[quote=“rowland”][quote=“Chris”]
Moreover, Mexico borders on the US, which is one of the top sources of illegal guns smuggled throughout the world. That’s where the guns are brought in from.
[/quote]
Oh, so now now we’re going to talk about the Fast and Furious scandal?[/quote]
No, I’m not talking about that bogosity.
Smuggling guns from the US into Latin America (and elsewhere around the world) has been going on for decades. I was well aware of it in the early 90s when I attended a seminar about law enforcement and smuggling.
I blame it on right-wingers, because right-wingers are the engine behind the proliferation of guns in the US.
[quote=“Chris”]
I blame it on right-wingers, because right-wingers are the engine behind the proliferation of guns in the US.[/quote]
There’s no deductive leap you won’t make, is there?
The man who said “political power flows from the barrel of the gun” was no John Bircher. And the most infamous implementor of gun control… well, the left want to assign him to the extreme right, and it’s not my policy to let them have it both ways. So if you say he was a right winger, that would make him a gun-grabbing right winger.
If I might chip in here, he was one of the world’s most accomplished fascists. Complete state control of industry? Check. Racial hubris, faux patriotism, and militaristic posturing? Check. Public moralising and private depravity? Check. State violence against the people, indoctrination, and supression of dissent? Ooh, yes please.
But the right wing like to pretend he was a socialist. Nobody really wants to own scumbags like that, do they?
See how dopey this gets when you just try to drop everything into neat little boxes labelled ‘left’ and ‘right’?
I blame it on right-wingers, because right-wingers are the engine behind the proliferation of guns in the US.[/quote]
And yet I would argue that most right wingers prefer to live in red and rural areas such as Wyoming or Utah where gun violence is the lowest in the US.
Let’s talk about left wing cities, that have been left wing and/or one party cities for decades, and the gun crime associated with them. Should we start with Detroit, Michigan? Camden, New Jersey? Chester, Pennsylvania? Oakland, California? What do they all have in common? Democratic Party governance and the highest level of crime in the US!
Nonsense. They import all those guns from horrible right wing places like Springfield, Massachusetts.
If it weren’t for right wingers, those poor souls would be harmlessly hitting each other with Nerf sticks and giggling, like the Iroqois did before the white devils came along.
Do we have the right to kill someone who has killed others?
Does the inclusion of the death penalty make people think more before they commit crime?
Is the death penalty more or less humane for someone who will never leave prison?
I’m not sure, but it seems to me that discussions that don’t involve Taiwan more and more become childish and pointless mud slinging about things you call left and right. Adults understand the world is not about black and white thinking. Why is this something so many of you now strive for when trying to make sense of the world? What use does this serve you to create two gangs?
[quote=“superking”]
I’m not sure, but it seems to me that discussions that don’t involve Taiwan more and more become childish and pointless mud slinging about things you call left and right. [/quote]
[quote=“rowland”][quote=“superking”]
I’m not sure, but it seems to me that discussions that don’t involve Taiwan more and more become childish and pointless mud slinging about things you call left and right. [/quote]
It all started with a murder on the MRT.[/quote]
It started waaaaay before then. The open name calling started in 2008 when someone introduced the term Rightwing Blowhard. Then in 2010 the term RWBH was introduced. Since then it’s just been one long procession of people lining up to show how amazingly integrating American political discourse is (NOT).
[quote=“urodacus”]how many people posting here have actually been to the USA?
and how many enjoyed it?[/quote]
I went to Orlando, Florida to volunteer for make a wish foundation type stuff. I’ve been to Chicago twice. Then in uni I did a 3 month solo backpack, starting in Washington DC and flying out of Denver. Oh, and also traipsed up the east coast with an ex girlfriend. I loved every second of all of it, except for San Diego. That city can go fuck itself. I guess all in all I have spent 5- 6ish months of my life in America. I stayed with some people who were Libertarians. They cooked really nice food and were very hospitable to me. I still don’t really know what a libertarian is.
[quote=“urodacus”]how many people posting here have actually been to the USA?
[/quote]
All 57 states?
Does Massachusetts count?
I’ve always enjoyed the company of people in DFW. Boston, not so much. There are decent people in Boston, but they all seem to come from somewhere else, and are planning to go back. Half the people you meet in Denver are stoned. But I’ve never yet run into an unpleasant or stupid person in or from Texas.
The infrastructure in DFW is decent, in an oversized way. In Boston, they’re always redesigning the highways, and never quite getting it right. In Denver, you’re forced to cross multiple lanes of traffic just to keep going straight.
LA kind of gives me the creeps. There’s a subtle, pervasive air of despair, like everyone senses it’s destined to be a vast slum in about 20 years. The highways are a bit overdue for maintenance. (Government is just a name for the things we neglect together.) I don’t intend to check back to see how it’s coming along.
Haven’t been to Texas since the recent oil price bust. They’ve got a diversified economy and a practical-minded spirit. They’ll be all right, but I expect they’ll feel it somewhat.
If someone believes in the death penalty, it takes them all of 2 seconds to think of a half dozen examples of people who “deserve to die.” The Taiwan MRT killer for example. Is there anyone who’s going to defend that guy? No, but how does that one example provide any support for the overall discussion of death penalty. Are we so simple minded that singular examples are confused with the broader discussion? What seems to be constantly lost in the mist is all the examples of criminals who don’t deserve to die, or all those criminals who have clearly had troubled pasts and through poor environmental conditioning did things that you or I, because of our much more pleasant environmental conditioning would never do.
Did I choose where to be born? Was I in charge of the environment I was brought up in? Did I build my own brain?
No, and no to a million more similar questions. So can I really take credit for the fact that I’m not a criminal? Maybe partially, but certainly there is a chance factor at play here as well. I can think of many places I could have been born in, could have grown up in, that would have surely led me down a different path…
Obviously I’m not suggesting that we let criminals walk free. They clearly have broken their social contract and they cannot be allowed to be among the rest of us who haven’t. What I am suggesting though is, it’s time we stopped thinking of criminals as intentionally bad people, and start thinking of them as products of a much larger picture. Perhaps society should be attempting some actual workable solutions rather than just continuing a simplistic, barbaric, and clearly ineffective practise as the death penalty.
[quote=“BrentGolf”]
Obviously I’m not suggesting that we let criminals walk free. They clearly have broken their social contract and they cannot be allowed to be among the rest of us who haven’t. What I am suggesting though is, it’s time we stopped thinking of criminals as intentionally bad people, and start thinking of them as products of a much larger picture. Perhaps society should be attempting some actual workable solutions rather than just continuing a simplistic, barbaric, and clearly ineffective practise as the death penalty.[/quote]
I have observed that when people talk like this, they turn out to mean exactly what they’re denying that they mean. It’s disingenuous boilerplate rhetoric.
People have been looking for workable alternatives to the death penalty for like forever. No dice. The death penalty simply works best in certain cases. Anyone who doesn’t know this or who pretends not to know this is someone whose arguments on the subject are not to be taken seriously.
Interesting, ok, then let me say: I believe we need more people like Rowland in the world. Intelligent, well spoken, compassionate people like Rowland are what make this world the wonderful place that it is.
And yet, funnily enough, there are plenty of European countries - without the death penalty - that have a lower violent-crime rate than the US. Or China. Or Thailand. Maybe you’d best go explain to those limp-wristed types that what they’re doing doesn’t work. They’re clearly in need of assistance on this matter.
I was just messing with you Rowland. Truth be told, despite your “he said this but he really meant that” game, I actually did mean what I said. Criminals need to be separated from the rest of us law abiding citizens and dealt with. Actual attempts at rehabilitation would be nice, but if we aren’t compassionate enough as people to aim for that, then I guess the next best thing would be providing them a comfortable environment to live out their days apart from the rest of society. The current system of treating criminals as animals and throwing them into subhuman conditions is just not working. And on top of being totally ineffective is the fact that it reflects badly on us all as people.
How we view and treat criminals says a lot about who we are as people, and it says a lot about the general mentality of a country. Am I surprised that so many Americans believe in the death penalty? No. But not much about that place does surprise me. It’s not exactly a beacon of compassion and critical thinking…
I guess all in all I have spent 5- 6ish months of my life in America. I stayed with some people who were Libertarians. They cooked really nice food and were very hospitable to me. I still don’t really know what a libertarian is. 