>In the meantime, demanding more powers for the police and the
>authorities will only succeed in arming the very people that are out to
>crush us.
Chaz, now how can I resist this one?
I don't think you should dismiss this so easily as ultra-leftism, Chaz. (even if it was ultra-leftism, you would still have to argue the case and not resort to designations which you assume are bad.) if there is a sense in which the state has become increasingly violent towards its own 'citizenry' (and others), and if the state's ability to control popular sentiment relies more and more on the criminalisation of (esp) those deemed to be foreigners, rebels, etc, then there is a sound basis for the reticence to hand over to the state more powers. we are not talking of increasing the state's power to combat tax evasions, enforce working conditions, etc are we, no one has made the claim 'reforms = bad', 'abstention = good', so it's not properly speaking ultra-leftism is it? we are talking here of specifically police powers and the extension of definitions of criminality are we not? understanding that the working class is incredibly weak and is not in a position to impose its definitions of what constitutes hate speech is important to assessing whether or not it should be supported. you cannot on the one hand insist that the US state is a racist state and then insist that it can frame laws which will not turn out to be racist in their application if not in their definition. can I call for the abolition of the 'white race' under these laws? doubt it.
Chaz, me thinks you been a-lawyering for too long.
as for guns, I admit to being blithely disinterested. that could have much to do with my not being there but here... it cuold also have something to do with a fetishism of guns that pervades both the pro-gun and anti-gun (what does one call them?) 'lobbies'.
chris wrote:
>Anti-racism logically leads to support of human social rights.
>The idea that this is automatically reformist is a leftist, childish
>disorder.
on this is suspect Jim would agree, but perhaps you have quite different definitions of what 'social rights' entail. I for one think that any definition of what it means to be human is bound to be implicitly reflect the dominant terms of this in our societies, including an implicit racism - I would avoid strengthening definitions rather than pursuing them. but, let's not avoid what is really being called for: a specific set of laws that would criminalise racist speech and writing. one day, Chris, you will have to argue the specifics rather than simply announce your reformist credentials.
and, once again, Chris, you confuse a criticism of certain laws with a an abstentionism, an in toto anti-reformism. here are my conditions for supporting racial vilification laws: a) convince me that racist speech does not increasingly rely on a sense of transgression for its enjoyment; b) show me that the left is in a position to impose definitions and your intended applications of these laws; c) show me that there is indeed a connection between overt racist speech and the racism - even the most extreme racism - that most people are subjected to and by; c) prove to me that this is not a way of letting respectable (including what we once called institutional) racism off the hook; d) show me that this is not the way of those who only see racism when it is staring them unavoidably in the face.
Angela --- rcollins at netlink.com.au