Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader is happy right now. You see, most of the time when you want to read one blogger flaming another there is all that bother of opening two browser windows, or clicking back and forth in one browser between two different sites. Here at Nakedvillainy.com we make it easy for you. We flame each other. And we do it all on the same page! Ah the joy we bring to our readers here!

Earlier the good Smallholder decided to comment on a post from your Maximum Leader. Your Maximum Leader quotes him here for your reading pleasure:

Methinks the good Velociman paints with too broad of a brush, particularly when he implies that all advocates of gun control want to eliminate all guns and leave right-thinking people at the mercy of the evil mutant criminal hordes.

Well Smallholder, your Maximum Leader hates to have to clue you in on this. (Again.) But while you may not want to ban all guns, that is the stated goal of the leaders of the anti-gun coalitions. Remember Dianne Feinstein’s quotation? The one she made on 60 Minutes? The one that went: “If I could have gotten 51 votes in the Senate of the United States for an outright ban, picking up every one of them, Mr. and Mrs. America, turn ‘em all in, I would have done it.” Remember “Americans for Gun Safety?” They are all about incremental gun banning. So, good Minister of Agriculture, don’t assume please that because you are not in favour of incremental gun elimination that many others - many who are much more active in this area than you - are like-minded.

Then the Smallholder continued:

Perhaps I’m an exception, but…

You are (obviously) an exception. Thus you are also a minority of one and we can disregard your opinion. We can statistically prove it does not matter. Just like your vote.

(Brace yourself for independently principled discourse)

Bracing!

(No, this is not “squishy.”)

Yes it is.

(I mean it! I’m not “squishy!”)

Yes you are.

(Damn. Like Kerry I seem unable to take a nuanced position without being tarred by the Maximum Leader’s epithets… Okay, perhaps what follows is a wee bit squishy.)

Are you orange-skinned too? If so, perhaps you are John Kerry. We never see you together… Oh, wait… You’re a poor yeoman farmer… And your Maximum Leader knows that Mrs. Smallholder is definately not Teresa Heinz-Kerry.. Okay, we’re back to you just being squishy.

I believe guns are a useful tool…

(Blah, blah, blah - ML)

Big Hominids rummaging through your fridge for tasty delicacies? Defend your nacos.

Obscure literary references wooing your daughter with felt tip markers? You know what to do.

That said, I don’t believe in unlimited, unfettered, unregulated gun ownership. It’s not necessary and it is not a right (see: “A well-regulated militia…”).

You know what never ceases to amaze and amuse your Maximum Leader. He does not believe that the Smallholder has bothered to read the Second Amendment beyond the word “militia.” For almost all the years your Maximum Leader and the Smallholder have been acquainted, the Smallholder ends all discussion of the Second Amendment at the word militia. Perhaps the Smallholder needs a little schoolin’? Your Maximum Leader is prepared to deliver a lesson.

First, let us regard the text of the Second Amendment. It reads:

A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.

The good Smallholder is all hung up on the “well regulated militia” part. To the exclusion of the “right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed” part. Your Maximum Leader wonders if any of his readers remember how to diagram sentences. Your Maximum Leader is a bit rusty at it. But, he pulled out some grammar books at the Villainschloss and started to diagram the Second Amendment. He was going to photoshop his diagram and post it. But a little digging and a little poking found a pre-existing diagram of the Second Amendment completed by a former editor at Houghton Mifflin. As it is available, your Maximum Leader presents it here.

Want a full sized image? Click here.

Now lets look at this. You can see that the diagram has two parts. The top is labled “collective” the bottom “individual.” The two levels are connected in a nomative relationship. They are, in effect, a dependent clause to the main subject. The main subject which does declare a right to be individual. Besides, has the Smallholder ever really stopped to consider that all the other rights ennumerated in the Bill of Rights are individual? Humm… How odd that only one would be some sort of restrictive collective right.

Back to the diagram. The relationship between the dependent clause and the main subject is the defining relationship. That relationship is who are the militia, they are the body of the people, who individually have the right to keep and bear arms.

Tis clear as plainsong…

Allow your Maximum Leader to continue:

I don’t want to ban all guns. But I’m comfortable banning rocket-propelled grenades. I’m comfortable banning the Foreign Minister’s beloved MP-40.(But it is coooool to shoot!)

Indeed it is cool to shoot… But the Smallholder is making something of a strawman argument here. MP-40s (as well as other fully automatic weapons) are HIGHLY regulated by the Federal Government. You can’t just walk into a gun store and buy one. (You could around 1904, but your Maximum Leader doesn’t think that the Minister of Agriculture is confused as to the year.) You need a Class III license to own one.

I’m comfortable telling private citizens that they may not have handguns, but I’m not a fanatic about it. If someone were to convince me that handguns were so much better than shotguns for home defense that their concealability and potential for abuse was outweighed by that utility, I’d change positions.

Just because you aren’t a fanatic, doesn’t mean that most other advocating similar positions are not. And anyway, particularly when talking about home defence, a pistol is more handy to use in the house. It is less likly to get caught up in furniture or bump against walls. Women are generally more comfortable with pistols than with long guns, etc. etc. But your Maximum Leader knows that this course is a non-starter for the M of A.

In fact, the most persuasive arguments I have heard about permitting widespread gun ownership aren’t based on a faulty interpretation of the Second Amendment; they are based on practicality. Would restricting gun ownership actually lead to a reduction in crime rates? It might not, simply because gunownership is so widespread that we will never be able to get all the guns out of the hands of criminals.

Liberalization of concealed carry laws and other pro-gun initiatives have been shown by some researchers to be connected with the overall drop in violent crime in the US. Of course, as your Maximum Leader and the Smallholder are well aware, there are lies, damn lies, and statistics. For every expert your Maximum Leader could cite, the Smallholder could cite a contrarian. Then the argument would not be focused on what a nimrod the Smallholder is, but on the credentials of expert witnesses.

So the slippery slope on gun control does not apply to me - or many other Americans. Even many NRA members support the restriction of Class III weapons.

Great. But you are not the primary object of the slippery slope argument. It is directed more at people like Dianne Feinstein and Charles Schumer.

But now things get interesting…

The slippery slope DOES apply to abortion. And it should. If you believe that life begins at conception, abortion is murder - so one cannot compromise. I am tremendously puzzled by pro-lifers who don’t follow the logic of their own position and are willing to make exceptions in the case of rape or incest. If you believe that abortion is murder, it is also morally impermissible to murder a fetus for the sin of its father. In this case, failing to follow the slippery slope is asinine.

What the Smallholder wants to say is that we should be applying the Slippery Slope argument style to the abortion debate. But no one really does. Because it is more satisfying for both sides to call the other side names.

But now one of your Maximum Leader’s favourite refrains of the Smallholder.

I wish people would reject the slippery slope on tax policy. Reducing taxes makes sense IF we are on the right side of the Laffer curve. But many anti-tax proponents mindlessly mouth the canard that “tax cuts grow revenue” - a silly position that, when carried to a logical extreme, seems to hold that 0% taxation would lead to unlimited government revenue. I respect Republicans who openly admit that Bush’s deficit creation is an intentional attempt to bankrupt the government as a way to force a restructuring of government priorities - at least their goal is open and can be discussed. Voodoo economists who hold that Republican policies ended Clinton-era surpluses in order to increase government revenue frustrate me.

You know, the Smallholder is always hung up on the “right side” of the Laffer Curve. He just assumes we are on the “left side” of the curve. He’s never ever clued anyone in on why this might be the case. He just assumes that marginal tax rates should be increased. He never backs up his assertion. He just assumes that since most people to whom he is speaking have never heard of the Laffer Curve when he mentions it, and they just stand there gaping at him; he has scared them intellectually and is correct.

So, the Smallholder just keeps on assuming that the US is on the wrong side of the curve for tax cutting purposes. This is mainly because, in his squishy little heart, the Smallholder is really a Utopian Socialist. First he wants onerous taxation to equalize misery, then he wants to build his agrarian utopia.

Your Maximum Lader hears that the Smallholder has an image of Charles Fourier tattooed on his arse. And yes, your Maximum Leader caught the Minister of Agriculture saying that in his utopia androgynous plants would copulate, six moons would orbit the earth, the seas would lose their salt and become oceans of lemonade, and every woman would have four lovers or husbands simultaneously.

I stand prepared for my flaming.

Consider yourself cutlered.

Carry on.