Subject:
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Re: Swift was Right! (He just named the wrong people...)
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.off-topic.debate
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Date:
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Wed, 18 Jun 2003 14:19:33 GMT
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Viewed:
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1893 times
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In lugnet.off-topic.debate, Dave Schuler wrote:
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doesn’t that run the risk of might-equals-right? Granted, the current
President has clearly demonstrated his adherence to that philosophy, but I
don’t agree with him.
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But, see -- I don’t agree with him either. And the gun, operating as an
equalizer, puts at least some political power back into the hands of the meek
and peace-loving. Now, I am not advocating revolution -- we are yet far from
that I hope (and pray) -- but our history as a nation is rooted in revolution
and I will not abandon that part of our collective political heritage too
easily.
Then as now, we must be eternally vigilant.
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When did all of this transpire, by the way?
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Well, I was back here in the states and only heard about it years later -- but
circa the last 70s. They were imprisoned for about two-three weeks and then
freed, which was quite a bit better than what happened to the people that they
just “disappeared.”
Lots of people just disappeared around that time. It’s documented here and
there on the web.
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I guess the difference, for me, is that our government is just designed
differently from that of Argentina.
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You’d like to think so wouldn’t you, and so would I. But the only significant
difference is the availability of guns here and the lack of them there.
Let me put it this way...
You may recall that about two years ago I was living in what I think was the
worst neighborhood I have ever lived in, West Oakland in California. Last I
heard the murder rate there was pretty severe. At the time I lived there, I
myself became involved in some minor skirmishes that the police assured me were
situations from which I was lucky to escape with my life. The people there are
basically just picking each other off and not infrequently one sees these piles
of funereal flowers marking the spot where someone died. It’s a rough place to
live, even for the benefit of a huge 2 story flat.
Now Kooties might hear of these details and wonder how I can be “pro-gun” --
what with all the loss of life, savagery, and misery. And I am more than
convinced that those are REAL issues in West Oakland. But in my opinion those
things are not caused by guns, because lacking guns even knives would do. I
remember in the Los Angeles Chinatown of my youth (I lived not that far off from
there) the weapon of choice was a sharpened bamboo chopstick -- you give someone
the old “in-out” a few times in the chest and it’s over for him, and you would
have killed the person with a piece of wood (a weapon you could easily destroy
with fire and thereby leave no trace of it for the boys in forensics).
But hey -- what does cause all the misery in West Oakland? In my not so humble
opinion: economic disadvantage matched with the illegality of drugs. What you
have to understand is that, in the main, the people dying in West Oakland are
not dying because they rubbed a burgler or mugger the wrong way, they are dying
because of gang feuds related to turf warfare over the sale of illicit drugs.
You educate the people of West Oakland, you give them better options than
working at McDonald’s, you legalize drugs (and thereby eliminate its profit
motive), and you treat addicts through medical programs rather than the criminal
justice system; and you will have changed the face of that small part of the
world. How do I know? Because when you travel through West Oakland you see the
remains of what it once was some very few decades ago -- a thriving inner city
community.
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I certainly admit that I don’t know where the balance point is, but it must >
be somewhere between an armed free-for-all and a totalitarian state.
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Fine. Let’s ban private ownership of WMD, but keep rifles and guns. Even
automatics. A revolution should be bloody, it is the just price for lassitude
and stupidity.
-- Hop-Frog
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