(04-30-2018, 11:05 PM)Eric the Green Wrote:(04-30-2018, 06:35 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote:(04-29-2018, 09:13 AM)pbrower2a Wrote: Am I perfectly rational? No.
I know you have some sort of dog thing. You seem obsessed and delusional. Well, in the old days of hunter gatherers, the dogs would corner or exhaust the prey, and wait for the more deadly of the two partners to arrive. The humans were equipped, trained and ready. They would finish the job. The humans were dominant, the dogs less so.
Since then, many humans have chosen to become wimps. Not all, but many. Technology has potentially made them all the more potent, but many choose to be helpless. Even today, if a criminal with a gun wanted a dog dead, the dog would be dead. You would be a fool to seriously think otherwise.
Or at least as dead as your arguments. Many blue think that if they really concentrate on thinking nice thoughts, they can ignore nature red with blood. Well, they can't. It isn't done by wishful thinking. Bottom line, you still have to be stronger than the other guy. If you think you don't have to be, you might be dreaming.
I don't know if I think like that or not; I'm not sure. But thinking nice thoughts is not without power. At least an attitude and confidence that you live in a safe society, borne of taking responsibility to make your society safe and prosperous through government and volunteer action, contributes to respect for law and human rights.
Dogs successfully deter many criminals. True, it is not foolproof against an armed criminal. But guns are practically useless. The only way to create a safe society, is to think the nice thought that it can be done, and then get together with your fellow citizens and do it. It helps to live in a state where there's a long tradition of people doing it. They are called blue states. If you prefer barbarism, move to a red state and arm yourself to the teeth. Most guns today are owned by a relatively few gun fanatics there.
There is no limit to how strong you have to be in order to be stronger than all the other guys. That is as futile as to think that wishful thinking alone makes things so. There is always someone better than you in any competitive situation. Give up the quest and accept your weakness. In numbers there is strength, not isolation and individualism.
And yet, criminals will prey upon the weak, and todays active shooters turn to cowards or suicide if confronted. Any society to work just has to be stronger that its criminal element to work well. The red theory is that one can best do that by allowing private individuals to be strong as cops get to where the criminals perceive weakness only after the criminal is long gone. This is also why so many of the shootings take place in or near schools, hospitals or some military bases. The opposite is thought, that if you disarm the lawful, this creates zones where the criminal or active shooter sees himself as operating freely for a time.
That this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the earth.