--Washington, D.C., United States
Taken in isolation, these little acts of racial mean-spiritedness may have seemed of little moment. But in fact they had consequences that eventually exploded into the history books. In Japan, the public had been closely watching the passage of the Alien Land Laws with mounting outrage. And when news of the passage of the Asian Exclusion Act was announced, mass riots broke out in Tokyo and other cities. As Pearl Buck would later observe, the then-nascent movement for American-style democracy, which had been slowly gaining momentum in Japan, was effectively wiped out overnight. The military authoritarians who would control the nation for the next 20 years gained complete political mastery, and one of the cornerstones of their rule was a bellicose anti-Americanism that would finally reach fruition in late 1941.
Interesting, eh? I'm generally fascinated by this sort of wide-angle lens on history. Thought I'd share.
Declaring "the front line of the war against terror once again involves the citizens," Republican Alan Keyes said Tuesday he believes the U.S. Constitution grants properly trained private individuals the right to own and carry machine guns.
"You're not talking about giving citizens access to atom bombs and other things," the former presidential candidate said. "That's ridiculous."
Well, of COURSE!! Nuclear weapons, what a wacky idea!! He's just talking about MACHINE GUNS! You know, fully automatic rifles and such. The idea being that the 2nd amendment says that citizens should be armed similarly to the military. So give them guns like this one!
Or even little purse-sized guns like this Uzi-style! See, it goes right over one's shoulder.
Only with proper training, of course. Training provided by...erm....proper training, definitely, definitely need proper training. From the Fully Automatic Weapon Training Gnomes of Limited Government. Yeah, that's it!
Now, why would it be safe, and not scary as all get-out, to have Americans walking around with their own personal machine guns? You may wish to ask this of Alan Keyes. Well, someone has already done so:
"Have you ever been to Israel?" Keyes asked the reporter. "Because if you've ever been to Israel, you wouldn't ask that question. And in the midst of terrifying dangers, you walk around the streets of Israel and you see every other person carrying arms and Uzis and so forth and so on, and believe me, you do not feel less safe on that account."
Ah yes. When in Israel, one is awash in feelings of security and peace. Walking down the street, taking buses, sipping coffee at outdoor cafes--surely, the presence of multiple uzis being carried by trained citizens (all of whom are veterans, remember) is a soothing balm of reassurance to the Israeli mind. (Non-sarcastic proposal: you know the "Hitler" rule of online discussion? When Hitler gets mentioned, the conversation has degraded such that there is nothing more worthwhile to be said. Should there maybe be an "israel" corollary, on using Israel as a sociological example of anything?)
But wait, the best is yet to come:
Keyes made the remarks at a news conference he called to attack the "ideological extremism" of his Democratic opponent, state Sen. Barack Obama.
Extremist Barack Obama objected to a messy little law that would have allowed people to use self-defense as a legal defense for violating local handgun laws. So in Chicago, say, if you own an illegal handgun, but use it in self-defense, you would be able to avoid prosecution for owning an illegal handgun. Surely, objection to that sort of change by a lawyer like Obama could only be grounded in ideological extremism, and not in how it creates a frigging legal MORASS out of already messy gun regulations. And, surely, taking the 2nd amendment to one of its interpretations' logical extremes by allowing citizens to carry the same weapons as soldiers is, comparatively, a moderate suggestion.
"In general, a society based on the idea of equal human dignity must find ways to inhibit stigma and the aggression that are so often linked to the proclamation that 'we' are the ones who are 'normal.' Such a society is difficult to achieve, because incompleteness is frightening, and grandiose fictions are comforting. As a patient of the psychoanalyst Donald W. Winnicott said to him, 'The alarming thing about equality is that we are then both children, and the question is, where is father? We know where we are if one of us is the father.'"
Wow! This made me think of a lot of things. First of all, my man George Lakoff, who in my world would be a household name, and his ideas about the links between conceptions of the family and resultant political views that explain so much about sociopolitical discourse in America today. (I also talk about him in posts archived here and here.)
But it also made me think about leadership. My first 9-to-5 job was one summer at college, and watching how the office was run made me realize just how unorganized and leaderless a place could be while still functioning well enough to not get noticed. (No that place wasn't terrible, but it did illustrate the concepts.) It made me see what gets things done is just people deciding to do them, that there is no boss or parent in life, and that even people in roles that could be expected to be bossy/parental often don't fulfill those roles. It's hard to explain without sounding stupid. But it comes up a LOT, especially when I look at how things happen politically. Budgets may need to get passed or too many people get mad, but other bills and ideas? One person gets the light in their eye and their work makes it happen. That person is necessary (but not always sufficient) for implementation. (This article on electronic voting made me think of this, for some reason.)
So I think this observation about the frighteningness of equality is valid. That nobody could be in charge is so terrifying that we develop religions, invent conspiracy theories, etc. to PUT someone in charge. Grandiose fictions ARE comforting.
