I think folks can hold a reasonable opinion on either side of whether or not the NRA issuing a member alert over Holder’s confirmation vote is a wise thing. Erick at Redstate thinks they ought to go one up and threaten grades over Holder, which I think is considerably less defensible.
First off, threatening grades is something you can only get away with a few times, and we have no idea how many gun control bills we are going to need to stop in the 111th Congress. Each time you ding a politician’s grade, he has less incentive to care every subsequent time you threaten to ding it. Like a razor, it gets duller with every single use. At the end of a term, when a politician finds himself graded low, you better be able to unseat him, or he’s not liable to care about how you grade him in the next Congress. Why should he? The implicit threat of a low grade is that you lose your seat. It’s easy for Gun Owners of America to grade politicians on Holder because GOA does not use its grades as a political tool. GOA doesn’t have the membership numbers to threaten anyone’s seat, or offer material support to allies.
I would also mention to Erick of Redstate that The National Rifle Association is not a wholly owned subsidiary of the GOP. NRA has no choice but to play nice with Democrats in the 111th Congress because they are in the majority. The Republicans do not have the votes to stop gun control bills short of using a filibuster in the Senate, and I’m sorry, but I don’t have faith that one or two RINOs in the Senate won’t break ranks with the party and vote for cloture on, say, a new assault weapons ban.
As a member, I expect the National Rifle Association to fight gun control in the 111th Congress. If they have to get down on their hands and knees and kiss Harry Reid’s rosey red ass as part of a deal to stop a gun control bill, I’ll buy them the lip balm.
“The National Rifle Association is not a wholly owned subsidiary of the GOP.”
Absolutely right. That is the sure path to being forever written off by one party and safely taken for granted by the other. It may seem like it’s that way now, but it could be far worse.
And I’ll by them the disinfectant to clean their lips afterwards. Well put Snowflake.
That is the sure path to being forever written off by one party and safely taken for granted by the other.
See also, the gay rights movement. The NRA shouldn’t go down that road.
“Have Pragmatism, Will Travel” or, “Sebastian at Valley Forge” may be found here:
http://sipseystreetirregulars.blogspot.com/2009/01/have-pragmatism-will-travel-sebastian.html
Enjoy.
— Vanderboegh, III
What, you are not going to stand around and shout “shall not be infringed” and then shoot anyone who happens to step on your toes? You are DISGUSTUGING, and not WORTHY of being an AMERICAN, you PATHETIC FOOL!!!!1!1!!
[/insurrectionist]
I would certainly prefer it if the NRA would do a little more political work and a little less spamming, but the realities of our current political situation are the realities of our current political situations, whether they are convenient/acceptable/enjoyable or not.
In other news, I see Mike is channeling Jade now…
Your NRA song I’d at least give an A for creativity, and it was pretty funny. But this particular artform, as Linoge mentioned, was long ago mastered by Jadegold, so it’s not really original anymore.
But notice that Mike does not offer any real refutation of my assertion, merely an insult. Jeff Knox made a real refutation. David Codrea made a real refutation. MVB went the Jadegold route.
Sebastian,
I merely juxtapose the two images. If they are inconsistent in the event, whose fault is that?
You have condemned Three Percenters for spurning the political route of resistance, and then when we take actions which put the lie to the allegation and ask for your assistance in doing so, you merely come up with quibbling and hairsplitting reasons why you cannot assist us in doing what you claim as your raison d’etre.
What shall we, or for that matter the majority of politically engaged NRA members, conclude from such behavior? Churchill’s dictum is appropriate here:
“Still, if you will not fight for the right when you can easily win without bloodshed; if you will not fight when your victory will be sure and not too costly; you may come to the moment when you will have to fight with all the odds against you and only a precarious chance of survival. There may be a worse case — you may have to fight when there is no hope of victory because it is better to perish than to live as slaves.”
By refusing to “risk” even the dubious asset of “political capital,” the Lairds of Fairfax have opened themselves to the conclusion that my first impression of their “pragmatic” stance is entirely correct.
Mike Vanderboegh
III
PS: Linoge, keep screaming. I love to watch you project spittle flecks on your own intellectual carpet.
You can only announce a “scoring vote” so many times, and this isn’t one of them. If you have ten “scores” then a guy can vote with gunnies on this and eight other things of modest importance, vote for an assault weapons ban, and demand an A or B+ because he “voted for gun rights 90% of the time.” (And if you start fudging it because the AW was more important than Holder, you’ll be open to the criticism that your scoring is subject to juggling at will).
Conversely, some blue dog Demos may figure it’s not worth trying to please you if you’re going to be that demanding. They may vote with you on an AW ban and still get dinged because they didn’t go with you on a nomination.
I don’t think Holder is a foregone cause, but an attack on the nomination only works, I think, on the following plan: his critics hit him on the big stuff, the Rich pardon, the pardon of the Puerto Rican terrorist gang, other suspicious pardons, Elian, Waco coverup. The gun issue rides along as one more reason, not as the key point. The gun issue won’t block nomination, not even close. But as one more reason it might carry some weight.
Last I checked I said it was a worthwhile effort to express opposition to Holder, but was outlining why NRA didn’t want to risk it, and why that wasn’t unreasonable from their point of view.
And to continue the military metaphor, Churchill, if I recall, wanted to fight Hitler in Southern Europe, rather than executing a risky invasion of France, calling Italy the “soft underbelly of the axis.” No one here is advocating not fighting the Democrats on gun control. But we are suggesting we choose our ground carefully. Churchill didn’t advocate attacking Hitler on all fronts, and neither should we attack the Democrats on all fronts. I’m worried about what Holder will do as AG, but not as worried as I am about gun control bills.
Maybe it looks different up close, but from over here, it appears that the NRA strategy amounts to a bureaucratic effort to lose our freedom as slowly as possible. You don’t take ground by retreat and defense, and we have lost so much ground, already.
I am firmly in the 3% camp, but will welcome any prags to join the fight once the raids and confiscations commence. If you don’t wake up at that point, you wouldn’t be much good in a fight, anyway.
God bless America.
Sebastian sez: “I’m worried about what Holder will do as AG, but not as worried as I am about gun control bills.”
Our critique is that ALL you will EVER >DO< is “WORRY.” By the time you cease worrying and start acting, it will be too late.
Yes, because I spent all fall “worrying” and not acting. Just because I’m not burying ammunition in icing buckets doesn’t mean I’m sitting on my laurels. Once I have a gun control bill to oppose, I will do so. But my role, as I have chosen it, other than the meager contribution I make with the blog, is to help NRA elect pro-gun politicians and defeat anti-gun politicians. My job is to follow up on threats, and make them credible.
I failed this fall. My anti-gun Congressworm, Patrick Murphy, signed on to McCarthy’s HR1022, and so got a piss poor grade. I signed up volunteers, walked neighborhoods, made phone calls, and sent donations to his opponent. We had our asses handed to us on November 4th. Obama had coattails. In 2010, Pat Murphy might not be so lucky.
Contrary to what some people seem to think, the Democratic leadership has absolutely no interest in working with gun-owners – they don’t have to because they are now FIRMLY IN POWER and make no mistake – they will use it against ALL OF US! They do not need or care about our votes anymore because the 20 MILLION Amnesty voters will give them a voting block larger than the “gun lobby” has been able to muster – ever. They do not want to make friends with gun-owners, they are looking to make sure we are wiped out completely in the political arena and they now have the power to do it. Then, if we don’t comply – they will send in the goons.
I still don’t know why so many gun owners seem to think that the gun-haters won’t try to take away THEIR guns. They seem to think these people will be satisfied once they ban EBR’s, “high capacity” magazines and .50 caliber firearms. Here’s a news flash for you – they will never stop until ALL guns, swords, knives, or anything that “could be a weapon” is banned from us mere peons. In the meantime, they will take ANYTHING they can get. Each victory makes them stronger and makes us weaker. Even if you don’t own an EBR, you are still a target and they WILL get to you sooner or later. We MUST not let them divide and conquer us one “faction” at a time – we are ALL in this together.
Sebastion sez: “I failed this fall. My anti-gun Congressworm, Patrick Murphy, signed on to McCarthy’s HR1022, and so got a piss poor grade. I signed up volunteers, walked neighborhoods, made phone calls, and sent donations to his opponent. We had our asses handed to us on November 4th. Obama had coattails. In 2010, Pat Murphy might not be so lucky.”
By 2010 you will have lost every single legislative fight and the beast will be upon your neck. Then you will meekly roll over and give up what they demand and in return they won’t rip your throat out.
I beg you to recognize, Sebastian, that the ground has shifted under our feet. The old political verities no longer apply. The confiscationists sense this intuitively. Why do you think the Brady document is so open about their designs on your liberty and your property? They openly demand what they dared only whisper about a decade ago. And who will stop them? The Lairds of Fairfax? The Obama dominated courts? The GOP pols who wouldn’t risk not getting invited to liberal coctail parties even when they controlled the process?
The beast comes.
What will you do?
I’m not playing this game Mike, because I don’t accept your premise that we’ve lost this before it’s even started. We survived Clinton, and we’ll survive this. The Brady’s have been openly demanding everything on that list for the last decade. Nothing about that has changed. I don’t intend to have any of my property stolen by government, and I’ll leave it at that.
*headdesk* It would figure that a sarcastic impersonation would be lost on someone like Mike… And now we come full-circle, with the aggreived, martyred insurrectionists accusing the prags of not doing anything… oh, the irony. It burns.
Mr. Hardy pretty much hits the nail squarely on the head – we gunnies only have so much leverage, and how much leverage we apply now affects how much we will have in reserve in the future. Furthermore, while Holder’s stance on firearms might sway the minds of some of those in Congress (very few, I would wager, but that is just a guess), there are a plethora of other negative aspects of him that would be both problematic with him in the AG seat, and with his nomination… and all of those things are being oh-so-carefully swept under the rug. While I am more-or-less convinced that Holder is already a given, this has not stopped me from informing my duly-elected officials (and all of the Republicans on the nomination board, to boot) of my take on those negative aspects, and how they will hurt the country and its people’s rights. As I write this, though, I realize two things: to some people, that is still “nothing”, and I really do not have to defend myself or my actions. Methinks they dost protest too much. *shrugs*
When the histories are written, “National Rifle Association” will be cross-referenced with “Judenrat.”