Merv's Politically Incorrect Audio Blog

Discussion in 'SBAF Blogs' started by purr1n, Dec 26, 2018.

  1. Josh83

    Josh83 Friend

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    Nope. But I’m familiar with them.
     
  2. yotacowboy

    yotacowboy McRibs Kind of Guy

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    I agree, though with the caveat that when Joe Q. Public can outgun the local PD by outfitting himself at Walmart, I think the leniency in capability of life-taking falls a bit too far in the "wrong" direction. I don't like the idea that if I were to call the cops on my neighbor for shooting a neighborhood cat, that the local PD needs a bazooka, two mortar launchers and an MRAP just in case my neighbor decides to answer the door with a stupid .557, two AR-15s and 400 rounds of .223 in drum magazines.

    Edit: re-reading that, maybe there's a distinction that's too subjective to even wrap my puny brain around: what's the difference between "defense" and "offense" in bullet caliber and fire rate when your "enemy" is the state? or your neighbor? or that guy that's trying to steal your car with a squirt gun in his pocket? or the kid playing with a bb gun at the park? or Dylan Klebold?
     
    Last edited: Aug 22, 2019
  3. YMO

    YMO Chief Fun Officer

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    See where you are located.....Tiki Torches.....
     
  4. ultrabike

    ultrabike Measurbator - Admin

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    I thought I was the one that was supposed to be mad.

    Gun control, as in making it harder for people with issues to own guns, is a step forward in my opinion. And there is probably more that can be done.

    Europeans are not the only ones that know a thing or two about nationalism. Nationalism is a widely used social control tool that has been exercised in the "New World" often.

    It's good that you are happy here in the US. I am too. I also do not agree with everything that goes on here. It's impossible.
     
    Last edited: Aug 22, 2019
  5. Lyander

    Lyander Official SBAF Equitable Empathizer

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    Because Psychology Today is a valid source and not merely BuzzFeed for a specific niche.

    I will concede my initial response was immature, and apologise. That was the result of irritation at the same nonsensical talking points being raised ad nauseam— violent natures are not restricted to any one culture or population, and there's more to what causes life-threatening situations than can be easily summed into bite-sized talking points.

    >Social media has utility but is all too easy to grow addicted to. It is a problem, not necessarily one that results in people getting "lead injections". It's a tool, and has both positive and negative aspects.

    > Violent video games, heck, violent media forms, are available where the internet reaches. Can the same be said of deaths by gun violence?

    > I respectfully ask what gender has to do with this?

    I agree that nationalism is silly. I love people, not countries, and to love a country merely for its being your country leads to all sorts of aberrant beliefs, makes it easier to dehumanise outgroups and bolsters an unearned sense of entitlement to put millennials to shame.
     
    Last edited: Aug 23, 2019
  6. RobS

    RobS RobS? More like RobDiarrhea.

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    I wonder sometimes if Americans are as obsessed with guns as others are obsessed with Americans.

    Anyway to answer the original post that started this discussion.

    I think there are a few reasons:

    1) Many Americans are descendants of people who didn't like their governments (which is why they emigrated or were deported here), and so that cultural memory lives on in the desire to have the means of resisting.

    2) We also have a very recent memory of a 'frontier' where guns provided protection against natural and man-made threats.

    3) Due to #1, we just don't like being told what to do.

    4) Many Americans perceive that both immigrants and some minority communities are physically violent, and guns are an easy way to level the playing field when you didn't grow up punching your siblings or 'defending your honor.'

    5) We have a much higher rate of voluntary military service than most countries, and so there are more people who are enthusiastic about firearms as a result of that experience. We also have more combat veterans now than after WW1.

    6) If you consider the number of guns in America, and factor out suicides, accident, and inter-gang violence (the latter will continue on after even total gun control for the obvious reasons that this community does not cooperate with any laws whatsoever), the firearms death rate in the US is extremely low. In fact, you are much more likely to be beaten to death than shot with an AR-15.

    7) Many Americans are upset that laws are constantly regulating our behavior, and then the same people who make all the laws lament how many people are in prisons. The gun control issue is a classic example of more laws for the law-abiding
     
    Last edited: Aug 23, 2019
  7. Hrodulf

    Hrodulf Prohibited from acting as an MOT until year 2050

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    I love shooting and blowing stuff up. There aren't that many guns around from where I am, but that didn't keep me from building a pipe "musket" which could be muzzle loaded with a firecracker glued to a 10mm roller or ball bearing. Ignition was done by a battery powered filament wire. I was 12 when I made it. Mostly used it to show-off and scare local gypsies into not messing with me. Luckily the barrel didn't blow up and I didn't land myself in juvie or a box.

    I'm not knowledgeable enough about gun laws in the US to say whether they need to be revised, but I generally oppose the tendency to ban things. Guy uses scary thing to do bad thing? Ban scary thing, so people aren't scared. Whether it's lawn darts, balisongs or violent video games, it generally is a diversion tactic to not tackle (and acknowledge) some hard-to-solve issues. All around the world people are more polarized than ever before. It's like in that movie Pandorum where folks get injected with stuff that makes them physically adapt to their surrounding via accelerated evolution. They're stuck in a derelict spacecraft so they turn into cannibalistic space troglodytes. Some goes for internet and social networking. To boost time spent on service and participation the user's opinions should never be opposed or otherwise challenged. And thus they turn into aggressive, self sure troglodytes.
     
  8. GTABeancounter

    GTABeancounter Friend

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    This idea sounds outrageous but "creeps with guns" is absolutely the issue.

    I golfed with a couple of American customers of ours a few weeks back and the conversation eventually turned to gun control (we had already covered sex and religion so why not get into politics?!). I mentioned how I was surprised to have recently read that there were more guns in the US than people (something like 120 guns / 100 people), to which one of the customers said that he thought that stat might be understated. Turns out he has a dozen guns himself. We talked about this and it became very evident that this guy was a true enthusiast and a bit of a collector.... and certainly NOT a creep. What surprised me is that he absolutely believes its way to easy to buy a gun in the US. I'm Canadian and not a gun enthusiast and I just assumed that there were two camps in the US at both extremes of the spectrum, seems I was dead wrong.

    IMHO, it is unfortunate that the moderate voice in the middle is being drowned out by those at the extremes of the argument. Anyhow, the council idea above could obviously never work but the intention is GOOD. If only there could be a middle ground, why not institute the following....

    1) Mandatory waiting periods
    2) Limitation on the number / type of retailers who can sell guns and ammo
    3) Full background checks on any prospective owners with more restrictions for certain classes of guns

    Just do something to decrease the likelyhood of creeps getting their hands on guns!
     
  9. Tachikoma

    Tachikoma Almost "Made"

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    For better or worse, American culture wields an enormous amount of influence worldwide. Its hard to say how things will pan out in the Internet Age but the "Leader of the Free World" having regular mass shootings is not a good look.
     
    Last edited: Aug 23, 2019
  10. The Life

    The Life Facebook Friend

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    Are you talking about abortion or gun ownership?
     
  11. Senorx12562

    Senorx12562 Case of the mondays

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    The right-to-life lobby was already pissed about late-term abortions, wait til they find out about the abortion of school age children.
     
  12. Hands

    Hands Overzealous Auto Flusher - Measurbator

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    The cause is masturbation. It is the root of all gun violence.
     
  13. elmoe

    elmoe Friend

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    Your nickname is now a valid concern.
     
  14. purr1n

    purr1n Desire for betterer is endless.

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    Contrary to popular belief, these procedures are already in place in the most populated states in the USA. And yes, most gun owners, if you actually speak with them, will admit that it's all too easy to get a gun. (It's possible that people in other states will disagree). However, workable solutions are impossible because people get too emotional about it. Heck, just take a look at the other thread.

    Here's the deal. I have no doubt that existing gun control procedures (listed above) have prevented countless murders. The problem is that it is difficult if not impossible to show their effectiveness, and hence they don't get any credit. And when the shit does hit the fan, then these procedures aren't good enough, need to be more strict, more intrusive, to the point where they would be SCOTUS decisions if they ever got that far.

    Those of you who work in the digital security field know this quite well: You are a cost center, but it's hard to show that what you do is important. If your company doesn't get hacked, then you are one of those people that just goes around making things a lot more inconvenient to the business (security <> convenience), or at best, people don't know what the heck you do. If your company does get hacked, then obviously you were incompetent, or if you were able to talk your way around it, your company lacked sufficient protective measures and needs to redouble its efforts.

    All security professionals know one thing to be true: no amount of security is going to stop someone determined from doing something bad.

    And no security program (policy, procedure, person, etc.) will ever get credit for preventing something bad.

    --

    As far as the right to life. That's a moral imperative. The Constitution doesn't guarantee a right to life. God doesn't. In fact, last time I checked, God doesn't guarantee anything when it comes to earthly matters. The US Constitution only guarantees that the state not deprive one of life, liberty, etc. without due process. I won't argue against the right to life as a moral imperative. But let's face it. It's not the government's job to guarantee that we don't die in an automobile wreck caused a drunk driver, in a plane crash from defective computer nannies, from cancer, a lightning strike, AIDS, or a creepster with a gun. This is especially true philosophically for the American government, and probably even more true for Asian governments.

    The debate on how much we want the government to protect us, which means how much do we want the government to make decisions for us, will be ever ongoing. Whatever way the people decide, there is one incontrovertible fact: life is hard.

    We are pretty squishy as human beings, and while we may sometimes stop and admire ourselves at our accomplishments, at the end of the day, we are just dust motes. Modern society (in industrial Westernized countries) has unintentionally done us a huge disfavor by doing a great job of hiding suffering and death. We don't suffer physically as much because we don't have to toil in the fields, advanced modern medicine can reattach limbs, and valium makes us feel good. Instead, we suffer psychologically (Internet drama, divorces, real-life drama, keeping up with the Kardashians, hating Trump so much that our blood boils, hating Obama so much that our blood boils, etc.). Death is almost foreign now. It used to be normal for kids to die at young ages or people to die from stepping on rusty nails. Nowadays, on the seemingly rare occasion when people do die, we dress them up in nice clothes, have a beautiful ceremony, and put them in a really nice wooden box which is supposed to send them on a trip to a better place. Never mind that we don't even stop to think that perhaps our next destination may be worse, or at best, just as shitty.

    I'm not saying that we shouldn't stand up and acknowledge that these active shooter incidents are horrible and that we need to come up with solutions (not only further gun restrictions) to better prevent them from happening. But what I am saying is that let's stop making this an emotional, hysterical issue, a bigger deal than it is, a terror that is creeping upon us. We really need to rest in the pain and suffering of it all and acknowledge that this is this human condition. It's like what my wife taught me: stop trying to solve everything - just be there and listen.

    Personally, when it comes down to it, the active shooter deal is at the bottom of my list. I worry more about me or my family getting killed by an El Lay driver in a BMW.

    However, my greatest terror, one that I deal with every day of my life is that I have this nasty bug which cannot be cured and could one day suddenly take my life. I contracted the Valley Fever fungus and it just so happens that the spores disseminated (spread) from the site of infection (lungs). People who get disseminated Valley Fever tend to be fucked and may possibly need to be on meds for life. Sometimes the meds stop working, and the infection comes back. Sometimes the meds can be stopped after a year or two but the state of the disease needs to be followed up with regular monitoring of antibodies. I'm kind of in a pickle because I have adverse reactions to two meds I've tried. Because of this, some days I take the meds, other days I don't. It's kind of risky, but really, the docs don't know for sure. It's been almost a year now, and my last CT scan shows great improvement, but there's still an active infection in part of a lung.

    It sucks. I'm not going to whine about this. Ten thousand people get Valley Fever every year. The number has been increasing because of urbanization. Or if you are Green and you want to give yourself a pat on the back, you can say the cause is Climate Change. Two percent of these ten thousand get disseminated Valley Fever. The average lifetime cost for treatment is a little over $1M. I don't even know how many people die in the first five years and I don't want to know. Personally, I think I'm OK because I take care of myself.

    So where is the outrage? Why isn't the government doing more about this since so many people are affected? What about the poor Mexicans who work the fields in the southwest who contract Valley Fever? We shouldn't let them just die because they have limited access to health care, much less the long term care needed. Why is no one working on a cure so I don't have to rely on maintenance therapies?

    Personally, I'm fine with it. We all die at some point. I've already been in the hospital with this disease on the verge of death. I know how I might go and I'm fine if it went this way. Seems a lot better than cancer. Please, government, spend the money on more worthy endeavors, or just tax people less and get rid of bureaucracies.
     
    Last edited: Aug 23, 2019
  15. purr1n

    purr1n Desire for betterer is endless.

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    Too late for that: Slavery, stealing the best land from Mexico, Teddy Roosevelt's Big Stick Policy, Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Traci Lords underage porn, unpaid maternity leave, massive calorie consumption, high incarceration rate, huge income inequality (among Western countries), shitty public transportation, Tricky Dick selling out to Red China, etc.

    USA has done a lot of good stuff too. More good than bad. It's just that it never gets credit for it because it's like network security. No one notices when there is peace and prosperity, but people still bitch.
     
    Last edited: Aug 23, 2019
  16. mitochondrium

    mitochondrium Friend

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    As I said in the other thread what I and an american Friend of mine figured out once was that our socialization in terms of guns was so different that it was difficult to understand eacgh others point of view but it dnot have any bearing on our friendship. One thing he reminded me of was that the right to own guns is comstitutional in the US. Probably most Europeans cannot understand that why people in the US do not more restrictive laws regarding gun ownership, ask any European if they would be willing to give up any of their constitutional rights, most of them would respond "Of course not".
    someone once said that tradition is not the worship of ashes but the preservation of the fire and I have the feeling that maybe the second amendment is outdated but as I am not a US citizen my opinion is as irrelevant as that of an Australian comedian

    I think this is a very honest evaluation:

    There is a price to payto me that is more honest than saying that there is no price to pay.

    A former colleague of mine lost her brother during the 2017 Las Vegas shooting. He was a caring single parent of three children aged 15, 12 and 8 years old. To me that is a damn high price to pay.
     
  17. purr1n

    purr1n Desire for betterer is endless.

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    One can argue that the increasingly restrictive gun laws passed in the past 30 years aren't being any more effective. The first time I bought a firearm, I can't remember any hoops I had to jump through. Now in California, I'm pretty sure they would put me through the wringer and I'm sure I can't buy an assault rifle (don't know, laws keep changing). In Michigan right now, you need a permit (with the appropriate checks) and registration.

    The upward trend of people going postal (this term originated from the 80s) start from the early 2000s. I'd say it's the Internet, alienation, income inequality, breakdown of the traditional family structure, declining church membership. Note that I am no means a right-wing family-values and gay-people-go-to-hell kind of guy, but what I am pointing out that traditional avenues of support and community for people who are sad, need to have sex, or need good role models aren't quite there anymore. The Internet is a really shitty replacement for these things and probably has a detrimental effect.
     
  18. Thad E Ginathom

    Thad E Ginathom Friend

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    I'm not picking you on you. Just happens to be the latest instance I'm seeing...

    I'm probably going to start another big thing here (not meaning to! Honest!) but why do I see only "American" and "European" in that conversation.

    There are more places in the world than America and Europe. And "Europe" is a loose alliance of lots of different cultures anyway. And many of our members are of neither American nor European origin
     
  19. purr1n

    purr1n Desire for betterer is endless.

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    I can you tell of a story of a Taiwanese democracy activist before the ruling party (KMT) lifted martial law in 1987. Evidently, he committed suicide by jumping off a roof. Never mind the other injuries which were not consistent with a fall. I remember secret pro-democracy meetings my dad and my grandfather would have with other activists. They were paranoid about the secret police. When I was 7, I asked my aunt about the KMT since there was so much adult talk about the government that I didn't understand. She looked at me in horror and immediately said that the KMT was #1 and would not be so if they were not virtuous. That answer didn't make sense, but it scared the f**k outta me.

    Now, all that is a damn high price to pay.

    Taiwanese natives lived under tyranny from 1949 to 1986. It's different now. There is actually some effort to get people into guns (militia and all that, sounds familiar?), to prepare for the day that Red China invades.
     
    Last edited: Aug 23, 2019
  20. GTABeancounter

    GTABeancounter Friend

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    I really admire your attitude and wish you the best of luck.

    As to your question in bold above: There is no business interest and as such there are no lobbyists doing their thing, at least that is my cynical view of the situation. This is the same reason that climate change denial is even a thing.
     

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