Originally Posted by
JDD
Since I feel personally called out (by the first bit, not your strawman in the rest of the post), I can offer perspective if you want it?
The 2nd Amendment is incredibly important, because it is a safeguard for our rights. It's so important, our founders made it the second one they wrote down... right after the first, an amendment, the one that is core to the functioning of our government and the protection of our freedoms. In fact, I look at the second as an extension of the first - in a way, I think you could re-state the second as "we really mean it when we say we don't want anything to prevent the people from assembling or petitioning the government to redress their grievances."
All that said, climate change is an existential threat to our country, and humanity as a whole. As world leaders and a titan of science and industry, why should our country not be one of the leading voices leading the charge to keep our planet habitable for our descendants? Perhaps I have been misinterpreting this statement "We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America..." It may or may not be an issue for me, and possibly not for my offspring (although we are starting to see the impacts already), but it's going to be a dominant driving factor in the very near future. This is not a position that is really up for debate, outside of short term political posturing - I am not just talking the environmental science either, if you are involved in planning or analysis of national security or geopolitics issues, climate change is the driving underlying factor of many of our national security threats and anticipated future conflicts.
Systemic racism? I hesitate to say that any issue is more important than any other, but I grew up saying "one nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all" every morning, and I take the opening of the declaration at face value: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal..." Sure, I am not a huge fan of being told that as a white dude, I am personally responsible for all the ills of this world, and I have seldom experienced a productive discussion in which someone mentioned "privilege." That said, racism, and our country has it in spades, is such an antithesis of what our countries ideals stand for, that I am having trouble with the idea that there are patriotic Americans that are not as upset about it as I am.
I am a rule-of-law kind of person, I consider myself incredibly lucky to have been born in the best country in the world, and I love it deeply. I have made a point of spending much of my professional life serving my country. I am no fan of Nanci Pelosi, nor most of the other democrat politicians in prominent positions. In fact, most of my issues with them are the same ones I have with republican politicians; It is not that I am to the left of everyone politically (don't try to claim I am a communist or some bullshit like that), it is that I expect them to comport themselves as public servants and be guided by the constitution instead of being driven by short term political thinking and self interest. It's an idealists position, which is why my actual voting behavior is significantly more pragmatic, but the tone and substance of my correspondence with my various elected representatives hits on the same points, regardless of which party they belong to. There are few things that I like less than party over country, but I am seeing quite a bit of it right now, and I am personally laying blame where it is appropriate.
So to draw a line under it, anyone who somehow thinks that my more leftist approach to politics is incompatible with my strong support for the second amendment is wrong. If that person compounds the error by implying that I want to see helfires dropped on American cities, or that I somehow fail to love the country that I have put it all on the line for repeatedly, they actually start to piss me off. The only worse thing I can think of, is to imply that politically engaged and passionate Americans categorically hate their country. It's not hate to admit our countries failures and missteps, or to work towards improving them - and that goes for everyone across all political stripes.
At a personal level I think I would probably get along with a vast majority of the people on this board - the exceptions being the folks who feel that I somehow feel the 2nd amendment is a hobby, or that I don't love my country more than literally anything other than my family.
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