Can Progressives be swayed?

The ‘conversation’ below occurred when Obama (AKA” Dear Leader) was in office and undermining our Constitution. Please enjoy this time capsule.

Seeking advice. A progressive colleague approached me a couple of years ago to ask about various conservative ideas; and since then, we’ve been having a running e-mail debate. I have tried to explain what and why I believe, but am beginning to think that this is hopeless. My colleague is intelligent, well educated, and well informed. I had hoped to bring him around to our point of view. Now it feels like mission impossible. Lately his responses have turned “a bit” nasty. Please read just one of our many (colorful) exchanges and help me to decide if I am near a breakthrough or is it time to throw in the towel? Frankly, I’ve about had it.

 BEGIN COLLEAGUE’S E-MAIL: Good to hear from you brother. I am going to address each of your points. I see that your are framing your argument strictly around what you “think” and “feel” as opposed to what is factual and correct. Allow me to make my attempt at delivering you from the depths and darkness of ignorance.

– The Constitution is a living document. It has been changed before. Good thing for that, because I would still be 3/5ths of a man.

– No one has said they are going to take away your or my guns. Any attempt at solving the problem is looked at with the all-or-nothing approach. The goal is to implement measures to begin trying to fix the problem. According to your logic, we should not have laws against murder, rape and stealing because we cannot stop murder, rape and theft, because the murders, rapists and thieves will always find a way to murder, rape and steal.

– The first time I read and studied the constitution, I couldn’t believe that we had these liberties. How could we have had a land where the Natives were slaughtered, Blacks were born into slavery, the KKK was allowed to freely terrorize, rape, pillage, steal and murder Black folk, and White men were give privileges that still last to this day. The founding fathers and the people of that day didn’t practice what they preached. Nonetheless, there is a blub in there about a well regulated militia. And, contrary to what the gun nuts are touting, that wasn’t put there to fight our own government. If they had, like I did, listened in their history classes, they would remember that after the revolutionary war, the standing army was disbanded, but they did feel that they would have to fight the Mexicans, Canadians, French, etc. one day – to protect this brand new country. My question to you is – since when does an individual constitute a well-regulated militia?

– I will be glad when White Men stop crying about abortion; especially when there are @ 104,236 orphans in the US today. For those same men to preach rule of law, and then complain about abortion is the height of hypocrisy. When you and I are able to have a baby, then we can have this conversation.

– Again, no one has said they are taking your guns. You conservatives have been crying about that every since we got our first Black President. Conservatives don’t have to press their fears on everyone else. They should just accept the fact that they have small penises.

– And your favorite, Thomas Sowell, has and often does, forgets about how the centuries of mis-education have impacted cultures and demographics throughout the US history. When was the last time a kid in middle-school was taught about the real history of how the US was made; Black Laws; internment camps; the Gulf of Tonkin; how the rich exploited the war and the lives lost in them for profit; ect. I am tired of hearing about what the teachers are teaching. Teachers (my wife was one) have a directed curriculum, specific texts, and a regiment schedule. What politics are your grandchildren learning at school as opposed to what they are being taught at home. I’m sure that Timothy McVeigh didn’t learn his political precepts in the public school system. To me, they should teach more government and civics – that may rid us of the rich ignorance and lack of knowledge that a significant amount of the population has about our own government and political system.

– And, for the last comment. If he meant that, he would have made a clause in the constitution stating so and thus, the average citizen would now, be able to buy C4, a sub-machine gun, grenade launchers, and fully-automatic assault rifles, claymore mines? Why does your neighbor not have an M1 tank and an Apache Helicopter? But I do seem to remember him writing “…a well regulated militia.”

This is fun. END OF HIS RESPONSE.

 HIS RESPONSE ABOVE WAS TO THIS E-MAIL FROM ME: I suspect that they would say that this shows just how easy it is to lose our rights under a so called “living” Constitution. That Democratic pro-gun lawmakers ignore the 2nd Amendment and get a “twofer” for their efforts: 1. Take guns away from law abiding citizens. 2. Undermine the Constitution in order to kill it and create utopia on its ashes. What’s not to like?

They’d probably say that they’ll take Progressives concern for the children seriously when they quit pouring millions of taxpayer dollars into the Planned Parenthood (PP) abortion mill. Susan B. Anthony List breaks down the numbers from the PP annual report:

– During fiscal year 2011-2012, Planned Parenthood reported receiving a record $542 million in taxpayer funding in the form of government grants, contracts, and Medicaid reimbursements. Taxpayer funding consists of 45% of Planned Parenthood’s annual revenue.

– In 2011, Planned Parenthood performed a record high 333,964 abortions.

I am not saying that abortion should be illegal; but when then Illinois State Senator Obama voted down a bill to protect live-born survivors of abortion even after the panel had amended the bill to contain verbatim language explicitly foreclosing any impact on abortion, the leader of the Progressive movement’s lack of concern for the weakest and most innocent of children looses credibility.

They might say that what the administration could not accomplish with Fast & Furious, they probably will now try to do with the Newtown massacre. Taking guns from law abiding citizens does not address the root problems or implement programs to actually protect children, but the Administration will not let this tragedy go to waste.

 It seems to me that these shootings are an ignored dead canary in the coal mine indicating societal decay. Thomas Sowell believes that this rot is not happening by accident. 

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