The Politics Of Gene Wolfe

Craig Brewer · 18 Mar 2009, 03:50 · from 2009-March.txt.gz

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From: cnbrewer at yahoo.com (Craig Brewer)
Date: Tue, 17 Mar 2009 20:50:57 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: (urth) The Politics Of Gene Wolfe
References: <404335.12840.qm at web32405.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
	<355245.30897.qm at web37601.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
	<11723.67.142.130.31.1237347649.squirrel at brunians.org>
Message-ID: <233313.3358.qm at web37601.mail.mud.yahoo.com>

Brunians,

You personally may want guns to protect you from the government, but it's much more commonly argued that self-defense or home/property defense is why we should have guns. I'm not saying that's right or wrong, I'm just saying that gun lobby usually seems to push that idea in their vocal and public arguments more than that we have to fear an evil government.

That said, I agree about your point of the inherent racism in some of the anti-gun lobby. But that's just another example of my point that the gun argument is usually an excuse to argue about other "hidden" issues.

As for this:
>>>
Your further representations of what people on each side of the argument
'believe' seems to me to be somewhat inaccurate and reflective, in parts,
of a high level of ignorance: semi-automatic weapons are in fact used for
sport, both for hunting and for target shooting:

http://hunting.about.com/od/toppicks/tp/tp_auto_rifles.htm
>>>

I'm not ignorant, thanks. I belong to the NRA, even though I'm not a fan of guns. (It's a family thing...complicated.) My family is full of hunters, and I've shot semi-automatics for "sport" with them. I've never read about a single animal that *required* a semi-automatic to take it down. It may make it easier, but using sport to justify a military-grade weapon is another one of those backwards arguments. I still think it's a sham and an excuse to have big toys. Just because someone can rationalize something doesn't make it rational.

If you want to have access to military-style weapons, then make the "protect myself from the government" argument. Don't hide behind sport.

----- Original Message ----
From: "brunians at brunians.org" <brunians at brunians.org>
To: The Urth Mailing List <urth at lists.urth.net>
Sent: Tuesday, March 17, 2009 10:40:49 PM
Subject: Re: (urth) The Politics Of Gene Wolfe

Craig Brewer writes:

> What interests me ... is the culture that has grown up (in
> America, I suppose I should say) around the gun debate. It seems that
> we???ve been forced to take sides as if we???re for arming every
> able-bodied citizen to protect us from the unwashed masses

I am as fervent a supporter of the right to arm oneself as anyone, and I
thought we were armed to protect ourselves from the government. Where do
you get this unwashed masses bit? It is the disarmers who fear the
consequences of armed unwashed masses, especially when they are non-white.

>                                    or that we have to be labeled na??ve
> pacifists who blind themselves to potential dangers.

Rather, people who have been well-programmed or (more kindly) who have not
yet shaken off their programming.

Your further representations of what people on each side of the argument
'believe' seems to me to be somewhat inaccurate and reflective, in parts,
of a high level of ignorance: semi-automatic weapons are in fact used for
sport, both for hunting and for target shooting:

http://hunting.about.com/od/toppicks/tp/tp_auto_rifles.htm

Also I really do think that sublimated racism and a coordinated and
decades long media campaign has more to do with anti-gun attitudes than
anything else.

.

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