From: Damien Broderick (damien@ariel.ucs.unimelb.edu.au)
Date: Sat Apr 11 1998 - 05:50:07 MDT
At 01:40 PM 4/9/98 -0400, Mike Lorrey wrote:
>What starts flame wars is to immediately label your opponent an extremist,
>trying to make yourself look reasonable. Take your own advice.
and a while later, not taking his own advice, remarked:
>Socialists know that their fondest dreams
>require guns to people's heads by government goons to make reality. Those
>that don't are either liars or fools.
But suppose one were to comment, pari passu,
< Capitalists know that their fondest dreams
require guns to people's heads by hired goons to make reality. Those
that don't are either liars or fools >
My experience suggests that both these accounts, while strictly true only
in extreme but exemplary cases, go a long way toward explaining the world I
live in. In the last couple of days, a conservative government-supported
stevedoring company sacked more than 2000 unionists on Australian wharves
simply for being members of the union, locking them out and patrolling the
wharves with private muscle and rottweilers. Workers rallying in protest
have been attacked illegally by irritant gas, which is as close to a gun
against the head as one might wish to see in industrial practice at the
close of the 20th century. This argues, incidentally, against the claim
that workers can invest on equable terms by command of their own labour.
Damien Broderick
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