the frustrating thing is that, as we import american views towards guns, we also seem to be importing an american political spectrum around gun control, and that's something that should be resisted as strongly as anything else.

in the united states, you get the choice between a conservative party (the democrats) and a nihilist party (the republicans). the republicans are, of course, the historical american liberal party - not the democrats. but, in some kind of bizarre ode to nietszche, american liberalism collapsed into depravity in the middle part of the last century, leaving americans with this mirage that the democrats are some kind of liberal party, which has no basis in reality, not in the past and not today. so, when the democrats push what it is actually a right-wing approach to gun control, americans have nothing to contrast it with besides the pro-nra nihilism of the republican party, which of course grew out of the constitutional right to bear arms - a very liberal idea.

in canada, we're supposed to have a broader spectrum. liberals have historically supported things like gun registries (which was the original response to the montreal massacre), while pushing back against strict gun control - which is, by definition, illiberal. and, we're supposed to have a party on the left that argues for things like social policies and poverty reduction - that understands the need to get to root causes. that's all in flux, right now.

so, let's recall.

1) leftists seek to get at the root causes of crime. and, because most leftists are social liberals, they also reject authoritarian social policies. so, being a leftist means that you want to address gun violence by funding social programs, and fighting to eradicate poverty and social exclusion. the desired end point is a society where nobody wants a gun, anyways. that's the left. that's where i am. and, if you want people to voluntarily give their guns away because they just don't want them any more, that's where you are, too.

2) liberals uphold the capitalist status quo, but seek the establishment of regulatory bodies to curb what they consider to be destructive behaviour. so, they believe in the stock market - they just want to police it. and, they believe in corporate governance - they just want to regulate it. likewise, liberals support gun ownership, but want to pass what they see as reasonable restrictions to curb destructive behaviour. this is where the liberal party used to sit. so, if you find yourself in favour of gun rights, but want regulations around it, you're a liberal.

3) conservatives believe in law and order through the establishment of authoritarian laws, and the enforcement of hierarchical systems of control - and not just via law enforcement, but via religion and the media and etc. they want a system that operates from the top down. they believe in deterrence, in punishment, in retribution - in harsh justice. generally, they believe in god, and that the government acts on the command of god. a real conservative would argue that only the police should have guns, because that is their correct place in the hierarchy - everything in it's right place. regular people should only be given guns when they are conscripted for war time. so, a conservative would argue for very strict gun control, because it believes in a strictly ordered system. and, if that is what you want, you are a conservative.

4) then, there are the nihilists and relativists that just don't give a fuck. everything has a price. can i make money from guns? then i support guns! but, can i make more from gun control? then i support gun control. whatever. the modern republican party has darker undertones to it, but they ultimately have no actual political position on guns besides that which is most profitable to them. somebody like donald trump has no real position on this topic, other than the one that is most profitable in the short term.

i know that americans want to see this in black and white, and that's a problem. we've historically been better than that. and, we should be focusing more on getting americans to see the wider picture, not collapsing into their broken binary.

if we end up with the same choice between conservatism and nihilism/relativism, we will be on the path to becoming them - a tragedy we must avoid.

https://www.vice.com/en_ca/article/vbj738/danforthshooting-toronto-wants-more-gun-control-will-it-work

what we should strive towards is a society where people don't want to own guns, not one where they're not allowed to.

listen.

i'm a libertarian/socialist - i don't like banning things. i like social programs, cultural revolutions, agit prop, community organizing, etc. and, i participated in english class, so i like it when people explain their answers, and back up their arguments. so, when your kid does something wrong, do you explain why it's wrong and why they shouldn't do it, or do you just order them not to "because"? that is the difference between a left-wing approach to guns, which gets to root causes and tries to alter attitudes and behaviours, and a right-wing approach to guns, which just orders you around - ironically, by gun point.

so, as a leftist, i have ideological problems with this authoritarian idea of banning anything at all.that's not liberalism. liberals don't ban things. conservatives ban things.

but, it's an empirical question as to whether it works or not, and it doesn't.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/i-used-to-think-gun-control-was-the-answer-my-research-told-me-otherwise/2017/10/03/d33edca6-a851-11e7-92d1-58c702d2d975_story.html

again: i have little opposition to this, but don't be surprised when it doesn't actually work.

you don't solve problems by passing decrees, you need to get to root causes. and, the root cause here is a creeping americanization in our culture that is increasingly glorifying gun use.

i mean, we just legalized marijuana because we realized that banning it doesn't work in reducing use, you need to get to root causes, instead. now, they want to ban guns? there's an incoherence in policy underlying this.

if you want to actually solve this problem - rather than work up your political base - you take a data-driven approach, not get trigger happy on authoritarian policies that don't work.

https://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2018/12/06/trudeau-says-government-will-limit-access-to-handguns-assault-weapons-on-anniversary-of-ecole-polytechnique-shooting.html

so, i'll be planning to pick this back up on sunday and file the following things on monday or tuesday.

- civil case
- human rights complaint
- a court motion seeking the release of the original time-stamped document, as well as any local and network computer records documenting access of it locally or remotely. i will need to cite my previous statements as evidence that the audio was doctored and push the point as aggressively as possible (as i cannot allow them to present the audio as evidence that my statements are untrustworthy). if i cannot recover the original audio, i must create enough uncertainty around the sanctity of the altered audio to have it inadmissible. we'll see how good they are at this. they weren't very good at editing what i got, so i think this is an amateur job...

i'll need to make some calls in the morning, too.

right now, i'm going to get up and eat and do laundry.

yeah.

i need to keep pushing for the release, but i should assume, in the end, that i end up more likely to prove that the files have been altered - and are not useful for future court purposes - than i am to actual recover any original files.

see, now i have a problem i have to push to the end point that i can push it - i have stated that certain things happened in the court room, then purchased a transcript and received audio in order to demonstrate it, only to have it suggest otherwise. i claim i'm being given altered audio; it must be assumed that the transcriptionist was given the same thing. but, on it's face, this harms my credibility as a witness. and, it doesn't help that there are - unfounded - accusations of mental illness.

if they're going to change the audio, they're going to change the file stamps, and there's hacks to do it, so that's not even really what i'm looking for. i'm going to be looking for local computer logs - or network traffic, potentially. i don' know how or where this data is stored, and am probably unlikely to get access to that information, directly. but, if i show up in a court and make these accusations, they're going to have to take me seriously - and i'm going to have little choice but to push the point fairly aggressively, to maintain my own credibility.

this is why you shouldn't lie, kids.

should i be posting this here? well, i may be giving them a heads up, but i think i'm better off documenting the point as best i can than i am holding my cards closely. i can make arguments for future purposes, but, in the end, i have little control over decisions made by the court, so there's not a lot of use in hiding my tactics - i will need to expose any plan before i can carry through with it. rather, i'm an advocate of open source software, and trust that the truth comes out in the end, if the process is as transparent as possible.