Vin McLellan <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > "Police state?" > > Jesus, Matt -- ya gotta get out and travel the world a bit. (A >visit to a place like, say, Syria might offer some useful perspective;-) I do travel the world in fact I travel extensively. There must be a disconnect of sorts for you not to consider the US a police state. The US comprises 5% of the global population yet is responsible for 25% of the world's prisoners. Our current rate of incarceration is six to 10 times that of most industrialized countries. We have more prisoners in one state, California, then do the nations of France, Germany, Great Britain, Japan, Singapore and the Netherlands combined. If that isn't enough proof- It is estimated that firms such as Goldman Sachs and Merrill Lynch write between $2 billion and $3 billion in prison constructions bonds every year. Somewhat less than half of all US prisoners are incarcerated for non-violent drug offenses. And if that doesn't convince you go ask Amadou Diallo, but wait you can't because he was shot to death by the police. The March issue of the Ethical Spectacle is online at http://www.spectacle.org. Jonathan Wallace has an article on Amadou Diallo and Mayor Giuliani. Here is an excerpt: "If you are not from New York City, you have probably always heard it is dangerous to live here and I say, yes, that is still true. In New York, you can legally be slain on your own front steps, by the cops. You will not know they are cops; they will be wearing plain clothes, driving an unmarked car, and they may not identify themselves. But when you react as you probably would to a group of armed men chasing you, they will have the right to shoot you, without consequences." > Labelling even an active political supporter of Gore (or Bush) as a >proponent of the Surveillance State is pretty damn simplistic... And pretty damn fucking accurate. Now the people voting for Gore/Bush may have no idea what the police state apparatus is up to, but the act of voting for these candidates propagates the continuation and expansion of the modern police state. What do you think a unit such as this is up to? http://www.mccullagh.org/image/otherphotos/terror.html > That's a formula for a theocratic state. It reduces political >discourse to witch burning. (Not to mention the risk that you might refine >an idea or change your mind about something and end up with faggots piled >around your knees.) I know what Phill's contributions have been (in spite of his repeated reminders). Phill once said to me publicly "I don't believe that you are an individual who should be permitted to own a firearm." That statement shows me what his political philosophy is and it isn't enlightened, nor is it benign. Even though I don't have a dime's worth of respect for most of Phill's political statements, I wouldn't in a million years suggest that his rights be curtailed or regulated as he has suggested to me and others. > > The "FreeMatt" mailing list raises a lot of open and disturbing >questions; surely you don't want to preclude healthy debate about them with >name-calling or formal excommunication rites. > > Surete, > _Vin What possible difference could my correct flame of Phill have on the validity of my mailing list? I'll continue to call it as I see it. Regards, Matt- WHY GUNS? -- by L. Neil Smith -- From the "Webley Page" <http://webley.zq.com/lneil/> Over the past 30 years, I've been paid to write almost two million words, every one of which, sooner or later, came back to the issue of guns and gun-ownership. Naturally, I've thought about the issue a lot, and it has _always_ determined the way I vote. People accuse me of being a single-issue writer, a single-issue thinker, and a single-issue voter, but it isn't true. What I've chosen, in a world where there's never enough time and energy, is to focus on the one political issue which most clearly and unmistakably demonstrates what any politician -- or political philosophy -- is made of, right down to the creamy liquid center. Make no mistake: all politicians -- even those ostensibly on the side of guns and gun ownership -- hate the issue and anyone, like me, who insists on bringing it up. They hate it because because it's an X-ray machine. It's a Vulcan mind-meld. It's the ultimate test to which any politician -- or political philosophy -- can be put. If a politician isn't perfectly comfortable with the idea of his average constituent, any man, woman, or responsible child, walking into a hardware store and paying cash -- for any rifle, shotgun, handgun, machinegun, _anything_ -- without producing ID or signing one scrap of paper, he isn't your _friend_ no matter what he tells you. If he isn't genuinely enthusiastic about his average constituent stuffing that weapon into a purse or pocket or tucking it under a coat and walking home without asking anybody's permission, he's a four-flusher, no matter what he claims. What his attitude -- toward your ownership and use of weapons -- conveys is his real attitude about _you_. And if he doesn't trust you, then why in the name of John Moses Browning should you trust him? If he doesn't want you to have the means of defending your life, do you want him in a position to control it? If he makes excuses about obeying a law he's sworn to uphold and defend -- the highest law of the land, the Bill of Rights -- do you want to entrust him with _anything_? If he ignores you, sneers at you, complains about you, or defames you, if he calls you names only he thinks are evil -- like "Constitutionalist" -- when you insist that he account for himself, hasn't he betrayed his oath, isn't he unfit to hold office, and doesn't he really belong in _jail_? Sure, these are all leading questions. They're the questions that led me to the issue of guns and gun ownership as the clearest and most unmistakable demonstration of what any given politician -- or political philosophy -- is really made of. He may lecture you about the dangerous weirdos out there who shouldn't have a gun -- but what does that have to do with you? Why in the name of John Moses Browning should you be made to suffer for the misdeeds of others? Didn't you lay aside the infantile notion of group punishment when you left public school -- or the military? Isn't it an essentially European notion, anyway -- Prussian, maybe -- and certainly not what America was supposed to be all about? And if there are dangerous weirdos out there, does it make sense to deprive you of the means of protecting yourself from them? Forget about those other people, those dangerous weirdos, this is about _you_, and it has been, all along. Try it yourself: if a politician won't trust you, why should you trust him? If he's a man -- and you're not -- what does his lack of trust tell you about his real attitude toward women? If "he" happens to be a _woman_, what makes her so perverse that she's eager to render her fellow women helpless on the mean and seedy streets her policies helped create? Should you believe her when she says she wants to help you by imposing some infantile group health care program on you at the point of the kind of gun she doesn't want you to have? On the other hand -- or the other party -- should you believe anything politicians say who claim they stand for freedom, but drag their feet and make excuses about repealing limits on your right to own and carry weapons? What does this tell you about their real motives for ignoring voters and ramming through one infantile group trade agreement after another with other countries? Makes voting simpler, doesn't it? You don't have to study every issue -- health care, international trade -- all you have to do is use this X-ray machine, this Vulcan mind-meld, to get beyond their empty words and find out how politicians really feel. About you. And that, of course, is why they hate it. And that's why I'm accused of being a single-issue writer, thinker, and voter. But it isn't true, is it? =================================== L. Neil Smith is the award-winning author of _Bretta Martyn_, _The Probability Broach_, _The Crystal Empire_, _Henry Martyn_, _The Lando Calrissian Adventures_, and _Pallas_. He is also an NRA Life Member and founder of the Libertarian Second Amendment Caucus. ************************************************************************** Subscribe to Freematt's Alerts: Pro-Individual Rights Issues Send a blank message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the words subscribe FA on the subject line. List is private and moderated (7-30 messages per month) Matthew Gaylor,1933 E. Dublin-Granville Rd., PMB 176, Columbus, OH 43229 Archived at http://www.egroups.com/list/fa/ **************************************************************************