gjk@talcott.UUCP (Greg Kuperberg) (04/19/85)
I have since gotten two more votes for creating another subgroup: Who Where Position Craig Werner aecom!werner for net.politics.arms James Armstrong adnji!nyssa for either net.politics.nukes or .arms However, two more people have posted a dissenting opinion, namely Milo Medin and Ed Hall. Milo didn't give any specific reasons. Here is Ed's posting, along with my reply: > I agree with Milo: we should *not* have a separate group just for arms > discussions. Sad though it may be, arms (and often nuclear arms) are a > potential component of almost any discussion of international politics. > I see little reason for the net to cater to those who irrationally wish > to exclude this component from their discussion. Most of the discussion in net.politics.arms would indeed be about nuclear weapons; there may also be some discussion concerning new US and Soviet weaponry, and about overall US military spending. On the other hand, the articles of the "World" section of the latest Time Magazine covered the following: The coup in Sudan Pakistani concerns in the war in Afghanistan China's recent dose of British pop music The death of Albania's Stalinist dictator Sri Lanka's guerrilla warfare Mexican drug kingpins A rebel attack in El Salvador A terrorist bombing in Spain Possibility of a coup in Guatemala Botha's speech to blacks in South Africa Civil war in Lebanon Soviet Newspeak I really don't see how any of these topic have any direct bearing on nuclear weaponry. Furthermore, both overall US military spending and new weapons technology have more to do with a hypothetical large-scale war than with the above events. Lastly, I know many people who don't care much about ideology, who don't know much about the 1986 budget, and who don't keep up with events in Nicaragua or South Africa, but who are nevertheless very scared of nuclear war. If we create net.politics.arms, it would provide a separate forum for those basically apolitical people who are still afraid of death. In any case, it would also keep discussion going about the most important political issue of all time. -- Greg Kuperberg harvard!talcott!gjk "The eerily accurate drawing of Goetz showed the face of the 'before' figure in comic-book ads for body-building devices."-Time Magazine, April 8