Abortion and gun control. Two of the hot button issues in our society that just don't seem to want to go away. After all these years we don't seem to have made much progress in solving them. How is it that we haven't been able to find any common ground on these issues?
Most people think of these issues all wrong. People identify as either pro-choice or pro-life, for or against gun control. These labels are only stopping us from finding common ground. Let's look at the gun control issue first and see where we are going wrong.
First we need to make a change in definition. We are not really talking about gun control, we are talking about weapons control. I would venture a guess that nearly everybody is in favor of weapons control of some kind or another, I imagine that if you found out that your neighbor had a small nuclear bomb in his basement that you would promptly notify the authorities. I would probably wait to hear the story of how the hell he got the thing in the first place, but I digress. I think I am also probably right in assuming that nobody is in favor of outlawing box cutters. Yet we all know that given the right scenario those can be as deadly as guns. So the question isn't whether we want our government to control deadly weapons, I think we all clearly do. The question is where to draw the line. If knives are okay, what about swords? If a rifle is okay for hunting what about a semi-automatic rifle that clearly is never used for hunting? What about grenades? explosives? machetes? RPG's? guided missiles? An aircraft with a 30 millimeter high explosive gun? I think you get the point.
The truth is that most of us would agree on this issue when applied to almost any conceivably deadly weapon, except guns. Guns fall somewhere near the middle of the deadly weapon spectrum. They are certainly deadly but they also have practical uses, and they sure are fun to use.
The abortion issue presents a similar problem. I highly recommend this article by Carl Sagan and Ann Druyan which explains the problems with thinking of abortion as a black white issue. To summarize, basically think of it like this. Almost all of us would agree that birth control is not murder. We would probably also all agree that aborting a full-term baby is murder. The question is at what point does potential human life become actual human life. It is not an easy question to answer, but polarizing ourselves into two camps that seem completely opposite of each other is not any kind of solution.
We live in a pluralistic society. One in which we are going to disagree in issues. The solution is to throw away the black and white thinking that we love so much and move into the grey areas.
An open discussion of mormonism, religion and atheism, science, and philosophy.
I've thought for a very long time that the "silent majority", "middle America", etc. that politicians and pundits pretend to understand are truly moderate and in the middle.
ReplyDeleteI believe the majority if asked would hate to see abortion used as contraception but draw the line at criminalizing Mothers and Doctors for decisions that are none of our business.
On the subject of gun control I believe moderate America hates to see automatic weapons or other mass attack weapons available for the use of public harm, but lack the trust in the government authority to disarm a public, even in a limited manner, that declared the right to bear arms against a despot government if necessary.
I find it very interesting that some of the values we hold dear in this country come from our Declaration of independence and not the Constitution. I think that our perception of what is right and raises debate over your topics sometimes comes from our declaration of rights and not our laws.
Thanks for daring to talk objectively about whats on your mind. If ever I disagree, know that I would fight for your right to do so.
I think a key point is that we have much more common ground than anybody seems to want to acknowledge.
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