From: cmort@NCoast.ORG (Christopher Morton)
Newsgroups: talk.politics.guns
Subject: Re: Salmon (sic) Rushdie's insight into America
Date: 13 Apr 92 22:07:28 GMT
Article-I.D.: NCoast.1992Apr13.220728.19382
Reply-To: cmort@ncoast.org (Christopher Morton)
Followup-To: talk.politics.guns
Organization: North Coast Public Access *NIX, Cleveland, OH

As quoted from <1992Apr12.033014.25042@matilda.vut.edu.au> by db@matilda.vut.edu.au (David Bowman ):

> In article <1992Apr11.211334.18518@ncsu.edu> hes@unity.ncsu.edu (Henry E. Schaffer) writes:
> >>>...
> >>>>>> ... armed bodyguards ...
> >>>
> >>>The amusing thing in the entire Rushdie episode is he spent a good deal
> >>>of his time his prior to the Iranian threat expounding on how the
> >>>British government was fascist.  I suspect 1) he hasn't endeared himself
> >>
> >>I don't see anything amusing about this. Everyone has a right
> >>to the services of their government regardless of whether they
> >>voted for them.
> >
> >  Will everyone who is in danger of being attacked be provided with
> >armed bodyguards?  If that service is available to all then I see
> >no inconsistency in Rushdie being provided these services.  However
> >if bodyguards are not provided to all, and the government prevents
> >people from effectively defending themselves, then inconsistencies
> >abound. 
> 
> Henry, I am astounded! I thought you would have some understanding of 
> this case. Rushdie is under a death sentence. There is a price on his
> head. He is in known danger because some people find a novel he wrote,
> offensive. He is in a different category that the rest of us.
> If you can't see this, I pity you.

So he has a greater right to life than somebody else ONLY because he pissed off
the Ayatollah Khomeini?  Mind you, there's nothing WRONG with pissing off
Iranian fundamentalists, but you don't make a case that that gives you a       
greater claim on protection than someone who merely calls the police to report
a drug house next door.  Obviously, you don't have a clue here.

> >
> >  Where were the full time armed bodyguards when Dr. Chang needed
> >them?  Where are the full time armed bodyguards who should be 
> >protecting all these Australian women who are shot by their
> >husbands?
> 
> There were none as none of these people was in the same
> situation as Rushdie. Dr Chang did not expect to come to harm. It was a 
> tragedy that could not be predicted. Those women who
> are shot by their own husbands clearly to not believe that they
> are about to be shot, else they wouldn't stay with them.

How about the Peruvian mayor who was killed in front of her mayor.  BEING a
mayor in Peru gives a reasonable fear of death.  Did she have a LESSER right to
life?

> Do you seriously say that your life, or mine, is at 
> this time, in the same danger as Rushdies? Talk about blaming the victim!

It might be.  You don't know.  Of course you don't WANT to know.  It'd piss all
over your argument.

> The problem with people like you, is that you have Buckleys of
> even making others sympathetic to your cause when you show
> yourself to be either so unfeeling or so unaware.

The REAL unfeeling ones are you and Susan.  Remember, the two of you who voted
for gays to let themselves be murdered rather than resist?  I'd call that 
pretty unfeeling....



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