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Rubio: Iran Should Have 2nd Amendment Like Ours
There can be no doubt that the situation in Iran really does make all of us Americans appreciate the rights we take for granted in a functioning representative democracy. For Marco Rubio, the conservative candidate in the 2010 Florida Senate primary, that means...the right to bear arms.
Check out this post that Rubio put up on Twitter:
I have a feeling the situation in Iran would be a little different if they had a 2nd amendment like ours.
Now on the one hand, it is true that things would probably be different right now if Iranians were heavily armed. But a) this is just one of many rights they don't have, and b) don't American conservatives usually oppose the heavy arming of people in that part of the world?
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Of course American conservatives would oppose "heavy" (read: nukes) arming of people in the Middle East. If the Iranian government was so progressive as to guarantee the right to bear arms, they would not be on the cusp of a violent revolution.
June 22, 2009 11:16 AM | Reply | Permalink
...and b) don't American conservatives usually oppose the heavy arming of people in that part of the world?
Uh, no! St. Ronnie hisself sent guns to the Iranians. History, Eric, you might want to learn some!
Yes, I am kidding.
June 22, 2009 11:16 AM | Reply | Permalink
No, I think conservatives believe as a matter of ideology that wherever people are armed, the government will be limited, and therefore support the population as a whole being armed pretty much everywhere. It's a non-stupid position that people with lots of weapons are harder to organize and thus oppress than people who are unarmed. Certainly, when it comes to genocide, it's very hard to systematically massacre people if there are a decent number of weapons dispersed among a civilian population.
Of course, that advantage has a corresponding disadvantage: when people are armed, they become harder to organize and therefore the possibility of anarchic ethnic violence that we've seen in Iraq, Lebanon, Palestine, etc. become more of a problem.
But anyway, I don't begrudge Rubio for this statement. Frankly, it's one of the least stupid things a Republican has said about Iran thus far.
June 22, 2009 11:22 AM | Reply | Permalink
I'm sorry, but seriously, a disorganized bunch of civilians with pop-guns would pose some sort of challenge to the Iranian state security apparatus? You must be joking. This isn't a colonial Imperials vs. Insurgents type situation, where the state must maintain a transatlantic supply chain or something. The state would crush an armed insurgency, just as it would here. I'm so freakin' sick of hearing macho gun nuts boast about "Oh, Uncle Sam better not gimme any guff or I'll pop 'im one with my trusty pea shooter." No, dumbass, Uncle Sam will vaporize your testoserone-addled tushie.
The situation here is one in which an autocratic regime, under internal and external pressures, has abandoned any pretense of popular legitimacy and is trying to persevere by basically tiring out and intimidating the opposition. The beauty of non-violent resistance is that it exposes the amorality of the autocracy and, if it can hold out long enough, the cops and soldiers start putting down their guns and crossing lines. The danger is that the state just goes all Tiananmen on the demonstrators, the protests dwindle down to nothing, and the regime carries on, battered and despised but sufficiently feared to survive.
June 22, 2009 11:55 AM | Reply | Permalink
Under Saddam, every household was allowed to have an AK-47 and most did. A fact which pretty much blows the conservative theory of the 2d Amendment all to hell.
June 22, 2009 12:10 PM | Reply | Permalink
I just don't get his tweet. It makes no sense.
Because we have misintrepted the 2nd ammendment in modern times to now mean that ALL citizens have the right to carry guns, what does that have to do with rioting in the streets?
NOTHING!
Is Rubio saying that in the U.S. the people in the streets would be firing back at security forces with their own guns??
June 22, 2009 11:25 AM | Reply | Permalink
Has Rubio forgotten about our 2000 election? Why did we not descend into armed conflict if that 2nd Amendment is what keeps our elections fair and honest?
June 22, 2009 11:26 AM | Reply | Permalink
Not to mention the demonstration of the civil rights era in which peaceful protests were violently supressed. Oh wait, Rubio is probably too young to remember that. But then in the Conserviverse, History doesn't happen until they've had a chance to rewrite it.
June 22, 2009 11:40 AM | Reply | Permalink
Kent State.
June 22, 2009 12:16 PM | Reply | Permalink
The losing side didn't bust out the guns in 2000 because barely any of us silly democrats own one, thankfully!
How can chaotic violence ever be a better choice than peaceful demonstrations? I just pray the Iranian leaders wise up!
June 22, 2009 1:41 PM | Reply | Permalink
Michael Moore: So do you think that every American citizen should have the right to own a nuclear weapon?
James Nichols: Hell no! There's a lot of crazy people out there!
-Bowling for Columbine
June 22, 2009 11:35 AM | Reply | Permalink
I have a feeling the situation in Iran would be different right now if the opposition and the protesters were as feckless and stupid as the current GOP.
June 22, 2009 11:38 AM | Reply | Permalink
Mr. Rubio, you also have the right to remain silent .... use it.
June 22, 2009 11:42 AM | Reply | Permalink
Okay, as a Minnesotan I have no second Senator because Norman Coleman is dragging the election through the courts. I can't see how it would help if I climbed up on a roof with my .243 and started picking off Republicans? But if its for the good of my state and country...
June 22, 2009 12:20 PM | Reply | Permalink
What's absurd is extrapolating all kinds of non-analoguous references to America, just to make political hay.
June 22, 2009 12:24 PM | Reply | Permalink
I have a feeling that US civil rights movement would have been quite different had the minorities expressed their 2nd amendment rights.
June 22, 2009 12:28 PM | Reply | Permalink
As always, in the addled conservative brain, everything that happens elsewhere in the world is still somehow all about us.
June 22, 2009 12:40 PM | Reply | Permalink
So is he saying we would have been within our rights to launch an armed rebellion when his party stole the 2000 and 2004 elections?
June 22, 2009 12:42 PM | Reply | Permalink
That's exactly what I have been thinking over the last few days as Republicans have been coming out talking about how horrible it is not to stand up to a stolen election, quite sure they don't see even a bit of irony in their sentiments.
June 22, 2009 1:01 PM | Reply | Permalink
Let's see here, the Second Amendment calls for the arming of a well-regulated militia. Tell me how that does not already apply to Iran?
June 22, 2009 12:47 PM | Reply | Permalink
Isn’t funny how neocons are only conerned about human rights when they want to invade? They are so disingenuous, and will do and say anything to get us involved in another war over resources.
Perfect example of this is neocon, Dan Senor saying that Democrats hated Reagan more than Communism, when he was comparing the Velvet Revolution to what’s going on in Iran today.
http://progressnotcongress.org/?p=1875
June 22, 2009 12:55 PM | Reply | Permalink
Dan Senor was so smug this morning, wasn't he? Were you watching as Mika was questioning his reasoning and he had this look on his face like she was some complete idiot (OK, I know I'm opening myself up here and, yes she can be sometimes) who was not even deserving of an answer. I wanted to reach through the TV and slap him.
June 22, 2009 1:05 PM | Reply | Permalink
How does he know what the gun laws are in Iran? I thought everyone could have weapons there. That's why there is the wing-nut volunteer militia beating up people for I-need-a dinner-jacket.
June 22, 2009 12:59 PM | Reply | Permalink
Since they have gotten so good at it, I'm wondering if Iran would be willing to help us shut down Republican Twittering? Those Republicans really put the Twit in Twitter, don't they?
June 22, 2009 1:08 PM | Reply | Permalink
Rubio is wrong, as are others who agree with him.
The only reason the protests have been as successful as they have been is that they are explicitly non violent. This has, so far, prevented the state from using the full force of their security apparatus. When they have used excessive force it appears to outsiders to be disproportional and unjustified. That is what martyrdom is all about.
If the protesters turn to guns and violence, as Rubio suggests would be the better solution, the playing field would be leveled and the Iranian state would turn these protests into bloodbaths. A lot of people would die and the regime would very likely come out of it even stronger than before.
June 22, 2009 1:14 PM | Reply | Permalink
What a horse's behind, but wait, he is a conservative republican, isn't he ? Do these fools really believe that their home defence small arms would kick the shit out of the US military ? Are they really that stupid ?
June 22, 2009 1:39 PM | Reply | Permalink
To today's conservatives, there's no problem that can't be solved with more guns.
June 22, 2009 1:45 PM | Reply | Permalink
... more guns and more tax cuts for rich people! Everything is ass-backward in conservative minds. The trouble is they are not just stupid but malicious. With the absolute carnage of Iraq going on year after year, with their heavily armed militias, you would think the conservatives would pause before dreaming up another shit storm ..... but no.
June 22, 2009 3:09 PM | Reply | Permalink
Iran's minority populations are armed as a matter of fact, heavily armed
June 22, 2009 2:04 PM | Reply | Permalink
What is it about Republicans and Twitter that makes thinking and tweeting mutually exclusive?
June 22, 2009 2:10 PM | Reply | Permalink
Anyone think any of this grassroots Iranian rebellion would have happened if the neo-cons had bombed (or worse yet, invaded) Iranian territory?
They would have seen the same unity behind Ahmadinijahd that we saw supporting Junior after 9/11. Much to our detriment, granted, but evidence of what happens when the outside attacks a real nation (as opposed to Afghanistan, which is basically an outline on a globe, but that's another story.)
The additional text here would be that Republicans just don't learn from history (hey there, Dr. Newt,) or from other people's mistakes.
Hell, they don't even learn from their own...
(Again, hey there, Doc!)
June 22, 2009 2:20 PM | Reply | Permalink
Exactly! If McCain won the election and was beating his chest and screaming for blood, the Iranians would rally behind their conservative idiot just like America did after 911. The truth is that their conservative theocracy just stole their election the same way we had ours stolen in 2000. Conservatives would get us all killed if they could. Bring it on, Jesus is coming back soon anyway ....
June 22, 2009 3:16 PM | Reply | Permalink
Translation: The Republicans want Iran to be more like Iraq.
June 22, 2009 2:30 PM | Reply | Permalink
Based on the logic of these comments Rubio would have preferred to be up in the Mountains in Cuba fifty years ago fighting against what was then viewed as an oppressive government.
June 22, 2009 3:30 PM | Reply | Permalink