Thursday, March 13, 2008

Evidence against Empire

I posted recently about some reading I've done, including Orson Scott Card's Empire. Imagine my surprise when I read this article this morning.
Basically, the main idea of the article is this: each time a democrat becomes president after eight years of a republican president, some far-right people go crazy and start committing terrorist acts.
Interestingly enough, when the change is from democrat to republican, far-left people don't commit acts of terror.
Interesting correlation and some good evidence for what I thought was common sense: republicans fight with guns, democrats fight with words (but Orson Scott Card obviously disagrees).

3 comments:

Unknown said...

I'm afraid I can't really agree with this guy at all.

He classifies his first example, the Silver Shirts, as a "far-right movement," when they were actually fascists. I don't think they never actually performed any acts of terrorism, anyways - mostly just hatemongering. They may have made some specific threats, but never carried anything out.

Second, he talks about the Minutemen rising up when Kennedy was elected, but says nothing of the Weathermen, a Communist organization that performed several bombings shortly after Nixon was put into office.

No mention of the Earth Liberation Front or the Black Liberation Army, either. Now, I'll admit that there have been plenty of right-wing nut jobs, but I think there are just as many left-wing terrorist groups. I think this guy's trying to make something out of nothing.

Unknown said...

Whoops, I meant "I don't think they ever actually performed any acts of terrorism."

Tim said...

You're probably right.
I just think it's interesting that I read this right after reading the book.
I also know that if you're Republican and you want to be president, you need to embrace the National Rifle Association. Romney, not exactly an avid gunsman, did just that, and then got flack about how he hardly ever went shooting.
Democrats, besides tending to be anti-war and pro-peace (at least when we have no good reason for war) also don't demand NRA membership.
Little things like that make more difference to me than examples of fascists and socialists.