And that is why I liked the game Subspace so much. It was the first really massively multiplayer game, made by Burst (gone Bust, now known as Harmless Games) and financed by Virgin Interactive Entertainment (also gone Bust). But Subspace still lives. It's four years old, totally abandoned by the creators, but the players still keep very good servers and leagues going. Subspace too is easy to learn, and hard to master. The general controls are a bit awkward, but learn very quickly, and the physics of the game are very simple, but to become a master takes ages, because you're always playing against other humans, never (NEVER) against bots of any kind.
Four years ago it was the greatest thing out there. A truly online game, with centralised servers. A 2D top-down view space shooter, kinda like Asteroids, but with over 100 people in one zone, and lots of mods available. I played that game for 3 years (2.5 years of beta and then half a year after it went retail). That's longer than I've played any other game except Civilization...
Remember that a seeding only needs to happen once. For billions and billions of years the earth lay barren, without any life, and then suddenly there was an explosion of it. It doesn't matter at all how small the chance is that enough bacteria survive the trip through space to seed another planet, since it only needs to happen once, and thus chances are irrelevant.
It is also useless to calculate the chances of something that has already happened. Yes, maybe the chance of a large enough amount of bacteria surviving all the way to earth is infinitesmally small, but the chance of a golf ball landing on that one specific blade of grass it happened to land on is equally minute - and equally nonessential.
Besides all that, Pascal's Wager is the wrong reason to believe. Sure, it's nice reasoning, but it can't possibly make anybody truly believe in anything. It may open somebody's mind a little bit, though, so they suddenly and unexpectedly find God - any God of any religion. But other than that, Pascal's Wager is an utterly useless red herring. Hmmm, herring!
Don't sell yourself short by suggesting it's thanks to a supreme being floating in the sky
First, my current mental health is mostly of my own doing. Without any help I still managed to drag myself out of quite a few severe depressions. You can't imagine how many times I shouted at that supposed God people told me about who was supposed to help people - why wasn't he helping me? I did it all myself, and then found my faith.
nailed up on a cross
I'm not Christian.
If someone were to suggest that the cat I had in my lap didn't exist I would think they need glasses or a mental examination. Not unlike those that believe in gods.
First you compliment my mental health, then you say I need a mental examination. 'tSeems you're contradicting yourself:)
Religion is keeping a good chunk of humanity in the dark ages. Turn your back on the controlling lies religion teaches and free your mind.
Wrong. You're confusing rigid dogma with religion. I did exactly what you advise here. I let no-one tell me what to believe, opened my mind, and figured it all out for myself.
Maybe YOU should take your own advise and open your mind. Stop piling all theists on one big biased heap.:)
you can't force people anymore into believing the things you seem fit.
Two things:
1) Then why do YOU (atheists) try to force us (theists) into believing the things YOU seem fit?
2) What some Christians believe (that everybody who doesn't follow their exact path is doomed) is not what most theists believe. It just so happens that those doomsayers are, unfortunately, the most vocal minority. Personally, I'm not even Christian.
I can't believe I'm actually replying to this, because most of the time it's a useless waste of time, but here goes anyway:)
Claiming something doesn't exist because you've never seen it is indeed a logical thing to do, but it isn't always the right thing. You might not see the carton of milk in the fridge when you're looking for it while it's right in front of you. You might not see that car approaching from the right, but it is definitely there.
I have personally experienced, and am constantly experiencing the Divine. I feel the Divine Energy, Breath of Life, Chi, Force, whatever you'd like to call it flowing through me, and through everything that surrounds me. And there you are telling me it doesn't exist.
Say you're holding a nice fluffy cat. You can feel its warmth in your lap, hear its purrs, feel its fluffy fur as you pet it, and then along comes somebody who claims cats do not exist. He seems to look right through the cat as if it truly doesn't exist, he just doesn't notice it somehow. Wouldn't that be weird? Well, I think you're just that weird:)
I'm sorry, but: a) I live in Europe, where that whole MS trial thingy isn't very big news. b) I've just spent a week in France, away from anything even remotely connected to the internet.
When I first came to this great campus and was introduced to networking on such large scale, I had to choose a network name for my mighty computer, and I chose Voyager, and it was good, and I saw that it was good. A login had to be created for this mighty computer, so Chakotay was chosen, and it was good, and I saw that it was good. And thus came to pass that I used Chakotay as a nickname online. And thus, when I was finally converted to the great Linux, it also became one of my email addies. And it is good. And I see that it is good. And I also see that you're a troll, so please get off my back. Thank you.
That's still going on, right? And wasn't it already decided that Microsoft should cease such activities within 90 days?
Actually, I don't really mind. All this does is put Microsoft in an even worse light than they're already in, by showing that they are still up to their old tricks, defying the DOJ right in front of their eyes. My Goddess, judge Jackson could have a field day with this *grin*
Hunting is far more 'barbaric' than a modern slaughterhouse.
Have you ever seen how pigs are herded to those modern slaughterhouses? Have you ever seen how those pigs and cows live, locked up in little boxes they can't even move an inch in? That, by my book, is far more barbaric than killing an animal in nature. Did you ever stop to think how much pain an antilope is in when it's hamstrung and bled to death by a leopard? Yet there's nothing wrong with that. So what's wrong with shooting a deer, if it's meant to be eaten?
Oh, and you're not a Pagan. There aren't any of those anymore.
Yes there are. European Paganism still exists in its original form in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. Original Paganism still exists in Africa, Australia, Asia (specifically Indonesia and Polynesia) and North- and South-America.
The definition of Pagan is one who has a religion based on nature - my religion is based on nature. It might be that I formed my own beliefs in favour of being indoctrinated by parents or other people, but I formed my own beliefs from nature, thus I'm Pagan. Call it neo-Pagan all you like, but the way I formed my religion isn't very different from the way the first humans formed theirs, which was original Paganism.
Spirituality isn't something you get to pick out of a catalogue, or from a shelf in the back of a book and herb store.
Exactly. I found religion, and then went looking in bookstores to see what I could find that resembled it so I could continue my search. I believe what I believe, and it happens to be given the name "Paganism" by many. My personal philosophies and beliefs are extremely similar to Sodizim, an ancient Celtic _Pagan_ religion. Strange, how you arrive at something you think is new and yours alone, to find out that others have already done it and named it.
Check out the violence in those sometimes. You'll be stunned. Yeah, morals sure are decreasing, aren't they? The violence in those games is nothing compared to the violence in some cartoons from the '40s, '50s and '60s that are still shown today to children all over the world. And what of the Big Bad Wolf eating Little Red Riding Hood and her Granny? Or the evil witch killing Snowwhite? Yeah, we really gotta ban that too.
I'm an omnivore, though I cut back on meat consumption and cook vegetarian meals once in a while for health reasons and for variation. I made a conscious decision to do that, and personally I wouldn't mind at all becoming vegetarian, but hey, I like the taste of meat, and I know where it's coming from.
I hunt sometimes, with my father and a few friends. We barter the game to a local hotel in return for having some of the hares and pheasants skinned and cleaned for us, and some of the larger animals turned into the occasional gourmet meal. We have get a licence to do that, and do it under the supervision of the local wildlife preserver.
Hunting, which is called barbaric by some, is much more natural than buying meat in the 7/11. Some people say they wouldn't eat meat from an animal they've seen alive, but I say that's extremely hypocritical - when I eat meat, I think what a shame it is that I DIDN'T see the animal alive. I know how they make saussages, I've seen it done, and I've done it the traditional way, and I still eat saussage, dispite the saying that those who respect the law and love saussage shouldn't see either made.
Actually, I think many vegetarians and vegans are equally hypocritical. Those who do it for tree-hugging hippy reasons should realise that EVERYthing has a good and a bad side. They don't want to be responsible for harming those poor animals? Well, what of the car you drive? The hard-wood furniture and woodwork in and on your house? Your nice silk clothes? How do you think the electricity that powers your computer is made? Wake up, people, stop the whole "holier than thou" thing. See the light, AND the darkness.
If statistics are your game, why don't you come up with how many armed cops are robbed in relation to how many unarmed are robbed??
I'm not talking about if the robbery takes place or not - I'm talking about WHEN it takes place, what the robber will do. If the victim gives him some cash, the robber will go. If the victim grabs a gun, the robber will shoot.
Fact remains that in this country, where "packing" as you so elegantly call it is illegal, the crime rate is much lower than in the US. Whatever you say about wanting a gun, the no-gun system seems to be working quite nicely here...
I'm sorry to hear that... And at the same time I praise myself lucky that I live in a country where armed robberies are a rarity. So, yes, I am biased towards banning guns, but just the same, you are biased towards keeping them legal...
But still, somebody who can kill somebody in cold blood, like your brother was killed, must have killed before, for as far as I understand criminal psychology. The first time he shot a person was probably in a shoot-or-be-shot situation... Though that's ofcourse unfunded speculation.
My only experience with firearms is being on the good side of them, doing it for sport on paper targets at 10, 12, 25, 50 or 100 meters...
Frankly, though I don't consider this a very convincing argument. Lusers misusing things and not following safety precautions are the real problem.
You've got a point there... So what about Lusers who misuse/abuse drugs? Is that a reason to ban all drugs? Hmmm, food for thought:)
Unfortunately, actually reducing that threat would require real work, not just repeating "Guns == BAD!".
Fact remains that crime rates are much lower in countries where firearms are illegal for the general population. Ofcourse that could be due to various other things, but it does raise some thought. I mean, I spent a few weekends in the Bijlmermeer, "the bad part" of Amsterdam, visiting friends of my girlfriend, dropping by black bars and clubs (black as in skin colour) taking black cab rides (black as in illegal) with random black people (black as in skin colour) at the wheel. Could a white young man like me do that in "the bad part" of a random American city?
One thing did make my skin crawl, though... I was in the elevator in Develstijn, the building where those friends live, with a black guy in a really nice suit with lots of gold on his neck and fingers, talking on his cell phone about bringing "the boys" to bury somebody. But relating that with criminal activity could ofcourse been overimagination from watching too many bad American movies *grin*
Heck, crime rates DROPPED in FL after they started handing out the permits! How can you refute that?
I must say that you do have a point... There are ofcourse two sides to this issue, as always.
There are two opposite sides of the swing: one side where everybody has fire arms, and you get some sort of stand-off. The other side is where nobody has guns. In reality, ofcourse, you'll always be somewhere inbetween, and your choice is where you want to be.
The first fact is that criminals will always be able to get guns. One way to solve the problem is to outlaw guns so you can, on easy grounds, get those criminals behind bars. Another way is to arm the general population to create a stand-off.
The whole drug issue is also tied in here somewhere... Here in the Netherlands there is virtually no organised crime. I mean, what criminal organisation doesn't have anything to do with drugs? Mafia-like organisations, maybe, but those have also never existed here. No large-scale organised crime means a LOT less crime involving fire-arms, and thus no need to arm civilians in defense of such - the police are efficient enough by themselves. Murders - any murders, anywhere in the country - are national news because they're, fortunately, very rare.
To make the system banning fire-arms effective, you need to root out organised crime. To root out organised crime, you need to: a) legalise soft drugs b) stop treating junkies criminally - treat them medically c) keep cracking down on illegal drugs
Actually, b) isn't necessary to root out organised crime, but it's just something intrinsically logical that the US seems to overlook:)
Yes, and a criminal faced with a high probability that victims are armed will probably either (a) find an honest way to make a living, or (b) resort to non-confrontational crimes. This effect is pretty well documented, if you cared to inform yourself.
Ah, I see now... So robbers are afraid of the people they rob because they might have firearms on them? Hmmmm, so that must be why there are so much more robberies, muggings and other such crimes in the US than there are in the Netherlands? Oh wait, by your logic, that should be reverse! Yet it isn't... Since your knowledge of criminology is obviously so much better than mine, would you care to explain, please?
You could tack bullshit riders onto something to prevent it from being passed. For example, if there's a bill you don't like, you could tack a rider onto it that would NEVER pass to pull the entire bill down. Or is that already happening on a wide scale? And is there a way to see the difference? I mean, most riders that are tacked onto bills with the intention to get the riders passed seem so braindead that they could just aswell be meant to pull down the bill...
Treat it as a medical problem, not a criminal one. Who knows, it might even just work.
Exactly! That's the approach the Netherlands are taking towards use of drugs other than the legalised marijuana. As for sale and production of those drugs, that ofcourse is dealt with as the criminal problem it is. But addicts are not jailed, they're being helped. Helping an addict off his habit and back into society with a job and a place to live is much cheaper in the long run than locking him up for a few years and then kicking him onto the streets again, to only see him return to prison within a few years on the same charges.
You can easily drink 4 glasses of wine a day and are extremely unlikely to become alcoholic.
The official medical definition of "alcoholic" is to, drink 2 or more alcoholic beverages per day on average. My father was such an alcoholic for a long time, drinking 2-4 glasses of beer every night, until he found out that he didn't feel good and couldn't sleep if he didn't. He consulted his physician, and managed to break the habit.
Many people are alcoholics without realising it. Actually, most alcoholics don't realise it...
Though I feel very much sympathy for your position, I'd like to ask you a few questions. If you don't wish to answer, that's cool.
I presume that you started out with drugs on a purely recreational basis, most likely marijuana-based drugs, and later discovered heroin?
Would you have "switched" to heroin if marijuana were safe, cheap, legal and of excellent quality while heroin is unsafe, expensive, illegal and of doubtful quality?
I know for a fact that most people who are or have been addicted to truly dangerous drugs like heroin, cocain or crack will answer "no" to the above question. They would have most probably stuck to purely recreational use of marijuana.
The problem with use of marijuana so easily leading to use of the really bad drugs in the US is that the threshold between them is way too small. It's already illegal and expensive to get a hold of marijuana, so it's an easy step to buying heroin, cocain or crack through very much the same channels for very much the same outrageous prices.
I have been a recreational marijuana-smoker, though I haven't smoked any marijuana since I quit smoking tobacco two years ago. I've never used XTC any other drugs (well, except caffeine and alcohol ofcourse). In the Netherlands there are, percengage-wise, a LOT less heroin or cocain addicts, and crack has never been heard of here. Because of the low number of hard drug addicts, and the free distribution of methadon to registered and "hopeless" addicts, there is also virtually no organised criminal activity.
See the virtues of legalised drugs. I fully understand your aversion to drugs, I know what heroin does to a person, I know how extremely hard it is to get off it, and I cincerely hope you will be able to leave it behind entirely and get on with your life, but that doesn't mean all drugs are equally bad...
The prohibition of guns would only keep them out of the hands of lawful citizens.
Bingo! And is that a bad thing? Yes, criminals will always get their guns somewhere anyway, but there are a few other things to consider:
1. If guns are illegal, you can arrest people simply for owning a gun. Remember how hard it was to get Al Capone, and how easy it would have been to get him AND all his henchmen if guns were outlawed?
2. A criminal faced with an unarmed civilian will most likely not fire. A criminal faced with an armed civilian most likely will. Count the bodies.
3. As far as I know, though I could be wrong about that, most injuries and deaths by firearms among innocent civilians (i.e. not criminals) are by accidents with legal firearms.
Comparing guns to alcohol and other drugs is the next fallacy. By using alcohol or other drugs as they're intended to be used, you only endanger yourself. By using a gun the way it's intended to be used, you endanger other people's lives, by definition. See the difference? See why alcohol and (certain) drugs can be allowed, while guns (IMHO) can't?
Legalise soft drugs and prostitution - solves a LOT of problems, saves a LOT of money. Ban guns. Also solves quite a few problems, and saves a LOT of money too.
Hmmm, I wonder how we got into guns, drugs and prostitution in a thread about freedom of speech?
Slashdot Mirror
And that is why I liked the game Subspace so much. It was the first really massively multiplayer game, made by Burst (gone Bust, now known as Harmless Games) and financed by Virgin Interactive Entertainment (also gone Bust). But Subspace still lives. It's four years old, totally abandoned by the creators, but the players still keep very good servers and leagues going. Subspace too is easy to learn, and hard to master. The general controls are a bit awkward, but learn very quickly, and the physics of the game are very simple, but to become a master takes ages, because you're always playing against other humans, never (NEVER) against bots of any kind.
Four years ago it was the greatest thing out there. A truly online game, with centralised servers. A 2D top-down view space shooter, kinda like Asteroids, but with over 100 people in one zone, and lots of mods available. I played that game for 3 years (2.5 years of beta and then half a year after it went retail). That's longer than I've played any other game except Civilization...
)O(
Never underestimate the power of stupidity
Remember that a seeding only needs to happen once. For billions and billions of years the earth lay barren, without any life, and then suddenly there was an explosion of it. It doesn't matter at all how small the chance is that enough bacteria survive the trip through space to seed another planet, since it only needs to happen once, and thus chances are irrelevant.
It is also useless to calculate the chances of something that has already happened. Yes, maybe the chance of a large enough amount of bacteria surviving all the way to earth is infinitesmally small, but the chance of a golf ball landing on that one specific blade of grass it happened to land on is equally minute - and equally nonessential.
)O(
Never underestimate the power of stupidity
Besides all that, Pascal's Wager is the wrong reason to believe. Sure, it's nice reasoning, but it can't possibly make anybody truly believe in anything. It may open somebody's mind a little bit, though, so they suddenly and unexpectedly find God - any God of any religion. But other than that, Pascal's Wager is an utterly useless red herring. Hmmm, herring!
)O(
Never underestimate the power of stupidity
Don't sell yourself short by suggesting it's thanks to a supreme being floating in the sky
:)
:)
First, my current mental health is mostly of my own doing. Without any help I still managed to drag myself out of quite a few severe depressions. You can't imagine how many times I shouted at that supposed God people told me about who was supposed to help people - why wasn't he helping me? I did it all myself, and then found my faith.
nailed up on a cross
I'm not Christian.
If someone were to suggest that the cat I had in my lap didn't exist I would think they need glasses or a mental examination. Not unlike those that believe in gods.
First you compliment my mental health, then you say I need a mental examination. 'tSeems you're contradicting yourself
Religion is keeping a good chunk of humanity in the dark ages. Turn your back on the controlling lies religion teaches and free your mind.
Wrong. You're confusing rigid dogma with religion. I did exactly what you advise here. I let no-one tell me what to believe, opened my mind, and figured it all out for myself.
Maybe YOU should take your own advise and open your mind. Stop piling all theists on one big biased heap.
)O(
Never underestimate the power of stupidity
you can't force people anymore into believing the things you seem fit.
Two things:
1) Then why do YOU (atheists) try to force us (theists) into believing the things YOU seem fit?
2) What some Christians believe (that everybody who doesn't follow their exact path is doomed) is not what most theists believe. It just so happens that those doomsayers are, unfortunately, the most vocal minority. Personally, I'm not even Christian.
)O(
Never underestimate the power of stupidity
I can't believe I'm actually replying to this, because most of the time it's a useless waste of time, but here goes anyway :)
:)
Claiming something doesn't exist because you've never seen it is indeed a logical thing to do, but it isn't always the right thing. You might not see the carton of milk in the fridge when you're looking for it while it's right in front of you. You might not see that car approaching from the right, but it is definitely there.
I have personally experienced, and am constantly experiencing the Divine. I feel the Divine Energy, Breath of Life, Chi, Force, whatever you'd like to call it flowing through me, and through everything that surrounds me. And there you are telling me it doesn't exist.
Say you're holding a nice fluffy cat. You can feel its warmth in your lap, hear its purrs, feel its fluffy fur as you pet it, and then along comes somebody who claims cats do not exist. He seems to look right through the cat as if it truly doesn't exist, he just doesn't notice it somehow. Wouldn't that be weird? Well, I think you're just that weird
)O(
Never underestimate the power of stupidity
That would mean your prescious Jesus is the son of a whore... :)
)O(
Never underestimate the power of stupidity
Water is a LOT cheaper than gasoline, milk is about half as expensive, and even soft drinks and beer are cheaper per gallon. Go figure.
)O(
the Gods have a sense of humour,
I'm sorry, but:
a) I live in Europe, where that whole MS trial thingy isn't very big news.
b) I've just spent a week in France, away from anything even remotely connected to the internet.
)O(
the Gods have a sense of humour,
When I first came to this great campus and was introduced to networking on such large scale, I had to choose a network name for my mighty computer, and I chose Voyager, and it was good, and I saw that it was good. A login had to be created for this mighty computer, so Chakotay was chosen, and it was good, and I saw that it was good. And thus came to pass that I used Chakotay as a nickname online. And thus, when I was finally converted to the great Linux, it also became one of my email addies. And it is good. And I see that it is good. And I also see that you're a troll, so please get off my back. Thank you.
)O(
the Gods have a sense of humour,
That's still going on, right? And wasn't it already decided that Microsoft should cease such activities within 90 days?
Actually, I don't really mind. All this does is put Microsoft in an even worse light than they're already in, by showing that they are still up to their old tricks, defying the DOJ right in front of their eyes. My Goddess, judge Jackson could have a field day with this *grin*
)O(
the Gods have a sense of humour,
Hunting is far more 'barbaric' than a modern slaughterhouse.
Have you ever seen how pigs are herded to those modern slaughterhouses? Have you ever seen how those pigs and cows live, locked up in little boxes they can't even move an inch in? That, by my book, is far more barbaric than killing an animal in nature. Did you ever stop to think how much pain an antilope is in when it's hamstrung and bled to death by a leopard? Yet there's nothing wrong with that. So what's wrong with shooting a deer, if it's meant to be eaten?
Oh, and you're not a Pagan. There aren't any of those anymore.
Yes there are. European Paganism still exists in its original form in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. Original Paganism still exists in Africa, Australia, Asia (specifically Indonesia and Polynesia) and North- and South-America.
The definition of Pagan is one who has a religion based on nature - my religion is based on nature. It might be that I formed my own beliefs in favour of being indoctrinated by parents or other people, but I formed my own beliefs from nature, thus I'm Pagan. Call it neo-Pagan all you like, but the way I formed my religion isn't very different from the way the first humans formed theirs, which was original Paganism.
Spirituality isn't something you get to pick out of a catalogue, or from a shelf in the back of a book and herb store.
Exactly. I found religion, and then went looking in bookstores to see what I could find that resembled it so I could continue my search. I believe what I believe, and it happens to be given the name "Paganism" by many. My personal philosophies and beliefs are extremely similar to Sodizim, an ancient Celtic _Pagan_ religion. Strange, how you arrive at something you think is new and yours alone, to find out that others have already done it and named it.
But that ofcourse is all hugely offtopic...
)O(
the Gods have a sense of humour,
I mean, it's dead on topic...
)O(
the Gods have a sense of humour,
Check out the violence in those sometimes. You'll be stunned. Yeah, morals sure are decreasing, aren't they? The violence in those games is nothing compared to the violence in some cartoons from the '40s, '50s and '60s that are still shown today to children all over the world. And what of the Big Bad Wolf eating Little Red Riding Hood and her Granny? Or the evil witch killing Snowwhite? Yeah, we really gotta ban that too.
)O(
the Gods have a sense of humour,
I'm an omnivore, though I cut back on meat consumption and cook vegetarian meals once in a while for health reasons and for variation. I made a conscious decision to do that, and personally I wouldn't mind at all becoming vegetarian, but hey, I like the taste of meat, and I know where it's coming from.
:)
I hunt sometimes, with my father and a few friends. We barter the game to a local hotel in return for having some of the hares and pheasants skinned and cleaned for us, and some of the larger animals turned into the occasional gourmet meal. We have get a licence to do that, and do it under the supervision of the local wildlife preserver.
Hunting, which is called barbaric by some, is much more natural than buying meat in the 7/11. Some people say they wouldn't eat meat from an animal they've seen alive, but I say that's extremely hypocritical - when I eat meat, I think what a shame it is that I DIDN'T see the animal alive. I know how they make saussages, I've seen it done, and I've done it the traditional way, and I still eat saussage, dispite the saying that those who respect the law and love saussage shouldn't see either made.
Actually, I think many vegetarians and vegans are equally hypocritical. Those who do it for tree-hugging hippy reasons should realise that EVERYthing has a good and a bad side. They don't want to be responsible for harming those poor animals? Well, what of the car you drive? The hard-wood furniture and woodwork in and on your house? Your nice silk clothes? How do you think the electricity that powers your computer is made? Wake up, people, stop the whole "holier than thou" thing. See the light, AND the darkness.
Yeah, I'm Pagan, so what?
)O(
the Gods have a sense of humour,
If statistics are your game, why don't you come up with how many armed cops are robbed in relation to how many unarmed are robbed??
I'm not talking about if the robbery takes place or not - I'm talking about WHEN it takes place, what the robber will do. If the victim gives him some cash, the robber will go. If the victim grabs a gun, the robber will shoot.
Fact remains that in this country, where "packing" as you so elegantly call it is illegal, the crime rate is much lower than in the US. Whatever you say about wanting a gun, the no-gun system seems to be working quite nicely here...
)O(
the Gods have a sense of humour,
I'm sorry to hear that... And at the same time I praise myself lucky that I live in a country where armed robberies are a rarity. So, yes, I am biased towards banning guns, but just the same, you are biased towards keeping them legal...
But still, somebody who can kill somebody in cold blood, like your brother was killed, must have killed before, for as far as I understand criminal psychology. The first time he shot a person was probably in a shoot-or-be-shot situation... Though that's ofcourse unfunded speculation.
My only experience with firearms is being on the good side of them, doing it for sport on paper targets at 10, 12, 25, 50 or 100 meters...
)O(
the Gods have a sense of humour,
Frankly, though I don't consider this a very convincing argument. Lusers misusing things and not following safety precautions are the real problem.
:)
You've got a point there... So what about Lusers who misuse/abuse drugs? Is that a reason to ban all drugs? Hmmm, food for thought
Unfortunately, actually reducing that threat would require real work, not just repeating "Guns == BAD!".
Fact remains that crime rates are much lower in countries where firearms are illegal for the general population. Ofcourse that could be due to various other things, but it does raise some thought. I mean, I spent a few weekends in the Bijlmermeer, "the bad part" of Amsterdam, visiting friends of my girlfriend, dropping by black bars and clubs (black as in skin colour) taking black cab rides (black as in illegal) with random black people (black as in skin colour) at the wheel. Could a white young man like me do that in "the bad part" of a random American city?
One thing did make my skin crawl, though... I was in the elevator in Develstijn, the building where those friends live, with a black guy in a really nice suit with lots of gold on his neck and fingers, talking on his cell phone about bringing "the boys" to bury somebody. But relating that with criminal activity could ofcourse been overimagination from watching too many bad American movies *grin*
)O(
the Gods have a sense of humour,
Heck, crime rates DROPPED in FL after they started handing out the permits! How can you refute that?
:)
I must say that you do have a point... There are ofcourse two sides to this issue, as always.
There are two opposite sides of the swing: one side where everybody has fire arms, and you get some sort of stand-off. The other side is where nobody has guns. In reality, ofcourse, you'll always be somewhere inbetween, and your choice is where you want to be.
The first fact is that criminals will always be able to get guns. One way to solve the problem is to outlaw guns so you can, on easy grounds, get those criminals behind bars. Another way is to arm the general population to create a stand-off.
The whole drug issue is also tied in here somewhere... Here in the Netherlands there is virtually no organised crime. I mean, what criminal organisation doesn't have anything to do with drugs? Mafia-like organisations, maybe, but those have also never existed here. No large-scale organised crime means a LOT less crime involving fire-arms, and thus no need to arm civilians in defense of such - the police are efficient enough by themselves. Murders - any murders, anywhere in the country - are national news because they're, fortunately, very rare.
To make the system banning fire-arms effective, you need to root out organised crime. To root out organised crime, you need to:
a) legalise soft drugs
b) stop treating junkies criminally - treat them medically
c) keep cracking down on illegal drugs
Actually, b) isn't necessary to root out organised crime, but it's just something intrinsically logical that the US seems to overlook
)O(
the Gods have a sense of humour,
Yes, and a criminal faced with a high probability that victims are armed will probably either (a) find an honest way to make a living, or (b) resort to non-confrontational crimes. This effect is pretty well documented, if you cared to inform yourself.
Ah, I see now... So robbers are afraid of the people they rob because they might have firearms on them? Hmmmm, so that must be why there are so much more robberies, muggings and other such crimes in the US than there are in the Netherlands? Oh wait, by your logic, that should be reverse! Yet it isn't... Since your knowledge of criminology is obviously so much better than mine, would you care to explain, please?
)O(
the Gods have a sense of humour,
You could tack bullshit riders onto something to prevent it from being passed. For example, if there's a bill you don't like, you could tack a rider onto it that would NEVER pass to pull the entire bill down. Or is that already happening on a wide scale? And is there a way to see the difference? I mean, most riders that are tacked onto bills with the intention to get the riders passed seem so braindead that they could just aswell be meant to pull down the bill...
)O(
the Gods have a sense of humour,
Treat it as a medical problem, not a criminal one. Who knows, it might even just work.
Exactly! That's the approach the Netherlands are taking towards use of drugs other than the legalised marijuana. As for sale and production of those drugs, that ofcourse is dealt with as the criminal problem it is. But addicts are not jailed, they're being helped. Helping an addict off his habit and back into society with a job and a place to live is much cheaper in the long run than locking him up for a few years and then kicking him onto the streets again, to only see him return to prison within a few years on the same charges.
)O(
the Gods have a sense of humour,
You can easily drink 4 glasses of wine a day and are extremely unlikely to become alcoholic.
The official medical definition of "alcoholic" is to, drink 2 or more alcoholic beverages per day on average. My father was such an alcoholic for a long time, drinking 2-4 glasses of beer every night, until he found out that he didn't feel good and couldn't sleep if he didn't. He consulted his physician, and managed to break the habit.
Many people are alcoholics without realising it. Actually, most alcoholics don't realise it...
)O(
the Gods have a sense of humour,
Though I feel very much sympathy for your position, I'd like to ask you a few questions. If you don't wish to answer, that's cool.
I presume that you started out with drugs on a purely recreational basis, most likely marijuana-based drugs, and later discovered heroin?
Would you have "switched" to heroin if marijuana were safe, cheap, legal and of excellent quality while heroin is unsafe, expensive, illegal and of doubtful quality?
I know for a fact that most people who are or have been addicted to truly dangerous drugs like heroin, cocain or crack will answer "no" to the above question. They would have most probably stuck to purely recreational use of marijuana.
The problem with use of marijuana so easily leading to use of the really bad drugs in the US is that the threshold between them is way too small. It's already illegal and expensive to get a hold of marijuana, so it's an easy step to buying heroin, cocain or crack through very much the same channels for very much the same outrageous prices.
I have been a recreational marijuana-smoker, though I haven't smoked any marijuana since I quit smoking tobacco two years ago. I've never used XTC any other drugs (well, except caffeine and alcohol ofcourse). In the Netherlands there are, percengage-wise, a LOT less heroin or cocain addicts, and crack has never been heard of here. Because of the low number of hard drug addicts, and the free distribution of methadon to registered and "hopeless" addicts, there is also virtually no organised criminal activity.
See the virtues of legalised drugs. I fully understand your aversion to drugs, I know what heroin does to a person, I know how extremely hard it is to get off it, and I cincerely hope you will be able to leave it behind entirely and get on with your life, but that doesn't mean all drugs are equally bad...
)O(
the Gods have a sense of humour,
The prohibition of guns would only keep them out of the hands of lawful citizens.
Bingo! And is that a bad thing? Yes, criminals will always get their guns somewhere anyway, but there are a few other things to consider:
1. If guns are illegal, you can arrest people simply for owning a gun. Remember how hard it was to get Al Capone, and how easy it would have been to get him AND all his henchmen if guns were outlawed?
2. A criminal faced with an unarmed civilian will most likely not fire. A criminal faced with an armed civilian most likely will. Count the bodies.
3. As far as I know, though I could be wrong about that, most injuries and deaths by firearms among innocent civilians (i.e. not criminals) are by accidents with legal firearms.
Comparing guns to alcohol and other drugs is the next fallacy. By using alcohol or other drugs as they're intended to be used, you only endanger yourself. By using a gun the way it's intended to be used, you endanger other people's lives, by definition. See the difference? See why alcohol and (certain) drugs can be allowed, while guns (IMHO) can't?
Legalise soft drugs and prostitution - solves a LOT of problems, saves a LOT of money. Ban guns. Also solves quite a few problems, and saves a LOT of money too.
Hmmm, I wonder how we got into guns, drugs and prostitution in a thread about freedom of speech?
)O(
the Gods have a sense of humour,