05-10-2019, 11:40 AM
(05-09-2019, 09:30 PM)Kinser79 Wrote:(07-18-2016, 12:41 AM)Eric the Green Wrote: Suicide is markedly increased by gun availability, so the "blue/red" and "urban/rural" correlations are not surprising.
Gun availability has nothing to do with suicide. Japan and South Korea have the highest rates of suicide world wide and also some of the toughest gun regulations on the planet. In the US people choose guns because it is far easier to shoot themselves than to jump in front of the local bullet train like they do in Tokyo.
Those are stressful societies in which to live, societies that see failure as disgrace and have the perception that one gets one chance in life. Success is possible, but failure is The End.
Firearms are obviously not the only means of suicide. There are less dramatic ways to off oneself, like pills and liquor, and more dramatic ways, like jumping out of a high window or off a bridge, let alone harakiri. The United States does not have bullet trains yet, but walking in front of a fast-moving eighteen-wheeler is about as effective.
The ruling elite of America demand ever-greater sacrifices by people other than themselves and offer little in return except vague promises that things will get better. For those who most cheerfully sacrifice on their behalf, it is Pie in the Sky When You Die, a fraud that would make even Bernie Madoff and Ken Lay blush. The greatest gain comes not so much from meeting shortages as it does from creating them and exploiting them to the fullest.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.