So, then, those of us who may not be stupid are expected to give something up, in order to protect stupid people from themselves, or to protect us from them? Bullshit. How far are you willing to go in dumbing things down, in restricting things the rest of us are allowed to do, in saving us, from all the stupid people in the world? Stupid people can do incredible damage no matter what you do. This is going to sound heartless and cold, but FUCK all the stupid people. Give 'em all the Darwin Awards they are so determined to get. The rest of us don’t need or want this sort of protection and are highly insulted by what it implies.
I think you mean Death Camps not concentration camps. Andersonville, Georgia for example was for all intents and purposes a concentration camp.
You getting all pissy because Europeans are butting in is silly. That’s what this place is all about. Sharing experiences etc. Americans frequently give there opinions on European views and policies. Some of which are equally ignorant and stupidly obnoxious as some of the Euro statements in this thread.
For every good there’s a bad. You get criticised, you talk of “ethnic cleansings” and “relocations”. Europeans could throw back slavery and black segregation back at you. And on and on it goes.
Waste of time on both sides.
Most European populations have got through modern times without gun culture. Gun culture and free access to guns is alien to us. My country doesn’t even have armed police on the beat (although armed police are available if required). The only people with guns are criminals, farmers, the Army and the Police. Some people have guns for recreation but they are NOT to be used for self defense. You go to prison if they are.
Personally I couldn’t give a shit about guns in the US. It’s a situation that’s impossible to fix IMO. Guns and the culture surrounding them are too ingrained in the system and the country to remove them.
Would I want less gun control in Ireland? No. Do I care about it in the US? No.
Cool. I take it then that you have not and will not in the future throw your oar into a conversation about anything political or contentious in a country other than the US?
Andersonville was a POW camp, albeit a rather brutally run one. The prisoners were captured soldiers.
The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia (6th Ed.) defines a concentration camp this way: a detention site outside the normal prison system created for military or political purposes to confine, terrorize, and, in some cases, kill civilians. The term was first used to describe prison camps used by the Spanish military during the Cuban insurrection (1868–78), those created by America in the Philippines (1898–1901), and, most widely, to refer to British camps built during the South African War (Boer War) to confine Afrikaners in the Transvaal and Cape Colony (1899—1902).
In US history, you could use the internment of ethnic Japanese during WWII and the confinement of Native Americans to reservations as examples of concentration camps. In both cases, however, the objective was simply to confine rather than to terrorize or kill.
Point taken. I seem to remember then being called CC in several documentaries. Maybe I or they were mistaken.
Yes indeed don’t read me…it’s your choice, and it appears you have reading difficulties
Tell me in conversation and in reading do you always parse, in other words is your brain listening to what is being said or is it listening to how its said…syntactically by assigning a constituent structure to each sentence you see written or hear…and as a matter of interest do you read with your eyes or your ears.
Oh dear you are one poor demented pityful creature…your fucking brain must be well and truly addled. Audio books may help.
May i suggest you leave a message on your answer phone something like…
Sorry i’m unable to take your call as I’m out of my mind, but feel free to leave a message
racinchikki, I’m taking option #2 with this guy too. Sheesh. Such addled grammar indicates an addled brain not worth trying to debate with.
OTOH, this guy and the one in the Socialism thread that just got moved to the Pit are giving us all examples of How Not to Debate. Too bad it wasn’t a lesson we particularly were asking for.
Sure I get pissy. Let’s take the example of slavery. It was brought over here by Europeans. We did not invent slavery. So, to accuse only the US of being slave merchants is a fake argument. There were English and Dutch slave ships. There were the “missions” of the Spaniards. There were the Spanish and Portuguese in South America.
There is anti-black (and anti-jew and anti-foreigner) bigotry in Europe. There is Yugoslavia, which was little more than a race war. There was World War 2, and that charming little “answer to the Jewish question”. So don’t scold us about segregation, you guys are the grandmasters of it.
I am well aware of Andersonville. It was not the norm. It was an aberration. After the war, there were no blood purges or government sponsored programs of revenge.
How about religion? Inquisitions, burnings, religious wars and crusades are all European.
Compared to the things done in and by Europe, we Yanks are amateurs.
What really gets my back up is when people with a long and well documented history of barbaric acts and over the top cruelty get the “holier than thou” attitude and point fingers at us for things they did, they invented, and they still continue to do.
No shit, Dick Tracy. But the dangerous thing here is not the gun, its properties, nor is it anything it has done (as if an inanimate object were capable of independent action). The dangerous thing is is the feckin’ ninny that left a loaded gun (or any other implement which has potential to cause harm) where the kid could get at it.
But that ain’t what I asked. I said properties of the gun, did I not? Improving aim is more a function of the human. Sure, guns can be designed with sights which may aid an individual in aiming properly. But aiming the gun is a human function.
Right. But the converse is equally true. Just because all guns are designed to fire a projectile at high velocity, does not mean that all gun are design to kill - which seemed to be your original assertion.
And I believe there is a scale on which we can place the stupid things people may do, and disregarding basic firearm safety is pretty high on that list. No amount of misapplied anthropomorphization of inanimate objects will change that.
Once again, the gun is not responsible for this; the perpetrator(s) is. This is a deliberate human act. Also, why couldn’t this happen in a rural area? There are, after all, schools and school buses there, too. Nothing makes a gun more dangerous in the city, than in the sticks. And that’s because guns, by themselves, do not present a danger. Are you (and Arwin) seriously of the mindset that gun owners should only be permitted in rural areas?
You may be jumping to conclusions. First, we don’t know who the perpetrator(s) is. We may find out that whoever did this has a felony record - in which case they’re not permitted under current federal law to own firearms. Second, I note this happened in New York, where many types of firearms are prohibited outright and there are great restrictions on the ownership of most other types of guns. We may find tomorrow that the particular gun used has already been banned in NYC. Again meaning that this person could not, regardless of any past criminal history, legally possess the firearm in that location.
Then why, may I ask did you make the claim that everyone, on both sides of the fence, could agree that guns are inherently dangerous? If you understand the philosophical difference, then it seems a rather contradictory claim to put forth.
But who, previously, said anyting about carrying a gun? The argument so far has been interpreted very broadly to general ownership of firearms. You even went as far as to say you were glad you weren’t the neighbor of a gun owner making no differentiation between a guy having guns—loaded or unloaded—in his closet, or on his person. This sounds like a basic fear of an inanimate object with no consideration given to the philosophical difference between the object and its application (proper or improper) which you claim to understand.
How, then, would one make the necessary quantification? Is the United States a highly urbanised country, or not?
But neither guns, nor people, solely, is the real issue here. Neither are capable of gun violence without the other. And it is always the person who has the choice of instigating violence, or commiting a stupid and unsafe act. The actual issue here is people with guns. And that is something I’m certain I know a lot about.
Yeah yeah we Europeans have ancestors that did horrible things. But guess what? If you’re white they’re most likely YOUR ancestors as well. If America had of been populated by Europeans in 1000AD do you believe they wouldn’t have carried out purges etc? Irish, Scottish, English, Americans etc did a great job at genocide on your side of the Atlantic. America is no better that any other western power. You are as selfish and stupid as everyone else.
We all have a long history of barbaric acts.
People argue from their own little world view. You yours, them theirs. I have as much in common with you as I have with a French, Belgian or German.
Why can’t someone from a country that has carried out atrocities talk and criticise another country? Hell if we kept to this rule no body could talk to anybody about anything.
If people are being fucking stupid then drill them into the ground. I fail to see why being an equally big prick about it will succeed. The “But your country’s not perfect” argument is lazy thinking IMO.
YMMV.
Let me break that down… 1) No, not really; this is the only sense I can make of the situation and 2) Hey, at least I don’t try to hide it.
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That must be it! -
I can’t avoid nice days where I am but thanks anyway, and likewise.
Look, I don’t want to take away your guns, so unbunch your undies. Calling a gun “not dangerous” because there are rules for it’s use is ridiculous. Characterizing the recognition of this danger as “anthropomorphization” is absurd. Lets take the example of a four year old child I am responsible for. I would leave her alone with a roll of toilet paper. I would also leave her alone with a box of crayons, or a box of q-tips. These items are not dangerous in my estimation. I would not leave her alone with a knife or a gun. Why? Because these are dangerous items, easily capable of causing great harm without even the intent to do so. They are potentially very harmful, and as such are dangerous. If you are responsible for the care of a child, you learn to recognize the inherent danger of objects in your environment. Admitting that guns are dangerous will not constitute an invalidation of your beliefs, will it? Your argument seems to be along these lines (and correct me if I’m wrong): “If there is a loaded gun lying in the forest with nobody around, is it still dangerous?” I say as long as someone can find it, it is patently more dangerous than a beach ball. YMMV.
I suppose then that pointing out the damnable hypocrisy of it all is out of the question then. The high handed “we are better than you because you <fill in the blank>” is OK so long as no one challenges it, so long as no says that the finger pointer is even more guilty and bloody handed. Go ahead and point your finger. I don’t give a shit if some other country has “issues” with (not) trusting their own citizens to run their own lives and make their own decisions (and that includes gun ownership for sport or to protect themselves).
Just don’t you dare try to take some phony high moral ground about it.
I’m tired of the Americans are animals, Americans are savages, Americans are killers, Americans are blood crazed gun toting hillbillies bullshit.
If your current leaders and their sycophants would stop acting the part, I daresay the criticism would diminish to the point of becoming irrelevant.
Some are, as are many Irish, English, Germans etc.
You seem to have quite a harsh opinion of Europeans from your posts here. Why can’t other dimwits be as stupid as you?
Hypocrisy is rife if I use your thinking. Europeans and Americans couldn’t really criticise terrorists for example as both Europeans and Americans have carried out acts of terrorism.
Again if people are being stupid nail them for that. What their countrymen past and present have done shouldn’t enter into it. If they are as stupid as you suggest then it should be very easy to either wipe the floor with them or ignore their mindless dribble.
I’m not going to accept that because somebody whom I’ve never met in a time I wasn’t even born in did something horrible I can’t criticise whatever the fuck I want to criticise.
BTW it’s not the state that doesn’t “trust” it’s people. The people don’t want the fucking things. There is no lobby here for guns. Nobody gives a fuck about them as we’ve never had them so it just isn’t a issue. You are looking at this from your American perspective and think it must be a ‘freedom’ issue. It’s not. This is a perfect example of what I’m trying to say. US and mainstream European opinion is vastly different about a lot of things. We seem clueless and ignorant of your ways and you seem the same way of ours.
Argue, dismiss, laugh at their opinions/ramblings for what they are but just to throw out shite about hypocrisy because of past and presents acts is silly in the extreme.
yawn
Hey, here’s an idea, why don’t you start a thread on the war in Iraq? I bet people would like to talk about that, you’d be the first to start a thread on an exciting topic!
Horseshit. Americans were villified for their liberal gun laws and violence that supposedly stems directly from the things (a proposition which I totally reject) long before the “current leaders” held office.
And that’s as far as I gonna get into that stupid aspect of the argument, except to say that, “Hey, Steve. Yojimbo is eating your lunch; there’s nothing productive down that road, so it’s best not to go there.”
I tend to forget that because my primary firearm uses black powder, which is explosive.
My leaders? Maybe, but not by my choice. I voted for “the other guy”, in the last election and the election four years prior. Almost half the country voted the same. I can at least feel good in knowing he will be “unemployed” in a few years. I’ve never been pro-Bush. Not by a long shot.
You’re right. This is going no where fast. I bet, no matter what we do or don’t do, anywhere in the world or in our own backyard, we’d still be villified for something. Feck 'em, as someone else likes to say.
First of all, I would like to point out vehemently that I’m not villifying Americans. You may seem to forget, but not all Americans are pro-gun, for instance. I agree with some of Yojimbo’s points, but I do want to stress that we’re talking percentages, let’s not exaggerate the differences.
Now, matters of euthanasia, abortion, guns, prostitution, same sex marriage, drugs, and so on, are close to my heart, and very alive to me, and since the country I live in has some very progressive and sometimes very recent legislation on these subjects. We didn’t come to our positions on these matters on a whim; we believe we righted wrongs, or chose the lesser of two evils.
Sometimes the legislation clashes with bordering countries, sometimes they just lead to differences of opinion. I like to look at other countries and question their positions on these subjects, to relive, as it were, the process that lead to our current, as yet fairly unique position. The different way in which these processes occur in other countries teaches me a lot about other cultures.
Challenging and being challenged isn’t a bad thing. These are important matters, it doesn’t hurt you nearly as much to think them through a little more than necessary, than they can hurt people when you don’t.
I read an article in one of the national papers today about a group of Americans and Europeans sitting together discussing what it is to be European. The Europeans came up with an even bleaker and self criticizing picture than the Americans came up with. At the end, the same was done for America, and things didn’t look much better. That’s a healthy attitude. There are always things to improve, and as long as we progress, we’re less likely to fall behind (not for nothing there’s a well known Dutch saying that says “stillstand is achteruitgang” - no progress means regress).