Thanks for the explanation, guys. To be honest, I'd give someone a few years in jail if they actually shót a judge of whatever, not when they are simply carrying a gun in his presence.
Author Joel Rosenberg Arrested
- Thread starter Russ Pitts
- Start date
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Yeah, most legislation is just there to give politicians an excuse when they're confronted by the histrionics brigade. They write a law so they can say "Hey, I did my part to help prevent horrors like these from happening! Vote for me again and I can do my part even harder."PlasticTree said:
There's nothing hard about kicking a man when he's down. They had a month to study up--they know he doesn't have the money to defend himself. It doesn't matter if you're right or not--so long as you can't defend yourself in court, you won't win the case.Booze Zombie said:
The cops won this a long time ago.
I think your fellow community members have addressed your points better than I could, but I will address one misconception under which you seem to be operating.psrdirector said:
To wit: The Escapist is not public property, therefore your rights to express yourself using The Escapist Forum are not governed by the Constitution of the United States, rather, the Code of Conduct of The Escapist [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/codeofconduct].
What does this mean? It means that your right to express yourself is based on your agreement to the terms under which we operate this Forum as defined by us, and not your inalienable rights as a human being as defined by the authors of the US Constitution.
The Constitution of the United States of America, on the other hand (specifically the 1st Amendment, and the first article in what is commonly referred to as The Bill of Rights), grants American citizens the right to express themselves in whatever forum or media without fear of prosecution by Local, State or Federal law enforcement officers. In other words, the Government of the United States (or any of the various governments within the United States) does/do not have the legal right to punish an American citizen for speaking their mind except in a relatively few, straightforward instances such as speech that would be slanderous against or harmful to others.
Therefore, as an American citizen, one may not face legal prosecution for, say, disagreeing with the Editor-in-Chief of The Escapist in The Escapist Forum, or theoretically, for posting videos on YouTube ridiculing the Minneapolis Police Department, but The Escapist can reasonably and legally ban you if you violate our code of conduct, and YouTube could pull your videos if you violate theirs. Whether or not we would ever do such a thing (we wouldn't) is irrelevant.
As far as me "forcing [my] political views" on anyone, get over it. I have opinions. I will share them. Feel free to disagree with them. I think it's a testament to how sensitive this particular issue is in some circles that this relatively even-handed news article can generate such a virulent objection.
I'm sorry, did you even read the article? He wasn't arrested that day, he was arrested a month later after he posted an unflattering video on YouTube. He knows the person that wrote the law in question, and that person is quite certain he wasn't breaking it. He was arrested and is now trying to defend himself, there are no lawsuits involved.MrScandinavia said:
That basically fits nothing of what you said at all. Why did you even post if you didn't read the article?
This is not really the forum for that kind of thing, but suffice to say I was born and raised in Texas, a state with a long-standing tradition of independence and self-reliance instilled in its citizenry for historical reasons too broad to go into here. In Texas, owning a gun is about as unremarkable as owning a hat anywhere else. I was raised by a family of responsible gun owners, and I grew up to become one myself. It's basically that simple. Where I'm from, that is just the way things are.PlasticTree said:
As far as the NRA, just like any sufficiently large organization, it is comprised of members who fall all over the ideological map on a number of issues. The reasons I am a member, for example, may differ wildly from the reasons anyone else may be a member. I'm not ashamed, afraid or otherwise reluctant to declare my membership in the NRA, but I don't always agree with all of its policies or find common ground with all of its members. I do, however, believe that their work on behalf of upholding one of the fundamental rights granted to American citizens by the framers of the US Constitution is worth supporting.
The founding fathers believed this issue was so important that it came second in their minds only to our rights as free humans to speak ours. That, to me, means something, and I'm happy to contribute my money and time to help those who agree. I understand that a lot of people don't like guns and would prefer to never see them or hear about them. I understand that. I believe it is their right to decide for themselves whether or not they will exercise their own rights, but it is not their right infringe upon mine.
It's incident like this that continually remind me why police officers in general are not to be trusted any further than any other human being, which is to say not even as far as I can throw them.
If it were not necro-ing I'd post a link to this on a recent topic basically asking "why do so few excapist users respect and trust the authoritah of the police?", this here is a prime bloody example. Bending and re-interpreting the law to suit their own ends, this is not an isolated incident nor its limited to one locale, its regular and its everywhere.
Im a scot but for everyone who says 'hell mend him, I'd never carry a weapon he deserves jail' that is your choice but who are you to remove rights from others without due cause?
If it were not necro-ing I'd post a link to this on a recent topic basically asking "why do so few excapist users respect and trust the authoritah of the police?", this here is a prime bloody example. Bending and re-interpreting the law to suit their own ends, this is not an isolated incident nor its limited to one locale, its regular and its everywhere.
Im a scot but for everyone who says 'hell mend him, I'd never carry a weapon he deserves jail' that is your choice but who are you to remove rights from others without due cause?
Fair enough, thanks for your response. For pretty much anyone I know (= Dutch people) a right to carry firearms sounds very..surrealistic, so I always wonder how it is possible that so many people across the ocean have such a drastically different opinion about it. Culture is a strange thing.Russ Pitts said:
Agreed. This reminds me of what a glorious and wonderful world it is in which we live that so many people with so many seemingly opposite points of view can nevertheless find common ground and become friends. Culture is indeed a strange thing, but tolerance is a magical and wonderful thing.PlasticTree said:
Just gonna answer this quickly... Yes I read the article, and I know that he wasn't arrested the same day. But he was arrested because of the incident of carrying the firearm in the given situation, not because he made a video. I didn't mention any time he was arrested, simply that it was the triggering incident.ZephrC said:
Second, how could the officer know that the guy he arrested, once again for bringing a firearm to a place where normal commonsense dictatets that you shouldn't, knew some guy who had written that specific law? Try using that as an excuse the next time you get pulled over for anything.
And as for the whole suing thing; you really think that somewhere along the line here, that is in the future, you really don't see this guy suing someone for the trouble of being arrested if he's cleaned of the charges he's facing? This is America we're talking about. Less strange things have happened.
Amen. And I'm not even that religious. Some of us dig the editors opinions Russ, keep em comin!Russ Pitts said:
Then you don't realize he did nothing which he could be sued for (let alone jailed).sibrenfetter said:
To the contrary, he correctly cited the law which allows his possession of a firearm in a public building. The officer was reliant not on knowledge of the law, but of a posted notice which itself was in violation of the law.
If Rosenberg wins his court case, it's likely he's going to be the one doing the suing in civil action afterwards. That's easy money.
Police shouldn't be arresting people for doing things that aren't illegal. It doesn't matter whether you think it's common sense. It doesn't even matter if it is common sense. Common sense is often wrong, and anyway, the police should know the law before they try to enforce it.MrScandinavia said:
How would you feel if you ended up losing your job in this economy for doing something perfectly legal? And then complying with an officer that was trying to enforce a non-existent law? Do you really want to live in a country where the police can destroy your life over whatever made up crap they feel like enforcing that particular minute?
Don't get me wrong, most police officers are decent people doing a dangerous job with very little appreciation, but bullshit like this only makes their job harder and them even less appreciated. Idiocy like this needs to be stopped for the benefit of law enforcement. If you don't like the way the law works you get it changed. You don't let dickheads make up their own rules and give the police a bad name. And since they didn't arrest him until a month later, it wasn't the officer that asked him not to bring his gun in that was even the problem, really. He was just trying to do his job while misinformed. It's the petty idiot that waited a month and then had him arrested as soon as he made them look bad that deserves to be fired over this shit.
Yeah, because we should be locking up people just for irritating you personally. Rather even LESS cause than we lock people up in Gitmo for.burntheartist said:
Aaaaaand if Rosenberg had been playing a joke OR using a gun confrontationally, you'd have a point.
This might come as a shock to you, but people in other countries don't actually tend to place much value in the supernatural power that Americans ascribe to the founding fathers and their magic documents To be frank, your argument is an archaic and regressive appeal to a kind of literalism that is as invalid when considering a constitution or a bill of rights as it is when considering the bible. Or indeed, any other text.Russ Pitts said:
These documents are endlessly reinterpreted, most of all by the people who claim a fundamental, literalistic, or originalist view of them. Conservatives in particular are notorious for banging on about their preferred rights (and the popular interpretation of the second amendment is a classic example of this), while they commit appalling breaches of even the most basic rights when it suits them. The notion that these documents of historical figures are somehow relevant or valid beyond the value ascribed to them by modern context is absurd.
Do us all a favour, take responsibility for your own beliefs, appealing to the credibility of a bunch of historical figures might pass muster in the increasingly comical faux-democracy you live in, but you only have to look at America's actual record on the treatment of it's citizens and other people around to world to see what little real merit or power these documents have. If anything, such bizarre myth and melodrama clearly serves to obscure the actual dysfunction of your extremely overrated form of government.
Yes, Americans get to own guns. They can even wave them around in public. Do they have functional health care, education, or regulation in any sector? Of course not, they're a democracy, and democracy is about tax cuts for the super rich, cheap gas, stupidly large military budgets, and strutting around public buildings with a nickel-plated surrogate cock on your hip. Good lord, of all the terrible things police officers do, forcing this jackass to disarm was certainly not one of them.
And it's not your right to infringe upon theirs by contributing to and offering political protection to such a dangerous industry. Are you aware of how many Texan guns find their way south across the border every year? And how many people die as a result? American states sharing the border aren't just involved in drugs coming north, and money going south- guns go south as well, and a great deal of them aren't stolen or covertly purchased, they're simply bought. These weapons arm the gangs and enforcers that are inflicting such a terrible death toll, and they're certainly far better armed due to their proximity to the good old US of A.
If you or those like you cared about other people's rights and indeed their lives, then your first, last, and only agenda for the foreseeable future would be far tighter regulation of guns sales in your state to prevent those tragedies from occurring. Instead, your agenda is backing up some crank in Minnesota who has taken as his cause a similarly self-serving 'right' which is in truth nothing but a bizarre cultural affectation.
PS- The NRA was pivotal in turning video games into scapegoats for school shootings.
PPS- I'm sure you'll use your pre-packaged legalism from above to infringe upon my free speech as presented in this post, but for the record, if you have a principle, and believe that people have a right, you work uphold that right even when you aren't required to do so by law. That's the difference between an american establishment-style constitutional right, and an actual, functional, meaningful right.
PPPS- Sorry about the rant everyone but between this and moviebob bleating on like Penn Gilette about GM foods and an outright sociopath about starving people being less important then a mars colony, I'd reached my limit of idiotic Americans for the month. I get enough of that shit elsewhere on the net without putting up with it here, and if that's what's going to pass for content then people should be stating their opinion about it.
are your cityhalls so unsafe?
Why the heck should i carry a gun into a city hall? are there rapists, murderer etc?
i dont know. i´m from germany, we´ve repressive laws and i am happy with it. our capital crima rates are low, and i think that may be a side effect of this law.
Ot:
Why the heck should i carry a gun into a city hall? are there rapists, murderer etc?
i dont know. i´m from germany, we´ve repressive laws and i am happy with it. our capital crima rates are low, and i think that may be a side effect of this law.
Ot:
sure criminals can purchase illegal weapons, but i dont fear criminals, i fear the normal peaple, who get stressed and angry. the people of our society become more depressive and sad. some become paranoid about this terrorism thing (ist unsafer to drive cars..)
if such people get guns, they might amok. or shoot someone accidentally beccause they think that were burglars.
that men, who get drunk and start arguing might user their weapons and later they are aresstet for killing someone. without a gun this might have ended with a broken nose or so.
The police worries about the fact,l that most of the joung and joung criminals carry knifes.
The rate of heavly injured people (after an argument about "nothing", like:"dont look " or "dont talk to my girlfriend,asshole") increases. A weapon at the hand of a agressive, sad r fearsome person, who didnt lerned to control his feelings and emotion is a danger to the society.
and i dont trust the normal people. everyday i can see people, who arent "qualified" to get a gun. who beat their partner, who fight at a bar, which are drunk at 10.am, which are bullying other pupils. People who want to take the law in own hands, when the police is to slow or to "nice"..
we have here many weapons too, becaus the shooting sport is a part of this society. but the rate of deaths by shooting is very low. the amoking guy at winnenden got his weapon, becaus his dad didnt secured i properly. if he had did that, this amok might never have token place*
i trust the police, our is not so overreactive. I think they can guard us. and life i risky, so might have bad luck sometimes and suffer. but i think i´d suffer more if every moron in this land could get a gun and carry them outside.
if you have a gun at your home ist ok. if a buglar comes, i´d call the police first and then get a gun. normally housebreakers dont carry heavy guns. killing someone is punisht harder then housebreaking plus, if the buglar has a weapon, the court might think that he wanted to kill with intent. that would be attempted murder. long long long time jail. i dont think that the most burglars want that. they will carry a knife. but a weapon there is more an diasdvantage.
*gramatically correct? this sounded the best^^
if such people get guns, they might amok. or shoot someone accidentally beccause they think that were burglars.
that men, who get drunk and start arguing might user their weapons and later they are aresstet for killing someone. without a gun this might have ended with a broken nose or so.
The police worries about the fact,l that most of the joung and joung criminals carry knifes.
The rate of heavly injured people (after an argument about "nothing", like:"dont look " or "dont talk to my girlfriend,asshole") increases. A weapon at the hand of a agressive, sad r fearsome person, who didnt lerned to control his feelings and emotion is a danger to the society.
and i dont trust the normal people. everyday i can see people, who arent "qualified" to get a gun. who beat their partner, who fight at a bar, which are drunk at 10.am, which are bullying other pupils. People who want to take the law in own hands, when the police is to slow or to "nice"..
we have here many weapons too, becaus the shooting sport is a part of this society. but the rate of deaths by shooting is very low. the amoking guy at winnenden got his weapon, becaus his dad didnt secured i properly. if he had did that, this amok might never have token place*
i trust the police, our is not so overreactive. I think they can guard us. and life i risky, so might have bad luck sometimes and suffer. but i think i´d suffer more if every moron in this land could get a gun and carry them outside.
if you have a gun at your home ist ok. if a buglar comes, i´d call the police first and then get a gun. normally housebreakers dont carry heavy guns. killing someone is punisht harder then housebreaking plus, if the buglar has a weapon, the court might think that he wanted to kill with intent. that would be attempted murder. long long long time jail. i dont think that the most burglars want that. they will carry a knife. but a weapon there is more an diasdvantage.
*gramatically correct? this sounded the best^^
And its meant to be. A group of individuals framed the argument many years ago in terms of "god given" and "inalienable" rights so that no one then or in the future could attempt to ply changes to our rights whether through carefully worded law or force of arms.happyelf said:
No argument here. If the US could actually break the two party system with a choice that ascribed to all of the tenets of the Constitution and its amendments, I believe great change might actually happen. But I doubt I'll see it in my lifetime.happyelf said:
Painting with a pretty broad brush aren't we? First off, the freedom that you will find many Americans enjoying does not come from the "extremely overrated form of government". If anything if you're hearing something outside of the US talking about how great its government is, you need to find some new news sources brother. The line of folks that are displeased/dissatisfied/disgusted with our government is long and loud. We are, in a word, unhappy. But when you let Mary Shelly's monster loose with less than half its original brainpower and double the greed of Scrooge McDuck, changes will be exceedingly slow.happyelf said:
It started as a republic and quickly became a democracy. No faux about it, every political topic is perverted into a popularity contest... winner take all. And while its very popular to bash its treatment of its citizens, understand that there is a super majority of residents who want to be left the hell alone when it comes to Uncle Sam. Taking responsibility for themselves, their beliefs and a (yes I'll say it) bull headed stubbornness to do things without help... All because of the merit and power of those documents.
As long as they are citizens, they aren't felons, they aren't judged mentally deficient, or they aren't currently on the run form the law. That's the ownership responsibility on the Federal level. All 50 states then have some additional regulations from the lowest regulations (following the federal rules) to positively draconian (Kalifornia, Massachusetts)happyelf said:
No they cannot. That's called brandishing and its no different if you began to wave a sword, knife, baseball bat or wrecking ball around. Its dangerous. Like most things, if you can't act responsibly, you might not get to keep it.happyelf said:
All penis projection jokes aside, I have had functional government provided health care for the past five years, I'm almost done with my Bachelor of Science degree (which is taking me nearly 17 years to complete through every fault of mine and mine alone) and nearly every part of my life is regulated from gasoline tax to how I'm allowed to walk across the road. The federal code alone is ten thousand pages and you better hope you don't break that! State laws and rules, county zoning and statute, city ordinances... regulation is the cornerstone of how government (in this country) rides the coattails of the economy. Personally, I don't mind tax cuts whether they are actual tax cuts or if, like the latest ones, they aren't a "cut" at all... just a mandate to continue status quo instead of going back to pre break levels. It usually means a game or two under the tree next year for yours truly. I'm below fed poverty level, but it means financial breaks for the poorest of the poor too. Gas here, by the way, is not only not cheap, it sucks. The stuff you can get in say... the UK? Oooh that's good burnin stuff. Ours is overfilled with "alternatives" meant only to propel a now defunct system of subsidies and corn fields. I miss real gas. Good lord, of all the terrible things police officers do, forcing this jackass to disarm was certainly not one of them.happyelf said:
I believe the correct question is are *you* aware? The ATF and both the US and Mexican governments have stopped publishing numbers related to seized weapons and traceable guns due to faulty facts. Simply claiming they are coming from the US then showing a fully auto M60 on top of a pile of confiscated money, drugs, and guns looks great, sounds great for the press and the public... however, insofar as class II, III, and NFA regulated (yes I said regulated) firearms, there are *NONE* that come legally from US sources. Before you dig into past articles examine very closely what I've written there. There may be a number of straw purchases for semi auto weapons, shotguns, and handguns. But those cartel boys are using full auto MP-5's. They don't just give anybody one of those, let alone enough to outfit entire groups of men. Guns come from many more places than Texas.happyelf said:
Sorry you see it that way Elf. But the horrible thing about having a monster for a government is if you give it an inch, it will eat you alive.happyelf said:
And they threw gun owners under the bus in 1993 also, they don't have any of my money.happyelf said:
And (bolding emphasis mine) that's exactly what the author in question is doing in this situation. Functional, meaningful, actual, working to protect it. I have no problem with your right to speak, why do you have something against his right to work to uphold the law? Unless we're going to drift into another "nickel plated" penis fantasy I think you're making his point for him.happyelf said:
No problems here, I can't stand moviebob either.happyelf said:
(Apologies in advance if the formatting is wonky)
While I'm fond of guns, and love firing one. I don't think there's a real need for the average citizen to carry one (I'm an Englishman living in Canada which explains that a little). That being said I'm kind of torn about this news. On the one hand our writer protagonist is obeying the law and the police are, assuming the article is correct, in the wrong. On the other hand he entered this situation knowing what would happen in order to make a point and antagonize the police. Now he wants Joe public to help pay for his stunt. That doesn't seem right to me.
On a lighter note. The fact I now know Russ Pitts is armed to the teeth makes that strip I was writing about how bad his 'Top games of the year' choices were seem like kind of a bad idea.
On a lighter note. The fact I now know Russ Pitts is armed to the teeth makes that strip I was writing about how bad his 'Top games of the year' choices were seem like kind of a bad idea.
I'm trying not to escalate thiss or drag us into nested quote hell so i'm only going to tackle a few points.
And no doubt errors were made- just like the occasional error is made in everything from climate change science to biology. But that doesn't mean we should accept the counterarguments made when they are so clearly shaped by the powerful interests behind them.
No offence, but anyone looking at the US in depth, as I have, should recognise that the powers at play are corperatist, conservative, and yes, selectivly authoritarian. If you haven't figured that out yet, I don't know what to say to you. We can talk again in 20 years about how your health care has worked out for you and your friends and family. Or how employment or hoising or much of anything is going in the 'self reliant' nation you live in. What state are you in anyway? Because apart from Texas, there aren't many conservative states that don't take more than their fair share of federal taxes, despite their claims about self reliance.
You talk about regulations riding the coat-tails, but it's the poorly and deliberatly de-regulated* financial market that tied your economy to the back of their armani suits, jumped into a hole, and then got back out again with no strings attached thaks to their buddies in the GOP, who didn't shout nearly as hard against bailout and stimulus as they did against tighter regulation and stronger terms for the huge loan the american taxpayers gave to the ultra-rich who have just been given yet another tax cut to the massive detriment of the deficit. And then they go back to raging against what few social services you have left.
*And yes, i'm aware who did that, albeit with the help of Newt's Republican revolution. I'm not fan of the democrats, either.
That's the state of play in the US, and it's certainly the state of play when it comes issues relating to firearms.
If you honestly think that there isn't a serious problem with the guns trade in southern states, then you need to read up more on the way in which industries, ALL SORTS of industries, contribute brazenly to illegal actitivy through direct, legal sales. One example, you know meth? Big problem in the US, and elsewhere? Meth is created through the purchase of drugs available over the counter, and has become such a big buyer of these drugs that recent studies suggest as many as half the sales of such drugs in the US go to people providing raw materials for meth labs.
That's one example. There is a wealth of quasilegal activity taking place in pretty much any major industry, from bribing regulators, to obstructing scrutiny, to outright hazardhous sales of legal material. And corrupt, disfunctional regulators on both state and federal levels are hard pressed to even give a shit that it takes place.
The same goes for guns. As a gun advocate, you probably think that regulations governing guns are at worst suitable, at best, draconian. But the actual tracking and sale of guns is not nearly as clear cut as you are suggesting, and preventng solid tracking methods is one of the key agendas of the gun lobby.
There is an enormous quasi-legal trade of guns in the US, in no small part due to their popularity, volume, and protected legal status. Certainly this trade in southern states on the border is a serious issue, and it's unwise for you to brush it off in line with information you find pleasing, information which has been no doubt prepared specifically to appease people like you and put your concerns to rest.
Remember, I don't have a stake in this- I live in Australia, and we've got a lot of problems, but after a particularly nasty shooting spree in tasmania we heavily tightened gun laws and we've been safer as a result. Does US gun lobby propaganda paint us as safer? No actually, they present the act as causing a crime spree. Is the information you've read from similarly compromised sources any more valid in it's rebuttal of the trade of guns and drugs in southern border states? No, not really. They might state facts, but they state facts about australian crime too(violent crime was up in a slice of that timeframe, but that was taken out of context, and overall crime remains extremly low, and the rise corelates with the rise in organised and regional crime), it doesn't make their argument any more valid, and their assesment any less deliberatly misleading. But that's fine for me, I can sit here and laugh at the plight of the world if I want to. I have friends, even american friends, who do it as a hobby. We can all sit and watch things slide slowly into a hole, particularly those of us in a country without a health care cartel.
But you do have a stake in this, and you owe it to yourself to cast aside the propaganda that obscures to many issues everywhere in the world, but particularly in the US. And don't imagine for a moment that the propaganda or persecution involved in this issue is two way, or left wing- whatever half-assed efforts the other side has been making, it pales in signifigance compared to the Gun lobby. As you mentioned yourself, the NRA has grown powerful and influential enough that it doesn't even really need to keep it's base-gun owners- happy anymore. And to be frank, this is about a lot more than guns, and to be even more frank, guns are just a thing that powerful people use to distract guys like you and russel from real issues, and from the problems within you own areas of the political spectrum.
You're just playing your part in the big game. The 'I hate the government' myth is created to disengage you from political action, and encourage you to oppose desperatly needed regulation, taxation, and social services. You talk about self reliance, but you're really practicing self-disenfranchisement.
The only way that people can remain free in the face of opression by the powerful, is to band together and form functional, but also powerful democratic institutions. It's not enough to have a government, you have to have a strong government, because if you don't, you even up with a corrupt, disfunctional, incompetent government that spends it's time bailing out the super rich and invading the middle east. A ddemocracy must be strong, or it's not a democracy. And please, don't talk about how american is a republic or a democracy or blah blah blah. From where i'm standing, only half your country votes, and you don't even have a preferntial ballot. Your idealised reverence for the bill of rights and constitution has if anything, aided in the calcification of your system, and suporting it is just another myth to keep you under control.
And it's not as if liberals don't have their big myths, too. The democrats are built on such myths, and retain power with them- power over the party, and power over the left. The virtue of centrism, the positive power of the free market, the meritocracy of wealth, the triumph of incremental reform. The spoiler effect, which can be real in some races, but certainly was not a reason to blame Ralh Nader for losing to george Bush. And on, and on, it's clear
you're all been suckered. You all have your own myths, wether you get them from fox news, or the new york times, the daily show, or the economist.
And yeah, we get plenty of BS over here- horrible, racist policies, suicidally wasteful neglect of major issues like climate change, all sorts of stuff. But in most democracites, lobbying and propaganda are a million dollar industry. In the US, it's worth billions. And in one of thoee billion dollar firms, there's a team of brigh young go-getters working very hard to make sure you keep believing in your self reliance, and the monsterous nature of government, and the importance ofyoue gun rights. They've probably got a whole building dedicated to it somewhere along k-street.
It's not the government that is monserous, it's the people running it, and the people controlling them.
(Apologies in advance if the formatting is wonky)[/quote]And I apologise for any typos i left in this since i typed it in a rush.
As for moviebob, I don't mind his movie stuff, but a dude can't just outright say 'my fantasies about mars missions are more important than world hunger' and expect people to pat him on the back for being such a jackass. Not that it stopped a bunch of people from doing just that.
I'm not suggesting that there aren't other sources of weapons, but despite your dismissal of 'that one news story with the m60' the reality is that this continues to be a serious problem. Yes, i'm sure that under the Obama administration, the US government, the ATF, the Mexican government, and indeed the pope and Jesus christ themself are all shying away from such a right wing wedge issue with gusto. That's pretty much all they do; run scared and apologise for being voted for by liberals.darkknight9 said:
And no doubt errors were made- just like the occasional error is made in everything from climate change science to biology. But that doesn't mean we should accept the counterarguments made when they are so clearly shaped by the powerful interests behind them.
No offence, but anyone looking at the US in depth, as I have, should recognise that the powers at play are corperatist, conservative, and yes, selectivly authoritarian. If you haven't figured that out yet, I don't know what to say to you. We can talk again in 20 years about how your health care has worked out for you and your friends and family. Or how employment or hoising or much of anything is going in the 'self reliant' nation you live in. What state are you in anyway? Because apart from Texas, there aren't many conservative states that don't take more than their fair share of federal taxes, despite their claims about self reliance.
You talk about regulations riding the coat-tails, but it's the poorly and deliberatly de-regulated* financial market that tied your economy to the back of their armani suits, jumped into a hole, and then got back out again with no strings attached thaks to their buddies in the GOP, who didn't shout nearly as hard against bailout and stimulus as they did against tighter regulation and stronger terms for the huge loan the american taxpayers gave to the ultra-rich who have just been given yet another tax cut to the massive detriment of the deficit. And then they go back to raging against what few social services you have left.
*And yes, i'm aware who did that, albeit with the help of Newt's Republican revolution. I'm not fan of the democrats, either.
That's the state of play in the US, and it's certainly the state of play when it comes issues relating to firearms.
If you honestly think that there isn't a serious problem with the guns trade in southern states, then you need to read up more on the way in which industries, ALL SORTS of industries, contribute brazenly to illegal actitivy through direct, legal sales. One example, you know meth? Big problem in the US, and elsewhere? Meth is created through the purchase of drugs available over the counter, and has become such a big buyer of these drugs that recent studies suggest as many as half the sales of such drugs in the US go to people providing raw materials for meth labs.
That's one example. There is a wealth of quasilegal activity taking place in pretty much any major industry, from bribing regulators, to obstructing scrutiny, to outright hazardhous sales of legal material. And corrupt, disfunctional regulators on both state and federal levels are hard pressed to even give a shit that it takes place.
The same goes for guns. As a gun advocate, you probably think that regulations governing guns are at worst suitable, at best, draconian. But the actual tracking and sale of guns is not nearly as clear cut as you are suggesting, and preventng solid tracking methods is one of the key agendas of the gun lobby.
There is an enormous quasi-legal trade of guns in the US, in no small part due to their popularity, volume, and protected legal status. Certainly this trade in southern states on the border is a serious issue, and it's unwise for you to brush it off in line with information you find pleasing, information which has been no doubt prepared specifically to appease people like you and put your concerns to rest.
Remember, I don't have a stake in this- I live in Australia, and we've got a lot of problems, but after a particularly nasty shooting spree in tasmania we heavily tightened gun laws and we've been safer as a result. Does US gun lobby propaganda paint us as safer? No actually, they present the act as causing a crime spree. Is the information you've read from similarly compromised sources any more valid in it's rebuttal of the trade of guns and drugs in southern border states? No, not really. They might state facts, but they state facts about australian crime too(violent crime was up in a slice of that timeframe, but that was taken out of context, and overall crime remains extremly low, and the rise corelates with the rise in organised and regional crime), it doesn't make their argument any more valid, and their assesment any less deliberatly misleading. But that's fine for me, I can sit here and laugh at the plight of the world if I want to. I have friends, even american friends, who do it as a hobby. We can all sit and watch things slide slowly into a hole, particularly those of us in a country without a health care cartel.
But you do have a stake in this, and you owe it to yourself to cast aside the propaganda that obscures to many issues everywhere in the world, but particularly in the US. And don't imagine for a moment that the propaganda or persecution involved in this issue is two way, or left wing- whatever half-assed efforts the other side has been making, it pales in signifigance compared to the Gun lobby. As you mentioned yourself, the NRA has grown powerful and influential enough that it doesn't even really need to keep it's base-gun owners- happy anymore. And to be frank, this is about a lot more than guns, and to be even more frank, guns are just a thing that powerful people use to distract guys like you and russel from real issues, and from the problems within you own areas of the political spectrum.
And using that kind of logic, that anti-government screed, conservatives wooshed into power under George Bush, and embarked on one of the most monsterous periods of brutality, waste, and warmongering that your nation has ever seen. And they'll probably do it again in 2 years, and then again in 12 years or so. And in between, the democrats will hold the left hostage for fear of what the gop will do. And then they'll all go out to the same dinner parties and laugh about what suckers you all are.
You're just playing your part in the big game. The 'I hate the government' myth is created to disengage you from political action, and encourage you to oppose desperatly needed regulation, taxation, and social services. You talk about self reliance, but you're really practicing self-disenfranchisement.
The only way that people can remain free in the face of opression by the powerful, is to band together and form functional, but also powerful democratic institutions. It's not enough to have a government, you have to have a strong government, because if you don't, you even up with a corrupt, disfunctional, incompetent government that spends it's time bailing out the super rich and invading the middle east. A ddemocracy must be strong, or it's not a democracy. And please, don't talk about how american is a republic or a democracy or blah blah blah. From where i'm standing, only half your country votes, and you don't even have a preferntial ballot. Your idealised reverence for the bill of rights and constitution has if anything, aided in the calcification of your system, and suporting it is just another myth to keep you under control.
And it's not as if liberals don't have their big myths, too. The democrats are built on such myths, and retain power with them- power over the party, and power over the left. The virtue of centrism, the positive power of the free market, the meritocracy of wealth, the triumph of incremental reform. The spoiler effect, which can be real in some races, but certainly was not a reason to blame Ralh Nader for losing to george Bush. And on, and on, it's clear
you're all been suckered. You all have your own myths, wether you get them from fox news, or the new york times, the daily show, or the economist.
And yeah, we get plenty of BS over here- horrible, racist policies, suicidally wasteful neglect of major issues like climate change, all sorts of stuff. But in most democracites, lobbying and propaganda are a million dollar industry. In the US, it's worth billions. And in one of thoee billion dollar firms, there's a team of brigh young go-getters working very hard to make sure you keep believing in your self reliance, and the monsterous nature of government, and the importance ofyoue gun rights. They've probably got a whole building dedicated to it somewhere along k-street.
It's not the government that is monserous, it's the people running it, and the people controlling them.
I'm not suggesting that the NRA is actually serving the interests of gun owners, they have clearly risen to that lofty height where their Purpose is no longer really relevant. But then again, you aren't really serving your best interests by putting time and money into this issue. There are real problems in your comunity- in all our comunities, and false issues, wether they be gun rights in the US, or Boat People in Australia, serve to distract us, and come at too high a human cost for us to tolerate.
Because as i've said, wether you accept it or not, your rights come not only at a human cost, but at a political cost. The more you put into the myths like gun rights and states rights and property rights, the less you'll be able to protect your Actual Rights.
No problems here, I can't stand moviebob either.happyelf said:
(Apologies in advance if the formatting is wonky)[/quote]And I apologise for any typos i left in this since i typed it in a rush.
As for moviebob, I don't mind his movie stuff, but a dude can't just outright say 'my fantasies about mars missions are more important than world hunger' and expect people to pat him on the back for being such a jackass. Not that it stopped a bunch of people from doing just that.