[extropy-chat] Guns

Dirk Bruere dirk at neopax.com
Mon Dec 1 03:06:13 UTC 2003


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Darin Sunley" <dsunley at shaw.ca>
To: "ExI chat list" <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>
Sent: Monday, December 01, 2003 2:23 AM
Subject: Re: [extropy-chat] Guns


> Any of us who've been around here long enough to remember the last big gun
> flamefest have seen all of this rhetoric, on both sides, before. But there
> is a new and intriguing element this time around.
>
> The previous flamewar emerged from the standard, familiar dynamics of
> text-based communications. Lack of face-to-face communication erodes the
> standard social cognitive feedback loops that generate civil behavior in
> most well-socialized adults. As is common in these situations, neither
party
> had any particular formal training in the subject area, just the informed
> interest of a passionate layman. Neither party claimed to represent any
> organization larger than themselves, and therefore all flames were
strictly
> personal. The participants could damage their own credibility, and
sometimes
> even that of their opponents, but no one else's.
>
> This time however, the scale of the conflict is slightly larger. Dirk
claims
> to be representing a new political party and, one assumes, has aspirations
> to eventually run as a candidate himself, or to speak for candidates
running
> in local elections in the UK.
>
> Dirk, as fun as this petulant sniping and blatant stereotyping must be for
> you, and as much as it must seem that Mr. Lorrey started it and that
honour
> must be satisfied, you MUST hold yourself to a higher standard of public
> behavior. This list is archived publically. As a citizen of the UK you
must
> surely be famliar with the less savoury elements of your local media. The
> publishing of this, frankly petty, flamefest  would, if spun
appropriately,
> do serious damage to your long term credibility as a member of the British
> political community.

I'm afraid I'm a long way from being a serious member of the British
political community, and I have another 40,000 odd posts to answer for
before the media gets to this. I use Usenet (and this to some extent) as a
'warts and all' record of my beliefs and opinions and how they change and
evolve over time.
Hence I always post under my own name.

> Do yourself a huge favour and rise above the petty flamefests that
> characterize these kind of online debates. Tossing statistics of
> indeterminate credibility, tidbits of sarcasm and mediocre wit, and
> stereotypes constituting viscious insults won't win you the support of the
> average cocktail party, let alone a parliamentary riding where your clear
> passion for the issues might have some actual influence on public debate.

I'm afraid nobody of consequence reads any of this crap, and the only reason
they might is because one (or more) of us becomes famous enough to put it on
the map in the real world.

> To summarize, Dirk, this is not the time, not the place, and it is
certainly
> not the manner in which to have this debate.

So what is the time and place to wind up self righteous Americans in love
with their guns?
Thing is, the party as such has no opinion on gun ownership so I feel free
to piss about as the mood takes me on this issue. Sometimes I'm for,
sometimes against.

For myself, I've always loved personal weapons from knives, through swords
and bows to automatic firearms. I've been a martial arts teacher for more
than two decades and am reasonably proficient with quite a selection,
including military rifles and pistols. If I lived in the US I would no doubt
have a decent collection eg Walther P99, Desert Eagle in 44cal for fun, a
full calbre bolt action and an AR15. Maybe even a 50cal long range rifle
like the Barrett depending on the law.

The point is, though, that I don't consider gun ownership sacred and am
quite prepared to go along with the majority decision of whatever society I
live in.

Dirk

The Consensus:-
The political party for the new millennium
http://www.theconsensus.org




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