Washington Post Article Challenges Us: Who Do We Like Less -- Bloomberg or Gun Nuts?

• The problem, folks, is that Bloomberg represents a philosophy inimical to the worth of the individual. His is a history of arrogance lecturing the peasants, and of unprincipled political manipulations. The NRA represents its members - a collective or union, in progressive terms - to stem the tide against efforts to derange an individual right. It may not be a right you personally value, and imagine to be antiquated, but the spirit viviated by it is still as essential as that which motivates all other natural rights. Those who oppose the anti-gun crowd do it to remind people that they can't abdicate their personal safety to the collective, because that's the same as entrusting your life to pure chance. Like everything else in your life - earning a living, having a constructive relationship with your partner, raising your kids right, contributing to your community and those in need - the results depend upon your preparation and your actions, and not upon someone magically riding to the rescue just when you happen to need it. I strongly suspect those behind the pistol permit equivalence bill had no expectation that strongly anti-personal-protection cities like New York, Boston and Chicago would roll over and comply. The expectation was, at best, that it would spark a national debate about the proper boundary between the interests of the state, and the right and responsibility for self preservation. I grew up in the 1960's, the son of a white mother and black father, and was a part of the civil rights zeitgeist. It's sad that so many moderns, who would gladly walk with a sign at a civil rights march, support every natural right enumerated in the Bill of Rights except for that embodied in the 2nd - and then even rail *against* that important right.

• The problem, folks, is that Bloomberg represents a philosophy inimical to the worth of the individual. His is a history of arrogance lecturing the peasants, and of unprincipled political manipulations. The NRA represents its members - a collective or union, in progressive terms - to stem the tide against efforts to derange an individual right. It may not be a right you personally value, and imagine to be antiquated, but the spirit viviated by it is still as essential as that which motivates all other natural rights. Those who oppose the anti-gun crowd do it to remind people that they can't abdicate their personal safety to the collective, because that's the same as entrusting your life to pure chance. Like everything else in your life - earning a living, having a constructive relationship with your partner, raising your kids right, contributing to your community and those in need - the results depend upon your preparation and your actions, and not upon someone magically riding to the rescue just when you happen to need it. I strongly suspect those behind the pistol permit equivalence bill had no expectation that strongly anti-personal-protection cities like New York, Boston and Chicago would roll over and comply. The expectation was, at best, that it would spark a national debate about the proper boundary between the interests of the state, and the right and responsibility for self preservation. I grew up in the 1960's, the son of a white mother and black father, and was a part of the civil rights zeitgeist. It's sad that so many moderns, who would gladly walk with a sign at a civil rights march, support every natural right enumerated in the Bill of Rights except for that embodied in the 2nd - and then even rail *against* that important right.

• The only thing I hate worse than Michael Bloomberg is the NRA - and Rudy Guiliani. I actually wish the mayor well in this particular battle.

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