Haters gonna hate, it's their job:
Haters gonna hate, it's their job:
"The government is a child that has found their parents credit card, and spends knowing that they never have to reconcile the bill with their own money"-Shannon Churchill
Don't worry, Crazy Uncle Joe has the solution! Just don't respect national borders:
"The government is a child that has found their parents credit card, and spends knowing that they never have to reconcile the bill with their own money"-Shannon Churchill
This applies not only within the context of countries being overrun by hostiles, but also within the narrower context of purely domestic social conditions.
I gave the example of England's 2011 riots, which started in Tottenham, north London, spread outwards into nearby Enfield the following day, then began in other cities, lasting for several days. Looting was rife, and in some instances the police were conspicuous by their absence. So it was that stores were looted on a large scale. Effectively unopposed.
Why ?
Because our gun laws are so restrictive that store owners, by and large, cannot own guns. So, the deterrent is missing. Equally, though the police now have armed units, only a small minority of the total police force are so much as gun-trained, much less are armed.
As for the criminal element ... well, it's accepted that there is a great 'cache' of illegal weapons out there in the general population, obtained by criminals and thugs, who obtain them illegally. So much so that police forces, every now and again, grant amnesties within their jurisdictions (sometimes these are also nationwide campaigns) which allow for these weapons to be handed in to the police without fear of prosecution following.
These amnesties are invariably highly effective ! Gun are handed in. AK-47's turn up every now and again. Even rocket launchers ..... !! ....
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/devon/2992149.stm
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-englan...shire-49247301A rocket launcher was handed into Devon and Cornwall police in the last hour of the national gun amnesty.
The British Army weapon was no longer capable of firing rockets, but police say it could still have been used to threaten people.
The three-feet-long shoulder-mounted, 66 millimetre weapon came into Charles Cross police station on Wednesday night.
More than 20,000 firearms have been handed in to police around the country as part of the month-long amnesty, which ended at midnight on Wednesday.
Among other weapons handed in to Devon and Cornwall Police was a rare Second World War spy pistol, which firearms experts want to go in to the force museum rather than be destroyed.
The rocket launcher is of a type first used during the Vietnam war and later in the Falklands War.
PC Provan said it was possibly an ex-serviceman's campaign momento.
The amnesty was introduced after two teenagers were shot dead in Birmingham.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-tees-49261602A rocket launcher has been handed in to police during a two-week gun surrender.
The weapon, handed in to officers in Lymington, Hampshire, was among dozens of firearms left at police stations across the county.
The force said 31 handguns, 12 shotguns, 24 rifles, a deactivated machine gun and ammunition were handed in between 20 July and 4 August.
Two starting cannons from a sailing club and Tasers were also surrendered.
The force said no further information about the person who handed in the rocket launcher would be provided.
There are estimated to be about 15,000 people living the town in the New Forest which is home to Olympic sailor Ben Ainslie.
Those who handed in firearms did not face prosecution for illegal possession and could remain anonymous.
Only criminals (with VERY few exceptions) own guns (& worse) in our society. Everyone's totally dependent on 'the authorities' for their defence. So it is that this psychology is now deeply ingrained in the British.A single-use rocket launcher has been surrendered to police during a two-week firearms amnesty.
The deactivated weapon was handed in to Cleveland Police as part of a nationwide campaign.
The force said 15 firearms including air pistols, active AK-47s and shot guns were given up between 20 July and 3 August.
People surrendering the firearms did not face prosecution and could remain anonymous.
Officers will check each live weapons's history for any evidence of use in crime before safely destroying them.
Last edited by Drummond; 08-10-2019 at 07:41 PM.
It's That Bloody Foreigner Again !!!
I agree with what you wrote regarding guns, obviously both in the sense of individual, country, and in Europe-the continent.
My point though in the OP was about 'group think' might be the best way to put it. You do not suffer from that, though Noir was obviously raised with it. Gun discussion may play a part or may not.
Those that think like Noir look to the US and point, 'Guns, racism, and just so damn uncouth!' Ok, you may agree with that last one, that's the thing about Americans, we really don't give a damn what others think of us.
The second amendment is part and parcel of our Bill of Rights, we do take that seriously. Some think it needs changing, some not so much.
Racism in this country is overblown thanks mostly to the politicians, media, and professors in those ivory towers. It exists, no doubt. For many it stays in their heads and literally makes no difference to others.
Some get along well and like people different than themselves-races, religions, even gays or muslims-only the ones they know.
Some actually feel it's a social justice thing to 'collect' friends for diversity! Not ever considering that is sort of racist in and of itself.
Some just takes what comes their way, at home, work, school. They don't pretend that differences exist, might learn something or not. Nice people are nice; many aren't; some are haters. Life.
I do think @Drummond, what you think of as our left are actually are extreme left for the most part. There are lots of folks that are left of most here, that are not flaky stupid. They don't pay much attention to politics, just like most that vote right. They go to work and raise their kids. They watch tv and beer or soda. Pizza and take out rock their world. A week or two on a vacation and decent holidays make things good.
I do think that our flaky left is growing, certainly influenced by universities. They are working hard at stomping on the 1st and 2nd amendments and indoctrinating that to our kids-those that aren't inoculated by home before being sent there. Truth is, universities have always tried indoctrination-sometimes for good reasons, but mostly for communism and other Utopian ideas-sort of European our universities. In the past though, parents had instilled values well before the kids turned 17 or 18. While most weren't rigorous in church attendance at college, they'd learned the lessons at home and tended to return after college.
Parenting and moral norms have changed, I do think it's leaving the door open to more rapid and complete indoctrination.
"The government is a child that has found their parents credit card, and spends knowing that they never have to reconcile the bill with their own money"-Shannon Churchill
On your 'group think' point ... you describe it well. In fact, back in my teens (before I knew better !) I did suffer from it. I bought all the garbage the Left spoonfed us with, and to an extent I was even passionate about it. But, then ... I observed chaos and destruction, fomented by a REAL manifestation of Left wing politics, filtered into a destructive force courtesy of its incompatability and inevitable clash with human nature. I refer, of course, to Trade Unionism ... and its immense vandalism.
I rebelled against that hateful reality.
I've been rebelling ever since, with my evolved hatred for Socialism undimmed by time (if anything, intensified by its passage).
Noir hasn't rebelled. He swallows propaganda, not even aware that he's doing so, unaware that he's been programmed by societal pressures. I know better than that, which is what separates me from him.
My society is, in its everyday existence, 'anti-gun'; it doesn't relate to gun ownership at all. Yours does. This is nothing more or less than a difference in evolved culture. You had a 'wild West', a 'pioneering' origin, in a new and hostile land. We had none of that. Different histories ... and NOTHING to get judgmental about. Those who do exhibit ignorance.
I can't comment on racism in America, all I AM sure about is that you've made great strides in reversing it over decades (the Rosa Parks incident had a pivotal value). To the extent I can even judge, or SHOULD judge, I'd just say 'good for you'.
On the point of 'Left v extreme Left' ... unless I misunderstand you, I think you may be confirming what I've asserted in the recent past (?) .. which is, our viewpoints around what may or may not constitute 'extreme' Leftieism are markedly different. My understanding of what America has experienced of the Left is decidedly tame compared to the British experience of it, and you may recall I debated with Jim to argue this ... with Jim saying that your Left wasn't so different from ours.
If I paint you a picture of the Left as Britain has known it (and to varying degrees, right across Europe) .. I think you'd balk at that picture, not recognising the extremes I describe as having a correlation with America's experience of it. Obama's 'ObamaCare', for example, is still a far cry from our far more State-dominated and State run healthcare system. Try enforcing 'presumed consent' on organ donation, where your authorities plunder whatever organs they want from newly-deceased bodies, UNLESS the deceased had made officially recorded provision to prevent it ! Our Left, in Wales, pioneered that reversal in our law ... the rest of the UK is expected to follow suit in the coming years.
I've barely started to describe what our Left has done, and what it hopes to achieve, after, of course, the Left has done its utmost to indoctrinate everyone into accepting its changes, its social terraforming of our society. America hasn't as yet felt the reality of full-blooded Socialism. I pray it never does.
You will see what I describe as 'extreme'. To me, it's everyday life. Why ? Because the Left has got away with far more, and for far longer, than is true in America. We are 'terraformed' to an extent that you, are not.
I believe that your Left - in truth - are probably a clone of ours. The difference is that they dare not advertise their very long-term ambitions for America's future, because you're far from ready to swallow it all.
But Obama gave you the weakest of tastes of it. He merely hinted at what's to come .. IF .. the Right ever offers sufficiently weak opposition to help facilitate it.
This is why the support Trump has enjoyed is so heartening, certainly to me. With that being true, your Left has a daily reminder of how far they have to go, in order to make their hoped-for inroads. I believe this is part of why they hate Trump with such vitriol.
He's the perfect antidote for their poison.
It's That Bloody Foreigner Again !!!
I've no doubt that our extreme left is a clone of your left. None. Not so much the union stuff you refer to, though I do remember when it seemed all your industries and services were on strike-I think I was jr. high or high school.
Our left like yours I presume, is all about 'climate change!!!' and the world ending in 10 or 12 or some years. Along with that are all the people, especially 'children' that we've exploited and need to pay reparations to, after we fix global warming or cooling.
The extreme left like yours, is very rooted now in anti-semitism, somehow thinking that's social justice because of the peaceful Palestinians. The struggle is real! From Stanford to Yale. Thus my remark on the ivory towers, it includes most universities in between.
Perhaps because of the diversity in size and population, our extreme left remains small. Their loudness is big, but it doesn't translate to votes. Even with this messageboard that tends to amplify the left in causing or going to cause so much upheaval, even within the Democrat party, the far left does not carry traction regarding policies or votes. Look at who's leading the pack of candidates to this point; Joe Biden. Certainly a goof, certainly right of center, but far from a socialist and pretty hard to defend as an extreme anything. Like Trump's record, he's been all over issues from left and right and still is.
What we don't have a lot of though are centuries of policies and enemies that developed in Europe. We had slavery, it caused deep problems that we are still addressing and likely won't end anytime soon. We have the nation within for the Native Americans, a group that was displaced like many before, but what happened after displacement was a crime. It goes on today on their nation's lands with alcohol, casinos, corruption...
But we don't have the histories between the religions; the wars of old, that keep rearing; the historical prejudices against the Jews, Gypsies, former serfs, unlanded, etc. Talk about privileges! The whole colonial eras-which were more and longer than the US. So many talk about 'the muslim invasions' without recognizing that many were under European powers for a long time.
Moving into modern years, many countries welcomed 'refugees' it's what Europe does. Then they put them into ghettos and even those that are educated are not allowed to find work that is of their level. Shock, they are rising up to undermine the country.
Again, probably because we are a diverse or mongrel nation if you will, we do tend to let everyone rise as high as they are able with work and fall as far as they like without said work. Our safety nets have never been as good as yours, though many think they are still a tad too rich.
We have so much diversity within the 'right' and the 'left' I think it's hard for others to understand. I'm an older, white, female, educated, most of my life middle-upper middle. Yet many that are right are more or less conservative than I. Some on social issues, some on economic. My concerns do not match up with those of a 20 something on a myriad of topics, though we may have some common ones.
I don't match up with all that are the same age and background and sex. It's part of the reason that the polling is so often outside the measure of error.
On the left, it's the same. Lots of the left define themselves broadly, by terms like 'social justice' or 'the environment, including climate change.' Well these terms can denote those that work for the humane society or rescue pets; do missions; foster children or work in adoptions; eco-terrorists; antifa; or organizing boycotts of Israel.
BTW, lots of people on the right also work on some of those topics listed above for the left. A lot.
Most people aren't caught up with foreign policy; bills that are working their way from one house to the other or for signing; haven't heard of 'the squad'; or could tell you about changes in Afghanistan troop levels or that that ISIS is reemerging in Syria and Iraq. They don't know.
We don't have something like Brexit that would cause a 'one side or the other' type of pull/push. It's tempting to say that 9/11 and wars were that big, but most everyone was on board for that, for a short while. Which is how most big things here seem to evolve-unity that rather quickly devolves into partisanship. Obama's election and more importantly his re-election caused a shift. The last one has continued that trajectory.
Some see the shift as a good thing, I'm not one of them.
"The government is a child that has found their parents credit card, and spends knowing that they never have to reconcile the bill with their own money"-Shannon Churchill
"The government is a child that has found their parents credit card, and spends knowing that they never have to reconcile the bill with their own money"-Shannon Churchill
If you also agree that an animals suffering should be avoided rather than encouraged, consider what steps you can take.
It seems you are unable to look at a bigger vision, outside of a narrow prejudice. I'm not saying that to be snarky, anymore than your comment about 'translation.' It's the problem-the prejudice is causing the inability to understand.
Rising prejudices, now acting on those as a bloc, the certainty of the cause, in the long run you will need more than guns and you will.
"The government is a child that has found their parents credit card, and spends knowing that they never have to reconcile the bill with their own money"-Shannon Churchill