The Second Ammendment Lobby and Police Safety

[AmericanPride]

So, this post serves two purposes. First, I proved that I can quote myself

Second, it reminds me of the Davis J-Curve. Chances are you either don't know it or don't like it, but it seems clearly applicable here. The Davies J-Curve is a theory of revolution. It basically states that people will revolt when they have been gaining ground socially and then those gains turn into loses. The people get angry and revolt. Now, I do believe that, as originally proposed, it was too expansive and attempted to be able to explain all situations. BUT, I do think is has some interesting things to offer when we look at why Americans suddenly feel the need to attack their own government with such zeal.

http://www.popularsocialscience.com/...f-revolutions/

Not sure of the applicability of this theory to the American condition. Let's be frank: the anti-government movement is dominated by white, Christian, generally older, males, mostly but not exclusively from rural communities and to some extent suburbs. The News-tainment likes to point out the one or two black Sons of Confederate Veterans but that's really just anecdotal political showmanship. The struggle for political power in America has chiefly been rooted in the pursuit of emancipation; expanding the franchise to women, to immigrants, to minorities, and so on. And that struggle continues today. But power is relative and where one group gains, another loses. The design of Congress and the mechanisms of the electoral system mean that rural communities - those most distant from the rapid changes of America - have the most disproportionate influence on policy. And there are code words to which these communities respond most passionately as basis of their cultural paradigm; "takers" means social welfare and that in turns mean urbanites and urban minorities; not tax breaks or corporate assistance or even farm subsidies. The "real America" according to Sarah Palin are the minority of Americans that live in rural communities, not the 250 million that live in or near urban areas (i.e. 3/4 of Americans live on ~3% of the land area). So this intensification of politics is not a reversal of fortune but the last gasp of a cultural segment losing its long-held political privilege as the political system catches up with the urban-metropolitan transformation of the country.

Who was the target during the Superbowl commercial two years ago about farmers and their "godly" work? Farmers make up less than 1% of the American population but someone (I forgot who made the commercial) forked over a couple million dollars for a five minute commercial for this tiny fraction of Americans. Someone like Ted Nugent can go on the air live and flatly use racial epithets about the President during a political campaign and that's seen as constructive for the campaign. There's a long history of right-wing populist movement in rural America - most notably the KKK especially at its height at the start of the 20th century, but most recently the sovereign citizen movement, the militia movement, and yes, even the Tea Party. My point is that there's a significant distance between the size of groups in America and their political representation; but that's changing and that change is what's driving the fear.