From: mdeering@agsm.ucla.edu (Michael Deering)
Subject: Re: The NRA will always be right wing.
Organization: UCLA, Anderson Graduate School Of Management
Date: 8 Jan 93 15:36:23 PST

In article <1ikgh3INNp26@flash.pax.tpa.com.au> anon.526@pax.tpa.com.au writes:
>
>Don Baldwin laments that the gun lobby is weighed down with the label
>of hard-core conservative.
>
>Here is some advice:  Give up.  The NRA will always be right wing.
>I doubt that any NRA directors are losing any sleep over Colorado
>Amendment 2.  Maybe one or two of them have some closeted qualms.
>The other 90 or so (or however many there are) think that fags
>deserve no sympathy.  If you don't believe it, ask Wayne LaPierre
>how many homosexuals there are in the NRA.
>
>In case you missed it, the NRA attacked one of its enemies in Colorado
>last year by raising the issue of flag burning.  Guess which side it
>was on.
>
>It is true that the GOP has been seriously damaged by its reactionary
>posterior.  The NRA is a big part of its problem.  The GOP is either going
>to go down the toilet, or ax the NRA and other fanatics in the party,
>or both.
>
>Brought to you by the Society for Preservation of Human Life.
And the society for the elimination of all but Politically Correct Diversity.

Political Parties are not like businesses, they have no identity beyond the
ideals and beliefs they represent.  If these are not viable, the party 
fails.  It does not do a marketting study and repackage itself.  I would not
advocate that the Republican Party divorce itself from its more conservative
elements and become more centrist merely that something called the Republican
Party would have broader appeal any more than I would advocate the converse 
for the Democrats.  I like the diversity and would like to see still greater 
differentiation.  Should the Republican Party divest itself or distance itself 
any further from those ideals and values it and I still share, I will be forced
to redirect my support.  

As to the issue about flag burning.  I think it wrong, but like many things,
I don't think it is the goverments place to codify this.  I fought for this 
counrty _because_ I can burn the flag - not that I would.  Oftimes the most 
responsible and respectful exercise of a right is forebearance and restraint.
If someone were to burn the flag in my presence I would not expect nor want the
goverment to intervene, because it would be an abridgment of this person's
freedom of expression.  But, if I were to take this as a deep and personal
insult, as I would, and shove the still buring cloth inside this person's
trousers, I would not expect the goverment to react, either.

Lastly, thank you for showing the courage of your convictions and posting
anonymously.  More accurately, the society for the preservation of anonymous
human life, eh?

Mick
NRA-Life
>
>
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