I've said similar before. That Americans see shooting someone as a solution to problems where others don't see it as a solution.
I'm going to visit NZ for the mtb tracks and hiking. It looks so good (even after reading a good book detailing all the deaths of hikers who didn't know their shit when hiking in NZ).
A narrow legislative definition of it (you forgot they have to be white males) does not change the meaning of the word. It only changes who you believe is allowed to be militia, it does not change who can and will be militia.
Either way it doesn't change my argument - that the militia is the people.
Don't worry, I had read through the thread, I was just adding my two cents in regards to Australia's too restrictive firearms laws.
Mexico may indeed be a third world country and not the best comparison to the USA, but it's also a good example of how things can fly in the face of the law.
Yes, there was a dip from 1996 to 1997 in the data you linked to. But something important happened in 1996, a small upwards spike, this normalised in 1997, then in 1998 there was a small downwards spike. These small variations up or down do not equate to the long term trend (and are expected). Just like climate change. I'm suspicious of gunpolicy.org data. E.g. gunpolicy.org lists the homicides by firearms alone in 1997 (a key year) as 428, yet official Australian government data from two sources lists the total homicide amount as 322. IMO better data for homicide in Australia can be found from government data sources:
Interesting points: Knives (or other pointy things) have almost always been used at a higher rate than firearms in murder. Arguably targeting them would have been the right thing to do (versus firearms). I wonder if the USA is the same? The overall homicide rate in Australia was very steady from 1993 to 2003 and only started making real headway after 2003.
Did you find any data for registered firearms in 1997 or 1998? That would make an interesting picture (a correlation between increased firearm ownership rate and lower homicides. Lol.).
There have been multiple studies on this. The majority conclude that the firearms laws of 1997 had no affect on homicide by firearm rate. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
We currently have more firearms in Australia than before the buyback in 1997 (I don't know the comparative rates though). Either way, ownership rates dropped precipitously in 1997, and as the homicide rate by firearm continued it's already established downward trend (a fairly linear trend starting well before 1997) the ownership rate has climbed.
Australia has had multiple mass shootings and other mass murders since 1997 (you often hear claims Australia has not had any).
New Zealand is the best example of sensible firearms laws. You could practically use them as a control group against Australia's too stringent laws. Most importantly, they have a lower homicide rate by firearms than Australia, and a lower overall homicide rate than Australia.
New Zealand have not restricted semi-automatic rifles, high capacity magazines, or particular firearm calibers. License periods are longer, and there are fewer registration requirements for firearms.
Because Pastafarianism has a clear founding based on it being a false religion as an example to show how insane the belief systems of other religions are. I.e. it was specifically made to take the piss out of other religions.
"Just think about it" - Lol. Reread my first post.
Possibly yes. And then you would meet the standard that Pastafarianism and Church of Scientology do not meet . The whole point of this exercise was to make a standard that they don't meet and others do - so go for it.
That said, there are certain generally accepted criteria for a religion versus a cult (e.g. you need to have enough followers that other people agree you are a religion - similar to census rules). And you'll need to be super thorough wiping all records, pretty hard these days.
Will you have one god or many?
(PS - you'll have to get a friend to do it - you've already made the postulation public)
I'm discriminating based on verifiability of authenticity. I.e. Do we know they just made it up and no supernatural events occurred?
A factor of verifiability is time, but only in the sense that people die. If you had an immortal who could verify the aforementioned religions as false then they would be in the same basket.
'it "doesn't change the fact that by any standard one can come up with" the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster is "as legitimate as any other" religion.'
Challenge accepted.
Was your religion invented in living memory such that it's un-authenticity can be verified?
I believe Scientology and Pastafarianism both meet this criteria. Buddhism, Islam, Christianity, Judaism don't.
Of course it doesn't make the latter mentioned religions "true", only non-verifiable, whereas recent religions are verifiably "false" - making them not "as legitimate".
If borders were torn down overnight, there would be massive migrant influxes to some countries and cities such that those countries and cities would have their social and physical infrastructure overwhelmed. E.g. A ridiculous amount of people from Central and South America would flood into New Mexico and Texas.
It would need to be graduated to prevent this.
Note: Nationalism is not a subset of bigotry. They are two quite different things. Nationalism doesn't necessarily even have to be xenophobic (i.e. you can love you country without hating or fearing anyone else).
They're used in conjunction with each other to accurately indicate blood pressure.
Just to be clear, the sphygomomanometer measures the pressure in the cuff. It does not measure blood pressure. It is an indirect indication of blood pressure that is non-inavasive and quite accurate and used extensively in an everyday clinical setting.
Accurate relative to what? I think palpation is best used as a quick clinical guide for simply indicating low, normal, or high BP in environments where you can't use a stethoscope. I only ever did palpation when it was inconvenient to pull over the Ambulance and the road noise was too loud to hear the Korotcoff sounds.
"It amazes me that so many people are smart enough to know sphygmomanometer instead of using "blood pressure cuff" but they are ignorant that a stethoscope is required for the procedure."
It's a weird phenomenon indeed.
Maybe too much google time and not enough actual knowledge.
It's not like your examples at all. It's a gradual process that happens through pressure on politicians from the population to achieve change. This happens over time along with gradual improvement in other areas. But if people don't ask for it or attempt it, it certainly won't change.
"We know that how?"
Firstly, I'm specifically not comparing it to third world style hell haven prisons. I've made that clear.
Secondly, using the US as an example, everyone on death row exhausts every appeal they have before they are finally executed because they want to live. Even in shitty US prisons they would prefer life over death. This is not something new. This is not surprising.
The difference is the "sheet of paper with laws voted on by a consenting group of people" and that some people think that legislating something makes it "right".
No, my argument is not that society is correct by definition. You asked a question - should we imprison people and is it OK? I didn't answer your question and instead pointed you to making your own mind up on it, and provided some information to help you.
I didn't say it was a tiny minority. I don't know the statistics and I doubt you do either. You're welcome to look them up but I wouldn't bother for the sake of this discussion.
My country has good quality prisons and reasonable rehabilitation rates.
My logic is not broken. In my first post I said that "Just because a group of people consensually agree that someone should die doesn't make it something else." Later I wrote that even if we were to legislate for wholesale punitive murder that "...even then, it still doesn't make it right". You've combined the two, but it's close enough that I'll accept it.
In regards to prisons, I never wrote that they are right. They aren't necessarily good. But we know from historical contexts that prison is better than the alternative of wholesale punitive murder. I.e. I've argued they are better than the alternative.
I'll reiterate my most salient points:
That sort of system would be such a clusterfuck of people killing people.
The dark ages but with modern weaponry? No thanks.
In reference to your first question, one is acceptable to almost all of society, the other is abhorred by almost all of society. So you can make your own mind up on that one.
Criminals are not abducted. The societal contract is laid out clearly in law. So after committing a crime one knows one may go to jail/prison as the penalty. They are not robbed of their life as a free person. They chose to do actions that entailed a clear penalty.
The whole point of jail is that it is meant to be good conditions to rehabilitate the prisoners. At one end of the scale you have some European prison systems that do this amazingly well, with very low recidivist offender rates. At the other end of the scale are some third world country prisons where the prisoners are kept in horrendous conditions. These horrendous prisons should not exist. If this is the state of your local prisons then you need to lobby to get it fixed.
You might argue that if we legalise murder as a punitive penalty then they are choosing their path if they commit the crime - and that would be valid if we legalised it. But you argued the point as a corollary to abducting and imprisoning as a crime - so you'll have to change your stance to argue that (which I'm fine with). And even then, it still doesn't make it right.
People get it wrong - all the time, they'll fuck up and kill innocents, or they'll simply murder an innocent and say the victim was doing something they shouldn't have been doing (and dead people don't argue back). And I expect the second example will happen a lot.
This is why we have due process instead. But even due process gets it wrong some of the time. So then once again you're killing innocent people.
There is no them and us - so "they" won't destroy society, we all will if we don't act accordingly. And making prison systems instead of torturing, maiming, or killing people who have wronged someone else is a mainstay of "society".
Consider, if we allow murder to become super easily justifiable by persons committing it, will you be at the top of the food chain? Or will you end up a victim? The numbers don't look good for your average Joe in this situation.
Slashdot Mirror
Lol.
I've said similar before. That Americans see shooting someone as a solution to problems where others don't see it as a solution.
I'm going to visit NZ for the mtb tracks and hiking. It looks so good (even after reading a good book detailing all the deaths of hikers who didn't know their shit when hiking in NZ).
You've written a statement with a question mark at the end of it. Strange.
Society and technology are not static.
How does that fit in with this discussion?
I'm not redefining it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
A narrow legislative definition of it (you forgot they have to be white males) does not change the meaning of the word. It only changes who you believe is allowed to be militia, it does not change who can and will be militia.
Either way it doesn't change my argument - that the militia is the people.
Don't worry, I had read through the thread, I was just adding my two cents in regards to Australia's too restrictive firearms laws.
Mexico may indeed be a third world country and not the best comparison to the USA, but it's also a good example of how things can fly in the face of the law.
There is a wikipedia page for Australia's mass murder events. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Yes, there was a dip from 1996 to 1997 in the data you linked to. But something important happened in 1996, a small upwards spike, this normalised in 1997, then in 1998 there was a small downwards spike. These small variations up or down do not equate to the long term trend (and are expected). Just like climate change. I'm suspicious of gunpolicy.org data. E.g. gunpolicy.org lists the homicides by firearms alone in 1997 (a key year) as 428, yet official Australian government data from two sources lists the total homicide amount as 322. IMO better data for homicide in Australia can be found from government data sources:
http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats...
http://www.aic.gov.au/statisti...
http://www.aic.gov.au/statisti...
Interesting points: Knives (or other pointy things) have almost always been used at a higher rate than firearms in murder. Arguably targeting them would have been the right thing to do (versus firearms). I wonder if the USA is the same? The overall homicide rate in Australia was very steady from 1993 to 2003 and only started making real headway after 2003.
Did you find any data for registered firearms in 1997 or 1998? That would make an interesting picture (a correlation between increased firearm ownership rate and lower homicides. Lol.).
Cheers, yours is cool too.
Militia means the common people being called upon to fight. Straight away this encompasses all citizens.
http://www.lectlaw.com/files/g...
http://www.constitution.org/co...
(and for future reference, the English language is not static, so interpretation must be done in the context of the period a piece was written)
There have been multiple studies on this. The majority conclude that the firearms laws of 1997 had no affect on homicide by firearm rate.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
We currently have more firearms in Australia than before the buyback in 1997 (I don't know the comparative rates though). Either way, ownership rates dropped precipitously in 1997, and as the homicide rate by firearm continued it's already established downward trend (a fairly linear trend starting well before 1997) the ownership rate has climbed.
Australia has had multiple mass shootings and other mass murders since 1997 (you often hear claims Australia has not had any).
New Zealand is the best example of sensible firearms laws. You could practically use them as a control group against Australia's too stringent laws. Most importantly, they have a lower homicide rate by firearms than Australia, and a lower overall homicide rate than Australia.
New Zealand have not restricted semi-automatic rifles, high capacity magazines, or particular firearm calibers. License periods are longer, and there are fewer registration requirements for firearms.
And yet here it is on Slashdot. Suck it up.
Because Pastafarianism has a clear founding based on it being a false religion as an example to show how insane the belief systems of other religions are. I.e. it was specifically made to take the piss out of other religions.
"Just think about it" - Lol. Reread my first post.
Possibly yes. And then you would meet the standard that Pastafarianism and Church of Scientology do not meet . The whole point of this exercise was to make a standard that they don't meet and others do - so go for it.
That said, there are certain generally accepted criteria for a religion versus a cult (e.g. you need to have enough followers that other people agree you are a religion - similar to census rules). And you'll need to be super thorough wiping all records, pretty hard these days.
Will you have one god or many?
(PS - you'll have to get a friend to do it - you've already made the postulation public)
I'm not discriminating based on age.
I'm discriminating based on verifiability of authenticity. I.e. Do we know they just made it up and no supernatural events occurred?
A factor of verifiability is time, but only in the sense that people die. If you had an immortal who could verify the aforementioned religions as false then they would be in the same basket.
'it "doesn't change the fact that by any standard one can come up with" the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster is "as legitimate as any other" religion.'
Challenge accepted.
Was your religion invented in living memory such that it's un-authenticity can be verified?
I believe Scientology and Pastafarianism both meet this criteria. Buddhism, Islam, Christianity, Judaism don't.
Of course it doesn't make the latter mentioned religions "true", only non-verifiable, whereas recent religions are verifiably "false" - making them not "as legitimate".
(they did say "any standard"...)
If borders were torn down overnight, there would be massive migrant influxes to some countries and cities such that those countries and cities would have their social and physical infrastructure overwhelmed. E.g. A ridiculous amount of people from Central and South America would flood into New Mexico and Texas.
It would need to be graduated to prevent this.
Note: Nationalism is not a subset of bigotry. They are two quite different things. Nationalism doesn't necessarily even have to be xenophobic (i.e. you can love you country without hating or fearing anyone else).
That's called a pleonasm.
Buy a keyboard with programmable key displays, then program the keyboard however you like.
They're used in conjunction with each other to accurately indicate blood pressure.
Just to be clear, the sphygomomanometer measures the pressure in the cuff. It does not measure blood pressure. It is an indirect indication of blood pressure that is non-inavasive and quite accurate and used extensively in an everyday clinical setting.
It takes both to accurately indicate pressure.
Accurate relative to what? I think palpation is best used as a quick clinical guide for simply indicating low, normal, or high BP in environments where you can't use a stethoscope. I only ever did palpation when it was inconvenient to pull over the Ambulance and the road noise was too loud to hear the Korotcoff sounds.
"It amazes me that so many people are smart enough to know sphygmomanometer instead of using "blood pressure cuff" but they are ignorant that a stethoscope is required for the procedure."
It's a weird phenomenon indeed.
Maybe too much google time and not enough actual knowledge.
"Then your country is a very rare exception."
Stats?
It's not like your examples at all. It's a gradual process that happens through pressure on politicians from the population to achieve change. This happens over time along with gradual improvement in other areas. But if people don't ask for it or attempt it, it certainly won't change.
"We know that how?"
Firstly, I'm specifically not comparing it to third world style hell haven prisons. I've made that clear.
Secondly, using the US as an example, everyone on death row exhausts every appeal they have before they are finally executed because they want to live. Even in shitty US prisons they would prefer life over death. This is not something new. This is not surprising.
Yes.
The difference is the "sheet of paper with laws voted on by a consenting group of people" and that some people think that legislating something makes it "right".
No, my argument is not that society is correct by definition. You asked a question - should we imprison people and is it OK? I didn't answer your question and instead pointed you to making your own mind up on it, and provided some information to help you.
I didn't say it was a tiny minority. I don't know the statistics and I doubt you do either. You're welcome to look them up but I wouldn't bother for the sake of this discussion.
My country has good quality prisons and reasonable rehabilitation rates.
My logic is not broken. In my first post I said that "Just because a group of people consensually agree that someone should die doesn't make it something else." Later I wrote that even if we were to legislate for wholesale punitive murder that "...even then, it still doesn't make it right". You've combined the two, but it's close enough that I'll accept it.
In regards to prisons, I never wrote that they are right. They aren't necessarily good. But we know from historical contexts that prison is better than the alternative of wholesale punitive murder. I.e. I've argued they are better than the alternative.
I'll reiterate my most salient points:
That sort of system would be such a clusterfuck of people killing people.
The dark ages but with modern weaponry? No thanks.
That happened to the last man executed in my state.
In reference to your first question, one is acceptable to almost all of society, the other is abhorred by almost all of society. So you can make your own mind up on that one.
Criminals are not abducted. The societal contract is laid out clearly in law. So after committing a crime one knows one may go to jail/prison as the penalty. They are not robbed of their life as a free person. They chose to do actions that entailed a clear penalty.
The whole point of jail is that it is meant to be good conditions to rehabilitate the prisoners. At one end of the scale you have some European prison systems that do this amazingly well, with very low recidivist offender rates. At the other end of the scale are some third world country prisons where the prisoners are kept in horrendous conditions. These horrendous prisons should not exist. If this is the state of your local prisons then you need to lobby to get it fixed.
You might argue that if we legalise murder as a punitive penalty then they are choosing their path if they commit the crime - and that would be valid if we legalised it. But you argued the point as a corollary to abducting and imprisoning as a crime - so you'll have to change your stance to argue that (which I'm fine with). And even then, it still doesn't make it right.
People get it wrong - all the time, they'll fuck up and kill innocents, or they'll simply murder an innocent and say the victim was doing something they shouldn't have been doing (and dead people don't argue back). And I expect the second example will happen a lot.
This is why we have due process instead. But even due process gets it wrong some of the time. So then once again you're killing innocent people.
There is no them and us - so "they" won't destroy society, we all will if we don't act accordingly. And making prison systems instead of torturing, maiming, or killing people who have wronged someone else is a mainstay of "society".
Consider, if we allow murder to become super easily justifiable by persons committing it, will you be at the top of the food chain? Or will you end up a victim? The numbers don't look good for your average Joe in this situation.
Do you want "The Purge" to be reality?
Killing a murderer makes you a murderer. Just because a group of people consensually agree that someone should die doesn't make it something else.
That sort of system would be such a clusterfuck of people killing people.
The dark ages but with modern weaponry? No thanks.