Jews + "Never Again!"

[BobCat]

Sam Adams

Your wife's cousin sounds like all too many of my family and friends "in the Old Country" - i.e. back North. As, I must add, like *me* thirty-some years ago. Having grown up in a sheltered place and never having experienced anything worse than shouted insults, thrown stones, and an occasional bloody nose - I was *sure* that (a/o WWII) the nazis were all gone, there were no truly evil people left, so there was no one to legitimately shoot. Guns were only for cops and robbers...

Anyway, on the "threatening" part - I did not express it properly. People who appear "threatening" are, by definition, perceived as threats; and threats get neutralized. OTOH people who appear "formidable" are less likely to be messed with.

There is a distinction between someone who is prone to violence - and should be avoided or de-clawed - and someone who does not want any trouble, but if attacked, will turn the attacker's heart and lungs to hamburger with hollow points. Appearing to be the latter, without seeming like the former, is a challenge.

People talk about the "gun culture" and I ask "Which one?" There is the traditional gun culture, which stresses individual responsibility, safety, and the duty to protect - self, family, community, people. Having a gun means being a trusted member of the community, an adult, shouldering adult responsibilities, and with enough self-control not to flip out and start shooting people at the drop of a hat (or insult).

OTOH there is the "popular gun culture" from TV - in which having a gun is seen as commanding fear or respect. Having the gun, and the willingness to use it with very little provocation, is what I think the sociologists call a "threat display" - it means the person is not to be messed with because he is so crazy and destructive that you could "set him off. It is a preemptive defense by puffing up (bottle-brush tail, fur standing up along the spine, prancing sideways on tiptoes, hissing - the Halloween Cat). A truly capable defender does not need to puff up.

I'm at a loss to explain why "Never Again" is merely a slogan to some Jews; and to others a heartfelt, solemn promise of return fire.

The Rabbi,

Thank you for bringing the discussion down to Earth. I do not see being armed as a sufficient defense against another pogrom - necessary yes, sufficient no. However, I do see being armed as influencing the cost:benefit calculation of anyone, thug or demagog, who wants my hide for a lampshade.

Purrrs,
BobCat
http://www.bayourifles.org
http://www.thss.org

 

[GEM]

Valentino, Benjamin A., Final solutions : mass killing and genocide in the twentieth century / Benjamin A. Valentino.

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Some folks have suggested that individual arms in the hands of an at risk group is not a deterrent to genocide.

I suggest that scholarship argues differently. The recent book above makes a clear case that while genocide has a large motivational component due to racial hatred, ethnic hatred, etc. , it also has a larger, pragmatic, economic and strategic value to the state proposing genocide. If the costs of genocide are cheaper, then it is a good solution.

The author clearly states in a scholarly (and this is NOT a gun loonie book), that resistance by the target population is clearly an important calculation. In many examples, he points out how the inability to resist is a crucial factor in preventing a genocide and how the pepertrators of genocide try to remove arms from the target group and men of military age.

Thus, for Jews (and others in America) portrayal of individual or armed group strength is an important message as it indicates that genocide will not be cheap.

We see some indications of this with the Koreans in the LA Riots. After the dragging death of the black man in Jasper, TX - African-American protesters in some groups made the clear case that blacks can be armed. Such demos nip in the bud the notion that genocide would be easy.

I thus propose that Jews is the USA need to make that statement. That does not mean we have to drop socially liberal values and buy into social conservative crappola. It does have to be demonstrated that as a group we will not just rely on the good will of the liberal left, the religious conservative right waiting for Armaggedon and/or the multicultural dance / diversity festival as our prime methods of defense against genocide.

 

[LynnKCircle]

Having read through the thread, here are a few more thoughts and responses from another Jewish Texan who's on the third renewal of his Texas CHL:

First of all, when Liberals were truly Liberals (as compared to the blind ideologues who today SAY they are liberal), RKBA WAS a liberal issue. During the late 1950's and most of the 1960's, Liberals were the ones who kept saying that poor minorities had as much a right to own firearms as any other American citizen. Conservatives, on the other hand, warned of chaos if "they" had guns. Jack Kennedy was an NRA life member. Charlton Heston was quite likely the FIRST Hollywood star to march alongside Martin Luther King. The first "Saturday Night special laws" were nothing other than weakly disguised attempts to remove reasonably-priced firearms from dealers' shelves with the purpose of keeping guns out of the hands of anyone except those with real money. Today's "liberals" are no more truly liberal than they are open-minded (a prerequisite of being a real liberal).

Secondly, I do not understand why so many American Jews have such a knee-jerk reaction against President Bush. President Bush has done as much if not more to support the existence of Israel than any American President before him. Yes, he can be truly criticized on other issues, but he's done the right thing where the rubber meets the road for American Jews. (OK, he's NOT a great President, and I think truly screwed the pooch on post-combat planning in Iraq. It looks to me as if Bush and Company evisioned Iraq as an analog to WWII France, with the Iraq National Congress taking the place of DeGaulle and the Free French. If so, they had their heads in the sand (or up another orifice). They should have looked to U.S. planning for the occupation of Japan BEFORE we dropped the bomb and BEFORE the Emperor told the Japanese people to peacefully accept American occupation. That approach would have saved a lot of American and Iraqi lives during the past twelve months.)

Thirdly, I used to agree with the view another poster presented, that Jews are primarily residents of large, liberal urban areas. But why, then, does the Houston Jewish Community Center forbid CHL holders from carrying on their property? Why did they not even deign to respond to my letter to them on that very topic? That's the one reason why I am still not a member.

All I can think is that American Jews are as likely to be willfully blind as any other group of idiots. When Buford Farrow went on his rampage in 1999, I thought American Jews and Californians would see it as a wake up call. Instead, all it did was seem to intensify the drive to limit or ban the private ownership of firearms.

Norman Mailer, a WWII Combat Marine and a New York Jew, made his most recent book into a propaganda piece for HCI, portraying gun owners as emotionally-immature racist crazies. I simply cannot comprehend what imbues an intelligent Jewish veteran like Mailer with such hatred of firearms owners that he sees us only through the distortions of hatemongering, without realizing that in so doing he, himself, has become a hatemonger.

How can American Jews blind themselves to the obvious reality that the only reason there are Jews alive in the free state of Israel today is because of firearms and the willingness of Israelis to use them in their own defense? How can American Jews blind themselves to the reality that the only protection they themselves have against violent racists, hatemongers, and bigots is a loaded gun and the training to use it at need?

Most American synagogues are nothing more and nothing less than an open invitation for Islamic terrorists to come and do slaughter. WHAT DO THEY THINK? DO THEY SUPPOSE THAT WHEN AL QAEDA FINALLY COMES TO TOWN, THEY'LL BE EXCUSED FROM SLAUGHTER BECAUSE THEY CAN SAY, "WE VOTED FOR CLINTON. WE VOTED FOR KERRY. WE VOTED AGAINST GUNS"?

It hasn't happened yet, but it will. Somewhere in the future, the terrorist leaders will realize that large, reformed, liberal American Jewish synagogues are the softest targets in the world. When it does happen,will these blind people open their eyes? Or will the survivors scream even louder for gun control?

Lynn K. Circle
NRA, TSRA, American Legion
(Yes, and I'm Jewish, too)

 

[GEM]

Great post - Lynn. From another transplant to TX - thanks.

I have folks look at me like I was crazy if I mentioned that I was an RKBA fan. Sigh.
:banghead: