What is Wrong with Britain?

Off Topic Politics & World Issues
101

[quote]pushharder wrote:
Cockney Blue wrote:

…In the US you have a gun obsessesd culture. Not everyone, but a certain subset of US citizens equates guns with power, freedom and being American…

This “certain subset” has things pegged perfectly too, no?. By the way, the words “liberty” and “gun” can be used synonymously when used as an adjective to modify “obsessed culture”.

[/quote]

hey I didn’t pass comment on whether I believe them to be right or wrong. Personally I would see being truly free as not needing the gun. If you are only free because you are holding a gun to someone elses head, how free are you?

102

[quote]doc_man_101 wrote:

The murder rate in America has been steadily declining for the last seventeen years while Britains murder rate has been steadily climbing for the last fifteen years. During this period the US has been loosening it’s gun control laws while Britain implemented one of the most draconian gun control laws in the world.

Aha. The old trick of mistaking correlation with causality.

[/quote]

Ha, not so fast.

It is true that correlation does not equal causation, but causation without correlation is pretty much unheard of.

So, while he cannot prove his point, it pretty much ruins the argument that more guns mean more crime because then we would have expected the crime rates to go up with more concealed carry laws, not down.

So, more guns might not mean less crime, but they for sure do not mean more crime which pretty much destroys the argument for gun grabbing and thank you for playing.

104

[quote]FightinIrish26 wrote:
orion wrote:
Did you know that Brits are now expected to inform their government when they leave their country, where they will go to and what they will do there?

That is unfuckingbelievable to me.

And yet, no one talks about this? Is it an American thing to want to have your personal life stay that way?[/quote]

Yes, it is. The UK has no such thing as a Bill of Rights. Heck, the UN declaration of Human Rights is larded with statements to the effect that people only have rights insofar as the state feels moved to grant or revoke them – so in other words they are not rights.

I had a long chat with a very elderly judge who sat on the US Court of Appeals (last stop before the Supreme Court) and he had a very interesting perspective. He claimed that the most important concept was that of privacy but that making a legally acceptable and enforceable definition was, at best, all but unworkable. Therefore, the concept of a bill of rights was better viewed as ways of codifying what privacy for the individual meant.

More to the point, where did all the fascist go after WW II? They are still with us. Fascism is (von Hayek points this out) middle class socialism. The idea that the power of the state should be used for social justice. Unfortunately, this means handing over total control to it and assuming that it will never, ever be abused for any reason (willful or accidental) and that the state will be always be able to perfectly judge just uses of its power.

Which 17th century philosopher was it that said that the problem with theocracies is the moral tone of them and being backed by supernatural terrors? I would argue that unrelenting monitoring by the state is getting unnervingly close…

And as always, I might just be full of shit…

– jj

105

[quote]orion wrote:
So, while he cannot prove his point, it pretty much ruins the argument that more guns mean more crime because then we would have expected the crime rates to go up with more concealed carry laws, not down.

So, more guns might not mean less crime, but they for sure do not mean more crime which pretty much destroys the argument for gun grabbing and thank you for playing.
[/quote]

Nice try, but that wasn’t the argument.

I’m perfectly happy to concede that the gun grabbing legislation in the UK has had a negligible impact on crime - in either direction. Sifu was trying to suggest that it does.

107

[quote]doc_man_101 wrote:
orion wrote:
So, while he cannot prove his point, it pretty much ruins the argument that more guns mean more crime because then we would have expected the crime rates to go up with more concealed carry laws, not down.

So, more guns might not mean less crime, but they for sure do not mean more crime which pretty much destroys the argument for gun grabbing and thank you for playing.

Nice try, but that wasn’t the argument.

I’m perfectly happy to concede that the gun grabbing legislation in the UK has had a negligible impact on crime - in either direction. Sifu was trying to suggest that it does. [/quote]

Well I agree with him , but the point was that “even though correlation does not equal causation”, the causation correlation relationship is such that gun prohibition was at best worthless and at worst harmful.

That is by no means a sufficient reason to take away a right that is considered to be very fundamental by many.

I´d be worried about a government that does that and a population that meekly accepts it.

108

[quote]pushharder wrote:

USA - Declaration of Independence, federal and state constitutions, Federalist Papers, etc. dictate a master = citizen and servant = government relationship.

Britain - master = government and servant = citizen…all in the interest of “security” you see, my good chap.
[/quote]

This is why we talk about public servants in the US. In the UK, a bureaucrat wields an unnerving amount of power compared to his US counterpart and can (and does) often unilaterally instate directives that would require ratification here by state or local governments.

To amplify this, in the US “you have the right to remain silent, anything you say…” means that the state cannot force a confession from you, nor can it try to trick you into self-incrimination (such as by a canny prosecutor). The fifth amendment, in other words, is a strong safeguard from excesses of a state legal system and it is incumbent upon the state to prove every accusation, rather than leave a legal obligation on you to excuse yourself. Remember the phrase “innocent until proven guilty”?

In the UK, however (according to a Police Constable friend) the equivalent is that you must comply with any and every question put to you by an authority. Even if you have nothing to do with the situation, refusal to answer questions is itself a punishable offense.

– jj

109

[quote]pushharder wrote:
Cockney Blue wrote:
pushharder wrote:
Cockney Blue wrote:

…In the US you have a gun obsessesd culture. Not everyone, but a certain subset of US citizens equates guns with power, freedom and being American…

This “certain subset” has things pegged perfectly too, no?. By the way, the words “liberty” and “gun” can be used synonymously when used as an adjective to modify “obsessed culture”.

hey I didn’t pass comment on whether I believe them to be right or wrong.

Maybe not in your prior comment but the in the following one you do. (Whoops?)

Personally I would see being truly free as not needing the gun.

Cock, buddy, that is simply just about the lamest response you could have possibly thrown up here. It’s so absurd I’m tempted to leave it as it stands as a testament to your dimwittedness.

“Not needing a gun,” ie., a mechanism of self defense, is a foolhardy notion from some utopian mindset. Name ONE single instance in the several thousand year recorded history of mankind where man has needed no mechanism of self defense. You must have been high as a kite in your yellow submarine humming Lennon’s “Imagine” while you typed that tomfoolery.

If you are only free because you are holding a gun to someone elses head, how free are you?

You have it backwards, my friend. The innocent free man doesn’t hold the gun to someone else’s head. The criminal does.

Unless you’re indirectly and somewhat figuratively speaking of the free man holding the gun to the head of the tyrant hell bent on stealing the freedom from the free man. In that case one is much more free than the citizen-slave because he then is the master and the government is the servant. Incidentally, I think I see the evident dichotomy right there:

USA - Declaration of Independence, federal and state constitutions, Federalist Papers, etc. dictate a master = citizen and servant = government relationship.

Britain - master = government and servant = citizen…all in the interest of “security” you see, my good chap.

[/quote]

Goes back to the root difference between us. If I need a gun in my hand in order to feel safe then I would not consider myself to be truly free. This is not a comment on whether I need the gun or not, it is a difference of definition of freedom.

I would not want to live in a place that was so dangerous that I didn’t feel safe without a gun. Fortunately I live in Mexico, not somewhere highly dangerous like you do.

110

[quote]orion wrote:
doc_man_101 wrote:
orion wrote:
So, while he cannot prove his point, it pretty much ruins the argument that more guns mean more crime because then we would have expected the crime rates to go up with more concealed carry laws, not down.

So, more guns might not mean less crime, but they for sure do not mean more crime which pretty much destroys the argument for gun grabbing and thank you for playing.

Nice try, but that wasn’t the argument.

I’m perfectly happy to concede that the gun grabbing legislation in the UK has had a negligible impact on crime - in either direction. Sifu was trying to suggest that it does.

Well I agree with him , but the point was that “even though correlation does not equal causation”, the causation correlation relationship is such that gun prohibition was at best worthless and at worst harmful.

That is by no means a sufficient reason to take away a right that is considered to be very fundamental by many.

I�´d be worried about a government that does that and a population that meekly accepts it.

[/quote]

But the point is that they were not really taking away any right that the country at large held dear. The only people who had guns were hobbiest collectors and competition target shooters.

The right to bear arms that was the basis of the 2nd amendment in the US had not been around in the UK for over a century. The law in 97 was a knee jerk reaction to the media frenzy surrounding the Dumblane shootings. All it in effect did was tighten up the 1988 laws that the conservative government had knee-jerked in after Hungerford. It has been estimated that the '97 law effected less than 57,000 people.

The biggest effect was on our Olympic Shooting team who now have to train in the Channel Islands or the Isle of Mann.

111

[quote]Cockney Blue wrote:
pushharder wrote:
Cockney Blue wrote:
pushharder wrote:
Cockney Blue wrote:

…In the US you have a gun obsessesd culture. Not everyone, but a certain subset of US citizens equates guns with power, freedom and being American…

This “certain subset” has things pegged perfectly too, no?. By the way, the words “liberty” and “gun” can be used synonymously when used as an adjective to modify “obsessed culture”.

hey I didn’t pass comment on whether I believe them to be right or wrong.

Maybe not in your prior comment but the in the following one you do. (Whoops?)

Personally I would see being truly free as not needing the gun.

Cock, buddy, that is simply just about the lamest response you could have possibly thrown up here. It’s so absurd I’m tempted to leave it as it stands as a testament to your dimwittedness.

“Not needing a gun,” ie., a mechanism of self defense, is a foolhardy notion from some utopian mindset. Name ONE single instance in the several thousand year recorded history of mankind where man has needed no mechanism of self defense. You must have been high as a kite in your yellow submarine humming Lennon’s “Imagine” while you typed that tomfoolery.

If you are only free because you are holding a gun to someone elses head, how free are you?

You have it backwards, my friend. The innocent free man doesn’t hold the gun to someone else’s head. The criminal does.

Unless you’re indirectly and somewhat figuratively speaking of the free man holding the gun to the head of the tyrant hell bent on stealing the freedom from the free man. In that case one is much more free than the citizen-slave because he then is the master and the government is the servant. Incidentally, I think I see the evident dichotomy right there:

USA - Declaration of Independence, federal and state constitutions, Federalist Papers, etc. dictate a master = citizen and servant = government relationship.

Britain - master = government and servant = citizen…all in the interest of “security” you see, my good chap.

Goes back to the root difference between us. If I need a gun in my hand in order to feel safe then I would not consider myself to be truly free. This is not a comment on whether I need the gun or not, it is a difference of definition of freedom.

I would not want to live in a place that was so dangerous that I didn’t feel safe without a gun. Fortunately I live in Mexico, not somewhere highly dangerous like you do.[/quote]

If you have to have a gun in your hand to feel safe you have power issues, and are not someone I would like to be around, period.

That is not the point. This has been mentioned at least a hundred times, but in effect it goes like this—I am safe all day long, and comfy without a gun. However, I am not truly free because I lack the ability to defend my freedom from those who would take it away. Freedom is not only the will to act as one chooses, but ALSO the ability to keep your will to self-determination from being taken away.

Example–a man breaks into your house at midnight. He has a knife. You have no weapon. Now, you are not free because he holds power over you. Now, if you have possession of a gun, you are in fact free because he cannot force you to his will–you have the ability to defend your powers of self-sovereignty.

I have lived all my life without the need for a gun (in a city, not rural). I feel completely safe without a gun, as do the vast, vast majority of my countrymen. I have no real expectation of ever needing it. However, if I by some freak chance DO need a gun, I have it available to defend myself at home. Brits do not, legally. They lack the ability to defend their will to self-determination, and thus lack true freedom.

(And yes, I do know how to handle the gun, and how to shoot it)

112

[quote]jj-dude wrote:
pushharder wrote:

USA - Declaration of Independence, federal and state constitutions, Federalist Papers, etc. dictate a master = citizen and servant = government relationship.

Britain - master = government and servant = citizen…all in the interest of “security” you see, my good chap.

This is why we talk about public servants in the US. In the UK, a bureaucrat wields an unnerving amount of power compared to his US counterpart and can (and does) often unilaterally instate directives that would require ratification here by state or local governments.

To amplify this, in the US “you have the right to remain silent, anything you say…” means that the state cannot force a confession from you, nor can it try to trick you into self-incrimination (such as by a canny prosecutor). The fifth amendment, in other words, is a strong safeguard from excesses of a state legal system and it is incumbent upon the state to prove every accusation, rather than leave a legal obligation on you to excuse yourself. Remember the phrase “innocent until proven guilty”?

In the UK, however (according to a Police Constable friend) the equivalent is that you must comply with any and every question put to you by an authority. Even if you have nothing to do with the situation, refusal to answer questions is itself a punishable offense.

– jj[/quote]

Wrong, in the UK you have Civil Servants, their proposals become bills which need to be ratified by both houses before being signed into law by the Queen.

Correction two. UK Arrest procedure changed a few years back. The wording used to be ‘You have the right to remain silent’ however now it might be (depending on the situation) ‘you do not have to say anything, but it may harm your defence if you do not mention, when questioned, something which you later rely on in court. Anything you do say may be given in evidence.’

Wasting police time or obstructing an officer in his persual of the law are both offenses though I believe that is also the case in the Land of the Fee.

113

[quote]jj-dude wrote:
In the UK, however (according to a Police Constable friend) the equivalent is that you must comply with any and every question put to you by an authority. Even if you have nothing to do with the situation, refusal to answer questions is itself a punishable offense.
– jj[/quote]

Well, that is another thing that’s changed in the last couple of decades. But even now the caution is (at least, according to the Cop shows; I have no direct experience of it)

“You do not have to say anything, but it may harm your defence if you do not mention when questioned something which you later rely on in court. Anything you do say may be given in evidence.”

Lawfully, then, a jury isn’t entitled to draw an inference from your silence at any point - but if you later build a defence on something you could have told the police when questioned, then you’ve defeated yourself.

Sure, I’d prefer the protections of the 5th amendment; sure I think our historic freedoms are being curtailed every day, but it’s not quite as bad as some would make out.

114

[quote]Aragorn wrote:
If you have to have a gun in your hand to feel safe you have power issues, and are not someone I would like to be around, period.

That is not the point. This has been mentioned at least a hundred times, but in effect it goes like this—I am safe all day long, and comfy without a gun. However, I am not truly free because I lack the ability to defend my freedom from those who would take it away. Freedom is not only the will to act as one chooses, but ALSO the ability to keep your will to self-determination from being taken away.

Example–a man breaks into your house at midnight. He has a knife. You have no weapon. Now, you are not free because he holds power over you. Now, if you have possession of a gun, you are in fact free because he cannot force you to his will–you have the ability to defend your powers of self-sovereignty.

I have lived all my life without the need for a gun (in a city, not rural). I feel completely safe without a gun, as do the vast, vast majority of my countrymen. I have no real expectation of ever needing it. However, if I by some freak chance DO need a gun, I have it available to defend myself at home. Brits do not, legally. They lack the ability to defend their will to self-determination, and thus lack true freedom.

(And yes, I do know how to handle the gun, and how to shoot it)[/quote]

But distilling all of that down, you equate the ability to protect yourself to having a gun.

What happens if the guy has a bigger gun, or a rocket launcher or a tank? Yes I am taking this to the absurd but that is how much of the world views the US gun obsession. In the same way that I rely on a professional baker to make my bread I rely on a professional police force and army to keep the peace. Were I to live in an area where I had no faith in the professional abilities of the police and army I would either get a gun myself or hire bodyguards. Fortunately I don’t.

115

[quote]Cockney Blue wrote:
Aragorn wrote:
If you have to have a gun in your hand to feel safe you have power issues, and are not someone I would like to be around, period.

That is not the point. This has been mentioned at least a hundred times, but in effect it goes like this—I am safe all day long, and comfy without a gun. However, I am not truly free because I lack the ability to defend my freedom from those who would take it away. Freedom is not only the will to act as one chooses, but ALSO the ability to keep your will to self-determination from being taken away.

Example–a man breaks into your house at midnight. He has a knife. You have no weapon. Now, you are not free because he holds power over you. Now, if you have possession of a gun, you are in fact free because he cannot force you to his will–you have the ability to defend your powers of self-sovereignty.

I have lived all my life without the need for a gun (in a city, not rural). I feel completely safe without a gun, as do the vast, vast majority of my countrymen. I have no real expectation of ever needing it. However, if I by some freak chance DO need a gun, I have it available to defend myself at home. Brits do not, legally. They lack the ability to defend their will to self-determination, and thus lack true freedom.

(And yes, I do know how to handle the gun, and how to shoot it)

But distilling all of that down, you equate the ability to protect yourself to having a gun.

What happens if the guy has a bigger gun, or a rocket launcher or a tank? Yes I am taking this to the absurd but that is how much of the world views the US gun obsession. In the same way that I rely on a professional baker to make my bread I rely on a professional police force and army to keep the peace. Were I to live in an area where I had no faith in the professional abilities of the police and army I would either get a gun myself or hire bodyguards. Fortunately I don’t.[/quote]

But the thing is, it doesn’t need to be a gun. Could be a knife (also outlawed in Britain I believe, for personal carry, could be wrong), or whatever. The point is ultimately that you have the ability to curtail whatever attempt is being made on your freedoms. A man that has to rely on others to protect his personal freedom is not free–he is beholden to his protectors and ultimately a sort of pseudo-serf.

The point is that the specific weapon utilized is irrelevant. What matters is the ability to protect your right to self-determination. Frankly, it doesn’t matter one whit to me how the rest of the world views our “gun obsession”. They misunderstand the whole point of it–it’s not the gun itself, it’s the ability to defend your personal sovereignty, YOURSELF, without fear of persecution by the authorities. That’s why someone above said we had a “freedom obsession” instead of a gun obsession.

I have faith in the abilities of the army and the police to keep the peace. I have NO faith, however, that they will respond in time when I need them for my personal protection. Both these organizations act on a statistical level, a population level, not a personal one. They can keep the peace at large and they can prosecute people who break the law, but for any given individual incident they cannot and have never been able to prevent crime when a situation already exists in their absence. By the time they come, you are dead, or your kids abducted, or your house burglarized. They can only react.

This is not to say that they cannot react adeptly, and professionally–certainly most of them are very capable. It is a simple limitation to the way they act. The police station is a mere 400 meters from where I work, and often there is a patrolman or two walking around the bars. They still don’t get to a bar in time to break up a brawl. It’s not possible. That’s why YOU, individually, must possess the capability to defend your own individual sovereignty.

117

[quote]Cockney Blue wrote:
orion wrote:
doc_man_101 wrote:
orion wrote:
So, while he cannot prove his point, it pretty much ruins the argument that more guns mean more crime because then we would have expected the crime rates to go up with more concealed carry laws, not down.

So, more guns might not mean less crime, but they for sure do not mean more crime which pretty much destroys the argument for gun grabbing and thank you for playing.

Nice try, but that wasn’t the argument.

I’m perfectly happy to concede that the gun grabbing legislation in the UK has had a negligible impact on crime - in either direction. Sifu was trying to suggest that it does.

Well I agree with him , but the point was that “even though correlation does not equal causation”, the causation correlation relationship is such that gun prohibition was at best worthless and at worst harmful.

That is by no means a sufficient reason to take away a right that is considered to be very fundamental by many.

I�?�´d be worried about a government that does that and a population that meekly accepts it.

But the point is that they were not really taking away any right that the country at large held dear. The only people who had guns were hobbiest collectors and competition target shooters.

The right to bear arms that was the basis of the 2nd amendment in the US had not been around in the UK for over a century. The law in 97 was a knee jerk reaction to the media frenzy surrounding the Dumblane shootings. All it in effect did was tighten up the 1988 laws that the conservative government had knee-jerked in after Hungerford. It has been estimated that the '97 law effected less than 57,000 people.

The biggest effect was on our Olympic Shooting team who now have to train in the Channel Islands or the Isle of Mann.[/quote]

I get that.

And it scares me.

People with guns do not scare me.

People who do not even care when they are disarmed scare me very much.

118

[quote]pushharder wrote:
Cockney Blue wrote:

I would not want to live in a place that was so dangerous that I didn’t feel safe without a gun. Fortunately I live in Mexico, not somewhere highly dangerous like you do.

Truly LOL. Not just internetzspeak but truly LOL.
[/quote]

Well it was meant as a joke so thank you.

119

[quote]Aragorn wrote:
Cockney Blue wrote:
Aragorn wrote:
If you have to have a gun in your hand to feel safe you have power issues, and are not someone I would like to be around, period.

That is not the point. This has been mentioned at least a hundred times, but in effect it goes like this—I am safe all day long, and comfy without a gun. However, I am not truly free because I lack the ability to defend my freedom from those who would take it away. Freedom is not only the will to act as one chooses, but ALSO the ability to keep your will to self-determination from being taken away.

Example–a man breaks into your house at midnight. He has a knife. You have no weapon. Now, you are not free because he holds power over you. Now, if you have possession of a gun, you are in fact free because he cannot force you to his will–you have the ability to defend your powers of self-sovereignty.

I have lived all my life without the need for a gun (in a city, not rural). I feel completely safe without a gun, as do the vast, vast majority of my countrymen. I have no real expectation of ever needing it. However, if I by some freak chance DO need a gun, I have it available to defend myself at home. Brits do not, legally. They lack the ability to defend their will to self-determination, and thus lack true freedom.

(And yes, I do know how to handle the gun, and how to shoot it)

But distilling all of that down, you equate the ability to protect yourself to having a gun.

What happens if the guy has a bigger gun, or a rocket launcher or a tank? Yes I am taking this to the absurd but that is how much of the world views the US gun obsession. In the same way that I rely on a professional baker to make my bread I rely on a professional police force and army to keep the peace. Were I to live in an area where I had no faith in the professional abilities of the police and army I would either get a gun myself or hire bodyguards. Fortunately I don’t.

But the thing is, it doesn’t need to be a gun. Could be a knife (also outlawed in Britain I believe, for personal carry, could be wrong), or whatever. The point is ultimately that you have the ability to curtail whatever attempt is being made on your freedoms. A man that has to rely on others to protect his personal freedom is not free–he is beholden to his protectors and ultimately a sort of pseudo-serf.

The point is that the specific weapon utilized is irrelevant. What matters is the ability to protect your right to self-determination. Frankly, it doesn’t matter one whit to me how the rest of the world views our “gun obsession”. They misunderstand the whole point of it–it’s not the gun itself, it’s the ability to defend your personal sovereignty, YOURSELF, without fear of persecution by the authorities. That’s why someone above said we had a “freedom obsession” instead of a gun obsession.

I have faith in the abilities of the army and the police to keep the peace. I have NO faith, however, that they will respond in time when I need them for my personal protection. Both these organizations act on a statistical level, a population level, not a personal one. They can keep the peace at large and they can prosecute people who break the law, but for any given individual incident they cannot and have never been able to prevent crime when a situation already exists in their absence. By the time they come, you are dead, or your kids abducted, or your house burglarized. They can only react.

This is not to say that they cannot react adeptly, and professionally–certainly most of them are very capable. It is a simple limitation to the way they act. The police station is a mere 400 meters from where I work, and often there is a patrolman or two walking around the bars. They still don’t get to a bar in time to break up a brawl. It’s not possible. That’s why YOU, individually, must possess the capability to defend your own individual sovereignty.[/quote]

And the fact that you and your countrymen think like that is why you need the weapon. That is the sad thing.