This question reminds me of the comment by Jocelyn Elders, a Surgeon General under Commissar Clinton who said, "we must make safer guns and safer bullets." She was serious.
To your niece, knives are evil and the sharpness is part of the evil.
A weapon is dangerous by definition!
I suggest that you give your niece a knife.
I have a nephew who had been brain-washed about hunting until I took him.
This last weekend we took a management doe and watched a beautiful 10 point buck walk 30 yards from us. We sat in 10 foot tripods in 29 degree weather. He loved it.
M.
knives aren't evil. even liberals know that. I am a college student at a university regularly ranked as one of the most liberal schools in the country, even a hippie school. We have a holiday devoted to the consumption of lsd, and on april 20th the entire student body gathers on a hill in the middle of the campus to smoke weed starting at around noon, and lingering until dinner time. At 4:20 on april 20th, someone with an air-horn blows really loudly, then there is a gread deal of screaming and clapping and bubbling of bongwater.
I include myself among "the liberals" at my university. My point is that we tend to have a better grasp on the issues than people give us credit for, and probably better then those people have themselves. When you say Commissar Clinton, I know you aren't seriously trashing him. I whole-heartedly agree that gun control is necessary, and at this point in time even deficient. The truth is that guns have a time and a place. Collecting them is perfectly acceptable, but should only be done by those who can do so safely (i.e. without children playing with them). Owning guns to use for certain things is also fine; if target shooting is a hobby, great. If you hunt deer, fine. But gun laws arent meant to target or limit these activities. The kinds of legal reforms that are needed would be aimed at inner cities. Limiting the damage caused by gang warfare is objectively good, there can be no argument against that. If the cost of doing this is making automatic weapons like uzis, or assault rifles, or any military spec killing machines illegal, then so be it. You can still hunt with your hunting rifle and carry a pistol for target practice or whatever.
Also, the government should limit the use of guns to responsible adults. A three-day background check is a positive thing, and limiting public access to guns as much as possible is a goal that should be embraced, not feared. Gun control does not mean depriving you of your constitutional right to bear arms, it merely qualifies that right by saying: you may bear arms IF you follow all the other rules, and IF you have not proven yourself incapable of abiding by the rules.
So that this won't turn into a political debate (because I know I'm outnumbered on this forum) I will say nothing about the golden era of Clinton, nor of the bush administration. I will only say this:
There are people who have the public good in mind, and people who have their own interests in mind. The most important traits for a politician to have are, as Jefferson said, a disinterested (meaning non-biased, not bored) perspective; and the ability to put the public good above else, even if that means subuordinating his best interests to the good of the people. If you dislike a politician for being self-interested (tantamount to corrupt) then you have good grounds to do so. However, if you disagree with his beliefs, so long as his and yours are sincere, then just because he may not represent your beliefs is not necessarily so bad. If I had to choose between someone who sincerely believed that one path was best for everyone and someone who clearly put his own welfare above the rest, then even if I disagreed with the sincere man, I would choose him over the man who wanted to do what I want him to do, but only because it served his ambitions. Simply put, whether you agree with Bush or Clinton's policies, consider their motives behind the policies and ask who does this help, who should it help, and why do they support this? Does Iraq pose an immediate threat, or did it ever? Why does the UN disagree with Bush, and couldn't they have a point? Ultimately, if you must sacrifice your right to an M-16 so that the government can more easily prevent dangerous people from acquiring one, then isn't that sacrifice worth the public good that comes from it?
"To your niece, knives are evil and the sharpness is part of the evil.
A weapon is dangerous by definition!"
Knives aren't evil, and the dangerous nature of a weapon warrants no moral judgment. Whether your knives are sharp or blunt also doesnt matter. You collect knives. You prefer them sharp. Why keep them sharp? you think that's how they should be, and that's not wrong, but one could also take the stance that keeping them blunt makes them safer to handle and better suited to collecting if they aren't intended for hard use. I personally dont agree with that, but if someone does, it doesnt mean that they are wrong either, or that one belief is more correct than the other.
got off on a bit of a tangent there, but yeah. Just because someone disagrees with or doesnt understand your point of view doesnt make them "brainwashed," or wrong. Two people with the same goal can disagree on the means of accomplishing it, but so long as the goal is compatible and both persons fully informed, some compromise can always be found.
