We are basically (at the risk of sounding over-dramatic) class enemies, which is fine.... I have none of Barack Obama's proclaimed desire for us to all get along.

I've never once bored an audience of workers and was not involved in the design of Stalinst failure in the former Soviet Union or anywhere else. I occasionally am a member of the working class (I go in and out) and if a Maoist or Spartacus Youth League member showed up outside my factory gate to chant at me I'd probably throw my little proletarian lunch box (the one with a picture of Eugene Debs on the side) at him or her (I'd throw it harder at a guy).

I am not and never have been a member of the Communist Party, but I do think everyone should read Marx...carefully, non-religiously but respectfully.

You might also take a look at the parecon links and postings on ZNet...Mike Albert and others here are working on left economic (and social and political and cultural) vision that really is non- and anti-Lenninist and not just fashionably or superficially left-anarchist/libertarian.

I'm not a very good pareconista because I feel like my hands are full trying to stop the war and to further the impeachment struggle.

On that note, I remember reading some very good critiques of the march to invasion in market-libertarian press in early 2003...so perhaps foreign policy is another area where collaboration and shared values can sometimes reach across the left-right chasm inside libertarian world such as it.

"I could even remind you that you can start you own business; that's not easy and most people fail, but see how far you can get trying to start your own country - on the high seas or even the moon if you could get there! But to a true believer like you, that would be like arguing about whether a communion wafer is really the body of Christ."

Jeez that's insulting. Can't speak for redbuttons but I would not be against starting certain sorts of small business...ecological retrofitting, research consultant, etc....in fact I sometimes do some of the second.

I didn't mean to say that telling you could own your own business, specifically was like arguing religious beliefs. What I meant was that the summation of my arguments why corporations are not as powerful as states, wouldn't mean anything to someone who lives by the creed/mantra/dogma “Market rule is money rule is class rule.” And you have not proved me wrong.

I have seen all the same facts that you have but come to a different interpretation. For example, I know that some corporations did get corrupt politicians in the past to send police and National Guard forces to break up strikes. I also know that some labor unions have acted violently against those who opposed or refused to participate in their strikes, also with the support of bribed politicians. The former does not make all corporations bad any more than the latter makes all unions bad.

It is also interesting how you can apologize for the universal failures of socialism to date by saying that your future utopia will be different from all those tried before, but you can look at all of the present-day companies that are already changing capitalism for the better, and say that they don't count because they are not yet a majority.

I don't think without U.S. involvement, Vietnam would have turned out like the pipe-dream you and Chomsky had for it. I think it would have been just another clone of the Soviet Union and Communist China as it was, until those three nations (unlike Cuba and North Korea) began to let reality trump ideology. But even if the U.S. did “win” in Vietnam, the principle that guerillas can successfully challenge a vastly superior military force, at least for many years, still stands. And how about the Warsaw ghetto uprising, or other small and ultimately futile acts of resistance against the Nazis. The people involved in them probably had no chance of winning but that does not mean they would have better off not trying. Plus, there is an important point that neither you nor redbuttons addressed: Disarmed peaceful citizens must grovel like helpless babies before the government police forces for protection. Gun control might stop the occasional lone madman but never succeeds at reducing the threat from more seasoned criminals (especially those with gang connections who can easily get black market guns). While we may depend on government for protection from them to some extent anyway, a society where only the police have guns is like one where only the fire department has fire extinguishers – one where citizens have a dependence on government that it is unhealthy, even when government officials have the best of intentions.

Finally, I am a multifunctional administrator for a small heating equipment manufacturer, so yes I am a member of the “coordinator class” but I have met (Market) Libertarians from all walks of life. I do not want to shame anyone but encourage everyone to define and follow their own path to success. My impression of Marxists, Socialists, Left-Libertarians, or whatever the fashionable term is this week, is that you are mostly alienated intellectuals who are unhappy that their status and position does not live up to their opinions of their own greatness. (Yes, I know you have spoken to working-class and poor people who actually managed to sit through your speeches - without pelting you with rotten tomatoes - and you took that as enthusiastic support. I have also seen your polls where the public seems to lean left after answering some very leading questions; I look at them as you no doubt would look at results from The World's Smallest Political Quiz).

.

“Besides their own internal competition highlighting each other's flaws to the public, might there be a systematic bias, i.e., something all corporations have in common, like a drive towards short-term profit and local self-preservation over global ecological health and long-term sustainability, that would need to be put in check by a non-corporate, democratically integrating, entity?”

I think your ignoring this question is telling. It goes to the heart of what I often see as a “one-note” politics (free-market right-libertarianism)—that one note being “freedom,” at the expense of “accountability,” which leads to contorted arguments from, e.g. CATO, about global warming for instance: global warming is exactly the sort of thing that challenges the principle of Only free-markets, and hence is a real thorn in the side of extreme right-libertarians, imo.

I thought I did answer it at least indirectly by saying that I could favor some laws against pollution and that we should not dismantle social programs too quickly. But here is a more direct answer I don't think that a drive towards profit necessarily conflicts with global ecological health and long-term sustainability any more than sexual desire causes rape. In both cases it is a matter of a small percentage of individuals who use evil means to achieve natural ends that others achieve by doing good. That small percentage of individuals is the reason we need a government in the first place and the laws should target them while leaving the rest of us alone.

As for global warming I don't believe that the 0.4°F (0.2 to 0.3°C) increase in global temperatures in the past 25 years is significantly different from multi-century global warming trends that have occurred throughout human history. I can see the value of cutting greenhouse emissions as a precaution, but no drastic or alarmist measures. In other words keep current clean air standards in place and buy “green” products as a consumer, but don't add any new laws until the evidence is clearer.

The link you provided for "Capital Regulation" makes it sound like something a little too "New Agey" for my tastes. It is also somewhat vague about policy prescriptions. Still, it is something I could live with more than any kind of traditional socialism.

Redbuttons did not respond but is a sharp commenter IMO.

Archdude says: "I could point to the fact that no corporation has its own army or its own jails and that corporate security guards hardly amount to a police force."

Corporations don't need their own army and jails and police; their influence over ---  and interpenetration with --- the capitalist state is such that all that would be redundant.  Have you ever studied U.S. labor history (many examples can be cited from that as from many other areas, including of course U.S. foreign policy)?    

"I could tell you that no corporation can force you to work for it, that you can earn a living working for an individually owned business or a non-profit."

People are certainly compelled by economic necessity and stacked-deck, unequal and wealth-concentrating market forces to rent out their labor power to strucurally empowered/wealthier others and the biggest "others" doing the hiring (and exploiting) are hardly just accidentally corporations. You know the success rate on small individual businesses and the odds of their success against giant integrated firms with the latter's economies of scale and scope and their undue influence over policy actors and markets and so on,  so...well, come on.  Sure some people work for nonprofits - not very many proportionately however.

"That the closest a corporation can come to forcing you to buy its products is when it has a government enforced monopoly, such the electric and water utilities (and even in those cases there are alternatives to buying their products, albeit not necessarily desirable ones)."

People can and should try to buy less from big corps; to rely more on independently owned and locals firms and more on self-production where possible...sure.  If a book is available at my local downtown indedpendent bookstore I always get it there instead of Barnes and Noble.  I try to get food at the local coop instead of at the chain gocery store, though I can't always afford that choice. I try to grow broccoli and carrots and tomatoes myself. But many things are largely unavaible at affordable prices from "anyone" but big inherently sociopathic profit-mad corps and more to the point corps invest heaviily in the creation and manipulation of consumer "needs"...they do this largely through media, which they own and whose total control they reinforce through control of state institutions like the FCC. 

 "I could even remind you that you can start you own business; that's not easy and most people fail, but see how far you can get trying to start your own country - on the high seas or even the moon if you could get there! But to a true believer like you, that would be like arguing about whether a communion wafer is really the body of Christ."

Jeez that's insulting. Can't speak for redbuttons but I would not be against starting certain sorts of small business...ecological retrofitting, research consultant, etc....in fact I sometimes do some of the second. But what you capitalism-addicted market obsessives can't seem to acknowledge is that its inherent in the "competitive" process for the small businesses to give way inevitablly to concentration and centralization of capital and control...for the big fish to swallow the smaller ones. Marx got that right. The corporate age necessarily supplants the competitive period...unless you are going to mandate radical state intervention to bust and prohibit rational profit-based concentration of capital and the modern coordinator class and to permit only a small producer/small seller mode of production and exchange.   

You market-libertarian sorts just don't understand capitalism; your religious faith prohibits real comprehension.  Most of the market libertarians I've met are members of the coordinator class and are positioned so they can do fine without understanding social and historical reality; they are well-enough placed in state capitalism that they can get away with being so stupid. They  love to use their self-justifiying nonsene to shame other people who are less fortunate and privileged.  Yes, all the workers down at the local telemarketing sweatshop or electrical goods manufacturing plant need to go set up their own businesses and become heroic market libertarians. It's just laughable.   

 

"Class/corporate rule depends on state power for its inception, protection, expansion and preservation. Then take away state power and corporations will no longer be anything to worry about."

Take away state power without overthrowing the capitalist elite? The ruling class will reinvent state authority to protect, expand, preserve its property and profit interests and to enforce hiearchical class relations...to keep the masses subordinated, to pursue market and investment outlets abroad, etc...  

"Not all corporations are as iron-fisted as you claim."

And some small businesses succeed.  So what? Big deal. The underlying systemic trends are what they are and exceptions prove the rule. 

 "The firepower of the Iraqi insurgents is not very significant but I don't hear you telling them to put down their weapons."

Please... you are leaving out massively relevant geopolitical, strategic and ideological factors.  There's a helluva lot more going on than Iraqis' possession of some pistols and rifles.  

"In fact, there are numerous other examples where vastly superior firepower was not the deciding factor: Vietnam, the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan (possibly Afghanistan today as well) and the American Revolution against the British."

Afghan rebels/jihadists  (including bin-Laden) had help from from the most powerful nation state on earth (U.S.).  I do not think U.S. lost Vietnam War...read Chomsky on how and why the U.S. actually won (I've written some myself but too exhausted to find links).  As for AR analogy and the rest, so many things are so different over the centuries  that it just gets ridiculous to try to make these sorts of analogies...and of course England was a distant island trying to control a vast and still largely rural nation across an ocean.  

 "Now, I admit we could not win a guerilla war against the government unless a significant number of our people were as committed to freedom as our Founding Fathers were, or as Vietnamese were committed to living under communism, or Iraqis to living under Ba'athism or Islamic Fundamentalism."

You've really bought into (a) U.S. Cold War ideology and (b) U.S. neo- Cold War "war on terror" ideology.  The Vietnamese were committed to living on a basis of national independence and in accord with their own principles of justice, equalty and community...not "living under communism"!    Iraqis have many diverse beliefs but share a desire to live without foreign occupation...the operative desire/value as far as we should be concerned is for independence and control of their own material and human resources.  

It's always interesting as a left libertarian talking to market libertarians; we can agree in some areas (especially those relating to personal freedoms...drugs and lifestyle etc.) but when it gets down to political economy and basic material organization of society and state we are just miles apart and always will be.  It's two very different perspectives on class inequality and it reminds me of the common space I share with straight up full-on Marxists.

 

Archdude— Thanks for your extended reply. I think we've each seen each other as more extreme than we are. That was the point of my “strawman” question about “free guns for kids”—to illustrate that you're probably more moderate than one might gather from your rhetoric. Also, I check out “Reason” too: I myself am a “radical moderate” who steers in-between free-market “right-libertarians” such as you, and sometimes more left oriented ecological sustainability folks: a Sustainability Libertarian. You can see my political philosophy here: Capital Regulation Something I don't mention there is my support for encouraging (through tax breaks) semi-employee owned corporations (for empowerment balanced with investment diversity), and out-sourcing of governmental services when possible: I think government should be a “global” regulator, looking for results, rather than a micro-managing implementer. I also think there should be a corporate “profiteering tax” on life-essential products. I don't care about People getting rich: but I do fear for people and the planet suffering and dying. Something you didn't address in your response was my questioning: “Besides their own internal competition highlighting each other's flaws to the public, might there be a systematic bias, i.e., something all corporations have in common, like a drive towards short-term profit and local self-preservation over global ecological health and long-term sustainability, that would need to be put in check by a non-corporate, democratically integrating, entity?” I think your ignoring this question is telling. It goes to the heart of what I often see as a “one-note” politics (free-market right-libertarianism)—that one note being “freedom,” at the expense of “accountability,” which leads to contorted arguments from, e.g. CATO, about global warming for instance: global warming is exactly the sort of thing that challenges the principle of Only free-markets, and hence is a real thorn in the side of extreme right-libertarians, imo.

BTW, don't take my last paragraph in the last post as an epression of support for the wars in Vietnam or Iraq, I just wanted to make clear that I don't see moral equivalence between our Founding Fathers and either the Viet Cong, or the Ba'athist-al-Qaeda alliance.

archdude: Market rule is money rule is class rule. Its logical outcome is the corporation (logical "visible hand" coordinationist/managerial and capital coralling creation of the market) and the corporate state.

I could point to the fact that no corporation has its own army or its own jails and that corporate security guards hardly amount to a police force. I could tell you that no corporation can force you to work for it, that you can earn a living working for an individually owned business or a non-profit. That the closest a corporation can come to forcing you to buy its products is when it has a government enforced monopoly, such the electric and water utilities (and even in those cases there are alternatives to buying their products, albeit not necessarily desirable ones). I could even remind you that you can start you own business; that's not easy and most people fail, but see how far you can get trying to start your own country - on the high seas or even the moon if you could get there! But to a true believer like you, that would be like arguing about whether a communion wafer is really the body of Christ.

Class/corporate rule depends on state power for its inception, protection, expansion and preservation.

Then take away state power and corporations will no longer be anything to worry about.

Even without that it is a structure of oppressive authority and tyrannical coercion (what Marx called "the [defacto] dictatorship of the bourgeoisie") in its own right - an economic dictatorship of the wealthy few that inherently translates into the subversion of democracy. The term "market libertarian" is oxymoronic.

Not all corporations are as iron-fisted as you claim. Some of the grand behemoths that have gotten where they are today by government subsidies and regulations that protect them from competition are run like stiff bureaucracies but there are many smaller companies that are more flexible with their rules and open to suggestions from customers and employees. You see more of these types of organizations flourish when and where government barriers to entrepreneurship are low.

The line about being able to shoot off a few rounds from your handgun while the heavily armed corporate state takes you down has a romantic ring to it but does not answer my question. Your guns aren't really very significant compared to the bourgeois state's capacity for violence and I think you know it.

The firepower of the Iraqi insurgents is not very significant but I don't hear you telling them to put down their weapons. In fact, there are numerous other examples where vastly superior firepower was not the deciding factor: Vietnam, the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan (possibly Afghanistan today as well) and the American Revolution against the British. Now, I admit we could not win a guerilla war against the government unless a significant number of our people were as committed to freedom as our Founding Fathers were, or as Vietnamese were committed to living under communism, or Iraqis to living under Ba'athism or Islamic Fundamentalism. And it is somewhat doubtful that many Americans today care, but that doesn't mean it is wrong to take a stand just because you have no chance of winning.

I suppose you may be of the “taxation is theft” ilk. Although some may believe that taxation is a compromise between the absolute-property rights folks bent on “Omega Man” self-survival, and the no-property rights people bent on a we survive as a hive mentality—what about institutions (like corporations) having to pay taxes for their social and ecological license rather than individuals?

You could argue that corporate taxes as opposed to personal income taxes are the lesser evil. This does not mean that we should to raise corporate income taxes in order to get rid of personal ones, since raising corporate taxes does hamper investment and thus slows economic growth. We could keep corporate taxes the same as they are now, and eliminate personal income taxes by cutting massive spending for programs that the government was never intended for (and I would include most foreign military interventions as well as all permanent military bases on foreign soil). (I could get into a detailed discussion about sales taxes, property tax and other alternatives here but I'll save that for another time; suffice it to say that I think whatever method is used, the overall tax burden should be MUCH lower).

 

(Government(s) as a central information clearing house for democratically steered institutional self-regulation?)

Where has reality ever remotely resembled that warm and fuzzy sentiment, save for maybe local government in a town with less than a 1000 people (and even there it is a rare exception)?

Do you really think that a decentralized free-market press/watchdog/activist network is going to consistently catch when corporations (that own the media) let the ecology or people fall into very deep cracks in the system (can all schizophrenics depend on charity? What about that pig farm that secretly pollutes a river?);

Nothing works 100% of the time, not even your precious government. I can support laws against pollution but do not see the need for several hundred pages of regulations regarding everything that someone, somewhere might consider an environmental threat. I certainly do not see the need for an enforcement agency that can write its own laws without input from elected representatives (as is the case for the EPA and nearly all, if not all, of its state counterparts). There are very few people who are so mentally ill or incompetent that they cannot work. Those people could easily be covered by private charity. The somewhat larger number of chronically unemployed would benefit from an environment where the regulatory barriers to creating self-employment or starting a new business were greatly lowered. Until then, some social programs may be needed as a last resort. But their goal should be to wean people off of the them and to reduce the amount spent each year – at the very least their growth should be limited to the combined rate of population growth and inflation.

Beyond policing your occasional “blue-collar” psychopath, what about policing the occasional “white-collar” psychopath?

I never said let's legalize fraud and embezzlement, or anything else that is typically called white-collar crime. The only "white-collar psychopaths" I don't want to police are those whose only crime is making "too much money", according to some uninvolved, jealous party watching from the sidelines.

The press may be a check and a balance for government, but who's going to be the check and balance on (media) corporations but who's going to be the check and balance on (media) corporations?

The alternative media. Yes I know, Zmag and The Nation don't reach as many people as you'd like, Reason doesn't reach as many people as I like. But that's not because they don't have enough “funding”, it's because most people would rather read People magazine and watch American Idol. Not much the government can do about that without becoming extremely intrusive.

Besides their own internal competition highlighting each other's flaws to the public, might there be a systematic bias, i.e., something all corporations have in common, like a drive towards short-term profit and local self-preservation over global ecological health and long-term sustainability, that would need to be put in check by a non-corporate, democratically integrating, entity? (Maybe you are just against Expanding state power, so I may be off base- but there are ideological implications for what I think you are suggesting in your attitude).

I'd like to drastically reduce state power, though I can see the benefit in doing it slowly and allowing for a period of adjustment. I realize that many people are dependent on huge, overreaching government today and learning to be self-sufficient or to rely on voluntary cooperation rather than coercion will take time for most people.

And speaking of Social License—what about requiring gun licenses? (as with automobiles?) Would this be considered a danger to autonomy? I don't think you're for arming everyone (including some psychotics who wouldn't have guns otherwise)—so you must be for some level of filtering. Do we have the regulatory balance just right as it is?

We don't need licenses to own automobiles or to drive them on our own property only on the public roads. Similarly any licensing for guns should be related to carrying or using them in public (as is in the case in most states). But if we are going to license carrying guns on the model of driving cars let's do it right: a license in your home state is valid in all 50 states plus D.C. Citizens of states and cities with victim disarmament laws might not like the fact that tourists can defend themselves against local gangsters (who always have guns regardless of the laws), while they, the citizens, cannot. If so, maybe they'll pressure their representatives for laws to restore their rights rather than feel good measures.

Should the NRA be handing out free guns to kids?

You can do better than that silly strawman!

archdude: Market rule is money rule is class rule. Its logical outcome is the corporation (logical "visible hand" coordinationist/managerial and capital coralling creation of the market) and the corporate state. Class/corporate rule depends on state power for its inception, protection, expansion and preservation.  Even without that it is a structure of oppressive authority and tyrannical coercion (what Marx called "the [defacto] dictatorship of the bourgeoisie") in its own right - an economic dictatorship of the wealthy few that inherently translates into the subversion of democracy.  The term "market libertarian" is oxymoronic.

The line about being able to shoot off a few rounds from your handgun while the heavily armed corporate state takes you down has a romantic ring to it but does not answer my question.  Your guns aren't really very significant compared to the bourgeois state's capacity for violence and I think you know it.

 

 

  

Archdude— You say, “I am a market libertarian (what people here would call a “right-libertarian”), and though I have sympathy with the anarchist point-of-view I'm not a full-fledged anarchist, so I guess I don't fully grasp all of the ends-justify-the-means rationalizations that your movement has for increasing state power” I suppose you may be of the “taxation is theft” ilk. Although some may believe that taxation is a compromise between the absolute-property rights folks bent on “Omega Man” self-survival, and the no-property rights people bent on a we survive as a hive mentality—what about institutions (like corporations) having to pay taxes for their social and ecological license rather than individuals? (Government(s) as a central information clearing house for democratically steered institutional self-regulation?) Do you really think that a decentralized free-market press/watchdog/activist network is going to consistently catch when corporations (that own the media) let the ecology or people fall into very deep cracks in the system (can all schizophrenics depend on charity? What about that pig farm that secretly pollutes a river?); Beyond policing your occasional “blue-collar” psychopath, what about policing the occasional “white-collar” psychopath? The press may be a check and a balance for government, but who's going to be the check and balance on (media) corporations? Besides their own internal competition highlighting each other's flaws to the public, might there be a systematic bias, i.e., something all corporations have in common, like a drive towards short-term profit and local self-preservation over global ecological health and long-term sustainability, that would need to be put in check by a non-corporate, democratically integrating, entity? (Maybe you are just against Expanding state power, so I may be off base- but there are ideological implications for what I think you are suggesting in your attitude). And speaking of Social License—what about requiring gun licenses? (as with automobiles?) Would this be considered a danger to autonomy? I don't think you're for arming everyone (including some psychotics who wouldn't have guns otherwise)—so you must be for some level of filtering. Do we have the regulatory balance just right as it is? Should the NRA be handing out free guns to kids? What about a little accountability to balance your freedom?

archdude do you really think you and (I presume) your gun buddies have the firepower to go toe to toe with the U.S. government? The FBI? Firearms and Tobacco? The National Guard units left home to be deployed against you guys? Your state police? Your county sherrif? Your local cops? Are you guys like what organized in a big or even a small militia? Do you have tanks? Helicopters? Radar? global positioning? Night vision? Do you have surveillance drones? Drones that can fire missiles?

Do you actually think Cho what's his name being able to pick up a Glock is part of something that is going to protect you against the armed power of the U.S. state?

I never said that I could successfully take on the US government, but if they come after me I'd rather go down fighting and make them pay a price than be led like a lamb to the slaughter. Moreover, guns in the hands of ordinary citizens make us less dependent on the state for protection, while being disarmed makes us like helpless infants desparate for the nanny state to protect us (even though it often does a bad job of it as in Britain, Washington D.C. and many other gun-control paradises).

Do you really think one can't be a libertarian socialist or leftanarchish sort if one wants intact and funded and functional EPA (government agency) to protect the environment in today's world, before the revolution? How about child and supporitve services? Any FEMA for disasters? Public family cash assistance and food stamps for people whose jobs and maybe homes are wiped out/taken away by "market forces"...also known as capitalist oppression? Is somebody no longer a left libertarian if they want the police to catch a guy who murdrered somebody? How about if they want the local city government to clear snow and pick up garbage? What if they want public schools adequately funded?

I can see how someone who's eventual goal is to limit or abolish government might accept that there are some legitimate roles for government in the world as it is today. But I don't see how anyone who is not a statist would want to expand the power of government at the expense of a fundamental right to self-defense. Especially when the security benefits of gun control are dubious at best (violent crime often goes up after strict gun control measures are enacted, again look at the UK, or Washington D.C., look at Australia or New Jersey). But, admittedly I am a market libertarian (what people here would call a "right-libertarian), and though I have sympathy with the anarchist point-of-view I'm not a full-fledged anarchist, so I guess I don't fully grasp all of the ends-justify-the-means rationalizations that your movement has for increasing state power.

archdude do you really think you and (I presume) your gun buddies have the firepower to go toe to toe with the U.S. government? The FBI? Firearms and Tobacco? The National Guard units left home to be deployed against you guys? Your state police? Your county sherrif?  Your local cops? Are you guys like what organized in a big or even a small militia?  Do you have tanks? Helicopters? Radar? global positioning? Night vision? Do you have surveillance drones? Drones that can fire missiles? 

Do you actually think Cho what's his name being able to pick up a Glock is part of something that is going to protect you against the armed power of the U.S. state?  

Do you really think one can't be a libertarian socialist or leftanarchish sort if one wants intact and funded and functional EPA (government agency) to protect the environment in today's world, before the revolution? How about child and supporitve services? Any FEMA for disasters? Public family cash assistance and food stamps for people whose jobs and maybe homes are wiped out/taken away by "market forces"...also known as capitalist oppression? Is somebody no longer a left libertarian if they want the police to catch a guy who murdrered somebody? How about if they want the local city government to clear snow and pick up garbage? What if they want public schools adequately funded?

So do you have to be living under or in left-anarchism/lib-socialism to be a left-anarch/lib-socialist?

 

  

 

Znet gave me an error message that made me think my last message wasn't posted the 1st time.

I can't believe the idiocy of people who know what crimes the government is capable of, but think we would be better off if only the police and military had guns. I can't believe the stupidity of people who know what a piss poor record increased goverment control of our lives has of making us safer, but want to implement it anyway.

I can't believe in the lunacy of pro gun fanatics.

How does turning schools into an armed camp enhance safety? I don't know how often do you have crazy mass murderers roaming around, probably it is a statistically rare incident.

But if everyone is carrying gun I garantee there will be more gun related deaths on a day to day basis. Everytime when a professor give a student a zero in an essay, everytime when a TA and a student argue over 5 points in a test, everytime when drunk college kids got into a fight over girls, everytime when guys got into a brawl in a ball game, everytime when guys got into a heated argument over 9/`11 conspiracy...you have the potential of esculation to a full scale shoot out.

In addition a lot of idiots in America shoot themselves by accidents every year. I won't bet on college kids being more careful or responsible with their guns.

Finally, it is debatable that fatality would have deminished in virginia if everyone was armed. It might have or might not. There is a good chance that more people would have been hurt if everyone one was armed that day. When many people are carrying on a wild shoot out, you simply cannot tell who the mass murderer is and would likely end up shooting each other, mass murderers don't wear uniform. When the police arrive they will face the same problem. It is difficult to tell whom should be taken down in a split second decision when everyone is waving a gun.

 

Helen K

I had wanted to comment on your post immediately following the VT shooting but didn't get around to it. This post gives me a chance to say what I wanted to say RE: gun control.

If you like the Patriot Act and post-9/11 airport security (so much that you would implement it in every public or semi-public location), then you will love increased gun control. Sure having more people armed might have lessened the death toll at VT; sure allowing people (at least pilots) to carry guns on airplanes might have prevented 9/11, but there is no guarantee. No, the only guarantee of our safety is to give more power to the government, because that has always worked so well in the past.

Seriously, I can understand those of you who call yourself anarchists, or left-libertarians, wanting to increase the power of government over corporations, because in your opinion corporations are more of a threat to individual liberty than government. I disagree with that opinion but recognize it as valid. I doubt, though, that I will ever understand how any people could believe themselves to be anarchists or libertarians of any stripe, while demanding that the government increase its control over individuals, such as by taking away (or severely restricting) the right to own implements of self-defense. It might be nice if you could get all citizens AND ALL GOVERNMENTS the world over to give up their weapons. But, until such time, I don't see why I should be a sitting duck for criminals - either of the common street thug variety or those who receive a government paycheck.

The comments section's steep moral and intellectual decline deepens; this kind of stuff makes the more regular fanatics look reasonable by comparison.

Right on Truthseeker. How ridiculous that morons write in to accuse Street and others of being anti-Semites since Zee-Net is Zionist to the core!

What about Democratic cowardice on (and likely involvement in) the U.S. government and global Zionist New World Order conspiracy to blow up the World Trade Center and to attack the Pentagon to clear way for invading Iraq? We must never give away our right to bear arms with such forces out there to wreak mayhem.