The Leadership is uninterested in the welfare of the mass society, which William Grigg calls the Mundanes and I often call “Americans at large” and others call the public. It’s interested in its own aims and these typically go against the public interest. Thus, David, you are correct that Bloomberg and others in the Leadership suppress information about ordinary people in mass society using guns that stopped criminals because it undermines their gun-control arguments. They are obviously in this case advocating measures directly counter to the interest of mass society or the public. Gun-control is in the Leadership’s interest because it’s essential for them to control mass society. Government and Leadership are in direct opposition to mass society in this case as in so many others.
Putting it another way, there is no “We” that aggregates Leadership and mass society. They are two different societies. Leadership continually betrays the public trust. If safety is enhanced by the capacity for each of us to carry weapons, Leadership does what it can to thwart this without going so far as to lose public support and jeopardize its control of the public.
11:54 am on December 21, 2012
