Originally Posted by ASB65

Violence has always been part of history. I believe human beings are just violent by nature. Go to any playground and watch little preschoolers play and you will see just what I mean. They hit, kick, push and spit at each other. They must be taught to play nice. You could take every gun away from every person on the planet and destroy all guns, and people would find other weapons to use to kill each other. Guns are fairly recent in the history of man, but violent societies have existed from the beginning of time. The ancient cultures were extremely violent. The bible is probably the most violent book ever written. The medieval times were very violent times.

I think you have to consider other factors. It is not as easy today to kill someone with a sword or a swinging hammer or other old methods. People live in more secure environments with better policing than in ancient times. Guns make it easier today to get over these hurdles that modern society places to violence.

As to what human nature is, I have a different belief: that it changes, and such a thing as a "human nature" does not exist. It evolves. I remember being young; I don't have to watch a school yard. Also, I'm a teacher so I know. I never wanted to play violent games. Other kids do. People are different.

Whether or not we are more violent now, is debatable. If we are, it probably has something to do with the fact that we have more people on the planet than ever before. The population remained pretty steady through out history until last 200 years or so. Along with industrial age, the population exploded. And it is a fact, that the more densely populated place you have, the more violent it is. There is much more violence in large cities than tiny towns.

Murder is about the same in the USA as in 1970, is what I read today. It is somewhat less than in the early 1990s. In some cities gun control has worked to reduce violence and murder, while rural states with lax guns laws and a violent culture have more murders and more gun deaths than states with big cities. It also depends on who is there. European and Asian cities are not violent. Nations in equatorial climates are much more violent. Population density is not the major factor in violence.

Originally Posted by ASB65

I believe in democracy. I just don't feel that the average citizen is being represented in our country today. I also believe there needs to be laws. However, once again, it seems a lot of the laws that have been passed during the past several years (or even decades) also benefited corporations and stock traders more than they benefited the average citizen.

I wonder what the men who wrote the constitution would think if they came to Washington today? I'm thinking they probably wouldn't approve very much of the influence that lobbyist and corporations have over our government today. But then they were gentlemen too. So maybe they would be okay with it. I don't know. But I do think Thomas Jefferson even warned about corporate interests and their influence on government.

I agree with you here completely. Although you may be a "moderate" (I wouldn't label you), this is a liberal sentiment and idea. Whatever conservatives may say, or even moderate-liberals like Clinton, the net result of their policies is the situation you describe.

Originally Posted by Bob Butler 54

Again, the United State's murder and gun death rates are comperable to other developed countries if one excludes blacks. We have problems with race, gangs, poverty and drugs. Our policy regarding gun control is not what divides us from other countries.

This is the second time I have heard this claim and I decided to investigate it with the help of several articles/charts on wkipedia and elsewhere. It is not true.

My data had one problem: it did not give separate murder rates for hispanics--it divided hispanics into black and white hispanics and put their murders in the black and white categories, respectively. (The vast majority of hispanics were counted as white.) Data without this glitch would be more revealing and might change the results somewhat but not, I think dramatically.

OK, here were the 2008 murder rates by race in the United States: 2.9 per 100,000 for whites, 15.2 per 100,000 for blacks. The overall US rate was 5.4 .

The white American rate compares to 1.5 for west and central Europe, and .44 [sic] for Japan. And of course, that's a misleading comparison with Europe, because Europe also has minority populations which may well have higher homicide rates. The New Zealand rate is 2, the Australian rate is about 1 (it is broken down because the rate for Australia's "northern territories" is much higher, about the same as athe overall US rate.)

White Americans are in fact about twice as likely to commit murder as western and central Europeans, about three times as likely to commit murder as Australians, and more than six times as likely to commit murder as Japanese. (It is rather fascinating, by the way, that Germany and Japan have two of the lowest murder rates in the world.) The breakdown by region and country is here, , and it's extremely interesting. Southern Africa and parts of South America are the most violent places on earth; Eastern Europe is more violent than the US as a whole.

But these stats also become misleading if you look at a breakdown of US murder rates by state (table 304.) In this as in so many other respects, we are several different nations. Your chances of being murdered are twice as high in the deep south as they are in my own New England, although my chances are higher than residents of Western and Central Europe, much less Japan. And this raises a critical question which I don't have time to address: is the black rate high because of race, or because blacks have southern roots? In 1968 all this was a hot political issue, and George Wallace was running on an anti-crime platform. Researchers discovered that Alabama had the highest murder rate in the nation and Wallace naturally blamed it on the black population. But in fact, it had the highest rate among both blacks and whites. (I learned this from a race relations professor, himself a Virginian, who stressed the traditional role of autonomous violence in southern life.)

There are a lot of interesting things to notice in the country stats. Russia has the same per capita number of murders as Mexico, for instance--two states that by rights should be well into 4Ts, or even finished with them! Those regeneracies have not yet been televised, it seems.

My thanks to Bob Butler for finally getting me to research this. It's been bothering me for years.

Originally Posted by JohnMc82

Because there are also countries with lots of guns that have a lot more or less violence.

Obviously, Switzerland (or hell, Compton) is probably safer than Iraq right now. Then again, there are racially and economically segregated slums in France that are probably more dangerous than some yuppie American community full of middle-class gun owners.

But the main demographic statistics that correlate to violence are drastic income disparities and hot weather.

It really is only natural for the poor and oppressed to lash out.

The presence of guns is less an issue than how they are handled. Most of the high-ownership countries in Europe have very strict licensing and registration requirements, as they do with motor vehicles. It's their culture. That this leads to lower crime rates is not surprising to me.

Originally Posted by The Rani

And here's the reply:

<<<<<<<< Deleted my old post >>>>>>>>

I wonder if anyone has changed their mind on this issue, given what has now happened?

Did you read it? I was discussing implicit v. explicit threats. If we're talking abut Loughner, his threat were explicit and public. If we're talking about Wally and you, among others, then a look in the mirror might be in order. You bait people as a matter of course - intentionally or not. People consider you callous. I wonder why?

Originally Posted by Eric the Green

We don't need militias today. We have a standing army now. We don't need the 2nd Amendment...

1) A standing force does not replace the militia. It is an adjunct;

2) By US law, every male between the ages of 18-45 is in the militia.

Originally Posted by Eric the Green

...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...

1) Actually, it's the other way around. States right adopt "Right to Carry" see a drop in crime;

2) Actually, it seems that the people in the cities like to carry guns for protection, too. They simply ignore the laws put in place by the Liberals they vote for. Go figure!

Originally Posted by Eric the Green

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...

-And as a consequence, the people in "Gunland" are safer than the ones in "Disarmed" land.

Once again, the police are under no legal obligation to protect you.

Originally Posted by Marx & Lennon

...Mexico is up in arms about it (literally)...

-I've already shown that this is a red hering:

Originally Posted by JDG 66

- As I posted before, most come from places other than the US:

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/04/02/myth-percent-small-fraction-guns-mexico-come/

The fact is, only 17 percent of guns found at Mexican crime scenes have been traced to the U.S.

What's true, an ATF spokeswoman told FOXNews.com, in a clarification of the statistic used by her own agency's assistant director, "is that over 90 percent of the traced firearms originate from the U.S."

But a large percentage of the guns recovered in Mexico do not get sent back to the U.S. for tracing, because it is obvious from their markings that they do not come from the U.S.


So, if not from the U.S., where do they come from? There are a variety of sources:


-- The Black Market...


-- Russian crime organizations...


- South America...


-- Asia...


-- The Mexican Army (as I previously posted)... Some guns, he said, "are legitimately shipped to the government of Mexico, by Colt, for example, in the United States. They are approved by the U.S. government for use by the Mexican military service. The guns end up in Mexico that way -- the fully auto versions -- they are not smuggled in across the river."


-- Guatemala...

Originally Posted by Marx & Lennon

...The US is alone in the advanced world in murders and manslaughter...

-FWIW, England had lower rates of murder and manslaughter long before they instituted gun control. And the fact is, violent crime went up in both England & Australia after the new restrictions in those countries.

Please look for another cop out to explain the failures of gun control!

Originally Posted by Eric the Green

...The only way we get guns off the streets is to make them illegal or hard to get. If the rural states would get tougher, then the urban states would have even fewer guns coming in...

-Uh, we already went thru' this. Mexico has gun control. It has gun crime. Britain and Australia restricted guns. All crime went up.

Sheesh.

Originally Posted by Odin

This guy has just been involuntarily committed. the shooting obviously left him really messed up, probably PTSD.

-Huh. You've got a cop-out for everything if the perp' is a Leftie.

Originally Posted by Roadbldr '59

The people on the right who deny that this occurs are either bullshitting themselves, or us, or both...

-No, Righties are simply pointing out that the so-called "violent rhetoric" had nothing to do with the AZ shooter.

Originally Posted by The Rani

And another:
Ex-candidate charged with making threats in Ind.

-Finally. A Rightie who actually used violent rhetoric!

Originally Posted by Odin

...When are the Nanny Statists gonna figure out that trying to ban everything they disprove of doesn't work?

-FWIW, I agree, but you are a Nany-Statist!

Originally Posted by Marx & Lennon

When you can grow guns in the woods, your analogy will be true ... but not before...

-On the Afghan-Pakistani border, there are any number of mini-weapon factories which turn out decent quality weapons. It's not as if gun-smithing is some arcane skill only possible for those with up-to-date 21st century technology. Guns aren't that hard to make. I have a friend who is a gunsmith.

He lives in the woods.

Originally Posted by Marx & Lennon

Did you read it? I was discussing implicit v. explicit threats. If we're talking abut Loughner, his threat were explicit and public. If we're talking about Wally and you, among others, then a look in the mirror might be in order. You bait people as a matter of course - intentionally or not. People consider you callous. I wonder why?

I dunno, Rani's primary crime here is she's an independant minded person who won't back down or take shit from herd minded idiots.

The fact is that most of the mass murders and assassinations are not carried out by blacks, but by wacko whites who had easy access to guns and no mental health treatment. We can play with stats all we want, and there is a lot of other murder and crime, but I think we need to be concerned about these mass murders too. They would be prevented with adequate gun control.

For the rest of it, the US and some other countries have some deep issues. One reason murder rates are higher in poor countries is because they have fewer trauma centers, so assaults become murders more often in poor countries.

Aside from that, let's look at where we are in the USA. We do have a problem with poverty and race and drugs in this country. Why?

Blacks were brought over to the USA and Brazil etc as slaves. I don't know, but I imagine they were fine in their local tribal societies in Africa. They were kept as slaves for centuries, and then as virtual serfs until the 1960s. Many migrated into northern ghettos in the course of the 20th century. Civil rights allowed some of them to move out into the middle class, and the war on poverty helped somewhat for a while. But the program of social change of the Kennedy-Johnson-Humphrey era was mostly stopped by the War in Vietnam, and by the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. and RFK (thanks to lax gun laws).

Since 1980, the program for social change in this country, supported here by the likes of JPT, Weave, JDG, and publius, is the following: lock up as many criminals as you can, so that the USA has by far more people in jail than any other country. Lock up blacks much more often, just because they are black. Lock up hispanics too, or try to deport them. Make war on drugs, instead of providing treatment. Keep people in poverty instead of improving education and job training or welfare-to-work programs. Bankrupt the government so no social programs can be carried out. Make sure the richest people get most of the money in our society. Keep taxes low on the rich so they don't complain about having to help blacks or other poor people, and so they can keep their enormous fortunes. Allow people to keep and bear as much arms as they wish, of whatever type. Make that, along with more and more jails, the answer to crime. Meanwhile, allow polluters to ruin our climate and pollute our cities without any new regulations. Do nothing to change our culture of violence, on TV and music, in southern culture, in our military-industrial complex, gun culture, etc., but instead start more wars around the world, especially in places that maintain our addiction to fossil fuels.

How well has this right-wing social program worked? Not too well. We still have more murders than other developed countries, and our drug use and gun stores fuel a vast civil war south of the border. There is a slow trickle of people moving out of our decaying cities, though some cities like Portland are rebuilding under a new model. But most of our underclass remains poor, and the cycle of violence and poverty in poor areas remains in place. Our education system is worse than other countries, so our country is declining while more peaceful societies like China and Europe are advancing.

I think, in the next two years, as we see our nation continue to decline, with crime and random violence increasing, and climate change accelerating, and we see that nothing can be done because of the nuckleheads America put in the congress last November, perhaps a groundswell for change may rise-- just as a groundswell of fear of change arose in the last two years. Perhaps, helped by demographics, a democratic blue tide can rise, and the red tide will ebb (a green tide would be nice too!). Then, assuming we don't start any more unnecessary wars, America can finally resume (at least by the 2020s) some of the Kennedy program, and then we can reverse our nation's decline. Then we can "do for our country," instead of just for ourselves if we are rich.

And I think we need to have much higher taxes on the rich, not mainly to support social programs, but to pay off the enormous debt which they have largely caused, and which threatens our future.

Originally Posted by Eric the Green

...And I think we need to have much higher taxes on the rich, not mainly to support social programs, but to pay off the enormous debt which they have largely caused, and which threatens our future.

-Uh, high tax societies are charachterized by slow rates of economic growth, which in the long run, means a smaller tax base.

The European social welfare states are on their way to getting an object lesson on that.

Originally Posted by Eric the Green

Since 1980, the program for social change in this country, supported here by the likes of JPT, Weave and publius, is the following: lock up as many criminals as you can, so that the USA has by far more people in jail than any other country...

-And the result of locking up the scumbags has been lower crime rates! Very good, Eric!

I don't particularly care what the scumbag's cop out might happen to be.

Originally Posted by Eric the Green

...So why is crime about the same in the USA and other countries, but murder is much higher in the USA than in other countries?

-Because we have more criminals. They will get the guns they want, as they do in places with gun control, like Mexico, the UK, and Australia:

Originally Posted by JDG 66

-And the UK:

http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/1950860/the_uk_gun_ban.html

How has that UK gun ban been working?

• In the four years from 1997 to 2001, the rate of violent crime more than doubled.
• Your chances of being mugged in London are now six times greater than in New York.
• England's rates of assault, robbery, and burglary are far higher than America's.
• 53 percent of English burglaries occur while occupants are at home, compared with 13 percent in the U.S., where burglars admit to fearing armed homeowners more than the police.

In a [2002] United Nations study of crime in 18 developed nations, England and Wales led the Western world's crime league, with nearly 55 crimes per 100 people.


...and Australia:

http://www.wnd.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=15304

Though lawmakers responsible for passing the ban promised a safer country, the nation's crime statistics tell a different story:

• Countrywide, homicides are up 3.2 percent;
• Assaults are up 8.6 percent;
• Amazingly, armed robberies have climbed nearly 45 percent;
• In the Australian state of Victoria, gun homicides have climbed 300 percent;
• In the 25 years before the gun bans, crime in Australia had been dropping steadily;
• There has been a reported "dramatic increase" in home burglaries and assaults on the elderly.

And you are again ignoring the hundreds of thousands of crimes directly prevented every year because our citizens are armed. This does not include the deterent value against criminals which an armed citizenry provides.

FWIW:

Originally Posted by jamesdglick

-
Murder rate per 100,000 in counties won by:

Gore: 6.5
Bush: 4.1

http://www.snopes.com/politics/quotes/tyler.asp

http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2000/results/president/index5.html

http://www.icpsr.umich.edu/NACJD/archive.html

Originally Posted by Marx & Lennon

...[to Rani] If we're talking about Wally and you, among others, then a look in the mirror might be in order...

1) Ah! Blame the victim!

2) Still running cover for your political ally Wally Poodle Pink Splice, I see, Mr. Horn. Very disappointing

Originally Posted by Marx & Lennon

...People consider you [Rani] callous. I wonder why?

...where have I heard something like that before? Why, here it is:

Originally Posted by Pink Splice

What I'm envisioning for Rani, due to her stellar empathy for others ...

...oh, but that's an out-take. Some people might be too lazy to click on it to see it in full context. Besides, even if they did, it was deleted.

So here it is:

Originally Posted by Pink Splice

1. We admitted we were powerless over X'r snark—that our lives had become unmanageable.
2. Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.
3. Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.
4. Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.
5. Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.
6. Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.
7. Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings.
8. Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all.
9. Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.
10. Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it.
11. Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His Will for us and the power to carry that out.
12. Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to alcoholics, and to practice these principles in all our affairs...

What I'm envisioning for Rani, due to her stellar empathy for others (think House plus Forman, squared), is that she will go through Steps 1-5 as she's being choked to death by one of her patients. Steps six and seven will take place at the moment of clinical death, past the point of brain damage (four minutes).

...a few other samples:

Originally Posted by Pink Splice

Rational argument with you is pointless. I'm just waiting for one of your customers to come in and help you with step 5 of your own twelve step program, all at once. The process should take less than four minutes...

Originally Posted by Pink Splice

...Rani drives through every red light in town, as does Arkham, driving an 18 wheeler. Splat! Pate-de-sociopath-shrink results. Arkham chuckles madly, until the next turn, whereupon he rolls and jackknives due to the damage to his tires from Rani's vehicle. KABOOM! as his load of flammables goes up with him to Kingdom Come...

Originally Posted by Pink Splice

...Even better news: the way things are going, your ass will be re-activated for duty again, unless you *really* screwed up. If you're lucky, you'll get KIA, if not, you'll be putting on your next play in Farsi as a POW.

I hope that it will be YOU who learns some lessons, JDG.

Maybe someone can answer this for me. I'm really curious about something. Can people who have been removed from the Fourth Turning Forum for ugly attacking posts, return under a new name? It just appears that some of the nasty posts as of late sound way too familiar.

New name but same attitude?

Originally Posted by The Rani

My primary crime was that I was Semo's "girlfriend." Anyway, looking back, there were really only four people who defended those comments. I think everyone else gets it.

Well, to substantiate your comment, I believe I'm one of the Board Members that "get's it" b/c I felt no need to defend you; IMO you do a great job on your own FWIW.

How is One supposed to understand what are "good manners" anyway. I can't begin to try and describe how many times I've seen mis-interpretations occur because people try and dance-around their opinion so as not to "hurt someone's feelings". That's the beginning of an often unintended "stealth-deception". "Oh what a tangled web we weave...."-Sir Walter Scott(Marmion)

Big-Picture: Given all the talk recently concerning the Shootings/Killings in AZ i/r/t "violent" Speech,

How would One try and defend limiting Speech when the litmus test is NOT activating someone to violent action? Futile, it is.

PoC67

PS: You're Semo's GF? I'm jealous!

Originally Posted by The Rani

So I guess you're not reconsidering your position.
Fair enough.

By the way, a "neutral observer" has forced several people on this website to post under new names. I'm not one of them.

Correction: A "casual observer" has forced atleast one person to post under a new name.

Originally Posted by Deb C

Maybe someone can answer this for me. I'm really curious about something. Can people who have been removed from the Fourth Turning Forum for ugly attacking posts, return under a new name? It just appears that some of the nasty posts as of late sound way too familiar.

New name but same attitude?

In theory and principle, no. In practice... this is the inter nets. Of course they can.

The national discussion on civility reminds me of our own periodic calls for civility. Craig's Proposed New Forum Rules documents a previous go around. Back around July of 2008 the issue was an excess of comparisons with Hitler, Stalin and various secret police organizations that routinely violated traditional human rights. Part of that discussion was that Mr. Saari thought my use of the phrase 'get rid of' was excessively threatening. I hadn't anticipated he would read it that way, but did edit my post to reflect a willingness to strive for a more civil conversation.

I am pleased that the discussion here has become somewhat less juvinile than it was before the new forum rules. The mode of discussion where we question whether this poster is more like Hitler than that politician is like Stalin has faded considerably. Both on this forum and in the greater world I still see the word 'socialist' used to describe any advocate of social safety net programs, and 'totalitarian' used for anyone concerned with fighting terrorism. I believe this is poor use of both words. Neither is anywhere near the traditional word use, and doing so degrades the conversation while providing no redeeming value.

And, of course, there are those who think death threats are a proper way of expressing political opinions.

I do believe commonly expressed approval of killing changes the culture. If one wants to research the idea, I would recommend Dave Grossman's On Killing: The Psychological Cost of Learning to Kill in War and Society. Before a war and after a war, the society has to teach its warriors to ignore traditional taboos against taking human life. Before the war, the enemy is demonized. After the war, there are parades and awards that attempt to make the killer a hero. These are part of a complex social tradition that attempts to make sure only those that deserve to die in fact die while giving honor and accepting into the community those who help preserve the culture.

The uncivil discourse we see here on the forum and elsewhere in the media is no where near as blatant as what one might expect to see in the build up to a war. It is still, however, an attack on the usual taboos that inhibit deadly behavior.

Count me as among those who would as soon see much less of it.

Originally Posted by KaiserD2

The white American rate compares to 1.5 for west and central Europe, and .44 [sic] for Japan. And of course, that's a misleading comparison with Europe, because Europe also has minority populations which may well have higher homicide rates. The New Zealand rate is 2, the Australian rate is about 1 (it is broken down because the rate for Australia's "northern territories" is much higher, about the same as athe overall US rate.)

White Americans are in fact about twice as likely to commit murder as western and central Europeans, about three times as likely to commit murder as Australians, and more than six times as likely to commit murder as Japanese. (It is rather fascinating, by the way, that Germany and Japan have two of the lowest murder rates in the world.) The breakdown by region and country is here, , and it's extremely interesting. Southern Africa and parts of South America are the most violent places on earth; Eastern Europe is more violent than the US as a whole.

But these stats also become misleading if you look at a breakdown of US murder rates by state (table 304.) In this as in so many other respects, we are several different nations. Your chances of being murdered are twice as high in the deep south as they are in my own New England, although my chances are higher than residents of Western and Central Europe, much less Japan. And this raises a critical question which I don't have time to address: is the black rate high because of race, or because blacks have southern roots? In 1968 all this was a hot political issue, and George Wallace was running on an anti-crime platform. Researchers discovered that Alabama had the highest murder rate in the nation and Wallace naturally blamed it on the black population. But in fact, it had the highest rate among both blacks and whites. (I learned this from a race relations professor, himself a Virginian, who stressed the traditional role of autonomous violence in southern life.)

There are lots of patterns one might find looking into world wide crime patterns and regional US patterns. The total picture is far more complex than one might think looking at just the propaganda coming out of both sides of the gun debate. There are militia countries such as Israel and Switzerland where everyone is armed and trained, and these do indeed have low violent crime rates. Japan has a very low rate of violent crimes, and a suicide rate that makes up for it. Look at various parts of Europe and the United States, various racial groups, various economic levels, and you can find numerous trends.

Gun laws are not the only variable that effect violent crime rates. If you see anyone selling you a simplistic picture, it isn't likely the complete picture. As in the Global Warming debates, partisans will cherry pick data bases in efforts to defend their position. The data is messy enough that one can find lots of ways to present it.

Anyway, folks might want to follow those links and spend a bit of time scanning the numbers.

Originally Posted by Bob Butler 54

The national discussion on civility reminds me of our own periodic calls for civility. Craig's Proposed New Forum Rules documents a previous go around. Back around July of 2008 the issue was an excess of comparisons with Hitler, Stalin and various secret police organizations that routinely violated traditional human rights. Part of that discussion was that Mr. Saari thought my use of the phrase 'get rid of' was excessively threatening. I hadn't anticipated he would read it that way, but did edit my post to reflect a willingness to strive for a more civil conversation.

I am pleased that the discussion here has become somewhat less juvinile than it was before the new forum rules. The mode of discussion where we question whether this poster is more like Hitler than that politician is like Stalin has faded considerably. Both on this forum and in the greater world I still see the word 'socialist' used to describe any advocate of social safety net programs, and 'totalitarian' used for anyone concerned with fighting terrorism. I believe this is poor use of both words. Neither is anywhere near the traditional word use, and doing so degrades the conversation while providing no redeeming value.

And, of course, there are those who think death threats are a proper way of expressing political opinions.

I do believe commonly expressed approval of killing changes the culture. If one wants to research the idea, I would recommend Dave Grossman's On Killing: The Psychological Cost of Learning to Kill in War and Society. Before a war and after a war, the society has to teach its warriors to ignore traditional taboos against taking human life. Before the war, the enemy is demonized. After the war, there are parades and awards that attempt to make the killer a hero. These are part of a complex social tradition that attempts to make sure only those that deserve to die in fact die while giving honor and accepting into the community those who help preserve the culture.

The uncivil discourse we see here on the forum and elsewhere in the media is no where near as blatant as what one might expect to see in the build up to a war. It is still, however, an attack on the usual taboos that inhibit deadly behavior.

Count me as among those who would as soon see much less of it.

In your opinion, is it OK to label the advocates for socialism and their supporters socialists?

Originally Posted by The Rani

My primary crime was that I was Semo's "girlfriend."

Yeah, that was proba--

Wait! What's up with the quotation marks around girlfriend?! You've just been toying with me this whole time, haven't you?

Originally Posted by Semo '75

Yeah, that was proba--

Wait! What's up with the quotation marks around girlfriend?! You've just been toying with me this whole time, haven't you?

Okay, this is just a question I have: why the hell is it that the majority of people who post here have either

a) met or meet in person
b) have had offline relationships and "relationships" with one another

The reason why I'm asking this is it makes me curious: Did you come here first and meet online then meet in person, or did you meet in person first and through getting to know one another eventually "recruit" or "convert" each other to post here?

It's a question that's bugged me for a while.

~Chas'88

Originally Posted by Chas'88

Okay, this is just a question I have: why the hell is it that the majority of people who post here have either

a) met or meet in person
b) have had offline relationships and "relationships" with one another

The reason why I'm asking this is it makes me curious: Did you come here first and meet online then meet in person, or did you meet in person first and through getting to know one another eventually "recruit" or "convert" each other to post here?

It's a question that's bugged me for a while.

~Chas'88

I've wondered the same thing.

Ditto that.

Originally Posted by Chas'88

It's a question that's bugged me for a while.

Sorry. My post was a joke. The Rani and I do email each other offline from time to time, but we've never met in person and we don't really have much of a relationship (or "relationship"), although I do count her among my friends.

A lot of the regulars who date back to the very early aughts met each other at conventions and stuff. I think The Rani, Child of Socrates, Zarathustra, Wonkette, and Roadbuilder would know more about that, though.

Originally Posted by annla899

I've wondered the same thing.

You would, my sister ENF/TP.

~Chas'88

Originally Posted by Semo '75

Sorry. My post was a joke. The Rani and I do email each other offline from time to time, but we've never met in person and we don't really have much of a relationship (or "relationship"), although I do count her among my friends.

A lot of the regulars who date back to the very early aughts met each other at conventions and stuff. I think The Rani, Child of Socrates, Zarathustra, Wonkette, and Roadbuilder would know more about that, though.

That's cool. Not to sound like a brown noser or anything like that, but from what I can tell from her posts, The Rani sounds like an intriguing person to befriend--and one who definitely values those she calls her friends. So I'd say you're quite lucky to have her friendship.

Just an observation from this people obsessed Aquarius ENF/TP.

~Chas'88

Originally Posted by Chas'88

Okay, this is just a question I have: why the hell is it that the majority of people who post here have either

a) met or meet in person
b) have had offline relationships and "relationships" with one another

The reason why I'm asking this is it makes me curious: Did you come here first and meet online then meet in person, or did you meet in person first and through getting to know one another eventually "recruit" or "convert" each other to post here?

It's a question that's bugged me for a while.

~Chas'88

I joined the forums in 2000. A few months later, Bill Strauss invited people to see a high school performance of one of his plays that he wrote. We also got together for dining and seeing movie clips of various ads.

Some time later, Roadbldr'59 started crushing on me and we arranged to meet in person. We hit it off and got involved in a 6-year long-distance relationship, that just ended in early 09. We're still friends. The two of us met Neisha and Justin '77, who used to live near Roadbldr '59. We also met Zarathustra in San Francisco in '06 and Bob Butler '59 in '07. A number of us got together in the DC area in 2008 for Bill Strauss's memorial service. I also met Marx & Lennon once because he lives near where my late brother lives.

There are others who have posted for a long time who I've never met in person who I'd love to meet.