Why are knife people conservative?

Hmmm...

Pointy things, pointy words and politics have a way of becoming bedfellows, as pointy things/words are often used for power.

I always thought that right/left, conservative/liberal, communist/fascist/imperialist/?ist were all terms that news media/governments use to categorize and polarize people, encouraging fights to sell more papers/get support. I am only half-joking here: Those are pointy words! All of them are used to get and maintain power.

I think you'll find that most people resent being labeled. It is way to easy to tape up the box, put it on a shelf and forget what was really inside it once that box is tagged.

Labelling is a way of dismissing people and their opinions. Avoid it like the plague.


:) Have a nice day!

PS: IIIIII GOT A NEW KHUUUU-KURI!!!!, NYAAAHHH nah na NAAAAH nah!
:D :D :D
 
I will proudly tell the world my politics are left of center. That does not preclude me from enjoying both guns and knives and supporting everybody's right to own same. Anyone who makes blanket statements about what liberals or conservatives are like (e.g. conservatives are thoughtful and self-sufficient) may be dismissed as simply spewing rote doctrine picked up from talk radio, the web, etc.
 
Scumpup,

I beg to differ. Granted there are exceptions to every rule, but my experience has been that those who are self-reliant are overwhelmingly either Libertarian or Conservative. (Heavy emphasis on the former) Those considering themselves Liberals and yet are self-reliant and support Second Amendment Rights are, in my book at least, closet Libertarians or Conservatives.
 
Doesn't it make you wish we had a GOOD, STRONG 3rd party? I do.
Click to expand...

And so do I! I call myself a conservative and vote Republican, but have never felt comfortable associating myself with the party of the "Robber Barons". We sure could use a third party like Pat Buchanan has tried to start, with conservative social values but sympathetic to the middle and working classes on economic issues.

Both of the major political parties in this country are run by elitists of one sort or another, and such people don't like the idea of ordinary people owning weapons, because it threatens their power.
Don't forget that even Ronald Reagan came out against assault rifles.
I think what unites all of us who believe in the right to own guns and knives is a belief in freedom for all people, and not just priviledges for the elites.
 
one45auto,
Being concerned about the welfare of one's fellow man does not preclude self-sufficiency.
If I may make a serious suggestion, this year during the holiday season sit down and watch every version of "A Christmas Carol" that airs on television. Pay particular attention to Scrooge's grumbling about whether or not there were workhouses enough. You see, many people I have known who thought of themselves as "conservative" were merely...greedy.
 
Welfare for one's fellow man is a noble ideal, however the execution of those ideals is often flawed, and terribly so. One of the most basic tenents of liberal philosophy is the redistribution of wealth. That is to say, taking money from one class of people ~ against their will, mind you, through forced taxation ~ and giving it to those whom the Government and/or liberal elitists feel is more worthy or deserving. To oppose this principle is to be instantly deemed "greedy" or "uncaring", yet I hardly feel that wishing to keep one's money for use in providing for oneself is the definition of greed. After all, it's your money and you alone should decide how best to employ it. If you wish to donate a portion of it to a charity then that's your perogative, but no one should force you to do so. That goes against every principle this country was founded upon.

The same is true for community service. Voluntary service yes ~ by all means. However forced volunteerism (such as a program they are trying to start here in Maryland requiring community service in order to graduate and receive your High School diploma) is equivalent to conscription or indentured servitude ~ slavery, even. If someone does not wish to spoon soup at the local homeless shelter then leave them be. That's their decision to make, not mine or yours and certainly not a bunch of politicians.


Conservatives are often criticized for being uncaring, yet consider the Biblical proverb "give a man a fish and feed him for a day, teach a man to fish and feed him for a lifetime." Liberals want, out of sympathy, to give them their daily fish while most Conservatives want to teach them to fish. Sure, they'll have grumbling stomachs as they learn but once they can catch fish on their own they'll never be hungry again. Now, which approach is the more compassionate? Temporary gratification or long term survival?

Another useful expression to remember is "the road to hell is paved with good intentions" because the road to tyranny is also paved with the same asphalt. Each and every reduction in freedom proposed by liberals has the same motivation ~ to protect us from harm or to make our lives more "secure." To "help" us, whether or not we need or want it. No matter what the issue, the solution is always the same ~ more regulation, more laws, and more Government involvement in our lives because they, at least according to the liberals, know best.

Now I'm not saying this is what you believe, scumpup, because I don't know you. I'm speaking more in general terms based on my experience with liberals to date. Now I know what a liberal is like because I used to be one myself. Oh yes, as hard as it is for some of my current friends to believe I was once a dyed-in-the-wool liberal Democrat. However like you, I never shared their stance on knives or gun control. Yet ever so slowly I began to examine the liberal point of view in the light of reason and the more I thought the less their arguments added up until eventually I left the Democratic party.
 
I haven't read every reply, so I know not if anything I say has been covered. So here goes...

I consider myself more Libertarian than the other choices. That said I vote almost the party line Republican. They ain't nowhere even NEAR perfect, in fact far from it. But in the case of two evils I feel they are the lesser.

I could and perhaps even should be on welfare. Suprised? I don't EVEN agree with the R line on Porn, and I am STAUNCHLY Pro GUN, Pro KNIFE, and ANTI BIG GOVERNMENT!

Someone said the 'Liberals' care about the homeless and womens issues. Yep, care. As long as they can spend MY money to help everything is just hunky dory.

I give whatever I can to charity. It ain't much, but I am a clockwork blood donor. Every six weeks on the dot!

A liitle knife content. I used my several day old SAK mini champ to cut my new SAK Tinker out of the clamshell tonite.

And just perhaps, this thread SHOULD be in the political forum....
 
Let me address a couple attitudes/opinions that I have seen among those from the right wing and show how I see those same issues in terms of left-wing politics:
1. "Taking MY money and giving it to somebody else is wrong." Actually, what most right wingers seem to object to is how the money is spent. Military expenditures are OK and prisons are OK, but "welfare" is not OK. Don't start down this road unless you are willing to support the idea of no taxation/government spending whatsoever, because the real issue is that you want to spend money on prisons when I would prefer to spend it on daycare programs. If it is wrong to steal it and give it to a "welfare queen" then it is wrong to steal it and give it to General Dynamics.
2. "The government puts unfair restrictions on business through unconstitutional agencies like the FDA and EPA." American big businessmen did not, historically, behave in a moral, ethical, and equitable fashion. That is what led to the formation of regulatory agencies in the first place. There is no reason to believe that if those agencies and their regulations were made null and void, that Corporate America would behave any better today. When you have large amounts of wealth at stake, moral and ethical considerations tend to take a back seat to greed. (Enron ring a bell?) There are those on the right who would counter that in a true free market system, the invisible hand of the market would drive such companies out of business. I'm not sure that is the case at all, but let's say it is. The problem is that the invisible hand acts AFTER the company has done harm. I don't want to wait until a bunch of folks are poisoned by tainted food to have a meat packing company driven out of business. I prefer to have them subject to periodic inspection of their premises and product. The same is true for environmental concerns. I prefer to regulate pollution, rather than wait for a whole town to be mercury poisoned and then let the market deal with it.
3. "We need to go back to having mandatory military service in this country because..." I find it amusing that right wingers, whose media icons like to spout about personal liberty, find no problem in pointing a gun at somebody's head and enslaving him to the government. Make no mistake about it, military conscription is slavery.
I could go on like this on many more topics, but I'll stop here. I came to this board to talk knives, not politics. I try to avoid demonizing my political opponents and hagiography of my allies. Civil discourse, without the red-faced-and-sputtering rhetoric that has become the norm on both sides, is the only way anything substantive is ever going to get done on important issues.
 
Rather than conservative or liberal I would prefer to think of us who respect weapons as people who can think for themselves and are in general in favor of individual rights and freedom.

I don't find many conservatives, liberals, Democrats, or Republicans in government in favor of supporting more individual freedom at the expense of their power.

I'm old enough to remember that John Kennedy was a staunch supporter of an individual's rights to own firearms. Too bad his brother Ted's mind has been pickled or he might remember that as well.
 
There have been plenty of good points made here about what is wrong with both Democrats and Republicans. What we need is an alternative to both, and Pat Buchanan is the guy to give it to us. He combines the good features of conservatism and liberalism, and throws out the bad. Scumpup, it is possible to have a government that looks out for the little guy, but also preserves individual freedoms, protects citizens from crime, and supports family values. Pat Buchanan is the guy who knows how to do it.
 
I'm a strange conglomeration of 'right' and 'left', so much so that voting is very difficult for me. I am basically selling out important issues either way....
 
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