(urth) The Politics Of Gene Wolfe

Son of Witz sonofwitz at butcherbaker.org
Tue Mar 17 10:18:23 PDT 2009


Thought I was getting off topic with Alan Moore...

I guess Silk's act of giving away slug-guns to his militia rings in light of the Second Amendment, though I'd have to agree with (I think it was Alan) that the stories I've read deal more with a power imbalance due to weapons technology access, but hardly make a case for getting better weapons to the people.

I'm also reminded of the Citadel. Typhon built it because he was afraid of his people, right?  I forget where that is mentioned.  The ruler had to barricade himself in.


Personally, 2nd amendment is tough for me.  I'm against guns in general. They're for putting holes in people, and I'm generally against putting holes in people, but I do believe that we need to hold our government in check.  It's a tough paradox.  Prohibition of anything has rarely worked in this country, and, as someone else pointed out, in the 21st century, some handguns are not going to do a whit of good against A US Government gone amok.   

There has been so much groundwork laid as to what to do with civil disobedience. Oliver North did a lot of work with that in the NSA. They've got plans for detention camps, and many reports that they actually exist.   I'll tell you, during the depths of the W years, I was pretty convinced with every new act of treachery ? sorry, I'll use their preferred explanation: "incompetence" ? that with every new act of gross incompetence that they were almost egging a revolt on. Yet nothing happened.   

But if there was a revolt, they would quash it so fast and could declare Martial Law, and then our second amendment rights would mean exactly squat.  Where does that leave us?  Better to act through diplomacy and laws, I suppose. And now we're back to Watchmen, because that leads me to the question of what we would become if we actually did revolt against our government.

This question is not a statement of my opinion, it's an open question.
>From supporting an armed insurrection, isn't the next step condoning terrorism?  I mean, if we have the right to overthrow our government, and our government takes our guns, what do we have but molotov cocktails and such?  Wouldn't we then be insurgents or terrorists?

And now that I've come full circle with tangents, I've got another stemming from this?  Do any of you have kids totally into the new Star Wars I-III and Clone Wars?  It troubles me.  The inversion of which side the "good guys" are on is interesting, if problematic.  My son LOVES those clone troopers. But those troopers were our bad guys (if you grew up with the old SW).  There were ads for SW video games that said "You're Boba Fett, hunting the galaxy's most vile insurgents".  Wait a minute! Boba Fett was a "bad guy". The "insurgents" were "The Rebel Alliance".
As an adult, I appreciate the political nuance, but, cheesy as it is, my heart breaks a little bit watching little kids side with the Republic/Empire.


~Sonofwitz

>-----Original Message-----
>From: brunians at brunians.org [mailto:brunians at brunians.org]
>Sent: Tuesday, March 17, 2009 03:36 AM
>To: 'The Urth Mailing List'
>Subject: (urth) The Politics Of Gene Wolfe
>
>This is a good opportunity to start the discussion that I have been
>wanting to have.
>
>A prominent feature of Wolfe's politics, which appears time and time again
>in his stories is his strong approval of the 2nd Amendment of the United
>States constitution, which recognizes the inherent right of the people to
>keep and bear arms, and his strong disapproval of the disarmement of the
>citizenry.
>
>Wolfe's readers are a diverse, and an international bunch, and I for one
>am curious to hear the views of the various literate and intelligent
>readers who frequent this list upon this subject, here in the early 21st
>century, some 90 years into the international disarm-the-citizens campaign
>that began after WWI.
>
>
>
>
>.
>
>
>> Allan Anderson wrote:
>>> What do you mean about the militias? I'm not sure I get that.
>>
>> The entire "a government should be afraid of its people" idea, where the
>> people should be armed and ready to take back control of their country
>> when the government oversteps its bounds and becomes a burden more than
>> a benefit.
>> Our current militia movement takes justification in the @nd Amendment to
>> the US constitution as statements of the founding fathers like Thomas
>> Jefferson:
>>      * I hold it, that a little rebellion, now and then, is a good
>> thing, and as necessary in the political world as storms in the physical.
>>            o Letter to James Madison (January 30, 1787); referring to
>> Shays' Rebellion Lipscomb & Bergh ed. 6:65
>>
>>      * God forbid we should ever be twenty years without such a
>> rebellion.... What country before ever existed a century and half
>> without a rebellion? And what country can preserve its liberties if
>> their rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve
>> the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms. The remedy is to set them
>> right as to facts, pardon and pacify them. What signify a few lives lost
>> in a century or two? The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to
>> time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure.
>> Letter to William Stevens Smith (November 13, 1787), quoted in Padover's
>> Jefferson On Democracy
>>
>> --
>> Jeff Wilson - jwilson at io.com
>> < http://www.io.com/~jwilson >
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