🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <DRW.94Apr28160109@schauder.mit.edu> drw@schauder.mit.edu (Dale R. Worley) writes:
>In article <klordCopFAG.Js6@netcom.com> klord@netcom.com (Kevin L. Lord) writes:
>   Something I've noticed about Americans, that (I've been
>   told, so don't blame me if I'm wrong... :) seems to be mainly
>   absent in most other countries... Americans... when told to sit
>   down and be quiet, will, without examining the reasoning of this
>   request often (not always!!! And not all of them... just a lot. :),
>   stand up and make lots and lots of noise... :)
>
>I think the general drift is that while Europeans will obey and
>support "the authorities" until it is proven that the authorities are
>wrong, Americans will disobey the authorities until it is proven that
>the authorities are right.

	As far as has been experimentally tested for Americans, the
above is empirically false. I refer you to Stanley Milgram's excellent
and disturbing book "Obedience to Authority". In it, he discusses a
series of (now fairly famous) psychological experiments he conducted.
Many ordinary people, acting under orders from what they perceived as a
legitimate authority, were willing to administer electric shocks to
the point of causing a (simulated, for experimental purposes) heart
attack in another person involved in simple tests.
	I don't know if anyone has done similar studies in Europe, but
there is little reason to believe that the results would be
significantly different, and many historical reasons to think the
results would be similar.
	In sum, direct orders from a figure perceived as possessing
legitimate power will likely be obeyed, *mostly* without regard to the
orders themselves.
	What Mr. Lord may be discussing is a very minor cultural
difference between acceptable standards of "noise" and "restraint". 
	There are certainly differences in the abstract theory of
government. Compare the ideas of government deriving from "the consent
of the governed" with, however formally, being a "Subject of the
[King, Queen, Emperor]". But I'm not sure how much these affect
obeying authorities in practice.

>In what other country is it openly argued that gun control is a bad
>idea because it makes it harder for people to engage in armed rebellion?

	First ask, for a basis of comparison, what other countries
were founded (and recently, in a historically sense) by armed rebels?
It is worth remembering that George Washington was the first President
in no small part because he was the victorious commander in chief of
the Continental Army.

--
Seth Finkelstein  				sethf@mit.edu
Disclaimer : I am not the Lorax. I speak only for myself.
(and certainly not for Project Athena, MIT, or anyone else).