lbo-talk-digest V1 #5201

Daniel Davies dsquared at al-islam.com
Fri Nov 2 08:36:25 PST 2001


ahhh, the joy of digestage.

Date: Fri, 02 Nov 2001 09:09:28 -0500 From: Kelley Subject: Psysho-sexual insecurities

Inside the mind of : Psycho-sexual insecurities

by Julia Gorin

Editor's Note: This article ran in the "Insight on the News" section of The Washington Times on Page 46, dated September 24, 2001.


>He often accuses men with guns of "compensating for >something."
>The truth is quite the reverse. After all, how is he supposed >to feel
>knowing there are men out there who aren't intimidated by >the big
>bad inanimate villain? How is he to feel in the face of >adolescent boys
>who have used a family gun effectively in defending the >family from
>an armed intruder? So if he doesn't want to touch a gun, >he doesn't
>want other men to either. And to achieve his ends, he'll use >the only
>weapon he knows how to manipulate: the law. ]

Fuck, fur and feathers. That's the last time I buy ash stakes from that shop. Ayn Rand's returned from the grave.


>This is not to say that sexual and psychological insecurities >are the
>sole motivations driving the antigun male, or that they >explain all men
>against guns. Certainly there must be some whose motives >are pure,
>who perhaps do care so much as to look tirelessly for >policy solutions
>to teen-age aggression and domestic negligence where >none exist.
>But for a potentially large underlying contributor, it's gone >unexplored
>and unacknowledged.

What appears to have gone completely unacknowledged is the following motivation for wanting to ban guns.

1) It is not the case that all gun owners and enthusiasts are annoying, unstable, desperately insecure bores with fascist tendencies. I know this from personal experience.

2) However, it is the case that an awfully high proportion of annoying, unstable, etc. types are really awfully keen on their guns.

3) You never really hear much about the first type of gun enthusiast, because they are normal people, and like all normal people, they keep their boring hobbies to themselves.

4) You hear an awful lot from the second kind, because they are arseholes, and therefore like all arseholes, they cannot shut up about their hobby, and demand that you admire them for it. (link to Eric Raymond's website goes here)

5) Therefore, because the gun bores annoy the rest of us, we want to ban their hobby _simply_to_shut_them_up_about_it_. If the trainspotters were half as self-righteous as the gun crowd, I'd end up wanting to dyanamite the railway tracks.


>Such a man also is best kept huddled in big cities, where >he feels
>safer than he might if thrown out on his own into a rural >setting, in an
>isolated house on a quiet street where he would feel naked >and
>helpless.

Exactly. And his polar opposite is best off confined to the country, where his constant pothering on about his gun a) will only bore other yokels, who don't have much conversation anyway and b) sound much more interesting to people who only have to put up with the fucker once a month at the cattle fair.


>Julia Gorin writes satire and political commentary for
>JewishWorldReview.com and does stand-up comedy from >New York
>City.

If I was in the habit of doing stand-up comedy that bad, I'd want to carry a gun too.

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 02 Nov 2001 09:43:32 -0500 From: ravi Subject: Re: Arguments for ground war -- HUH?

Kelley wrote:


>
> i don't recall exactly how nathan put it, but for me the point was that
> it was okay to "just say no...". since that makes for good slogans and
> gets the idea across., for now. however, when actually trying to defend
> your position to people you love, live with, work with, etc., then it's
> a good idea to be able to offer an alternative when you are asked,
> "well, what would you do smarty pants."
>

my guess is people have preconceived notions of what they want to hear, when they ask these questions, but should we (whatever "we" means in this context) be in the business of palliative therapy? i appreciate the point you make, and my question is how did you defend your position prior to 9/11 (i assume it was not a populist one)? if you believe that a short-term meaningful response to 9/11 is possible, then i see the difference between the "no war/no particular response" crowd and your viewpoint as being a fundamental one. otoh, if you do agree that no particular short-term response to 9/11 is meaningful, then does your query equate to asking for new ways to communicate old objectives to the people one interacts with?

--ravi

------------------------------


>>Date: Fri, 2 Nov 2001 07:51:19 -0800 (PST)
>>From: Jordan Hayes
>>Subject: Re: Depreciation a real benefit?


> >I had to stump up the whole of the
> >cost of mine, because I'm a private citizen.


>Let's not lose sight of the original question: why is it such a >big
>deal to roll-back AMT?

Because the purpose of allowing accelerated tax depreciation was to stimulate capital investment by businesses. This was probably a damn stupid idea in the first place, because it seemed to be based on the hypothesis that nobody would change their behaviour in response to a tax change, but there are always some people who have to take things a bit too far. AMT was the measure that ensured that the abuse of the provision stayed within reasonable limits.

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