of Rights is not where the State is granted powers, and in this amendment "regulated" means, among other things, trained to shoot well. That word was used more often in those days to mean "working well" (as in a well regulated clock). Second Amendment foes think or want it to mean the State deciding who can own a gun, and under what conditions. It does not.

Bob Tiernan

Chris Matson: Ol' Webster defines a "Progressive" as someone who supports progress (paraphraised).

Bob T: Can't argue with that, although I can and do argue with that being used as a definition of "Progressive" as the political movement since, to me, progress is often doing the opposite of what's called for in the progressive (so-called) agenda.

Bob Tiernan

JK: No, Bob, they are making good progress towards the goal: the complete elimination of the bill of rights in favor of their mob rule.

Thanks JK

T.A. Barnhart, please contact me at [email protected] . This is regarding some of the information you use or put forth. This will be completely civil and non-threatening. Make a "free" hotmail account and use it if you feel it is prudent.

Tim

I am coming in late to the game here, but I wanted to stop and think about my response BEFORE posting random missives.

TA asked: Do guns build a better community? Does gun ownership make better citizens? How responsible are we to one another owning automatic guns, teflon bullets and enough weaponry to outfit Lithuania? How necessary is it that individuals own guns in order to maintain the militia?

Yes, Yes, and quite. Yes. But it isn't that simple.

Let me elaborate:

Guns are inanimate objects. They do NOTHING if left alone. Eventually, they will rust, but even the most "dangerous" fully automatic weapon, if maintained with a minimum of respect and care, will do nothing by itself. For centuries. Literally. It won't randomly go off, and it won't cause deaths, injuries or heartbreak.

The benefit to the community isn't in the firearm itself, but rather the act of owning and using that firearm. Having a firearm of any sort means that the owner and any operators HAVE to learn some basic steps...the Four Rules at a minimum.

Those same four rules will keep you 100% percent safe, if followed.

Lets consider them for a moment:

The First Rule: Do not point your firearm at anything you do not wish to destroy.

Consider that a moment. Anything and destroy are the operative words. Extend that out to speech, and we have an operating mode for public discourse.

The Second Rule: Be aware of your target and what is beyond it.

A firearm is capable of extending its reach beyond the intended target. You can sometimes punch through a target, but you could also miss, and that could lead to stray rounds.

This would also apply to any sort of public discourse: be aware of those around your intended target. Is this something or someone you REALLY want destroyed? What happens if you miss, and suddenly, you are cleaning up a mess that you never intended in the first place?

The Third Rule: Treat EVERY gun as tho it is loaded.

This would directly correlate to the "engage brain, THEN engage mouth" idea. Words are loaded, and can be almost as devestating as swords, certainly. Be wary and selective.

The Fourth Rule: Keep your finger off the trigger until you are ready to fire, and the target is in your sights.

This would urge caution and respect for others.

If a person follows these four rules, they will most certainly NEVER get hurt by their own firearms, and if their friends also follow them, they will NEVER be injured by one of their friends. Even in the event of malfunction, following these rules will keep you safe and sound, and everyone goes home at the end of the day.

It has been said before that an armed man is a free man. This dates back to the years following the civil war when African Americans were legislated out of the gun ownership class. As yet another persistent element of racism, such administrative rules and laws were enacted as late as the 1980's (HUD did a bunch of them in Chicago.) Disarming the populace is an excellent way to force a reliance on the state for protection and basic needs.

If you believe, as I do, that the right to LIFE is inalienable, then it would go as a companion that the right to self-defense is an inherent component to that right. Removing that most effective tool makes one reliant on inconsistent and perhaps non-existent delays in the response of the state. Such a reliance isn't progressive. It is inherently regressive.

The founders of our country weren't against a police force, but they recongnized that the police are human and cannot be everywhere at once. They also realized that the surest way to protect against an overly aggressive government was to give the people a means to overthrow that same government in the event it became too onerous. Ultimately, a responsible firearm owner is the foundation and cornerstone of our society.

The above concept is a profound one. It isn't that one should not EVER call the police, but they shouldn't have to DEPEND on the police for everything. They should possess the basic tools to handle simple protection, and be able to assist if the police/state/feds go too far in their regulation of the average populace.

AS for the Lithuania question: I want to point out that although we have enough weapons to supply Lithuania, we have had a stable country for over 200 years now. Our political system has seen massive upheavals: civil wars, civil rights, constitutional crises and incredibly massive wars...yet we are still here. We might not be living up to our full potential as a country, but we are still the best thing going.

I happen to believe that one of the many reasons that is so is the fact that the average citizen of the country is able to walk into a Joes and after a little bit of paperwork walk out with an actual THING that proves that you are a citizen, and with that, are entrusted with the care over our great nation. The Constitution, that esoteric document that outlines how the government fuctions gives to us, explicitly, the protections over speech, worship and safety. It also enshrines, for us, the means to reforge that document. To remake the government when that government is no longer doing good things.

This alone sets us apart from most folks in the world. This alone makes us the envy of the world. This alone makes us a beacon in the world. Our government doesn't OWN us. We own IT.