Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/5/84; site uwmacc.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!allegra!bellcore!decvax!genrad!mit-eddie!godot!harvard!seismo!uwvax!uwmacc!myers From: myers@uwmacc.UUCP (Jeff Myers) Newsgroups: net.politics Subject: Re: The Left and Gun Control Message-ID: <670@uwmacc.UUCP> Date: Tue, 15-Jan-85 11:01:44 EST Article-I.D.: uwmacc.670 Posted: Tue Jan 15 11:01:44 1985 Date-Received: Thu, 17-Jan-85 14:20:14 EST References: <229@qusavx.UUCP> Organization: UWisconsin-Madison Academic Comp Center Lines: 51 > > I for one would like to put to rest a certain widespread miscon- > ception: that the left favors gun control. While I have no doubt that > certain left-liberal and socialist organizations do promote either the > registration of handguns or their complete abolition, the genuine > Marxists I have known (including a former member of the S.D.S > Weathermen) take the line that gun control amounts to "disarming the > proletariat" and you obviously cannot wage a successful revolution > without firearms. I used to point out to this fellow that too many of > his intrepid working class army were fascist in their political tastes, > but that didn't sway him or any of his friends. "Genuine Marxist"? There's a misty term for you. Marxists have been battling for decades (both verbally and physically) over claims of intellectual purity. Working toward a working class revolution in the US at this stage in our development simply turns one into a sectarian Trotskyist. The "genuine Marxists" I respect most stress the necessity of aiding autonomous movements in the periphery and tend to stress the importance of democratic traditions in those countries which have a longstanding one. But it's a real problem working for radical change within a system organized to prevent it. > So when I read on the > net (or in the local paper) that Democrats are socialists and socialists > are communists and communists want to take our guns away, in fact this > plays precisely into the hands of those who believe only violence can > change society or purge it of its dastardly foes (however these may be > defined). Roger. > I find it astonishing that a supposedly well-educated body of > folks (as I believe the vast majority of netlanders to be) can be so > strikingly naive with regard to political distinctions. This can > undoubtedly be explained to a large degree from being brought up in the > United States, where Democrats and Republicans are assumed to be > opposites when in fact but two sides of the same coin. Please > do not insult radicals by lumping them together with liberals: liberals > seek only to alter the system to make it more liveable for all its > elements; radicals seek to replace the system entirely in the belief > that its very nature is to create the havoc liberals hope to mend and > conservatives portray as unfortunate yet inevitable. Quite well put. -- Jeff Myers The views above may or may not University of Wisconsin-Madison reflect the views of any other Madison Academic Computing Center person or group at UW-Madison. ARPA: uwmacc!myers@wisc-rsch.arpa uucp: ..!{ucbvax,allegra,heurikon,ihnp4,seismo}!uwvax!uwmacc!myers