The News Thread

[Onder]

Pretty much



We should just kill the white man then. Toxic masculinity is to blame for it and only white men project that.



Yeah, I mean, they good bois who dindu nuffin after all. They tryna get they life together.





lol quite perceptive of you



We have a heroin epidemic too. Is it a heroin problem?

 

[The Ozzman]

I don't respond to sociopaths

Anyway, say goodbye to Graveland and Nokturnal Mortum:

http://www.breitbart.com/tech/2018/...eft-groups-including-splc-to-police-platform/

 

[Einherjar86]

lol at SPLC being "far-left."

 

[Dak]

Spotify is for normies anyway.

 

[Satanstoenail]

Like I said in a previous post, mass shootings are a somewhat nebulous term, so I'm sure there is some definition of mass shooting that fits the non-gang related criteria, but the common ones I'm familiar with just look purely at the number of people shot within a brief (usually 24 hour) window. If you wish to use narrower criteria that only includes the biggest/most infamous mass shootings, that's fine, you're only boosting my argument by narrowing the number of murders you care about. If there was a magic wand that could be used to cause all intended mass shooters to spontaneously combust before beginning their rampages, the reduction of America's murder rate would not be measurable above noise. If there was a magic wand that caused all intended black murderers to spontaneously combust prior to the act, our homicide rate would be cut in half overnight.

That’s a fair call given that stat but you’d still be out in front and you’d still more mass shootings than any other country and you’d still have a gun culture issue. Do them Dems actually lie about the black murder stat or just ignore it/tiptoe around it?

 

[Dak]

That’s a fair call given that stat but you’d still be out in front and you’d still more mass shootings than any other country and you’d still have a gun culture issue. Do them Dems actually lie about the black murder stat or just ignore it/tiptoe around it?

I've never seen Dems lie about it. They just mostly ignore it, or if forced to acknowledge it they just blame it on racism (through many gymnastics) and poverty.

Please explain what the "gun culture issue" is. Owning multiple guns? Not seeing guns as inherently bad? I'm at a loss.

 

[HamburgerBoy]

That’s a fair call given that stat but you’d still be out in front and you’d still more mass shootings than any other country and you’d still have a gun culture issue. Do them Dems actually lie about the black murder stat or just ignore it/tiptoe around it?

True, but we have other confounding issues as well. We're the only Western nation with a "war on drugs", for example, which creates economic incentives for violent criminal behavior and disincentives for receiving medical treatment rather than robbing some guy for coke money. I'm still of the opinion that the mass shooting issue is not much of an issue when contrasted against tens of thousands of legitimate defensive gun uses annually.

They mostly tiptoe around it, which is what the NRA does regarding gun availability and mass shootings, and still a form of lying. Some Dems do mention higher homicide rates in black communities, but never in the context of explaining our homicide rate. Obama mentioned it a few times during his presidency, but generally would just say that it's "a problem the community needs to acknowledge" or "something the community needs to look into" and other vague platitudes that he was so famously good at. The closest the face of the Democratic Party will come to addressing it in the context of gun violence is by saying that the NRA receives kickbacks from Colt so that white and Asian-owned dealers can push guns in poor disadvantaged black neighborhoods to keep them on the bottom, which is typical class-warfare conspiracy-theory bullshit that implies blacks are mentally incapable of owning guns without immediately being compelled to violence.

 

[Satanstoenail]

Please explain what the "gun culture issue" is. Owning multiple guns? Not seeing guns as inherently bad? I'm at a loss.

America has the biggest hard on for guns of any country by far. You own half of the world’s guns. Guns are far too romanticised and readily available there. You can buy a gun at a department store ffs. Look at the hysterical resistance to stricter laws regarding screening and gun availability every time it's brought up. The NRA has far too much power and influence. Seeing gun ownership as a right because of the 2nd amendment has warped your attitude to guns to the point that you’ve lost all perspective. This 'if only all the good guys had guns we'd all be safe' rhetoric just leads to more and more guns. It's completely absurd from the outside looking in.

True, but we have other confounding issues as well. We're the only Western nation with a "war on drugs", for example, which creates economic incentives for violent criminal behavior and disincentives for receiving medical treatment rather than robbing some guy for coke money.

We have draconian drug laws here also. They don't result in shitloads of gun crime because we don't have shitloads of guns.

I'm still of the opinion that the mass shooting issue is not much of an issue when contrasted against tens of thousands of legitimate defensive gun uses annually.

So never mind all the mass shootings because look at all the lives that have been saved by guns is what you're saying? Do you see how ridiculous that sounds? Are there even any concrete stats on how often the good guy with a gun actually prevails?

They mostly tiptoe around it, which is what the NRA does regarding gun availability and mass shootings, and still a form of lying. Some Dems do mention higher homicide rates in black communities, but never in the context of explaining our homicide rate. Obama mentioned it a few times during his presidency, but generally would just say that it's "a problem the community needs to acknowledge" or "something the community needs to look into" and other vague platitudes that he was so famously good at. The closest the face of the Democratic Party will come to addressing it in the context of gun violence is by saying that the NRA receives kickbacks from Colt so that white and Asian-owned dealers can push guns in poor disadvantaged black neighborhoods to keep them on the bottom, which is typical class-warfare conspiracy-theory bullshit that implies blacks are mentally incapable of owning guns without immediately being compelled to violence.

And now you have Trump wheeling out his 'thoughts and prayers' and 'this has gone on far too long' platitudes every time another mass shooting happens. Lots of people shifting blame and arguing about stats and comparisons and and nothing being done, ever. Except Walmart changing the legal gun-buying age from 18 to 21. As I said earlier, I don't see any way out of this for you guys. There are way too many guns and it's way too ingrained in your culture.

 

[viewerfromnihil]

We have a heroin epidemic too. Is it a heroin problem?

This has got to be one of the dumbest fucking things you've ever said here, and you're a daily basis sort of guy in that regard.

 

[The Ozzman]

This has got to be one of the dumbest fucking things you've ever said here, and you're a daily basis sort of guy in that regard.

I take an opportunity to actually attempt to have rational discourse in one of these threads with you and you squander the opportunity to prove your point? Brilliant. It doesn't really surprise me that instead of actually asking for clarification, you immediately pull the 'HURR DURR OZZ IS DUMMY' card and write off what I'm trying to say because it's trendy to do on this board. What is also not surprising is your brushing aside of my questions posed to you about gun control and my requests for clarification. But, I guess it's easier to just label me an idiot than to actually think outside your liberal echo chamber.

How is the heroin epidemic just a problem with the supply of heroin? I'm being serious. There are people who get addicted to it because they run out of prescriptions to painkillers (that they may need) and then turn to illicit drugs because they get addicted or because the regular drugs aren't enough to kill the pain. Is it a problem with overprescription of painkillers? Is it a general addiction problem? Plenty of people know about the dangers of heroin use and proceed to do it anyway. Is it a problem with an increasingly decadent and degenerate culture? Is it an issue with apathy or complacency? I don't think you can say it's just a problem with heroin just as you can't say that the school shootings are the sole result of a gun problem or gun culture (that doesn't exist just like rape culture)

 

[HamburgerBoy]

We have draconian drug laws here also. They don't result in shitloads of gun crime because we don't have shitloads of guns.

You have an entire continent to yourself. Traffickers in your case are probably largely people trying to sneak drugs into their briefcases at the airport. We border Central America, which overall has the highest murder rate in the entire world (thanks to our drug laws, of course). We also as of yet lack The Wall(tm). Comparing our prisoner rates, I'm fairly certain that our laws are more draconian than yours.

So never mind all the mass shootings because look at all the lives that have been saved by guns is what you're saying? Do you see how ridiculous that sounds? Are there even any concrete stats on how often the good guy with a gun actually prevails?

Again, mass shootings are a tiny droplet. They're one of the least significant kinds of gun violence.

The CDC's estimate of defensive gun uses is around 20-40k/yr. It's not a matter of utilitarian value though. Gun violence can be stopped in many ways, but individual violence can pretty much only be stopped with self-defense, and a gun is the tool which results in the lowest chance of harm when attacked by another. Every person forbidden from defending themselves is effectively being assaulted, raped, and/or murdered in the name of promoting a nicer number on some criminal statistics sheet.

And now you have Trump wheeling out his 'thoughts and prayers' and 'this has gone on far too long' platitudes every time another mass shooting happens. Lots of people shifting blame and arguing about stats and comparisons and and nothing being done, ever. Except Walmart changing the legal gun-buying age from 18 to 21. As I said earlier, I don't see any way out of this for you guys. There are way too many guns and it's way too ingrained in your culture.

I don't really feel a need for a way out. I live in a city where my risk of being a victim of homicide, let alone gun homicide, is lower than most of Europe. So do many millions of Americans. Gun violence is a non-issue in America provided you're 1) not black, 2) not involved in a criminal enterprise, and 3) not a woman in an abusive relationship. Give me a reason to care.

 

[Dak]

America has the biggest hard on for guns of any country by far. You own half of the world’s guns. Guns are far too romanticised and readily available there. You can buy a gun at a department store ffs. Look at the hysterical resistance to stricter laws regarding screening and gun availability every time it's brought up. The NRA has far too much power and influence. Seeing gun ownership as a right because of the 2nd amendment has warped your attitude to guns to the point that you’ve lost all perspective. This 'if only all the good guys had guns we'd all be safe' rhetoric just leads to more and more guns. It's completely absurd from the outside looking in.

HBB is responding sufficiently to the statistics side of things so I won't double up on that. Australia is in no way comparable to the US other than that both used to be British colonies.

I don't see how being able to buy a gun at a department store = gun culture. To begin with, especially now, all one can typically buy at a "department store" are bolt action rifles or shotguns. Still lethal of course, but no one can walk out of Walmart with a Matrix-invading-the-building-Morpheus-was-being-kept-in setup.

I'll agree with you that Hollywood sells people on BIG BOOM POW POW visions of guns, but American movies sell well globally, and those movies are produced by Democrats, so I don't see how that's something specific to the US or to a "gun culture" here.

Only an estimated 35% of American households have guns, with only an estimated 20% of Americans owning guns (ie, the wife doesn't have one but the husband does). Something like half the guns are owned by 3% of those 20%. I don't know what the median number is, so the average is skewed by the previous statistic, but the average number per gun owner is eight guns. Gun ownership per household or per person has been dropping for decades, but guns per gun owner has been increasing. Gun culture has been on the decline if we measure by households with guns, or number of individual gun owners, but affluence and the proliferation of new gun technologies has allowed people who do enjoy guns to have more options. Now, within the last 2-3 years there has been an uptick in the amount of background checks, but those could be for existing gun owners.

Despite the decline in individual gun ownership, based on these estimates of owners, gun crime in the entire US is committed by approximately .0001% of gun owners. The fraction of guns used in crimes is approximately .00003%. If we zoom in on certain locales in the US though, that number can morph dramatically in either direction. In short, I don't see any backing for a national "culture issue". There's definitely a gang culture problem in some areas, which is a different problem with different solutions.

The point about the NRA or the 2nd amendment are separate issues. The NRA is a lobby that works for the interests of its members. They are not an independent monolith. They lose power as soon as they lose the guarantee of translating their endorsement into votes and/or contributions. That is how lobbying works. As for the 2nd Amendment: The US was birthed in part due to civilian ownership of weaponry, and so the continued protection of civilian ownership of weaponry was written into its founding document as an immutable right. That's a powerful cultural artifact. That it looks odd to a people without that tradition isn't curious, and doesn't make those people possessing of some sort of special insight.

 

[Einherjar86]

Calling the NRA a lobbying group is like calling Disney a theme park--neither really captures the extent of what each is. The NRA is a media platform and marketing campaign, and it's loaded (pun intended). It doesn't just lobby on behalf of its members' interests. It produces emotional and rhetorical propaganda on a mass scale.

There's most certainly a gun culture in America, and the NRA is the lifeblood of that culture.

 

[HamburgerBoy]

No, it's definitely a lobbying group first. The creation of propaganda is what any decent lobbying group does. Gun culture in America long predates the NRA, and the NRA began its current existence as a lobbying group in response to an attack on gun culture.

 

[The Ozzman]

NRA began its current existence as a lobbying group in response to an attack on gun culture.

It didn't, but it did evolve into that. It initially began as a club to promote gun safety, training, and shooting matches (grabbing from Wiki).

The NRA is no longer acting in the interests of people who are actually pro 2A anyway. I got a year membership and I'm not renewing this year but I'll probably join some other advocacy group like GOA once the membership expires.

 

[Dak]

I'd agree that the NRA does enough things that I can't endorse that I won't support them with money, but other organizations that ostensibly do (like GoA) are still small enough that they don't bring the clout required for effective lobbying yet. Once I'm making reasonable $$ I'll probably take another look. But the NRA keeps making really bad decisions as it pertains to leadership, and waffling on stupid policy proposals like bump stock bans etc. Overall a really bad look from either direction.

But I still haven't seen anyone describe or define the "gun culture". What are the behaviors? The aesthetics? Etc. Can one participate in gun culture simply by owning a gun? Even if one does not own a gun? Etc.

 

[Einherjar86]

No, it's definitely a lobbying group first. The creation of propaganda is what any decent lobbying group does. Gun culture in America long predates the NRA, and the NRA began its current existence as a lobbying group in response to an attack on gun culture.

It's not this black and white. Although gun rights activism preceded the NRA, the general attitude and understanding of guns and their protection under the second amendment is largely a product of the NRA's involvement in gun rights activism. The hostile mentality between pro- and anti-gun activists stems from the marketing campaign led by the NRA in the mid-twentieth century, when they promoted the ownership of guns by leading people to believe that the government wanted to ban guns, which wasn't the case. The government had taken some regulatory measures, but it was nothing like the totalitarian imagery that the NRA produced. We still suffer the effects of this today, and it reverberates on both sides of the aisle.

Our modern notion of decent, goodhearted gun owners opposing the indecent, gun-denying bureaucrat never had much basis in reality. It was born out of the NRA's marketing campaign to increase the purchase of firearms.

But I still haven't seen anyone describe or define the "gun culture". What are the behaviors? The aesthetics? Etc. Can one participate in gun culture simply by owning a gun? Even if one does not own a gun? Etc.

I think you can define it multiple ways, but for me it's the knee-jerk response from gun enthusiasts that any whisper of legislation means repossession. This conjures a palpable desire for violent retaliation, e.g. "You can have my gun when you pry it from my cold dead hands," which in turn feed gun-owners' sense of general self-righteousness. This is what I think of as gun culture.

 

[Dak]

I think you can define it multiple ways, but for me it's the knee-jerk response from gun enthusiasts that any whisper of legislation means repossession. This conjures a palpable desire for violent retaliation, e.g. "You can have my gun when you pry it from my cold dead hands," which in turn feed gun-owners' sense of general self-righteousness. This is what I think of as gun culture.

Isn't this simply a single issue reflex rather than a "culture"? Otherwise, I might refer to all of the Morts of the US as participating in "anti-gun culture".

 

[Einherjar86]

Culture is an abused term, and one that invites way too many applications; but it's the word that's come into use, and so it serves a general purpose. I'd say something a bit more specific, such as a culture of gun promotion, or gun ownership, or gun enthusiasm. A culture itself is an abstract thing, and is comprised of multiple issues, but for the sake of brevity I'm clarifying what I think is the central issue, i.e. the issue that determines most if not all behavior within what we're calling "the culture."

For what it's worth, if we adhere strictly to "gun culture," then we would have to admit anti-gun activists into "gun culture." In other words, those who support any form of governmental management, whether regulation or restriction, are part of the gun culture. The central idea of "us vs. them," in the specific form that I described in my last post, is what I identify at the center of the "gun culture," and so both sides would be a part of it. What ST is talking about is what I would specify as a culture of gun enthusiasm.

 

[The Ozzman]

But Trump is literally Hitler if he does suspend Posse Comitatus...right guise?!

http://thehill.com/opinion/criminal-justice/389056-mr-president-please-send-the-troops-to-chicago

President Trump, during your presidential campaign you made a promise to send federal troops to drain the swamp in Washington, D.C., and also one festering with feral thugs and gang-bangers who are committing genocide among black Americans right in the great city of Chicago.

I won’t quote you the homicide statistics, past and present, because by the time you read this they will have changed. Suffice it to say: They are horrific.


Something is terribly wrong when, in the most moral nation on earth, its third-largest city is ruled by gangs with a crime rate that is 35 percent higher than the national average.




Wannabe-commandos terrorize neighborhoods, challenging not only local authorities but the very authority you exercise as president of this great nation. The potency of your own presidency is ridiculed when thugs and barbaric criminals take it upon themselves to establish lawless fiefdoms, usurping the law and order on which this republic was built and upon which its continued existence depends, as they kill innocent lives.

I implore you to use your powers to suspend the dated Posse Comitatus Act, which unfairly limits your ability to use domestic militarization to respond to crises, and send in the resources necessary to stem the violence overrunning Chicago. Let me explain why this measure is necessary, starting with my story.

I am a black college professor who came to this country as a legal immigrant from Jamaica 32 years ago with $120 in my pocket. I worked for a year to save enough money for one semester of college, and for four years worked up to 45 hours per week while going to school full time. I graduated magna cum laude and then earned a scholarship to pursue a doctorate in philosophy. Not once did I believe that the state or America owed me anything except a chance to earn a living and pay my way as I journeyed through life.

When I came to this country I promised that, in the name of the best within me, I would cultivate the American virtues of individualism and personal excellence and take advantage of the opportunities that lay before me. These virtues would guide my actions and serve as the only legitimate currency to purchase a life that would be worthy of an American. And I would extend the American ethos of benevolence and goodwill to others, and expected it to be reciprocated. The America I have come to know and love as an American citizen is a country predicated on mutual exchange.

I am sure that there are countless other black individuals who want to make that covenant with America, who want to see the best within themselves be reflected and achieved in their noblest aspirational identities. This is because America can bring out the best in all persons if one chooses to cultivate one’s highest self. But I am pained when my young student from the South Side tells me that he has to drop out of college and join a gang because that’s the only way he won’t get harassed or killed. I am angry when I hear of the young woman who cannot cross the street to catch the bus to get to her university because she has to make herself sexually available to gang members before she can “cross turf.”

We teach, as we should, the values of self-reliance and personal responsibility. But those virtues needs a clean space to thrive and flourish, a place where an innocent 13-year-old Hispanic girl trying to earn some extra money as a babysitter is exempt from having to negotiate with extortionist gang-bangers who extract half her earnings from her under the pretense of protecting her life and her virginity. In Chicago, some neighborhoods are overseen by gangs that ought to be viewed as operators of terror cells, nihilistic institutional organizations that invade the sphere of civilized life. These gangs have declared themselves above the law.

Our city is under siege. It is bleeding to death by thousands of tiny scratches. In this age of nihilism, the American Dream is being executed day by day by the genocidal warfare against black and brown bodies by other back and brown bodies. When each murdered person dies, the dream dies with it. Since nihilism is the belief in nothing, the erasure of all values and the wanton destruction of all foundations out of which value systems arise, it is inimical to reason and to law and order. One cannot reason with nihilists; one must eradicate the nihilists to protect the victims and inoculate the innocent.

So again, I ask that you use your powers to suspend the dated Posse Comitatus Act, which unfairly limits your ability to use domestic militarization to respond to crises. Posse Comitatus makes no mention of the use of the militia, the National Guard, the Navy or the Marines. You can suspend this law and send in the forces necessary to quiet our streets and restore safety to at-risk neighborhoods.

Do not let the fire of our national promise go out, a fire forged in the crucibles of a commitment to erecting order against chaos and barbarity which, if left unchecked, will spread and topple our great republic. Do not abandon the visions, hopes and aspirations of the venturesome young individuals held hostage by thugs. The innocent and the young, the forebears of our future, lie in wait of some emancipation from their feral prison-neighborhoods, which are the only homes they have.

Unleash those troops not to instill fear, but as the insignia of urban civility and order. Do it not just to save black and Hispanic lives. Do it because it is the moral thing to do. All lives matter. You are in a position to save them.

Jason D. Hill is honors professor of philosophy at DePaul University in Chicago. His areas of specialization are ethics, social and political philosophy, cosmopolitanism, philosophical psychology, philosophy of education and race theory.