The Maelstrom of Violence

[pbrower2a]

(09-06-2017, 03:47 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote:

(09-06-2017, 01:59 PM)David Horn Wrote:

(09-06-2017, 12:00 PM)Eric the Green Wrote:

(09-05-2017, 06:13 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote:

(09-05-2017, 11:20 AM)pbrower2a Wrote: I can think of more important rights than the right to bear a gun, like the right to travel, the right to change jobs, the right to refuse to do certain work, the right to make investments.... and the right to have consensual sex.

How many of those rights would you have or be able to keep without the right to bear arms?

People of the red persuasion, and other gun rights proponents, keep saying that. But this implies that society must necessarily be a barbaric, uncivilized, gun totin' wild west with no-one empowered to protect law and order and our rights. It implies that the red side has achieved its aim and shrunk the government to fit into a bathtub and thus rendered ineffectual. It's a rural mindset that doesn't apply to the majority of the population that is urban and suburban.

To add a little fuel: Australia is as 'Wild West' as we were when we were fewer on our continent, yet they seem to do just fine with much more prohibitive gum laws -- laws they put in place after a major incident in 1996.  So to answer C-X's question: all the rest of them.

How hard would it be for Australia to be turned into a fascist state? How many battles would the fascists have to fight and win? How many fascists would be needed? I know one thing, there isn't enough fascists, socialists and communists in America to defeat the 60 plus million Americans who voted for Trump.

Japanese conquest in World War II, something that seemed highly possible at certain times in 1941 and 1942, would have turned Australia into a colony of a brutal fascist state. Thank God and the Allies for victories at Guadalcanal and Midway!

I would guess today that if Australians had to choose between the semi-fascist America of Donald Judas Trump and the conformist, exotic Japan that has a genuine democracy, the Australians would choose Japan as an ally. That is how much the world has changed. Yes, Japan is very repressive -- of crime. Japanese criminals emigrate. Criminals in Japan face mind control techniques similar to those imposed upon political dissidents in China.

As for the Trump supporters -- do you mean the people who voted for the demagogue, or those who still believe in him?  With Trump as President I can see more cause to have a gun than under Obama. Civil unrest will become a genuine danger in the next three years.

"DIS" below is disapproval rating in the latest polling data that I have for the states, with "80" as a cautious guess for the District of Columbia.

DEM  REP  DIS   ΔEV    STATES
000  538   80   03      DC
003  535   71   58      CA VT
061  477   66   11      MA
072  466   65   14      NJ
086  452   64   10      MD
096  442   62   29      NY  
125  413   61   13      VA
138  400   59   24      CT HI WA
161  377   58   20      IL
181  357   57   45      CO MI MN WI
222  312   56   15      DE NM OR
241  297   55   32      ME* NH PA RI TIPPING POINT/ZONE
273  265   54   11      AZ
284  254   53   06      NV
290  248   52   53      FL IA OH
343  195   51   36      TX
381  157   50   37      GA NC UT
418  120   48   16      IN WV
434  104   47   06      AR
440  098   46   19      MS MO MT
459  079   44   12      ND SC
471  067   43   16      LA NE* SD
487  051   42   29      ID KS KY TN
516  022   39   22      AL OK WY
538  000

*Maine and Nebraska divide their electoral votes.

ME-01 is more Democratic than Maine at large, which is more Democratic than ME-02 (which went to Donald Trump in 2016). Maine-01 is somewhat urban southern Maine, including Portland, and ME-02 is very rural, comprising central and northern Maine.

NE-02 (mostly Greater Omaha inside Nebraska) is less Democratic than ME-02, so in a normal election it is more likely that Maine gives an electoral vote for a Republican than that Nebraska gives an electoral vote to a Democrat. But NE-02 went for Barack Obama in 2008. It is much more Democratic than Nebraska as a whole. NE-01, eastern Nebraska (including Lincoln and some parts of Greater Omaha) is slightly more Democratic than Nebraska as a whole. NE-03, including very rural central and western Nebraska (including Scottsbluff and Grand Island) is one of the most Republican districts in the USA, and is so strongly Republican that

(1) it can easily swing the state at large Republican, and
(2) it could conceivably offer the single electoral vote for a Republican nominee for President.

Descriptions of the states and their districts are

ME-01 -- very strong D
ME at large  -- strong D
ME-02  -- very weak D
NE-02  --  weak R
NE-01  -- strong R
NE at large -- very strong R
NE-03 -- almost as reliably R as the District of Columbia is reliably D

Subtract disapproval from '100', and you get my crude estimate of the ceiling for the vote for Donald Trump in 2020 in any state.