My opinion is not a lobby or an agenda

While I'll be thankful for my turkey today, I did not especially appreciate the turkey of a headline which greeted me from the front page of this morning's Inquirer:

Two GOP votes test gun lobby in Penna

The axioms of state politics dictate that two Republican House members from the Philadelphia suburbs risked political death when they crossed party lines Tuesday to vote for a gun-control bill.

Those rules may be changing, however, with Pennsylvania polls indicating majority support for stricter regulation of handguns and a newly emboldened advocacy group determined to counter the National Rifle Association's traditional power.

Reps. Kate Harper (R., Montgomery) and Bernard O'Neill (R., Bucks) voted for a bill to limit handgun buyers to one purchase a month. The measure failed to get out of the Democratic-controlled Judiciary Committee.

Harper, of Blue Bell, said she was reflecting the will of her constituents, knowing that the gun lobby may try to exact revenge next year.

"To the single-issue voters, this is an antigun vote," Harper said. "I am afraid this will come back to bite me next election season."

But, she added, "I think I did the right thing."

O'Neill, of Warminster, did not respond to a request to explain his vote. A Bucks County GOP political consultant said that O'Neill's 29th District was moderate, and that he was unlikely to face a primary challenge over the issue.

John Hohenwarter, a lobbyist for the NRA in Harrisburg, said the votes disappointed him, but that it was too early to say whether O'Neill and Harper would fail to get his group's endorsement next year.

OK, for starters, the "Pennsylvania polls" were conducted by Ben Tulchin, a Democratic activist pollster in San Francisco's Mission district, whose methodology was questioned not only in the context of the CeaseFirePA poll, but numerous times in San Francisco. To characterize as "Pennsylvania polls" a poll by a leftie San Francisco activist hired by a partisan gun control outfit is misleading at best.

I'm not saying that CeaseFirePA doesn't have every right to do this, but I'm wondering.....

Suppose the NRA commissioned a poll from a known conservative activist pollster in Virginia, and he came up with opposite results. Would the Inquirer refer uncritically to the NRA poll as "Pennsylvania polls indicating majority opposition to stricter regulation of handguns"?

Kate Harper represents nearby Blue Bell, and while it's not my district, it's in my area, and I go there to shop and eat regularly. So I'm technically not in a position to complain as one of her constituents, but in a way I am glad I'm not, because I'd feel discounted.

And I do not mean discounted by Kate Harper's vote, or because she disagrees with me. That I might be able to handle if I thought she was a sincere person who arrived at her decision for sincere reasons, and who took her constituents' opinions seriously.

My problem is with what she said:

Harper, of Blue Bell, said she was reflecting the will of her constituents, knowing that the gun lobby may try to exact revenge next year.
Assuming the Inquirer is reporting her statement correctly, this Republican legislator is dividing her district into the "constituents" and the "gun lobby." The former are those who agree with her, and the latter do not count as people, but are a lobby to be characterized and demonized. (Those who disagree are a "lobby" of revenge-seekers.)

I've said this before and I'll say it again. I am not a lobby! My opinions are my own. Furthermore, I am not an agenda. These phrases are used to discount opinions, and while it is not surprising to see them tossed around by activists engaged in ideological disputes with each other, for any legislator to discount constituents that way is to my mind, a lot worse than simply disagreeing with them.

If I have a pro-gun opinion, and it is mine, why does that make me the gun lobby?

To put it another way, if I have a pro-gay opinion, and it is mine, does that make me part of the "gay agenda"?

To an activist, it does. Glenn Greenwald will refer to people who disagree with him as part of the radical right wing agenda. The Concerned Women for America spokesman will call people who disagree part of the radical gay agenda (or "apostates").

It's the Greenwaldization of political discourse. It's probably inevitable in the blogosphere and among activists, but should legislators be interacting with their constituents that way?

Once again, the thesis in Glenn Reynolds' law review article really hits the nail on the head. There is an eerie similarity, not just between the gun issue and the gay issue, but in the way people who hold opinions about these issues are treated. And stereotyped. I don't know what to call it. ("Greenwalding" the opposition?) But it's leading to a situation where any opinion that you have makes you not a person, but a lobbyist. And Agendaite. (Er, maybe would that be "lobbyite" or "agendaist.")

So, whether you agree with him or not, why should Glenn's remark about the "happily married gay couples with closets full of assault weapons" reduce him to being a hapless stooge of the gun lobby and the gay agenda? The Gun Gay Agenda Lobby? Or the Gay Gun Lobby Agenda?

I think people are getting tired of this. What bothers me in this instance is to see it coming from a legislator, and I'm hoping the Inquirer was putting words in her mouth. Um, no, I'm not really hoping that, because I don't want the Inquirer to put words in politicians' mouths. You know what I mean. (I mean you, the reasonable readers, not the people who think an opinion is a lobby is an agenda.)

Of course, to the Inquirer (and, apparently, Governor Rendell) the argument that current laws are not being enforced is not a legitimate argument or idea worthy of discussion on its merits:

Rendell's 40-minute appearance, in which he sought to refute gun-lobby arguments about weak enforcement of current laws...
How dare I have opinions which are "gun lobby arguments"?

Stay tuned for more gun lobby arguments, and gay agenda arguments.

Speaking of lobbies and arguments, I enjoyed this piece of, um, "constituent email" which activists were urging be sent to Kate Harper:

We will never have a sane gun policy unless we stand up to the gun lobby.

You can start today.

Please take a moment to pick up the phone and call a couple of people on the committee. It's a simple form of citizen action that makes a big difference. They listen. I just did it myself. Here's what I said (Rep. Kate Harper's office) - I got her voicemail:

Hi, my name is Hannah Miller, and I am calling to ask Representative Harper to support the gun-control measures that are coming up in front of the committee tomorrow. I live in Philadelphia and I have seen friends lose their loved ones and family members because of all these guns. Just this summer my friend had his 24-year-old son paralyzed and we as a city can simply not take any more of this. Please vote yes on HB 72 and 77. Thank you.
Something like that. That's all you have to do.

Here's the info and the members of the committee....

Sheesh. All I can say to that is this:
We will never have a sane family policy unless we stand up to the gay lobby.

You can start today.

Pretty soon, there will be no real constituents, and no one will be considered to have a real and independent opinion.

Beware!

If you have an opinion, you're just a lobbyist whose agenda assaults someone's values.

UPDATE: Wow. My thanks to Glenn Reynolds for linking this post, and a warm welcome to all turkey headline gobblers!

posted by Eric on 11.22.07 at 10:00 AM





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Comments

How about we try criminal control instead of gun control? Seems to me like the criminals aren't going to pay any attention to the laws in the first place, and therefore restricting the ability of legal, law-abiding gun owners to own firearms simply makes more opportunity for the criminal.

Great Britain's a good case in point - armed robberies went up as legal gun ownership went down - and assaults and home invasions really went up as the rights of the Englishman to protect his property were abridged.

Legislation penalizing the law-abiding with some mythical effect on the criminal element should be viewed with great suspicion... especially when other similar legislation hasn't produced the desired effect...

J.


JLawson   ·  November 22, 2007 12:00 PM

The Philadelphia Inquirer has pushed "Gun Control" for so long, with so little effect - and as a result, has become so desperate, that it wouldn't surprise me if they started reporting that the NRA is killing state representatives who don't vote their way.

"Gun Control" is at the heart of the collectivist world-view. People who produce propaganda like the Philadelphia Inquirer can't give up on it without threatening their entire socialist structure.

Voolfie   ·  November 22, 2007 11:40 PM

This is true, gun control is an important issue in the 2008 election. I think a lot of media underestimate this issue which could be key in swing states such as Ohio.

For comparing candidate views on gun control, I've found http://www.votegopher.com extremely valuable. You just select up to four and get rolling. Non-partisan, student-created, all that. I think you'll find it useful.

Al   ·  November 23, 2007 12:44 AM

To a journalist, steeped in the leftist activist mindset that pervades academia, there are no individuals. There are only competing interest groups. Everyone is part of a lobby with an agenda, whether they realize it or not.

Your interest group is assigned to you based on characteristics such as race, gender, sexual orientation. If you express an opinion contrary to your appointed group leaders, you are called an Uncle Tom, traitor to Womyn, self-loathing gay, or equivalent.

If you recognize in this a tribal mentality, you are entirely correct.

The Monster   ·  November 23, 2007 01:09 AM

If these representative pay a penalty, it will be rendered by their constituents. By voters, taxpayers, citizens... but those words are sadly not perjorative. They don't fit the "revenge" from the "lobby" as part fo their "agenda" motif. It's too hard to deligitmize people who wear htose labels.

Thus, any penalties will be exacted by shadowy lobbies with no connection to the mechanisms of democracy.

Steve Skubinna   ·  November 23, 2007 03:20 AM

A "lobby" doesn't cast votes. Constituents do. If the Kate Harper gets voted out, it will have been because she did NOT reflect the will of her constituents and they let her know it. Could a "lobby" play a part? Sure they could, in the form of information dissemmination.

joated   ·  November 23, 2007 07:39 AM

Waitaminnit!! Two republicans crossed party lines to vote for the bill, but it failed to get out of a committee controlled by democrats?

Is there something wrong with this picture, or the way it's presented in the inkywire ?

When I read that paper, I feel as if I'm seeing the world reflected in a funhouse mirror.

Charlie   ·  November 23, 2007 07:46 AM

The voice mail script is the standard appeal to emotion which often passes for an argument on the Left. No substance, not attempt to identify the cause of the alleged tragedy. Just misdirected moralizing.

Typical.

Vinny Vidivici   ·  November 23, 2007 10:35 AM

Rather than write my own comment, I'll just say: "What Charlie said!"

Beck   ·  November 23, 2007 10:38 AM

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