Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/3/84; site talcott.UUCP Path: utzoo!linus!philabs!cmcl2!seismo!harvard!talcott!gjk From: gjk@talcott.UUCP (Greg Kuperberg) Newsgroups: net.politics Subject: Re: Re: Re: Guns as Protection Message-ID: <329@talcott.UUCP> Date: Wed, 6-Mar-85 19:41:36 EST Article-I.D.: talcott.329 Posted: Wed Mar 6 19:41:36 1985 Date-Received: Sat, 9-Mar-85 20:19:05 EST References: <> <352@gargoyle.UChicago.UUCP> <859@topaz.ARPA> <322@talcott.UUCP> <885@topaz.ARPA> Organization: Harvard Lines: 39 > > > 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 Brushing aside the insults, I maintain that your use of the word was a grotesque exaggeration. In common usage, the word fascist has come to mean a philisophy as diabolical and in the same vein as the views that the Axis leaders held (which was pretty close to Webster's). Calling a gun-control law fascist is like calling a ten-year-old juvenile delinquent an anarchist. Yeah, I know what you meant, and I don't like such overstatements. (Don't think that I'm a BHL because of this. I also cringe when people say this about Reagan.) --- Greg Kuperberg harvard!talcott!gjk "2*x^5-10*x+5=0 is not solvable by radicals." -Evariste Galois.