Video of Black Panthers at the California Capitol May 2, 1967 (RKBA-rally)

[Aaron]

I ran across this link during some coursework for a class I'm taking. I thought it might be of interest to some of the folks in the dungeon. They're in the capital to protest a gun bill being signed(?) by Reagan. It's only about a minute and a half long, there's some other videos at the host site relating to the Black Panthers.

Format: RealVideo

www.bobbyseale.com/panthers_capitol.ram <- High Bandwidth

www.bobbyseale.com/panthers_capitol_small.ram <- Low Bandwidth

[solinvictus]

1. Guns and public life..

Here's my take on the issue: the Swiss carry weapons to the polling place to REMIND their elected officials who they represent and establish who is in charge of their country. Here, we've allowed elected officials to act as if they were a new Mandarin class ruling over us.

[iverglas]

2. okay

"... the Swiss carry weapons to the polling place to
REMIND their elected officials who they represent and
establish who is in charge of their country."

Can you offer something ... anything ... to substantiate this characterization and interpretation of Swiss political culture? It's certainly a new one on me. But heck, so many things are.

Really, I'm genuinely curious. If I don't hear it here, I'll just have to telephone my very good Swiss friend, now in Alberta, and ask her.

[Man_in_the_Moon]

3. I have read

that it used to be part of swiss law that if you didnt show up to the polling place with a sword you couldnt vote.

Had to do with the idea that only those that were members of the Swiss Militia being able to vote.

I have also heard that was one of the reasons why Switzerland was about the last place in Europe to allow women to vote. I am talking the mid 70's for some Cantons.

[iverglas]

4. that would make sense

i.e.: "Had to do with the idea that only those that were
members of the Swiss Militia being able to vote."

And in fact that is quite the opposite of the original assertion that I had questioned. In your version, the weapon is exhibited in order to establish fealty, loyalty to the state; historically, perfectly sensible. In the other version, the weapon is exhibited in order to demonstrate the conditional nature of that loyalty. Totally different, and making no sense still.

That original assertion looked like nothing but a bizarre, ethnocentric projection of a certain brand of USAmerican political philosophy onto someone else's political culture in which it has absolutely no place at all.

But I'm still open to being enlightened.

[Man_in_the_Moon]

5. Well

In your version, the weapon is exhibited in order to establish fealty, loyalty to the state; historically, perfectly sensible. In the other version, the weapon is exhibited in order to demonstrate the conditional nature of that loyalty.

Well, It could be said that both are correct.

For you see historically the Swiss Militia was the 'state', and the government was subservient to the Swiss Militia. Not the other way around.

And a large portion of what is "American Political Philosophy" was adapted from the Swiss. Several of the Founding Fathers were definitly trying to steer the US into "Swiss-style" system.

[iverglas]

7. not quite Switzerland's take on it

"For you see historically the Swiss Militia was the 'state',
and the government was subservient to the Swiss Militia.
Not the other way around."

http://www.switzerland-in-sight.ch/en/4_fod/4_00.html
(emphasis added)

The militia system

Switzerland has a firmly anchored tradition of service to the community, under which citizens take on public office which they perform alongside their normal jobs. This is referred to by the Swiss as the militia system. Its best known manifestation is the army, which is largely non-professional, even as far as most of its officers are concerned. The Swiss regard their politicians as part of the same militia system. Even members of the federal parliament do not give up their former jobs when they take their seats. Public office, even at commune level, is time consuming and poorly remunerated, and as a result some of the smaller communes are finding it harder and harder to persuade people to take on these tasks.

I'd say that in order for what you said to be understood, by yr average reader, as an accurate representation, it would have to include that fact -- that "militia" simply does not mean, in Switzerland, what it means to, say, a USAmerican. Not at all, apparently. It means people taking on "public office which they perform alongside their normal jobs" -- as part of a "tradition of service to the community". That is really hardly what yr average USAmerican thinks of when s/he hears the word "militia".

I'm still not seeing any government being subservient to any militia, I'm afraid -- that is, not to any militia in the sense that a USAmerican would understand that word. Especially when politicians are regarded as volunteers performing community service -- as part of the militia system.

http://www.worldbank.org/participation/hoferdoc.htm

Summary: In Switzerland, participation by the people in the legislative process and in macroeconomic policy-making has long been institutionalised. The first part of this paper describes the mechanisms and opportunities for Switzerland’s civil society to participate in the legislative process at the federal level. It gives an overview of the instruments of direct democracy at the cantonal level and the militia system at the municipal level. ...

... Having instruments of participation during the legislative process helps to produce broadly based decisions that enjoy popular support. The macroeconomic outcomes resulting from this decision-making approach instruments match the population’s preferences better, despite slowing down the political process. The militia system can be very useful for the effective functioning of a decentralised system; but it shows its limits when resolving complex problems. ...

... Militia System: At all three levels, Members of Parliament carry out their political duties in addition to their professional ones. At village level, members of the local government are employed part-time, while voluntary participation is offered to other individuals. Thus, the term “militia system” used in this paper is not at all related to any kind of military system.

... Militia system: The term ”militia system” is used only in Switzerland and means the voluntary, ancillary and honorary assumption of public tasks and duties. Many socially or publicly motivated, unpaid workers support countless cultural, social and charitable organisations. In this wider sense, militia activities are characteristic of every civil society. But in Switzerland it has a particular meaning in the political area, since so many public functions and duties make use of this system and its historical roots are very deep. It ensures the smooth running of the finely structured political system. In this way, a small society can compensate for its limited capacities for division of labour and sophistication, and limited financial resources for hiring professionals.

(an article worth reading)

My my, I do learn something every day. Now I see how misled I have been for so long by so much I have heard about this "militia" business in Switzerland. Innocent and inadvertent as that misleading may have been.

Yes, the Swiss have mandatory military service; that is one element of the militia system, of broad-based community service and participation. And yes, the Swiss have widespread private firearms ownership. But that fact really seems to have virtually nothing to do with the "militia" to which the state might possibly be said, very broadly and loosely speaking, to be "subservient" in Switzerland. *That* "militia" is the entire corps of citizens participating voluntarily and in large proportions in their government.

The possession of firearms by private individuals is very definitely, in Switzerland, an expression of loyalty to the state, I would now say.

It is an element of the participation by citizens in the functions of the state -- in this case, very obviously the function of defending the state against outside threats, and *not* some sort of warning to the state that it had better behave itself or else. As such, firearms ownership is simply one element among many ways in which the Swiss participate in their government, as loyal citizens, and absolutely not as suspicious, self-interested individuals anxious to keep the government out of their business and their neighbours away from their stuff. When one of the ways of participating in the "militia system" is to be a politician, that would just not make much sense at all.

.

[Man_in_the_Moon]

8. semantics

You run around and around and end up saying the same thing I did, with an slight and interesting twist I might add.

For it seems you are misunderstanding me when I use the term 'militia'. Or you put a totally different meaning upon the word, might be the differences in residences, who knows.

I use the term 'Militia' in much the same way the Swiss do. In much the same way many of the Founding Fathers of the US did. As a matter of a fact the term 'Militia' is technically and most accurately used in almost the same way in BOTH Switzerland and the United States today.

The 'Militia' is the ENTIRE body of the people. A person walking down the street is a member of the 'Militia', a person working in a factory, or a Represenative in Congress (for you see even in the United States the 'politicians' for the most part are the Militia also). Let me repeat the Militia is the People. And the People are the Militia.

And the government IS subservient to, or at least was supposed to be, the People in BOTH countries, not the People to the government. As ol'George Washington said "Government is like fire, a useful servant and a dangerous master".

You seem to be reading way to much 'stateness' into the terms. The Militia, in both the United States and in Switzerland, since it is comprised of the entire people, and since they are both based on a democratic system (with Switzerland being more of a true democracy, and the US being a democratic republic), is the ultimate power, not the 'state'. And if the 'state' became a threat to the 'people' the 'state' could and would be changed, or removed. And yes the government is the People. As a matter of fact is supposed to be 'Of the People, By the People, For the People'. But that does not mean that the 'state' has the power, no quite the opposite it means that the PEOPLE have the power.

For you see both countries are based on the idea that thousands of free individuals working and cooperating together are worth more than millions of slaves, it doenst matter if the master is some lord in a manor on the hill, or some government in a far away place.

But that is not to say that there are no responsibilities involved in that freedom and individuality, some of those responsibilities involve owning weapons (there is actually more to it that 'just' owning weapons, there is also training in their use) with which you might be called upon to defend yourself, or your neighbor, or your country (for they are all ultimatly one and the same). It is not about loyalty to the 'state' so much as it is about loyalty to your neighbor, and yourself. The firearms are to defend Freedom, which would in most incidences mean defending the State, but in some it may mean the exact opposite. The same thing applies to participation in government, it is not about the 'state' it is about the freedom of the individual from the state, it is about keeping the government the slave and preventing it from becoming the master.

You seem to have the opinion that the government should be the master.

Historically the Swiss and the United States have the exact opposite opinion.

[iverglas]

9. nope, not me doing the "reading in"

"You seem to have the opinion that the government should be the master."

Or the totally unfounded and unsubstantiated misrepresenting.

Really. Take your "you seems" and shove them up one of those barrels of yours, would you?

Then try reading what I said, and what the two articles I quoted said, and finding somewhere where I "seem" to have any such opinion. Your statement is so grossly, and plainly deliberately, offensive that it can be seen as nothing, absolutely nothing, but a personal attack.

YOUR problem is quite plainly that you just don't know what "a state" is, and persist in this primitive and quite uncivilized notion that "the state" that we are talking about is something OTHER THAN and SEPARATE FROM all those free individuals you wax so poetic about.

It's always been beyond me where you folks imagine that your "state" came from. I thought it obviously came about as a result of some sort of common consensus, at least among those whose participation or non-participation in that consensus-making was allowed to matter.

"And yes the government is the People. As a matter of fact is
supposed to be 'Of the People, By the People, For the People'.
But that does not mean that the 'state' has the power, no quite
the opposite it means that the PEOPLE have the power."

Duh.

Did you manage to miss the entire discussion in which I repeatedly suggested that if you folks didn't trust the government you had, you should ELECT A GOVERNMENT YOU TRUST? Your government is NOT the "state", you see. You happen to combine the roles of head of state and head of government in a single person, and I could see where this might lead to some confusion, but still and all, eh?

"For it seems you are misunderstanding me when I use the term 'militia'.
Or you put a totally different meaning upon the word, might be the differences
in residences, who knows."

Moi?? The only contacts I have with the term "militia" are

(a) when hearing or reading media reports about some loony fascist outfit in your country that calls itself that ... and no, I am not accepting that usage as in any way valid; and

(b) when observing some skirmish in the perennial war over the meaning of the 2nd amendment to your constitution -- which very definitely DOES NOT use the word "militia" in the sense in which it is used in the term "militia system" in Switzerland; at least I have never, ever read anything that would have suggested that anyone using that term and referring to that amendment understood it to mean any such thing.

"It is not about loyalty to the 'state' so much as it is about
loyalty to your neighbor, and yourself."

YOUR problem is, as I've noted, a little deeper than "semantics". YOU are the one using some idiosyncratic meaning for the term "state". The word simply does not carry the sinister connotations you are plainly ascribing to it.

I'm not committed to dictionaries when it comes to authority for complex concepts, but let's try one here: the Oxford Concise.

state ...
3 (also State) a an organized political community under one government;
a commonwealth; a nation

Thus, when you say:

"The firearms are to defend Freedom, which would in most
incidences mean defending the State, but in some it may mean
the exact opposite.

... you simply are not making sense. Defending the *state* could indeed mean opposing the *government*, but I can't think of any instance where defending "Freedom" (which makes no sense anyway) would mean opposing the state -- unless the state itself, i.e. the community and not merely its government, was the agent of oppression.

It's back to what I, on the outside looking in, see as one of the fundamentally problematic aspects of your society and country. You (the great big you) refuse to distinguish between state and government. You refuse to recognize that the state is you, and to assume that responsibility you go on about. You pretend that you and the state are different things; you are not.

This is very clearly *not* the Swiss approach to the matter. The Swiss obviously have a firm and clear understanding of exactly what their "state" is: it is THEM. And they *do* assume the responsibilities that this fact entails. They do *not* spend their lives telling the state to get its nose out of their affairs; they spend their lives attending to the affairs of state, their affairs.

To do otherwise is precisely what allows oppressive governments to grow up, or take over. And frankly, I don't see the otherwise-doing that goes on in the US as having anything to do with these fine but muddled principles you throw around; I see them as having to do with laziness and base self-interest, the precise opposite of what is needed if the citizenry is to maintain control of their state.

"The same thing applies to participation in government, it is
not about the 'state' it is about the freedom of the individual
from the state, it is about keeping the government the slave and
preventing it from becoming the master."

So this is just a big dog's breakfast, randomly substituting "state" for "government" when they are two different things. One cannot be free of one's self. When Louis XIV said "L'état, c'est moi!", he was wrong, speaking as king -- but he was correct, speaking as individual ... as is every other individual in the community in question. "The state is me". "Me" *is* a member of a community, whether I happen to like that or lump it.

Participating in government *is* a way that individuals give effect to their state-ness. It *is* a way that individuals exercise their responsibility and their control.

Your ascribing of these motivations, these notions about "freedom of the individual from the state", to the public -- political and social -- practices of the Swiss (if you'd read the article, you'd have seen that the participation in question extends well beyond the political and military aspects of life) is just more ethnocentrism. People in the great big world outside your borders just do *not* regard their participation in public affairs as 'keeping the state out of their business'; they regard the state as their business, and they tend to be a little more willing to assume their responsibilities in that regard.

Sure, this does indeed prevent government from becoming the "master" -- prevent something less than the community from controlling the government, and thus the state.

The finer point here is that the Swiss simply do not appear to regard their bearing of arms as the primary or even a particularly important method of doing that. They do it by getting off their asses and participating, not sitting behind their locked doors with their revolver on the arm of the couch beside the television remote control bleating about the freedoms their nasty government is stripping from them.

Canadians don't see any need for the arms-bearing part of it, since there really just isn't any such need. But the rest of what the Swiss get up to is really quite familiar to a Canadian, although granted not to quite the same extent.

So, once again:

"You seem to have the opinion that the government should be the master."

Perhaps you would have the honour and courtesy to withdraw this quite scurrilous and insulting and unsubstantiated allegation.

You run for office much? I've done it ... well, let's just say "more than once", and never for an office as low as municipal. And always "got my deposit back" (what used to happen when a candidate got sufficient votes to be recognized as a serious candidate in a multi-party system: 50% of campaign expenses were paid out of public funds). Me, I assume my responsibilities. L'état, c'est moi, and I didn't just sit around and bitch about what the gummint was doing to annoy me and act as if it was none of my business and should just stay out of my business. That actually is not the function of government in a democratic state.

.

[Name removed]

22. Deleted message

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[iverglas]

28. anybody happen to catch this one?

I was busy catching some folk music, myself. But I'd just love to see what erudite, sincere response my comments attracted ... since it was apparently the only one. Anyone who did, a PM sharing the joke with me would be greatly appreciated!

[Man_in_the_Moon]

6. Pictures like that

Are what passed the GCA of '68.

[Aaron]

10. I had wondered a bit why gun control became an issue in '68

that people were scared of black panthers with guns makes sense. Ty for the explanation :)

[Township75]

11. Ronal Reagen passed new gun control laws in CA...

out of fear of armed black men (e.g. the black panthers).

[MrBenchley]

13. Yeah?

Care to give us details of what law the Gipper got passed?

[MrBenchley]

12. Are you kidding?

Ever hear of Bobby Kennedy? Martin Luther King, Jr.? Care to tell us what happened to them in 1968?

[Aaron]

19. They died? (n/t)

[RoeBear]

18. Plus the Detroit riot in 1968

might have had something to do with it.

[CO Liberal]

20. Why gun control became an issue in '68

Medger Evers, Civil Rights Leader - Assasinated with a gun, 1963
John F. Kennedy, US President - Assasinated with a gun, 1963
Malcolm X, Black Activist - Assasinated with a gun, 1965
Martin Luthur King, Jr., Civil Rights Leader - Assasinated with a gun, 1968
Robert F. Kennedy, US Senator & Presidential Candidate - Assasinated with a gun, 1968

I think you get the idea.......

[Man_in_the_Moon]

21. actually

Bills nearly identical to the GCA of '68 were proposed in 64? and 65? (or thereabouts) and was defeated handily in congress.

It wasnt until AFTER the national network news started showing pictures of the Watts riots (1965), and the Detriot riots(1967), and the Black PAnthers toting around arms in CA, that the support for it grew.

As much as the anti-gun-nuts of the time wanted, they didnt have a chance even with the high-profile assassinations (even though they did 'help' the gun control movement). It wasnt until the masses of white people in suburbia and the South saw blacks behaving badly (in regards to the riots, and by the threats of potential armed insurrection by the Panthers) sometimes with guns, that the support for the legislation was gathered in congress to pass the bill.

But then I think you get the idea.

[CO Liberal]

25. Actually......

I believe the deaths of Dr. King and RFK are what made the difference. People saw that something needed to be done, and they did it.

[MrBenchley]

26. Another round of "what's my RKBA fantasy"

You will notice these "enthusiasts" are trying hard to pretend the assassinations never happened...just like none has been able to actually produce any evidence of the "gun control" law brain-dead Reagan passed in the 60s.

[Spoonman]

14. Hey MrBenchley

I don't see any of your standard remarks about "these" gun-nuts being RKBA racists.

I we "gun-nuts" are a little more diverse than the gun-grabbers.

[MrBenchley]

15. Hey, spoon

That's because unlike some RKBA enthusiasts, I can carry on a coherent conversation. And it's funny as hell to watch the RKBA "enthusiasts" doing all they can to pretend the gun control act of 1968 had nothing to do with the public outcry over two prominent liberals getting assassinated.

Now go snivel to someone who cares about how mean it is that I point out Ted Nugent and a big chunk of the NRA board are racist turds.

[Spoonman]

16. A far cry

from your previous statements.

"a big chunk of the NRA board are racist turds"

What happened to your earlier analogies?

Can you say "back peddle it elswhere"?

[Name removed]

17. Deleted message

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[-..__...]

23. LOL!!!

You really need to take this show on the comedy circuit.

[Name removed]

27. Deleted message

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[-..__...]

24. We've come a long way baby!

http://www.barbequewithbobbyseale.com/cookbook.html

:D