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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
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