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Thread: The Spiral of Violence - Page 82







Post#2026 at 01-15-2011 04:13 PM by Chas'88 [at In between Pennsylvania & Pennsyltucky joined Nov 2008 #posts 9,432]
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Quote Originally Posted by Roadbldr '59 View Post
I generally support the police, as they have a dirty, often thankless job of scraping bad guys off the street and putting them away. Medium, CSI:NY and Criminal Minds are my favorite TV shows. And even where I live now, criminals are far more numerous than rogue cops, and therefore represent a far greater threat.

That said, I have had run-ins (not in a long while, since the 1980s) with certain cops that are indeed bullies, more like the criminals they catch than most of their fellow cops. So I can indeed foresee a situation where I might have to defend my home against cops as well... even as 'defense' would likely mean taking a few of them out before they get me.

"Parable Of The Sower" by Octavia Butler. I always keep coming back to that book as my worst-case internal 4T scenario.
I'm reminded of this scene from The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus.

Four Russian gangsters see Tony, who owes them money, and he flees into the Imaginarium. As the gangsters threaten Tony, who has once again taken on a different appearance, Parnassus tempts them with a police recruitment song, promising they will enjoy being cops because they can legally brutalize people.
~Chas'88
"There have always been people who say: "The war will be over someday." I say there's no guarantee the war will ever be over. Naturally a brief intermission is conceivable. Maybe the war needs a breather, a war can even break its neck, so to speak. But the kings and emperors, not to mention the pope, will always come to its help in adversity. ON the whole, I'd say this war has very little to worry about, it'll live to a ripe old age."







Post#2027 at 01-15-2011 04:25 PM by JDG 66 [at joined Aug 2010 #posts 2,106]
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Quote Originally Posted by KaiserD2 View Post
...Glenn Beck denies fomenting terrorism - Byron Williams, Tides Foundation incident say different...
-Uh, the attempted attacker was a nut. Just like James J. Lee, the guy who attacked the Discovery Attacker because it wasn't "green" enough. Should we blame Eric the Green for that?

Quote Originally Posted by KaiserD2 View Post
...To judge from this forum Generation X is almost unanimously opposed to any kind of gun control. Given their distrust of institutions there's a certain logic to this, but the idea that people can genuinely protect their personal liberty against the government with guns is a fantasy...
-The Founding Fathers had just finshed doing it.

Quote Originally Posted by KaiserD2 View Post
...The Roberts Court, of course, has rewritten it as an individual right to own weapons, which was not the original intent, if you'll pardon the phrase, at all...
-Name one Founding Father was in favor of gun control for honest citizens. The were all familiar with Beccaria:

"The laws that forbid the carrying of arms are laws of such a nature. They disarm only those who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes. Can it be supposed that those who have the courage to violate the most sacred laws of humanity, the most important of the code, will respect the less important and arbitrary ones, which can be violated with ease and impunity, and which, if strictly obeyed, would put an end to personal liberty... and subject innocent persons to all the vexations that the guilty alone ought to suffer? Such laws make things worse for the assaulted and better for the assailants; they serve rather to encourage than to prevent homicides, for an unarmed man may be attacked with greater confidence than an armed man. They ought to be designated as laws not preventive but fearful of crimes, produced by the tumultuous impression of a few isolated facts, and not by thoughtful consideration of the inconveniences and advantages of a universal decree."







Post#2028 at 01-15-2011 06:24 PM by Tone70 [at Omaha joined Apr 2010 #posts 1,473]
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Quote Originally Posted by Chas'88 View Post
This is why I hate the internet at times... irony and sarcasm frequently just flies right out the window for some people...

First off I'd suggest rereading my post to garner my general indifference/mockery to the way my neighborhood exists and runs itself. They live their lives & I live mine. They leave me alone and I don't bother them--we exist much more happily that way and don't get on each other's nerves. I'm seen as the son of a property owner, a person who doesn't really live in the neighborhood much anymore and travels to work and study in other places.

Now to address individual issues in an impartial manner that expresses my neighborhood's concerns, for while I may or may not agree with them, I at least understand them:



The gun club is mostly for those who take it as a hobby of hunting or those who like target practice and out-shooting their friends in friendly competitions. I was being ironic with my inclusion of it in my earlier post.

Personally the nearest city (population wise--also the county seat) is 12 and half miles away from my neighborhood. The second closest is 15 and a third miles away. in the other direction.

And there's been a drastic change in populations of those cities which have dramatically affected the way my community lives and interacts. The cities used to be primarially black and white, although increasingly Hispanics, especially in the 12.5 distance city have become more of the majority population. As Hispanics became more of a majority population, the blacks and whites moved out of the city--the whites taking to the farthest extremes of the county or moving north to the next county (making further waves of unrest up there that cause societal stress). The blacks simply move into the surrounding suburuban school districts and usually have no problem (although I'd warn them about entering my school district--the KKK is active here, but it's not immediately joining the city and it's well known about the KKK).

Some groups have tried to relieve the city's "burden" of teaching this growing Hispanic population and has shipped some of the kids on the border regions out to the immediate suburbs of those cities through programs that force school districts to take some students from the city to put them in a "better environment". Usually that means the introduction/armament of gangs into the school district that gets the city kids. Violence has been an upswing in school districts who get these displaced kids and several school districts have responded with metal detectors (not my former one, but then again they've always felt that the wave of "violence" won't hit them). And let's see here, there's only three school districts next to us who haven't felt this redistribution pressure--they're all in the farthest regions of the county. We probably haven't been affected since we have a very hilly terrain (bad for housing developers) and the KKK (of whom are a weird Boomer Hippie-crossbreed) scare out any potential people to move in. All the other school districts have felt this pressure and my neighbors notice the uptick in violence in those schools and using their xenophobia blame it on the newly acquired kids into that school district. This usually prompts more parents into homeschooling, sending kids into private schools, and more xenophobia.

Then you add the added stress which heavy housing development has added to the region, bringing people in from all over the place that hadn't lived here before and who come here for varying reasons (lower property taxes--though their arrivals start driving taxes up; better scenery--though that scenery is ruined by a housing development being unnaturally placed in the middle of it; a culture built around people who mind their own business). My parents would actually count as forerunners to this movement, since they settled here in the 1970s because they needed more room to keep their growing kennel of dogs they were breeding. I came along as a late surprise in the late 1980s and their kennel died out as I grew up and took their attention away from their previous hobby.

This region likes to be left alone--two townships above me is "District Township" which earned its name because it was the "Outlaw District" where all the Philadelphia outlaws would go to hideout and lay low back in the 1700s--since they knew the locals didn't usually pry into other people's business and liked to be kept alone themselves. My region when perturbed by the outside world is usually nasty to the forces which perturb it, but then again, what do you expect from those who have mixed Scot-Irish and German ancestry and are especially heavy on the Scot-Irish.



Whoa, you're accusing me of doing these things? I think you need to get your memory checked here: I voted Nader in the last presidential election. As for decent police, it's never existed here because it never was perceived as populous (or rich) enough to warrant its existance. Even now we still don't qualify--although our neighboring townships do (hence their acquiring township police within the past couple of decades). The farmers who used to populate the neighboring townships have been trading in their farms for housing developments--which not only are real eyesores, but are completely unsustainable. I don't see bright futures in the next 1Ting for housing developments and I see them as abandonded ruins in 50 years.

Also do you really think my neighbors have been attacking some made-up program put in place to benefit us that has never existed here to begin with? Again, in areas where not enough people live we've been "overlooked" by such wonderful programs. For a long time my township was known as the trailer park township and had dirt roads. It would have still been that way if it hadn't been for a few well-to-do Yuppie exurbanites and gentrifiers who moved here in the 1980s (and made a hissy-fit so large that trailer parks got demolished--new homes got built, and new roads did too) and a landfill from a different county who bought out part of the township, paying the coffers of the township--making us one of the only townships with a net positive sum for the county. We're the red-headed step-child of the county.



Guns are more of a hobby here and I support my neighbors who want to own guns. Why? Because unlike the psychopaths out there, they're responsible about their ownership. They know how to take care of their guns--they know how to store them and keep them locked up. Again, they're responsible, sensible adults. So what if they like to hunt a few times a year? They do their thing, I do mine. We leave each other alone. Again, it's a Scot-Irish thing. If you want to ban it in your town go right ahead, do that where you live. You do your thing, we'll do ours. We don't care what you do where you live, why do you care what we do where we live?

I'm giving you a perspective into the workings of my community--please don't make wild assumptions about it based off of the Appalachia stereotype that comes from badly written Country Western songs and cheesy B-movies. For one, we're only in the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains.

~Chas'88
Can't speak for Eric, but I found this highly interesting. As a city boy it's eye opening in it's detail. The city is often inhabited in ignorance...

Scot-Irish? Explains much about both of us.
"Freedom is not something that the rulers "give" the population...people have immense power potential. It is ultimately their attitudes, behavior, cooperation, and obedience that supply the power to all rulers and hierarchical systems..." - Gene Sharp

"The Occupy protesters are acting like citizens, believing they have the power to change things...that humble people can acquire power when they convince themselves they can." - William Greider







Post#2029 at 01-15-2011 06:24 PM by JustPassingThrough [at joined Dec 2006 #posts 5,196]
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Tucson Shooting Victim Charged for Making Death Threat Against Tea Party Spokesman

You can't make this stuff up.

Toward the end of the town hall meeting Saturday morning, one of the shooting victims, J. Eric Fuller, took exception to comments by two of the speakers: Ariz. state Rep. Terri Proud, a Dist. 26 Republican, and Tucson Tea Party spokesman Trent Humphries.
According to sheriff's deputies at the scene, Fuller took a photo of Humphries and said, "You're Dead."
Deputies immediately escorted Fuller from the room.
Pima County Sheriff's spokesman Jason Ogan said later Saturday that Fuller has been charged with threats and intimidation and he also will be charged with disorderly conduct.







Post#2030 at 01-15-2011 06:31 PM by Earl and Mooch [at Delaware - we pave paradise and put up parking lots joined Sep 2002 #posts 2,106]
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Quote Originally Posted by ASB65 View Post
Maybe people in the Pacific Northwest really are more open minded than the rest of the country.
Have you met my in-laws?
"My generation, we were the generation that was going to change the world: somehow we were going to make it a little less lonely, a little less hungry, a little more just place. But it seems that when that promise slipped through our hands we didn´t replace it with nothing but lost faith."

Bruce Springsteen, 1987
http://brucebase.wikispaces.com/1987...+YORK+CITY,+NY







Post#2031 at 01-15-2011 06:31 PM by JustPassingThrough [at joined Dec 2006 #posts 5,196]
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And more:
Aide: Uptick in Death Threats Against Palin

An aide to Sarah Palin tells CBS News that there has been an increase in death threats against the former Alaska governor in the wake of the shootings in Tucson. The aide did not provide details concerning the volume of threats, how much have they increased or whether they are being referred to the authorities.
A different Palin aide, Rebecca Mansour, told USA Today that the increase in threats since Saturday has been "incredible."
"There has been an incredible increase in death threats against Gov. Palin since the tragedy in Arizona, since she's been accused of having the blood of those victims on her hands," she said. "When you start to accuse people of having the blood of innocent people on their hands, it incites violence."
Almost immediately after the Saturday shootings, critics drew a connection between the attack and a map released by Palin that used crosshairs to spotlight 20 House Democrats she wanted to see defeated in the midterm elections. One of them was Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, a victim in Saturday's tragedy.
There is no evidence that alleged shooter Jared Loughner was inspired by Palin or had seen the target map. While partisans on both sides have worked to tie Loughner to their political opposition, it appears he is a young man with a loose grip on reality and muddled politics far outside the mainstream.
On Wednesday, Palin responded to the criticism in a video in which she accused the media of "blood libel that serves only to incite the very hatred and violence that they purport to condemn." She was criticized by Jewish groups for her use of the phrase blood libel, which has been used to describe false claims that Jews killed Christian children to use their blood for cooking and religious rituals.

The Daily Caller reported that dozens of Twitter users called for Palin's death in the wake of the Tucson attack.







Post#2032 at 01-15-2011 06:32 PM by Tone70 [at Omaha joined Apr 2010 #posts 1,473]
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Quote Originally Posted by Roadbldr '59 View Post
I generally support the police, as they have a dirty, often thankless job of scraping bad guys off the street and putting them away. Medium, CSI:NY and Criminal Minds are my favorite TV shows. And even where I live now, criminals are far more numerous than rogue cops, and therefore represent a far greater threat.

That said, I have had run-ins (not in a long while, since the 1980s) with certain cops that are indeed bullies, more like the criminals they catch than most of their fellow cops. So I can indeed foresee a situation where I might have to defend my home against cops as well... even as 'defense' would likely mean taking a few of them out before they get me.

"Parable Of The Sower" by Octavia Butler. I always keep coming back to that book as my worst-case internal 4T scenario.
Damn straight. I have been thinking the same thing lately. Without specific plot points but a structurally similar level of extended disintegration and breakdown.
Last edited by Tone70; 01-15-2011 at 06:36 PM.
"Freedom is not something that the rulers "give" the population...people have immense power potential. It is ultimately their attitudes, behavior, cooperation, and obedience that supply the power to all rulers and hierarchical systems..." - Gene Sharp

"The Occupy protesters are acting like citizens, believing they have the power to change things...that humble people can acquire power when they convince themselves they can." - William Greider







Post#2033 at 01-15-2011 07:30 PM by ASB65 [at Texas joined Mar 2010 #posts 5,892]
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Quote Originally Posted by KaiserD2 View Post
2. To judge from this forum Generation X is almost unanimously opposed to any kind of gun control. Given their distrust of institutions there's a certain logic to this, but the idea that people can genuinely protect their personal liberty against the government with guns is a fantasy.
Ok David, you are making assumptions that just aren't true. Most gun owners are not opposed to any kind of gun control. This is just simply a false a statement. Most gun owners do not have a problem with background checks and do not feel criminals or severely mentally ill should own guns. I even put this question to my husband (Mr. Alaska, the NRA card carrying member that he is.) and he said, "Of course, there should be laws regarding gun control and, No, people should not be allowed to have automatic weapons."

Futhermore, hunting has been part of our culture for generations. It's not like Gen X are they only ones hunt. I remember when I was a young girl, when my hometown was blue before it turned red. There were plenty of GIs, silents, boomers who were UAW workers and who hunted on the weekends during hunting season. We have discussed this before. How left lost them when their jobs went away because they were afraid that the left was going to take away riffles so they couldn't hunt anymore too. That wasn't Gen X. A lot of us weren't even old enough to vote yet. Now, is the fear that left truly wants to take away their hunting riffles rational? No, it's not. I don't think most people on the left do. But that's the first thing that comes to mind when people hear the word "gun control". These guys automatically assume that means, "No more guns of any kind for you."

I think the gun control issue truly goes back to a misunderstanding between the left and the right, urban and rural, and so forth. This is a perfect example of the culture wars and people not listening to each other, and people making assumptions about each other that just aren't true. Now Eric, is an example of someone who is extreme on one side of this issue. There are those who are the extreme on the other side. But most people fall in the middle and they are really aren't that far a part from one another.







Post#2034 at 01-15-2011 08:42 PM by Poodle [at Doghouse joined May 2010 #posts 1,269]
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Just bought myself a nice .22 LR target pistol (need practice, and many of my friends shoot). Gun store was crowded at 1300 on a Saturday afternoon. Not surprisingly 9 MM Glock 14's were in demand.

My background check took about 2 minutes. There was a line behind me. And, yes, the fugitive from justice question is still there.

My friend the IRS agent said my first grouping would be seven yards wide. He's being optimistic, I think. I'm better with missiles...







Post#2035 at 01-15-2011 09:24 PM by Poodle [at Doghouse joined May 2010 #posts 1,269]
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http://www.pennlive.com/midstate/ind..._bob_durg.html

Local conservative talk radio host Bob Durgin hasn’t pulled his on-air punches in the wake of Saturday’s shootings in Arizona, lambasting liberals for using the tragic event to slander conservatives like Sarah Palin and Glenn Beck.

“God, I hate the liberal media,” Durgin said Monday during his highly rated afternoon show on WHP580. “It’s like, if you don’t follow Obama and believe in Obama’s policies, then you are a potential terrorist.”

In talking about The New York Times, often seen as queen of the left by conservatives, Durgin added, “Somebody ought to burn that paper down. Just go to New York and blow that sucker right out of the water.”

Durgin now concedes that last remark may have been a bridge too far in an overheated environment.

“I don’t regret saying it, but I know I probably shouldn’t have,” he said this week during a telephone interview. “That’s just me. When I go on the air I announce my true feelings. What they hear is who I am.”



In truth, Durgin’s tirade may have just been a little ahead of the political curve in the wake of the Tucson attack, which left six people dead and Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords fighting for her life.

America’s rancorous political dialogue already shows signs of returning to the status quo, a non-stop barrage of accusation and counter-accusation carried out on television, radio and online.

“Everything travels with the speed of light now,” said G. Terry Madonna, director of the Center for Politics and Public Affairs at Franklin and Marshall College. “We are constantly bombarded.”

Just after the shootings, however, when the killer’s motive was very much in doubt, both Republicans and Democrats seemed to pause for a deep breath.



Fox News chief Roger Ailes went so far as to direct his conservative commentators to “shut up, tone it down,” while MSNBC liberal Keith Olbermann said he was reassessing his own fire-breathing rhetoric.

During Wednesday’s memorial service in Tucson, President Barack Obama called for more civility in political rhetoric, appealing to Americans to communicate “in a way that, that heals, not in a way that wounds.”

U.S. Rep. Tim Holden, a Democrat from Schuylkill County, summarized what many were thinking when he said, “This polarization in this country has to stop. You can disagree without being disagreeable.”

Now, though, it seems increasingly apparent that the shooting outside a Tucson supermarket was simply the work of a deranged mind. Suspected gunman Jared Loughner’s views are a bizarre mishmash that would be hard to connect with any particular philosophy.

“He’s a wacko,” is how Durgin put it.

Thus, any brief moment of national self-examination the crime inspired may already have passed. A CBS poll on Tuesday said six of 10 Americans see no link between the shootings and heated political rhetoric.

“I think we never really got away from the uncivil discourse this time,” said Robert Thompson, a professor of television and popular culture at Syracuse University. “The very hand-wringing about the problem that was being done, was being done by people who were screaming at each other. If it weren’t such a tragic story, it would have been kind of comical.”

Thompson doesn’t think our political discourse is deteriorating so much as proliferating.

“There are just so many more venues for so many more people to be coarse and uncivil in,” he said. “There are so many places for anger to be vented.”

Violent imagery

Political passions have frequently run high in the United States, which was born as a frontier nation of 13 former colonies and grew to be among the world’s dominant nations.

One of the Founding Fathers, Alexander Hamilton, was killed in a duel with Vice President Aaron Burr in 1804 over what amounted to a political dispute.

“The strain of violence in and the paranoid style of American politics is as old as the Republic,” Madonna said. “Is this event (in Arizona) likely to change the nature of our civil discourse? The answer is, probably not.”

Contemporary culture and language also are loaded with violent imagery, making former Alaskan governor Palin’s notorious gunsight political ads pretty mainstream, akin to terms like “battleground state.”

“Let’s face it,” Michael Tremoglie, former editor of the conservative website FrontPage.com, told the Philadelphia Inquirer this week. “This country has been in a lot of wars, and it shows: Our taste for violence pervades everything, and it’s used to sell everything.”

Certainly, Durgin’s on-air comments about the Times seemed to cause few ripples among listeners.

A couple of anonymous calls were placed to The Patriot-News, expressing concern. R.J. Harris, operations manager at Clear Channel-owned WHP, said he wasn’t aware of any complaints received by his station.

“We do not advocate violence, period,” Harris said Wednesday. “That’s why this whole outcry over the shootings in Tucson being linked to talk radio is just crazy.”

Durgin, who has been on WHP for 20 years, plans to continue expressing his conservative views, unedited. He thinks the nation’s divisions will get worse before they get better.

“We live in a hateful time,” he said. “Conservatives hate liberals, and liberals really hate conservatives. I don’t see an end in sight.”







Post#2036 at 01-15-2011 09:27 PM by Poodle [at Doghouse joined May 2010 #posts 1,269]
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Quote Originally Posted by Tone70 View Post
Can't speak for Eric, but I found this highly interesting. As a city boy it's eye opening in it's detail. The city is often inhabited in ignorance...

Scot-Irish? Explains much about both of us.
*I'm* white trash.







Post#2037 at 01-15-2011 09:32 PM by Poodle [at Doghouse joined May 2010 #posts 1,269]
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New measure would bar doctors from asking patients if they own guns

http://www.nwfdailynews.com/news/-36599--.html

TALLAHASSEE — Doctors and other medical providers in Florida would be barred from asking patients — or the parents of child patients — if they have guns in their home under a measure that promises a major showdown between powerful lobbying groups.
The National Rifle Association’s top Florida lobbyist and a Florida Medical Association member both say the issue is among the top priorities for the upcoming legislative session, with the groups holding diametrically opposed positions on what doctors and their patients and families should be allowed to discuss during a medical visit.
Read a copy of the bill. »
Sponsored by state Rep. Jason Brodeur, R-Sanford, the bill (HB 155) would make it a felony for a physician or staff member to ask patients or family members of patients if they own guns or store guns at home.
If found guilty, the medical provider could be fined up to $5 million or face up to five years in jail.
State Sen. Greg Evers, R-Baker, introduced an identical Senate version of the bill on Thursday.
Gun rights groups say the measure was prompted by complaints from gun owners following an incident last summer in which an Ocala-area physician told a couple to find a new pediatrician after they refused to answer questions about whether they had guns in their home and how they were stored.
Marion Hammer, executive director of United Sportsmen of Florida and a former national NRA president, said the gun rights groups have no opposition to a physician’s office handing out brochures on gun safety, but the direct questioning on whether there are guns in the home of a patient and how they store them goes too far.
“Simply, it’s none of their business,” Hammer said.
Critics of the measure say it inappropriately puts a wedge between doctors and their patients by restricting what can be discussed. They say questions regarding gun ownership and how weapons are secured within homes are much like a pediatrician asking the parents of a child if their electric outlets have protective covers, or whether their pool is fenced in.
“No other area of physician inquiry has been deemed off-limits by the Legislature,” said Naples pediatrician Scott Needle.
“Pediatricians have a right and a responsibility to ask appropriate questions as to a child’s safety and well-being, even if these questions might be uncomfortable to the parents. Likewise, however, no parent can be legally compelled to answer such questions.”







Post#2038 at 01-15-2011 09:32 PM by Poodle [at Doghouse joined May 2010 #posts 1,269]
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I love Florida.







Post#2039 at 01-15-2011 10:11 PM by Odin [at Moorhead, MN, USA joined Sep 2006 #posts 14,442]
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Quote Originally Posted by JustPassingThrough View Post
This guy has just been involuntarily committed. the shooting obviously left him really messed up, probably PTSD.
To recommend thrift to the poor is both grotesque and insulting. It is like advising a man who is starving to eat less.

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Post#2040 at 01-15-2011 10:21 PM by Roadbldr '59 [at Vancouver, Washington joined Jul 2001 #posts 8,275]
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Quote Originally Posted by Odin View Post
This guy has just been involuntarily committed. the shooting obviously left him really messed up, probably PTSD.
Violent rhetoric does have a way of inspiring violent action... which leads in turn to more violent rhetoric and more violent actino still.

The people on the right who deny that this occurs are either bullshitting themselves, or us, or both. All anyone has to do is look what happened on the left 40 years ago, to see that it is so.

The right may bullshit themselves into believing different rules apply to them, but they are human beings as well, and I can assure you they do not.
"Better hurry. There's a storm coming. His storm!!!" :-O -Abigail Freemantle, "The Stand" by Stephen King







Post#2041 at 01-15-2011 10:37 PM by ASB65 [at Texas joined Mar 2010 #posts 5,892]
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Quote Originally Posted by Roadbldr '59 View Post
Violent rhetoric does have a way of inspiring violent action... which leads in turn to more violent rhetoric and more violent actino still.

The people on the right who deny that this occurs are either bullshitting themselves, or us, or both. All anyone has to do is look what happened on the left 40 years ago, to see that it is so.

The right may bullshit themselves into believing different rules apply to them, but they are human beings as well, and I can assure you they do not.
Plus there is whole copy cat thing too. Columbine was not the first school shooting in America. There were others prior to that. I think this actually started occurring about 5 years before the Columbine shooting. The difference was that at the other schools only a couple of kids or teachers were killed. The shooters at Columbine just took the most lives. But I do remember watching the news as that whole Columbine event unfolded and thinking, "Another school shooting."

So yes, there could be other wackos out there who do see the Tucson incident as politically motivated and it may encourage them to do the same thing.







Post#2042 at 01-15-2011 10:52 PM by AnneZob [at joined Sep 2008 #posts 287]
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Quote Originally Posted by KaiserD2 View Post

2. To judge from this forum Generation X is almost unanimously opposed to any kind of gun control. Given their distrust of institutions there's a certain logic to this, but the idea that people can genuinely protect their personal liberty against the government with guns is a fantasy.

3. Which leads me to (3): the founders did not pass the Second Amendment to make sure people could make revolutions. They passed it because they opposed standing armies and therefore favored militias in every town and state to keep order, fight Indians, etc. The Second Amendment in its original form is effectively a dead letter since we now trust to professionals to do all our law enforcement and defense. The Roberts Court, of course, has rewritten it as an individual right to own weapons, which was not the original intent, if you'll pardon the phrase, at all.

Gen Xers, libertarian fantasies are about to come true at the local level in many jurisdictions. It ain't going to be pretty. Depending on events of the next two years they may come true at the national level as well. You may eventually develop a taste for stronger institutions.
I would like to point out that if it was just a law enforcement and defense issue why would the Founding Fathers have even bothered to put it in as an Amendment which is about freedom? They didn't put in the amendments the water standards or food safety standards governments should implement either.

Things put in the Amendments were clearly things that they were concerned about in terms of infringements of individual freedoms, especially from government. Hence the key genesis of the 2nd amendment was most likely to do with individual freedoms, especially from government. And how can the right to bear arms possibly be linked to individual freedoms? Given the Founding Fathers also said things like that tyranny needed to be fought every now and then with blood and that the lead up to the War was replete with incidents where the English tried to disarm the colonists and the fact that the Founding fathers actually revolted and their clear attempts to try to limit government power afterwards, by Occam's razor the most likely logical reason for the second amendment is the civil liberties argument.

Another thing you say is that Gen X are inclined against gun control because they distrust institutions. However the Founding Fathers were *also* Nomads and they *did* distrust government institutions. This makes it even more likely that the 2nd amendment was put in place for civil liberties reasons. Part of the reason why the American government took the form it did was precisely because of their Nomadic fear of government and obsession with limiting its power. A revolutionary government led by Prophets would have likely have been very different with less suspicion of Government. A prophet Washington may have very well tried to make himself king rather than decline the Presidency for the third time (as did the other Nomad President Truman). Actually I suspect that if FDR hadn't died when he did he would have tried to become President for Life or something.

One could argue whether the Founding father's fears are applicable anymore to the modern world. However I think this is one of the problems with the left. They believe we have "progressed" away from tyranny. That the potential for government tyranny no longer exists, at least in America. This is patently not true. And the left knows this because they have been the most vocal opponents to the Patriot Act and love to compare Bush with Hitler for example.

This then raises the question of why they are contradicting themselves.

Actually probably even more important than what the Founding Fathers intended is that for large swathes of the gun owning community, they *believe* that it is an issue of civil liberties. That will dictate their actions in the coming months and set the tone of the debate.
Last edited by AnneZob; 01-15-2011 at 11:34 PM.







Post#2043 at 01-15-2011 10:58 PM by AnneZob [at joined Sep 2008 #posts 287]
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Duplicate so deleted
Last edited by AnneZob; 01-15-2011 at 11:23 PM.







Post#2044 at 01-15-2011 11:41 PM by Odin [at Moorhead, MN, USA joined Sep 2006 #posts 14,442]
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Quote Originally Posted by The Rani View Post
People should really cool it with the knee-jerk psychiatric diagnoses. Anyone who has actually studied PTSD knows that he does not fit the criteria:

Posttraumatic Stress Disorder DSM-IV™ Diagnosis & Criteria
Oops, my bad!
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-Oscar Wilde, The Soul of Man under Socialism







Post#2045 at 01-16-2011 01:50 AM by Eric the Green [at San Jose CA joined Jul 2001 #posts 22,504]
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Quote Originally Posted by AnneZob View Post
I would like to point out that if it was just a law enforcement and defense issue why would the Founding Fathers have even bothered to put it in as an Amendment which is about freedom? They didn't put in the amendments the water standards or food safety standards governments should implement either.
Has it ever occured to you that the Founding Fathers may have been mistaken about something? ever hear of slavery?
Things put in the Amendments were clearly things that they were concerned about in terms of infringements of individual freedoms, especially from government. Hence the key genesis of the 2nd amendment was most likely to do with individual freedoms, especially from government. And how can the right to bear arms possibly be linked to individual freedoms? Given the Founding Fathers also said things like that tyranny needed to be fought every now and then with blood and that the lead up to the War was replete with incidents where the English tried to disarm the colonists and the fact that the Founding fathers actually revolted and their clear attempts to try to limit government power afterwards, by Occam's razor the most likely logical reason for the second amendment is the civil liberties argument.
The 2nd amendment clearly says it exists so that a militia can be formed as needed. We don't need militias today. We have a standing army now. We don't need the 2nd Amendment. It is not a civil right. It is an excuse to kill people and animals. You can't defeat a modern army with citizens carrying pistols and rifles. Ain't gonna happen. Ruby Ridge and Waco should be a lesson to you, but you refuse to heed the lesson. Americans, alone among peoples, have an obsession with guns. We live in a culture of fear and death. Our culture needs to change. We are a violent society, in word and deed. That has been proven again this week. We create violence in the world with unnecessary wars, and at home with unnecessary guns.
Another thing you say is that Gen X are inclined against gun control because they distrust institutions. However the Founding Fathers were *also* Nomads and they *did* distrust government institutions. This makes it even more likely that the 2nd amendment was put in place for civil liberties reasons. Part of the reason why the American government took the form it did was precisely because of their Nomadic fear of government and obsession with limiting its power. A revolutionary government led by Prophets would have likely have been very different with less suspicion of Government. A prophet Washington may have very well tried to make himself king rather than decline the Presidency for the third time (as did the other Nomad President Truman). Actually I suspect that if FDR hadn't died when he did he would have tried to become President for Life or something.
Prophets are equally suspicious of government. Civics are the least suspicious. Jefferson was a civic. Prophets of my generation started this whole suspicion of government thing with our opposition to the Vietnam War. Gen X has just taken this to an absurd level with their rugged individualism clap trap.
One could argue whether the Founding father's fears are applicable anymore to the modern world. However I think this is one of the problems with the left. They believe we have "progressed" away from tyranny.
If you don't believe that, you are one ignorant person. I assume you are a woman right? You don't think getting the vote, and being able to own property and become 51% of the managers of this country, is not progress? I guess you are not black or you would not make such a statement.
That the potential for government tyranny no longer exists, at least in America. This is patently not true. And the left knows this because they have been the most vocal opponents to the Patriot Act and love to compare Bush with Hitler for example.
The potential for tyranny in this country has nothing to do with guns. Our gun mania is part of the same cloth with climate science deniers and war mongers. The right wing simply prefers a way of life that destroys life. That is why they are the instigators of tyranny in this country. That is why the right wing support tyranny in this country. That's why they gave us George W Bush and the Patriot Act. Those who support guns, they are the ones who support tyranny. A gun is the easiest means by which one can tyrannize one's fellows.
"I close my eyes, and I can see a better day" -- Justin Bieber

Keep the spirit alive,

Eric A. Meece







Post#2046 at 01-16-2011 02:02 AM by Eric the Green [at San Jose CA joined Jul 2001 #posts 22,504]
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Then you should learn to lock your doors and alarm them. You are simply living in an armed camp, by using guns, instead of locking your doors.

You can't prevent all crimes, but if you have a decent police system, the criminals get put away. That's civilization, Relying on guns for self-defense is barbarism. But then, this is America. We have a lot to learn.
Quote Originally Posted by Odin View Post
what authoritarian bullshit. Many cops are worse than the criminals they are supposed to be catching.

Armed camp?
That's exactly what people in gunland are living in. You guys think everybody has a right to have a gun, and you do. You are all armed.

If you have bad cops, that's because the right-wing never lets the people have civilian review boards and other measures to make sure all the cops are good. But most of them are decent anyway. It's just a question of judges and juries letting them off the hook too easily these days.

If we could get rid of guns, there would be no need for the police to carry them either. Many police are getting equipped with tasers and mace nowadays, as prefereable to shooting whoever frightens them. Nowadays there is an epidemic of fear among police, causing more police shootings. At least I hear about a lot more of them, and they usually get off scott free.

The fear exists because police are outgunned. Heck, we don't even have an assault weapon ban anymore. That seems the smallest degree of common sense, but they made it for 10 years and not permanant. Of course since 2004 we haven't had a government with any guts at all, so it hasn't been renewed. So it's legal for idiots to walk into a store and get a military weapon in order to carry out mass murder. And people wonder why it occurs.

This is the American version of law and order. Let the police do anything they want, but make sure they are frightened out of their wits by spreading guns and machine guns all over the place. And then spend more money on prisons than on education.

If I'm am on one "extreme" of this issue, it is only because I am not only ahead of my time, but am kept up with the rest of the world, rather than stuck in shamefully outdated, backward American culture and politics. Shameful is being polite. I guess I need to be "civil" now.
"I close my eyes, and I can see a better day" -- Justin Bieber

Keep the spirit alive,

Eric A. Meece







Post#2047 at 01-16-2011 02:02 AM by Odin [at Moorhead, MN, USA joined Sep 2006 #posts 14,442]
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Quote Originally Posted by Eric the Green View Post
Has it ever occured to you that the Founding Fathers may have been mistaken about something? ever hear of slavery?

The 2nd amendment clearly says it exists so that a militia can be formed as needed. We don't need militias today. We have a standing army now. We don't need the 2nd Amendment. It is not a civil right. It is an excuse to kill people and animals. You can't defeat a modern army with citizens carrying pistols and rifles. Ain't gonna happen. Ruby Ridge and Waco should be a lesson to you, but you refuse to heed the lesson. Americans, alone among peoples, have an obsession with guns. We live in a culture of fear and death. Our culture needs to change. We are a violent society, in word and deed. That has been proven again this week. We create violence in the world with unnecessary wars, and at home with unnecessary guns.

Prophets are equally suspicious of government. Civics are the least suspicious. Jefferson was a civic. Prophets of my generation started this whole suspicion of government thing with our opposition to the Vietnam War. Gen X has just taken this to an absurd level with their rugged individualism clap trap.

If you don't believe that, you are one ignorant person. I assume you are a woman right? You don't think getting the vote, and being able to own property and become 51% of the managers of this country, is not progress? I guess you are not black or you would not make such a statement.

The potential for tyranny in this country has nothing to do with guns. Our gun mania is part of the same cloth with climate science deniers and war mongers. The right wing simply prefers a way of life that destroys life. That is why they are the instigators of tyranny in this country. That is why the right wing support tyranny in this country. That's why they gave us George W Bush and the Patriot Act. Those who support guns, they are the ones who support tyranny. A gun is the easiest means by which one can tyrannize one's fellows.
War is Peace!
Slavery is Freedom!
Ignorance is strength!



Sorry, Eric, but you are just plain wrong. Your mind is completely closed. IIRC you are an INTP; and you are stuck in a rut between Introverted Thinking and Introverted Sensing, Refusing to let your Extroverted Intuition to open your mind.
To recommend thrift to the poor is both grotesque and insulting. It is like advising a man who is starving to eat less.

-Oscar Wilde, The Soul of Man under Socialism







Post#2048 at 01-16-2011 02:09 AM by Eric the Green [at San Jose CA joined Jul 2001 #posts 22,504]
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Quote Originally Posted by Silifi View Post
That presumes that the heartland voter is actually motivated by the security argument. By and large, heartland voters probably care far more about hunting than anything else.

Don't confuse the pro-gun voters with the NRA. The NRA is an interest group. Their prime constituency wants guns for hunting, and a small minority is concerned about security.
Gun owners and the NRA are not only against gun control, but they have seen to it that such as we've had is taken away. Gun control has very little to do with hunting anyway. Whether I am against it or not (and I am against it), may not even be entirely relevant to the "spiral of violence."

The reports I've seen are that, no, it is precisely the security argument that has won the day currently for guns and anti-gun control. They think people have a right to a gun for self-defense. Ironically, most people who make this argument are hunters or people who live in rural areas and small towns where the danger is less. Those who live in cities are more likely to favor gun control. And gun violence at least has gone down measurably in blue states and eastern states, and remained high in inland western states and the south.

If you say people who want guns want them for hunting, then you are saying 60 to 70% of the American people want guns for hunting. Hunters are a small minority of the population. So to say such a think is absurd.
"I close my eyes, and I can see a better day" -- Justin Bieber

Keep the spirit alive,

Eric A. Meece







Post#2049 at 01-16-2011 02:15 AM by Chas'88 [at In between Pennsylvania & Pennsyltucky joined Nov 2008 #posts 9,432]
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Quote Originally Posted by Eric the Green View Post
That's exactly what people in gunland are living in. You guys think everybody has a right to have a gun, and you do. You are all armed.

If you have bad cops, that's because the right-wing never lets the people have civilian review boards and other measures to make sure all the cops are good. But most of them are decent anyway. It's just a question of judges and juries letting them off the hook too easily these days.

If we could get rid of guns, there would be no need for the police to carry them either. Many police are getting equipped with tasers and mace nowadays, as prefereable to shooting whoever frightens them. Nowadays there is an epidemic of fear among police, causing more police shootings. At least I hear about a lot more of them, and they usually get off scott free.

The fear exists because police are outgunned. Heck, we don't even have an assault weapon ban anymore. That seems the smallest degree of common sense, but they made it for 10 years and not permanant. Of course since 2004 we haven't had a government with any guts at all, so it hasn't been renewed. So it's legal for idiots to walk into a store and get a military weapon in order to carry out mass murder. And people wonder why it occurs.

This is the American version of law and order. Let the police do anything they want, but make sure they are frightened out of their wits by spreading guns and machine guns all over the place. And then spend more money on prisons than on education.

If I'm am on one "extreme" of this issue, it is only because I am not only ahead of my time, but am kept up with the rest of the world, rather than stuck in shamefully outdated, backward American culture and politics. Shameful is being polite. I guess I need to be "civil" now.
We are not all armed. There are plenty of people I know who don't have guns or go hunting who live out here. We're not all this big stereotype you know.

And besides there's plenty of other people who have knife and sword obsessions. One guy I know who's a bicycler has a big collection of pocketknives and daggers that's pretty impressive. It's a hobby. I myself carry around a pocketknife from time to time. It's pretty handy, especially when it comes to opening packages.

Most of this weapons "indoctrination" comes from that lovely bastian of Great Power beliefs: the Boy Scouts. They teach nearly every Boy Scout how to shoot and how to take care of ones knife responsibly.

Look Eric, I recognize that you're on your mountain top preaching your evangel, and you have some strong beliefs here. But quite frankly this is one issue that the Left lost in the Culture Wars. And quite frankly IMO it was the obsession over this issue which cost the Left possible traction to get Environmental issues delt with in the Culture Wars, as The American President depicts this quite well: a Boomer president who becomes so obsessed with his own personal evangel that he misses the bigger and more important picture. He sacrifices the bigger issue over a smaller issue. If the environment collapses due to how we've plundered it, having a gun or a knife is going to be a handy tool for survival in such a post-apocalyptic world for getting food and keeping raiders from taking yours.

~Chas'88
Last edited by Chas'88; 01-16-2011 at 02:19 AM.
"There have always been people who say: "The war will be over someday." I say there's no guarantee the war will ever be over. Naturally a brief intermission is conceivable. Maybe the war needs a breather, a war can even break its neck, so to speak. But the kings and emperors, not to mention the pope, will always come to its help in adversity. ON the whole, I'd say this war has very little to worry about, it'll live to a ripe old age."







Post#2050 at 01-16-2011 02:22 AM by Eric the Green [at San Jose CA joined Jul 2001 #posts 22,504]
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hunting

Hunting is not even necessary for anyone. These days you can get good meat at the store. You don't need to hunt. There are lots better amusements for people to enjoy. You can play baseball. I thought it was the American pasttime; you'd think it was shooting for all the hollars about don't take away my precious guns. What bullshit. You can read or play an instrument. Get together and play cards. Take up fencing or boxing or karate. Play volleyball or tennis. Have an orgy. Whatever. There's lots of other ways to enjoy yourself. To do hunting for amusement contributes to our violent society, and degrades the balance of nature.

Charles says his neighbors like to do target practice. I understand his reluctance to tell his friends to stop. If I were in his shoes, I wouldn't want to jeopardize a friendship in a small town, especially if he has a gun. But sometime we need a movement in this country to go beyond our culture of violence. An event like the killings in Tuscon is an opportunity to at least talk about it. There will be many, many more such opportunities until our culture shifts and guns are no longer an American obsession and fetish.

What are they practicing for? Why do target practice? Just for sport? I don't think so. I think they practice it because they think it is a life skill. It is a wild and violent world out there, and you need to be prepared, so they think.

Most hunters take out the most healthy specimens. The real hunters, like wolves, take out the weaker specimens, and so help the ecological balance. Human hunters are not part of the ecological system. Human technology is always disruptive of the balance of nature. Humans with guns destroy the balance of nature, and are NOT part of it. Technology can at most become less disruptive than it has been. But don't deceive yourself; every time you use technology you are going against the natural balance and giving yourself an unfair advantage in the ecological scheme of things. Tech is natural in so far as humans are an outgrowth and product of nature, and tech is part of human nature. But don't kid yourself that there isn't a price to pay in screwing things up. Our task now is to lessen that screw up enough so that nature and human life is sustainable.
Last edited by Eric the Green; 01-16-2011 at 02:46 AM.
"I close my eyes, and I can see a better day" -- Justin Bieber

Keep the spirit alive,

Eric A. Meece
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