I very much doubt USAF wants this for use on US soil against amateur drone operators, in any case. It's far more likely that they've noticed the heavy use of civilian drones for recon in many recent conflicts - e.g. both sides have used it that way in Ukraine, and there have also been reports from Syria along these lines.
Ayn Rand fans and nationalist fanatics are two different and largely non-intersecting categories. And there aren't that many libertarian fanatics in the party (the ones who are serious about it are usually in LP, and adore Ron Paul from afar).
Overall, I'd list three main GOP factions:
- Economic liberals - Social conservatives - Right-wing populists
The first one doesn't have any clear leader to speak of (there's Rand, but he's too extreme to represent the whole thing). The second one is represented by Cruz and Carson. The third one is represented by Trump, with everyone else veering into this territory occasionally.
Based on the worries about cancer and the "sucking up the sun" thing, it's actually what I'd expect. Sounds a lot like the left-wing anti-vax hippie crowd.
Trump voters are the ones who'd drill for oil in their backyards if they knew how, and then run their supersized SUVs on the raw thing for the extra fun soot that it makes, to annoy teh libruls.
It could be. I suspect the figure is actually similar for all organizations that use H1-Bs to supplement their main workforce during rapid expansion times or when there's otherwise a pressing need to fill an open position (i.e. when the local job market is unable to keep up), rather than replace it altogether for the sake of savings. With the former approach, salaries are basically what the market would pay for such a job in a given location, since companies effectively compete for talent, even among H1-Bs; and so all companies in the same location have similar baselines. If banks in those locations have similar demands for talent, they have to advertise a similar wage, too. And if you look on GlassDoor, $100k is basically where the bottom line is for Amazon and Microsoft, and that is also what you generally expect as a starting point for software developer in Seattle area. It's higher in the Bay area, naturally, because of higher cost of living, which is reflected in Google and Facebook figures.
All in all, if you wanted to draw a cut-off line such that it would cover only the tech companies in Seattle and Silicon Valley (and other companies also located there and competing with them for tech talent), this amount would be just about right.
Unemployment will tick up and automation will be more cost effective so some jobs will disappear forever.
Which is a good thing! The sooner we get to the point where the majority of people cannot get a job, the sooner we get rid of that stupid notion that in a high-tech society like ours, everyone must work to feed themselves.
Yep. In fact, this figure is such an accurate cut-off for these exact companies that you've listed, that I can't help but wonder if Cruz got this bright idea courtesy of some anonymous campaign donor.
We already drawn the line at machine guns, grenades, rpgs (for the average person),
I wonder if you're actually aware of the details of regulatory regime for these - most people aren't. There isn't actually a ban on full-auto firearms or grenades on the federal level (some states have their own bans, but many don't).
Specifically for full-autos, there's a ban on importation or manufacture for civilian market, which means that supply is limited (only full-auto guns manufactured or imported before 1986 can be transferred to civilians), and so prices are very high - for example, here is an auction on a full-auto AR-15, starting at $18k; and on the cheaper side, here is WW2 Sten submachine gun, starting at $5k. However, if you have the cash, and if you don't live in a state that bans those, you could totally have it - all it takes is paying a $200 transfer tax to the feds (and waiting for a few months, because their processing queue for those transfer forms is very long).
There's another alternative, that involves taking a new semi-auto, and replacing a few parts in it with registered full-auto parts. For example, for AR-15, all you need is what's called a "drop-in auto sear" that is manufactured before 1986, and registered as a full auto firearm. It just goes into pretty much any AR-15 on the market, and makes it a legal machine gun. (For bonus points, have a look at what the drop-in auto sear is, and think about how trivial it is to manufacture - this is illegal, of course, but if you wanted to use it, I doubt you'd care.)
(There's another option, entirely illegal, but readily accessible. A regular mil-spec full auto trigger group and sear for an M16 is not considered a machinegun in and of itself, because it doesn't readily fit in a semi-auto AR-15 receiver. However, the only thing that is necessary to make it fit is drilling a single hole at the right spot, which is fairly trivial, given that receivers are aluminum - some are even polymer - and schematics and even jigs are readily available. Basically, it could be done with a cheap hand drill if desired. A complete kit with the trigger group, safety and sear costs around $100.)
Consequently, in 1995, 9 years after the manufacture/import ban, there were 175,000 registered legal full-auto firearms in civilian possession. This number is certainly lower today, because things wear out - but probably not by that much, because you can replace most worn-out parts that don't differ between full-auto and semi-auto models, and because people naturally are careful about such expensive guns.
Similarly, for grenade launchers and grenades, which are classified as "destructive devices" - you can own them, but you have to pay $200 for the transfer of both the launcher, and every grenade for it, so it gets expensive real quick. E.g. here is the standard military underbarrel 40mm grenade launcher - yours for $1500 + $200 transfer tax. Grenades are much harder to find, obviously, because they're a single-use thing by definition, but are also available given enough money. There are a few people in the country who own real tanks, complete with live guns and a stockpile of shells.
I don't have time to look up the stats, but I'd assume that the Czech Republic has better mental health services, less income inequality, greater social mobility, ranks higher on happiness indexes, etc.. than the US.
Yes, of course.
(This is unfortunately rarely brought up, because to the right wing, public healthcare and other things necessary to reduce income inequality and improve social stability are anathema, and to the left wing, guns themselves are anathema.)
But it we aren't going to address some of the root causes of the absurdly high rates of gun violence in the US, then I don't see lowering clip capacity and banning a few more rifles as that big a deal. We already drawn the line at machine guns, grenades, rpgs (for the average person), moving the line down another notch or two isn't a big deal.
How big of a deal it is depends on whether you own any or not. To remind, there are several million of those types of guns in the country, and probably 10x if not more magazines. If you ban them, what are their owners supposed to do with them? Confiscation? It'd be unconstitutional. Or mandatory buyback like in Australia? If the latter, where does the money come from? It'll be quite expensive...
But, more importantly, why would you want to do it if it doesn't actually make any difference? Assault weapon bans in particular make zero sense, because they ban guns based on largely decorative features that have little to no relevance to how deadly a gun is in a spree killing. A stock Ruger Mini-14 is just as deadly as its "tactical" cousin with a pistol grip and flash hider, yet the latter is an "assault weapon" while the former is not, even under the strictest AWB proposals to date.
Unless, of course, by "assault weapons" you really just mean all semi-auto firearms. That would change things. But then why not call it what it is? And bear in mind that if the ban target is that broad, you'll have to amend the total count (and hence the number of people affected, and the amount of money you'd need for compensation purposes) to tens of millions, possibly even a hundred.
With respect to magazine capacity limits. For one thing, they also make very little sense, as most popular semi-auto firearms are very easy and quick to reload, and even more so with just a little practice. Remember that Columbine was done with legal 10-round-limited mags. Besides, it's also fairly hard to define correctly, and consequently easy to circumvent. For example, here is a magazine that holds at most 10 rounds - of the caliber that it is designated for, that is. However, because the dimensions of the magazine are the same as the standard AR-15 mag, it can also hold 30 rounds of 5.56. Should it be illegal to own, or is it only illegal to load it with more than 10 rounds, or shoot it, or none of that? If you don't know about such things in advance when you write laws (and let's face it, most politicians who write gun control bills have no clue about what they're regulating), you wouldn't clarify that; and under any sane legal system, what's not prohibited is legal - as Canada has found out. Another good example of that type of thing is the California "bullet buttons", which stem from an unsuccessful attempt to define the difference between a fixed and a removable magazine (as all magazines are ultimately removable in some manner, for cleaning purposes).
Also, magazines are actually extremely easy to manufacture - when you stop to think about it, it's basically just a box with a spring and a follower. A follower from any (even 2-round) legal capacity magazine will work without any changes, springs are obviously trivial to obtain, and the box itself can be made fr
Because most people who are in favor of it don't consider it the single most important issue - when voting, they will usually look at other things first. On the other hand, the pro-gun block has a significant number of people who are single-issue voters on this. So if you're a Republican congressman, you can stick to your guns and placate that block to get their votes, knowing that very few other people will actively vote against you over it, or you can support such a law and lose all those single-issue voters without any noticeable gains elsewhere.
So the more accurate description of these results is that 10% of Americans believe really strongly that universal background checks are bad, while 90% believe that they're good, but don't have a very strong opinion on it. And due to the way political system is structured in US (severe partisanship, FPTP etc), voting blocks based on strong opinions wield disproportionate power.
On what, the 90% stats, or the fact that I'm a gun owner?
The first is one google search away. For the second, just for lulz, I'll prove it by posting pics of a couple guns with the accompanying note if so requested.
Progressives are the opposite of social conservatives - they want social progress. A pure progressive doesn't care by which means the progress is achieved, so long as it's achieved. So, for example, a law prohibiting "hate speech" would be acceptable if it results in less discrimination and hence more social justice.
Liberals want individual liberty. In the modern interpretation, this includes a belief that such liberty is not possible without social justice, which makes them progressives to some extent, but in that perspective social progress is a mean to an ends, and if it in turn requires means that are contrary to individual freedom, a liberal has to balance the gain and the loss. Depending on how they value any particular freedom (since such assessment is necessarily subjective - what's more important, a right to life or freedom of speech, for example?), they may arrive at different conclusions here, but generally speaking, most liberals would shy away from restrictions on natural rights, such as hate speech laws - or at least wouldn't embrace them, at best seeing them as a lesser evil.
Soviet top-of-the-line main battle tanks are comparable to US ones, if not outright superior, in terms of survivability and combat power. The problem is that they're driven by troops that aren't trained anywhere near as well.
Especially true for Russian equipment. The T-34 was a horrible tank on pretty much all accounts save one: It was incredibly easy to produce.
That's just plain wrong. T-34 was actually superior to pretty much all German tanks it encountered at the beginning of the war, largely courtesy to its sloped armor. Germans had to scramble to produce designs that could beat it, and the most successful one - the Panther - has borrowed the sloped armor concept to do so.
Same goes for Russian guns. Incredible simple designs, mostly consisting of (ply)wood and sheet metal any factory (or even manual production) can produce in reasonable quality and quantity. Nearly indestructible too (The recommended procedure of de-icing a PPSh41 was pretty much"wrap in blanket, jump on it").
PPSh was a submachine gun of WW2 era; their whole point was to be simple and cheap to produce and feed. In fact, as far as simplicity goes, PPSh was more complicated, expensive and fragile than e.g. Sten or M3 (though Soviets later added PPS to their lineup, which was comparable).
Which is among the most bizarre reactions ever. I'm amazed how many people have the delusion that they are going to defend themselves with a gun despite the clear evidence that it almost never actually happens.
What clear evidence? In most cases, the victims of shooting sprees aren't armed. When they are armed, they do sometimes fight back successfully. Not always, no, but sometimes, which is better than never.
A gun is not a perfect tool to deal with most kinds of crime, but for spree killings, it's actually the only thing that would give you any chance if you're a victim and unable to run away. You can't just "give it up" and convince the perp to go away. You can either run, or lie down and wait to be shot, or fight back. Running is not always an option.
There are plenty of gun owners who will happily buy a gun based on photos alone, as popularity of GunBroker etc shows. I have personally bought over a dozen guns from GB, and I've only had an issue once, which is, in fact, a better success rate than buying in-store. Only one of those GB transactions had an in-person money exchange and goods inspection; everything else was the usual - pay money first, get it at your FFL later.
This is a European country with probably the most liberal gun laws in Europe (they even have shall-issue concealed carry). Yet it doesn't seem to have a gun violence problem - they only had one killing spree in 25 years since they enacted those laws after the fall of communism, and their overall murder rate is lower than UK, France and Canada, to name a few. So it seems that they're doing things right.
Of note are the things that they don't have: - assault weapon ban - ban on handguns - ban on carrying firearms - magazine capacity limits - gun-free zones
And they do have: - stand your ground (not as law, but as absence of duty to retreat) - somewhat limited form of castle doctrine
So what else do they have? Universal licensing for gun ownership (and not just carry) with a "shall-issue" but thorough vetting process, complete with psych exam.
Perhaps we should start there, and see how well that works, before piling more restrictions, many of which (like AWB) are evidently absurd to anyone who knows how guns work.
While we're at it, universal background checks have massive popular support. 92% of all Americans support them. 90% of gun owners support them. 86% of Republicans support them. There's no excuse not to implement this.
Full disclosure: I am a gun owner with over 30 firearms in possession, including several "assault weapons".
Trump uses very shady tactics, but I don't see how that necessarily makes him a fool (sounding like fool to get elected, because that's what the electorate wants, is not the same as being one).
He's simply telling the Republican electorate (well, not all of it, but a significant proportion) exactly what they want to hear. I don't really understand all the fuss about Trump specifically - the real problem is the millions of supporters that he has that share all those views. And that problem was created by the Republican party itself, by increased reliance on fear-driven politics ever since Nixon's "war on drugs" and "silent majority". Then there's Fox News etc. You reap what you sow. GOP has sown fear among its electorate for decades, and now it's reaping the accumulated fear-driven hate that this produced. It's not rational, and it's not possible to negotiate with.
Luckily, Trump has zero chance of actually becoming the president if he wins the nomination. Also luckily, this expose will send GOP crumbling, and hopefully something better will emerge out of these ashes. The country could use a non-batshit-insane fiscal conservative / small government (for real) party as a counterbalance to the Democrats.
I don't know. That would be up to scientists with calculators to figure out.
Note though that emissions in that time period didn't all go into the water level rise in the same period. They also keep applying to future periods. Basically, the longer any particular ton of CO2 remains in atmosphere, the higher its cumulative effect is by now.
Sure we'll just get out a checkbook and send our share to the world's most corrupt governments, and they'll in turn hire Halliburton to come in build some shit for a 50% kickback.
Did I mention anything about a checkbook? The responsibility could be, for example, in providing an equivalent-size plot of land in reasonably similar climatic conditions, and granting all citizens of the affected island states the right to move to said land, and some investments to build it up to the same level of economic development that they have enjoyed. Plus some compensation for the loss of sovereignty (or else carving out said plot of land as the new territory of their state).
Also, what makes you believe that these are "the world's most corrupt governments"? Can you cite some stats?
Just curious, do you think that more people have been harmed than helped?
No, I don't. But that is not relevant to any of my points.
If I go to the street and mug a few people who look like they-re well-off, and then distribute that cash in a ghetto, I'll also help more people than I have harmed. But I'm still liable for the harm.
Because the average person isn't harming anyone and is just trying to live like anyone else. They didn't cause this problem.
I'm not saying that anyone bears personal responsibility for it. It's a matter of collective liability on country level. Western countries are better off today to a large extent courtesy of the Industrial Revolution. Insofar as their action in pursuit of better life for themselves caused harm for other people down the line (yes, even 100 years later), they're liable for that harm, collectively.
To reiterate: I'm not saying that Industrial Revolution was bad. I'm not saying that there's any guilt or blame attached to it (you can't inherit guilt, and the people who were doing it back then didn't know that it's not all roses, and that they're effectively crediting someone else's future account). It's all about the accounting. It may not be super-accurate accounting, but it sure as hell is better than "you guys figure it out yourselves, we don't care".
Metaphorically speaking, the West has found a bunch of credit cards 200 years ago, and they've been buying all kinds of fancy stuff using that card that has drastically improved their life. Some of those goodies have trickled down to other countries, too - it's that tech that you keep mentioning - but by no means all, and it's disingenuous to claim that everyone benefited equally from it. Now we have finally found out the people whom one of those credit cards has belonged to, and turns out that our purchases have put them into debt that they're unable to repay. Again, they saw some of the trickle down effect from those purchases, but nowhere even near to what they could have done with that money themselves. The only moral choice here is to set the record straight, and we owe it to them - if not paying out the debt, then at least protecting them from the collectors.
What you're saying is that those who benefited through harming others have, among other benefits, also obtained the technological means to mitigate their harm. So why exactly is it wrong to ask them to use those means to do so on behalf of those whom they harmed?
And where did I say anything about scorning humanitarian aid? Just understand that charity is not a substitute for a concentrated relief effort.
Slashdot Mirror
I very much doubt USAF wants this for use on US soil against amateur drone operators, in any case. It's far more likely that they've noticed the heavy use of civilian drones for recon in many recent conflicts - e.g. both sides have used it that way in Ukraine, and there have also been reports from Syria along these lines.
Not if you're buying a dividend stock.
Ayn Rand fans and nationalist fanatics are two different and largely non-intersecting categories. And there aren't that many libertarian fanatics in the party (the ones who are serious about it are usually in LP, and adore Ron Paul from afar).
Overall, I'd list three main GOP factions:
- Economic liberals
- Social conservatives
- Right-wing populists
The first one doesn't have any clear leader to speak of (there's Rand, but he's too extreme to represent the whole thing). The second one is represented by Cruz and Carson. The third one is represented by Trump, with everyone else veering into this territory occasionally.
"Liberal" is not an American swear word. It's an American right-wing swear word. Liberals themselves don't see anything wrong about it.
Based on the worries about cancer and the "sucking up the sun" thing, it's actually what I'd expect. Sounds a lot like the left-wing anti-vax hippie crowd.
Trump voters are the ones who'd drill for oil in their backyards if they knew how, and then run their supersized SUVs on the raw thing for the extra fun soot that it makes, to annoy teh libruls.
I thought I've seen everything, but I certainly never saw or expected to see a die-hard libertarian singing praises to the Victorian era.
Then again, we've had another self-described libertarian fapping on Sarah Palin not that long ago, so I suppose it makes some perverted sense.
It could be. I suspect the figure is actually similar for all organizations that use H1-Bs to supplement their main workforce during rapid expansion times or when there's otherwise a pressing need to fill an open position (i.e. when the local job market is unable to keep up), rather than replace it altogether for the sake of savings. With the former approach, salaries are basically what the market would pay for such a job in a given location, since companies effectively compete for talent, even among H1-Bs; and so all companies in the same location have similar baselines. If banks in those locations have similar demands for talent, they have to advertise a similar wage, too. And if you look on GlassDoor, $100k is basically where the bottom line is for Amazon and Microsoft, and that is also what you generally expect as a starting point for software developer in Seattle area. It's higher in the Bay area, naturally, because of higher cost of living, which is reflected in Google and Facebook figures.
All in all, if you wanted to draw a cut-off line such that it would cover only the tech companies in Seattle and Silicon Valley (and other companies also located there and competing with them for tech talent), this amount would be just about right.
Unemployment will tick up and automation will be more cost effective so some jobs will disappear forever.
Which is a good thing! The sooner we get to the point where the majority of people cannot get a job, the sooner we get rid of that stupid notion that in a high-tech society like ours, everyone must work to feed themselves.
Yep. In fact, this figure is such an accurate cut-off for these exact companies that you've listed, that I can't help but wonder if Cruz got this bright idea courtesy of some anonymous campaign donor.
One other thing.
We already drawn the line at machine guns, grenades, rpgs (for the average person),
I wonder if you're actually aware of the details of regulatory regime for these - most people aren't. There isn't actually a ban on full-auto firearms or grenades on the federal level (some states have their own bans, but many don't).
Specifically for full-autos, there's a ban on importation or manufacture for civilian market, which means that supply is limited (only full-auto guns manufactured or imported before 1986 can be transferred to civilians), and so prices are very high - for example, here is an auction on a full-auto AR-15, starting at $18k; and on the cheaper side, here is WW2 Sten submachine gun, starting at $5k. However, if you have the cash, and if you don't live in a state that bans those, you could totally have it - all it takes is paying a $200 transfer tax to the feds (and waiting for a few months, because their processing queue for those transfer forms is very long).
There's another alternative, that involves taking a new semi-auto, and replacing a few parts in it with registered full-auto parts. For example, for AR-15, all you need is what's called a "drop-in auto sear" that is manufactured before 1986, and registered as a full auto firearm. It just goes into pretty much any AR-15 on the market, and makes it a legal machine gun. (For bonus points, have a look at what the drop-in auto sear is, and think about how trivial it is to manufacture - this is illegal, of course, but if you wanted to use it, I doubt you'd care.)
(There's another option, entirely illegal, but readily accessible. A regular mil-spec full auto trigger group and sear for an M16 is not considered a machinegun in and of itself, because it doesn't readily fit in a semi-auto AR-15 receiver. However, the only thing that is necessary to make it fit is drilling a single hole at the right spot, which is fairly trivial, given that receivers are aluminum - some are even polymer - and schematics and even jigs are readily available. Basically, it could be done with a cheap hand drill if desired. A complete kit with the trigger group, safety and sear costs around $100.)
Consequently, in 1995, 9 years after the manufacture/import ban, there were 175,000 registered legal full-auto firearms in civilian possession. This number is certainly lower today, because things wear out - but probably not by that much, because you can replace most worn-out parts that don't differ between full-auto and semi-auto models, and because people naturally are careful about such expensive guns.
Similarly, for grenade launchers and grenades, which are classified as "destructive devices" - you can own them, but you have to pay $200 for the transfer of both the launcher, and every grenade for it, so it gets expensive real quick. E.g. here is the standard military underbarrel 40mm grenade launcher - yours for $1500 + $200 transfer tax. Grenades are much harder to find, obviously, because they're a single-use thing by definition, but are also available given enough money. There are a few people in the country who own real tanks, complete with live guns and a stockpile of shells.
I don't have time to look up the stats, but I'd assume that the Czech Republic has better mental health services, less income inequality, greater social mobility, ranks higher on happiness indexes, etc.. than the US.
Yes, of course.
(This is unfortunately rarely brought up, because to the right wing, public healthcare and other things necessary to reduce income inequality and improve social stability are anathema, and to the left wing, guns themselves are anathema.)
But it we aren't going to address some of the root causes of the absurdly high rates of gun violence in the US, then I don't see lowering clip capacity and banning a few more rifles as that big a deal. We already drawn the line at machine guns, grenades, rpgs (for the average person), moving the line down another notch or two isn't a big deal.
How big of a deal it is depends on whether you own any or not. To remind, there are several million of those types of guns in the country, and probably 10x if not more magazines. If you ban them, what are their owners supposed to do with them? Confiscation? It'd be unconstitutional. Or mandatory buyback like in Australia? If the latter, where does the money come from? It'll be quite expensive...
But, more importantly, why would you want to do it if it doesn't actually make any difference? Assault weapon bans in particular make zero sense, because they ban guns based on largely decorative features that have little to no relevance to how deadly a gun is in a spree killing. A stock Ruger Mini-14 is just as deadly as its "tactical" cousin with a pistol grip and flash hider, yet the latter is an "assault weapon" while the former is not, even under the strictest AWB proposals to date.
Unless, of course, by "assault weapons" you really just mean all semi-auto firearms. That would change things. But then why not call it what it is? And bear in mind that if the ban target is that broad, you'll have to amend the total count (and hence the number of people affected, and the amount of money you'd need for compensation purposes) to tens of millions, possibly even a hundred.
With respect to magazine capacity limits. For one thing, they also make very little sense, as most popular semi-auto firearms are very easy and quick to reload, and even more so with just a little practice. Remember that Columbine was done with legal 10-round-limited mags. Besides, it's also fairly hard to define correctly, and consequently easy to circumvent. For example, here is a magazine that holds at most 10 rounds - of the caliber that it is designated for, that is. However, because the dimensions of the magazine are the same as the standard AR-15 mag, it can also hold 30 rounds of 5.56. Should it be illegal to own, or is it only illegal to load it with more than 10 rounds, or shoot it, or none of that? If you don't know about such things in advance when you write laws (and let's face it, most politicians who write gun control bills have no clue about what they're regulating), you wouldn't clarify that; and under any sane legal system, what's not prohibited is legal - as Canada has found out. Another good example of that type of thing is the California "bullet buttons", which stem from an unsuccessful attempt to define the difference between a fixed and a removable magazine (as all magazines are ultimately removable in some manner, for cleaning purposes).
Also, magazines are actually extremely easy to manufacture - when you stop to think about it, it's basically just a box with a spring and a follower. A follower from any (even 2-round) legal capacity magazine will work without any changes, springs are obviously trivial to obtain, and the box itself can be made fr
Because most people who are in favor of it don't consider it the single most important issue - when voting, they will usually look at other things first. On the other hand, the pro-gun block has a significant number of people who are single-issue voters on this. So if you're a Republican congressman, you can stick to your guns and placate that block to get their votes, knowing that very few other people will actively vote against you over it, or you can support such a law and lose all those single-issue voters without any noticeable gains elsewhere.
So the more accurate description of these results is that 10% of Americans believe really strongly that universal background checks are bad, while 90% believe that they're good, but don't have a very strong opinion on it. And due to the way political system is structured in US (severe partisanship, FPTP etc), voting blocks based on strong opinions wield disproportionate power.
On what, the 90% stats, or the fact that I'm a gun owner?
The first is one google search away. For the second, just for lulz, I'll prove it by posting pics of a couple guns with the accompanying note if so requested.
Progressives are the opposite of social conservatives - they want social progress. A pure progressive doesn't care by which means the progress is achieved, so long as it's achieved. So, for example, a law prohibiting "hate speech" would be acceptable if it results in less discrimination and hence more social justice.
Liberals want individual liberty. In the modern interpretation, this includes a belief that such liberty is not possible without social justice, which makes them progressives to some extent, but in that perspective social progress is a mean to an ends, and if it in turn requires means that are contrary to individual freedom, a liberal has to balance the gain and the loss. Depending on how they value any particular freedom (since such assessment is necessarily subjective - what's more important, a right to life or freedom of speech, for example?), they may arrive at different conclusions here, but generally speaking, most liberals would shy away from restrictions on natural rights, such as hate speech laws - or at least wouldn't embrace them, at best seeing them as a lesser evil.
Soviet top-of-the-line main battle tanks are comparable to US ones, if not outright superior, in terms of survivability and combat power. The problem is that they're driven by troops that aren't trained anywhere near as well.
Especially true for Russian equipment. The T-34 was a horrible tank on pretty much all accounts save one: It was incredibly easy to produce.
That's just plain wrong. T-34 was actually superior to pretty much all German tanks it encountered at the beginning of the war, largely courtesy to its sloped armor. Germans had to scramble to produce designs that could beat it, and the most successful one - the Panther - has borrowed the sloped armor concept to do so.
Same goes for Russian guns. Incredible simple designs, mostly consisting of (ply)wood and sheet metal any factory (or even manual production) can produce in reasonable quality and quantity. Nearly indestructible too (The recommended procedure of de-icing a PPSh41 was pretty much"wrap in blanket, jump on it").
PPSh was a submachine gun of WW2 era; their whole point was to be simple and cheap to produce and feed. In fact, as far as simplicity goes, PPSh was more complicated, expensive and fragile than e.g. Sten or M3 (though Soviets later added PPS to their lineup, which was comparable).
Which is among the most bizarre reactions ever. I'm amazed how many people have the delusion that they are going to defend themselves with a gun despite the clear evidence that it almost never actually happens.
What clear evidence? In most cases, the victims of shooting sprees aren't armed. When they are armed, they do sometimes fight back successfully. Not always, no, but sometimes, which is better than never.
A gun is not a perfect tool to deal with most kinds of crime, but for spree killings, it's actually the only thing that would give you any chance if you're a victim and unable to run away. You can't just "give it up" and convince the perp to go away. You can either run, or lie down and wait to be shot, or fight back. Running is not always an option.
There are plenty of gun owners who will happily buy a gun based on photos alone, as popularity of GunBroker etc shows. I have personally bought over a dozen guns from GB, and I've only had an issue once, which is, in fact, a better success rate than buying in-store. Only one of those GB transactions had an in-person money exchange and goods inspection; everything else was the usual - pay money first, get it at your FFL later.
Here's one interesting data point:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
This is a European country with probably the most liberal gun laws in Europe (they even have shall-issue concealed carry). Yet it doesn't seem to have a gun violence problem - they only had one killing spree in 25 years since they enacted those laws after the fall of communism, and their overall murder rate is lower than UK, France and Canada, to name a few. So it seems that they're doing things right.
Of note are the things that they don't have:
- assault weapon ban
- ban on handguns
- ban on carrying firearms
- magazine capacity limits
- gun-free zones
And they do have:
- stand your ground (not as law, but as absence of duty to retreat)
- somewhat limited form of castle doctrine
So what else do they have? Universal licensing for gun ownership (and not just carry) with a "shall-issue" but thorough vetting process, complete with psych exam.
Perhaps we should start there, and see how well that works, before piling more restrictions, many of which (like AWB) are evidently absurd to anyone who knows how guns work.
While we're at it, universal background checks have massive popular support. 92% of all Americans support them. 90% of gun owners support them. 86% of Republicans support them. There's no excuse not to implement this.
Full disclosure: I am a gun owner with over 30 firearms in possession, including several "assault weapons".
Trump uses very shady tactics, but I don't see how that necessarily makes him a fool (sounding like fool to get elected, because that's what the electorate wants, is not the same as being one).
Progressives don't believe in free speech. Liberals do, and that's a continuing point of divergence between the two.
He's simply telling the Republican electorate (well, not all of it, but a significant proportion) exactly what they want to hear. I don't really understand all the fuss about Trump specifically - the real problem is the millions of supporters that he has that share all those views. And that problem was created by the Republican party itself, by increased reliance on fear-driven politics ever since Nixon's "war on drugs" and "silent majority". Then there's Fox News etc. You reap what you sow. GOP has sown fear among its electorate for decades, and now it's reaping the accumulated fear-driven hate that this produced. It's not rational, and it's not possible to negotiate with.
Luckily, Trump has zero chance of actually becoming the president if he wins the nomination. Also luckily, this expose will send GOP crumbling, and hopefully something better will emerge out of these ashes. The country could use a non-batshit-insane fiscal conservative / small government (for real) party as a counterbalance to the Democrats.
how much responsibility is ours to divy. up?
I don't know. That would be up to scientists with calculators to figure out.
Note though that emissions in that time period didn't all go into the water level rise in the same period. They also keep applying to future periods. Basically, the longer any particular ton of CO2 remains in atmosphere, the higher its cumulative effect is by now.
Sure we'll just get out a checkbook and send our share to the world's most corrupt governments, and they'll in turn hire Halliburton to come in build some shit for a 50% kickback.
Did I mention anything about a checkbook? The responsibility could be, for example, in providing an equivalent-size plot of land in reasonably similar climatic conditions, and granting all citizens of the affected island states the right to move to said land, and some investments to build it up to the same level of economic development that they have enjoyed. Plus some compensation for the loss of sovereignty (or else carving out said plot of land as the new territory of their state).
Also, what makes you believe that these are "the world's most corrupt governments"? Can you cite some stats?
Just curious, do you think that more people have been harmed than helped?
No, I don't. But that is not relevant to any of my points.
If I go to the street and mug a few people who look like they-re well-off, and then distribute that cash in a ghetto, I'll also help more people than I have harmed. But I'm still liable for the harm.
Because the average person isn't harming anyone and is just trying to live like anyone else. They didn't cause this problem.
I'm not saying that anyone bears personal responsibility for it. It's a matter of collective liability on country level. Western countries are better off today to a large extent courtesy of the Industrial Revolution. Insofar as their action in pursuit of better life for themselves caused harm for other people down the line (yes, even 100 years later), they're liable for that harm, collectively.
To reiterate: I'm not saying that Industrial Revolution was bad. I'm not saying that there's any guilt or blame attached to it (you can't inherit guilt, and the people who were doing it back then didn't know that it's not all roses, and that they're effectively crediting someone else's future account). It's all about the accounting. It may not be super-accurate accounting, but it sure as hell is better than "you guys figure it out yourselves, we don't care".
Metaphorically speaking, the West has found a bunch of credit cards 200 years ago, and they've been buying all kinds of fancy stuff using that card that has drastically improved their life. Some of those goodies have trickled down to other countries, too - it's that tech that you keep mentioning - but by no means all, and it's disingenuous to claim that everyone benefited equally from it. Now we have finally found out the people whom one of those credit cards has belonged to, and turns out that our purchases have put them into debt that they're unable to repay. Again, they saw some of the trickle down effect from those purchases, but nowhere even near to what they could have done with that money themselves. The only moral choice here is to set the record straight, and we owe it to them - if not paying out the debt, then at least protecting them from the collectors.
What you're saying is that those who benefited through harming others have, among other benefits, also obtained the technological means to mitigate their harm. So why exactly is it wrong to ask them to use those means to do so on behalf of those whom they harmed?
And where did I say anything about scorning humanitarian aid? Just understand that charity is not a substitute for a concentrated relief effort.