Guns and Nazi Teabaggers

Sig

I guess there might be a high level of bravado and bluster but underneath there is more calm.



Chuck is actually a rather peaceful person - isn't he?

 

lol. Thanks man, I needed that this morning.

 

- no problem.

 

Which I have already been doing.

Purging the system? Socialist and Communist parties and activists are still active in the country. If anyone is to blame for them not getting elected it is them.

Two major parties, yes. Doesn't change the fact that, politically speak, Americans as individuals are very politically diverse. I know members of the Democrats who consider themselves true Socialists. I know members of the Republicans who are libertarians. The tent that each party has is quite large. What do I know though, right? I mean, I've only lived here my entire life.

 

Just another chicken hawk.

 

Sig

That isn’t a counter argument it’s just you (once more) saying I’m wrong because you think I’m wrong. Can you actually present a rational arguemet to back up your theory that what happened was irrelevant?

Yet taken as a grouping the party leans right.

Right wing libertarians are often some of the farthest right.

But isn’t that the problem, to me a truly diverse political system would be actually more diverse and not made up of two (right wing) parties.

 

I never said it wasn't relevant. I was simply pointing out that what was true then isn't true now.

Which, I'm sure you'll admit, is an entirely subjective conclusion. From my perspective, I see the Democrats leaning further to the left.

Indeed. They are rubbing shoulders with moderate, centrist Republicans in the GOP.

Is it a problem? In some ways yes. In some ways no. Depends entirely on your individual political leanings. Two right wing parties? Again, you're letting your own bias cloud your argument (which I don't blame you for!). The Democrats are still very much a left wing party.

 

I know all about the wars that are for the profit of the industrial military complex. I've been aware of how the U.S. economy has been dependent on war for forty years now. Without war this country goes into recession. That's why we're still in Afghanistan. That's why Lindsy Graham and John McCain are so eager to start a war with Iran. Both of them are owned by pentagon contractors.

My guess is JFK was assassinated because he was going to end the Vietnam war, and the war machine was making too much money to let it end. Most think the JFK got us into that war. But it was Eisenhower that first sent troops there. Tricky Dick promised to end the war if he was elected, but it didn't end until after he resigned. In fact he broadened the war to Laos and Cambodia.

And BTW, I said I was in DURING the war. They sent me to Iran instead. I was in top secret communications for the U.S. embassy, so I know a lot about the dirty deeds of U.S. policies. That was forty years ago, but I'm sure that it's a thousand times worse now.

That republican icon Ronnie Raygun, sold chemical weapons to Iraq to use on the Iranians during the Iran/Iraq war. He used the profits from that to buy cocaine with Noriega, and used those profits to buy guns for the Contras.

Shrub daddy used the excuse of those chemical weapons to start the war with Saddam when he used them on his own people.

Shrub Jr. wasted $3 trillion and thousands of U.S. troops invading Iraq, with lies of WMD. Dick Cheney made sure that his corporation Halliburton got a monopoly on the military contracts that supplied that war. I'm sure he made a half billion dollars in stock dividends on that war.

War and global domination is the ideology of the GOP. Ronnie Raygun became POTUS by making Carter look weak on national security, when the Iranians took over the U.S. embassy and held Americans hostage for 440 days. There's something very fishy about how the hostages were released the day the Raygun took office. Raygun doubled pentagon spending from $150 billion to $300 billion in eight years. Shrub daddy almost doubled it again. And Shrub Jr. doubled it again with the Iraq war. Pentagon spending has gone from $150 billion to over $750 billion with the last three republican presidents, and the cons are always whining about spending.

 

Sig

What ‘truth’ are you talking about, isn’t this a bit like saying that since the gun that killed the person has now been put away there is no reason to worry about how the corpse got there or that the gun could be pulled out again another time.

OK so it was relevant, in what way do you think it was relevant.

Political liberals once supported economic liberalism because they believed it undermined the political authority of the few. Then many political liberals realised that economic liberalism had led to an economic authority that curtailed ‘liberty’ as much as political authority did and began to turn against economic liberalism just at the point when wealth began to realise that economic liberalism granted them more power in the shape of economic authority.

So political liberals became seen by those on the right as ‘left-wing’ opponents because they wished to undermine the power and wealth of the few. But political liberals were often in opposition to left wing political groups/party’s and many on the left see ‘liberals’ as being ‘right wing’.

In the UK at the moment we have a right wing government made up of Liberals and Conservatives.

In an American context ‘liberals’ are seen as left wing only because much of left wing thought has been systematically purged from US society over the last 50+ years. So without a real left wing the centre right liberals are seen as the left wingers.

This is why many outside the US believe that Americans have two right wing parties with a centre right Democratic Party and are more right wing Republican Party.

It is also why many Americans see left of centre parties in other countries and think they’re hard left socialists/communist and why some even think some of our right wing parties are left wing, I mean we have openly gay right wing politicians and right wingers that support the NHS.

LOL maybe you're letting your own bias cloud your argument.

Again the vagueness - In some ways yes. In some ways no – in what ways yes in what ways no?

 

Not saying that at all. What I am saying is that, in the decades following the events you described, civil and political rights legislation has been passed to deal with those abuses.

It showed that government can overstep it's bounds. That said, in the case of Debs, I do believe he was guilty of sedition.

And that shows a grave misunderstanding of American politics, on their part. I mean, for example, support for nationalized health care (which is left-wing) is and was very high among Democrats here. Generous social programs, such as public housing, publicly funded food programs, and so on, are very popular among Democrats. These are all very left wing positions.

There are also openly gay Republicans, and Republicans that support a national healthcare system.

I, for one, enjoy not having to worry about coalitions being formed between multiple parties to get things done. And then, on top of that, worrying about those coalitions falling apart.

On the flip side, I don't like having two dominating parties that stifle the voice of third options.




Aren't we supposed to be talking about guns? This line of discussion seems like it should have its own thread.

 

I guess I'll just have to drop out of society and live in the forest or something.

At one point, I think the crime level in that part of Omaha was worse than Compton or something like that. I'd believe it.

 

How so? Because I didn't defend socialists? I'm about equally as disgusted by them as I am by overbearing federal agencies.

 

About the crime statistics, don't quote me on this, it's something I'd actually like to research more. But I have read that for example stabbings have skyrocketed in England since your gun ban. That graph is a little misleading if you ask me since it doesn't include all forcible crimes/homicides. And if you notice, Israel has one of the lowest rates. A country where every citizen owns full auto weapons. Our gun violence is an effect of complex sociological problems we have, not the right to own guns. Guns can definitely make murder easier to carry out, however there are many ways to kill a person and if all the guns here just disappeared that is what would start happening.

As far as alarms and neighborhood watch. That implies you are relying on the police to save you if someone is trying to kill you. Which is not something I choose to do. And just letting someone have their way with your property then making an insurance claim, jacking your car for example. You have no way of knowing that by complying they won't kill you anyway. You're also perpetuating the problem in a sense by letting them go on to rob more people, and ultimately drive up insurance premiums for us all. I guess I just have a different way of looking at it.

 

I would never shoot a person for simply being on my property. Not only is that illegal in this state I think it's wrong.

Now if I'm asleep and a person forcibly enters my home, I am going under the presumption that they are there to harm me and will act accordingly. But even with that mindset, I have a light on the shotgun I keep for home defense so I could see what's going on in a situation like that and not shoot someone unnecessarily. If it's, say, a teenager or someone that doesn't look like much of a threat and I don't see a gun, I'd tell them to get on the ground and then call the cops. I also keep that gun loaded with birdshot, then buckshot, then slugs. I'd rather not kill someone if I don't have to.

 

I think about doing that a lot these days. And that's crazy about Omaha, I always pictured it full of hipsters riding fixed gear bikes around. You have an awesome music scene out of there.

 

I'd like to add that part of my aggressive attitude about all of this is from growing up in an area with heavy gang activity. I've been jumped and robbed more times than I can count. I've been carjacked sitting in the backseat of a friends car and forced to make drug runs. Had guns to my head and knives to my throat. I've been spit on by police for skateboarding, had my shoulder ripped out of the socket by cops. It was pretty rough.

I moved away and have my own domain now, and I will defend it if I ever need to. I don't trust cops and don't want their help. But as you said I am very level headed about it. My main problem is with anyone telling what I may or may not need when it's none of their business.

 

Deviate

Again this is what I term as the natural born killers argument.

Here is something I wrote on that subject a while ago -

This is the view of many Americans of their fellow citizens - that they’re so violent and murderous that they just want to kill, kill, kill. That its not guns that count for the high level of murders but the murderous nature of Americans, that the same amount of carnage would go on because Americans are so bloodthirsty that they would use anything to kill, kill, kill.

When you think your fellow citizens are like that it is no wonder that so many Americans are so frightened.

But why do they think that is it true?

Are Americans truly that different than other people, so much more violent and murderous?

Now if things are looked at in those terms (that Americans are murderous savages that are just waiting to kill people) then when crime figures are looked at they seem to back up that view.

For example

I live in London it has a population of around 7.5 million and it only had 175 homicides between Apr-2005 to Apr-2006. In fact in 2009 there were only 651 murders in the whole of England and Wales with a population of around 55 million.

But let us take an American city - Philadelphia – it I believe has a population of around 6.1 million yet it had 406 homicides in that same year. So two Philadelphia’s with only 12.2 million people would create 812 murders, more than what is produced by 55 million Brits.

But if you take out gun related homicides from the US crime figures they are not that much different from those of many European countries that have gun restrictions (although it is incredible difficult to compare any crime statistics other than homicide).

So the question is are Americans more murderous or is it just that Americans have easier access to much more lethal weapons.

 

Deviate

The overly individualistic outlook that I’ve mentioned in my theories

And the use of fear to promote gun ownership.

Dealing with what are social problems through intimidation.

 

Sig

Isn’t this a bit like saying that since the gun that killed the person has now been put away there is no reason to worry about how the corpse got there or that the gun could be pulled out again another time.
To me the abuses shouldn’t have happened in the first place, rather than being corrected only after the abuses had basically done their job and were not needed.

Oh he was guilty under the Sedition Act, what I’m pointing out was that the act was being used to harass, discredit or silence political opposition? I mean as pointed out it wasn’t just Debs

- Another socialist opponent of the war was also sentence to prison Victor Berger however he did get elected to Congress but was refused entry this caused a re-election that he again won, but he was still refused entry.

In other areas like New York openly socialist representatives to the city and state - who had been democratically elected - were also barred from their posts.

Around this time many states passed laws banning the display of red flags (a communist and socialist emblem) and the federal government set up the General Intelligence Division headed by none other than J. Edger Hoover to monitor (harass) left wing ‘radicals’. -