Bipartisan Senate group proposes ‘no fly, no buy’ gun measure

[David Horn]

(05-05-2018, 09:10 PM)dcgal Wrote: Americans either don't know or want to know that the US is collapsing or think that nothing can be done to save the USA. Any plans or ideas to slow or escape the decay are quickly shot down as unworkable.

Instead of demanding that minimum wages be repealed or checkpoints be ended, Americans would rather beg for their chains by asking for more laws.

Insanity.

Most of today's problems have arisen since wages have been stagnant ... as you can easily see.

[pbrower2a]

(05-07-2018, 12:59 PM)David Horn Wrote:

(05-05-2018, 09:10 PM)dcgal Wrote: Americans either don't know or want to know that the US is collapsing or think that nothing can be done to save the USA. Any plans or ideas to slow or escape the decay are quickly shot down as unworkable.

Instead of demanding that minimum wages be repealed or checkpoints be ended, Americans would rather beg for their chains by asking for more laws.

Insanity.

Most of today's problems have arisen since wages have been stagnant ... as you can easily see.

This establishes that if increases in real wages should be necessary for getting America out of an economic bind (such as an inchoate depression), then a solution that involves wage increases can work.

Consequences of stagnant wages include a high level of employee turnover, an in ordinate number of personal bankruptcies, the death of many retail businesses, and a low birth rate.

I am guessing that much of the increase in productivity results from technological advances -- but that suggests that scientists and engineers should be paid extraordinarily well... but they aren't.

[Bob Butler 54]

The NRA has proposed that the recent increase in spree shooters is the result of overuse of Ritlan and other drugs that treat attention deficit diseases. Allegedly the drugs are being overprescribed, and bullying by the main stream kids is not being addressed. I cannot say they are right without a lot more digging, but the spree shooters are often among the rejects and in the population of those drugged into submission. There is obviously something that is encouraging spree shooters, a culture on the rise of killing. The natural bred instincts not to kill others not of ones own culture are being bypassed by something or other.

As a practical matter, focusing on those who receive mind altering drugs if there is a side effect of killing people is plausibly legal. I say 'plausibly' as one will never know what the judges will say these days. At least, before the drugs are prescribed, one should look into putting the person drugged onto a list of folks who are deprived of arms and warn parents or guardians to secure their weapons.

There remains the question on whether the legal standards for due process are being met, but that should be worked out.

I think answers should be sought other than prohibition. If you have white skin, or if you are not involved in drugs, you are comfortably within the statistics of other civilized countries such as you find in Europe. The USA does as well as anybody, and attempts by blues to solve the racial and drug problems using gun control is futile and counterproductive. One should at least look at the problems which lead to gun abuse.

[Eric the Green]

What encourages spree shooters, is the easy availability of more dangerous guns. No, the stats are clear. America has the most guns, and the most violence using guns, regardless of race. The easy availability of guns in white neighborhoods and red states, arms the gangs in black and blue ones. No, it's the NRA and complicit politicians who lead to gun violence. Any use of a gun outside of the army or law enforcement is "gun abuse." We don't have a mental health problem that is any worse than other countries. We have a gun problem that is worse than other countries. I hope the Parkland students prevail; they are our future leaders. The wind is at our back on this issue now. We will move and run over the incrementalists and the gun advocates, and keep moving until Dr. King's granddaughter's dream is fulfilled, a society free of guns! Someday it will happen! I think maybe the NRA stirred up a hornet's nest when they killed 17 suburban school students.

[Eric the Green]

Our laws are shaped by the insatiable greed of a few. In their greed, the gun lobby and their politicians have tried to distract us. We won't fall for it! Our nation's politics are sick with soullessness, but we are the cure. We choose real change, not incrementalism. Where they believe in the absolutism of an amendment, we believe in human life!

[Eric the Green]

I like a sign I saw in a report about the rally; GOP stands for Guns Over People.

Bob Dylan sang it when HE was young. "How many deaths does it take till he knows, that too many people have died?"

Did you see this one?

A Chicago public art installation is raising eyebrows in its protest of American gun culture.

The display, Chicago Gun Share Program, depicts an urban bike-sharing station, but instead pretends to offer people the opportunity to rent a rifle.
A sign invites anyone to "unlock and load" a replica high-powered, semi-automatic rifle known as an AR-15.

Activists say they want to raise awareness on how easy it is to "obtain a weapon of war".

The installation in downtown Chicago's Daley Plaza was commissioned by the Brady Center, a gun control advocacy group.



the exhibitImage copyrightTHE ESCAPE POD/ BRADY CENTER

"We hope the Chicago community takes advantage of the opportunity to visit this installation and to learn just how simple it is for an everyday civilian to obtain a weapon of war," Kris Brown and Avery Gardiner, co-presidents of the Brady Center told US media.

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-44115267

[Bob Butler 54]

(05-23-2018, 05:13 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: What encourages spree shooters, is the easy availability of more dangerous guns. No, the stats are clear. America has the most guns, and the most violence using guns, regardless of race. The easy availability of guns in white neighborhoods and red states, arms the gangs in black and blue ones. No, it's the NRA and complicit politicians who lead to gun violence. Any use of a gun outside of the army or law enforcement is "gun abuse." We don't have a mental health problem that is any worse than other countries. We have a gun problem that is worse than other countries. I hope the Parkland students prevail; they are our future leaders. The wind is at our back on this issue now. We will move and run over the incrementalists and the gun advocates, and keep moving until Dr. King's granddaughter's dream is fulfilled, a society free of guns! Someday it will happen! I think maybe the NRA stirred up a hornet's nest when they killed 17 suburban school students.

This is the problem with 'debating' someone who refuses to become aware of the facts.  There is a significant increase in gun deaths and violence among blacks.  Among the other populations, the rates are similar to Europe.  Eric creates 'facts' which aren't, which have nothing to do with the FBI data base or the real world.  He has to to reach the absurd responses regarding prohibition that he has. 

There has been a recent rise in spree shooting.  It is not a rise which is dominant.  Spree shooters are far outnumbered by drug related violence, but are far more likely to involve innocent victims.  Addressing the real causes of the problem is far more constructive than insisting that one's lies are true and insisting on remaining ignorant.

Race and drug problems are real, as are spree shooters.  Prohibition as a solution has not worked, and I am dubious about making it work.  However, refusing to look at problems and pretending that other solutions are not possible is not rational either.

[Bob Butler 54]

(05-07-2018, 06:26 PM)pbrower2a Wrote: This establishes that if increases in real wages should be necessary for getting America out of an economic bind (such as an inchoate depression), then a solution that involves wage increases can work.

Consequences of stagnant wages include a high level of employee turnover, an in ordinate number of personal bankruptcies, the death of many retail businesses, and a low birth rate.

I am guessing that much of the increase in productivity results from technological advances -- but that suggests that scientists and engineers should be paid extraordinarily well... but they aren't.

Lowering the birth rate is not a good thing?  Earth in the long term must become sustainable.  Maintaining Agricultural Age birth rates with improvements in medicine and cut backs in war deaths is problematic.  

I was a software engineer associated with the military industrial complex and paid quite well, than you, though not so much when compared to the capitalist class, the owners of the means of production.  I would quite agree that resources and wealth should be distributed move evenly, that the few focus too much wealth and political influence on themselves.  The economy is focused too much on the few.

I have heard from apologists for the few that liberals do not understand economics well.  I am dubious about that.  It is easy enough to see that the few are gathering too much wealth and power, that the economy should be inclusive.  The rules are being bent to encourage this.  Ending the robbery, however, involves the center of the country working with the coasts.  This seems difficult, and leaves the few in charge.

[Eric the Green]

(05-24-2018, 07:17 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote:

(05-23-2018, 05:13 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: What encourages spree shooters, is the easy availability of more dangerous guns. No, the stats are clear. America has the most guns, and the most violence using guns, regardless of race. The easy availability of guns in white neighborhoods and red states, arms the gangs in black and blue ones. No, it's the NRA and complicit politicians who lead to gun violence. Any use of a gun outside of the army or law enforcement is "gun abuse." We don't have a mental health problem that is any worse than other countries. We have a gun problem that is worse than other countries. I hope the Parkland students prevail; they are our future leaders. The wind is at our back on this issue now. We will move and run over the incrementalists and the gun advocates, and keep moving until Dr. King's granddaughter's dream is fulfilled, a society free of guns! Someday it will happen! I think maybe the NRA stirred up a hornet's nest when they killed 17 suburban school students.

This is the problem with 'debating' someone who refuses to become aware of the facts.  There is a significant increase in gun deaths and violence among blacks.  Among the other populations, the rates are similar to Europe.  Eric creates 'facts' which aren't, which have nothing to do with the FBI data base or the real world.  He has to to reach the absurd responses regarding prohibition that he has. 

There has been a recent rise in spree shooting.  It is not a rise which is dominant.  Spree shooters are far outnumbered by drug related violence, but are far more likely to involve innocent victims.  Addressing the real causes of the problem is far more constructive than insisting that one's lies are true and insisting on remaining ignorant.

Race and drug problems are real, as are spree shooters.  Prohibition as a solution has not worked, and I am dubious about making it work.  However, refusing to look at problems and pretending that other solutions are not possible is not rational either.

Gun control works; that is clear from any perusal of the facts. As has been well publicized, the assault weapons "prohibition" reduced mass shootings by 37%. I never understood why it wasn't a permanent ban. But when it ended, mass shootings went up 200%. Stats have been posted here and elsewhere for a long time that prove my "facts." Just like climate science deniers, gun advocates refuse to look at facts. It is clear that, just as you call it, you have a "values lock" on this issue. As the students point out, you and other gun advocates are not addressing the real cause of the problem: the easy availability and increased technological danger of guns and the refusal of lawmakers to act, partly due to the power of a criminal organization. This is not absurd, but the real fact that any criminal or gang member in the USA can get one by fair means or foul, because there are so many around even in blue states, and so many red states right next door. Bob prefers to ignore this fact and claim that it is I that is ignoring facts.

[Eric the Green]

Gun violence is higher in red states.
https://www.thedailybeast.com/surprise-s...red-states

I already posted the relationship between murder rates and gun laws. I got the murder stats from http://deathpenaltyinfo.org and the gun law rates from the Brady scorecard.

11 red states, 4 purple states and 2 blue states had the highest murder rates, with an average rank of 9 among the 17 states. In the laxity of their gun laws, these states ranked 19.5

7 red, 6 purple and 4 blue states had an average murder rate rank of 26. Their average Brady scorecard rank was 25.3

5 red, 2 purple and 9 blue states had an average murder rate rank of 42.5. The average lax gun law rank on the Brady scorecard was 32.1

It is quite a notable fact that blue states have the toughest gun laws, with only Maine and Vermont different from the trend.

The notable fact about rural white red states that ranked in the middle section like Wyoming, Montana and Arizona, was that they were near or at the top in gun law laxity. Clearly, it is their lax gun laws alone that make their murder rates comparable to states like CA and NY, WI and PA. Alaska of course is the most glaring example; a rural white state whose murder rate ranks 11 and its lax gun law rate ranks #2.

[Eric the Green]

wikipedia article says that class is the main factor in higher crime rates, not race.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_and_c...ted_States

This study shows differences between states

https://www.cnn.com/2018/04/23/health/gu...index.html

Quote:"We knew going into it that whites would have a higher rate of suicide and that black men would have a higher rate of homicide, but to see that level of variation in the rates across states was surprising," she said. "Any time I see variations so large like that, that can't be due to chance. I want to know why the differences exist."

The researchers also examined the relationships between gun ownership and these homicide and suicide rates by race and state. They used 2004 data, the most recent available, on household firearm ownership in the US from the CDC's national Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System.

They found that rates of gun ownership in a state were positively associated with both homicide and suicide rates among white men but only modestly associated with homicide and suicide rates among black men.

In other words, I note, that black men who commit violent crimes and suicides with guns are over 2x less likely to own a gun. Where do they get their guns then? Obviously, they steal them. There are lots of guns around for blacks to steal. And those blacks who own them, can more easily get them in a state like Indiana and bring them to a state like Illinois.

[Eric the Green]

This chart shows rates of gun homicide in Europe.



https://i.imgur.com/YrnSNcX.png

This article I quote above shows the firearm homicide rate for whites in the USA

https://www.cnn.com/2018/04/23/health/gu...index.html

You can see that the white firearm homicide rates in the USA range up above 4 in red USA states, and above 1 in USA blue states, while those in Europe are well below 1. The facts are different from what Bob says, and correspond with what I say.

The wind is at our back now. There is no more need to hold back on this issue. It is a key voting issue on the blue side and even among some on the red side. Gun laws are going to get stricter. The 2nd amendment is safe for now, and confiscations will be rare. But if the gun nuts resist common sense gun laws, the public attitude will shift as gun deaths and massacres continue to escalate, and the public may well support confiscation and repeal in the future. And with each new massacre, more organizations and activists are created to work against lax gun laws, and more calls for prohibition and repeal occur.

It's up to you guys, Bob. Which do you want? Common sense gun laws, or confiscation, stricter prohibition and repeal of the 2nd?

[Bob Butler 54]

(05-24-2018, 11:48 AM)Eric the Green Wrote: Gun control works; that is clear from any perusal of the facts. As has been well publicized, the assault weapons "prohibition" reduced mass shootings by 37%. I never understood why it wasn't a permanent ban. But when it ended, mass shootings went up 200%. Stats have been posted here and elsewhere for a long time that prove my "facts." Just like climate science deniers, gun advocates refuse to look at facts. It is clear that, just as you call it, you have a "values lock" on this issue. As the students point out, you and other gun advocates are not addressing the real cause of the problem: the easy availability and increased technological danger of guns and the refusal of lawmakers to act, partly due to the power of a criminal organization. This is not absurd, but the real fact that any criminal or gang member in the USA can get one by fair means or foul, because there are so many around even in blue states, and so many red states right next door. Bob prefers to ignore this fact and claim that it is I that is ignoring facts.

I'd like to say a little about values lock.  There was a time when lead additives were common in gasoline and the environment, and these happen to be violent times.  Some have said lead is a mind altering pollutant that contributed to the violence.  The blue mind pattern credits the assault weapons ban on the reduction in violence.  The red credit the concealed carry laws which were becoming common at the time.

Values Lock in part reflects an understanding of how the world works.  Is there a inhibition against violence which was reduced by lead additives?  Does prohibition work?  Is it best that the good guys are better armed, trained and ready to deal with violence than the bad guys?  The weapons issue is complex.  I just chose three of many issues which are involved.  The common use of drugs potentially effecting active shooters is another.

Values lock will have an individual so obsessed with one aspect of an issue that he doesn't weigh in or understand others.  I find your presentations present the blue values well and strongly, not so much the many other values and perspectives, many of which are important.

I for one think attention deficit order is a disease, might blame the disease rather than the attempted cure, but would not dismiss the problem out of hand.  People are different.  Not everyone thrives in the particular environment of the schools.  Bullies following the main line are apt to handle roughly many that are ill suited for that environment.  I was a victim of the bullies.  I would try to find their victims another place, and am dubious about drugging them into pseudo compliance with a demanding society.  I would also have the school adults inhibit more actively the bullies, whose intent is often to harm others.

And this perspective should not go away just because it aligns with others.  Because one way of looking at a problem might be considered valid by some, it does not necessarily disqualify others.  Active shooters are a problem.  Prohibition is not the only and obviously correct solution.

That is what I mean be values lock, an obsession on one perspective that leads to an automatic rejection of others.  It reflects alignment with one perspective so tight that it renders one incapable of accepting others.

[pbrower2a]

(05-28-2018, 08:40 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote:

(05-24-2018, 11:48 AM)Eric the Green Wrote: Gun control works; that is clear from any perusal of the facts. As has been well publicized, the assault weapons "prohibition" reduced mass shootings by 37%. I never understood why it wasn't a permanent ban. But when it ended, mass shootings went up 200%. Stats have been posted here and elsewhere for a long time that prove my "facts." Just like climate science deniers, gun advocates refuse to look at facts. It is clear that, just as you call it, you have a "values lock" on this issue. As the students point out, you and other gun advocates are not addressing the real cause of the problem: the easy availability and increased technological danger of guns and the refusal of lawmakers to act, partly due to the power of a criminal organization. This is not absurd, but the real fact that any criminal or gang member in the USA can get one by fair means or foul, because there are so many around even in blue states, and so many red states right next door. Bob prefers to ignore this fact and claim that it is I that is ignoring facts.

I'd like to say a little about values lock.  There was a time when lead additives were common in gasoline and the environment, and these happen to be violent times.  Some have said lead is a mind altering pollutant that contributed to the violence.  The blue mind pattern credits the assault weapons ban on the reduction in violence.  The red credit the concealed carry laws which were becoming common at the time.

I remember seeing someone deny the strong (and with a high likelihood of causality) link between lead in the system and violent crime. I could see the pattern on the map:  that where the bottlenecks for automobile-based commuters concentrated the highest levels of emissions, crime rates were highest. Traffic intensified and slowed as it approached the bottlenecks approaching downtown areas, and so did lead emissions.  In the San Francisco Bay Area, eastern side, violent crime rates intensified from Fremont to Union City to Hayward to San Lorenzo to San Leandro to Oakland, and bad as Oakland was, southern Oakland wasn't quite as bad as the areas just south of downtown. Sure, poverty played its insidious role... but lead could be connected both to cognitive deterioration and loss of impulse control -- both strongly linked to criminality. The same pattern applied to every big city. As leaded fuel began to disappear from vehicle use as cars without catalytic converters disappeared from the vehicle mix, violent crime fell about ten years later. Lead is a cumulative poison.

The denier claimed that it was irreligion (news for him -- poverty and religion correlate strongly), character, and genetic predisposition. Poverty is as severe in America as it has ever been; religious faith is weakening; there is no evidence of any 'genetic improvement (probably a racist matter, but he denied that -- what a surprise!). But the peak years for cohorts of violent crime remain the late 1950s and early 1960s.

Quote:Values Lock in part reflects an understanding of how the world works.  Is there a inhibition against violence which was reduced by lead additives?  Does prohibition work?  Is it best that the good guys are better armed, trained and ready to deal with violence than the bad guys?  The weapons issue is complex.  I just chose three of many issues which are involved.  The common use of drugs potentially effecting active shooters is another.

Few people call for a return to the use of leaded motor fuels. A technological fix for carbon monoxide and nitrogen oxides took out a pollutant even more insidious in low concentrations.

I have my idea of an excellent deterrent to crime, one that can detect a bad guy from telltale behavior long before a person knows about the potential mugger, burglar, or rapist... and is just short of the lethality of cougars and black bears similar in size. It has keen senses that do not shut down at night as human senses do. Unlike a firearm, it is more likely to thwart than facilitate a suicide.



That is a good reason for behaving oneself. You never know where one of these is.

Quote:I for one think attention deficit order is a disease, might blame the disease rather than the attempted cure, but would not dismiss the problem out of hand.  People are different.  Not everyone thrives in the particular environment of the schools.  Bullies following the main line are apt to handle roughly many that are ill suited for that environment.  I was a victim of the bullies.  I would try to find their victims another place, and am dubious about drugging them into pseudo compliance with a demanding society.  I would also have the school adults inhibit more actively the bullies, whose intent is often to harm others.

ADD is real, and it can make much in life extremely frustrating. I would rather have Asperger's (which allows me to do things that must be savored) than ADD which makes on impatient.

Quote:And this perspective should not go away just because it aligns with others.  Because one way of looking at a problem might be considered valid by some, it does not necessarily disqualify others.  Active shooters are a problem.  Prohibition is not the only and obviously correct solution.

We need people who can think outside the box, but those who think outside the box need exercise some judgment on whether their proposals are valid and workable. In my observation, genius is doing something that first seems obviously wrong or absurd and after working it out can convince others of how obvious and applicable the once-crazy idea is. Stupidity or insanity is doing something that is well known to be wrong and absurd, getting bad results, and not recognizing that the results are bad that one sticks with it as if it were wise. The first is J.S. Bach,   Albert Einstein, or Joan Miro. The second? I shall avoid naming names.
 

Quote:That is what I mean be values lock, an obsession on one perspective that leads to an automatic rejection of others.  It reflects alignment with one perspective so tight that it renders one incapable of accepting others.

But recognizing that values lock exist (unless on one's own side) exists is itself a rejection of the idea. Of course, I can lock out homophobia and child sexual abuse at the same time; I consider myself adept enough at testing arguments for their semblance or lack thereof of truth (don't try to convince me that young-earth creationism,  vaccinations cause autism, a flat or hollow Earth, or Holocaust denial is valid).

Two and two is not five, Germany is not to the southwest of France, pi and e are both transcendental (not rational or algebraic), and Alfred Hitchcock did not direct any episode of Star Wars.

[Eric the Green]

(05-28-2018, 08:40 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote:

(05-24-2018, 11:48 AM)Eric the Green Wrote: Gun control works; that is clear from any perusal of the facts. As has been well publicized, the assault weapons "prohibition" reduced mass shootings by 37%. I never understood why it wasn't a permanent ban. But when it ended, mass shootings went up 200%. Stats have been posted here and elsewhere for a long time that prove my "facts." Just like climate science deniers, gun advocates refuse to look at facts. It is clear that, just as you call it, you have a "values lock" on this issue. As the students point out, you and other gun advocates are not addressing the real cause of the problem: the easy availability and increased technological danger of guns and the refusal of lawmakers to act, partly due to the power of a criminal organization. This is not absurd, but the real fact that any criminal or gang member in the USA can get one by fair means or foul, because there are so many around even in blue states, and so many red states right next door. Bob prefers to ignore this fact and claim that it is I that is ignoring facts.

I'd like to say a little about values lock.  There was a time when lead additives were common in gasoline and the environment, and these happen to be violent times.  Some have said lead is a mind altering pollutant that contributed to the violence.  The blue mind pattern credits the assault weapons ban on the reduction in violence.  The red credit the concealed carry laws which were becoming common at the time.

It seems to me that when the assault weapons (military rifles in civilian society) ban was in effect, mass shootings declined, and when the ban was lifted, they rose precipitously. Since conceal carry laws, iirc, have been gaining ground continuously, the correlation would not be established between reduction in mass shootings and conceal carry laws.

Quote:Values Lock in part reflects an understanding of how the world works.  Is there a inhibition against violence which was reduced by lead additives?  Does prohibition work?  Is it best that the good guys are better armed, trained and ready to deal with violence than the bad guys?  The weapons issue is complex.  I just chose three of many issues which are involved.  The common use of drugs potentially effecting active shooters is another.

Values lock will have an individual so obsessed with one aspect of an issue that he doesn't weigh in or understand others.  I find your presentations present the blue values well and strongly, not so much the many other values and perspectives, many of which are important.

Today's red values, as I experience them, do not correspond with anything that I consider valuable, nor with the real world as I know it. Republicans used to serve a purpose in cautioning against excesses in liberal values, and had values worth considering. Today, they have grown so extreme that they would only be worth considering again within the context of blue values. Today, the only alternative is to defeat the red values. This is our 4T cold-civil war situation. Perhaps after a red defeat, a new consensus will be established with a range of worthwhile values and opinions. Now, to say the red and blue values are both worth considering, is just like saying slavery should be valued, or almost like saying Nazism should be valued.

Quote:I for one think attention deficit order is a disease, might blame the disease rather than the attempted cure, but would not dismiss the problem out of hand.  People are different.  Not everyone thrives in the particular environment of the schools.  Bullies following the main line are apt to handle roughly many that are ill suited for that environment.  I was a victim of the bullies.  I would try to find their victims another place, and am dubious about drugging them into pseudo compliance with a demanding society.  I would also have the school adults inhibit more actively the bullies, whose intent is often to harm others.

And this perspective should not go away just because it aligns with others.  Because one way of looking at a problem might be considered valid by some, it does not necessarily disqualify others.  Active shooters are a problem.  Prohibition is not the only and obviously correct solution.

That is what I mean be values lock, an obsession on one perspective that leads to an automatic rejection of others.  It reflects alignment with one perspective so tight that it renders one incapable of accepting others.

I don't reject attempts to deal with mental illness or bullying. I have been bullied as well, at many stages of my life; including by some posters here such as terror marie, kinser and vandal, and by various authority figures in my life. We can all benefit with an increase in consideration for others, and remedies to heal the dis-ease that afflicts human beings too often. Regarding gun control, it is better if we recognize the fact that the gun industry and culture are the main contributor to the problem of gun violence, since all countries have mental health issues, crime issues, etc., but the USA has an outsized gun problem. So this issue can't be deflected by attributing it to other causes. That said, no doubt there are other causes, and we'd be a less violent society if we dealt with them as well. Blue states have less violence, overall, and that's because they are willing to deal with all its causes.

[Bob Butler 54]

Hmm. Blue values good.  Red values.bad.  Don't deflect onto other causes.  Sounds like an Eric, locked into the idea of prohibition.

[Eric the Green]

Yup, I'm totally with Matt, and stand by what I said above. Well balanced.





We need to move through the domination by red greed, and deflection, into the bright future that Cameron Kasky points toward after the next 10 years.





What an eloquent group of speeches by late-cohort millennials, born exactly one cycle after JFK and Nelson Mandela. They are showing us boomer gray champions how it's done. I hope some elder blue boomers rise to the occasion too.

Welcome to the Revolution! Millennials will stand up and speak up! They will be heroes.

[Eric the Green]

David Hogg is especially good in this great although obscure panel of six of the courageous and articulate MSD Parkland School leaders.

[pbrower2a]

(06-19-2018, 09:38 PM)political Wrote: Americans seem to have forgotten US history.

Overstatement. Americans may not know the names of all the Presidents, let alone those of the British or French and Spanish monarchs (the latter important to large parts of America), and may not be as knowledgeable about the Napoleonic era as Europeans are. We tend to have narrow focuses on The Civil War and World War II, and much of the rest that we know comes from some form of entertainment. OK, the movies Spartacus, Gladiator, 1776, Amistad, and The Last Emperor aren't all bad, and anyone who has ever seen Fiddler on the Roof recognizes that Imperial Russia was a horrible place in which to be a subject of the Tsar. Likewise, anyone who has ever seen Cabaret (my favorite horror movie, even if it is conventionally seen as a musical) knows what happens to a depraved society under the economic stress of a Great Depression. We have plenty of cinematic films about World War II from such spoofs as You Nazzty Spy  and The Great Dictator to the more recent Dunkirk and The Darkest Hour, the latter two depicting the most ominous time in human history, with psychodrama the propagandistic but masterful Casablanca and battle movies (take your pick of then) in between.  We Americans are experts on World War II and to a lesser extent the American Civil War, but not on much else.

We could stand to pay more attention to antiquity. People who know their history can learn its lessons the easy way instead of having to find out the hard way -- if they survive. Surviving as a galley slave isn't worth it. Yes, there are fates worse than death. Between breaking at the wheel, being burned to death, and being fed to predatory animals (bears and Big Cats in the Roman arenas, dogs in Nazi concentration camps), there are deaths worse than sword or bullet.

The first lesson that we need to remember is that brute force is not enough. We should have learned that in Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan. Yes, brute force of the American armed forces played its role in destroying Hitler, Mussolini, and Tojo, but it may be surprising that the fascist powers themselves had enough brute force with which to beat the United States -- had it not been for American and British leadership having the moral compass that the fascists did not have. The second is that antiquity is far from irrelevant. The Founders of our country well knew the political struggles of the ancient Hebrews (our President functions much like one of the elected 'kings' of ancient Jewish states) and much of the ethical debate (to know more about them they would have had to have been scholars of the Torah and Talmud, which would have required that they be what they weren't -- the Founding Fathers were not Jewish), the philosophical debates of the ancient Greeks and Enlightenment-era political thinkers, the heroism of the Roman Republic, and -- as a warning -- the depravity and decline of the Roman Empire. The third is that history is far from an inevitable progression from the hunter-gatherer way of life to technological modernity and cultural sophistication.

It may be my opinion, but we are wiser to fortify and maintain our institutions than to destroy them in revolution, let them rot to the point that we no longer have a society, or start some disastrous course of perverse expansionism that leads to the physical destruction of the basis of our prosperity -- only to have to reconstruct it all the hard way. Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle remain relevant -- if with some healthy grains of salt.

We are in a Crisis Era, one potentially even more dangerous than World War II to the world or as destructive to America as the Civil War. We have close to the worst possible leader as President and a majority of politicians acting as if this President is the Heaven-sent savior of America. Some of us see what is wrong, and the broader the scope of one's understanding of history, philosophy, and economics, the more wrong one sees in contemporary America. We will need to go back to what we used to do well. Crony capitalism, superstition, and politics that say the equivalent of "F--- you!" to the side that just lost the most recent election get bad results no matter how skillfully a leadership applies them.

Liberals may be catching on. They are beginning to recognize the importance of family, tradition, character, and civility, which used to be conservative strengths. They have quit believing that economic distress creates bad character. There are plenty of good people in the nastiest ghettos, barrios, and reservations; Donald Trump, who never lacked for anything, is a horrible person. Maybe liberals earlier defined same-sex couples as 'family' because such could protect children. (Paradoxically I became pro-homosexual after I was threatened with gay-bashing, and discovering that mainstream homosexuals are as hostile to sexual abuse of children as I am. But I have never had much sympathy for criminality no matter where I have been on the political spectrum). Traditions may differ by ethnicity and religion, but we can all pick and choose for ourselves. Character is the difference not in stepping on a twenty-dollar bill that blows past one at a gas station (I would have been a fool not to do step on it) but instead to go to the pumps, recognized that some woman was perplexed at having only two instead of three such images of Andrew Jackson. I could giver her the twenty back so that she could fill her pickup or that I might buy myself some beer. I ended up with a soft drink instead. Civility is the difference between working things out or proclaiming "My way or the highway!" (which, if things go badly could go "My way or the shooting pit!") Liberals may be catching on before conservatives. This said, conservatives can start to see the betrayal of their interests when the President is a crass demagogue with dictatorial or despotic tendencies. When conservatives and liberals can decide alike that liberal democracy is better than exploiting a temporary advantage for personal gain and indulgence, then we have solved the problem that most needs solving.

Character is destiny, said John McCain. So did Heraclitus. The simplest statements of reality are often found in antiquity.

Quote:Americans either believe the USA is the most free country in the world or think that the US never was a free country.

The United States was the first free country (with the qualification of male supremacy and  of chattel slavery) in the modern world. We may have not been the first country to abolish slavery throughout its domain (Britain did that first, and in a way that I consider far better for its future -- I suspect that Lincoln was going to imitate the British in buying the freedom of slaves from their masters, which would have been far less costly than the Civil War) -- but even Britain did not become a full democracy until the Whigs gave the vote to the rural poor in the 1880s.

We have the formalities. We need to honor those formalities again. Then, and only then, do we achieve Abraham Lincoln's dream of a "New Birth of Freedom".

Quote:No one remembers that the US used to have freedom, but lost it.

I differ with your simplistic overstatement. I can think of a political system from which we could learn much -- that of Germany. The British, French, and Americans imposed upon defeated Germany a political system  with no seams through which someone could impose a totalitarian ideology or practice. Having seen what Karl Rove tried to do with Dubya as President and what Donald Trump does today, I recognize that we will need to close some of those seams. It used to be that political figures caviled at the idea of anyone ever being indecent enough to exploit the seams in our Constitutional system, and politicians who knew of the seams pretended that they did not know about them -- and did not exploit them. That is over.

After Donald Trump is out to pasture, the generational cycle suggests that we will end up with a mature Reactive or two -- Washington, Adams, Truman, and Eisenhower. (The Civil War vets took on Civic character after the war, at least in the North). Those were above-average Presidents, all well into their fifties if not into their sixties when they became President. Obama fits the pattern well except for becoming President in his mid-forties. He was about as mature as any of the other mature Reactives, so age isn't everything. He fits the pattern except for being a bit young for a President and (for a Reactive) arriving in the Highest Office of our Nation before the Crisis Era is largely over. Generation X is now between 37 and 57 in age, and the President who follows Trump after the 2020 election could be of Generation X -- and not a Boomer. Of course there is one catastrophic sort of Reactive to avoid at all cost -- the cynical, misguided Reactive who uses his great power to settle personal, group, and national scores -- typically fascists and Stalin's Commie henchmen. In Hungary that was the Hitler-supporting Ferenc Szalasi (hanged as a traitor and Holocaust perpetrator) and "Stalin's greatest Hungarian student" Matyas Rakosi, a fanatical Communist who used his power to destroy non-Communists and eliminate his potential rivals. Rakosi fled before the 1956 Hungarian Revolution figuring that he could die with a rope around his neck if he had to account for his crimes.

Several of the possible Democratic nominees for President (and I predict that any winner of the Democratic nomination  for President in 2020 will defeat President Trump because Americans whatever their ideological position loathe corruption and cruelty) are members of Generation X. We have a good taste of what a mature Reactive is like as a President even if we are too young to remember Truman or Eisenhower. Even though they have as different curricula vitae as they could possibly have, Obama is arguably more similar in temperament and political style... and results... to Eisenhower. Take away the 'excessive melanin' of Obama, and white America respects him more. We will be ready for that sort of leadership again, and we will work better with it.

[Eric the Green]

Parkland Siblings Detail #NeverAgain Inception in New Book



The polarizing survivor of the Parkland mass shooting has been falsely labeled a crisis actor, vilified by the NRA and called names by TV hosts. And David Hogg isn't avoiding self-criticism in his new book. In fact, he calls himself "arrogant," ''skinny" and details his rejection by girls.

Eighteen-year-old Hogg admits he was super cocky after being named debate captain at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School.

"I was just so narcissistic and pretentious back then, even more than I am now ... Pretentiousness was probably my substitute for actual confidence," Hogg writes in "#NeverAgain," which he co-authored with his sister Lauren Hogg. Released this month, it's published by Random House. The siblings are donating the proceeds to charity.


The teen talks about how he felt like an "outsider" when he first moved to the upscale Florida community halfway through the school year in 2014, but found a sense of place through journalism and photography.

In an interview in New York on Tuesday, Hogg told a video journalist from The Associated Press that it was important for him to be vulnerable in the book and take inventory of his own shortcomings.

"I think America also needs to face its own problems as well. And I hope the book kind of teaches empathy for everybody," he said.

The book includes gripping accounts of the siblings' experiences trapped inside their classrooms as a gunman opened fire, killing 17. Former student Nikolas Cruz has been charged in the massacre.

Lauren Hogg, a 15-year-old freshman lost four friends in the shooting. She cried so uncontrollably for the next three days that her mom wanted to take her to the emergency room, describing the sounds coming out of her mouth as "subhuman."


David wrote that his sister's sobbing, in part, motivated his activism. He hopped on his bicycle, ignoring his parent's protests, and rode back to the school to do media interviews the evening after the shooting.

He's taking a year off before starting college, in part, he says because he wants to be around to look out for his little sister.

The book also offers an inside look at the early days of the March For Our Lives grassroots efforts that mobilized hundreds of thousands around the world to march for gun reform and made Hogg, Emma Gonzalez, Cameron Kasky and other Parkland students household names.


He admits he was put off, at first, by Gonzalez' shaved head, dismissing her as someone trying to be edgy. As he got to know her, Hogg writes he was taken by her compassion and the two bonded over memes, politics and their shared obsession with space.

The night before the shooting, Hogg said he felt an "overwhelming urge to call Emma and tell her how much I cared about her," telling her "I know that you're going to change the world and I can't wait to see how you do it."

After the shooting "Cameron and a small group of his drama-department friends were quietly planning to rewrite the entire national dialogue about school shootings," Hogg writes.

Two days after the shooting, Hogg attended the group's first official meeting at Kasky's house.


"My first impression was, 'Wow, these guys are extroverted.'"

Hogg said they were extremely disorganized at first, but "insanely obsessive from day one ... we just kept going until we fell asleep. Some of us didn't even go home. We just stayed at Cameron's house, sleeping on the couch or the floor and jumping up in the middle of the night with another idea."

Lauren Hogg says she's struggled with not being included in the group from its inception.

"He's my big brother he's always tried to protect me and as much as I appreciate that I wish you would've told me earlier about what they were doing," Lauren told AP, adding the reason she thinks they've avoided burnout is because "we've become a family."

David writes that the March for our Lives group came "together to try to heal the world and found out that was the best way to heal."

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https://www.newsmax.com/newsfront/david-...ae339cc223