[HECKLER SPRAY]

Originally Posted by Glice

Right, this is the statement I disagree with...

'Gun', to a great many Americans, represents 'freedom' or 'liberty'. Which is why Herr Pumpkin can replace the object of representation with the ideal of the representation - in one post, 'weed'.

Unfortunately, the referent, the object, the referred and the ideology must at some point have some purpose.

I'll articulate this otherwise - if you replace the potentially prohibited object of ideological representation with another object (a terrifically postmodern/ post-Lacanian project, by-the-by) its intensity, its represented ideological intensity remains the same - so if 'gun' represents liberty (or, if you like, inhibiting sovereignity through revoltus in potentialus), 'banana' (if threatened) can represent the same.

The problem is that 'gun' is also a particular object, and the purpose (forgive me if I get too Heidegarrian on your asses) of this object (which, to re-iterate, seems to represent 'liberty' in many American mind) is to blow cunting great holes in things. If you emit the statement 'every American has the right to own the banana' and the subtext is 'a banana represents freedom and liberty [from the crown]' then I have no problems. The problem comes when you get down to the particulars, which I'll put in big letters:

GUNS SERVE NO PURPOSE OTHER THAN STICKING CUNTING GREAT HOLES IN THINGS.

Again, I'll apologise if I'm just re-iterating parochial British sentiments that you Americans are tired of hearing with your vastly superior arguments of liberty.