So long, and thanks for all the Apes.

[pyat]

I'm a bit sad to hear of the death of Charlton Heston. His gun control politics were the product of a certain time and place and mindset, and he defended them articulately, even if he did proceed from basic assumptions that entirely alien to an urban Canadian pinko. He marched with Martin Luther King and did a great deal of humanitarian work.

And, of course, he really was a charismatic actor.

Comments

[dagoski.livejournal.com]

Yeah, a very clearly remember all of the Heston movies I ever saw. I can probably do the dialog of Spartacus from memory and I haven't even seen it all that many times.

Gun politics. I used to be a moderate gun control type. Growing up in S. Central LA during the 1980s kind of drills that knee jerk stance in you. But... Well, I started reading about The Red Summer and the Tulsa Riots and started seeing militant evangelicals gaining power in the States and I started thinking that gun ownership was neither a right nor a privilege, but just prudent. That prudence is a symptom of something very wrong in US culture and politics, but that's a whole 'nother rant. Parallel to that worry is the disintegration of public order that's been taking place in Philly, has taken place in Baltimore and few other places. Philly's getting really dangerous and it's not just gun violence. There's a lot of angry young people out there right and their tempers are boiling over. The tactic seems to be swarming single people who look (more)affluent and just beat them down with fists. It's all well and good for me to be able to bench press a compact car, but that just means I can put one attacker down and still be a whole lot of trouble. I'm not the enemy, but being white and part of University City makes me look that way to a whole lot of frustrated people in West Philly. This is what happens when governments allow a divide between haves and have nots to grow to the current US proportions. They wind up losing sovereignty in places they've neglected and public order vanishes. So will gun control laws work? Probably not. Especially not when, unofficially at least, law enforcement just writes certain areas off. On a very gut level personal safety basis, gun ownership and a conceal carry permit is looking better and better. Even though I like the new mayor, there are economic and structural government problems that make Philly the pit it is now and those will take decades to fix. And that only will happen only with Federal help and if the state of Pennsylvania decides that Philadelphia belongs to it after all. In other words, its pretty much hopeless and the wife and I just going to try not to get shot or beaten up by resentful mobs for the rest of the time we're here.

Anyway, I guess the take home message is that if you have to have a serious debate about gun control you've already lost the public safety and good governance battle. The better plan to refuse to let your society degenerate to the level that certain parts of the US have gotten to.

[pyat.livejournal.com]

Pssst! Spartacus was Kirk Douglas!

As to the larger issue of gun control - I have to remain silent. I was simply raised in a different world, and live there. I would be somewhat pleased, in fact, if the manufacture and sale of private firearms was outlawed entirely.

[dagoski.livejournal.com]

Uh, yeah, I knew that. I was just testing you.