More than one way to skin the NRA

[Razgovory]

It's a stretch to equate "refusing to appoint someone to be in charge of enforcing gun laws" with "hindering enforcement of gun laws"?

How so? The two seem very closely related. Denying effective leadership to the body charged with enforcing gun laws seems pretty close to "hindering" to me.

Effective leadership is a pretty nebulous concept.  From my experience, in most large organizations people have functions that they perform regardless of the effectiveness of the leadership.   A cop shows up at work and patrols his beat regardless of the effectiveness of the leadership.  An auto worker puts a bumper on the car regardless of the effectiveness of the leadership.  I have no reason to belief it's any different at the ATF.

Actually I've seen the opposite.  A police department without effective leadership is a fucking mess.  Corruption, abuse of powers, laziness, etc. You got to keep a close eye on those guys.  Don't know about a car company, but I imagine that things like engineering, marketing, supply etc require some sort of direction.  Or are of you the opinion that companies don't actually need leaders?

[Jacob]

Effective leadership is a pretty nebulous concept.  From my experience, in most large organizations people have functions that they perform regardless of the effectiveness of the leadership.   A cop shows up at work and patrols his beat regardless of the effectiveness of the leadership.  An auto worker puts a bumper on the car regardless of the effectiveness of the leadership.  I have no reason to belief it's any different at the ATF.

Interesting. I suppose we'll just have to disagree about that.

It does raise the question why the NRA has lobbied (successfully since 2006) for preventing a director to be put in place at the ATF; if leadership is immaterial to the carrying out of the duties of the ATF, it seems a bit pointless to block it.

[Admiral Yi]

It does raise the question why the NRA has lobbied (successfully since 2006) for preventing a director to be put in place at the ATF; if leadership is immaterial to the carrying out of the duties of the ATF, it seems a bit pointless to block it.

Why not the obvious answer: they've disagreed with the nominees proposed?

Berkut: Leaving aside the issue of whether we should accept at face value the words of a nominee lobbying for confirmation, that's not what he said.  He talked about how morale would improve through the "gravitas" afforded by confirmation, and the greater weight he would carry in Congress.

[Berkut]

Your argument is that they've disagreed with every single nominee, and this isn't about simply blocking ANY nominee?

I don't believe for a moment that even you believe anything that obviously untrue.


And I notice that once again you simply refuse to acknowledge most of my argument, and simply choose to respond to the smallest portion that you can make a (weak) stab at refuting.

[Admiral Yi]

Your argument is that they've disagreed with every single nominee, and this isn't about simply blocking ANY nominee?

I don't believe for a moment that even you believe anything that obviously untrue.

Kay.

And I notice that once again you simply refuse to acknowledge most of my argument, and simply choose to respond to the smallest portion that you can make a (weak) stab at refuting.

Whatever.  You got ass-raped in the voting thread and pranced around like you were He-Man.  Not much different here.  I think I'm done with you.

[Valmy]

Whatever.  You got ass-raped in the voting thread and pranced around like you were He-Man.  Not much different here.  I think I'm done with you.

Wait you won the voting thread?  LOL.

[DGuller]

I've been to the voting thread.  Berkut's ass looked pretty intact from where I was. 

[Jacob]

Why not the obvious answer: they've disagreed with the nominees proposed?

Yeah, I think that's the case. However, since this has been going on since 2006 it seems fairly reasonable to conclude that the main disagreement is that any proposed director would lead the ATF in carrying out its appointed function.

[Admiral Yi]

I've been to the voting thread.  Berkut's ass looked pretty intact from where I was. 

What else are you going to say?  You were his freaking tag team partner.

[Berkut]

I've been to the voting thread.  Berkut's ass looked pretty intact from where I was. 

What else are you going to say?  You were his freaking tag team partner.

Yes, me and dguller are well known tag team partners on political topics. Why, we are practically interchangeable!

[DGuller]

I've been to the voting thread.  Berkut's ass looked pretty intact from where I was. 

What else are you going to say?  You were his freaking tag team partner.

Anyway, discussing other threads is neither here nor there, so let's go back to this discussion.  Would you at least concede that your arguments in this thread have at the very least been laughable and disingenuous?

[alfred russel]

Except they are not ok with enforcement - they try very hard to make it impossible to enforce completely valid laws.

So when they say "Hey, the government should not pass new laws, rather they should just enforce the existing laws" while at the same time the same people actively attempt to make it impossible to enforce existing laws, it is clear they are not actually operating in good faith. They are attempting to actively undermine the democratic process and the rule of law and the Constitution.

Which is utter hypocrisy, considering their fundamental war cry is supposedly a slavish devotion to the Constitution.

Of course, we all know they don't actually give two shits about the Constitution, they just really love their guns.

You ignored what I wrote.

I don't think it is hypocrisy to be against enforcing regulation, except as an alternative to additional legislation.

I also don't think you subvert democratic institutions (or its process) by working through them. I don't have a clue what the head of the ATF does, but assuming US law has been set up in such a way that certain laws are not enforceable if there isn't a head of US law, I don't see how you undermine democracy by working through elected representatives to keep there from being an ATF head.

[Berkut]

Your argument is that they've disagreed with every single nominee, and this isn't about simply blocking ANY nominee?

I don't believe for a moment that even you believe anything that obviously untrue.

Kay.

And I notice that once again you simply refuse to acknowledge most of my argument, and simply choose to respond to the smallest portion that you can make a (weak) stab at refuting.

Whatever.  You got ass-raped in the voting thread and pranced around like you were He-Man.  Not much different here.  I think I'm done with you.

So asking you to respond to what I post rather than ignore it is "prancing around like a he-man and getting ass raped"?

Yeah, you probably should be done with me if that is about your level of ability to respond to simple requests.

[Admiral Yi]

Anyway, discussing other threads is neither here nor there, so let's go back to this discussion.  Would you at least concede that your arguments in this thread have at the very least been laughable and disingenuous?

Discussing other threads is completely here and there.  In the other thread you were once again called out when you handed out insults while being in the wrong, and once again you failed to concede  or to retract your statements.

It's just no fun when you do that.

[Berkut]

Except they are not ok with enforcement - they try very hard to make it impossible to enforce completely valid laws.

So when they say "Hey, the government should not pass new laws, rather they should just enforce the existing laws" while at the same time the same people actively attempt to make it impossible to enforce existing laws, it is clear they are not actually operating in good faith. They are attempting to actively undermine the democratic process and the rule of law and the Constitution.

Which is utter hypocrisy, considering their fundamental war cry is supposedly a slavish devotion to the Constitution.

Of course, we all know they don't actually give two shits about the Constitution, they just really love their guns.

You ignored what I wrote.

I don't think it is hypocrisy to be against enforcing regulation, except as an alternative to additional legislation.

I also don't think you subvert democratic institutions (or its process) by working through them. I don't have a clue what the head of the ATF does, but assuming US law has been set up in such a way that certain laws are not enforceable if there isn't a head of US law, I don't see how you undermine democracy by working through elected representatives to keep there from being an ATF head.

The process of approving the head of various government agencies is not intended to be a means by which the the legislature can thwart the enforcement of perfectly valid laws they don't like. There are ways of dealing with laws Congress doesn't like, and in fact it is Congress who is responsible for doing so directly.

I do not at all agree that it is "working through democratic institutions" to simply interfere with the ability to organizations to function because you don't like the core function of the organization, but you know you lack the political ability to actually change or repeal that function.