Heavy Lifting
Here's a piece on Ron Paul by my friends Nick Gillespie and Matt Welch.
Here's another piece on Ron Paul by Ian Bremmer and Willis Sparks.
What is it about Ron Paul that requires two people to write about him?
posted by LAGuy @ 1:29 AM
4 Comments:
Well, your friends might be right about Ron Paul, but they're wrong about Guy Fawkes. He was not even remotely an "anarchist" -- he was a Catholic revolutionary who wanted the Anglican government of England to be toppled.
Maybe they got their information about Fawkes from V for Vendetta?
They didn't really hvae anarchists back in Guy's day, but anyone willing to blow up a government building is at least a prototype.
Anarchists oppose the very existence of a government. Someone who is "at least a prototype" of an anarchist, then, ought to have at least some aversion to government per se.
But Fawkes wanted to destroy the existing government and replace it with a different government. So he was no more of an anarchist than Washington or Lenin. *
Indeed, the conspirators sent warnings to the few Catholics who were in Parliament, and this apparently led to the discovery of the plot.
(Being Catholic myself, I hereby disavow any support for this plot, because it was immoral, and not merely because it was really stupid.)
* Unless you want to argue that the plot was so obviously futile that they must have been really motivated by a possibly-subconscious nihilism. I actually would buy that argument. I think it is clearly true of the Weathermen, and perhaps Che.
Its odd (or maybe its not) that the day is named after Guy (or Guido)Fawkes since he was just the dashing mercenary in charge of implementation (sort of the Oliver North equivalent)and while Catesby and certain other of the plotters may have shared the high-minded ideals discussed above, I think Mr. Fawkes was just looking for an adventure against the "other team"
Post a Comment
<< Home