Kathryn Aegis wrote:
>
> John Grigg wrote:
> >I was just kidding on the idea of Mike and Joe duelling at ten paces! In
> >relation to the gun control debate between Mike Lorrey and Joe Dees I just
> >want to say both men have the right to discuss the matter but it does seem
> >to have been beaten to death here on the list.
>
> I was amazed to have returned after over a year's absence to find it still
> going on! And it had already turned ugly a few years ago. An essay posted
> to the extropian list, relating the gun debate to my own views on
> transhumanist tenets, had somehow been forwarded to an NRA listserve. Boy,
> was that a fun week--I gave up on trying to craft any rational reply to the
> emails that flooded in.
Interesting. I would be interested to find out who did that. I state that I did not do that.
>
> Attempts have been made to have moderated discussions of guns and gun
> control regulations on some of the more serious news shows here. Sadly,
> several of the spokespersons no longer are invited onto television because
> of their conduct during those discussions. I say sadly, because this is a
> discussion that badly needs to be had, publicly and rationally.
>
Yes it does. However in my experience it is frustratingly difficult to have rational discussions with people who have unreasoning fears of inanimate objects, no matter WHAT that inanimate object is. Consider the typical anti-gun advocate on tv exhibits such behavior, which in all fairness may be simply due to a ferverent beleif in their cause. Then again, most tyrannies start from those with ferverent beliefs exploiting an unreasoning fear in some part of the population....
While the typical definition of insanity is a state of mind that is out of touch with the normal state of mind, what do you do when the alleged normal person's state of mind seems to be filled with unreasoning fears of inanimate objects? Is the norm to be judged to be insane? The same was once said of the population of Germany.
Mike Lorrey