Generational Theory Forum: The Fourth Turning Forum: A message board discussing generations and the Strauss Howe generational theory

Here is the source of the opt-cited stat of a 37% reduction in mass shootings during the ban from 1994-2004:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk...1a66397e54

For his 2016 book “Rampage Nation,” Klarevas collected data on every gun massacre — which he defines as six or more people shot and killed — for the 50 years before 2016. His aim was to see whether there was any change in the number of gun massacres while the 10-year federal ban on assault weapons was in place.

He calls the results “staggering.” Compared with the 10-year period before the ban, the number of gun massacres during the ban period fell by 37 percent, and the number of people dying from gun massacres fell by 43 percent. But after the ban lapsed in 2004, the numbers shot up again — an astonishing 183 percent increase in massacres and a 239 percent increase in massacre deaths.

Klarevas says that the key provision of the assault weapons bill was a ban on high-capacity magazines capable of holding more than 10 rounds. “We have found that when large capacity mags are regulated, you get drastic drops in both the incidence of gun massacres and the fatality rate of gun massacres.”

The opinion is shared among many researchers who study gun violence for a living. In 2016, for instance, the New York Times asked 32 gun policy experts to rate the effectiveness of a variety of policy changes to prevent mass shootings. The roster of experts included violence prevention researchers like Harvard's David Hemenway, as well as more ideologically driven gun rights advocates like John Lott.

On a scale of effectiveness ranging from 1 (not effective) to 10 (highly effective), the expert panel gave an average score of 6.8 to both an assault weapons ban and a ban on high-capacity magazines, the highest ratings among the nearly 30 policies surveyed.

The killers in recent incidents like Las Vegas, Orlando and Sutherland Springs were each able to walk into a gun shop in the days and months before their attacks, and legally purchase their assault weapons and magazines after passing a standard background check. Under an assault weapons ban, that wouldn't be possible.



My comment: Does "prohibition" work? Yes, various degrees of prohibition can have some effect in the matters related to the ban, according to many researchers, though not according to all.

(12-01-2018, 03:38 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: [ -> ]

(11-30-2018, 10:49 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote: [ -> ]

(11-30-2018, 03:18 AM)Eric the Green Wrote: [ -> ]No I am not dogmatic, to the extent that I am willing to compromise with rural people and settle for what I can get regarding gun laws. The right-wing is dogmatic and ruthless on this issue, and on EVERY issue. They insist that urban people MUST have the permissive gun laws that suit rural culture, and are total slaves to the NRA. The Left is mostly not as dogmatic and uncompromising, although some of the Bernie vs. Hillary people have become more so. That's just the political landscape of our time.

So, no, none of what you say is true. Same advice applies to you, I'm afraid. Yes, I am very liberal and set in a lot of my views, but like Obama said, I don't have to demand perfection, I can settle for better. The Parkland students recommend what I recommend, so I am not more dogmatic or fanatical than they when it comes to AR-15s. To insist that weapons of war be taken off our streets does not make me fanatical or dogmatic, even if I don't agree with your constitutional reasoning.

All people on the internet tend to be stubborn in their views; I am not more so than others. So insulting people who have different views is not necessarily warranted, Bob.

Eric, are you familiar with the old American adage/ golden rule of "to  each their own". I assume that you're not or you don't place enough value on it to recognize it or  protect it. Eric, you have to be careful because a serious run in with someone like me would not be favorable to someone like you. As I've mentioned before, I will watch as you're being beaten to death and not lift a finger or squeeze a trigger despite having a weapon with the capability and the skill to use it effectively for the purpose of your defense as well as my own. Do idiot blues deserve to live? Do idiot blues deserve risking lives to save? I don't think so. However, I'm sure that there are many blue who would disagree with me and my view of blues like yourself. Healthcare cost won the House and you're still stuck on gun control.

Fortunately, I don't live in a red state or county. My county voted 72% for Hillary Clinton and only 22% for Donald Trump; the rest going for Johnson and Stein. I don't even remember ever even seeing a gun. I have some Republican neighbors, but I have no evidence that they have guns. I have no evidence that the Republicans in my neighborhood are as fanatic and mean as you say that you are, with one possible exception. I have no fear that someone who opposes my views on gun control is going to shoot me or beat me up because of my views. I live in a more civilized place than you do.

I don't live in a red state or a red rural county either. However, I'm familiar with them enough to know that they're actually more civilized than the urban slums that I've seen that are associated with Democrats. I can see why you don't want lots of legal and illegal so-called weapons of war ending up in the hands of those folks or the hands of Neo-Nazi's. I mean those folks are really mean What would you do if you found out that a lot of your neighbors actually own firearms? I know a lot of my neighbors and customers own firearms. I know Democratic voters who own AR-15's. I know Republican voters who own AR-15's. I know women who own AR-15's. I know there are lots of Minnesota residents walking around neighborhoods and driving around who are armed with semi automatic pistols as well. I know there are over a million Minnesotans who own high powered rifles of some sort. I'm not going to beat you up or shoot you because of your views. I'm not going to enter into harms way or raise a weapon to defend you/ save you because of your views. In other words, I'm more likely to respect your views and remain idle like a good liberal than naturally engage like a good conservative. I doubt God has much interest in idiots.

(12-01-2018, 03:52 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: [ -> ]Here is the source of the opt-cited stat of a 37% reduction in mass shootings during the ban from 1994-2004:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk...1a66397e54

For his 2016 book “Rampage Nation,” Klarevas collected data on every gun massacre — which he defines as six or more people shot and killed — for the 50 years before 2016. His aim was to see whether there was any change in the number of gun massacres while the 10-year federal ban on assault weapons was in place.

He calls the results “staggering.” Compared with the 10-year period before the ban, the number of gun massacres during the ban period fell by 37 percent, and the number of people dying from gun massacres fell by 43 percent. But after the ban lapsed in 2004, the numbers shot up again — an astonishing 183 percent increase in massacres and a 239 percent increase in massacre deaths.

Klarevas says that the key provision of the assault weapons bill was a ban on high-capacity magazines capable of holding more than 10 rounds. “We have found that when large capacity mags are regulated, you get drastic drops in both the incidence of gun massacres and the fatality rate of gun massacres.”

The opinion is shared among many researchers who study gun violence for a living. In 2016, for instance, the New York Times asked 32 gun policy experts to rate the effectiveness of a variety of policy changes to prevent mass shootings. The roster of experts included violence prevention researchers like Harvard's David Hemenway, as well as more ideologically driven gun rights advocates like John Lott.

On a scale of effectiveness ranging from 1 (not effective) to 10 (highly effective), the expert panel gave an average score of 6.8 to both an assault weapons ban and a ban on high-capacity magazines, the highest ratings among the nearly 30 policies surveyed.

The killers in recent incidents like Las Vegas, Orlando and Sutherland Springs were each able to walk into a gun shop in the days and months before their attacks, and legally purchase their assault weapons and magazines after passing a standard background check. Under an assault weapons ban, that wouldn't be possible.



My comment: Does "prohibition" work? Yes, various degrees of prohibition can have some effect in the matters related to the ban, according to many researchers, though not according to all.

Well, if you were to simply look at the charts you presented and take nothing else into account as far as social/cultural changes then one could/would see it/view it your way pretty easily.

(12-02-2018, 05:22 AM)Classic-Xer Wrote: [ -> ]

(12-01-2018, 03:52 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: [ -> ]Here is the source of the opt-cited stat of a 37% reduction in mass shootings during the ban from 1994-2004:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk...1a66397e54

For his 2016 book “Rampage Nation,” Klarevas collected data on every gun massacre — which he defines as six or more people shot and killed — for the 50 years before 2016. His aim was to see whether there was any change in the number of gun massacres while the 10-year federal ban on assault weapons was in place.

He calls the results “staggering.” Compared with the 10-year period before the ban, the number of gun massacres during the ban period fell by 37 percent, and the number of people dying from gun massacres fell by 43 percent. But after the ban lapsed in 2004, the numbers shot up again — an astonishing 183 percent increase in massacres and a 239 percent increase in massacre deaths.

Klarevas says that the key provision of the assault weapons bill was a ban on high-capacity magazines capable of holding more than 10 rounds. “We have found that when large capacity mags are regulated, you get drastic drops in both the incidence of gun massacres and the fatality rate of gun massacres.”

The opinion is shared among many researchers who study gun violence for a living. In 2016, for instance, the New York Times asked 32 gun policy experts to rate the effectiveness of a variety of policy changes to prevent mass shootings. The roster of experts included violence prevention researchers like Harvard's David Hemenway, as well as more ideologically driven gun rights advocates like John Lott.

On a scale of effectiveness ranging from 1 (not effective) to 10 (highly effective), the expert panel gave an average score of 6.8 to both an assault weapons ban and a ban on high-capacity magazines, the highest ratings among the nearly 30 policies surveyed.

The killers in recent incidents like Las Vegas, Orlando and Sutherland Springs were each able to walk into a gun shop in the days and months before their attacks, and legally purchase their assault weapons and magazines after passing a standard background check. Under an assault weapons ban, that wouldn't be possible.



My comment: Does "prohibition" work? Yes, various degrees of prohibition can have some effect in the matters related to the ban, according to many researchers, though not according to all.

Well, if you were to simply look at the charts you presented and take nothing else into account as far as social/cultural changes then one could/would see it/view it your way pretty easily.

So what are the "social/cultural" changes?

Massacre weapons are for military use, and not civilian use. Wiping out an SS detachment or a Vietcong platoon is a legitimate objective at times in war. Soldiers are under rigid discipline with prescribed rules of engagement. Someone who wants to wipe out a second-grade classroom, his workplace, a movie theater, or a restaurant operates with no rules in place or in contempt for the normal decencies.

Maybe we need to find aggressive ways of approaching and treating people who might be dangerous. Anorexia in males is far rarer than in females, but several of the male shooters seem anorexic. Maybe the combination of anorexia and testosterone is particularly dangerous. So if one is to have a firearm, one had better be certifiably fit, mentally and physically. Maybe there is something to the "lean and hungry look".

(12-02-2018, 09:05 AM)pbrower2a Wrote: [ -> ]

(12-02-2018, 05:22 AM)Classic-Xer Wrote: [ -> ]

(12-01-2018, 03:52 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: [ -> ]My comment: Does "prohibition" work? Yes, various degrees of prohibition can have some effect in the matters related to the ban, according to many researchers, though not according to all.

Well, if you were to simply look at the charts you presented and take nothing else into account as far as social/cultural changes then one could/would see it/view it your way pretty easily.

So what are the "social/cultural" changes?

I would be curious too. Suicides are more commonly abusing weapons recently. A while ago, many more people believed in the Jim Crow interpretation, that only government employees have a right. That was all they taught in the law schools for years. The standard model academic research is only a few decades old. The NRA and the gun issue have become far more politicized, with the Brady center following suit . Still, the red valuing of weapons and rural uses of them are quite old. I don't doubt that the issue has changed recently. It has. But which aspects do you consider as changing most?

(12-02-2018, 05:06 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: [ -> ]

(12-02-2018, 09:05 AM)pbrower2a Wrote: [ -> ]

(12-02-2018, 05:22 AM)Classic-Xer Wrote: [ -> ]

(12-01-2018, 03:52 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: [ -> ]My comment: Does "prohibition" work? Yes, various degrees of prohibition can have some effect in the matters related to the ban, according to many researchers, though not according to all.

Well, if you were to simply look at the charts you presented and take nothing else into account as far as social/cultural changes then one could/would see it/view it your way pretty easily.

So what are the "social/cultural" changes?

I would be curious too.  Suicides are more commonly abusing weapons recently.  A while ago, many more people believed in the Jim Crow interpretation, that only government employees have a right.  That was all they taught in the law schools for years.  The standard model academic research is only a few decades old.  The NRA and the gun issue have become far more politicized, with the Brady center following suit .  Still, the red valuing of weapons and rural uses of them are quite old.  I don't doubt that the issue has changed recently.  It has.  But which aspects do you consider as changing most?

1. Economic inequality is becoming more severe. The divide between poverty and privilege is approaching that of the Gilded Age, and without obvious necessity. America had huge divides between the industrial North and the agrarian South in overall results in the economy, anyone not a WASP was almost certainly at a disadvantage, disparities between rudimentary education and elite education were severe (this was when a 'solid eighth grade education' was enough to allow one to get a clerical position where one might work 60 hours a week and have a 60-year lifespan because one was not working as destructively hard as industrial toilers who had little schooling at all) and the business ethos was simply to treat workers as serfs for maximal profits -- the only measure of economic success.

The Gilded Age ideology has returned, and it exemplifies itself in Donald Trump -- profits first, profits only, and people are motivated most effectively by threats of hunger and homelessness.

2. The mass culture does not affirm life. The Great Depression may have been  horrible, bit people seemed to trust family, community, and  institutions that sought to mitigate the realities of life. The dominant media of the time, movies, had a code that few current movies now could meet. Good guys were winners, and bad guys ended up badly.  Contrast something generally considered acceptable for family viewing today -- the Star Wars series has genocide as an essential part of the plot. Maybe after Hitler and Stalin (and more recently Saddam Hussein) we can no longer have a naive hope in human goodness... but if we do not foster human goodness we get horror. A daring movie by 1930s standards, Angels with Dirty Faces, shows a 'successful' gangster bringing death and destruction even to a crooked lawyer, but eventually going to the electric chair. The lesson: do your civic duty, do not lust after easy money, be modest in your demands in life, and rely upon faith and family to get you (and otherwise-helpless people) through difficulty.

3. The economic elites and most figures of popular culture are horrid models for emulation. Donald Trump would have never become President except for the debasement of mass culture in America. He is Big Business and mass low culture. Yes, I recognize that the Hollywood figures of the Golden Age were not people to imitate -- but they had to do their depraved behavior in secrecy. Tody people put their worst behavior out in public as an expression of Self.

4. The sorts of shared experiences that youth get are not what they used to be. Being a Boy Scout used to mean something, and it was a common experience among boys of a certain age. It is now a rarity; Scouting takes up too much time, has no dazzle, and demands too much suppression of individuality and indulgence.

5. Economic shifts have been particularly hard in "Red" America. People with limited education have had industrial work that has become less precious as the economy becomes less thing-oriented and  more experience-oriented. Making more stuff does not correlate with making customers happy and allowing profitable manufacturing that allows industrial workers to keep their jobs in profitable businesses. When the factories shut down, then what is left? Opportunities may exist for people with college degrees, but if you are managing a coffee shop, who would you hire as a barista to talk people into another latte or cappuccino? Some underemployed college grad who has the 'wrong' college major, or someone who just lost a factory job? Which one is less likely to unleash an F-bomb? Which one is likely to carry on a conversation that might drift into high culture?

I'm guessing that the hardest-hit part of America is the rural Mountain South. The Mountain South has always had a gun culture, and it has been more violent than other parts of America when one adjusts for economic realities and educational attainment.

6. Drugs and alcoholism. Drug deaths indicate a lack of fear of drugs -- and a willingness of people to turn  to them. Note that the Mountain South has had a heavy concentration of some of the most dangerous work (mining) possible. Deaths do not lead to drug addiction, but painful injuries. (See also logging areas for much the same effect). Miners and loggers get inordinate numbers of serious injuries, and they were the ones most likely to get prescriptions for oxycodone, which a few years was touted as the miracle pain-killer so long as people did not grind the pill to make what became known as "hillbilly heroin".

Addicts and alcoholics have always had high suicide rates.

(12-02-2018, 04:58 AM)Classic-Xer Wrote: [ -> ]

(12-01-2018, 03:38 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: [ -> ]

(11-30-2018, 10:49 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote: [ -> ]

(11-30-2018, 03:18 AM)Eric the Green Wrote: [ -> ]No I am not dogmatic, to the extent that I am willing to compromise with rural people and settle for what I can get regarding gun laws. The right-wing is dogmatic and ruthless on this issue, and on EVERY issue. They insist that urban people MUST have the permissive gun laws that suit rural culture, and are total slaves to the NRA. The Left is mostly not as dogmatic and uncompromising, although some of the Bernie vs. Hillary people have become more so. That's just the political landscape of our time.

So, no, none of what you say is true. Same advice applies to you, I'm afraid. Yes, I am very liberal and set in a lot of my views, but like Obama said, I don't have to demand perfection, I can settle for better. The Parkland students recommend what I recommend, so I am not more dogmatic or fanatical than they when it comes to AR-15s. To insist that weapons of war be taken off our streets does not make me fanatical or dogmatic, even if I don't agree with your constitutional reasoning.

All people on the internet tend to be stubborn in their views; I am not more so than others. So insulting people who have different views is not necessarily warranted, Bob.

Eric, are you familiar with the old American adage/ golden rule of "to  each their own". I assume that you're not or you don't place enough value on it to recognize it or  protect it. Eric, you have to be careful because a serious run in with someone like me would not be favorable to someone like you. As I've mentioned before, I will watch as you're being beaten to death and not lift a finger or squeeze a trigger despite having a weapon with the capability and the skill to use it effectively for the purpose of your defense as well as my own. Do idiot blues deserve to live? Do idiot blues deserve risking lives to save? I don't think so. However, I'm sure that there are many blue who would disagree with me and my view of blues like yourself. Healthcare cost won the House and you're still stuck on gun control.

Fortunately, I don't live in a red state or county. My county voted 72% for Hillary Clinton and only 22% for Donald Trump; the rest going for Johnson and Stein. I don't even remember ever even seeing a gun. I have some Republican neighbors, but I have no evidence that they have guns. I have no evidence that the Republicans in my neighborhood are as fanatic and mean as you say that you are, with one possible exception. I have no fear that someone who opposes my views on gun control is going to shoot me or beat me up because of my views. I live in a more civilized place than you do.

I don't live in a red state or a red rural county either. However, I'm familiar with them enough to know that they're actually more civilized than the urban slums that I've seen that are associated with Democrats. I can see why you don't want lots of legal and illegal so-called weapons of war ending up in the hands of those folks or the hands of Neo-Nazi's. I mean those folks are really mean What would you do if you found out that a lot of your neighbors actually own firearms? I know a lot of my neighbors and customers own firearms. I know Democratic voters who own AR-15's. I know Republican voters who own AR-15's. I know women who own AR-15's. I know there are lots of Minnesota residents walking around neighborhoods and driving around who are armed with semi automatic pistols as well. I know there are over a million Minnesotans who own high powered rifles of some sort. I'm not going to beat you up or shoot you because of your views. I'm not going to enter into harms way or raise a weapon to defend you/ save you because of your views. In other words, I'm more likely to respect your views and remain idle like a good liberal than naturally engage like a good conservative. I doubt God has much interest in idiots.

ha ha! I doubt God chooses "interest" based on political party or ideology.

If a lot of neighbors have weapons of war like you say Minnesotans do, I would consider where I live to be much more civilized. Since Minnesota is a blue state, I would consider it more civilized than red states, where old west fantasies about guns and other old-fashioned policies and cultures still reign. I don't doubt the worst slums are not very safe, with gang murders and drug wars and such, and I don't doubt that the minority of folks there who vote, vote Democratic. But of course now Democrats are the majority in very safe urban cities and suburbs. I know California is the most restrictive state on guns, and Minnesota is better than average. I know that blue states with tougher gun laws are safer overall, according to stats I have already posted here. But state gun laws so far are only partially successful because the NRA still rules national laws.

A quibble first, and one thing missing.

(12-03-2018, 12:42 PM)pbrower2a Wrote: [ -> ]4. The sorts of shared experiences that youth get are not what they used to be. Being a Boy Scout used to mean something, and it was a common experience among boys of a certain age. It is now a rarity; Scouting takes up too much time, has no dazzle, and demands too much suppression of individuality and indulgence.

The Boy Scouts gave a supplementary education when there was a risk of rural colonial skills being lost.  They were, but they were obsolete.  Youth these days are offered a lot of organized sports, with girl children offered dance and cheerleading as well.  This my or may not be ideal, but it does provide a common experience.

I find the difference to be a lack of what is sometimes being called 'feral children'.  There is lots of being driven to organized events, organized by adults, and less chance or time and to wander unsupervised.


What you seemed to have missed was the deplorables.  The old Republican Party in Bush 43's time may have been an alliance between NeoCon Military, Big Oil and the Evangelists.  The  NeoCons belief in high tech giving the us superiority was discredited by the need to keep low tech boots on the ground in a modern proxy war.  Big Oil no longer dominates as it did in the 43 administration, but only as the other elements of the elite have stepped up.  What is left is that the elites and the rural alliance is becoming strained.  The rural people are justly unwilling to trust their Washington elites, but will instead give their allegiance to people like Palin or Trump.  So far, they have found only people who remain loyal to the elites, who do not drain the swamp but are the swamp.

Two element today are the difference between believing in Reaganomic short term policy and voting deplorably, supporting the Republican Southern Stratagy.  Reaganomics just puts an emphasis on the short term and invites the sort of economic disaster that flips the see saw.  Deplorable voting maintains white male protestant superiority, and gives those anchored in so called America a chance to be superior to certain minorities.  That leads to small government and the lack of services to Those People and perceived independence.  Both sets of beliefs as you say are centered in the middle of the country.

I can't say the modern problems didn't lurk in Bush 43's administration, but in some ways the small government and the lack of solving problems that do show more clearly in urban environments drives the difference.

(11-30-2018, 10:49 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote: [ -> ]

(11-30-2018, 03:18 AM)Eric the Green Wrote: [ -> ]No I am not dogmatic, to the extent that I am willing to compromise with rural people and settle for what I can get regarding gun laws. The right-wing is dogmatic and ruthless on this issue, and on EVERY issue. They insist that urban people MUST have the permissive gun laws that suit rural culture, and are total slaves to the NRA. The Left is mostly not as dogmatic and uncompromising, although some of the Bernie vs. Hillary people have become more so. That's just the political landscape of our time.

So, no, none of what you say is true. Same advice applies to you, I'm afraid. Yes, I am very liberal and set in a lot of my views, but like Obama said, I don't have to demand perfection, I can settle for better. The Parkland students recommend what I recommend, so I am not more dogmatic or fanatical than they when it comes to AR-15s. To insist that weapons of war be taken off our streets does not make me fanatical or dogmatic, even if I don't agree with your constitutional reasoning.

All people on the internet tend to be stubborn in their views; I am not more so than others. So insulting people who have different views is not necessarily warranted, Bob.

Eric, are you familiar with the old American adage/ golden rule of "to  each their own". I assume that you're not or you don't place enough value on it to recognize it or  protect it. Eric, you have to be careful because a serious run in with someone like me would not be favorable to someone like you. As I've mentioned before, I will watch as you're being beaten to death and not lift a finger or squeeze a trigger despite having a weapon with the capability and the skill to use it effectively for the purpose of your defense as well as my own. Do idiot blues deserve to live? Do idiot blues deserve risking lives to save? I don't think so. However, I'm sure that there are many blue who would disagree with me and my view of blues like yourself. Healthcare cost won the House and you're still stuck on gun control.

Just a reminder:



Greetings from KZ-Lager Buchenwald! Jedem das Seine -- German for "to each his own", and in Nazi doublespeak, unspeakable horror to anyone deemed a pariah for his ethical values, disability, or 'race'. Nazi antisemitism was nearly-pure racism.

If someone does something inexplicably and inexcusably horrible to others, then that person does not want me as a witness. The sort of social order that does such things usually does not have legitimate authorities to which I might turn, but if revolution is not a viable solution I might have to bide my time until the system implodes or another political order overthrows the one in charge and exacts an accounting. Criminality deserves no loyalty, and anyone who tries to use patriotism as a cover for a horrible crime transforms national loyalty into something sick.

Had I witnessed such a horror as Saddam Hussein's forces gassing the Kurds I would have been ready to testify to such a crime to anyone who overthrew the regime, including Iran or the Soviet Union (then the Soviet Union was an aggressive political order intent on spreading its dominion into places where such was unwelcome), Israel (with an even more reviled image in the Arab and Islamic world than the Soviet Union), or NATO. I would as gladly have offered my testimony to the KGB even if I despised Soviet Communism or to the (Israeli) Mossad if I despised Zionism. If anything I would be delighted to send some murderer to face the fate of Jeckeln in Soviet Latvia or Eichmann in Israel. A conscript who was told that if he didn't murder people that he and his family would be murdered if he did not comply? If he should implicate his superiors just to save himself from the gallows or a firing squad with some tearful testimony, then he should get that opportunity to save himself.

It would be grim pleasure to know that people who had done horrible things to people would end up dying because a rope stops their falls at seven feet or so in a macabre ceremony, but that that is a small price to pay by a perpetrator for killing dozens of people who had no chance.

Human life is precious unless it becomes a danger (putting others at risk of death and crippling injury) to others, which explains why civilized societies have courts of law to determine objective justice and prisons and even gallows to express what is objective justice. Human life is precious in general or your life will be miserable in the end.

(12-04-2018, 06:17 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: [ -> ]A quibble first, and one thing missing.

(12-03-2018, 12:42 PM)pbrower2a Wrote: [ -> ]4. The sorts of shared experiences that youth get are not what they used to be. Being a Boy Scout used to mean something, and it was a common experience among boys of a certain age. It is now a rarity; Scouting takes up too much time, has no dazzle, and demands too much suppression of individuality and indulgence.

The Boy Scouts gave a supplementary education when there was a risk of rural colonial skills being lost.  They were, but they were obsolete.  Youth these days are offered a lot of organized sports, with girl children offered dance and cheerleading as well.  This my or may not be ideal, but it does provide a common experience.

I find the difference to be a lack of what is sometimes being called 'feral children'.  There is lots of being driven to organized events, organized by adults, and less chance or time and to wander unsupervised.

***

What you seemed to have missed was the deplorables.  The old Republican Party in Bush 43's time may have been an alliance between NeoCon Military, Big Oil and the Evangelists.  The  NeoCons belief in high tech giving the us superiority was discredited by the need to keep low tech boots on the ground in a modern proxy war.  Big Oil no longer dominates as it did in the 43 administration, but only as the other elements of the elite have stepped up.  What is left is that the elites and the rural alliance is becoming strained.  The rural people are justly unwilling to trust their Washington elites, but will instead give their allegiance to people like Palin or Trump.  So far, they have found only people who remain loyal to the elites, who do not drain the swamp but are the swamp.

The 'Deplorables' include not only the under-educated white Christian (largely Fundamentalist) losers of the economic struggle in America who were never going to enjoy the cultural richness of a diverse America, but also the economic elites who would face competition from people not white and nominally Christian. (OK, Sheldon Adelson is very much a 'Deplorable'; consider that all that he has to offer is the rip-off of casino gambling). Palin and Trump are similar in their intellectual superficiality, and the 'Deplorables' consider such a sort of innocence. The 'Deplorables' had their bad experiences with schoolteachers who corrected  their grammar, and they consider educated people of any kind an abusive, exploitative elite.

The problem is in part that one cannot challenge the system unless able to express one's discord with coherent language -- implying word choice and syntax. If I look at the struggle of African-Americans against their systematic degradation, I find that the educated elite among blacks, whether Booker T. Washington or W. E. B. DuBois in the past, as the ones who challenged the status quo by using the tools of language and rational thought to show the disparity between the stated ideals of American  civic life and the sordid reality. Because the best and brightest often ended up in the pulpit, someone like Martin Luther King could show how un-Christian and immoral segregation is. Language, logic, and moral judgment are essential to radical change.  

Quote:Two element today are the difference between believing in Reaganomic short term policy and voting deplorably, supporting the Republican Southern Strategy.  Reaganomics just puts an emphasis on the short term and invites the sort of economic disaster that flips the see saw.  Deplorable voting maintains white male protestant superiority, and gives those anchored in so called America a chance to be superior to certain minorities.  That leads to small government and the lack of services to Those People and perceived independence.  Both sets of beliefs as you say are centered in the middle of the country.

Even formal education is a 'long-term' solution to personal problems. The old objective of a university education was to improve the student so that he would not be the swine who devours the pearls, but instead recognizes that the pearls are worthy of separating from something suitable only for eating. We all know what youth can be like if it believes in nothing other than immediate gratification; it is not pretty. 

This said, the 'Deplorables' obviously see others getting ahead despite being non-white or non-Christian. The 'deplorable' are at most barely middle-class in economic result unless they are the pigs who own or manage the monopoly, cartel, or crony-capitalist business of America for whom fascism would be the dream for getting people to work to exhaustion for survival rations and slum housing in a thoroughly grim, dreary, joyless world. It is best that these people never watch Crazy Rich Asians; 'model minorities' are the people most vulnerable to dispossession, abuse, and genocide when the opportunity arises. Just think of German Jews who thought that they differed from gentile Germans only by rejecting Jesus, not eating pork or shellfish, and having their religious life in Hebrew instead of German or Latin. People often see people somehow different from themselves doing well, and that can only mean exploitation.

Quote:I can't say the modern problems didn't lurk in Bush 43's administration, but in some ways the small government and the lack of solving problems that do show more clearly in urban environments drives the difference.

It's as much ethnicity as anything else. Poor blacks recognize the black bourgeoisie as allies and not as enemies. Poor Hispanics see well-off Hispanics as allies and not as enemies. Poor Asians see the well-off of their ethnic group as allies and not as enemies. Poor whites see the white middle class as exploiters and abusers. But ask yourself: if you are part of the northern white middle class, what have you ever done for poor whites living in the Mountain or Deep South? Probably nothing except perhaps to buy some souvenirs while on a trip to Great Smoky Mountains National Park. If you think that 'Country' isn't music in the sense that J S Bach is music, then you are not part of the culture. You might as well be Japanese.

Democratic pols Up North used to give a damn about poor white people in the Mountain and Deep South -- but that is over. It is hard to determine where culpability lies.

(12-04-2018, 12:14 PM)pbrower2a Wrote: [ -> ]

(12-04-2018, 06:17 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: [ -> ]A quibble first, and one thing missing.

The 'Deplorables' include not only the under-educated white Christian (largely Fundamentalist) losers of the economic struggle in America who were never going to enjoy the cultural richness of a diverse America, but also the economic elites who would face competition from people not white and nominally Christian. (OK, Sheldon Adelson is very much a 'Deplorable'; consider that all that he has to offer is the rip-off of casino gambling). Palin and Trump are similar in their intellectual superficiality, and the 'Deplorables' consider such a sort of innocence. The 'Deplorables' had their bad experiences with schoolteachers who corrected  their grammar, and they consider educated people of any kind an abusive, exploitative elite.

The problem is in part that one cannot challenge the system unless able to express one's discord with coherent language -- implying word choice and syntax. If I look at the struggle of African-Americans against their systematic degradation, I find that the educated elite among blacks, whether Booker T. Washington or W. E. B. DuBois in the past, as the ones who challenged the status quo by using the tools of language and rational thought to show the disparity between the stated ideals of American  civic life and the sordid reality. Because the best and brightest often ended up in the pulpit, someone like Martin Luther King could show how un-Christian and immoral segregation is. Language, logic, and moral judgment are essential to radical change.  




Even formal education is a 'long-term' solution to personal problems. The old objective of a university education was to improve the student so that he would not be the swine who devours the pearls, but instead recognizes that the pearls are worthy of separating from something suitable only for eating. We all know what youth can be like if it believes in nothing other than immediate gratification; it is not pretty. 

This said, the 'Deplorables' obviously see others getting ahead despite being non-white or non-Christian. The 'deplorable' are at most barely middle-class in economic result unless they are the pigs who own or manage the monopoly, cartel, or crony-capitalist business of America for whom fascism would be the dream for getting people to work to exhaustion for survival rations and slum housing in a thoroughly grim, dreary, joyless world. It is best that these people never watch Crazy Rich Asians; 'model minorities' are the people most vulnerable to dispossession, abuse, and genocide when the opportunity arises. Just think of German Jews who thought that they differed from gentile Germans only by rejecting Jesus, not eating pork or shellfish, and having their religious life in Hebrew instead of German or Latin. People often see people somehow different from themselves doing well, and that can only mean exploitation.  



It's as much ethnicity as anything else. Poor blacks recognize the black bourgeoisie as allies and not as enemies. Poor Hispanics see well-off Hispanics as allies and not as enemies. Poor Asians see the well-off of their ethnic group as allies and not as enemies. Poor whites see the white middle class as exploiters and abusers. But ask yourself: if you are part of the northern white middle class, what have you ever done for poor whites living in the Mountain or Deep South? Probably nothing except perhaps to buy some souvenirs while on a trip to Great Smoky Mountains National Park. If you think that 'Country' isn't music in the sense that J S Bach is music, then you are not part of the culture. You might as well be Japanese.

Democratic pols Up North used to give a damn about poor white people in the Mountain and Deep South -- but that is over. It is hard to determine where culpability lies.

I'm not sure who comes across as more deplorable these days. The working class voters (the so called under educated) who who weren't happy about the direction that the liberals burned Hilary Clinton and the Democratic party who has been exploiting their loyalty for years or the left wing political hacks like yourself or the urban gangs or the low life's who spend their time finding ways to take advantage of peoples values and systems. Well, you have a problem with the bulk of the US taxpayers. You have a problem that is only going to get worse for the other deplorable folks as time passes. You see, it goes like this, every time you open you're foolish mouth and offend, the deeper the hole you dig for yourself with the folks that you are now becoming more reliant upon. Like I've said, I don't care what happens to people like you. I don't care if you blow your brains out or you loose your job or you end up being viewed by the working class as niggers who happen to have white skin and seem to be fairly well educated. What makes you feel that you're better than the so-called deplorable? Dude, I look down on you all the time and all the so-called deplorable are looking down on you all the time too. Heck, a poor working class person who owns a trailer home and a small chunk of relatively cheap land has a right to be able look down on some low end dude with a worthless college degree with exceptional skills that doesn't require someone with a college degree to match these days. Who are you to me? You're a deplorable who hasn't come to grips with the reality of your lowly social status and the grim economic future you'll be facing alone without mom and dad being around to fall back on or bail you out.

(12-04-2018, 11:20 AM)pbrower2a Wrote: [ -> ]Just a reminder:



Greetings from KZ-Lager Buchenwald! Jedem das Seine -- German for "to each his own", and in Nazi doublespeak, unspeakable horror to anyone deemed a pariah for his ethical values, disability, or 'race'. Nazi antisemitism was nearly-pure racism.

If someone does something inexplicably and inexcusably horrible to others, then that person does not want me as a witness. The sort of social order that does such things usually does not have legitimate authorities to which I might turn, but if revolution is not a viable solution I might have to bide my time until the system implodes or another political order overthrows the one in charge and exacts an accounting. Criminality deserves no loyalty, and anyone who tries to use patriotism as a cover for a horrible crime transforms national loyalty into something sick.

Had I witnessed such a horror as Saddam Hussein's forces gassing the Kurds I would have been ready to testify to such a crime to anyone who overthrew the regime, including Iran or the Soviet Union (then the Soviet Union was an aggressive political order intent on spreading its dominion into places where such was unwelcome), Israel (with an even more reviled image in the Arab and Islamic world than the Soviet Union), or NATO. I would as gladly have offered my testimony to the KGB even if I despised Soviet Communism or to the (Israeli) Mossad if I despised Zionism. If anything I would be delighted to send some murderer to face the fate of Jeckeln in Soviet Latvia or Eichmann in Israel. A conscript who was told that if he didn't murder people that he and his family would be murdered if he did not comply? If he should implicate his superiors just to save himself from the gallows or a firing squad with some tearful testimony, then he should get that opportunity to save himself.      

It would be grim pleasure to know that people who had done horrible things to people would end up dying because a rope stops their falls at seven feet or so in a macabre ceremony, but that that is a small price to pay by a perpetrator for killing dozens of people who had no chance.

Human life is precious unless it becomes a danger (putting others at risk of death and crippling injury) to others, which explains why civilized societies have courts of law to determine objective justice and prisons and even gallows to express what is objective justice. Human life is precious in general or your life will be miserable in the end.

There's a more accurate translation/ interpretation of that that you may have missed, “To Each what They are Due". My advice, don't believe everything that the modern progressives have to say about us or the working voters who supported Trump and you won't end up going down with them. I wonder how many Jews would have willingly entered those gates had they been able to read it on their way in vs reading it after the gates where closed behind them.

(12-04-2018, 10:36 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote: [ -> ]

(12-04-2018, 11:20 AM)pbrower2a Wrote: [ -> ]Just a reminder:



Greetings from KZ-Lager Buchenwald! Jedem das Seine -- German for "to each his own", and in Nazi doublespeak, unspeakable horror to anyone deemed a pariah for his ethical values, disability, or 'race'. Nazi antisemitism was nearly-pure racism.

If someone does something inexplicably and inexcusably horrible to others, then that person does not want me as a witness. The sort of social order that does such things usually does not have legitimate authorities to which I might turn, but if revolution is not a viable solution I might have to bide my time until the system implodes or another political order overthrows the one in charge and exacts an accounting. Criminality deserves no loyalty, and anyone who tries to use patriotism as a cover for a horrible crime transforms national loyalty into something sick.

.....

Human life is precious unless it becomes a danger (putting others at risk of death and crippling injury) to others, which explains why civilized societies have courts of law to determine objective justice and prisons and even gallows to express what is objective justice. Human life is precious in general or your life will be miserable in the end.

There's a more accurate translation/ interpretation of that that you may have missed, “To Each what They are Due". My advice, don't believe everything that the modern progressives have to say about us or the working voters who supported Trump and you won't end up going down with them. I wonder how many Jews would have willingly entered those gates had they been able to read it on their way in vs reading it after the gates where closed behind them.

Are you familiar with George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four? Do you know what Newspeak means? In Orwell's nightmare, words themselves become lies. Communication becomes worthless, and the very structure of independent thought -- the language that people think that they know becomes useless for thought. Newspeak describes just as well what Nazis did with language as did the Soviets, except that the Soviets coined barbarous compounds like agitprop and sovnarkom (Soviet people's commissar).

With such systematic liars as the Nazis, words mean nothing. "Protective custody" doesn't mean that the police relocate someone from danger from mob violence to a place of safety, but instead jails him so that the people can be protected from contact with him. "Special treatment", far from being a privilege, meant "summary execution". "Resettlement" meant removing Jews from places in which murdering them would be inconvenient to places in which nobody could stop their murder.  To this day we are careful to avoid using the phrase "final solution" because it has come to mean the destruction of the Jews. You probably do not want to get me to lecture you on the difference between a literal meaning of Arbeit Macht Frei
(work makes one free) and the reality of slavery or extermination for inmates of other Nazi camps. Buchenwald was different from the others in its choice of slogans.
You need to learn some more about the Holocaust. Jews were made steadily more helpless by limiting their expression, separating them from the rest of the people so that people would not take pity upon them, taking away any possible defenses (guns and even pet dogs), and eventually herding them like livestock to the concentration and extermination camps. Jews kept believing that things would get better because they couldn't get worse and that was demanded of them didn't seem unusual (like "Undress before you take a shower) -- until someone cast Zyklon-B into the fake shower. When was it too late? Long before Jews arrived at the ramp for "selection". "Left" to swift death in a gas chamber or "right" to toil under starvation rations calculated to cause one to die of a combination of hunger and overwork.  Jews were allowed the luxury of wishful thinking until they got a whiff of hydrogen  cyanide gas.

With creeps like Nazis completely untrustworthy with objective fact and the usual expression of such, their words mean what those creeps do and not what most of us think that those words mean. A bare minimum of integrity is that people use words precisely, which precludes even the milder forms of deceit (thus no "healthy forests" that means clear-cutting forests so that no trees remain, which was Dubya).

It is you who needs to be  wary of what a would-be despot or dictator says -- to not believe an inveterate liar like Donald Trump or one of his appointed spokesmen says. (OK, strictly speaking, Sarah Huckabee Sanders is female, but you get the idea -- I hope).


I have been hurt less by Donald Trump than many who supported him. I have some idea of what he is up to. I have read about demagogues like him who play up resentments among people in economic distress or who believe that their culture is under assault. He will protect them if only they give up their freedom and their prosperity.

As a wise man  (Benjamin Franklin) said at the time of the American Revolution:

Quote:Those who would give up essential liberty, to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.

The more dangerous the time, the more relevant becomes the wisdom of the truly great people of the American past.  "Safety" means certainty of one's privileged role in society (such as "I am white and I deserve my white privilege"), a reliable income, fitting into a culture made for oneself but not for everyone else, or self-delusion.

You need to give up the idea that Do0nald Trump is your political ally. In view of his virulent, venomous, vituperative, vehement expressions of villainous vindictiveness (Yes, I saw V for Vendetta), I would be wary. He can turn on a dime and turn his anger to what used to be friends. His ethical values are those of a mobster.

I am old enough that the biggest fear of getting old is the stale life that I now endure. The second biggest fear that I have is of eternal damnation. All that I fear of death is the excruciating pain of most ways of dying -- and what lies beyond. I am not giving my soul to Donald Trump's false god Mammon.

(12-04-2018, 11:39 PM)pbrower2a Wrote: [ -> ]Are you familiar with George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four? Do you know what Newspeak means? In Orwell's nightmare, words themselves become lies. Communication becomes worthless, and the very structure of independent thought -- the language that people think that they know becomes useless for thought. Newspeak describes just as well what Nazis did with language as did the Soviets, except that the Soviets coined barbarous compounds like agitprop and sovnarkom (Soviet people's commissar).

With such systematic liars as the Nazis, words mean nothing. "Protective custody" doesn't mean that the police relocate someone from danger from mob violence to a place of safety, but instead jails him so that the people can be protected from contact with him. "Special treatment", far from being a privilege, meant "summary execution". "Resettlement" meant removing Jews from places in which murdering them would be inconvenient to places in which nobody could stop their murder.  To this day we are careful to avoid using the phrase "final solution" because it has come to mean the destruction of the Jews. You probably do not want to get me to lecture you on the difference between a literal meaning of Arbeit Macht Frei
(work makes one free) and the reality of slavery or extermination for inmates of other Nazi camps. Buchenwald was different from the others in its choice of slogans.
You need to learn some more about the Holocaust. Jews were made steadily more helpless by limiting their expression, separating them from the rest of the people so that people would not take pity upon them, taking away any possible defenses (guns and even pet dogs), and eventually herding them like livestock to the concentration and extermination camps. Jews kept believing that things would get better because they couldn't get worse and that was demanded of them didn't seem unusual (like "Undress before you take a shower) -- until someone cast Zyklon-B into the fake shower. When was it too late? Long before Jews arrived at the ramp for "selection". "Left" to swift death in a gas chamber or "right" to toil under starvation rations calculated to cause one to die of a combination of hunger and overwork.  Jews were allowed the luxury of wishful thinking until they got a whiff of hydrogen  cyanide gas.

With creeps like Nazis completely untrustworthy with objective fact and the usual expression of such, their words mean what those creeps do and not what most of us think that those words mean. A bare minimum of integrity is that people use words precisely, which precludes even the milder forms of deceit (thus no "healthy forests" that means clear-cutting forests so that no trees remain, which was Dubya).  

It is you who needs to be  wary of what a would-be despot or dictator says -- to not believe an inveterate liar like Donald Trump or one of his appointed spokesmen says. (OK, strictly speaking, Sarah Huckabee Sanders is female, but you get the idea -- I hope).


I have been hurt less by Donald Trump than many who supported him. I have some idea of what he is up to. I have read about demagogues like him who play up resentments among people in economic distress or who believe that their culture is under assault. He will protect them if only they give up their freedom and their prosperity.

As a wise man  (Benjamin Franklin) said at the time of the American Revolution:

Quote:Those who would give up essential liberty, to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.

The more dangerous the time, the more relevant becomes the wisdom of the truly great people of the American past.  "Safety" means certainty of one's privileged role in society (such as "I am white and I deserve my white privilege"), a reliable income, fitting into a culture made for oneself but not for everyone else, or self-delusion.

You need to give up the idea that Do0nald Trump is your political ally. In view of his virulent, venomous, vituperative, vehement expressions of villainous vindictiveness (Yes, I saw V for Vendetta), I would be wary. He can turn on a dime and turn his anger to what used to be friends. His ethical values are those of a mobster.

I am old enough that the biggest fear of getting old is the stale life that I now endure. The second biggest fear that I have is of eternal damnation. All that I fear of death is the excruciating pain of most ways of dying -- and what lies beyond. I am not giving my soul to Donald Trump's false god Mammon.

How many words that the liberal's use and associate or identify with supposedly don't really mean what they're actually supposed to mean according to the dictionary these days. How many liberal news channels aren't actually real news channels these days? Now, I've never read Orwell's "1984" but I've got a pretty good idea what the book is about and the life lessons that the book is trying to teach its readers and so forth.

According to Tucker Carlson, the liberals are pretty Orwellion which I tend to agree with based on my own knowledge of the liberals and their beliefs and what they want/prefer to have for a government. Now, I'm not a big fan of Tucker Carlson. He's a bit to smug and wimpy for my taste but he does have some interesting views and personal takes on issues. So, I do watch his show a bit when there is nothing else on that's more important for me to watch or something more important for me to do instead.

BTW, if the liberals want to preach to me or members of the white working class about the bad/ evil associated white white privilege, I'd suggest that they refrain from using or sending members associated or related to black privilege or Hispanic privilege or mixed black/ Asian Indian privilege and above all do not send a member of white privilege because we don't see them emptying their personal piggy banks that are filled with millions of dollars. I WILL EDUCATE NANCY PELOSI and PLACE A MORAL EXPECTATION ON HER AND THE MILLIONS SHE HAS IN HER PERSONAL ACCOUNTS AND PLANT A CLEAR UNDERSTANDING INTO THAT EMOTIONALLY BOGGLED LIBERAL BRAIN OF HERS THAT SHE WOULD NEVER FORGET.

(12-05-2018, 11:25 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote: [ -> ]How many words that the liberal's use and associate or identify with supposedly don't really mean what they're actually supposed to mean according to the dictionary these days. How many liberal news channels aren't actually real news channels these days? Now, I've never read Orwell's "1984" but I've got a pretty good idea what the book is about and the life lessons that the book is trying to teach its readers and so forth.

Anyone who despises any form of totalitarianism needs read Nineteen Eighty-Four.  It exposes as easily as possible  the dishonest rhetoric of totalitarianism, its  manipulation of statistics (the chocolate ration has been increased by 20% -- after it was cut by 40%, of course), the promotion of hatred, the debasement of life for the people that the system allegedly serves, and the promotion of hatred as a means of creating support for a political system that deserves overthrow -- but cannot be overthrown because the system has so debased language that people can no longer think or even complain.

War is Peace... Freedom is Slavery... Ignorance is Strength! Yes, one can get away with the crudest form of lie, the simple contradiction of truth, when one compels the merging of opposites.

Read also Animal Farm, a work which mocks the Soviet Union by treating the upper hierarchy of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) as literal pigs who have taken over a farm from humans in a revolution with promises to make life better for the farm animals and appeal to farm animals throughout England to overthrow their human exploiters. The pigs become just like their old human masters, exploiting other animals in much the same way. The dogs who in the absence of human guidance become as savage predators as bears or big cats, become the secret police.

I am tempted to contemplate a sequel to Nineteen Eighty-Four in which people rise against "Ingsoc", the allegedly socialist party that has created a nightmarish world that is the antithesis of any socialist ideal: people are compelled to compete against each other just to stay alive. The solution is to replace the language. Maybe a pidgin of Classical Greek?

Quote:According to Tucker Carlson, the liberals are pretty Orwellian which I tend to agree with based on my own knowledge of the liberals and their beliefs and what they want/prefer to have for a government. Now, I'm not a big fan of Tucker Carlson. He's a bit to smug and wimpy for my taste but he does have some interesting views and personal takes on issues. So, I do watch his show a bit when there is nothing else on that's more important for me to watch or something more important for me to do instead.

That is argument to authority*, and Tucker Carlson is a very suspect authority. Know well: you cannot know what "Orwellian" means unless you have read Nineteen Eighty-Four, or at least watched one of the movies derived from it. Then, and only then, can you know.

You have been debating me, so you surely think that I have some interesting ideas. Or do I remind you of someone that you may wish that you had paid more attention to in the past, like a high-school teacher? I can suggest plenty of other uses for your time -- like listening to a great work of classical music or visiting an art gallery. Or perhaps volunteering in a food pantry.

Quote:BTW, if the liberals want to preach to me or members of the white working class about the bad/ evil associated white white privilege, I'd suggest that they refrain from using or sending members associated or related to black privilege or Hispanic privilege or mixed black/ Asian Indian privilege and above all do not send a member of white privilege because we don't see them emptying their personal piggy banks that are filled with millions of dollars. I WILL EDUCATE NANCY PELOSI and PLACE A MORAL EXPECTATION ON HER AND THE MILLIONS SHE HAS IN HER PERSONAL ACCOUNTS AND PLANT A CLEAR UNDERSTANDING INTO THAT EMOTIONALLY BOGGLED LIBERAL BRAIN OF HERS  THAT SHE WOULD NEVER FORGET.

If I had to choose between being part of the black bourgeoisie and being a poor white person in a poverty-hole like eastern Kentucky or southern West Virginia, then I would take the infusion of melanin so that I could live the Good Life in America now possible for millions of black people. (The worst part is that some dimwit salesclerk might think that a black person is a shoplifter and misses signals of behavior that say 'middle class'. Melanin or meth? That should be obvious enough.  I know that white privilege exists, but I also know that one can (1) abuse it, which is horrible, or (2) be a pitiable loser who gets nothing out of white privilege because one throws it away on ignorance or drugs. (Interesting literary premise: take The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka, in which a man becomes an insect, and have a white man become black due to some "disease" that turns him black).

But let me say this of white Christians: in contrast to non-whites and non-Christians of any well-defined group, well-off white Christians do nothing for their not-so-well-off brethren. Well-off white people would rather meet people similar to them in culture and economic circumstances than meet destitute white people. The majority of poor people in America are white. 

Before you assume intellectual credibility for not being a liberal -- we liberals are generally better educated, and we prefer rational thought to superstition and bigotry. Have you ever heard her speak when she was Speaker of the House from 2007 to 2010? She is about as chilly a rationalist as you will ever met.

*Argument to authority implies either accepting someone completely devoid of intellectual credibility (as in, "I heard this from some drunk in an airport bar while I had a four-hour layover at Chicago O'Hare Airport"), when one accepts an authority on a matter settled later with further evidence (example: using Darwin to explain that gaps exist in his theory of evolution that he explains as principles when such gaps have been explained with the fossil record and with genetics), or when one accepts as authority someone outside of his area of expertise. I would not have debated Noam Chomsky on linguistics, William Shockley on electronics, or Albert Einstein on physics, but they have no more authority on politics than I have.

And, yes, I would not expect Nancy Pelosi to involve herself in debates on quantum physics.

(12-06-2018, 01:33 AM)pbrower2a Wrote: [ -> ]That is argument to authority*, and Tucker Carlson is a very suspect authority. Know well: you cannot know what "Orwellian" means unless you have read Nineteen Eighty-Four, or at least watched one of the movies derived from it. Then, and only then, can you know.

You have been debating me, so you surely think that I have some interesting ideas. Or do I remind you of someone that you may wish that you had paid more attention to in the past, like a high-school teacher? I can suggest plenty of other uses for your time -- like listening to a great work of classical music or visiting an art gallery. Or perhaps volunteering in a food pantry.

Before you assume intellectual credibility for not being a liberal -- we liberals are generally better educated, and we prefer rational thought to superstition and bigotry. Have you ever heard her speak when she was Speaker of the House from 2007 to 2010? She is about as chilly a rationalist as you will ever met.

*Argument to authority implies either accepting someone completely devoid of intellectual credibility (as in, "I heard this from some drunk in an airport bar while I had a four-hour layover at Chicago O'Hare Airport"), when one accepts an authority on a matter settled later with further evidence (example: using Darwin to explain that gaps exist in his theory of evolution that he explains as principles when such gaps have been explained with the fossil record and with genetics), or when one accepts as authority someone outside of his area of expertise. I would not have debated Noam Chomsky on linguistics, William Shockley on electronics, or Albert Einstein on physics, but they have no more authority on politics than I have.

And, yes, I would not expect Nancy Pelosi to involve herself in debates on quantum physics.

You think we've been debating? I haven't been debating with you. Have you been debating with me? Honestly, I don't view your ideas or your views as being all that interesting, all that educated, all that moving or as being all that accurate either. Right now, you're an older white guy like me. You're an older white who supposedly/ automatically represents white privilege like me. Voting Democratic doesn't change who you're viewed as based on you're physical characteristics and you're visual appearance. The man haters and the white man/ white people haters and the white privilege haters probably don't know how to tell the difference between the two of us and probably aren't that interested in separating us based on our beliefs. I'm not going to bow down to any of them or change my views of them or positions to save you or any ither white liberal. I mean, I  pretty much can't stand any of them now and hating them isn't going to require much of an adjustment. Now, I'm not sure what it's going to be like when the liberal white males find themselves trapped/ positioned between the hatred that has been growing on the left and the indifference that has become much more common on the American right. I hear about all the hatred that supposedly exists on the American right these days. I hear liberals talking about how bad the white supremacist groups are and the bad stuff that members of those groups have done and so forth. However, I do actually hear and see the amount of hatred and the obvious signs and activities associated with hatred that exists on the left these days.

(12-03-2018, 09:50 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: [ -> ]

(12-02-2018, 04:58 AM)Classic-Xer Wrote: [ -> ]

(12-01-2018, 03:38 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: [ -> ]

(11-30-2018, 10:49 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote: [ -> ]

(11-30-2018, 03:18 AM)Eric the Green Wrote: [ -> ]No I am not dogmatic, to the extent that I am willing to compromise with rural people and settle for what I can get regarding gun laws. The right-wing is dogmatic and ruthless on this issue, and on EVERY issue. They insist that urban people MUST have the permissive gun laws that suit rural culture, and are total slaves to the NRA. The Left is mostly not as dogmatic and uncompromising, although some of the Bernie vs. Hillary people have become more so. That's just the political landscape of our time.

So, no, none of what you say is true. Same advice applies to you, I'm afraid. Yes, I am very liberal and set in a lot of my views, but like Obama said, I don't have to demand perfection, I can settle for better. The Parkland students recommend what I recommend, so I am not more dogmatic or fanatical than they when it comes to AR-15s. To insist that weapons of war be taken off our streets does not make me fanatical or dogmatic, even if I don't agree with your constitutional reasoning.

All people on the internet tend to be stubborn in their views; I am not more so than others. So insulting people who have different views is not necessarily warranted, Bob.

Eric, are you familiar with the old American adage/ golden rule of "to  each their own". I assume that you're not or you don't place enough value on it to recognize it or  protect it. Eric, you have to be careful because a serious run in with someone like me would not be favorable to someone like you. As I've mentioned before, I will watch as you're being beaten to death and not lift a finger or squeeze a trigger despite having a weapon with the capability and the skill to use it effectively for the purpose of your defense as well as my own. Do idiot blues deserve to live? Do idiot blues deserve risking lives to save? I don't think so. However, I'm sure that there are many blue who would disagree with me and my view of blues like yourself. Healthcare cost won the House and you're still stuck on gun control.

Fortunately, I don't live in a red state or county. My county voted 72% for Hillary Clinton and only 22% for Donald Trump; the rest going for Johnson and Stein. I don't even remember ever even seeing a gun. I have some Republican neighbors, but I have no evidence that they have guns. I have no evidence that the Republicans in my neighborhood are as fanatic and mean as you say that you are, with one possible exception. I have no fear that someone who opposes my views on gun control is going to shoot me or beat me up because of my views. I live in a more civilized place than you do.

I don't live in a red state or a red rural county either. However, I'm familiar with them enough to know that they're actually more civilized than the urban slums that I've seen that are associated with Democrats. I can see why you don't want lots of legal and illegal so-called weapons of war ending up in the hands of those folks or the hands of Neo-Nazi's. I mean those folks are really mean What would you do if you found out that a lot of your neighbors actually own firearms? I know a lot of my neighbors and customers own firearms. I know Democratic voters  who own AR-15's. I know Republican voters who own AR-15's. I know women who own AR-15's. I know there are lots of Minnesota residents walking around neighborhoods and driving around  who are armed with semi automatic pistols as well.    I know there are over a million Minnesotans who own high powered rifles of some sort. I'm not going to beat you up or shoot you because of your views. I'm not going to enter into harms way or raise a weapon to defend you/ save you because of your views. In other words, I'm more likely to respect your views and remain idle  like a good liberal than naturally engage like a good conservative. I doubt God has much interest in idiots.

ha ha! I doubt God chooses "interest" based on political party or ideology.

If a lot of neighbors have weapons of war like you say Minnesotans do, I would consider where I live to be much more civilized. Since Minnesota is a blue state, I would consider it more civilized than red states, where old west fantasies about guns and other old-fashioned policies and cultures still reign. I don't doubt the worst slums are not very safe, with gang murders and drug wars and such, and I don't doubt that the minority of folks there who vote, vote Democratic. But of course now Democrats are the majority in very safe urban cities and suburbs. I know California is the most restrictive state on guns, and Minnesota is better than average. I know that blue states with tougher gun laws are safer overall, according to stats I have already posted here. But state gun laws so far are only partially successful because the NRA still rules national laws.

(12-07-2018, 08:02 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote: [ -> ]You think we've been debating? I haven't been debating with you. Have you been debating with me?

Sometimes you say something shocking. You thus introduce something to debate.

Quote:Honestly, I don't view your ideas or your views as being all that interesting, all that educated, all that moving or as being all that accurate either. Right now, you're an older white guy like me. You're an older white who supposedly/ automatically represents white privilege like me.

I recognize the reality of white privilege, at least against blacks.  But there are white people whose white privilege is slight compared to handicaps due to education and location. I started a thread contrasting the states on measures of quality of life subdivided by state and ethnicity. White privilege is a reality in all American states  against blacks, Hispanics, and First peoples (but for real privilege, look at Asian-Americans, especially Indian- (from India) , Filipino-, Chinese-, Korean-, and Japanese-Americans. This reflects cultural differences, largely that these groups have a high regard for formal education).

I saw some oddities. On the whole one was better off, on the average, by being black in Maryland than being white in West Virginia. Such reflects differences in opportunity in the two states. But this said, white privilege means that one can dress like a bum and shop in a department store without being followed as a potential shoplifter. But this said, getting a solid education and having a solid work ethic matters more in life than does 'race'.

Quote:Voting Democratic doesn't change who you're viewed as based on you're physical characteristics and you're visual appearance. The man haters and the white man/ white people haters and the white privilege haters probably don't know how to tell the difference between the two of us and probably aren't that interested in separating us based on our beliefs. I'm not going to bow down to any of them or change my views of them or positions to save you or any ither white liberal.

What says that I feel any 'white guilt'? I did not create 'white privilege'.  I do not enforce it or knowingly exploit it. I am a man, and I am very much a man (copious body hair, a long ring finger, broad shoulders, and a deep voice) -- but I also recognize that testosterone tends to create aggression. Testosterone combined with fanaticism or alcohol can create trouble. Good men tone down their masculinity; bad men  emphasize it.

Quote:I mean, I  pretty much can't stand any of them now and hating them isn't going to require much of an adjustment. Now, I'm not sure what it's going to be like when the liberal white males find themselves trapped/ positioned between the hatred that has been growing on the left and the indifference that has become much more common on the American right.

The hatred is toward blatant racists and those who stand for pure plutocracy. It is easy to distinguish oneself from such scum.

Quote:I hear about all the hatred that supposedly exists on the American right these days. I hear liberals talking about how bad the white supremacist groups are and the bad stuff that members of those groups have done and so forth. However, I do actually hear and see the amount of hatred and the obvious signs and activities associated with hatred that exists on the left these days.

Just yesterday one white supremacist was convicted of first-degree murder for driving his car into a bunch of people who had been protesting people like him (he is an admirer of Adolf Hitler) in Charlottesville, Virginia. A few years ago a blatant racist went into a historic African-American church and killed worshipers who had tried to guide him away from white racism.  (The second fellow has been sentenced to death as the result of a federal prosecution and judgment). A neo-Nazi recently shot several Jews to death in a synagogue in Pittsburgh.

Is there any question that white racism is dangerous to people that the racists see as pariahs?

(12-08-2018, 03:17 AM)pbrower2a Wrote: [ -> ]

(12-07-2018, 08:02 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote: [ -> ]I hear about all the hatred that supposedly exists on the American right these days. I hear liberals talking about how bad the white supremacist groups are and the bad stuff that members of those groups have done and so forth. However, I do actually hear and see the amount of hatred and the obvious signs and activities associated with hatred that exists on the left these days.

Just yesterday one white supremacist was convicted of first-degree murder for driving his car into a bunch of people who had been protesting people like him (he is an admirer of Adolf Hitler) in Charlottesville, Virginia. A few years ago a blatant racist went into a historic African-American church and killed worshipers who had tried to guide him away from white racism.  (The second fellow has been sentenced to death as the result of a federal prosecution and judgment). A neo-Nazi recently shot several Jews to death in a synagogue in Pittsburgh.

Is there any question that white racism is dangerous to people that the racists see as pariahs?

What do I dislike among the Red?

There is a belief in the short term economically.  Much of reaganomics has been reduced to short term thinking.  You let the debt grow which has been demonstrated to lead to collapse in a decade or so.

Their view of ecology and especially global warming is also short term.  The problems won't hit until the current generations are dead of old age.  It is also a population density thing.  Rural folk don't see the problems which come with lots of people living close together.  If you don't see the evidence of the problem, you are slow to see a problem.  You can rage against them, you can try to fight it, but you can understand.

Then there is prejudice, the Southern Strategy, which is clinging to the past rather that a reluctance to deal with the future.  Different beast, and something that speaks of a corrupt soul.  I can suppose that some might be used to privilege, and one can be used to dumping on individuals due to minority membership,  but I feel more judgmental and personal about equality.  However, you must admit is is different.

Does the desire to solve your own problems, your way, locally, mean you can ignore very real problems that will present grave situations to future generations?  Is it optional that all men and women should be treated well?

I am less concerned with the lone nuts, the crazies.  You can't let yourself set policy according to the acts of an extreme few.  When it becomes a majority, however, that walks the line, it enables the acts of people who have lost it, and actually do what used to be the norm.  (Do you remember the pictures of a town's white population gathering to have their picture taken at a lynching?)

There is a difference between understanding someone and forgiving them.  One can understand clinging to the past, and it is hard to hate that which you understand, but they can be so determined to be blind.

We need to set policy according to the few crazies, because they cause unnecessary and tragic deaths. Many examples can be given. Life is not a statistic. And the crazies can be influential too to a degree, as they have influenced the followers of Trump, and all those demonstrators at Charlottesville and elsewhere.

Forgiveness is a release of emotional attachment to what we experience as hurt. Forgiveness is beneficial primarily for the forgiver. The understanding should be remembered; emotional clinging to the past is not needed, although we often do it. Understanding that, as Jesus said about those who crucified him, "they know not what they do", or like the African-American Christian victims of Dylann Roof who forgave him, forgiveness and transcending hate is possible.