Draxil on 7/10/2017 at 07:23
Can't disagree with that. I don't think guns are for everyone. There's plenty of my acquaintances with whom I wouldn't ride in a car if they were driving, much less be around them carrying a firearm. Off the cuff an ideal situation, for me, would be something like: individuals are free to purchase, own and carry firearms on their own property after passing a background check. A concealed carry license would be required to carry a gun off your property, with the licensing authority legislated to issue a permit to all adults age 21 or over that pass a basic proficiency exam. Firearm/hunter safety would be a required course in high school. Businesses should be allowed to ban firearms on their premises, with strict punishments for violating the ban. States already have the ability to regulate this type of issue, so I think the situation in this country is fine as is; don't like the guns laws in your state? Move. Or deal with it. But stop trying to make the rest of the country match you. I think more federalism is the answer to most of the problems in this country, though.
Gryzemuis on 7/10/2017 at 09:45
Quote Posted by Draxil
It mentions a right to liberty and security of person, from which can be inferred a right to self defense. Self preservation is the most natural right in the world. If the government cannot guarantee my personal safety every minute of every day from every threat to my well being posed by someone who intends me ill, then it doesn't have the right to deny me the means to defend myself. A gun is a great tool for self defense.
That's like saying:
Everybody has the right to energy. We can't trust the government with nuclear energy (see 3-Mile Island 38 years ago). Therefor every citizen has the right to build and operate a nuclear power-plant in their backyard.
scumble on 7/10/2017 at 10:08
I sense some straw men descending on this thread like many an internet "debate". Overall though it seems relatively sensible.
Whenever I go through a thread like this I feel less confident that there is a good answer, or even a bad one, like many problems with human behaviour. This whole gun issue becomes high profile on top of a pile of other more statistically significant causes of death.
The idea of people gunned to death always carries more weight in people's imaginations.
Briareos H on 7/10/2017 at 12:59
My conclusion is that the USA are too fucking far gone to be helped, it's full of people with good intentions but powerless and held back or misled by institutionalized and cultural violence. The good news is that it's slowly becoming less and less relevant to the rest of the world.
Tony_Tarantula on 7/10/2017 at 14:02
Yes, but I think both of you kind of miss the point.
Part of the reason why that "fascism" is so successful is because of Obama. He actively cultivated this image of himself as a genteel, educated, left wing academic expert to the public while implementing policies that were by and large fascist including what the ACLU described as "the biggest surveillance state in the history of the world", a foreign policy even more militaristic than Bush's (although far more secretive and more reliant on covert support for insurgencies), interfered with the justice system to protect bank executives, and used the full power of federal agencies to destroy political opposition.
And at the same time most of America's Democrats lapped it all up and generally handled the dissonance by pretending all of those things never happened.
Here's the harsh reality: almost every "fascist" action people were scared of Trump doing (with the notable exception of deporting illegal immigrants), was something that Obama actually did during his time in office.
The US maybe headed in a "fascist" direction, but the most effective implementation of that fascism hides itself under the guise of socialism, caring for people, and cults of personality based on the perceived goodness of its leaders.
icemann on 7/10/2017 at 14:56
I think much of it is a cultural thing, and I completely respect those from the U.S who feel the need to have a gun. Nothing at all negative intended in that last sentence.
Myself though, the only guns I've seen in real life is from those that do hunting and police.
A few nights ago, I was going through the video list of one of my favorite Youtuber's "The 8-Bit Guy". His channel (I thought) was 100% just about retro computer repairs, and retro videogame related. On going through his old videos though I come across a video of his from 10 years ago, where he's giving instructional steps on how to conceal a pistol on your person. He's showing off all these different pistol holders, placing the holders on himself and whipping out the pistol. All the while with a complete blank look on his face.
I just found the video very chilling and disturbing. But as I've said, it's likely a cultural thing. The only guns I ever want to see in real life are those held by a cop. And hopefully a good, non corrupt one.
I can link the video if there is interest. Or just type the guys name in Youtube and scroll down to the absolute beginning of his videos.
Starker on 7/10/2017 at 15:09
Quote Posted by Tony_Tarantula
Part of the reason why that "fascism" is so successful is because of Obama.
Bullshit. If launching a full scale invasion into a foreign country, implementing mass surveillance programs, using torture and detaining people indefinitely somehow seems less militaristic and less fascist to you, I think it's safe to say you have some pretty big blinders on. A lot of the things you accuse Obama of, he inherited from Bush.
Also, Obama was not soft on illegal immigrants. He wasn't known as the deporter-in-chief for nothing. Obama deported more people than any single president in the US history. In fact, he deported more people than all the US presidents of the 20th century combined.
Renzatic on 7/10/2017 at 16:39
If I have to fault Obama for anything, it's that he wasn't quite the hope and change we were all hoping for. He never scaled back the Patriot Act, and while he did deescalate our involvement in the Middle East, he didn't disengage us entirely like a lot of people were hoping.
It boggles my mind that we have people claiming him as both a fascist and a communist, claiming he destroyed the country, was divisive, and blah blah blah, when for all intents and purposes, he was a fairly bog standard US president in policy, actions, and the implementations thereof.
Tony_Tarantula on 7/10/2017 at 22:27
Quote Posted by Renzatic
If I have to fault Obama for anything, it's that he wasn't quite the hope and change we were all hoping for. He never scaled back the Patriot Act, and while he did deescalate our involvement in the Middle East, he didn't disengage us entirely like a lot of people were hoping.
It boggles my mind that we have people claiming him as both a fascist and a communist, claiming he destroyed the country, was divisive, and blah blah blah, when for all intents and purposes, he was a fairly bog standard US president in policy, actions, and the implementations thereof.
He didn't "de-escalate" by any stretch of the imagination.
Inline Image:
http://i2.cdn.cnn.com/cnnnext/dam/assets/140923160247-bombed-countries-obama-story-top.jpgPreferring highly secretive, clandestine operations and bombing campaigns vs. large and flashy "boots on the ground" options doesn't make him less militaristic than Bush. The effects are arguably even worse. Kickstarting a revolution in Syria didn't just cause a massive number of civilian deaths the way Iraq did. Because of that astoundingly stupid foreign policy action Obama's white house was solely responsible (almost...some other NATO nations contributed in smaller ways) for the migrant crisis that is now tearing Europe apart. Even Bush didn't achieve that level of political destablization.
And he isn't a "communist", and him being "fairly bog standard" is borderline fascist because "bog standard" is pro-torture, pro-war state, pro-surveillance state, pro-police state, pro-wall street, and pro-corporate corruption....which is exactly why the only candidates people could stand were the ones who positioned themselves as being against the "bog-standard" politicians.
The only reason people are calling it "socialist" is because the movement has adopted a platform that includes social welfare policies (which were, for reference, part of the Nazi platform as well) and because they cloak themselves in cultural Marxist identity politics.
Even the old ACLU president has gone on record stating that Obama's civil liberties record was worse than Bush, and there's one Forbes article that goes into a bit more depth but has another way of stating my point:
(
https://www.forbes.com/sites/erikkain/2011/11/08/liberals-need-to-take-obamas-civil-liberties-record-seriously/#775e98ce4037)
The thing that's remarkable to me about the Obama administration is how willing his cult of personality has made moderate liberals willing to vicariously defend the indefensible. I mean hell. His PR was so effective that most people are completely clueless about the fact that the Obama administration had, as of 2011, set records for deportations
I think before I've posted list 20-30 items long of facist-ish policies that Obama has implemented. All of them can be easily verified from reporting available on Democrat loyalist websites, let alone more "centrist" sources.
Renzatic on 7/10/2017 at 23:16
You're wrong in a number of places. Obama didn't kickstart the civil war in Syria. It had been going on since the Arab Spring, long before Obama threw our collective hat into the fray a couple years later via arming various rebel groups across the country (though why we keep doing this, I have no idea. It rarely ever seems to turn out well for us). Basically, Syria is at unfortunate nexus of interests, with Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Russia, ISIS, and the US all having deeply vested and opposing goals in the region.
Blaming Obama or the US solely for the clusterfuck currently going on there is shortsighted, to say the least. We're but one of many moving parts responsible for Syria.
As for the people voting for an outsider to counter what the establishment has wrought, yeah, we're all seeing how well that's turning out. Not only has Trump escalated our involvement in Syria, and ramped up engagements in other Middle Eastern countries, but he's been all but daring North Korea into a playing a round of brinksmanship chicken to see who blinks first. A dangerous game to play when it's nuclear warheads we're shaking at each other.
If this is the great change our populist movement has brought about, well, I guess the new boss isn't all that different from the old boss. Bush's war, and the fallout from it all, is still ongoing.
