Sifu-
I walk around completely safely in the centre of my home city, in fact my 20 year old blonde 125lb room mate walks back from the bar she works in every night safely. Giving everyone a gun won’t make a safer society! Yes gun crime was on the increase- until the latest figures, but it is only organized criminal gangs who tend to use them, the kind of gangs who the police tend to deal with, as generally the public don’t try and catch drug runners and the like. My friend is a nurse in Liverpool, one of the gun culture cities, they get one or two gunshot victims a week. Now correct me if I’m wrong but most major American cities could beat that quite easily. Theres a lot of people who watch too much MTV Base who think they live in a 2pac-esque ghetto situation but I’ve yet to see it, and believe me I’ve looked for it, hell I live in the poorest district in the country.
Chompsky is right on as usual.
Thunderbolt: You’ve completley missed the point.
Under Clinton, America was well-liked abroad. Clinton was HUGELY popular all across the globe.
After 9/11 America had the world’s empathy. But Bush squandered it and dissed every nation on earth one by one… making us rather quickly the most hated nation on earth.
That’s the record.
Getting rid of Bush will do wonders for our foreign relations.
From what Pyotr wrote:
Who gives a rat’s ass if the rest of the world likes us? This isn’t a U.N. popularity contest.
Vroom, your post sucks. The idea that because it happens elsewhere we shouldn’t be so surprised about it happening here is shitty. It is unacceptable that it happens at all, and America would do well to prevent that or any other kind of attack from happening ever again. As the last remaining super power, we do not conduct ourselves as other nations do, we will not find it acceptable to react to attacks, we must prevent them altogether.
When I lived in the city of Detroit we very much needed a gun in the house or we would have been run up in. One time we did catch someone in our living room we confronted him and told him to get the fuck out. If we had shot him the police would have investigated. The fact that he was inside our home, our last venue of retreat, in a bad neighborhood would have weighed in our favor but it wouldn’t guarantee we wouldn’t have faced criminal charges or a civil suit. Vigilantiism will get you into trouble here. In Britain a few years ago an elderly man living alone in a farm house in a rural area confronted two home invaders in his kitchen. He shot and killed one. He was given life in prison for that. The papers had an article about the thug he shot that described him as a lovable rouge who didn’t deserve to get shot by an old man who was defending himself in his own home, a place where this punk had no legitimate reason to go into. Last year when one of my brothers friends in Wales got raped by her neighbor we told her go to the police. Her reply was “I mustn’t 'is mates will come round me house”. When Tony Blair outlawed guns even for home defense he diminished the ability of the police to maintain law and order, because a lot of people are afraid to go to the police. And you are right John drug gangs there are well armed and dangerous and nobody dares to piss them off. It’s much safer to go after respectable members of the community, instead they won’t have guns. Any statistics that show a decrease in violent crime are questionable, I got this from a Telegraph newspaper article about violent crime statistics -New laws are needed to stop the Government “spinning” official figures to its own advantage, a Whitehall watchdog said yesterday". Freedom from fear of crime is a civil liberties issue. John I am sorry to hear about your uncle, your family isn’t the only one to have lived through the troubles with the US backed IRA. I have a cousin who was working with several of their targets when they blew up Mountbatten, we were very worried. Also several years ago after my mother spent christmas with our family in England she flewback on PanAm flight 103 two weeks later it blew up over Lockerbie. I can’t believe we are letting Qadaffi and Syria get away with that. We should also not forget that 9/11 wasn’t just an American tragedy 180 of the 3000 dead were British.
Back to the point I want to make, Tony Blair is a bit of a facist control freak. After Dunblane he saw the opportunity to make a power grab and he took it, by hyping people up and playing upon their fears. 6 years later when Blair was facing a million peace protestors he did the same thing again. This time he got caught, but people still haven’t realized that he used the same tactics after dunblane. Given Saddams history and the limits of intelligence gathering to warn us of impending danger I think it was very prudent to move on him with the quickness, but I still say this about Blair. Just a few months ago he used a foiled alqeada plot as the pretext for introducing biometric identity cards. What are you going to do when Blair says that the biometric records and cameras one very corner are still not enough to track everyone, we’re going to have to implant everyone with identity and tracking chips. Hitler would have loved to have had this technology. One of the first things Hitler did when he came to power was outlaw guns. Control,is the reason why he did that and it’s the same reason Tony Blair did it right after he came to power.
[quote]Pyotr wrote:
Under Clinton, America was well-liked abroad. Clinton was HUGELY popular all across the globe.
[/quote]
If you think the all of the globe loved clinton, including the ones who are now our most vitriolic enemies, than you are mistaken. The same islamic countries hate us. The europeans who are pissed now will blow over after awhile, time will heal those wounds regardless of who is in power, and we will have taken the fight to our enemies. I.E in a much better situation than we were under clinton.
Sifu-
I realise Tony Blair isn’t exactly doing well at the moment, in fact hes dealt with his latest term pretty poorly, especially when you consider he was one of the best leaders Britain has had, especially when you consider John Major before him. Yes I think it is possible that crime figures could be spin, on the other hand they may not, but unlike CNN and FOX people such as the BBC, the Times, the Guardian and the Telegraph do a pretty good job of seeing through the hype. I won’t, however believe there is some kind of anti-gun conspiracy! Dunblane is a good reason to control guns! A man walking into a school and shooting up kids is what happens when guns too available. They are designed with no purpose other than to kill and injure humans and animals, why give everyone something that is supposed to do that?! It is horrible to hear of the incident in Wales, but intimidation happens all over the world, Britian doesn’t have a monopoly on it, just look at the US trying to intimidate Iran, North Korea, Turkey, tribes in Columbia, Cuba, France, Germany etc. I agree that people should feel safe going to the police, and that is something people are working on. Victims of violent crime are being encouraged to come forward and the police are obviously willing to protect victims. Giving potential victims (everyone) a gun so that a burglary turns into a murder is not the answer, the answer is sorting out the problems that lead to crime. We need to economically pull up the disadvantaged, have a system that deals with drug users and rehabilitates them and instill better values in our kids. I know it sounds idealistic but it happens in many countrys. Sweden, Switzerland, Iceland, Norway, parts of Canada, have suceeded in producing a very safe, well adjusted societys. It will be a challenge for the UK to bring that living standard to 64 million people but we have no choice but to do it, because I’d rather strive toward that than give everyone weaponry!
As to the charge of ‘not getting it’,
“Among people with some commitment to freedom and democracy, such attitudes are inconceivable.”
I get Chomsky’s point just fine. What he is discussing is modern attitudes toward a political label. I’m addressing why it’s ludicrous to think such ‘attitudes’ are ‘inconceivable’ - different standards apply to the label because we live in radically different societies.
He expands his scope beyond linguistic interpretation. Firstly, language is not static. Second, it is measured in a context, i.e., suggesting someone is anti-Soviet Union during the communist years has a much different impact than suggesting someone is anti-American during the 21st century.
What Chomsky wants to achieve is a quick, cheap dig by suggesting that use of ‘anti-(fill in the blank)’ is universally a phrase of the ‘lexicon of totalitarianism’ - in hopes that he can put the US in the same totalitarian category as his Soviet Russia and others.
As an aside to his argument, the fact that Chomsky works at MIT just muddies up his intellectual capital. Chomsky, one of the US’ most outspoken and radical critics of capitalism and war, operates from a comfortable ivory tower paid for by the uber-rich and defense contracting largesse from the US government.
Chuckmanjoe
David Bossie was one of the key hatchet men behind the Whitewater investigation. You may recall we wasted 70 million dollars in taxpayer’s dollars, plus the time and efforts of hundreds of FBI agents, who could have been working on other things (such as terrorism, for example). After 8 years of harrassment and 80 million dollars of taxpayer funds wasted, Clinton was completely exonerated of any wrongdoing, as you recall.
You seem to have a knack for finding the extremist wackos and basing your opinions on their info (NewsMax, David Bossie). I had to laugh out loud when you said Bossie was reliable and unbiased… he’s neither, not by a country mile.
Who’s next, Ann Coulter? What does she think about all this?
[quote]thunderbolt23 wrote:
As an aside to his argument, the fact that Chomsky works at MIT just muddies up his intellectual capital.
[/quote]
Dont trust them colledge boys and their book lernin’! LOL
A lot of you guys have confused nationalism for patriotism. Those are two different things. “America right or wrong” is nationalism, not patriotism. It’s not unpatriotic to question the government. Currently, the Bush administration is in power. It is not uinpatriotic to question Bush.
Opposition to the Patriot Act is not partisan… LOTS of conservatives have problems with it!!!
The Patriot Act was rushed through Congress in the days after 9-11. What we should do now is slow down, and examine the provisions in the Patriot Act in detail, and keep the things that are useful and Constitutional, and drop the things that are not useful or un-Constitutional.
I always hear people demand examples of how their rights were violated by the Patriot Act. If the government is spying on you, you won’t know it! That’s the point!
And even if nobody’s rights have been violated yet, if it can potentially happen, then the Patriot Act should be changed, to make sure it can’t happen in the future.
Exonerated? Clinton was impeached. Hardly something that happens to the innocent, IMO.
Lumpy,
“A lot of you guys have confused nationalism for patriotism. Those are two different things. “America right or wrong” is nationalism, not patriotism. It’s not unpatriotic to question the government. Currently, the Bush administration is in power. It is not uinpatriotic to question Bush.”
It is certainly not unpatriotic for people to question Bush - it’s important to have transparent government and civic audit. It’s even important to Bush - it makes him do a better job (feedback always does).
But dissent must be intelligent, responsible, and honest - and to be frank, there’s little out there than can pull that trifecta.
Also, it’s not the criticism of Bush’s actions that gets labeled anti-American so much as criticism of American values, history, and identity.
For example, Chomsky thinks the US’ evil empire began back as far as when Western ships ‘invaded’ the New World. He thinks the American existence has been predicated on a ravenous imperialistic mindset for centuries. Quite obviously, he does not have a high opinion of what the US stands for - so surely he can be branded anti-American?
Oh, and as for definitions of patriotism and nationalism, I paraphrase a good quote:
“Patriotism is someone having faith in a country you like. Nationalism is someone having faith in a country you don’t like.”
In the US there are a lot of people who don’t have guns, just as there are a lot who do. The criminals don’t know who does and who doesn’t. That uncertainty keeps a lot of things in check. I’m not saying everyone should have a gun, it’s not neccessary. The only thing that would have stopped Dunblane would have been for one of the teachers to have shot that man. Tony Blair made sure something like that could never happen. Another massacre however could happen. That man was nuts without a gun he would have used something else. What would the toll have been if he took a Range Rover and plowed through the play ground? Maybe higher. A year or two ago in Korea a man ran through a subway train with a squeeze bottle filled with a flamable liquid lighting people up he killed 120. I doubt he could have killed that many with a gun. After ww 2 everyone in England had a gun. My father had a gun back then. They didn’t have anywhere near the amount of crime they have now. Tony Blair used the emotions of Dunblane to strip the British people of the power to force democracy on their government. Any time Blair wants to declare martial law he can and the British people can’t do a damn thing about it. Manipulating peoples emotions is a very useful tool for facists. People in Britain and America are being played with this technique all the time. In America the war on drugs is a good example. Of course noone wants to see the people they care about addicted to drugs so the majority went along with it without thinking things through. Every year hundreds of billions of dollars are drained out of the inner cities of America destroying their economy and feeding the causes of addiction. Millions of americans can no longer vote because they have a drug conviction. Over a hundred billion dollars a year is borrowed and spent on enforcement and jails. Yet drug use in America is as bad as it ever was even after 30 years of war and well over a trillion dollars of debt. So I agree with you John there needs to be a realistic policy on drugs that doesn’t create more problems than it fixes. Unfortunately the average voter isn’t thinking any deeper than their emotions. What really needs to happen is for the voters to reject politicians who try to play their emotions. Two good examples of this emotion play is bush wining about gay marrige and kerry’s “I’ll reach out to the international community”. Bush went to the UN and got no love. Gays are a minority that a lot of people hate so bush fans that fire. Though personally I think that if you really hated Gays you would want to see them all get married. It is however a good way to polarize people and divide them. Creating enemies for the people to rally against is an important part of the dictators craft. It’s the oldest trick in the book.
Thunderbolt- I can’t speak for others but we all know what America stands for, its blown in the faces of people accoss the world night and day, correct me if I’m wrong but its free speech, freedom from pain and oppresion, equality etc. The problem arises when those ideals are not met. Do you really think people attack the US just because it is there and powerful? Maybe people are jealous of its position? No, of course not, people like Moore and Chomsky clearly want the ideals to be upheld when they are not being so. The reason I posted that extract is because too many people were being labelled “anti-American” etc. left, right and centre with the implication that not agreeing 100% with the government was somehow shameful. Chomsky points out that that blind following is only ever required by dictators. It is not a dig at America, or Americans, it is a criticism of those who wrongly label.
Sifu- Exactly people don’t think deeply enough, and things such as Fox news and the Daily Mail fan flames and create fear, that is the real problem because it is true, guns don’t kill people, people kill people! BUT I don’t feel like I’m giving up any freedom by not having and instrument of death in my possesion (apart from my deadly karate). Its hard to say whether crime rates are going up because the ways crimes are recorded has changed, the things that are crimes have changed and lets face it statistics can be abused to hell. I just can’t agree that legalising arms possesion is the way to stop crime rising. At the end of the day the US has what, 220 million citizens and between 11,000 and 12,000 gun related deaths a year. Britain has 64 million citizens and around 70 gun related deaths a year. A single shooting makes national news here. Allowing people M-16s and AK-47s is not going to push that figure of 70 down.
[quote]JohnGullick wrote:
Sifu- Exactly people don’t think deeply enough, and things such as Fox news and the Daily Mail fan flames and create fear, that is the real problem because it is true, guns don’t kill people, people kill people! BUT I don’t feel like I’m giving up any freedom by not having and instrument of death in my possesion (apart from my deadly karate). Its hard to say whether crime rates are going up because the ways crimes are recorded has changed, the things that are crimes have changed and lets face it statistics can be abused to hell. I just can’t agree that legalising arms possesion is the way to stop crime rising. At the end of the day the US has what, 220 million citizens and between 11,000 and 12,000 gun related deaths a year. Britain has 64 million citizens and around 70 gun related deaths a year. A single shooting makes national news here. Allowing people M-16s and AK-47s is not going to push that figure of 70 down. [/quote]
What are your property crimes again? Other violent crimes per capita, aside from shootings? And of course, from what I have been reading, there is the ever-worsening problem of gun-toting gangs, whom the police are ill-equipped to deal with.
To know where I’m coming from on this, check the writings of Dr. Dalyrimple.
[quote]thunderbolt23 wrote:
It is certainly not unpatriotic for people to question Bush - it’s important to have transparent government and civic audit. It’s even important to Bush - it makes him do a better job (feedback always does).
[/quote]
Interesting then, that the Bush administration is widely acknowledged to be the most secretive administration since Nixon (and Nixon was considered a kook for secrecy). I’m pretty sure that Bush’s secrecy is the topic of John Dean’s new book “Worse Than Watergate”.
As far as the Patriot Act, Bill O’Reilly challenged all comers to debate the Patriot Act. Libertarian candidate Michael Badnarik took him up on his challenge, but O’Reilly is chickening out:
http://www.badnarik.org/PressRoom/archive.php?p=599
Here’s an article about how resistance to the Patriot Act in Congress is bipartisan, in case anyone didn’t know that:
http://www.hillnews.com/news/051204/patriot.aspx
Ok Boston Barrister, so I’m suggesting legalising guns will not make my country safer and you disagree? Maybe crime rates are rising, even if they are my point stands. This constant criticism of our unarmed police is odd too, especially seeing as many police forces now use handguns, and in the case of airport security semi-automatic weapons.
[quote]JohnGullick wrote:
Ok Boston Barrister, so I’m suggesting legalising guns will not make my country safer and you disagree? Maybe crime rates are rising, even if they are my point stands. This constant criticism of our unarmed police is odd too, especially seeing as many police forces now use handguns, and in the case of airport security semi-automatic weapons.[/quote]
John:
I’m suggesting that your country apparently did a good job of controlling guns when it had a relatively homogenous population that respected, generally, the concept – much like Japan. However, gun control cannot work well conceptually if there is a large, armed criminal class that doesn’t share the same cultural/background respect for that ideal. Britain’s is growing, and illegal guns are becoming more plentiful.
In this case, it may indeed make the country safer for criminals to know the law-abiding population is armed – at least if the experiences of U.S. states and localities that have adopted easier conceal-carry permits and gun licenses are transferrable, which I believe they would be.