William Blake and his Red Dragon Pictures
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Great_…_Paintings
I need to know once and for all what the triple 6 trinity means, and why, like Francis Dolarhyde, I have become obsessed with these paintings.
More Guns Equals Less Deaths.
Every example I’ve looked at categorically states this is the case.
What does everyone think about guns?
naturalworldorder.org/gazing-into…andy-hook/
“I said I was going to get to your calls but…look.”
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12-25-2012, 09:27 PM Unread post Post: #2
BigTom Offline
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RE: More Guns Equals Less Deaths.
(12-25-2012 07:44 AM)Gobbo Wrote:
Every example I’ve looked at categorically states this is the case.
What does everyone think about guns?
naturalworldorder.org/gazing-into…andy-hook/
As I said on ILP at great length, I think the US fascination with guns is driven by pop culture and that the constitution is meaningless. I think the idea of resisting government tyranny through owning guns is ludicrous, both in principle and in practice, and that this myth about ‘every despot disarms the population’ is the sort of lie you could only get away with spreading in a country like the US where 99% of people are completely idiotic.
Furthermore, I think the US government wants the population to own guns rather than the opposite. After all, they do sod all to enforce gun laws and massively subsidise the companies that make the guns, no to mention overtly encourage black markets like drugs which provide a means, motive and opportunity for a huge black market in guns.
I think your claim of ‘every example’ is disingenuous because look at the US compared to the UK - far more guns in the US, far more deaths, far less guns in the UK, no greater government tyranny.
In short, I think the kneejerk conspiracy theorist attitude of some on the ‘Right’ towards mass shootings is just as exploitative and just as moronic and just as massively untrue as the kneejerk ‘ban the guns’ attitude of some on the ‘Left’. I think it’s an utterly stupid discussion in its present format that has nothing to do with facts, nothing to do with reality, and everything to do with encouraging Americans to ultimately destroy themselves and each other.
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12-26-2012, 05:52 AM Unread post Post: #3
Gobbo Offline
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RE: More Guns Equals Less Deaths.
Yeah but government aside, there is something sort of mutually assured about guns. I don’t use them. I use my mind, but still - people don’t act like stupid fuckers when they have some fear of the other person.
I kind of look at the Wild West as an example of what I’m talking about.
I’m not sure what I’m saying, exactly. ‘Guns’ is pretty new to me. I didn’t really think about them before, but now I am. So that alone is noteworthy. Clearly all this propaganda is working to some degree.
“I said I was going to get to your calls but…look.”
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12-26-2012, 02:59 PM (This post was last modified: 12-26-2012 03:04 PM by W.C…) Unread post Post: #4
W.C. Away
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RE: More Guns Equals Less Deaths.
Anyone saying I’ll take your guns to ensure your security is well and good, but when they simply can’t ensure it, what are they working towards? The question of whether we should have guns or not isn’t a question of guns or disarmament for the time being, it’s a question of power.
If you have the power to defend yourself, you are thus empowered. With great power comes great responsibility – through responsibility you are likely to learn a greater level of respect. If only cars were held to the same account guns are, we’d have had them banned a while ago. But what does this achieve? We can respect cars and not even think of banning them, but guns! If there is a 100 car pile up with 60 child deaths, we don’t talk about cars… because why, the motive isn’t as discernible?
So are we to have select groups have select tools in order to ensure we supposedly harm ourselves as little as possible?
At a time when Police kill us more than the overblown terrorists, why aren’t we at war against the police as opposed to the terrorists?
You have these psychos, these sane men, taking cars, trucks, and god knows, killing God knows how many everyday, and we have to worry about guns, because they don’t get us to work like cars do, to let us feed the animals that cause most of our problems with the fruits of our labour.
— W.C.
‘Through the dark decades of your pain, this will seem like a memory of Heaven.’
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12-28-2012, 02:52 AM Unread post Post: #5
BigTom Offline
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RE: More Guns Equals Less Deaths.
(12-26-2012 05:52 AM)Gobbo Wrote:
Yeah but government aside, there is something sort of mutually assured about guns. I don’t use them. I use my mind, but still - people don’t act like stupid fuckers when they have some fear of the other person.
I kind of look at the Wild West as an example of what I’m talking about.
Most people in the Wild West weren’t armed all the time. But I know what you mean about the rationale, and I’m not fundamentally opposed to that, I just think the notion that today’s Americans, with today’s attitudes, being allowed even more guns will only result in more mutual destruction.
Quote:
I’m not sure what I’m saying, exactly. ‘Guns’ is pretty new to me. I didn’t really think about them before, but now I am. So that alone is noteworthy. Clearly all this propaganda is working to some degree.
Which propaganda are we talking about? I see in the US gun debate the same polarisation, the same strategy of tension, as in so many domestic counter-insurgency programs. Over here in the UK, I’ve heard both the pro-gun and anti-gun celebrity-endorsed propaganda, I’ve heard both sides seeking to exploit this event to advance seemingly contradictory policies and values.
Because ultimately what’s it a choice between? Either banning guns in some way, thus affirming the notion that the state has a righteous monopoly on the use of violence, or giving Americans the means to kill each other at even higher rates. Either extreme plays into the same people’s hands, just like in pretty much every mainstream political debate.
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12-28-2012, 03:03 AM Unread post Post: #6
BigTom Offline
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RE: More Guns Equals Less Deaths.
(12-26-2012 02:59 PM)W.C. Wrote:
Anyone saying I’ll take your guns to ensure your security is well and good, but when they simply can’t ensure it, what are they working towards? The question of whether we should have guns or not isn’t a question of guns or disarmament for the time being, it’s a question of power.
If you have the power to defend yourself, you are thus empowered. With great power comes great responsibility – through responsibility you are likely to learn a greater level of respect. If only cars were held to the same account guns are, we’d have had them banned a while ago. But what does this achieve? We can respect cars and not even think of banning them, but guns! If there is a 100 car pile up with 60 child deaths, we don’t talk about cars… because why, the motive isn’t as discernible?
Because most cars, most of the time, are used peacefully to accomplish useful things. Guns are solely designed to kill things in an efficient manner.
It’s a ludicrous, and massively over-used analogy. In fact, it isn’t an analogy, it’s just gun-loving bullshit.
Quote:
So are we to have select groups have select tools in order to ensure we supposedly harm ourselves as little as possible?
I’m against the general population being armed on a continuous basis, that doesn’t mean I’m in favour of the police shooting people and getting away with it. It isn’t an either/or choice, however much they (the mainstream) try to make it into one.
Quote:
At a time when Police kill us more than the overblown terrorists, why aren’t we at war against the police as opposed to the terrorists?
A good question, that has little to do with the gun debate. Fight the police all you like, they’re a shower of bastards. In fact, to borrow a phrase from my brother, they are a power shower of bastards.
Quote:
You have these psychos, these sane men, taking cars, trucks, and god knows, killing God knows how many everyday, and we have to worry about guns, because they don’t get us to work like cars do, to let us feed the animals that cause most of our problems with the fruits of our labour.
We have invested HUGE amounts of time, money and effort in making vehicles harder to steal and safer when they do crash. No amount of time, money or effort will turn a gun into a tool of peace.
Seriously, it’s an absolutely ridiculous analogy if you stop and think about it for a moment - the sort of thing hick gun-lovers will lap up, but the sort of thing intelligent people should view with the same scepticism as those who say that the government should be the only people who are allowed to use violence to accomplish things.
Did someone say the age of Horus was coming?
By the way I think Gobbo’s article on the main page does well to explain that the guns issue is not the main issue. The main issue is the psychology of the killer, and this is linked convincingly to antidepressant-type drugs. I do not think that more guns means more violence - look indeed at Switzerland and Russia - but I will believe in a second that more antidepressants means more violence, more chaos, less judgments by acting agents.
But then unfortunately any strong motive is capable of sending people over the edge - only three or four generations ago, a nation would gladly send its whole male population to a near certain death. Perhaps it is only that we do not any longer have any motives left that the killing is happening inside rather than outside.
Nihilism…
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RE: More Guns Equals Less Deaths.
(12-28-2012 03:03 AM)BigTom Wrote:
Because most cars, most of the time, are used peacefully to accomplish useful things. Guns are solely designed to kill things in an efficient manner.
It’s a ludicrous, and massively over-used analogy. In fact, it isn’t an analogy, it’s just gun-loving bullshit.
At the same time, most guns in public, most of the time, are not used to kill as much as bows and arrows are not used to kill (if say bows and arrows had equal ownership rates). The highest uses for public guns are target practice, private collections or self defence.
Quote:
I’m against the general population being armed on a continuous basis, that doesn’t mean I’m in favour of the police shooting people and getting away with it. It isn’t an either/or choice, however much they (the mainstream) try to make it into one.
I agree. I mean, this whole thing has arisen again as a result of the Newtown affair – in which an assault rifle was used in a state where assault rifles already have tougher laws. It appears they’re now pushing for other states to adopt similar measures, apparently because it worked so well in Newtown.
Why they do not look to education and training as the Swiss do becomes apparent in the fact that they simply don’t want the people armed.
An old thing I like to do is to watch what isn’t being and hasn’t really been reported on, which is related to events like this. What I found is that in instances where armed citizens have stopped a potential massacre or crime, it is almost seldom reported.
Quote:
A good question, that has little to do with the gun debate. Fight the police all you like, they’re a shower of bastards. In fact, to borrow a phrase from my brother, they are a power shower of bastards.
True enough, but they’re a difficult bunch to go to war with. Not all are bad, but all have a vast array of protection against law, etc.
Quote:
We have invested HUGE amounts of time, money and effort in making vehicles harder to steal and safer when they do crash. No amount of time, money or effort will turn a gun into a tool of peace.
No amount of time, money or effort will turn cars into safety machines either. We’re not going to live in a totally safe society. Ever. As this is the case, I would prefer to be able to defend myself and my property rather than having to rely solely on those Police.
I agree with some regulations, and I agree with education. I disagree with banning practically anything wholely, as any ban simply sends the object of the ban to the black markets and creates gangs, etc, to maintain the same. I understand higher availability will inevitably place some guns in the hands of those that otherwise wouldn’t have them. Thats life.
I do wonder why we don’t invest more time, money and effort into education in general – Why we don’t stop disecting human emotions and labeling them psychological conditions to be sold as worthy of drugging oneself up for. But I don’t wonder why this is the case for long.
In Australia, we had the Port Arthur Massacre as the flase flag justification to take away our guns. The UN is actively pursuing gun bans worldwide. I think I’m with the ‘gun nuts’ on this one. You disarm the world and only Governments will really be able to use violence to accomplish things – more things against disarmed populations.
That said, I don’t think you can ever really ban something like a gun, so long as you have people who can make or smuggle guns – you can only reduce a quantity and a chance of any real backlash from those public groups/militias, who are being painted as terrorists because they’re not government owned.
You know, and you probably can do this too, I can walk down the street today and buy a gun if I so desired. It is not safer. But I would say the time of guns as we know them, is coming to a close soon enough anyway – to be replaced and enhanced over time with technological advancement. But again, this isn’t about guns and never has been, it’s about power. They want to have it, and they don’t want us to because, in my understanding of what they’re selling, ‘we’re a danger to them and to ourselves.’
— W.C.
‘Through the dark decades of your pain, this will seem like a memory of Heaven.’
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12-28-2012, 02:01 PM Unread post Post: #9
sorege
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RE: More Guns Equals Less Deaths.
Guns are an equalizer. You take a human with some potentially negative physical traits - specifically size and strength - and give that human a gun, those traits become poisonous. An intelligent human understands that a society which permits the relatively weak to carry guns is not one in which physical superiority or mental agility is a means to a positive end, since even mental overpowerment can reisult in the death of the non-aggresive mentally fit person. Guns bring us all down to the same level. The level of a reptile with venomous spray.
There’s nothing inherently wrong with the reptile. And we can live with it. We may prefer not to, but we do need to learn how.
Sometimes we stick them in prison. Or a mental health hospital. Or shove them in an orphanage. Or kill them outright. The human and its reptile equivalent. It doesn’t matter how we attempt to rid the world of dangers, they will continue to exist. I believe it is incumbent upon us as individuals to prevent the venemous from harming us by eliminating the need for the attack.
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12-28-2012, 07:15 PM Unread post Post: #10
Gobbo Offline
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RE: More Guns Equals Less Deaths.
Quote:
There’s nothing inherently wrong with the reptile. And we can live with it. We may prefer not to, but we do need to learn how.
Well said.
Something I feel is kind of pertinent here is the concept of that person who can talk their way out of anything. This doesn’t apply to all gun cases, but it shows the power of the mind, and how it could potentially be applied to the social case in question here.
“I said I was going to get to your calls but…look.”
RE: More Guns Equals Less Deaths.
(12-28-2012 09:43 AM)W.C. Wrote:
(12-28-2012 03:03 AM)BigTom Wrote:
Because most cars, most of the time, are used peacefully to accomplish useful things. Guns are solely designed to kill things in an efficient manner.
It’s a ludicrous, and massively over-used analogy. In fact, it isn’t an analogy, it’s just gun-loving bullshit.
At the same time, most guns in public, most of the time, are not used to kill as much as bows and arrows are not used to kill (if say bows and arrows had equal ownership rates). The highest uses for public guns are target practice, private collections or self defence.
This is irrelevant. They are designed to kill. Cars aren’t. Very few people are deliberately killed with a car. Loads of people are deliberately killed with guns.
It’s a bullshit analogy.
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Quote:
I’m against the general population being armed on a continuous basis, that doesn’t mean I’m in favour of the police shooting people and getting away with it. It isn’t an either/or choice, however much they (the mainstream) try to make it into one.
I agree. I mean, this whole thing has arisen again as a result of the Newtown affair – in which an assault rifle was used in a state where assault rifles already have tougher laws. It appears they’re now pushing for other states to adopt similar measures, apparently because it worked so well in Newtown.
Had the restrictions been properly enforced then the Newtown massacre would not have happened. The argument that different legislation or improved enforcement might be the solution is perfectly reasonable. Yet it’s this sort of mocking ‘because regulation worked so well in Newtown’ that we here from the gun-lovers, and which for some reason you’re repeating word for word without considering whether or not it is bollocks. Because it’s obviously bollocks - one drunk driver killing a group of children is not a reason to get rid of all laws governing cars, or driving, or drink driving, or to get everyone drink driving so that they are all equally dangerous to one another.
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Why they do not look to education and training as the Swiss do becomes apparent in the fact that they simply don’t want the people armed.
They clearly do want the people armed - they subsidise the weapons manufacturers who make the weapons, they pass crappy regulations which help create a black market and then systemically fail to enforce those regulations, in particular failing to enforce them against the black market they helped to create. They also subsidise the film and TV industries who glamourise guns, gun violence and gun ownership, while also portraying the world as horrible and scary, thus giving people the ready made ‘it’s just for self-defence’ excuse for buying a gun.
Set against all that evidence that they do, in fact, want US citizens to have guns and invest huge amounts of time, money and effort in encouraging them to buy guns, your argument is that they don’t ‘look to education and training like the Swiss do’. As someone else pointed out in this same debate on ILP - the Swiss have state-mandated, conscripted military service. Can you see how quickly the ‘everyone owns a gun’ becomes ‘everyone is part of the state military’, i.e. how quickly the Libertarianism becomes Fascism?
Seriously, the ‘they want our guns’ position is just as ridiculous as the ‘they take our jobs’ position regarding immigration. It’s just a tabloid-style rallying cry for the mob. I cannot express to you in strong enough terms (without being very rude) how dimwitted the whole guns debate is, and the extent to which it is a waste of your time believing in either of the two apparently polar-opposite positions we are offered by the mainstream media. The gun nuts love pointing out that Switzerland has lots of guns but little violence.
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An old thing I like to do is to watch what isn’t being and hasn’t really been reported on, which is related to events like this. What I found is that in instances where armed citizens have stopped a potential massacre or crime, it is almost seldom reported.
Give me some examples, because I can think of literally dozens of mass shootings in countries where gun ownership is quite widespread but none of the supposedly self-defending population lifted a finger to stop the person or persons perpetrating the mass murder. Look at the Breivik attack in Norway - Norwegians are gun owners, they like to hunt and like shooting-based sports and despite being a socialist country with a massive public sector they don’t have particularly strict gun control regulations. Certainly it’s a lot easier to get a gun in Norway than it is here in the UK. Funny how you never hear the gun-lovers using Norway as an example, possibly because it doesn’t fit their tobacco-chewing right-winged worldview whereby ‘socialism’ is equivalent to Satanism.
Anyway, Breivik was tramping about on that island, shooting people and phoning the police to tell them he was on the island shooting people, and all around the lake were people who owned guns and had boats who could have tried to stop him. They did nothing. Now, that’s partly due to the national character of the Norwegians, somewhat applicable to Scandinavians in general, that they are an essentially peaceful bunch who weren’t prepared for something like this. Norway has no history of mass-casualty terrorism, even though guns are quite widely available. But even in the US, where this kind of thing happens on a regular basis, and where they have a supposedly gung-ho national character, it is almost never a member of the public who stops the mass-killer. If they are shot, they usually shoot themselves or are killed by the police. If you’ve got counter-examples then lay them on me.
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A good question, that has little to do with the gun debate. Fight the police all you like, they’re a shower of bastards. In fact, to borrow a phrase from my brother, they are a power shower of bastards.
True enough, but they’re a difficult bunch to go to war with. Not all are bad, but all have a vast array of protection against law, etc.
I don’t really mean going to war with them, I mean holding them to account as a means of persuading them to change. Having police of some sort isn’t necessarily a bad idea, in fact they are sometimes useful and competent. That can be encouraged.
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We have invested HUGE amounts of time, money and effort in making vehicles harder to steal and safer when they do crash. No amount of time, money or effort will turn a gun into a tool of peace.
No amount of time, money or effort will turn cars into safety machines either.
And yet, they are used safely most of the time. Guns are not.
Quote:
We’re not going to live in a totally safe society. Ever. As this is the case, I would prefer to be able to defend myself and my property rather than having to rely solely on those Police.
Again, it isn’t a choice between one or the other.
Quote:
I agree with some regulations, and I agree with education. I disagree with banning practically anything wholely, as any ban simply sends the object of the ban to the black markets and creates gangs, etc, to maintain the same. I understand higher availability will inevitably place some guns in the hands of those that otherwise wouldn’t have them. Thats life.
That isn’t my argument against gun ownership.
Quote:
I do wonder why we don’t invest more time, money and effort into education in general – Why we don’t stop disecting human emotions and labeling them psychological conditions to be sold as worthy of drugging oneself up for. But I don’t wonder why this is the case for long.
In Australia, we had the Port Arthur Massacre as the flase flag justification to take away our guns. The UN is actively pursuing gun bans worldwide. I think I’m with the ‘gun nuts’ on this one. You disarm the world and only Governments will really be able to use violence to accomplish things – more things against disarmed populations.
All over the world we see the covert agencies of Western governments arming insurgent populations. Methinks they are quite happy for people to run around on the ground with guns killing each other while they fly about in their spy satellites and supersonic bomber jets. As above, I’m looking at their actual behaviour rather than their rhetoric.
Quote:
That said, I don’t think you can ever really ban something like a gun, so long as you have people who can make or smuggle guns – you can only reduce a quantity and a chance of any real backlash from those public groups/militias, who are being painted as terrorists because they’re not government owned.
You know, and you probably can do this too, I can walk down the street today and buy a gun if I so desired. It is not safer. But I would say the time of guns as we know them, is coming to a close soon enough anyway – to be replaced and enhanced over time with technological advancement. But again, this isn’t about guns and never has been, it’s about power. They want to have it, and they don’t want us to because, in my understanding of what they’re selling, ‘we’re a danger to them and to ourselves.’
Us having guns gives them a lot of excuses for a lot of things. They want us to have guns, 95% of their behaviour shows this. I think that adopting anything from either side of this poisoned and poisonous debate is extremely foolhardy. I’m not trying to insult you here, but as I say I can’t express this in strong enough terms. It’s an utterly stupid debate, and no basis for arguing about degrees of regulatory control vs. the relevance of individual rights. The debate as it currently stands misconstrues EVERYTHING it discusses.
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12-28-2012, 11:55 PM Post: #12
Gobbo Offline
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RE: More Guns Equals Less Deaths.
Quote:
I cannot express to you in strong enough terms (without being very rude) how dimwitted the whole guns debate is, and the extent to which it is a waste of your time believing in either of the two apparently polar-opposite positions we are offered by the mainstream media.
To be fair, though, you are presenting this argument where you’re envisioning fighter pilots nuking civilians mobs of people with their ‘guns.’
It’s not so much about how a literal war would play out. It’s about the symbolism behind this. If the Americans give up their guns, then it’s basically admitting defeat.
This is all in the context of obliterating the constitution, which is a cleverly genius piece of literature I might add.
“I said I was going to get to your calls but…look.”
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12-29-2012, 02:26 AM (This post was last modified: 12-29-2012 02:35 AM by Fixed Cross.) Post: #13
Fixed Cross Offline
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RE: More Guns Equals Less Deaths.
I agree with Gobbo here. It’s the symbolism, the constitution, the ‘spirit’ of the US that is at stake. We are talking about a country where the violent nature of man is relatively un-repressed, accepted. This has disadvantages and advantages. The disadvantages are obvious, the advantage is that it makes for a very dynamic environment, the American psyche is exceptionally powerful. The second amendment creates the idea (whether it’s illusory or not is of no practical significance) that people are truly free, that they have the right to resist government. This is unheard of in other nations, and I think that it is a massive improvement over the past ten millennia or so.
My sentiment is equal to what Gobbo expressed: if Americans hand over their guns, they’re admitting defeat, failure of their project. The project was based on trust in the self-regulating power of the human being, and for this reason it is important to focus on this anti-depressant issue. Antidepressants are a direct attack on mans capacity to self-regulate - they eliminate mans responsibility for his own state of mind, thus for his acts. Antidepressants form a direct attack on mans ‘soul’, his self-governing capacity. Guns only form a danger when this capacity has been overruled.
Essentially the 2nd amendment speaks of a tremendous optimism, an unprecedented faith in mankind. Whether this faith is justified or not, to scrap the right would be a huge step backward, leading Americans to submit to the ancient and still wide spread idea of Faraoic rulership which they had successfully challenged for a while.
Government prescribing the right to resist government is enlightened, even if the right is only symbolic.
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12-29-2012, 06:02 AM Post: #14
BigTom Offline
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RE: More Guns Equals Less Deaths.
(12-28-2012 11:55 PM)Gobbo Wrote:
Quote:
I cannot express to you in strong enough terms (without being very rude) how dimwitted the whole guns debate is, and the extent to which it is a waste of your time believing in either of the two apparently polar-opposite positions we are offered by the mainstream media.
To be fair, though, you are presenting this argument where you’re envisioning fighter pilots nuking civilians mobs of people with their ‘guns.’
That is the military model of the future I’m working with, derived largely from US military counterinsurgency manuals, CIA trends reports and the Command and Conquer computer game series, yes, you’d be right about that.
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It’s not so much about how a literal war would play out. It’s about the symbolism behind this. If the Americans give up their guns, then it’s basically admitting defeat.
Sure, which is one of the main reasons I’m not in favour of banning guns. I think people should voluntarily choose not to own guns.
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This is all in the context of obliterating the constitution, which is a cleverly genius piece of literature I might add.
An awful lot depends on whether the rights and freedoms outlined in the constitution are supposed to apply to everyone, or to a select few. The select few who wrote it appear to have been mainly concerned with according themselves such rights (to bear arms or own property or whatever) rather than people at large. After all, they didn’t want their slaves bearing arms, did they?
There is a lot of stuff in the constitution which is outmoded gibberish, though of course it isn’t those bits that are being dissolved, it’s the bits about not kidnapping and imprisoning people because you feel like it.
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12-29-2012, 10:52 PM (This post was last modified: 12-29-2012 11:09 PM by BigTom.) Post: #15
BigTom Offline
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RE: More Guns Equals Less Deaths.
(12-29-2012 02:26 AM)Bran Wrote:
I agree with Gobbo here. It’s the symbolism, the constitution, the ‘spirit’ of the US that is at stake. We are talking about a country where the violent nature of man is relatively un-repressed, accepted. This has disadvantages and advantages. The disadvantages are obvious, the advantage is that it makes for a very dynamic environment, the American psyche is exceptionally powerful.
I think this is extremely one-sided and simplistic. There’s no such thing as ‘the American psyche’. Almost all of the Americans I’ve met have been weak-minded, lazy, nasty idiots. That’s nothing to be proud of or for the rest of the world to emulate.
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The second amendment creates the idea (whether it’s illusory or not is of no practical significance) that people are truly free, that they have the right to resist government. This is unheard of in other nations, and I think that it is a massive improvement over the past ten millennia or so.
Yeah, because no other nation has any history of resisting their government. Only Americans, and look how well they’ve done at it! It’s not like the US government is the largest, most destructive institution the world has ever seen.
Oh, wait a second…
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My sentiment is equal to what Gobbo expressed: if Americans hand over their guns, they’re admitting defeat, failure of their project. The project was based on trust in the self-regulating power of the human being, and for this reason it is important to focus on this anti-depressant issue. Antidepressants are a direct attack on mans capacity to self-regulate - they eliminate mans responsibility for his own state of mind, thus for his acts. Antidepressants form a direct attack on mans ‘soul’, his self-governing capacity. Guns only form a danger when this capacity has been overruled.
Or when they get into the hands of kids who’ve been bred on a diet of poverty and glamourisation of gun violence.
Leaving aside this myth of the American project being something other than the same old story of white colonisation, I do agree with you - there is a logic to a large number of people owning and carrying guns that breeds a certain mutual respect. You would see a lot less of the glib cynicism that has come to dominate American youth culture because that passive-aggressive, put everything else down and then pretend you don’t care about it attitude is hard to maintain towards someone carrying a gun.
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Essentially the 2nd amendment speaks of a tremendous optimism, an unprecedented faith in mankind. Whether this faith is justified or not, to scrap the right would be a huge step backward, leading Americans to submit to the ancient and still wide spread idea of Faraoic rulership which they had successfully challenged for a while.
Government prescribing the right to resist government is enlightened, even if the right is only symbolic.
Government prescribing the right to resist government is absurd because it means the government can simply take that right away as and when it pleases. A people trying to form a government from a starting point that includes the right to resist government is enlightened. And I’m sure that some of the people who went to America way back when weren’t doing it with colonisation in mind, but had more enlightened ideals. Praise those people and those ideals all you want, but that alone does not to my mind defend the Constitution as a whole, let alone the American Project as a whole. If it fails, I think it will fail because those ideals weren’t applied to everyone, and were never intended to be applied to everyone. I’m open to being persuaded otherwise on that.
To be clear, I’m not in favour of banning guns, and I agree it would be a huge symbolic step in the US that would not be positive for them. But likewise I’m not in favour of this ‘everyone should be armed to the teeth’ idea. I think the existing gun debate in the US is exceptionally stupid, but then every political debate in the US is the same way. The notion that there is anything in that debate that the rest of the world should admire and emulate appalls me. I think that there are far better arguments for gun ownership (without descending into gun fetishism) and I am glad to see some of those arguments on this thread.
Indeed, both yours and Gobbos posts remind me of this:
[flash(0,0)]http://www.youtube.com/v/r38-yj8wqiw[/flash]
Had the shopkeeper not owned a rifle then his subsequent act of kindness would not have been possible. This is an example of the threat of force being used for good which both entertained me and I think embodies the kinds of values you’re talking about. I’m not going to labour the point that the man in question was a Muslim American, a curious mixture to consider when picking apart this tiny but symbolically important event.
I’m kind of with you, I just have utter contempt for mainstream US political discussion, and see no reason to revise that regarding the gun debate. All this roundabout bollocks about ‘every dictator in history has disarmed the population’ is the sort of thing you could only get away with in a country where people know no history, where they genuinely don’t realise that there have been dictators, Faraoic rulership, the divine right of Kings etc. for millenia before their country, as they conceive of it, ever existed. Not all of those dictators, kings, Pharaohs sought to disarm their populations - plenty of them either didn’t give a toss because they had other things to worry about or actively sought to arm the population for various reasons. The principle of resisting government is very important, and American gun ownership is a symbol of that, I do get it, but that doesn’t excuse the sheer crap spouted in defence of that gun ownership. Having the right conclusion for a hundred wrong reasons is not something that the rest of the world should be admiring or emulating.
[/quote]
Had the shopkeeper not owned a rifle then his subsequent act of kindness would not have been possible. This is an example of the threat of force being used for good which both entertained me and I think embodies the kinds of values you’re talking about. I’m not going to labour the point that the man in question was a Muslim American, a curious mixture to consider when picking apart this tiny but symbolically important event.
I’m kind of with you, I just have utter contempt for mainstream US political discussion, and see no reason to revise that regarding the gun debate. All this roundabout bollocks about ‘every dictator in history has disarmed the population’ is the sort of thing you could only get away with in a country where people know no history, where they genuinely don’t realise that there have been dictators, Faraoic rulership, the divine right of Kings etc. for millenia before their country, as they conceive of it, ever existed. Not all of those dictators, kings, Pharaohs sought to disarm their populations - plenty of them either didn’t give a toss because they had other things to worry about or actively sought to arm the population for various reasons. The principle of resisting government is very important, and American gun ownership is a symbol of that, I do get it, but that doesn’t excuse the sheer crap spouted in defence of that gun ownership. Having the right conclusion for a hundred wrong reasons is not something that the rest of the world should be admiring or emulating.
Dannerz Offline
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RE: More Guns Equals Less Deaths.
Things like knives and base ball bats can be deadly too. A gun is more deadly, but still, people always have the means to a killing or a violent act. Do you want to ban knives and base ball bats?
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12-30-2012, 01:00 AM Post: #17
BigTom Offline
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RE: More Guns Equals Less Deaths.
(12-30-2012 12:37 AM)Dannerz Wrote:
Things like knives and base ball bats can be deadly too. A gun is more deadly, but still, people always have the means to a killing or a violent act. Do you want to ban knives and base ball bats?
That’s it, try to drag the discussion back to the most basic, moronic level you can…
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12-30-2012, 08:11 PM Post: #18
Gobbo Offline
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RE: More Guns Equals Less Deaths.
He has a point.
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I think this is extremely one-sided and simplistic. There’s no such thing as ‘the American psyche’. Almost all of the Americans I’ve met have been weak-minded, lazy, nasty idiots. That’s nothing to be proud of or for the rest of the world to emulate.
You’re missing the point. This has nothing to do with whether all of this is ‘smart’ or not.
Britain is the brain, the US is the arm. Before the bankers co-opted the US it was probably the best structure the world has ever seen for realizing the human potential. Britain is completely conquered. No one there could revolt even if they wanted to.
People look to the US because once the guns are handed in there, the arm is free to fist the body into a new world order, but we’re not completely there yet.
“I said I was going to get to your calls but…look.”
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12-30-2012, 09:00 PM Post: #19
BigTom Offline
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RE: More Guns Equals Less Deaths.
(12-30-2012 08:11 PM)Gobbo Wrote:
He has a point.
No, he doesn’t, because that has NOTHING to do with what I said. In particular, I never said guns should be banned, so responding ‘other things are dangerous, why don’t you ban them too?’ is completely stupid. Seriously, if the quality of discussion here is no better than on ILP then I want nothing to do with it, and that post was just like ILP.
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I think this is extremely one-sided and simplistic. There’s no such thing as ‘the American psyche’. Almost all of the Americans I’ve met have been weak-minded, lazy, nasty idiots. That’s nothing to be proud of or for the rest of the world to emulate.
You’re missing the point. This has nothing to do with whether all of this is ‘smart’ or not.
Britain is the brain, the US is the arm. Before the bankers co-opted the US it was probably the best structure the world has ever seen for realizing the human potential. Britain is completely conquered. No one there could revolt even if they wanted to.
Says a person who has never been to Britain and has no idea what’s going on over here. Britain has had plenty of revolts, far more than the US.
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People look to the US because once the guns are handed in there, the arm is free to fist the body into a new world order, but we’re not completely there yet.
If I truly believed that my future freedom was dependent on Americans owning guns then I’d kill myself. This is a great example of what I mean about simplistic conspiratorial views of the world leading to despair.
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12-30-2012, 11:05 PM (This post was last modified: 12-30-2012 11:09 PM by Gobbo.) Post: #20
Gobbo Offline
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RE: More Guns Equals Less Deaths.
Why are you so mad? This issue clearly has some other element to it I’m not seeing. Did you ban him for the comment a couple posts up? That seems excessive.
I’m going to try and explain this fully, and give it the attention it deserves.
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I’m kind of with you, I just have utter contempt for mainstream US political discussion, and see no reason to revise that regarding the gun debate.
We’re not asking you to revise your position. We’re asking you to phrase this in the context of the World Stage. You’re right (and I didn’t mean to sound insulting) I’m sure people could revolt in Britain, but in the sense of the World Stage that would be kind of coming from left field. By all means, do that. I hope that happens.