Reply #17: My post made no suggestion... [View All]

[Irreverend IX]

That "everything" is somehow related to gun issues, or to mens' issues. I pointed out that opposition to firearms ownership often goes beyond the realm of public policy and begins to resemble religious taboo. The security personnel at the Los Angeles airport who treated the little toy soldier as if it could shoot at them remind me of primitive tribe members who recoil from some random object because it has "bad juju" associated with it.

Beevul mentioned drugs, and drugs are another thing that are demonized far beyond the point of rationality. A lot of "drug education" suggests to kids that they'll get addicted, go crazy and/or die the first time they ever use any controlled substance. Myths like the one about drug traffickers who kill a baby and stuff it with heroin suggest that drug dealers are uniquely inhuman and evil. And it makes perfect sense for the drug controllers and gun controllers to engender these feelings; it's easy to argue with public policy and hard to argue with religious taboo. Look at the irrational dietary restrictions that Jews and Muslims still adhere to centuries after sanitary agricultural procedures have rendered the original reasons for those restrictions moot.

And tell me more about how a woman buying a plastic soldier toy is "collaborating with the oppressors." Where can I sign up to join your glorious cultural revolution? Will there be mass burnings of GI Joe toys? Will I get a reward for every collaborator I turn in?