The Politics of Gene Wolfe

David Stockhoff · 04 Jul 2010, 18:52 · from 2010-July.txt.gz

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From: dstockhoff at verizon.net (David Stockhoff)
Date: Sun, 04 Jul 2010 14:52:46 -0400
Subject: (urth) The Politics of Gene Wolfe
In-Reply-To: <4C30BD90.8040300 at io.com>
References: <SNT123-W1031E80AE7A495C75CD4F1CFB00 at phx.gbl>	<4C30384D.9020608 at io.com>	<4C30751E.9080004 at verizon.net>	<4C30866F.1030909 at io.com>	<4C308F02.4080402 at verizon.net>
	<4C30BD90.8040300 at io.com>
Message-ID: <4C30D87E.9050805 at verizon.net>

Half the history of the human race is the history of mob violence. But 
American race violence worsened through the turn of the 20th century. 
That's not to say it wasn't an issue earlier. Protecting your town 
against attackers from another town, as happened in the most notorious 
riots, would certainly call for a militia, but in the late 1700s, Indian 
"raids" were probably more on peoples' minds.

The towns had watches; the 2A was probably not primarily meant to 
support them.

Jeff Wilson wrote:
> On 7/4/2010 8:39 AM, David Stockhoff wrote:
>> Below.
>>
>> Jeff Wilson wrote:
>>> On 7/4/2010 6:48 AM, David Stockhoff wrote:
>>>> Of course fascism hadn't been invented yet. Nor had lynching and armed
>>>> race riots.
>>>
>>> I'm not sure how much of this is humor or rhetoric.
>> Neither. Just the facts.
>
> I'd agree on texbook fascism then, but lynching and armed race 
> violence go back to biblical times. There was also no shortage of mob 
> justice and score-settling under the pretext of political differences 
> before during and after the Revolutionary War.
>
>> Although one could argue that absent any police force or guard at all,
>> either of these "rights" may suddenly become useful. And that's what SF
>> is good for---exploring such situations. Zombies, for example. Don't
>> take that argument to the SC, though.
>
> That's just what they did not have; there was nothing like the modern, 
> full-time municipal police force for the great majority of people 
> then. The context is different today, thank god, but one still cannot 
> count on immediate police response in general, chiefly because they 
> have finite resources, to make demands on their time is easy, 
> convenient, and subsidized, and there are signficant legal, financial, 
> and political consequences to the police for responding and acting in 
> way later judged improper, but essentially none for their failure to 
> respond in a timely fashion or all.
>
> To maintain thread relevance, this is the sort of lamentable systems 
> failure from perverse incentives so many of Wolfe's characters remark 
> upon.
>

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