I think it’s because the state over-ruled the University on that point. The same applies in my state - I can carry my CCW in my car onto a college campus, but cannot exit the vehicle with it.
Congratulations for spotting that other countries are not the US. Less so for trying to imply that the US is somehow better for Freedom of speech, press or religion.
For instance, there’s approximately 322 million people in the US. That’s equivalent to German, France, the UK, Italy and Spain. All countries with equivalent freedom of speech, press and religion. And all countries without gun problems.
Sooner or later you’re really going to have to grow out of the gun fixation. Frankly, it’s a bit weird, and all the justifications about how you need them for personal safety or in case your government’s planning to repress you are a bit worrying.
We are.
They don’t.
They do have gun problems- wasn’t there just a mass shooting in Norway? 69-75 dead, mostly kids, and 241 wounded? 7 January 2015, Paris ? 13 December 2011, Liège- 7 and 125 injured?
Günter Hermann Ewen/ Tranchita, Rosario/Éric Borel/ Friedrich Heinz Leibacher/Tvrdon, Matthew/Tristan van der Vlis/Derrick Bird/Sabine Radmache
I could go on, but there’s also bombings too.
Gosh, I never get gired of hearing how morally superior the nations that raped the world and killed millions for centuries are.
The USA learned from the best, and improved upon it.
Not speaking to the gun issue at all, that’s not really correct, unless your definition of “equivalent” is quite broad. This has been debated for 15 years on here. My adoptive country has a state religion and occasionally bans media of different types, or allows councils and towns to do such. Blasphemy laws were on the books until 2008. French law bans wearing obvious religious garments in public. I could go on, but really…these countries are not equivalent to the United States, nor are their social and criminal problems, culture, and education levels.
All of which could be made into an even stronger argument for gun control in the US, if one wanted to.
I love the way to claim the countries listed have a gun problem you cite 3 examples, of which two were back in 2011, in Belgium and Norway…i.e. completely different countries. Clever stuff!
And congratulations for pointing out that even in guns with stricter regulations than the US, there will still be murders, some of them with guns. Absolutely right. And we can even then look at the rate of deaths. And hell, just for shits and giggles I’ll use the countries you brought up:
Firearm homicide deaths per 100,000
US - 10.64
Belgium - 2.42
Norway - 1.78 (please note this is actually higher than usual because 2011 was one of the years covered)
I’m actually surprised that Belgium is so high, but a quick scout around the web indicates they have a problem with organised crime due to their position as a central hub within Europe.
So, would you care to elaborate on how having 1/4 the rate of crime is your idea of a comparable situation? Or 1/6th for Norway. And that’s before we even look at the actual countries in question, or other candidates such as Australia, New Zealand, Canada, etc.
The usual tactic is to argue it’s all worthwhile, because of some specific advantage the US has. If you are going to go down that path can you do us a favour and actually cite something supporting such a claim. Otherwise it just gets very tedious quickly.
Has this become your default last defence now? Appeal to hypocrisy fallacy on a national scale? No comparison to other countries outside of the US is allowed because they have a dreadful history of exploiting other nations and races?
You are of course absolutely correct about the history of the colonial nations. Absolute bunch of bastards. The slight problem with this defence is it doesn’t help you any, as:
- Most of the US are descended from colonial nations or their created states, so if we’re doing guilt by genealogy then the vast majority of americans are in the firing line too. Other than American Indians of course, but then we hit another big problem:
- The US has its own equally terrible history of exploiting other races. Genocide of the american indians? Slavery? Any of this ringing a bell?
Now by all means you can feel free to point out your Sioux ancestry, in which case you’ve definitely got the moral high ground for historic events. But then I get to suggest that if we’re going to base all modern legislation on the morality of unrelated events over a century ago then we might as well give the fuck up now.
My definition of “equivalent freedom of speech, press and religion” is based upon the various indexes used to compare such things. For example, how about world audit:
http://www.worldaudit.org/civillibs.htm
Which ranks all the nations listed as tier 1 for 2014, and as democracies ranks them in the following:
Germany - 9
UK - 13
USA - 14
France - 18
Spain - 26
Italy - 29
So there you go, all comparable for civil liberties, with the US democratic process smack in the middle.
Not sure where you’re going with the crime/education levels. I’m presuming you don’t mean the US is better for these factors? It’s not, but by the same token you’re not that much worse. So all in all, yes I’d say they’re equivalent enough to make comparison.
The nations you think we should emulate are the equivalent of life-long violent criminals who haven’t robbed, raped, or murdered anyone (yet) this morning. I see no pressing reason for the US to be like them.
I’m not sure that qualifies as a cite, especially given that in more than a decade of human rights work I never even heard of it in passing. And anyway, the subject was not “civil liberties,” it was specific freedoms you enumerated which were a subset of them. So did you mean to say “civil liberties” instead? I’m not addressing that, I’m addressing your specific claims of a specific equivalence in freedom of the press, speech, and religion.
Where I’m going with it? I’m mentioning offhand that there are specific and deep cultural differences, something which is prima facie obvious to me, having lived in multiple countries. Is the cultural difference actually in dispute here?
Except of course that the US has done the same thing, with that whole Indian genocide. I know it’s a bit of a pesky irritation that your great great grandparents were the same sort of bastards as everyone else’s, but such is life.
Unless of course you are of American Indian descent, in which case sorry about what we colonial bastards did to you, etc.
Personally, I’d go with a counter-cite there, not a nevuhoidovit.
Anyway, there’s an index for freedom of the press, and maybe you’ve done it the great honor of allowing its name to enter your earholes. It’s called, unimaginatively, The Press Freedom Index. Catchy, eh? If you haven’t heard of it, Wikipedia has an article for your convenience. For 2015, Germany ranks 12, Spain 33, France 38, USA 49, and Italy 73. Pull your socks up, Italy. See how those are comparable? As in, the US looks pretty bad by comparison if we leave the Italy off the list, especially given how some people think it’s in its own class or something.
For religious freedom, and in terms of government restriction, the US does better, making it into the top half of a Pew “We Sure Hope Una Heard of Us” Research piece from 2015, behind the UK and Italy, but ahead of France and Germany. The latter two do have separation of church and state, but it looks like the old established faiths have some sweetheart deals. The Pew article only covers the 25 most populous nations, so Spain wasn’t in there. According to the US Department of [del]Please Notice Us, Una[/del] State, looks like she’s probably quite similar to France and Germany. The same data set shows the US doing quite well in terms of social hostility, which I have to admit surprised me, given the open hostility to Islam on the part of some loud yanks. Well done there-- I mean the freedom bit, not the loud assholes part. Still comparable, though, we’re not talking about the US being best overall. That might be South Africa or Brazil, depending on which axis you like.
In fact, in terms of combined civil and political freedoms, Germany, France, Spain, UK and the USA all fall into the exact same category, according to an outfit called Freedom House, the leadership of which just doesn’t care about you at all, because they’re super free. Anyway, your I’m sure very interesting personal experiences aside, these countries are obviously comparable with the US in terms of religious and press freedom, and about half the time, as judged by informed types who like to make fancy charts, better.
Frankly, it doesn’t bother me if we stick to just Press, Speech and Religion or the whole list.
Freedom of press? You’re 49th. Sorry about that
Freedom of religion? Bad luck there too, 9th on that count, behind the UK and Italy according to Pew Research Centre. Are you surprised, when you’ve got presidential candidates saying Muslim’s should never be considered for President, and devout christians arguing they don’t have to approve gay marriages?
Freedom of speech I’m actually struggling to find a cite that doesn’t overlap with the whole freedom of press thing, but considering the EHCR enshrined freedom of speech that EU countries are signed up to, and the low rankings the US gets for censorship, I happily invite you to try to find an example showing it’s leaps ahead of the rest of the world.
By the way, if you didn’t hear of my first cite during your human rights work (and got to be honest I thought you worked in the coal industry so apologies there) try this lot who rank the US 20th worldwide for civil liberties as a whole:
Yes travel is a wonderful thing, and different countries have different cultures. Me, I liked living in the US for instance, even if the portion sizes are all wrong and you have a tendency to add cheese to everything. Of course some countries are incredibly more similar to others. People in the middle east, for example, completely baffle me with their mindset. India too, funnily enough. Everytime I thought I’d got a handle on how people approach things there, along would come something that utterly twisted my melon.
So here’s the thing. Having lived in the US, and travelled there on numerous occassions, I’m going to happily stand by my belief that the cultural differences between the US and the UK, or Canada, or hell even France or Denmark aren’t actually so vast that they prevent any comparison. It’s a strangely small world now, where we all share music, brands, tv, recipes, news feeds, etc. Sure, there’s lots of local history that shapes mindsets, but the gap in cultural identity between New York and London is probably smaller than the gap between Miami and Charleston.
The reason I think anti-registration types like to claim otherwise is because if any comparison is ever made to other countries it absolutely destroys the whole “gun regulations don’t work” line. You say they don’t work, your opponent rattles off all the places they do, meaning you have to argue “well that’s different”, which is a bit of a cop-out, really. Gun laws work fine for other countries, but not for the US, because it’s a deeply special snowflake that can’t be compared to the other kids.
Did you read the criteria used? It’s laughable, and hardly rigorous nor objective. Reporters were allegedly harassed while covering the Ferguson riots. And that carries more weight than a country which can allow its town councils to ban films? Or Germany banning an entire class of speech due to its links to Nazism?
The sayings of Presidential candidates and random Christians don’t have the force of law. Unlike the state freaking religion in the UK, or the bans on religious wear in France, or…
The difference, my friend, is you seem to be debating attitude of the populace and I’m debating legislation. I’m willing to admit that if that was your intent in your original claim, then your claim stands. But if we are talking legislation with the force of law, then no, it does not.
This is answered above.
I should actually be glad that someone on here doesn’t know about what I’ve been doing the last 4 years, as I’ve become a one-trick pony.
I would actually not be considered “pro-gun” on this message board any more, due to my stated backing of mandatory training and licensing of people (not weapons), revoking of automatic licenses for retired police and military, requiring very strict checks and requirements based on psychological history, backing denial of firearms for those convicted of violent misdemeanors, and backing restrictions upon the police use of firearms when off-duty. I am actually anti-hunting, which again would put me in the anti-gun category.
Nor am I anti-gun, since I clearly have spoken out for my personal right for effective self-defense and the defense of my minority community. What worries me is when I see anti-gun people on this message saying that it doesn’t matter how good my bona fides are, how good my training, how clean my background, they want to take away my means of protecting myself and my community, by force if necessary, and if I don’t like it I can “suck it.”
The US has some serious problems with its gun culture, and I believe that culture is strongly influenced by the fetishism of guns in television and movies and video games (this is why I’m referring to culture earlier). How many cop-and-robber shows are there on television every week? How many shows involving gratuitous use of firearms? How many hit films involve massive amounts of gunfire and devastation? There is something sick about the culture in my country, something I’ve seen gradually getting worse since I was a little girl, and something which concerns me greatly about the future. How many murders or killings will the average baby born today witness in media, or simulate online, by the time they are 18? I know a significant number of studies downplay, almost desperately downplay, any link between the violence in media and violence in real life. I am not a scholar in that area so I can’t weigh in with authority, but I can say I nonetheless believe that the small effect found has a much larger effect than can be easily quantified.
Did you note that was for Freedom of the Press. In which case the items you talk about seem entirely reasonable to bring up
But by all means feel free to point to other findings that says the US has better press freedom, or actual freedom of religion, or actual freedom of speech. It’s all well and good saying the UK for example has a state religion, but you need to actually show how this has any actual effect. In the US, Christianity actually dominates the landscape, and effects the ruling of the country. Abortion clinics, for example. Candidates saying a Muslim shouldn’t be a president. People insulting your current president claiming he’s a Muslim. Do you see the problem here? These are actual things. They actually determine the political landscape of the US, and have very real consequences on people living their. You have state workers saying they won’t marry people because their religion disagrees with it!
Seriously, try to find some cites that show how you outstrip other developed nations on these counts. Short of Fox news I reckon you’re going to have a real struggle.
Yes, many nations that ban most gun ownership are non-despotic (with allowance for some turbulent politics from about 1930 through 2000), and have reasonably low rates of violent crime. Of course there are also nations that are counter-examples with respect both to gun ownership and the prevalence of despotism and violent crime. Does this mean that if the USA could somehow heavily restrict guns, that this would yield 100% positive results, with few or no drawbacks? I kinda doubt it. If there’s any correlation, it’s between despotism/violence and the level of poverty and social stratification in a society. In the USA we see this starkly in the contrast in crime rates between the white majority and the discriminated and poorer African-American population.
Even conceding an increase in the mortality rate of violence due to guns (which is still very small compared to other causes of death), I still maintain that guns don’t make a society violent, any more than the lack of them makes a society peaceful.
:eek: :smack: This is your criterion?
Does the U.S.'s fanatical obsession with guns “yield 100% positive results, with few or no drawbacks”?
Except the Indian “genocide” wasn’t planned, it just was the unhappy issue of the natives not having resistance to diseases. It was bound to happen.