Are you fucking kidding me?
Which part?
I’m not Sitnam, but I’m guessing he was referring to your contention that they’re at about the same level of magnitude.
Rush Limbaugh has been one of the major forces in conservatism for 20 years or so. There have been times when he’s arguably been the most significant voice on the right (remember when he was given credit by the GOP for their takeover of Congress in 1994?) and he’s not been out of the top 5 at any point during that span.
Moore has never had anything remotely like that sort of dominance on the left.
So who is the Rush Limbaugh of the left? What other big fat lying douche bags are there?
I simply can’t agree that Michael Moore is a hack. He has a deft hand at film making, and real sense of individual style. But, yes, he can be a tad bit dishonest.
The left doesn’t appear to HAVE any Rush Limbaughs, none of the lying douchebag entertainers are big enough.
Yes, by all measures of the word ‘caliber’ and by any degree of worth that matters in politics; intelligence, experience, rationality, debate skills.
If emacknight just meant that they’re comparable in political polarity he needs to turn off Hannity.
I wish someone would destroy the NRA. They give gun advocates a bad name, because they engage in the same kind of bullshit we’re taking O’Keefe and Moore to task for. I believe I started a thread a while back when they push-polled me about ‘Obama’s seekrit conspiruhcy with terr’ists to take our guns’.
The NRA is going to be “dead” soon enough, I suspect. Going back to the Heller decision in 2008, you may not have known this but they initially didn’t support it, all the way to the point of negotiating with DC elected officials to try to change the law so as to moot the lawsuit. They later reluctantly joined the lawsuit and filed some of their own after the decision was rendered, but it was a good look at the future of the NRA.
The problem is this: what happens when a single-issue lobbying group accomplishes their goal? How do you get people to continue to donate when they perceive that the job is done? With Heller in the bag and McDonald to be decided later this month which will Incorporate the 2nd Amendment along with the continued trend of states implementing “shall issue” CCW policies, donations will drop, maybe even plummet. If not now, it will happen soon enough with a few more victories in the courts when people see that the tide has turned to the point that the NRA isn’t really needed anymore.
But there’s something worse than winning here for the NRA, and that’s losing. If they had backed Heller and lost, they would be dead already. They backed McDonald. If the case turns out to be a loser (it won’t be, but…) they’ll be seen as ineffective and people will turn to other organizations like the GOA.
See the trouble they’re in now? Back when there was no chance of any sort of judicial review it was safe for them because they didn’t have to worry about winning or losing. They could simply point at the laws, say they were unjust, and lobby to change them. Futile or not, it was safe, and they could be seen to be doing something without the pressure of actually accomplishing anything because any positive change, however small, was seen as a victory.
Now that they do they are faced with two equally unattractive possibilities: Ultimate victory or crushing defeat. Down either road lies institutional death.
Sure, they’ll still be around 50 years from now, but a watchdog group is not the same as an activist group. I think you’ll find that the NRA 10 years from now will be much different than it is today or was 10 years ago.
Is the NRA of today much different than the NRA of 10 years ago?
I could not disagree more.
The NRA’s ILA may suffer the fate you claim. But the NRA was founded in 1871 as an organization to promote shooting sports. Hunter and youth education will remain as valuable functions as well. I have no trouble believing the watchdog function will remain as well, but that’s not the only thing the NRA is about.
It sounds lovely. 
At that point, they won’t really be the kind of organization (a lobbying organization similar to the ACLU) that most people seem to believe them to be, though. They’ll be out of the public eye again.
You just find something else to play up as a threat, or something else to get your donor base angry. It isn’t hard, it only takes a little creativity.
Bricker, I have two questions for you:
1.) Do you think conservatives that were critical of Moore were equally as critical of O’Keefe?
2.) If they had been as critical, would ACORN have been destroyed?
That’s ridiculous. Not the part about being full of shit–he can be, as can we all. The part about his credibility falling to that of SA. That’s ridiculous.
The NRA has a long way to go before they’ve won the right for a citizen to possess any weapon s/he wants to, and to carry it anywhere s/he wants to, including onto anyone’s private property where they’re otherwise welcome.
I’m sure the NRA will be with us as an activist group for a long time to come.
Dear Patriotic American:
As you know, we have totally won everything we could possibly ask for: nuns are packing heat, road rage is generally an armed confrontation, and the only restriction on gun sales remaining is the sales tax.
Won’t you contribute to help us overcome this unConstitutional infringement on your rights as an American citizen? Even as we speak, in thirty states, big government sales taxes threaten your Second Amendment rights, and we cannot rest until blather babble bullshit…
This hijack is getting worse all the time.
In all seriousness, about the time we get fifty-state shall-issue permit laws in place, probably trading it implicitly as we already have with “gun owners who want a permit have their names on a list that the government has”, the NRA is going to probably split into a group that acts like 'luci and others have described and a group that goes back to the original mission of the NRA (namely, advocacy for gun safety, gun training, and responsible ownership of guns). My bet is the latter group will be far larger based solely on the NRA members I actually know.
Not one of those is a goal of the NRA. Not one.