Another Mass Murder In America (and again)

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hippiewannabe
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Re: Another Mass Murder In America (and again)

Post by hippiewannabe » Thu Mar 01, 2018 9:37 pm

tommu wrote:
Thu Mar 01, 2018 7:14 pm
I don't think many would disagree with you. Perfect opportunity to implement some form of regulation over gun ownership and single payer health. I guess Obama was trying to be too collaborative with the other side of the house. I doubt they'll make that mistake again..
It's more cynical than that. Back then, the Democrats included working-class white men as part of their coalition, so calculated it was not good to upset the large gun-rights portion of that demographic. They now have not only abandoned that constituency, it is the target of scorn for the wealthy elites of the party, and bogey man for the various victim groups that makes up the rest.
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Re: Another Mass Murder In America (and again)

Post by hippiewannabe » Thu Mar 01, 2018 9:42 pm

TrollFromDownBelow wrote:
Thu Feb 15, 2018 8:02 pm
I'm a very non-violent kinda guy. But I tell you this; I have budgeted, and planned for my wife and I each to get a CCW, buy said weapons, and make the effort to ensure we stay up to date, and to practice. What seemed so 1 in a million a decade ago seems like more 1 in 100 now...

FWIW, do not look forward to this...this is time out of my life I will have to train and learn...not out curiosity, or interest, but at this point, feel it is out of necessity. If I am going to carry a weapon that can take a life in a split second, then I need to be very, very confident, through practice and training that it will be second nature to me when the time presents itself. I would rather spend my time learning how to rebuild a type IV engine, or creating a hardtail chopper, or growing good tasting tomatoes. Instead, I have to revert backwards to a more basic instinct of preserving self and family.
I understand the sentiment; the desire to protect your family is as old as the human species. But despite the emotion we feel from news coverage of the violence out there, violent crime and gun deaths have been actually been declining steadily. More importantly, the statistics are very clear; the odds of a gun in the home causing death from accident, domestic crime of passion, or suicide are much greater than the odds it will ever be used for protection from an attack. Not to mention the chance it will be stolen in a burglary and used for criminal purposes. With my wife's temper, it's a no-brainer.

We had the local conservative talk radio station on the other day, and I must say I was quite annoyed by all the callers trotting out the same old clichés. "Guns don't kill people, people do--if you take away guns, you have to take away automobiles". "Guns are perfectly safe, you just have to keep them away from the wrong people". "I use my AR-15 responsibly, for target shooting and hunting coyotes. It's kept in a safe, totally isolated from the ammunition, so there is no way you can claim there is anything wrong with me having it".

It's ridiculous. Nobody needs an assault rifle. They are made for military firefights, not hunting or self-protection. You don't need a 30 round magazine to kill a deer or an intruder. If you don't get it done in the first couple of shots, you failed.

The U.S. Constitution is brilliant, one of the most important documents in history. But like the Bible and the Koran, it must be viewed in the spirit of the time in which it was written, and not be taken literally in today's context. The Founding Fathers wanted everyone to have their hunting musket, and be able to form up into a militia when needed. A key there was one man with a musket was useless unless he teamed up with his neighbors. The ability of one deranged person to kill dozens of innocent people changes things, and the Constitution was never intended to protect such a thing.

Coincidentally, I attended a Watershed Conservation conference in a rural part of the state, and the U.S. Representative for the district showed up for a little glad-handing. He really didn’t address the topic of the meeting, but kind of gave a rambling talk about several topics, including the Florida shooting and gun control. He didn’t say anything too specific, but it was clear he didn’t think things should change. I sidled up to him in the lunch line, and told him he was brave to bring up gun control. He thought he had kindred spirit, and said, “yeah, you have to, it can’t be avoided”. To which I launched into my little speech: “I’m a long-time Republican, and you should understand that a lot of us are changing our position, or forming one where we didn’t really care before. Nobody needs an AR-15...” He interrupted and said “Do you know what an AR is?” I didn’t say “Of course, you arrogant twat”, but he could tell that’s what I thought when I told him I knew very well, and having killed a deer, knew that a .30-06 was a much better hunting weapon. And if you don’t kill the deer or the intruder with the first couple of shots, you have failed, and quick-change high capacity magazines are only good for military firefights and mass murder. He actually gasped when I told him the Constitution should be interpreted in context of the time it was written, and not just read literally. “I swore an oath!” he said. When I compared it to reading the Koran literally instead of in its seventh century context, he turned away from me and found a new group to engage with.

The two parties seem to take turns being slaves to their extreme wings, and ignoring the middle. The Republicans would do well to distance themselves from the NRA.
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Re: Another Mass Murder In America (and again)

Post by tommu » Thu Mar 01, 2018 9:58 pm

hippiewannabe wrote:
Thu Mar 01, 2018 9:37 pm

It's more cynical than that. Back then, the Democrats included working-class white men as part of their coalition
Can you please explain how they do not now? Economic policy, education policy, healthcare, social mobility etc. I'm curious to know in plain detail terms where Democratic policy excludes white working-class specifically.

I'm making an assumption that you feel the Republicans support the material interests of white working-class constituents here. I am right? If so would you be so kind as to help me understand how the republicans are implementing policy to help further white working-class needs? I am a British labor voter not American so none of the normal political discursive rules apply. I do not have an innate understanding of your party politics.
, so calculated it was not good to upset the large gun-rights portion of that demographc.

I was under the impression that a) representatives from different regions had different approaches to gun rights. EG Bernie Sanders was far less in favor of more controls than whoever represents Southern California. And even then no-one from any party has argued to repeal the 2nd amendment. Is that a misunderstanding on my part?

They now have not only abandoned that constituency, it is the target of scorn for the wealthy elites of the party, and bogey man for the various victim groups that makes up the rest.
I don't get your point here. who is the target of scorn and who's the bogey man for victim groups?

It strikes me that Guns are symbolizing something else here. It's not really a political grievance now - it's a cultural schism. A feeling that some fundamental threat to white working-class cultural identity is at play?

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Re: Another Mass Murder In America (and again)

Post by hippiewannabe » Sun Mar 04, 2018 5:00 pm

tommu wrote:
Thu Mar 01, 2018 9:58 pm
hippiewannabe wrote:
Thu Mar 01, 2018 9:37 pm

It's more cynical than that. Back then, the Democrats included working-class white men as part of their coalition
Can you please explain how they do not now? Economic policy, education policy, healthcare, social mobility etc. I'm curious to know in plain detail terms where Democratic policy excludes white working-class specifically.

I'm making an assumption that you feel the Republicans support the material interests of white working-class constituents here. I am right? If so would you be so kind as to help me understand how the republicans are implementing policy to help further white working-class needs? I am a British labor voter not American so none of the normal political discursive rules apply. I do not have an innate understanding of your party politics.
, so calculated it was not good to upset the large gun-rights portion of that demographc.

I was under the impression that a) representatives from different regions had different approaches to gun rights. EG Bernie Sanders was far less in favor of more controls than whoever represents Southern California. And even then no-one from any party has argued to repeal the 2nd amendment. Is that a misunderstanding on my part?

They now have not only abandoned that constituency, it is the target of scorn for the wealthy elites of the party, and bogey man for the various victim groups that makes up the rest.
I don't get your point here. who is the target of scorn and who's the bogey man for victim groups?

It strikes me that Guns are symbolizing something else here. It's not really a political grievance now - it's a cultural schism. A feeling that some fundamental threat to white working-class cultural identity is at play?
This should help you understand:
Obama to an elite San Francisco audience wrote:You go into these small towns in Pennsylvania and, like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing's replaced them. And they fell through the Clinton administration, and the Bush administration, and each successive administration has said that somehow these communities are gonna regenerate and they have not. And it's not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy toward people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.
These people's livelihoods have been decimated both by technology and the one-sided trade war that's been waged against America for decades. The middle-class jobs they thought they could build their lives around are gone, they don't know where to turn, and then they hear liberals lecturing about "white privilege". They sure as hell don't have it, and are sick of voting for people that look down on them.

When they want an immigration policy similar to Sweden or Canada, those darlings of the left, they are called racist. There is no race, except for geographic correlation, in the statement "We don't need any more unskilled workers that compete with our already surplus unskilled workers, and our immigration policy should be based on merit, rather than who can walk here." Yet if you say that, liberals take it as prima facie evidence that you are a racist.

When they believe that children are gifts from God, and have some human rights independent of their mothers, they are called hateful misogynists that want to enslave women.

Both parties think they know what's best for the country. The Democrats just take it a step further, and assume that anyone who questions their enlightenment is stupid, evil, and worthy of scorn.
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Re: Another Mass Murder In America (and again)

Post by Amskeptic » Sat Mar 24, 2018 10:11 pm

hippiewannabe wrote:
Sun Mar 04, 2018 5:00 pm
These people's livelihoods have been decimated both by technology and the one-sided trade war that's been waged against America for decades.
The one-sided trade war . . . sounds like a pity party.

Seriously, you ARE aware of how the United States of America has exploited other countries all across the globe. I saw no acknowledgment of the fact that we got rich after WWII on their shoulders.

Now, we *could* take the lead in so many technologies (there are jobs), but instead we have relinquished our position for the sake of short term profits over the longer view. The republicans have been particularly disgraceful on this front, obstructing innovative energy/environment targets, supporting the dinosaur fossil fuel industry, and giving away our manufacturing expertise and intellectual property to the Chinese in exchange for cheap labor. Yeah, that is on us. We knew, with eyes wide open, that China demanded that they partner with any activity we sought to conduct on their soil, then they stole it out from under us. Our well-paid corporate chieftains knew exactly. Now we have Trump whining about the coal industry, the steel industry, and slapping on tariffs in a chaotic thoughtless and impulsive way, then walking them back, we are denying entrance of gifted immigrants from around the world who would serve our intellectual capital, we are relinquishing our real leadership based on our national values, and China is rushing in to fill the vacuum. Have you seen their investment in Africa? We should have been there first! George Bush Jr paved the way to a continent-wide good will because of his investment in the AIDS crisis, but Trump is pulling back because he and his parochial plutocrats are "America First" only as deep as a stupid slogan. It is a mess. A mess.
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Re: Another Mass Murder In America (and again)

Post by hippiewannabe » Wed Mar 28, 2018 10:11 pm

Amskeptic wrote:
Sat Mar 24, 2018 10:11 pm
.. giving away our manufacturing expertise and intellectual property to the Chinese in exchange for cheap labor. Yeah, that is on us. We knew, with eyes wide open, that China demanded that they partner with any activity we sought to conduct on their soil, then they stole it out from under us. Our well-paid corporate chieftains knew exactly.
That's significant victim-blaming. The Chinese put up huge tariffs and bureaucratic roadblocks to imports, and said if you want to sell to their citizens, you must take on a parasitic partner and built a factory there. Easy enough to say GM and Ford should have stayed away, but VW, Toyota, Nissan et. al. were all participating in the gold rush, and anyone who wasn't there was derided in the media as stupid. They didn't deliberately give away the intellectual property that was a large part of their corporate value. They didn't (at first) know their "partners" would simply download all their product and manufacturing IP and build a clone operation down the street. This is where governments come in. It would do no good for GM to not be there, if VW was there. The US needed to work with Germany and Japan to stand up to them. That's one advantage dictatorships have over democracies. Business and government are one in the same and have a unified nationalistic strategy, and it is easy to pit competing companies and countries against each other.

You can't simultaneously deride our past mistakes and deride Trump for trying to do something about it.
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Re: Another Mass Murder In America (and again)

Post by hippiewannabe » Wed Mar 28, 2018 10:24 pm

Amskeptic wrote:
Sat Mar 24, 2018 10:11 pm
hippiewannabe wrote:
Sun Mar 04, 2018 5:00 pm
These people's livelihoods have been decimated both by technology and the one-sided trade war that's been waged against America for decades.
The one-sided trade war . . . sounds like a pity party.

Seriously, you ARE aware of how the United States of America has exploited other countries all across the globe. I saw no acknowledgment of the fact that we got rich after WWII on their shoulders.
No, the Marshal Plan and the rebuilding of Japan were costly to the US, but the right thing to do. They were brought back from ruin on our shoulders. We had the only intact manufacturing base left in the world, but that advantage was hardly exploitation. Then we got complacent and lazy, and didn't notice the countries we rebuilt were passing us by, while exploiting the advantages we gave them to help them recover. It's just time to re-balance.

Looks like we just signed a fairer deal with South Korea. It's been 60 years since the Korean war. They've grown up and become wealthy, and they don't need the asymmetric deal they've had for so long to help build a bulwark against the North. .
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Re: Another Mass Murder In America (and again)

Post by JLT » Thu Mar 29, 2018 12:28 pm

To get the discussion back on track, here's a thought that's been kicking around in my head for a while.

Michael Moore joined the NRA back when Bowling for Columbine came out. He got a lifetime membership, in hopes that he could influence people from within. But he found out that, the way the NRA is structured, any new membership couldn't influence the organization's direction for at least three years, which is how long the directorships of the current administration last. So he gave up on that approach.

I'm thinking that it's time to try again. The NRA is supposed to have five million members, many of which are against the organization's lobbying activity and support from gun dealers and manufacturers. But what if even a tenth of the people who were marching in various cities against gun violence joined the NRA? They would become the majority of the NRA's membership. When the directors and Mr. LaPierre saw the handwriting on the wall, would they repudiate their stances after it became clear to them that they represented only a minority opinion in the association? Or would they hastily re-write their bylaws to make the directorships life-time? (And can they do that legally?) And can't the new majority repeal the new bylaws?

There are a lot of gun owners out there who don't care for the NRA; could they be convinced to become the banner carriers for this new attempt to take over the NRA? I'm thinking celebrities or politicians who like to hunt (you know, like Charleton Heston except not wacko).

The real question is the question Mr. Moore asked: Can our attention span on this issue be more than three years? Can we be in it for the long haul?

Thoughts?
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Re: Another Mass Murder In America (and again)

Post by Amskeptic » Sat Mar 31, 2018 5:26 pm

JLT wrote:
Thu Mar 29, 2018 12:28 pm
To get the discussion back on track, here's a thought that's been kicking around in my head for a while.

Michael Moore joined the NRA back when Bowling for Columbine came out. He got a lifetime membership, in hopes that he could influence people from within. But he found out that, the way the NRA is structured, any new membership couldn't influence the organization's direction for at least three years, which is how long the directorships of the current administration last. So he gave up on that approach.

I'm thinking that it's time to try again. The NRA is supposed to have five million members, many of which are against the organization's lobbying activity and support from gun dealers and manufacturers. But what if even a tenth of the people who were marching in various cities against gun violence joined the NRA? They would become the majority of the NRA's membership. When the directors and Mr. LaPierre saw the handwriting on the wall, would they repudiate their stances after it became clear to them that they represented only a minority opinion in the association? Or would they hastily re-write their bylaws to make the directorships life-time? (And can they do that legally?) And can't the new majority repeal the new bylaws?

There are a lot of gun owners out there who don't care for the NRA; could they be convinced to become the banner carriers for this new attempt to take over the NRA? I'm thinking celebrities or politicians who like to hunt (you know, like Charleton Heston except not wacko).

The real question is the question Mr. Moore asked: Can our attention span on this issue be more than three years? Can we be in it for the long haul?

Thoughts?

It is a good idea. It would take some organizing (omg! Obama!) for action. As for by-laws the NRA leadership is beholden to no one. They can and will jerk the goalposts around if they see any possibility for change.

After hearing Ted Nugent go off half-cocked on the Parkland students, my personal loathing is way too great to want to associate with those inexplicably grotesque caricatures in the NRA management. Wayne LaPierre? Completely too toxic for my short time left on Earth.
Colin
BobD - 78 Bus . . . 112,730 miles
Chloe - 70 bus . . . 217,593 miles
Naranja - 77 Westy . . . 142,970 miles
Pluck - 1973 Squareback . . . . . . 55,600 miles
Alexus - 91 Lexus LS400 . . . 96,675 miles

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Re: Another Mass Murder In America (and again)

Post by JLT » Sun Apr 01, 2018 9:59 am

Amskeptic wrote:
Sat Mar 31, 2018 5:26 pm

After hearing Ted Nugent go off half-cocked on the Parkland students, my personal loathing is way too great to want to associate with those inexplicably grotesque caricatures in the NRA management. Wayne LaPierre? Completely too toxic for my short time left on Earth.
Colin
My sentiments are yours, too. That's why I want them all gone, and my thought-experiment was aimed at making that happen. If there are other ways that it can be done, I'm interested in learning about them. But like Mr. Moore, I'm interested in practical solutions, not just hand-wringing. And I think that if we all apply a little brain power, somebody is bound to come up with a workable plan.
-- JLT
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Present bus: '71 Dormobile Westie "George"
(sometimes towing a '65 Allstate single-wheel trailer)
Former buses: '61 17-window Deluxe "Pink Bus"
'70 Frankenwestie "Blunder Bus"
'71 Frankenwestie "Thunder Bus"

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