Our constructs have no affect on reality, but reality had better affect our constructs.
The notion of "objective reality" - that things exist outside of our observations - is a construct. A useful construct, to be sure, but a construct all the same.
And reality-as-we-know-it is the only "reality" we can meaningfully talk about: "That's the very model of what a true scientific law must always be: a statement about how the human mind relates to the cosmos. We can never make a statement about the cosmos itself -- but only about how our senses (or our instruments) detect it, and about how our codes and languages symbolize it." - Illuminatus! by Robert Shea and Robert Anton Wilson
So, what gives you more right to define "community" for our nation than our elected officials?
The community that our national elected officials should be concerned with, is exactly the community of our nation. That's their job.
If individual citizens want to define their community as including people in other nations, and go join up with fighting forces in those other nations, fine. (Provided of course that said forces are not at war with the U.S.) You want to include Israel in your community and go join the Israeli Army and fight Palestinian "terroists" - or include Palestinians in your community and join the Palestinian resistance to fight Israeli "terrorists", go ahead.
But you sure shouldn't let elected officials, working for the benefit of the rich and powerful, define for you the community you're willing to take up arms to defend.
You've claimed that physical violence can be justified by name-calling, if the "names" fall in certain categories.
I have never claimed this, and I challenge you to either cite where I have or to retract this insult. I stand squarely behind the freedom of speech.
You've also (perhaps out of ignorance) claimed that weekly shooting attacks by a national military don't justify military response.
What national military is engaging in weekly shooting attacks upon the United States? I'd have thought it would be all over the news if Canadians were lobbing shells over the border, or if the Mexican army were preparing to take back Texas, or even if the Russian Navy were buzzing about Alaska taking potshots at Sarah Palin's National Guard troops. So, pray, remedy my ignorance.
That means that there will always be axioms, which are non-negotiable, final and eternal truths that we have no explanation for at all. ("we cannot pull ourselves out of the mud")
Axioms are not dogmas.
An axiom is an assumption. It can be tightly or lightly held. The axioms of Euclidean geometry were held dogmatically for over two millennia, but now are understood to be useful in some circumstances, and not useful in others.
I try - though of course I do not always succeed - to hold my axioms lightly, non-dogmatically, and to abandon them if a model based on them stops producing useful results.
I know of no school that has the time and resources to challenge students like that one.
If the school doesn't have "gifted and talented" or "advanced placement" classes (and they should), or if those aren't challenging enough, skip the kid up a grade. Or two. Or send him off for classes at the local community college.
From TFA, here's an even "better" policy: "In a recent article in Harvard Educational Review, Freedom Area School District Superintendent Ron Sofo recounted an experimental program that he said helped to dramatically raise the math scores of struggling sixth-graders. Among other features, the program included `A, B, Not Yet' grading, in which students were required to redo work until it merited an A or B."
So all work has to be at least a B - a mark which means "above average". I guess this experiment was done at Lake Wobegone high school?
If you wanted to really be a stickler, you wouldn't end your sentence with a preposition.
If you were a stickler for forcing Latin grammar upon English sentences, perhaps. But English has no such rule. A preposition is a fine word to end a sentence with.
I don't think I've ever heard a justification of our current wars quite like yours before.
Not even close. I said to defend one's community. Wars of aggression are right out.
My "community" includes those threatened by bullying, homophobia, and bigotry. I will come to their aid and defense, with force if necessary. But that does not mean I'm justified in going out and shooting or beating people who have been guilty of bullying in the past, or who express homophobic or racist attitudes, or even who make threatening remarks or who express support for those who make violent attacks.
And if I take defensive action, I must use the minimal force needed to stop an attacker, and I must not harm innocent bystanders. Again, you will note neither of these conditions to be found in our current illegal and immoral wars of aggression.
It was an ongoing inter-tribal struggle. Nasty? Brutal? Sure. Any more so than the work of Moses, or Alexander, or Julius Caesar, or Constantine? Nah.
If one group, of one religion, attacks another group of people of a different religion, that generally sounds like a "religious massacre".
So, for example, the attack by mostly Protestant Americans on mostly Muslim Iraqis would be a "religious massacre"? The Anglo-Zulu War was a "religious massacre"? The Punic Wars were "religious massacres"? No.
Yes, yes, and yes. Unless perhaps that religion admits its followers were wrong and did great evil in their massacres.
Of the religions I mentioned, only Catholicism has a leader who could speak for its entirety.
And it's curious that you seem to be taking every opportunity to point out the "evils" of Islam but have no mentioned these other religions at all.
Nazism was a "moderate" socialist/communist ideology
The Nazis were fanatically anti-communist. The "socialist" in their name made them socialist in the same way that the "republic" in "People's Republic of China" makes them (small-r) republican - i.e., not at all.
Henry Ford and Adolph Hitler were great admirers of each other for good reason.
Interesting how the American conservative movement - a "moderate" fascist ideology - has managed to create so much ignorance and confusion about socialism and communism in the U.S. that rational discussion of it is nearly impossible.
The prophet killed 1200 jews in one of his religious massacres (e.g. google for "khaybar").
Perhaps you are not a native speaker of English. The word "massacre" is generally reserved for cases where one side has no ability to resist the other; the word for what occured at Khaibar, where a 1,400 to 1,800-men army of Muslims attacked a fortress occupied by about 10,000, would be "battle" or "siege". HTH.
That the early Muslims fought a lot of people, no one disputes. We may argue about the justification or brutality of these battles. But to call these battles "religious massacres" is simply inaccurate.
Saying that religiously massacring jews is wrong is saying islam is evil.
So saying that religiously massacring Midianites is wrong is saying Judiasm is evil? And saying that religiously massacring Muslims is wrong means that Hinduism is evil? And saying that religiously massacring Protestants is wrong means that Catholicism is evil? And..well, choose your match-up.
Have fun with those conspiracy theories and living in fear, man.
Not that this is likely to reach you, but I don't live in fear. And the Bush administration's plot to invade Iraq by at best heavily spinning and at worst outright manufacturing evidence is not a conspiracy theory, it's a matter of publicrecord.
You don't appreciate what I did for you
I appreciate your desire to serve, and your courage in going into danger to do so. Unfortunately, it's your judgment that lacked. In your desire to "help" me, you participated in actions that caused the deaths of over 655,000 people, wasted hundreds of billions of dollars, and left the U.S. less safe and less free.
So, you know, don't do me any more favors...
If, maybe, somehow, a bit of this reaches you, makes you uncomfortable, starts you thinking, gets you to question whether you were misled; then you might want to check out Iraq Veterans Against the War.
I'm gonna go WAY out on a limb here and say... Democrat?
I am a member of no political party, and never have been. If you are limited to thinking in terms of political parties, you might perhaps think of me as a bastard child of a Green and a Libertarian, lost in the forest and raised by wolves. I'm a libertarian socialist, a Zenarchist on good days. I'm a vegan and peace activist who owns guns and teaches people unarmed combat skills. I decline to be put in a box.
...because almost every member of America's military believes in the cause...
So is that because almost every member of America's military was woefully ignorant before they joined and their training and indoctrination did not correct that, or because almost every member of America's military was subject to such strong mental conditioning during their training and indoctrination that their ability to thing clearly was clouded?
I remain completely mystified as to how a war that was approved by the VAST majority of not only the government, but the American people (73%, if I remember correctly) can be considered 'illegal'.
Because the U.S. is signatory to treaties outlawing wars of aggression. Among these is the U.N. charter: "I have indicated it was not in conformity with the UN charter from our point of view, from the charter point of view, it was illegal." -- Kofi Annan
Public approval does not make for legality - that's the basis of constitutional government. It's disappointing - nay, frightening - that this is apparently not understood by everyone in the military.
You have every right to walk all over it and call every preemptive strike an 'illegal action' if you so choose. Personally, if you make a motion like you're going to hit me, you better believe I'm going to tie your ass in a knot whether or not you connected with your first punch.
If you're suggesting that there was any evidence that Iraq was somehow going to "hit" us, you've lost touch with reality so much that further discussion is pointless.
(It may change as soon as November 4th if we end up choosing to switch over to socialism.)
I'm sorry, is there a socialist candidate running from a major party? Most of the media attention has been about the one from the party of the center of the right wing, and the one from the right wing of the center. Who is this socialist candidate?
At the moment, America is absolutely the best place on Earth to be
Well, Rome was the best place to be 2,000 years ago. (At least, in the Western world; China under the Han Dynasty was also an amazing culture.) Does that justify the oppression and slavery that existed in the Roman Empire?
But the claim that "America is absolutely the best place on Earth to be" has to rest on some assumptions about "best place". By many measures, the U.S. lags other nations: our literacy rate is 18th in the world, our infant mortality rate is almost twice that of Japan, our life expectancy ranks 29th. On the Human Development Index, we're 12th. On the Press Freedom Index, we're at a shameful 48th place.
I find it the best place to be because it's my home. America is the best nation to me, in the same way that Baltimore is the best city. That doesn't mean that I find the life of a New Yorker worth less than the life of a Baltimorean, or the life of an I
After all, even the early militia was instituted to defend the entire nation, not simply communities.
Community: A body of people having common rights, privileges, or interests, or living in the same place under the same lawsand regulations; Society at large; a commonwealth or state; a body politic; the public, or people in general; a group of people living in a particular local area; a group of people having ethnic or cultural or religious characteristics in common; a group of nations having common interests.
A "community" can be anything from my neighborhood ("community improvement association") to a group of nations ("European community").
The US has a much higher murder rate then the UK even though they allow private firearm ownership
Many parts of the U.S. heavily regulate private firearm ownership, to the point in some cases of an effective ban.
Those regions are the regions with the highest murder rates.
And, even if you removed all homicides committed by firearm, the U.S. would still have a higher murder rate than the U.K. - even with guns as available as they are, we stab and beat each other to death enough to outrank you. Our non-firearm homicide rate is 2.97 per 100,000 people[*]; your total murder rate is only 1.57 per 100,000.
It's not about the guns: compared to us, you guys in the U.K. are just pikers when it comes to killing each other. It's like you aren't even trying to have a murderous and violent underclass in your society!
([*]Stats for the U.S. in that table are clearly in the wrong column.)
I do detest those who pick a fight, then hide in the bushes and buildings, unwilling to fight the fight they brought upon themselves like men.
Hmm. So you detest those who participated in the criminal invasion of Iraq, then hid in the Green Zone or in FOBs, unwilling to fight the fight with insurgents that they provoked? Wow. Most anti-war protesters don't go that far; we realize that those soldiers were duped victims too, guilty perhaps of poor judgment, but certainly not to be detested. We hope they get to stay safe in the bushes and buildings, rather than being shot at by Iraqis defending their homeland against invaders.
The bottom line is, if there were no organized military in America, you'd be climbing a tree or hiding in a bush every few months trying to defend the country you love when Iran or Russia decides to take a swim over here to rape our wives. That's a fact.
Why do you think Iran and Russia have such a beef with us, rather than with, say, Switzerland?
Number of times Russian or Iranian troops have invaded the U.S. or toppled its government: 0.
Number of times U.S. covert operatives backed an anti-democratic military coup in Iran: once, in 1953.
These are the sorts of actions carried out by those who march in joyful, singing ranks, following unquestioningly the orders of their "superiors".
I am all for the right to self-defense, individual and collective. And certainly some sort of organization is needed for that. But when that takes the form of a large standing army, instead of a "well-regulated militia", it's a constant temptation to use it for aggressive means.
When all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail; when all you have is a military-industrial complex, everything looks like a reason to bomb or invade someone.
AIG's going to spend some big bucks paying it back or lose big time.
And who is they AIG that gets to spend big bucks paying it back? AIG is now you and me, friend; the bailout involves the U.S. government taking over about 80% of AIG.
My experience is much the same as yours in JROTC; that is, we are being taught as future officers to question those orders which seem unreasonable or dangerous.
Why, indeed, did almost every member of the military march off to Bush's illegal invasion of Iraq with nary a whimper? Only a handful stood up and refused.
I'm involved in what I am to protect the public's right to protest what I'm involved in, so I guess I shouldn't complain.
Protect it from whom? The Canadians? The Mexicans? Al Qaeda, while a bunch of criminals who are in dire need of being stopped, is no more a threat to my freedom of speech than is the Mafia or the Crips. (If they managed to pull a 9/11 every year, more Americans would still die by drowning than would be killed by terrorist attacks.)
The U.S. faces no significant threat of invasion; no foreign power is going to take us over and take away our freedoms. They don't have to; we're going a bang-up job of taking them away from ourselves.
The only guys I see who pose a threat to my freedom of speech are the ones you work for: the federal government.
If you can come up with a better way to get a thousand people from point a to point b without vehicles, I'd love to hear it. And why can't we sing? Are you some kind of fascist?
Weapons are the tools of fear;
a decent man will avoid them
except in the direst necessity
and, if compelled, will use them
only with the utmost restraint.
Peace is his highest value.
If the peace has been shattered,
how can he be content?
His enemies are not demons,
but human beings like himself.
He doesn't wish them personal harm.
Nor does he rejoice in victory.
How could he rejoice in victory
and delight in the slaughter of men?
He enters a battle gravely,
with sorrow and with great compassion,
as if he were attending a funeral.
It is fascists who sing joyful songs as they march off to war. If a free man of any decency must kill to defend his community - and this hasn't applied in the U.S. since the Battle of Baltimore in 1814[*] - he does so with a heavy heart.
([*]Hawaii was not part of the U.S. at the time of the Pearl Harbor attack, and the islands are stolen property anyway. 9/11 was an act of mass murder, not a military attack by another nation that desires to invade or annex the U.S.)
Is it really that bad to love your country and enjoy the privilege of defending it?...I also spent 4 years in the U.S. Marine Corps, and rather enjoyed that as well.
People who are actually defending their home don't do a lot of joyful marching in ranks. They're busy sneaking about and shooting at the invaders guerrilla-fashion then running away.
You do however see a lot of that sort of marching from aggressive, invading military forces, as they attempt to intimidate the people they've just conquered.
As for "loving your country", no one has said it better then Thoreau:
Law never made men a whit more just; and, by means of their respect for it, even the well-disposed are daily made the agents on injustice. A common and natural result of an undue respect for the law is, that you may see a file of soldiers, colonel, captain, corporal, privates, powder-monkeys, and all, marching in admirable order over hill and dale to the wars, against their wills, ay, against their common sense and consciences, which makes it very steep marching indeed, and produces a palpitation of the heart. They have no doubt that it is a damnable business in which they are concerned; they are all peaceably inclined. Now, what are they? Men at all? or small movable forts and magazines, at the service of some unscrupulous man in power? Visit the Navy Yard, and behold a marine, such a man as an American government can make, or such as it can make a man with its black arts--a mere shadow and reminiscence of humanity, a man laid out alive and standing, and already, as one may say, buried under arms with funeral accompaniment, though it may be,
"Not a drum was heard, not a funeral note,
As his corse to the rampart we hurried;
Not a soldier discharged his farewell shot
O'er the grave where out hero was buried."
The mass of men serve the state thus, not as men mainly, but as machines, with their bodies. They are the standing army, and the militia, jailers, constables, posse comitatus, etc. In most cases there is no free exercise whatever of the judgement or of the moral sense; but they put themselves on a level with wood and earth and stones; and wooden men can perhaps be manufactured that will serve the purpose as well. Such command no more respect than men of straw or a lump of dirt. They have the same sort of worth only as horses and dogs. Yet such as these even are commonly esteemed good citizens. Others--as most legislators, politicians, lawyers, ministers, and office-holders--serve the state chiefly with their heads; and, as the rarely make any moral distinctions, they are as likely to serve the devil, without intending it, as God. A very few--as heroes, patriots, martyrs, reformers in the great sense, and men--serve the state with their consciences also, and so necessarily resist it for the most part; and they are commonly treated as enemies by it.
Free speech is an ideal because it is about political speech and the right of dissent and freedom from government censorship. Free speech is not a right for minors to be lewd.
Free speech is not limited to political speech.
Free speech is an ideal because the alternative is censorship - the use of aggressive force to silence people.
Free speech is inclusive of the right of people, including minors, to be rude, lewd, and crude.
People in the US have the right because the US Consitutution (which is the highest "law of the land") explicitally says so.
People have the right to keep and bear arms because the most basic natural right they have is that of self-defense, both individual and collective; the right to self-defense implies the right to possess the tools needs to defend oneself.
Were the Second Amendement repealed, the right would remain; the Bill of Rights recognizes rights, it does not create them.
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The notion of "objective reality" - that things exist outside of our observations - is a construct. A useful construct, to be sure, but a construct all the same.
Our constructs affect the observations we choose to make, and even bias the observations themselve observations (like how Millikan's results for the charge of the election biased subsequent research). By biasing our observations, our constructs affect reality-as-we-know-it. (This is how the Law of Fives works.)
And reality-as-we-know-it is the only "reality" we can meaningfully talk about: "That's the very model of what a true scientific law must always be: a statement about how the human mind relates to the cosmos. We can never make a statement about the cosmos itself -- but only about how our senses (or our instruments) detect it, and about how our codes and languages symbolize it." - Illuminatus! by Robert Shea and Robert Anton Wilson
But gravity and inertia are also in your head. They are ideas, mental constructions, descriptions of patterns of observations.
The community that our national elected officials should be concerned with, is exactly the community of our nation. That's their job.
If individual citizens want to define their community as including people in other nations, and go join up with fighting forces in those other nations, fine. (Provided of course that said forces are not at war with the U.S.) You want to include Israel in your community and go join the Israeli Army and fight Palestinian "terroists" - or include Palestinians in your community and join the Palestinian resistance to fight Israeli "terrorists", go ahead.
But you sure shouldn't let elected officials, working for the benefit of the rich and powerful, define for you the community you're willing to take up arms to defend.
I have never claimed this, and I challenge you to either cite where I have or to retract this insult. I stand squarely behind the freedom of speech.
What national military is engaging in weekly shooting attacks upon the United States? I'd have thought it would be all over the news if Canadians were lobbing shells over the border, or if the Mexican army were preparing to take back Texas, or even if the Russian Navy were buzzing about Alaska taking potshots at Sarah Palin's National Guard troops. So, pray, remedy my ignorance.
Axioms are not dogmas.
An axiom is an assumption. It can be tightly or lightly held. The axioms of Euclidean geometry were held dogmatically for over two millennia, but now are understood to be useful in some circumstances, and not useful in others.
I try - though of course I do not always succeed - to hold my axioms lightly, non-dogmatically, and to abandon them if a model based on them stops producing useful results.
If the school doesn't have "gifted and talented" or "advanced placement" classes (and they should), or if those aren't challenging enough, skip the kid up a grade. Or two. Or send him off for classes at the local community college.
From TFA, here's an even "better" policy: "In a recent article in Harvard Educational Review, Freedom Area School District Superintendent Ron Sofo recounted an experimental program that he said helped to dramatically raise the math scores of struggling sixth-graders. Among other features, the program included `A, B, Not Yet' grading, in which students were required to redo work until it merited an A or B."
So all work has to be at least a B - a mark which means "above average". I guess this experiment was done at Lake Wobegone high school?
If you were a stickler for forcing Latin grammar upon English sentences, perhaps. But English has no such rule. A preposition is a fine word to end a sentence with.
Not even close. I said to defend one's community. Wars of aggression are right out.
My "community" includes those threatened by bullying, homophobia, and bigotry. I will come to their aid and defense, with force if necessary. But that does not mean I'm justified in going out and shooting or beating people who have been guilty of bullying in the past, or who express homophobic or racist attitudes, or even who make threatening remarks or who express support for those who make violent attacks.
And if I take defensive action, I must use the minimal force needed to stop an attacker, and I must not harm innocent bystanders. Again, you will note neither of these conditions to be found in our current illegal and immoral wars of aggression.
I'm not an Islamic scholar, but a few minutes on the wik teaches that the "Confederates" who attacked the Muslims at Medina at the "Battle of the Trench" a few years before included the Banu Nadir and the Jews of Khaybar - the guys in the fortress at the Battle of Khaybar.
It was an ongoing inter-tribal struggle. Nasty? Brutal? Sure. Any more so than the work of Moses, or Alexander, or Julius Caesar, or Constantine? Nah.
So, for example, the attack by mostly Protestant Americans on mostly Muslim Iraqis would be a "religious massacre"? The Anglo-Zulu War was a "religious massacre"? The Punic Wars were "religious massacres"? No.
Of the religions I mentioned, only Catholicism has a leader who could speak for its entirety.
And it's curious that you seem to be taking every opportunity to point out the "evils" of Islam but have no mentioned these other religions at all.
The Nazis were fanatically anti-communist. The "socialist" in their name made them socialist in the same way that the "republic" in "People's Republic of China" makes them (small-r) republican - i.e., not at all.
Henry Ford and Adolph Hitler were great admirers of each other for good reason.
Interesting how the American conservative movement - a "moderate" fascist ideology - has managed to create so much ignorance and confusion about socialism and communism in the U.S. that rational discussion of it is nearly impossible.
Perhaps you are not a native speaker of English. The word "massacre" is generally reserved for cases where one side has no ability to resist the other; the word for what occured at Khaibar, where a 1,400 to 1,800-men army of Muslims attacked a fortress occupied by about 10,000, would be "battle" or "siege". HTH.
That the early Muslims fought a lot of people, no one disputes. We may argue about the justification or brutality of these battles. But to call these battles "religious massacres" is simply inaccurate.
So saying that religiously massacring Midianites is wrong is saying Judiasm is evil? And saying that religiously massacring Muslims is wrong means that Hinduism is evil? And saying that religiously massacring Protestants is wrong means that Catholicism is evil? And..well, choose your match-up.
Not that this is likely to reach you, but I don't live in fear. And the Bush administration's plot to invade Iraq by at best heavily spinning and at worst outright manufacturing evidence is not a conspiracy theory, it's a matter of public record.
I appreciate your desire to serve, and your courage in going into danger to do so. Unfortunately, it's your judgment that lacked. In your desire to "help" me, you participated in actions that caused the deaths of over 655,000 people, wasted hundreds of billions of dollars, and left the U.S. less safe and less free.
So, you know, don't do me any more favors...
If, maybe, somehow, a bit of this reaches you, makes you uncomfortable, starts you thinking, gets you to question whether you were misled; then you might want to check out Iraq Veterans Against the War.
I am a member of no political party, and never have been. If you are limited to thinking in terms of political parties, you might perhaps think of me as a bastard child of a Green and a Libertarian, lost in the forest and raised by wolves. I'm a libertarian socialist, a Zenarchist on good days. I'm a vegan and peace activist who owns guns and teaches people unarmed combat skills. I decline to be put in a box.
So is that because almost every member of America's military was woefully ignorant before they joined and their training and indoctrination did not correct that, or because almost every member of America's military was subject to such strong mental conditioning during their training and indoctrination that their ability to thing clearly was clouded?
Because the U.S. is signatory to treaties outlawing wars of aggression. Among these is the U.N. charter: "I have indicated it was not in conformity with the UN charter from our point of view, from the charter point of view, it was illegal." -- Kofi Annan
Public approval does not make for legality - that's the basis of constitutional government. It's disappointing - nay, frightening - that this is apparently not understood by everyone in the military.
If you're suggesting that there was any evidence that Iraq was somehow going to "hit" us, you've lost touch with reality so much that further discussion is pointless.
I'm sorry, is there a socialist candidate running from a major party? Most of the media attention has been about the one from the party of the center of the right wing, and the one from the right wing of the center. Who is this socialist candidate?
Well, Rome was the best place to be 2,000 years ago. (At least, in the Western world; China under the Han Dynasty was also an amazing culture.) Does that justify the oppression and slavery that existed in the Roman Empire?
But the claim that "America is absolutely the best place on Earth to be" has to rest on some assumptions about "best place". By many measures, the U.S. lags other nations: our literacy rate is 18th in the world, our infant mortality rate is almost twice that of Japan, our life expectancy ranks 29th. On the Human Development Index, we're 12th. On the Press Freedom Index, we're at a shameful 48th place.
I find it the best place to be because it's my home. America is the best nation to me, in the same way that Baltimore is the best city. That doesn't mean that I find the life of a New Yorker worth less than the life of a Baltimorean, or the life of an I
Community: A body of people having common rights, privileges, or interests, or living in the same place under the same lawsand regulations; Society at large; a commonwealth or state; a body politic; the public, or people in general; a group of people living in a particular local area; a group of people having ethnic or cultural or religious characteristics in common; a group of nations having common interests.
A "community" can be anything from my neighborhood ("community improvement association") to a group of nations ("European community").
Many parts of the U.S. heavily regulate private firearm ownership, to the point in some cases of an effective ban.
Those regions are the regions with the highest murder rates.
And, even if you removed all homicides committed by firearm, the U.S. would still have a higher murder rate than the U.K. - even with guns as available as they are, we stab and beat each other to death enough to outrank you. Our non-firearm homicide rate is 2.97 per 100,000 people[*]; your total murder rate is only 1.57 per 100,000.
It's not about the guns: compared to us, you guys in the U.K. are just pikers when it comes to killing each other. It's like you aren't even trying to have a murderous and violent underclass in your society!
([*]Stats for the U.S. in that table are clearly in the wrong column.)
Really? Then why is it that almost every member of America's military marched off to Bush's illegal and immoral invasion of Iraq without so much as a whimper? Why is it that the the defense in the court-martial of Corporal Trent D. Thomas asserted that "Marines in combat don't challenge orders"?
Hmm. So you detest those who participated in the criminal invasion of Iraq, then hid in the Green Zone or in FOBs, unwilling to fight the fight with insurgents that they provoked? Wow. Most anti-war protesters don't go that far; we realize that those soldiers were duped victims too, guilty perhaps of poor judgment, but certainly not to be detested. We hope they get to stay safe in the bushes and buildings, rather than being shot at by Iraqis defending their homeland against invaders.
Why do you think Iran and Russia have such a beef with us, rather than with, say, Switzerland?
Number of times Russian or Iranian troops have invaded the U.S. or toppled its government: 0.
Number of times U.S. troops have invaded Russia: once: 13,000 American troops during the Russian Civil War.
Number of times U.S. covert operatives backed an anti-democratic military coup in Iran: once, in 1953.
These are the sorts of actions carried out by those who march in joyful, singing ranks, following unquestioningly the orders of their "superiors".
I am all for the right to self-defense, individual and collective. And certainly some sort of organization is needed for that. But when that takes the form of a large standing army, instead of a "well-regulated militia", it's a constant temptation to use it for aggressive means.
When all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail; when all you have is a military-industrial complex, everything looks like a reason to bomb or invade someone.
And who is they AIG that gets to spend big bucks paying it back? AIG is now you and me, friend; the bailout involves the U.S. government taking over about 80% of AIG.
It's robber-baron capitalism at its finest.
So why, then, did the defense in the court-martail of Corporal Trent D. Thomas assert "Marines in combat don't challenge orders"? Do only officers get to question orders?
Why, indeed, did almost every member of the military march off to Bush's illegal invasion of Iraq with nary a whimper? Only a handful stood up and refused.
Protect it from whom? The Canadians? The Mexicans? Al Qaeda, while a bunch of criminals who are in dire need of being stopped, is no more a threat to my freedom of speech than is the Mafia or the Crips. (If they managed to pull a 9/11 every year, more Americans would still die by drowning than would be killed by terrorist attacks.)
The U.S. faces no significant threat of invasion; no foreign power is going to take us over and take away our freedoms. They don't have to; we're going a bang-up job of taking them away from ourselves.
The only guys I see who pose a threat to my freedom of speech are the ones you work for: the federal government.
Weapons are the tools of fear;
a decent man will avoid them
except in the direst necessity
and, if compelled, will use them
only with the utmost restraint.
Peace is his highest value.
If the peace has been shattered,
how can he be content?
His enemies are not demons,
but human beings like himself.
He doesn't wish them personal harm.
Nor does he rejoice in victory.
How could he rejoice in victory
and delight in the slaughter of men?
He enters a battle gravely,
with sorrow and with great compassion,
as if he were attending a funeral.
--Lao Tzu
It is fascists who sing joyful songs as they march off to war. If a free man of any decency must kill to defend his community - and this hasn't applied in the U.S. since the Battle of Baltimore in 1814[*] - he does so with a heavy heart.
([*]Hawaii was not part of the U.S. at the time of the Pearl Harbor attack, and the islands are stolen property anyway. 9/11 was an act of mass murder, not a military attack by another nation that desires to invade or annex the U.S.)
People who are actually defending their home don't do a lot of joyful marching in ranks. They're busy sneaking about and shooting at the invaders guerrilla-fashion then running away.
You do however see a lot of that sort of marching from aggressive, invading military forces, as they attempt to intimidate the people they've just conquered.
As for "loving your country", no one has said it better then Thoreau:
Free speech is not limited to political speech.
Free speech is an ideal because the alternative is censorship - the use of aggressive force to silence people.
Free speech is inclusive of the right of people, including minors, to be rude, lewd, and crude.
Gun laws keep guns away from bad guys about as well as drug laws keep heroin away from junkies.
Making guns legal or illegal has very little effect on how easy it is for criminals to get ahold of a gun.
Well, he hasn't been found guilty yet, but a couple of months ago it appears that this Boy Scout killed his parents and two brothers.
The chances of a gun accident are already very, very low. You are more likely to die in a drowning accident than in a gun accident.
In 2004, 649 people died from accidental shootings. 878 died from choking on food. 1,638 died from falls on stairs. 3,308 died from drowning. While one death from a firearms accident is one too many, it's clear that gun accidents are a small threat.
Some intellectually dishonest advocated of gun control like to conflate suicides by means of firearms, with firearm accidents. Don't be fooled.
People have the right to keep and bear arms because the most basic natural right they have is that of self-defense, both individual and collective; the right to self-defense implies the right to possess the tools needs to defend oneself.
Were the Second Amendement repealed, the right would remain; the Bill of Rights recognizes rights, it does not create them.