On 01-12-98 Frank Masingill wrote to John Boone... 
 
        Hello Frank and thanks for writing, 
  
        [snip] 
  
 FM> FM> Victims of the holocaust or of the Gulag (described by 
 FM> FM> Solzhenitzen) 
 FM> FM> would certainly be wide-eyed at such a benign definition.  See my 
 FM> FM> response in a longer message. 
   
 FM> JB> Your logic seems to me to be similar to those who object to hand 
 FM> JB> guns. 
 FM> JB> They associate the use of hand guns with murder responding by 
 FM> JB> outlawing 
 FM> JB> hand guns.  However, they forget "guns" can be used for "good" as 
 FM> JB> in 
 FM> JB> defeat of Germany, Iraq, self defense, etc. Perhaps, ideology, 
 FM> JB> much like 
 FM> JB> hand guns, isn't necessarily "bad", unless used inappropiately, 
 FM> JB> Holocaust, or in the case of hand guns, murder. I am not sure, I 
 FM> JB> like 
 FM> JB> this analogy, but I hope it expresses the central point. 
   
 FM>    I honestly don't know how to respond to this.  A "gun" is NOT an 
 FM> ideology. 
 
  I agree and I didn't mean to imply it was.  My words started with 
"Your logic seems to me to be similar to those..."  This in no way 
implies one, guns are an ideology and two, I assumed you were in 
favour of gun control which I didn't.  
 
 FM> Nor am I suggesting laws to ban either. 
  
        [snip] 
  
 FM> understand the full nature of ideology.  Guns can be neutral. 
 
  Yes, they can, can't ideologies be neutral as well? 
  
 FM> Ideologies 
 FM> CANNOT!!!  The very NATURE of an Ideology is to drive toward an 
 
  Why not? 
  
 FM> Orwellian 
 FM> political structure.  One firm definition of an ideology is that it 
 FM> DOES NOT 
 FM> DESIRE OR BEAR QUESTIONING. It is the TOTAL answer to any question 
 FM> that might arise.  
   
  Do you not see, the fact you aren't "open to being questioned" about 
the nature of ideology is in fact an ideology, an unquestioning 
definition of ideology?  
 
Take care, 
John 
 
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