[lbo-talk] more on Obama's gun record

Wojtek Sokolowski swsokolowski at yahoo.com
Mon Apr 7 06:41:31 PDT 2008


--- Eric Draitser <ericdraitser at gmail.com> wrote:


> brainwashing propaganda, the second amendment is
> written in 18th century
> language where the first clause is not the subject,

[WS:] 18th century language structure or not - does it really matter? Slavery also used to permitted by that 18th century language text - does that mean that it should be permitted now? I just do not understand all that silly infatuation with the "founding fathers" and what they thought and wrote. Such literalism - akin to religious fundamentalism is silly and counterproductive, because law (and religion) and its interpretations merely reflect social relations - which constantly evolve - they are not the source or even guarantor of these relations.

It is one thing to demand that government - or quasi governmental entities like corporations - do not infringe on civil rights. But it is quite silly to think that the right to bear arms - or even the actual ownership of them - can provide any protection against infringement of these rights. This is voodoo politics or worse.

The government and quasi governmental entities (corporations) have enough military technology and cultural-political capital on their disposal to prevail over any armed citizen insurrection, both militarly and politically, as evidenced by the West Virginia coal wars http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Blair_Mountain.

The best and only protection against abuses by such entities is control of government by pro-labor political parties. Anything short of it is not only goofy daydreaming, but political escapism from taking an action.

Wojtek

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