3,623 Forum Posts by "Ravariel"
At 2/20/13 02:45 AM, Angry-Hatter wrote: No, that doesn't quite follow. Hypothetically, if a machine could perfectly emulate the appearance of a concious human being, it's not quite reasonable to conclude that the machine (or the program it is running) would in itself be a concious being.
Of course it is. How would it not be? How would you determine that it is a simulation, and not actual consciousness?
It would be like if we could create a machine that could perfectly sythesize the sound of birdsong; even though it's a perfect aural recreation, it's not a real bird making the sound.
Not comparable, because there is evidence of difference between the creators of the sound. Consciousness, unless we define it as a specifically biological or human trait, cannot be differentiated by the individual who expresses it. Consciousness can only be detected through expression and interaction with other consciousnesses. Therefore any expression or interaction that was indistinguishable from consciousness would be consciousness.
.99999.... = 1 and all that.
The same goes for a computer simulating a human being. It might appear human, but only on the surface.
Define "human."
At 2/19/13 08:08 PM, naronic wrote: Do you believe this problem is solvable?
If so what solution would you propose?
Welcome to first-year philosophy. Enjoy your stay.
The problem is solvable, but it is also irrelevant. The only solution to propose is to treat any individual who acts as though they have a mind as if they have one. To assume otherwise begets discrimination, and to take the eventual logical extension: Sociopathy.
The fact of the matter is that, because any individual who exists, who acts as though they have consciousness, must have it, because the definition of consciousness is, effectively, that one appears to be conscious. Yes, it's a tautology, but you can also think of it like this: any perfect emulation of consciousness is (by definition) indistinguishable from actual consciousness. If there can be no difference distinguished, than the two must be equal, thus any perfect emulation of consciousness is, in fact, consciousness.
At 2/7/13 01:27 PM, Korriken wrote: thanks for tempting me to want to get netflix... then again the availability of children shows on youtube is huge too. some shows you can find on youtube mere hours after the new episode airs on tv.
That My Little Pony ain't gunna watch itself.
*hums* winter wrap-up winter wrap-up...
At 2/3/13 02:37 AM, LemonCrush wrote: Also, it's not my fault you took the "no tax" thing as being literal. I've already corrected myself. Gonna keep misinterpreting it?
Oh, so now you're being metaphorical. Greeeeat. Now I get to guess when you're being accurate and when you're being hyperbolic? Cuz you're kinda stretching Poe's Law already.
And yes, regualtion and subsidies raise prices
No, subsidies do not. They directly lower prices. The government gives money to companies to cover profit losses from the lower prices. That's what subsidies are.
Yes, when Ronald Reagan, said that sugar imports were hurting the sugar market. So he said we had to lower the amount we imported. So, this allowed the american sugar companies, with no competition, to charge whatever the fuck they want, because they were the only option. Basically, a monopoly.
Are you confusing subsidies with tariffs?
So, how can liberals say we need to pay more, but most likely would not pay more if it weren't manditory?
Because of psychology. My rent is more important than your roads. Hell, my copy of Dark Souls is more important than protecting you from threats at home and abroad. Because I don't give a shit about you. Just like you don't give a shit about me. We're outside each-other's monkeysphere. You'll never get a nationwide voluntary payment for nationwide programs voluntarily. You may get a good return on a local scale, but why the fuck would I pay for road maintenance in Maine, where I've never been and am never likely to be?
You, yourself have complained that your tax dollars go to things you don't like, regardless of whether or not you use it or will be using it. If you;'re unwilling to pay for things you don't like, what makes you think anyone else would be?
Liberal's are all about raising taxes. So, why don't we just make taxes voluntary, and the liberals can give as much as they want?
If you want the government to go broke and collapse, sure, let's do that.
Stabilize. The country. By bombing them and killing civilians. Steel trap logic there.
Yep. Do you think WW2 was something we shouldn't have assisted in? Do you think we should have let the Germans have their way with Europe and the world? Do you think we should allow terrorist organizations to have control of a country where they can get the means to kill other civilians?
Repercussions. Actions have them. If we didn't kill civilians (accidentally, we never actually target them), then worse things would most likely happen. It is highly likely that more civilians would die if we did nothing than if we actually acted.
Military presence, offensive or not, is still a money pit and does nothing but put our troops in danger. We're not talking Japan here, who has practically no military, or Korea who is an ally. We're talking a presence in a fully hostile society. To compare a presence in non-hostile Japan, to fully hostile Afghanistan is a little ridiculous.
What do you think Japan was after WW2? Sure it's one of our strongest allies NOW. But back in 1946-1950? God no. What do you think an extended military presence in these countries is supposed to foster? It's there to provide aid and training which in turn foments good will among the populace and the government which then engenders alliance.
You keep seeing things too short-term. When you look at repercussions from a few steps back, ramifications become more clear.
Think of a chessboard. If you concentrate on the individual moves, you'll miss the larger pattern and likely lose against a decent opponent. You have to see the whole board. This includes both the local and national politics of the country we're occupying, as well as the relationship that country has with its neighbors, and those neighbors' neighbors.
See the whole board. It's larger than a few civilian deaths.
Do you believe that we should remove ever american military personnel from overseas deployment immediately or not?Depends on the case. But I'd say, in most cases, yes.
Okay, we're getting somewhere now. One step at a time.
Now, say we leave Afghanistan completely. Move everyone out and basically leave them to their own devices: what do you think happens next?
So is spending billions to change things from "probably will kill you" to "extremely unlikely to make you feel bad for a little bit"! Obvs.The fuck does this even mean?
What do you think the FDA and most safety regulations actually do?
Um, no. Govt. intervention is always bad.
We would have no space program without the government. I thought you liked NASA.
At worst it prevents innovation of technologies in an industry (IE auto industry), and at best, creates price hikes/gouging/protectionism.
NASA money has payed for itself several million times over in the innovation and technology created by the government and private corporations working on the government's dime. We wouldn't have the internet without NASA, we wouldn't have cell phones and microwaves, and hundreds if not thousands of other innovations and patents that make life what it is today.
All because of the government.
Also, I pay for my electricity. Not Obama.
Correct. Obama, personally does not pay for your electricity. Congratulations, you got me there. I bow to your superior debating skills.
So, from what power plant(s) do you get your electricity?
For like, the 6th time, things would be much cheaper if there were no subsidies or regulation on, say, power.
Wait, so now you're saying there ARE government subsidies and regulations in power? Is this you "not" contradicting yourself again?
No u.I did. My hypothesis was that schools are underfunded. You said this isn't true. So what is it?
No, you said it was bad teachers causing the dropout rate. You later mentioned underfunding, but that's only tangentially related to the actual cause.
Keep trying, we'll see if you get there eventually.
This is a test. Pass it and we can move on to the real discussion.Fuck your test, cunt.
Awwwww, you hurted my feewings. :'(
Let's keep this civil, now.
The government PHYSICALLY CANNOT pay the cost. In case you didn't notice, the government is currently 16 trillion dollars in debt. They can't pay for shit.
Debt is, really, nothing to the government. It literally prints money. It cannot go broke, and it's debts are inviolable. Government debt is still considered the single safest investment on the planet. There's a reason for that.
And no govt. service is free. It's stolen from one person's pockets, into another's.
Yes, the cost is deferred to others more able to pay for things. However, for the individual who is subsidized (there's that word again, making things cheaper) they don't pay anything for their insurance.
So, the people who can't afford their emergent care should pay for their emergent care? Whut?You do know emergency care can be affordable, right?
Some can. A set bone or a quick stitch, sure. Lifesaving surgery after a bad car accident or shooting? Yeah, notsomuch. Endoscopic surgery, which is the safest, least-invasive, and most effective kind, uses machines that cost millions of dollars to produce and cost tens if not hundreds of thousands to purchase. As does the entire network of nurses, staff and infrastructure necessary for it all to work. You're still in your utopic vision of everything magically being cheaper, without actually looking at the mechanisms or doing the math.
Technology, doesn't need to be expensive. Nor does medicine. Nor do test and procedures. They are that way because of govt. protectionism.
Of course they are. *eyerollie*
It's not hard at all to build an fMRI machine. In fact, it should only cost about 5 dollars. There isn't a vast network of individuals, companies, and procedures necessary to build a large superconducting magnet or anything. Anyone could do it, and it's only the government who keeps those brilliant folks who can make a $5 fMRI machine out of business.
Please.
Man, this is almost too easy. My apologies for extending the derail, but I haven't had this much fun since cellardoor was a reg. Granted he was a bit more of a challenge, but what can ya do?
At 2/1/13 09:29 PM, LemonCrush wrote: I have yet to contradict myself since I've been on this forum.
Of course you haven't. You say everything is controlled by the government until it's something you like (i.e. NASA, or your internet), and then it's completely private. You say you want to keep every cent you make, but still want to pay taxes for some things. You think both regulation AND subsidies raise prices. Yeah, you never contradict yourself. Evar.
I am firm and concrete in my beliefs.
Read: this is the way it is, don't try to confuse me with the facts.
Wow, no. Regulation, yes. Subsidies actually create the EXACT OPPOSITE EFFECT. Subsidies are why we aren't paying $5.00 per potato.Subsidies are the reason we ARE paying double the price of sugar as the rest of the world.
Nuh-Uh!
Anyone wanna bet an whether or not he'll "see wut I did thar"?
Hah! You made a funny.Ok, what do I have in common with Alex Jones? I already posted several viewpoints of his, and I agree with none of them. So please, enlighten me.
Whoooooosh!
Sure they would! Guys like Warforger and Bill Gates have already said they wish their taxes were higher. Many liberals who think taxes should be higher would surely fork over their money voluntarily, right?
No. Well, some might. But certainly not enough to actually cover any expenses. It's psychology. If the benefit is too far away from a person's sphere of notice, they're unlikely to notice or sacrifice their own wealth in order to pay for it. A quick perusal of most basic psychology texts and maybe the Freakonomics blog will illustrate this quite clearly.
Oh...you believe that shit? Remember when he said he was taking us out of Afghanistan? And then immedietly sent 10,000 more troops?
You mean a "surge," which he originally opposed in Iraq, but then saw how well it performed and how it put us in a place to more quickly stabilize the country so we could pull most of our combat troops out? Yeah. I remember. It's probably the reason we're on track to have a similar pullout from Afghanistan by 2014
Military higher ups are saying the plan ("unofficially") is to stay until 2024. But hey, that's just from 3-star generals, and people on the ground there. What do they know?
There's a difference between a military presence and an offensive military presence (it's one of those "grey" areas of "nuance" that you don't handle well... just roll with it). We'll be there forever, most likely. Just like we'll be in Iraq forever. Just like we're still in Korea, and Japan, and many other places. You didn't answer my question, though.
Do you believe that we should remove ever american military personnel from overseas deployment immediately or not?
Um... wat? What is this I don't even...It's pretty self-explanitory. Take your time.
facepalm.gif
So your stance is that nothing can ever be considered safe ever. Got it.No, I'm saying nothing IS safe, so it makes no sense to spend billions funding an organization to guarantee things are safe. Spending billions to guarantee the impossible, is a little ridiculous, yeah?
So is spending billions to change things from "probably will kill you" to "extremely unlikely to make you feel bad for a little bit"! Obvs.
No, there is gray area. America since the Civil War, does not fall into a grey area,
Noooope... never contradicting. Gotcha.
but rather, definitely controlled, restricted and built by the government. And any that managed to circumvent that (IE auto or aviation), quickly fell under the REAL invisible hand, IE government control.
Except the things you like, right. NASA didn't build stuff, private companies did with no government help. Hell, on this very PAGE, you claim that your power, phone and internet are provided by companies completely free of government control and subsidy.
How about YOU come up with why dropout rates out high?
No u.
This is a test. Pass it and we can move on to the real discussion.
There is no such thing as free. Ever. Especially when the federal government is involved.
Where do they pay? In income tax? Because they get all that back at the end of the year. In FICA? Well, no, because that funds other items on the agenda. SocSec isn't it, either. Technically I guess they'd have to pay for the internet or phone connection in order to sign up/make a claim. But everyone who doesn't make enough to pay any income tax will pretty much be subsidized for their insurance. The government will pay their cost.
Who, exactly, should pick up those bills, then?The people who incur them, obviously. Obviously, putting the bill on someone else, causes a huge problem, as we can see. If people can't just pass the buck to taxpayers, they may not abuse the system so hard.
So, the people who can't afford their emergent care should pay for their emergent care? Whut?
It is possible. Was for many years. You go to a doc, he charges you a price, you pay it. No need for insurance, because a check up was cheap. Prices in medicine only started skyrocketing once the government started dictating insurance law.
Riiiight. Because nothing has changed in the ways and means of medicine since the days everyone could afford the very best medical care. There hasn't been a wealth of advances. There hasn't been drugs developed that cost companies billions of dollars to produce, there aren't machines that cost hundreds of thousands of dollars used to do lifesaving tests and procedures. If we just went back to a time when medicine was basically splints and bandages, we could all afford health care and we wouldn't need all this outside help! Brilliant idea!
At 2/1/13 04:36 PM, LemonCrush wrote:With HEAVY subsidied from the Federal government.No.
Hah! Translation: This is how it is, don't you try to confuse me with the facts.
You're being a literalist troll, btw ;)
Being precise is important, because you've been contradicting yourself left and right. We're just trying to lock you down into a single position. Also, forcing you to follow your broad positions into their ridiculous logical conclusions, a sort of reductio ad absurdum to coin a phrase, is an effective tool to make you corner yourself into illogical positions (in which you will inevitably move your goalposts or just deny reality (see above)).
Way to dodge what I'm talking about totally. I'm addressing the fact that subsidies and regulation (they go hand in hand of course) cause prices to rise.
Wow, no. Regulation, yes. Subsidies actually create the EXACT OPPOSITE EFFECT. Subsidies are why we aren't paying $5.00 per potato.
In fact, while I'm not uber-familiar with him, I'd be willing to say I have exactly ZERO things in common with him.
Hah! You made a funny.
We do. The government takes more than "fair". I love how liberals like to talk "Fair", but have no problem taking from others without permission. Why take it by force at all? Why isn't it voluntary?
Because no one would pay. And then society would collapse.
Obama is commander in chief of the US military. He is responsible for everything they do, including civilian casualties. That comes with the territory. Now, if he wasn't a murderous tyrant, he could just, you know, bring the troops home altogether, like he said he was going to.
He is. We're pretty much out of Iraq, and will be the same by the end of his second term in Afghanistan. But I'm sure you'd rather he literally moved everyone out of all overseas posts immediately, right?
ALL GUNS ARE MEANT TO BE DEADLY. A gun that is not deadly is malfunctioning.No, wrong.
Um... wat? What is this I don't even...
So, if there are risks, it should not be deemed "safe", especially when many times, most side effects aren't EVEN KNOWN until years later. Saying there's a dangerous risk, is the opposite of safety, get it? You remember when asbestos was safe? Or DDT?
So your stance is that nothing can ever be considered safe ever. Got it.
Don't give me that shit. The US' market is far more free than controlled or regulated.When? It has been controlled and regulated since day one.
Again with the false binaries. It must be "free" or "controlled", one or the other, and never the twain shall meet. Unless it is completely free, it is completely controlled. This is what I was talking about when I said you were unable to work with enough nuance and context to successfully argue any of these points.
How well funded a school is has no effect on whether a student chooses to drop out.Quality of teachers/education makes all the difference.
Actually quality of teacher (which, I'd love to hear you come up with a metric to measure it by that does not turn into a tautology with your argument here) has very little to do with dropout rate. I'd love to see if you can actually come up with the main causal factor in dropout rates.
It's not a stupid argument, it's the truth. It is now federal law to buy insurance. Which most people don't have, because they cant' afford it to begin with.
The people who can't afford it will get it for free. Your argument is invalid.
I wish indigent medical bills weren't picked up by tax payers. Unfortunately, the govt has set it up, so that they are.
Who, exactly, should pick up those bills, then? (man, this is going to be an amusing ride)
You shouldn't have to pay my bills. Instead of making everyone broke by forcing them to buy something they can't afford, how about everyone in the country just pays for their own bills, end of story. I don't have to pay for you, you don't have to pay for mine.
Ah, the glorious perspective of naivete and sheltered privilege. Would that the world were so rosy and clean that such things were possible.
At 1/31/13 07:07 PM, Camarohusky wrote: If you're looking to say private industry is doing better than NASA, show me a private company that has landed anything on a different planet.
Not to say NASA ain't awesome, because it's about as ball-tinglingly awesome as it gets, but Space-X's Dragon capsule is already successfully ferrying supplies to the ISS and is slated to be hauling human passengers to the ISS within a few years.
People generally misunderstand Government's role in big-think projects like space travel and bleeding-edge research. For shit as big as putting people in space, or shotputting a $2-billion nuclear-powered automated laboratory 354 million miles which provides little-to-no immediate ROI, only Government can fund that. Once they break through, only then can private industry take on the risks of that frontier.
Look at rail. It was an economic risk of epic proportions in the frontier days. No private industry would or could fund such a thing. But once the government paid for the first set of lines, private industry took over and it changed the face of America. Similarly (though it took longer) here, now that government has basically pioneered the technology necessary to explore space, private industry will slowly take over until they dominate and government will move on to the next big thing too risky for private industry.
At 1/31/13 01:16 AM, LemonCrush wrote: Stealing more or less money from someone based on marital status or income, is discrimination. And in America, should not be legal.
There's is NO reason why I should pay a different amount based than someone else based on my financial status.
You're absolutely right! You should pay exactly as much as everyone else, down to the penny. Lesse, how much did Mitt Romney pay in taxes in his last released tax return? About $2million. We don't want to be unfair, so you, too should pay $2million in taxes. It's the only fair way to do it.
No, I'm aware.
Not if you think he drafts legislation, you're not.
I never said anything about socialism.... The current economic system of... economics... is built solely by the government.
You apparently are unaware of what socialism is, also. Please, take some time to do some research (with actual books, not internet blogs), consult some original sources, and talk to some knowledgeable people, because you need some serious expansion in your worldview.
Producers are dictated what they can sell, by the government and consumers are dictated what they can buy by the government. Throw into the mix that the government shields industry from consumer power, and has a favorable attitude toward industry (over the people).
Also amusing: the sheer scale and scope of power and control ascribed to whatever boogeyman someone thinks is responsible for all human ills.
At 1/29/13 12:55 AM, LemonCrush wrote: Raising taxes on corporations is the opposite of equality. If you wanted true equality, you would be supporting a flat tax for everyone, regardless of marital status, work status, income status, etc.
Only in the most simplistic, and naive way is that equality. The world is filled with much more nuance than you seem able to grasp, but perhaps when you're older you'll realize that it is not through numbers that equality is achieved, but rather in impact on an individual or family.
Hence: progressive taxation.
Also, Obama does not believe in gay rights, as he has not drafted or even proposed a single piece of pro-gay marriage legislation. Not a damn thing.
I think you're confused as to the job of the executive branch.
The US has never been a free market economy. Ever. You're talking out your ass, sorry. The US economy is built by the government, not free market economics, and never really has been in it's ~230 years.
You started out right, then skewed back into your tinfoil hat. I do love that there seems to be no room in extremists eyes for anything between pure free market and pure socialism. Watching them desperately shuffle goalposts around is great fun.
At 1/28/13 04:33 PM, Feoric wrote: Everything is bigger and better in America, including our hands. Not to mention the guns.
Also: cocks.
At 1/24/13 10:50 AM, TheMason wrote: So I wonder if we need to reform the EC. What about assigning one elector to each congressional district?
There's actually a push, by republican lawmakers, in several (leaning-blue) states to do just this. It would significantly alter the awarding of their EC's. In Virginia, for instance, where Obama won by carrying 51% of the popular vote, and got all of it's 13 EVs, if you went by district Obama would have only won 4 EVs, and Romney would have won 9.
to the OP: The EC is fine. Only once since 1888 has it not reflected the popular vote (2000). Instead of gaming the system to leverage their 2010 gerrymandering, maybe republicans should widen their tent a bit and actually start representing the views of a larger portion of the electorate. Demographics are changing, and it's going to be even more difficult in 2016 for Repubs (barring an economic collapse) to win (polls currently show Dems strongly in the majority in enough states to reliably win 283 EVs on the reg). With an increasing number of minority and young voters, whose economic and social (respectively) views tend to the left, the Reps need to do some serious soul-searching about where they want to plant their flags.
At 1/11/13 08:28 PM, Korriken wrote: on the other hand, Couldn't it be possible to print 1 or 17 of these coins, deposit them, pay off our debt, then destroy enough currency to bring the inflation back down?
There's no inflation risk because the coin will never be in circulation. It quite literally is a hand-wave that lets the Government adjust it's books by $1T. Yes, it's ridiculous. Yes, it's dumb. But what better way to fight Debt ceiling retardation, than with a set of shenanigans worthy of a Batman villain (Adam West days, not Growly Bale days), made possible by congressional fuckup in the wording of the regulations on the minting of currency. It's practically Shakespearean.
I'm more interested in the possibility of Obama telling Congress to fuck themselves and raising the debt ceiling by executive order which, constitutionally, he would have justification for doing in order to fulfill his duty to the spending requirements of congress. Remember, the debt ceiling does not mean we're spending more, the money is already spent, by congressional order. The President is required to enact the budget put forth by the congress, so paying the bills congress has already racked up is within his mandate.
If congress further proves their inability to be civil human beings, I wonder if the president will have the stones to try that.
At 1/8/13 06:56 PM, SenatorJohnDean wrote: If we allow the government to take away rights to assault weapons, yes, assault weapons, they have effectively enslaved us. Cuz cops and soldiers will still have them, leaving citizens with no way to defend themselves against martial law
If you think that any armed populace has the wherewithal to stand up to the might of the US military, you need to stop watching 80's action movies. One guy with an AK is not going to stop the US government from doing whatever they want to/with him if they suddenly decide they want to go full retard.
The whole "protection against the government" line is fantasy in this day and age.
At 1/2/13 01:49 AM, BrianEtrius wrote: Hey, back from the dead. Well, not really, but something kind of along those lines. How has everybody been?
It liiiives. Now we just need Imperator to show up and it'll be like 2010 all over again :P
At 1/1/13 08:42 PM, Tony-DarkGrave wrote: Just got a new phone my old one died on me, it took 2 years for my Droid X to finally go kaput. now I just got a Droid Razor MAXX. its pretty kick ass, It has 2.0 GHZ proccesor and 1GB of RAM, and the battery life is 24 hours!
Nice. I desperately need as new phone. When used for anything heavier than texting, it has a current battery life of about 30 seconds. 3-year old Blackberry about ready to be put out to pasture. Looking at a Galaxy Note or S3 if I can afford it.
At 12/30/12 03:23 PM, RacistBassist wrote: I honestly don't see what is wrong with allowing a few teachers to be trained under the local police department and be allowed to keep a weapon on them or in a secure location. Allow a few staff members to do this. A lot cheaper then permanent guards if money is a concern, and would be shooters would not know which staff members have the capability to shoot back, so the whole "They'll just go for them first" scenario would not happen. No, I am not saying Israel arms their teachers to deter mass shootings, but look at them. No incidents where the teachers have turned their weapons on their students
I think the sticking point with me is the fact that if it comes to that point, we're simply mitigating failure. I do not believe it is going to be the prime solution, because shootings are done at soft targets, as has been endlessly explained. Unless we mandate a weapon-holder at each and every school, at each and every theater, and at each and every other public location, the whole "good guy with a gun" solution isn't one. It merely shifts the targets around. And a good guy with a gun is powerless against some of the more brutal forms of mass killing. You can't shoot a chlorine cloud, and it's near impossible to stop someone setting off a bomb or suicide vest. As much as Mason has argued that any gun control measure would shift killers to more creative forms of death, I think this might do the same.
Sure, I'll give it a shot. Mind you, these issues are rife with contextual nuance that your simple words gave little hint towards. I fear we'll be running into a lot of category mistakes here, and elsewhere if we get into discussing the actual answers we give, instead of just listing the answers themselves.
Then again, knowing you, that's probably the point: revealing where we make category mistakes and trying to find a way to fix that rhetorical problem. A goal I am all for.
At 11/13/12 12:56 AM, SmilezRoyale wrote: 1. Progressive
Ideally this is a political philosophy that espouses changing with the times, to better reflect the cultural mores, and scientific facts that we learn as we progress as a society.
2. Rights
Those freedoms that we, as a society, have deemed inalienable, or deserved of all people. Rights are not given, but rather taken from those in power, through the power of number, to be spread among the people.
3. Freedom
The ability to pursue your desires unhindered by establishmentary power, until such a time as your desires clash with another's.
4. Equality
Equality of opportunity, creation/ability, or treatment? In a political discussion, these are so often conflated in a way to muddle meaning and get people arguing at cross purposes. However, to me, equality is the notion that under the Law, anything that is not relevant to the decision made by the law should not be considered. I.E. all people are treated exactly the same, all opportunity given is disinterested in anything barring need, and no group or person is denied access to institutions or protections created by those in power. An ideal not yet met in this country (or likely any other)
5. Political Correctness
The unfortunate (and somewhat ironically offensive) growth (like a goiter) on the civil rights movement that declares it a right of the people to not be offended.
6. Partisan / Ideologue
A Partisan is an apologist for most, if not all, of his or her own political affiliation's platform. An Ideologue is someone who fights mainly for a single or small group of issues he or she deems important.
7. Imperialism / Colonialism
Both are means of control by one governmental or cultural authority over another. Imperialism seeks to conquer other cultures in order to bring them under the tent of the empire. Colonialism seeks to insert cultural and political satellites into other cultures in order to civilize them, believing that through guidance the savage people that they are "helping" would see the error of their ways, and that conforming to the colonial empire's paradigm is the better way to go.
8 Socialism / Communism
Socialism is the political philosophy that the members of society who are the best off have an obligation to use their wealth to help those less fortunate. This is done through governmental redistribution of wealth and via large social programs.
Communism is the political structure in which all means of manufacture, distribution and labor are owned by the workers themselves. Considered by Marx to be the final evolution of government whereby the people finally cut out the middleman of government and take ownership of their own collective lives.
9. Regulation / [A] Control
Regulation is the mechanism by which government curbs the more excessive and harmful tendencies of business.
Control is merely the act of containing, guiding or driving something. WIthout more specific context, I can't really give a more specific answer.
10. Tax
The cost of government, society, infrastructure, and safety.
11. Moderate / Centrist
A Moderate is someone who sees good ideas in many different parties' ideas. He or she is willing to entertain any idea, so long as it works, and is a pragmatic solution to the extent problem.
A centrist is someone who sees the real answers as lying between two opposing sides' positions. They believe that political polarization pulls ideals to the extremes, and that the only logical way forward is somewhere between those extremes. Seeks to compromise between sides, rather than pick and choose individual issues about which one side or another might be correct.
12. Extremism
A stance outside of the mainstream, that can often take severe and sometimes violent action in defense of said position.
13. Racism
The belief that there are physiological differences between races that make them better or worse at certain tasks. Also, the discrimination of people based on race or appearance.
14. Feminism
Movement that fought for political, social and workplace equality for women.
15. [The] Economy
The system by which goods and services are traded.
16. War
The act of violent force applied between nations.
17. Politics / Public Policy
Politics is the mechanism by which government works. It is the power play between elected officials by which compromise and legislation are found and passed.
Public Policy is the end result of political maneuvering.
18. Democracy
Rule by the people, literally. The political system that uses the will of the people to determine public policy, law, and all other governance.
19. Science
The search for knowledge through falsifiable, repeatable experiment.
20. Religion
An institution of faith created both as a cultural catalyst, and also as a control structure. The first, and still foremost, agency by which people tried to answer existential questions, and often characterized by a comforting afterlife and/or deity(ies) that guide the paths of the living to some greater goal.
21. Government / The State
Government is those people to whom we delegate the job of running the country, from foreign policy, to water treatment, to school boards.
The State is the overarching entity which the Government runs, and of which the People comprise.
At 12/24/12 05:44 PM, Ravariel wrote: Maybe, but this would be hard to enforce. You and I are old enough to have always been of age when an internet site asked how old we are, but you've seen it.
...always good to actually finish a thought before moving on. What I meant to say is:
"You've seen it when all a website asks you to do to confirm your age is pick a b-day from a dropdown menu, or just click on the "I am of age and consent to seeing adult material" button. No checks, no real security, no way to actually tell if the one doing the clicking is telling the truth or lying. Hell even now, if I need to get past an age block, I'll just leave it at Jan 1 and pick a date somewhere in the '60's or '70's. Just as easy for a 12-year-old to do that s it is for me."
At 12/21/12 12:23 PM, TheMason wrote: * Dum-Dum bullets ARE hollow points and soft lead bullets...they are the MOST COMMON hunting bullets. They are NOT two different things...but the same exact thing. Wiki article
My bad, I was mixing them up with these rounds which turn the insides of whatever you shoot into paste.
* JMHX put up a graphic earlier that showed what type of firearms were used in mass shootings. 'Assault weapons' come in at 35%. Handguns by far ar the most common at 66%.
I wonder if that graph included the number of rounds from each gun was fired or how many fatalities/casualties each gun caused, because there's an easy causal link that I can see that explains those numbers that has nothing to do with lethality. Merely the fact that it's easier to carry multiple handguns, and difficult to carry more than one AR with any efficiency. DOn't get me wrong, I want to keep handguns out of the hands of spree killers just as much as AR's
Furthermore, 'assault weapons' is a broad category that include guns based upon superficialities such as pistol grips on rifles...nothing that really effects the effectiveness of the firearm...nor places it in an assault rifle category as determined by professionals in the field.
You should know me well enough by now, that I'm not about to legitimize false categorization for political purposes. The previous AR ban was silly, poorly-written, and obviously ineffective (the columbine shooters used an AR under the ban). Any classification of an Assault Rifle should be made by professionals.
* Assault rifles do NOT allow you to put more rounds on-target accurately compared to other modern firearms.
Odd, because I can put more rounds on target from farther away in a shorter amount of time with an AR than with a pistol.
In fact the OPPOSITE is true. See the faster you pull the trigger...the less accurate you become.
True for all weapons, but AR's being heavier, and having a stock generally jump less than a pistol of similar gauge, allowing for more accurate fire.
On the other hand: handguns allow the shooter to take the follow-up 'kill shot' you describe.
If you hit and wound with the first shot.
The grim reality supported by the math is the opposite is true.
I think we need to pony up to the fact that we're talking about slim percentages, here. Also, it's more about the round than the weapon. If you put an expanding round into an AR, they are, per bullet, just as deadly as a handgun or hunting rifle. Hell, wasn't it you who said you use an AR for hunting? Now there may be something that dissuades folk from using non-fmj ammo in ARs, maybe that's an area of firearms minutiae where I can fully claim ignorance, but with the same ammo, the math would actually support a semi-auto rifle as being the more deadly weapon at range.
The reality is if Obama and the Dems get their way and pass the AWB...more people will probably die because of their actions. If someone would've picked an assault rifle out of ignorance...but went for a shotgun or pistol instead they will kill more people.
Might kill more people. You act like AR's are perfectly safe and that it's nearly impossible to actually kill a person with it. Then you say that a couple other weapons would be better for slaughter... as if that's a sane reaction. Handguns and shotguns are more easily obtainable. Hell, you aren't even required to be licensed to own a hunting rifle, which is more deadly than an AR according to you. And yet you still haven't answered the burning question that those supposed statistics raise:
Why, then, are they not used more often in spree killings? Why has the AR been the weapon of choice?
* Also...Holmes picked the theater he went to because it did not allow concealed carry. He eliminated three others because they allowed people to pack heat.
MAD may work, but I think there's a better way.
* Troops to Teachers
Sounds like a really interesting program... I wonder why, if it was instituted in '93, I'm only hearing about it now?
* Background checks for individuals: Given that we can use our phones to access the internet, I think we should make it where this is available to individuals selling firearms. Gun shows could have computers that allow access to background checking software. The FBI's NICS should be opened to individuals and not just FFL dealers. I also would not have a problem with having a BATF form that one fills out and sends in as a record of the transaction. It would be CYA for the person selling the gun.
Agreed. Virginia even closed the loophole after the v-tech shooting that allowed the shooter to get his weapons even after his multiple diagnoses of severe mental and emotional problems. More things like this need to happen. Not so much "more" gun control, but just smarter, more comprehensive, and more well-enforced gun control.
* Mental health: I do not believe we should go get checked out by a mental health professional before getting a gun. It would not be effective because it is not like other kinds of medicine. Likert surveys are easy to lie to. Furthermore, it provides a disincentive to get treatement. I know many servicemember coming back from Iraq and Afghanistan who do not seek out mental health because there is this very common urban legend that as soon as you do and get diagnosed with PTSD they will take your guns away.
I think that very issue is at the heart of the social education about mental health that needs to happen. We need to severely destigmatize mental health issues, and educate people on what may and may not constitute a diagnosis that might exclude one from owning a weapon. Mild depression and anxiety may not exclude on, but Bi-polar and antisocial might. Also, the servicemembers anxiety about seeking treatment due to an urban legend is a failure of education on the Military's part. The Military needs to do some serious soul-searching with regards to mental health, because I believe they're one of the worst organizations when it comes to acknowledging and treating people who need it.
Instead, I think there could be a process where people with mental illness are put on a registry depending on the severity of the condition. This would involve the court. It would also be temporary and person's constitutional right could be returned to them depending upon response to treatment.
Yes, exactly this.
Maybe it is time for there to be strict age limits on joining facebook and twitter. Especially given that this closes the door to other problems such as internet predation. It's not a magic bullet...but it's a start.
Maybe, but this would be hard to enforce. You and I are old enough to have always been of age when an internet site asked how old we are, but you've seen it. The internet is a necessarily anonymous place, and being able to tell who on twitter is "of-age" and who is not (regardless of the arbitrary number we may come up with) can be nigh impossible unless the person gives out that information willingly.
And we need to be careful of stepping on the first amendment to protect the second. I think along with the push to educate people and destigmatize mental health issues, we also need to educate parents on the dangers of social media; bullying, predation, exploitation, etc. Just like tightening restrictions on violence in media, we need to make a two-pronged attack: one towards shifting the culture away from our love of violence and our abject terror of all things verbal or sexual, and a second on pushing responsible parenting: where parents engage with their kids, rather than let the TV or X-Box be their baby-sitter... parents who monitor and educate their kids on the values and dangers of social media and media in general.
At 12/18/12 06:09 PM, TheMason wrote: Pretty much shows you don't really know much about guns do you? You do not need extensive training to responsibly use a gun.
Depends on what you mean by "extensive." Every person I have known who has been injured or killed by a gun has been so at the business end of their own weapon. I learned to shoot at an early age, and it's easy for people who have grown up around guns and in a hunting community to forget how long it was until you felt actually comfortable holding and using a firearm. I don't think requiring a licencing and insurance setup similar to what we have for motor vehicles is asking too much. I also don't think that regular psychological checkups are too much to ask. In fact, that ties in with the later suggestion that psychological evaluations should become as commonplace as physicals. If the two go hand-in-hand there is no additional burden placed on the individual nor the license-granter as the information should be ready to go.
Insurance? Really? The vast majority of legal gun owners do not use their guns illegally.
Yes really. A gun's primary function is to harm. We require insurance on other, dangerous, things which have primary functions far away from harm, but we do so because they have a tendency to be harmful fairly often. When your ONLY function is harm, I do not think it is far-fetched to provide an offset to that harm.
Mental health: you provide a disincentive for people to get treatment; when coming back from deployment people are afraid to talk about what they saw for fear that they will have gun rights taken away. Not even the American Mental Health Association thinks this is a good idea.
This ties in also with the increase we need in mental health awareness, destigmatizing, and integrating a full-scale mental health curriculum in our health care and school systems. We need to have a full-court press on mental health, especially of that of our veterans (as MH issues are one of the biggest reasons we have such rampant homelessness among our vet population). This is an area where we need to put a vast amount of our time, resources, and study.
I agree that we need to put more money into mental health awareness. But government budgets are zero sum. 1-7 will take away from 8-9. 1-7 will not save lives. 8-9 at least has a chance.
Not zero sum. We print our own money and borrow at will. There is no shortage of funding.
He's the first person taken out...then his gun becomes another tool for the killer. Now, you let it known that some teachers are armed...but you don't have that info public you create uncertainty. Plus, you don't have to burden the budget with superfolous personnel. And no...adding security would not be that much more to put on a teacher's plate...it's already there. They are already trained in security techniques.
Teachers are already the first target when a gunman enters a classroom. Usually the shootings are relegated to one or two rooms, so that unless the second room just so happened to be the room in which your one teacher with the weapon was in, any benefit from arming the teachers would be for naught. Either the first teacher was armed and got surprised by the gunman and killed first, or the other armed teachers did what the're supposed to do and barricaded themselves in the classroom. In only one scenario would armed teachers actually save any lives beyond the deterrent effect of knowing there were armed teachers... though I hesitate to believe that in communities like the one in Connecticut that it wouldn't be common knowledge who it was that was armed. In larger communities and urban schools this might be more effective.
Learning to aim center mass at someone coming through your classroom door...not really all that difficult.
Says the guy who voluntarily joined the armed forces, and has trained heavily with the weapons thereof for... how long, again?
That's like me saying "learning to compose in sonata form... not really all that difficult."
I mean, can you imagine a new kindergarten teacher gets to school on her first day, fresh out of college, ready to teach kinds their ABC's and how to count being told "That's all well and good, but now we're going to teach you how to kill motherfuckers."
At 12/18/12 06:09 PM, TheMason wrote: The problem here is choice. The body does not chose to contract pneumonia or not. But the mass shooter chooses to commit his crimes. He also chooses his method of destruction. Therefore, magically taking away guns will cause them to substitute something else for the weapon.
Except when we're talking about people with mental health issues, the choice angle becomes much less pointed. We already exonerate people of blame for crimes if they are deemed insane at the time of the act. Do we know ascribe the act of rational choice back upon them because it's an uncomfortable metaphor on an internet message board?
A) Yes HMEs are notoriously unreliable. The problem is there is a broad range of literature published on the internet taking advantage of terrorist experience in two 10 year theaters of guerilla war.
If these were so much more effective and deadly like you say, why hasn't a spree killer actually used any in his attacks?
B) One of the problems with these kids is that parents are NOT paying attention to them. Furthermore, kids at school are marginalizing them...teacher's too. So...it is possible for kids to slip somewhere out in the country to practice and experiment.
So... because it won't catch all of them we shouldn't try? Many parents can miss the inward signs of depression and psychosis, but when Johnny starts testing fertilizer bombs in the back 40, that'll get some folks attention.
I want things to get better too. I agree absolutely. But guess what? I knee jerk policy that will do absolutely nothing to save lives is just as bad as doing nothing.
Except you have no idea that every gun control law will have no effect on gun violence. You assume this from spotty evidence on poorly-written and poorly-enforced laws in a country that is culturally bent on getting around such laws.
Yes...yes it is a zero-sum game. The budget is a competition for a finite amount of government dollars. Every dollar given to the BATF will take away from government health, education, and economic initiatives.
No, it's not. The federal budget is theoretically infinite. We spend billions more than we have already. Adding a few programs might ruffle some libertarian budget-hawk feathers, but I don't really give two shits.
Fuck no. What I'm saying is that gun control offers no real solution. The Democrats are going to pursue an assault weapons ban in January. Guess what? These are guns that, statistically speaking, are used in less than 1% of crimes! They will solve nothing with this legislation. If anything, it will make it worse. People like YOU will force these shooters to adopt weapons that are far more deadly than assault rifles!
I never said I was in support of the AWB, so don't try to lump me in with those that are. I agree it's a ridiculous step that will probably do nothing. However, while ARs are technically less lethal than hunting rifles and handguns, they have a host of advantages that allow them to be very deadly indeed. The first shot may only injure, but killers don't act like soldiers, and are not content with wounding. They don't see it as taking out 3 people with one bullet (the wounded and his two buddies who have to drag him to safety), they see it as slowing their target so they can get a killshot. Less-deadly or not, ARs can put more bullets in a smaller target from farther away with more accuracy than either a hunting rifle or a handgun.
If the AR-15s used by the Newtown killer, the Aurora killer, and the Portland Mall killer are so "non-lethal" then why do people intent on killing keep using them. If there are more efficient ways to do it, then why aren't they being used?
Hint: because they're not.
How many Dylans, Graces and Jessicas need to die? How many 6-year olds are you willing to sacrifice to waste money on policies that have been shown not to work...taking away from programs that address the root cause...just so you can have an illusion of safety?
I ask again, what is your solution. Short-term. Because your suggestions before sound like a 10-year plan to me. 10 years before we see any appreciable change. If our current trend continues that's nearly 1000 people dead because we didn't do anything to curb the violence short-term. If forcing spree killers to use butter knives and sporks is what it takes to curb the violence until our country grows up enough to warrant being allowed to play with the big-boy toys, then I'm all for it.
Now there may not be an increase in trends of violence, but allowing kids with underlying mental instabilities to have access to combat simulators (which Army studies show to increase a soldier's ability to kill) does not seem like a good idea for me.
And that's exactly the problem with substituting "gut feelings" with data.
The thing is, the firearm side will NOT immediately effect any outcome.
You don't know that. You only know that measures taken previously have failed. You assume I advocate such measures in the future. I don't. We have the most lax gun laws of any developed nation. We also have the highest rate of gun crime, gun death (including accidental), and overall violence in that same group. Something can be done. To claim it impossible is cowardice.
Actually...you are assuming what I assume. I am not saying having teachers go out and buy a gun, and bring it to school the next day. They need training.
Having select armed teachers might, might be a partial solution. If you can get a critical mass of teachers to agree, get trained (and I'd include psychological evaluation and training as well), then maybe that would help. WHat it wouldn't help is mass shootings everywhere else outside of schools. Armed teachers wouldn't have stopped Aurora or Portland or Tuscon. And we have more guns per-capita than any other country. As those weapons have increased in number our violence rate has not gone down, so adding more guns to the mix is doubtful to make any positive difference. But in the case of schools, as far as being very soft targets right now, I'd be for some form of armed security, be it teachers or actual security.
As for your point about the majority of spree killers getting their weapons legally is pretty spurious...and is irrelevent to what I'm saying.
Bullshit. 90% of the (somewhat legitimate) arguments of the pro-gun lobby are that gun laws won't stop gun crime, because it is perpetrated by criminals, who already don't follow laws. The fact that these events are directly linked to LEGAL gun ownership is quite relevant.
At 12/18/12 06:50 PM, TheMason wrote: The problem is, the vet/police officer probably misread the tactical situation.
...of course he did. He couldn't possibly be as good at reading a tactical situation as an armchair/internet person with the benefit of hindsight.
As a vet myself...I think a CCW holder had the tactical advantage in this case. But I would be interested in that person's opinion.
If I remember correctly the ensuing panic, smoke and the film itself made the situation far to chaotic to get a good tactical bead on the shooter.
The teacher and/or school district. It would be cheaper than say contracting with local police to provide an officer at the school whenever the school is open.
Cheaper in general, maybe, but it could certainly be an expense the individual teachers or school districts could not bear. Shit, schools already can't afford books and pencils, much less weapons training for their employees. This would have to be a State or Federal level as far as funding goes.
Also, you already have a natural pool of talent in your people who are on the Troops to Teachers program.
Never heard of it. How large is the program?
'Dum-dum' rounds are banned in the military because our intention when using small arms is to injure...not kill.
Expanding bullets are necessary for hunters. So yes...there literally are reasons for them to exist.
That's why I didn't say hollow-points. Dum-dum rounds are so destructive that they're terrible for hunting.
At 12/18/12 10:30 AM, TheMason wrote: Now in the case of Charles Whitman who in the 1960s climbed the U of Tx-Austin watertower with several firearms and began killing people (14), civilians with guns were the key for the Austin police department to save lives.
And yet in Aurora, there was an off-duty police officer or military vet in the audience (I've been trying to find the story but can't), who, due to his training realized that using it would have been more likely to injure innocents than take out the gunman had he had his weapon with him. Defensive options are contextual and varied. In the case of your clock-tower shooter, his position and time of attack gave others the opportunity to suppress him with their own weapons with little danger to innocent civilians. That situation cannot be equated to Aurora, Newtown, or others.
So I really do think that for the sake of our children we should allow teachers to carry.
And who's going to train (and pay for the training of) these young teachers on the safe use, in a combat situation, of these weapons?
I've heard the 'crossfire' arguments or police making mistakes arguments. But I think those are simple thought experiments...and not coming from a knowledge of tactics or the reality of police protection.
There are reasonable security measures that schools can take to defend against these attacks that don't require teachers to have weapons close to the inquisitive fingers of children (many of whom may not have families who teach them gun safety, or are too young regardless of that teaching to fully understand). There are reasonable steps we can take to curtail the ownership of guns by the mentally unstable, or the family members thereof. There are reasonable steps we can take to improve the effectiveness and cultural acceptance of mental health care. My belief is that if we don't endeavor to do ALL of these, and movement made in any one or more of them will be seriously hampered by the failure of the others.
I've said it before and I'll say it again:
1) Make all guns available for people to purchase. No idiot bans on specific types of weapon. Ban Dum-Dum rounds if they aren't banned already, because there is literally no reason for those to exist in any hands. Hell, they're banned in the military already.
2) Require owners to become trained and licensed to use each type of weapon (be it a hunting rifle, pistol, semi-auto assault rifle, or rocket-launcher) they wish to purchase, same as for automobiles.
2b) People must re-up their training, licenses, and psychological evaluations every 2 years.
3) Require owners to purchase insurance for each weapon that will cover the cost of damages or compensation to the family of someone they injure or kill... same as for automobiles. Require full coverage... no such thing as PLPD.
4) Include psychiatric evaluations as a requirement of licencing. Licencing, insurance and psych evals will be paid for by the customer.
5) Have every weapon sold in the US to have their ballistics information added to their registration.
6) Create a national database for registration and background checks, where psychologists, without divulging personal or confidential information, can flag an individual as unavailable for weapons purchase.
6b) Make this registry publicly available so that individuals might be able to see their status and work to get themselves cleared if they want to purchase a firearm.
6c) Include who lives in the household in the information. A person may be denied permission to own a firearm if a member of the household is flagged as a danger with regards to weapons.
7) Create a national database that includes the ballistic information, registration, licencing and insurance status of every gun in the US.
8) Include psychiatric care as a core part of any and all medical insurance packages, and make evaluations as commonplace as physicals.
9) Begin an extensive education campaign, starting in schools, about mental health.
10) Include in school budgets, the money and training for 1 or more (depending on school size) armed security officers.
Teachers have enough on their plates with their own job.. Let's leave security to people trained for security. Other security measures that could help are certainly open for debate and discussion. None of these programs would be terribly cost-prohibitive. Most of the databases will take some capital to start up, but will be able to be maintained fairly cheaply. The infrastructure necessary to do the new licensing will also have a pretty significant startup cost, but after it's implemented it should run on the income from licensees.
At 12/18/12 10:30 AM, TheMason wrote: I focus on the weapons themselves because they are a sympton and not the root cause of mass killings.
Rare and deadly forms of pneumonia are merely a symptom of AIDS, not the root cause. They still kill people. Not curing the pneumonia because it's not a cure for AIDS is, to me, a counter-productive line of attack... or at least not nearly the most efficient. If we can cure the pneumonia long enough for a person to get treatment for his AIDS, then we avoid death rather than sitting back every few weeks wondering at the cruelty of the world with all these pneumonia deaths.
Having lived with a person who was planning one of these, I can tell you for a fact that they will just substitute other means such as Homemade Explosives (HME) or some sort of gas to achieve the same if not greater effect. Both of which are easily acquired despite what many think.
So, you've lived with a potential mass-killer, had your residence broken into on multiple occasions that gave you the opportunity to use a weapon in a defensive setting, were in the military, study sociology particularly with regards to weapons... You're like the goddamn Mary-Sue Jesus of gun advocates.
Also, HMEs are notoriously unreliable. Not only that, the construction of such devices is a much more visible sign of something going wrong than a broody teenager playing Call of Duty.
I mean, it only took one failed shoe bomb to require the entire country to remove their shoes before getting on a plane. One failed underwear bomb to make us get naked and/or sexually assaulted for the TSA. But this is the 68th mass killing using firearms since I've been alive... and yet there has been exactly zero movement to try to avoid them.
On one hand it is a mental health issue. And here is one problem with gun control as the solution: we will spend money to enforce and prosecute the law, hire support personnel for these agencies, build systems to monitor and study the law, etc, etc. This is time, manpower and resources we are diverting from mental health...something that could actually stop some of these from happening.
That's a pretty weak argument. We do need better mental health care in this country. On that I will agree whole-heartedly. But to say that it's some sort of zero-sum game where any and all efforts to curb gun violence will take money directly away from measures to improve mental health is ridiculous. We can do both. We must, otherwise these will continue to happen for far too long before our culture actually changes enough for the phychological solution to have made a difference.
Are you willing to sit there and say that any mass killings that happen between now and when a comprehensive mental health initiative actually gets passed, spread nationwide, and is given the opportunity to work (which, in my estimate would take at least a decade), are simply acceptable losses in the defense of our insatiable need for weapons of harm?
How many Dylans, Graces and Jessicas need to die? How many 6-year olds are you willing to sacrifice to keep every one of your guns perfectly legal with no restrictions whatsoever?
Maybe we need to strengthen our movie ratings code with the force of law. Currently a parent cannot escort an eight year old child into an adult bookstore to buy them porn. Nor can they buy them alcohol (depending on state). Why not make the same rule for R rated movies? Video games?
I am on board for that. What I am also on board for is changing what actually constitutes the ratings. You can kill as many people as you want on-screen, as long as their isn't any red blood and keep a PG-13 rating (look at the Hobbit, decapitations, dismemberment and green Orc/Goblin blood is perfectly okay), but cursing and nudity almost immediately bump the ratings up the scale. I don't think you can even get a PG-13 rating if you show a boob nowadays. You might get away with a male butt, but that's about it.
And I find it kind of disturbing that L&O:SVU can have a story about a guy who rapes children on basic cable during prime time or earlier, but can't say the word "fuck".
And we wonder why our kids grow up to be monsters.
I think we have to be careful here. You're starting to run into the same problem that gun control advocates are, in attributing more to an issue about which you have a personal grudge against than the data suggest. Yes, there are studies that have shown the desensitization effects of violent video games. But there have also been several studies showing no correlation between them and increased levels of actual violence.
Now, I am a gamer. I have beenn playing the hell out of Halo 4 since it came out. I do not want to see these games banned. However, I am not going to let my child play them until I determine they are mature enough. Also, if they have mental health issues I am not going to allow them to have it. Sure they will play at other kid's homes. But they are not going to spend the hours playing it they would if they had access to it in my home.
And that is great. Kids should obviously not be allowed to play a game that is more than their psyches are able to handle. The thing is: video game ratings are the single most-followed rating system there is. There are fewer instances of stores allowing the purchase of M-rated games to minors than any other industry where there is a rating system. Parents, however, much like in the Film examples, are the vector which circumvents this, and needs to change. The problem with video games is in the enforcement. It's one thing to disallow children into an R-rated movie at a theater. How do we keep a parent from buying an M-rated game and letting or encouraging their child to play that game once it is in the home.
Enforcement can only ever be effective on the retail side. Once it gets into the home, education and a serious attempt to change the US culture that loves it's violence and sees little problem with children engaging in the media that spreads it, will be the only way to effect change. Unlike on the firearm side, which is a step whcih can immediately effect the outcomes, media has the added difficulty of being a factor removed by one or two degrees of influence to the final event. To such a degree that giving it any actual causal weight has been difficult if not impossible for scientists.
But to begin, there is an inherient logical disconnect in the anti-gun/concealed carry mentality and argument. On one side you have people, the majority of whom are ignorant of firearms and tactics, saying that police and military should be the only ones to have guns. If we are the experts and have all the training and knowledge...why don't you listen to us when we say things that run counter to your ill-informed 'common sense'?
Because you assume that every gun-owner and gun carrier is as highly trained as a 10-year veteran of the marine corps or police officer, and is also just as moral and stable and reasonable as it is possible to be. As if the act of purchasing a weapon immediately makes one the responsible adult necessary to use it in a reasonable fashion. The fact that the vast majority of spree killers got their weapons legally is visceral proof that that isn't true.
cont...
At 12/17/12 04:46 PM, TheMason wrote: Too bad...maybe then we wouldn't have knee-jerk, factually-challenged calls for gun control every time this happens! Maybe then we could actually do something meaningful to prevent future tragedies! :)
I wonder, then, what you might suggest as the solution. All I have seen is your resistance to anything targeting (no pun intended) weapons themselves, with little to no suggestions for actual action. Two things routinely come up when this shit goes down: guns and mental health. This time, a few fingers have pointed at the media circus, but not nearly enough.
How do we curtail violence, and especially the deadliest violence, that done with firearms, in a country that loooooves violence? How do we change a culture of "shoot first ask questions maybe eventually"?
I wanted to wait a bit until a lot of the knee-jerk reactionary responses had been said and done before I chimed in, and I'd like to remind some out there of some important issues that have yet to come up. I apologize if this is a little more rambling than my usual posts, but my own thoughts on the whole thing are a bit scattered.
First of all, let me say that for nearly every mass shooting that I have been witness to as an adult (from afar, natch), I have been able to understand (not justify, or defend) the motives of the shooter. In this one, however, I am lost. His mother, I understand. Family is often the first in the line of fire for people like this. Familial murder/suicide being the most common, and least expansive examples of mass killing, make my point. But elementary schoolchildren? Usually the target of the shooter is, at least in the shooter's mind, a vector for whatever pain drives them to kill. You lash out at the hand that pains you (Columbine vs bullies, Aurora vs consumerism (?), Norwegian guy vs an oppressive government (again, not justifying or defending)). What drove this kid to travel across town to slaughter children is beyond me. Except for one possibility.
The ONLY reason I can imagine that this kid did what he did in the way he did it, instead of lashing out at someone he felt wronged by, is because he wanted to be remembered. He wanted fame. He saw us dig into every nook and cranny of the lives of the Columbine kids, of the Aurora shooter, of the Norwegian shooter, of the V-Tech shooter. He saw a nation or a world held in rapt attention by the lives of these killers, and he saw the only avenue open to making his life something remarkable.
And yet how to make an impression when mass shootings have become almost passe in America? It's going to be hard to beat the numbers racked up in V-Tech and Norway in such a small town, so it has to be something where numbers aren't the only story. And what better way to horrify, to fascinate, to go down in infamy... than an attack where our most vulnerable should be at their safest?
Now before I go and say that our media culture is somehow responsible for this, or should be held accountable, and that weapon laws have nothing to do with the problem, let me nip some things in the bud. For full disclosure, I have long been an advocate for reasonable gun laws. I do not advocate banning anything outright. My stated preference has been for a licensing system similar to one you have for an automobile, with required training, psychological evaluation, licensing, and insurance, with multiple levels of licenses necessary for different types of weapons (similar to commercial licenses for trucks and taxis). The cost of these would be paid by those wanting the licenses.
A frequent argument against stricter gun laws is that if we outlaw guns only outlaws will have them. That criminals won't give a shit if they're breaking one law, when they're already breaking others. Well, in cases like these, that argument doesn't hold up. The vast majority of mass shootings have been perpetrated by completely legal firearms. Most have been also perpetrated by people with little to no criminal backgrounds. In this case, the limiting of legal firearms would, indeed, have an effect. (no, I'm not advocating the ban of all guns, hold the fuck on and read the whole post)
Another argument I have seen is that Mass shootings like this are so rare (accounting for less than 1% of firearm murders perpetrated per year) that any attempt on legislator's parts to codify a solution in law would be akin to swatting a fly with a stinger missile. There have been 16 mass shootings in the US this year alone, leaving 88 people dead.
Tied to this argument is that of the Second Amendment. Someone in this very thread put the second half of that amendment in all caps, to remind us all that it's the second most important law evar. He, of course, as is the wont of most gun apologists, ignores the first half of the sentence. I'd like to ask what well-regulated militia this kid was a part of, and how he guaranteed a free state?
I have also heard it said that gun deaths are a cost of our freedoms. Freedom isn't free, as some like to say. And I have to ask if this is an acceptable price to you. Are the lives of 20 children slaughtered at an elementary school, as well as 6 educators, the people in whose arms we place the care of those children, worth it? Look into the eyes of the parents of these kids, and tell them that their child was a necessary sacrifice. It's a price I am not willing to pay, personally. Shit like this is too expensive.
But the most insidious argument against re-thinking our gun culture, is the quoting of cherry-picked statistics. People point to places like Switzerland who has a similar gun ownership rate and gun control laws to America, with significantly lower crime rates than us. Others point to statistics that in America you're actually half as likely to be the victim of a violent crime as in, say, the UK. Some point to similar events elsewhere in the world as evidence that different laws make little to no difference in preventing shit like this. Hell, a man in China stabbed something like 22 kids in an elementary school just a day after our own attack. Obviously if crazies can do this with knives, the availability of guns would do nothing to stop crimes like this. Of course, missing in such examples are acknowledgement of the greater context of the statistics and events.
The Chinese attack resulted in exactly 0 deaths. Also, a knife cannot kill multiple people on the other side of a room. There's a reason that people whose job it is to wound/kill other people (or animals) use guns almost exclusively.
Switzerland is an almost entirely homogenous society, with mandatory military service (and training) and a host of other factors that obscure the actual correlation between gun laws and gun crime.
America, per capita, is more violent, by a staggering amount than any other OECD country. We don't just have a culture of gun ownership, we have a culture of glorifying violence. We can watch people getting shot, stabbed and blown up on prime-time television and in movies to which a person of any age can enter without a parent. We are desensitized to violence, and we in turn are a very violent people.
We glorify those who do terrible things. (note that I have not named a single perpetrator, because I refuse to give them one second more consideration than necessary)
We glorify violence in general in our entertainment.
We glorify a tool whose only function is harm.
We demonize mental health problems.
We basically require most families to have 2 incomes, making it difficult for parents to stay home to parent.
We demonize education, intellectualism, science, and fact-based inquiry.
These factors, as well as others, are the reason that we have had 62 mass murders (all done with firearms) in the last 30 years. This is nearly as many as the rest of the world combined in the same timeframe (not counting militia, government, actions).
Forgotten in all of this are the victims. Sure we weep and spout platitudes, but who here can name, without looking it up online, the names of those killed in Colorado? Who can name a single victim from V-Tech? Columbine? Connecticut?
Anyone?
CHARLOTTE BACON, 6
DANIEL BARDEN, 7
RACHEL DAVINO, 29
OLIVIA ENGEL, 6
JOSEPHINE GAY, 7
ANA G. MARQUEZ-GREENE, 6
DYLAN HOCKLEY, 6
DAWN HOCHSPRUNG, 47
MADELEINE F. HSU, 6
CATHERINE V. HUBBARD, 6
CHASE KOWALSKI, 7
JESSE LEWIS, 6
JAMES MATTIOLI, 6
GRACE MCDONNELL, 7
ANNE MARIE MURPHY, 52
EMILIE PARKER, 6
JACK PINTO, 6
NOAH POZNER, 6
CAROLINE PREVIDI, 6
JESSICA REKOS, 6
AVIELLE RICHMAN, 6
LAUREN ROUSSEAU, 30
MARY SHERLACH, 56
VICTORIA SOTO, 27
Remember those names. Not the name of the fucktard who slaughtered them. He doesn't deserve it.
And we deserve better.
So, news broke today of everyone's favorite topic: the financial bailout. The US government will sell it's remaining stock in the Insurance company AIG. The sale, along with repayments made by the company itself, is projected to net the US government $22.7 BILLION in profit.
However, some say that the future tax breaks will offset the profit and turn the bailout into an eventual loser for taxpayers.
I have to admit, this is a better outcome -- even if the naysayers are right and the profit is outweighed by future loss on tax revenue -- than anyone expected. I was one of the grudging supporters of the bailout, saying that it was shameful that it was necessary, but imploding the entire world economy in a few weeks was the obviously worse alternative.
Now that the bailouts have been, for the most part, a success. What are your thoughts on the situation? First GM repays the Government with interest (though the game of chicken the market is playing with GM's stock prices due to the pending (eventually) sale of the governments shares is obnoxious), now AIG nets taxpayers 22billion. Seems to me that these have been a rather astounding success.
As a Michigan resident who has been following the story, as far as local coverage goes, the sporadic violence has, indeed been reported. And, in fact, the reason that Fox is the one reporting it nationally is because one of their own got socked... which I think is kinda funny.
www.mlive.com is a local news aggregator for the southern half of Michigan's lower peninsula. At least 2 of the stories currently on the front page are about protest incidents. Another 4-5 are covering other portions of the RTW story.
The problem with this bill is that the purported goal and the intended effect are quite different. The reason given by the pundits is that it will encourage business who may have found the local union culture too restrictive for their liking. The actual effect will be for union $$ to be severely cut while workers free-ride on Union deals, gaining all of the benefits of Union Membership without paying dues. This, in turn, will pretty heavily diminish the Union's political power... normally focused towards electing democrats (don't forget this was pushed though a heavily Republican State congress, without public input, very quickly). While weakening the unions may, indeed, spur some eventual growth in local investment, that's not the whole story.
two birds, and all that...
At 12/9/12 01:57 PM, adrshepard wrote: I agree. Which is why it seems stupid to believe that raising taxes on anyone encourages economic growth.
Taxes have very little effect on the greater economic health of the nation. Raising or lowering them will do very little for the economy as a whole. Taxes are already at historic lows, and corporate profits are at historic highs. If these things spurred economic growth, we would be in one of the most prolific boom times of recent memory.
Who do you think is paying for their higher wages? Are these greedy business owners simply going to absorb the cost through lower profits, or are they going to raise prices?
Le sigh. Once again, splitting people into false categories. Any boost in pay for workers is shared among all people. They have more money to put into the economy, any boost in price is spread over the entire economy, making the effective impact on any one person negligible. But the benefits given to the workers themselves, their families, and the local economy is much more immediately visible.
There are areas in which unions have overstepped and need to be curtailed a bit, but wages is not one of them.
I don't see how that's relevant.
I know, and that's the problem. Unfortunately I don't have the time, space or energy to educate you about it.
You went off on a tangent on your last sentence.
UI and other means of assistance are linked by their goals and motives. Separating them is not really helpful to the discussion.
I'm not saying basic welfare services for the poor should be cut. The problem is that unemployment benefits are not basic welfare services.
How are they not? They are assistance for people who are unable to find their own ways of paying the bills.
It sucks that your parents can't find work, but how long should society pay them before they start liquidating their assets? Are they driving the cheapest possible car?
Both cars are over 8 years old and paid off, so yes.
Do they have any savings or stock?
Nope, housing bubble bust forced my mother into bankruptcy pretty much guaranteed that.
Do they have anything of value to sell?
Not really, no.
Do they own their own home?
Mortgaged.
Could they sell it, move to a smaller one, and keep the difference?
Not likely.
None of these are pleasant, but you can't expect to go two years without any income and not have to make some serious sacrifices.
Oh, they've sacrificed. Do not think for one minute that they are living high of the government hog. They make ends meet... barely. There is literally no other way that they can do so. They are also not a unique story.
I find that inherently more fair and equitable than forcing someone else, even a wealthy person, to cede some of his income on the basis that he doesn't need it. That decision rests with him alone.
Well, charitable donations have never been able to be tied in any way to the level at which someone is taxed, so assuming that charity will take over where government assistance might be pulled is naive and destructive. Would that we didn't need a government program to help people through tough times because communities immediately stood up and took care of their own, but that's just not the world we live in. Those people best off are often that way because they jealously hang on to every penny possible. They juke the system, use loopholes and offshore accounts in order to avoid paying what might be called the most basic form of charity: taxes. If a person is unwilling to pay for the very things that allow him to get rich (roads, safe borders, a healthy workforce, etc), why would we assume that by removing that, s/he would all of a sudden voluntarily give his money to someone else?
At 12/8/12 12:21 PM, adrshepard wrote: I can call that a blatantly superficial analysis that has no basis in reality. Tell me, what is the economic mechanism that says, other things equal, higher taxes increases economic growth?
Other things aren't equal, and looking at shit in a vacuum is counter-productive.
...someone with average ability isn't going to make it to the top income ladder simply because his family is rich and he went to Dartmouth.
Unions, especially public sector ones, only advance the interests of the employee at the expense of the customer or taxpayer.
I like how you think those groups are completely separate. As if union members were not also consumers or taxpayers.
Nevermind the complete lack of understanding of the greater context and import of the union movement.
Obama's policies, on the other hand, don't appeal to economic rationale but instead to an arbitrary notion that everyone is entitled to a so-called middle-class lifestyle.
And yet the Ryan plan is dedicated to the notion that noone should be middle class, only rich or poor.
People who live an upper-class lifestyle don't have the same right to keep the money they've earned and must redistribute it to others in the form of direct subsidies or expanded government services that people don't really need.
And by what measure do people "[not] really need" them? How do my parents, who live in one of the most economically depressed areas of the entire nation, with an unemployment rate of around 25%, who have been actively looking for work for nearly 2 YEARS not need their unemployment benefits extended? How do families with multiple children, one income and little in the way of education or skill "not need" food/medical/cash assistance?
Your way would leave all of them to their own devices, forcing them to fall back on charitable organizations who are already overburdened. Nevermind there is NO data that says taxes and charitable giving are linked in any way. Tax burdens right now are the lowest they've been in decades, corporate profits are at their highest point in pretty much ever... and yet charities still struggle with what they have in front of them. If we suddenly cut off all of these people from the Federal and State assistance upon which they rely, those organizations would collapse under the demand.
The economic repercussions would crippple the US (and ultimnately the World) economy.
At 12/6/12 06:49 PM, Malachy wrote: stuff
I've kinda been waiting for a "no poli in da lounge"-type thing for a bit, so yeah. I heartily second this notion. Back to bullshitting and posting random shit.
On that note (ba-dum, tssh):
palette cleanser.
