Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84; site dciem.UUCP Path: utzoo!dciem!mmt From: mmt@dciem.UUCP (Martin Taylor) Newsgroups: net.politics Subject: Re: Re: Guns as Protection Message-ID: <1445@dciem.UUCP> Date: Thu, 7-Mar-85 18:08:34 EST Article-I.D.: dciem.1445 Posted: Thu Mar 7 18:08:34 1985 Date-Received: Thu, 7-Mar-85 20:23:09 EST References: <> <352@gargoyle.UChicago.UUCP> <859@topaz.ARPA> <322@talcott.UUCP>Reply-To: mmt@dciem.UUCP (Martin Taylor) Organization: D.C.I.E.M., Toronto, Canada Lines: 50 Summary: I regret having to include the whole of the following exchange, but it seems the only way to make a point: >> > Right. Because Chicago has a fascist gun control law, and the people >> ... >> > --JoSH >> >> Yeah, almost as fascist as burning Jews. Or to put it another way, clearly >> this man is doesn't know what "fascist" means. >> Greg Kuperberg > >Greg is confusing "Fascist" with "Nazi" perhaps. The Nazis killed (actually >mostly by gassing) Jews. The word Fascist, both in its particular >application to a political party and in its historical roots, is Italian. >(It comes from "fascia", the bundle of rods + axe that were the symbol >of Roman magistrates.) > >Webster's says: >fascism, n: 1: a political philosophy ... that exalts nation and race >above the individual ... 2: a tendency toward or actual exercise of >strong autocratic or dictatorial control. > >I claim that this is *exactly* how I intended to characterize Chicago's >gun laws. Furthermore, I suspect that Greg (a) knows what I meant, >(b) knows what "fascist" in common usage means, and therefore (c) >was deliberately lying in claiming the opposite. > >--JoSH It is hard to determine whether JoSH is obtuse, deliberately appearing to be obtuse, or just inflammatory. If he claims that ANY law puts nation above individual, and is therefore fascist, he has redefined "fascist" to a meaningless level of generality. If he claims ANY law restricting gun ownership is fascist because it is a "tendency or actual exercise of strong autocratic or dictatorial control", I suspect he should look at how Chicago selects its autocrats. My understanding is that they have elections, as elsewhere, and that Richard Daley no longer rigs them to the level that Chicago has a dictator nowadays. If JoSH means that any law is fascist simply because it is a law, he should get out of discussions on net.politics (or anywhere else than net.flame). JoSH at least owes Greg Kuperberg an apology for the libel in saying he was deliberately lying. (Libel, as opposed to slander, involves publishing the damaging false information, and I think Usenet comes closer to publication than to verbal report.) -- Martin Taylor {allegra,linus,ihnp4,floyd,ubc-vision}!utzoo!dciem!mmt {uw-beaver,qucis,watmath}!utcsri!dciem!mmt