Revolution in the land of 300 million guns

Well, this is sad. Sanders supporter loses the script:

An acquaintance of suspected shooter James Hodgkinson told the Washington post that he met and became friendly with the man while campaigning for Bernie Sanders in Iowa.

Charles Orear, 50, a restaurant manager from St. Louis, said in an interview Wednesday that Hodgkinson was a passionate progressive and showed no signs of violence or malice toward others.

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Orear said when told of the incident by phone. “I met him on the Bernie trail in Iowa, worked with him in the Quad Cities area.”

Orear described Hodgkinson as a “quiet guy” who was “very mellow, very reserved” when they stayed overnight at a Sanders’s supporter home in Rock Island, Ill., after canvassing for the senator.

“He was this union tradesman, pretty stocky, and we stayed up talking politics,” he said. “He was more on the really progressive side of things.”

And, Hodgkinson dies, the only fatality.

Republicans were victims of their own promiscuous gun laws.

Senator Rand Paul
@RandPaul
.@Judgenap: Why do we have a Second Amendment? It's not to shoot deer. It's to shoot at the government when it becomes tyrannical!

12:48pm · 23 Jun 2016 · Twitter for iPhone

Trump saying the entire nation is praying for Scalise isn't exactly so. I'm not.

>3 theoria:

JESUS FUCKING CHRIST

A sitting Senator said that?!?!?!?!

Assholes deserve every bullet that comes their way.

And in VA no license or permit is required to buy and carry a rifle on the street. So, while we need to wait for more info to come out besides the little that has so far, lax gun laws play at least a part.

http://www.rawstory.com/2017/06/like-buying-an-iphone-fox-analyst-says-gun-was-l...

Lax, ex-lax, if Sandy Hook couldn't budge those bastards, surely a little forced jigging by a bunch of rich white dickheads golfing won't change a thing. Right? Right?!

And wouldn't THAT be interesting...

http://scalise.house.gov/issues/2nd-amendment

A martyr for the cause.

*screencapped*

Congressman Scalise's pro-gun stance has earned him an A+ rating from the National Rifle Association. A member of the Congressional Second Amendment Task Force, Congressman Steve Scalise will continue fighting to protect every citizen's Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms.

>3 theoria: I see nothing here that exculpates Hodgkinson from his violent crimes.

NPR's interview with the Congressional Reps who respectively manage the Republican and Democratic baseball teams puts a human face on yesterday's attack. The shaken Republican (TX) had his two young sons at the practice. They remind us that cross-aisle friendship and cooperation rarely makes the news:

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/rivals-baseball-field-congressmen-share-solidarit...

Gabby Gifford's former aide:

OPINION: After shooting, ‘thoughts and prayers’ without a plan is just a dream
Daniel Hernandez, Jr. | 06/14/17

...with more than 90 people being killed each and every day by guns it can become easy to accept that this a problem we just deal with.

Normalizing everyday gun violence while sensationalizing specific shootings means we fall into the standard political trope of offering statements of thoughts and prayers as elected officials.

...We must take the time to mourn this incident but we cannot let “thoughts and prayers” be the only answer. We can always hope for the best next time but the reality is as elected officials we have a moral imperative to keep our constituents, staff and ourselves safe.

We must have Republicans, Democrats and Independents come together to find common sense solutions. Starting with the need to require background checks on all gun sales. This is a proven and effective system but only when it is applied to all sales with as few loopholes as possible. We must also adequately fund mental health help for those that need it. And when we all come together to think of solutions there will doubtless be innovative and creative ways to tackle this epidemic of gun violence.

There will doubtless be a partisan blame game in the ensuing days but I ask our members of Congress: Now that two of your members in less than a decade have been shot at and nearly killed, how can you sit and do nothing?

The gun lobby is strong but not as strong as your responsibility to yourselves and your staff. Don’t hope for this to never happen again. Take steps to prevent this from happening. Stand up to those special interests and focus on doing better if not for the American people, then do it for yourselves....

http://thehill.com/blogs/pundits-blog/uncategorized/337881-after-shooting-though...

It's funny seeing some Republicans trying to blame this on divisive rhetoric from Democrats when the Hater in Chief is sitting in the White House.

>10 krolik:

I don't see where theoria claimed it exculpates any violent crimes. But there's a reason the US is an insane gun fetishists' asylum and Republicans like Paul and Scalise are the biggest part of it.

>13 jjwilson61:

I think that it's now clear--and this is one of the most interesting and revealing aspects of the results of the Clinton vs. Trump contests--that when it comes to "hate" and "hatred", the Democrats and, sad to say, even too many of the genuine political Left-wing can match the Right-wing's hatreds blow for blow, measure for measure.

Hatred is a human trait, not a partisan trait. That some on the Left seem so ready--as with racism--to deal with it as though it's a particular problem found in their favorite targets-as -position-- the Right-wingers hate!, Whites are racist!, Men are violent!--is fascinating as a sociological phenomenon.

Obama typically always kept his temper and his cool in public (not always in private), didn't "Tweet" serially like some teen-ager, and didn't say things which often struck the straight-laced as outrageous. That doesn't prove that he didn't have his full share of hates and hatreds.

For all his outbursts, it is not clear to me that Trump actually hates individuals or groups with either more force or more frequency than his political opponents. Trump, for example, despite what the New York or the Los Angeles Times would have us believe, doesn't "hate" "Mexicans", or women, or beauty-pageant contestants, or the soldiers killed in our country's current wars or their surviving family-members either specifically or, still less, generally. But it is so satisfying to portray him as the Devil's First Assistant.

>15 proximity1: Have you seen his rallies? If Trump doesn't personally hate those people and groups, he is very effective at inducing it in others.

>16 jjwilson61:

I agree--that there is genuine hatred on the part of a good portion of "those people"--just as a great many Obama-bots and Hillary-bots give an extremely realistic impression of hating Trump and his supporters. it's not difficult for Trump or Obama or Clinton to gin up these emotions; they're there just waiting--or not waiting--to be tapped.

But I don't think that Trump himself has time for much genuine hatred. First, he's a businessman. When he came to actually meet Obama, he found he rather liked him--true, Trump has his flaws. He was apparently star-struck and I found that rather sad and pathetic of him.

The revolutionary mind always leads to violence. Hurray for the left!

As long as Hannity, Levin, Limbaugh & their ilk are paid huge sums to make
outrageous statements which keep the toxic political atmosphere going strong,
they will keep spewing the hate. Stating that Dems and their beliefs are the root of
all evil in America is despicable. The guys mentioned above are all deplorable, life-
long con men. It is not surprising that Trump is now their cult leader.

>18 barney67:

Glib nonsense.

As though the world is rolling along, "minding its own business", not a speck of violence anywhere to be seen and

suddenly

WHAM!,

Revolutionary Mind springs up--from THE LEFT, of course!--and, suddenly, VIOLENCE!

What a shame!

Everything was all happy and peaceful and then

BAM!

--pesky Revolutionary Mind appears--out of nowhere: but defintely from "Left-field."

Your delusions are amusing.

Sanders supporter shoots Congressional Republicans

As details have begun to emerge from this morning’s shooting of Rep. Steve Scalise and several others in Alexandria, Virginia it’s been revealed that the shooter, James Hodgkinson, was an avowed supporter of Senator Bernie Sanders’ presidential campaign. He also volunteered for the Sanders campaign in Illinois.

Bernie Sanders tweet about some (alleged) violence by Trump supporters:

“The politics of division has no place in our country. Trump should take responsibility for addressing his supporters’ violent actions.”

Entire lefty thread on Pro & Con claims:

(Alleged) right-wingers (allegedly) assault someone: It’s right-wing politicians’ fault!

Sanders-supporting socialist assaults people:

It’s definitely not Sanders’s fault! Doesn’t say anything about left-wing politics! Quick, change the subject to, uh... the method of attack!

Maybe Sanders can't take all the blame, though. The sheer hatred and vituperation on the Left seems designed to create this sort of situation. E.g., Kathy Griffin and the Trump's severed head photo.

#23--maybe you should look at the thread title and do a little contemplation. You're complaining about people on the left wanting things all ways. What about you? I take it you're pro NRA, aren't you? Mr. Scalise has an A+ rating from the NRA--so he definitely is and FWIW you can find that information on his own congressional website. You guys want all these guns and more and more guns. Okay. What are guns for? For shooting--are they not? Scalise wants guns....more and more guns and he got shot. What's the problem? One might say he got what he asked for. So why are you whining?

>24 lriley:

But guns are supposed to murder schoolchildren, women, black people, Muslims, never ever should they fire in the direction of Republican dickheads. It's like the world's gone upside down! heavensssss

If hares had guns...



And in the US they can have them.

And even a sitting Republican senator thinks it's right to use them to "shoot at the government when it becomes tyrannical" so much, he's happy to broadcast that opinion to the public. But now that someone on the "other side" agreed with him, there's a problem? Tut-tut. Such hypocrisy!

>26 LolaWalser: Deer hunting.
http://wile-e2005.livejournal.com/111135.html

What percentage of gun owners are black? What percentage of gun violence is black against black?

You can't know, because so many of those guns are acquired illegally. So many of those crimes go undocumented.

America is different from other countries. Haven't you noticed that yet? We're the asterisk country. Every statistic has an asterisk by it that leads to the bottom of the page, telling you, "Except for America" or "Oh yeah, but that's America."

We have more people, so we have more guns. We have more money, we have more guns. We have more crime, we have more guns. We have more freedom, we have more guns. Shall I go on? If you outlawed guns today, you wouldn't solve the problem. You would still have existing guns, plus guns that come into the country from other places.

So, it's fun to shoot off one's mouth, especially when you're eleven, but to me it's a waste of time unless you have something thoughtful to contribute.

>28 barney67: America is different from other countries.

You come up with this in topic after topic, Barney. Of course it's true at a trivial level - every country is different from other countries. Every country has certain specifics which are true of itself but not necessarily true of most other countries. And it's true that many of us in the rest of the world scratch our heads at the inconsistencies, contradictions, arrogance, violence, etc in the USA, although that's mainly because the USA is a superpower which affects all of us for good or ill so we tend to know more about these negative traits than we do about less powerful countries which are equally dysfunctional but which don't affect us so obviously. But to think that the USA is immune from all the dynamics that we see in all the other countries in the world, and their histories, is naive at best and dangerous at worst.

"We have more people, so we have more guns. We have more money, we have more guns. We have more crime, we have more guns. We have more freedom, we have more guns."

Doesn't hold up historically. In the 18th and 19th century the U.S. had neither the most money nor "more people"--they still had, relatively, lots of guns.

Australia. Horrible mass shooting, the citizens turned in their guns (bunch of idiots). I just got back from an extended stay in Ecuador. NO GUNS. The police don't have guns. Nobody died of gun violence during my stay. ( backwards know- nothings are all still alive)

>31 faceinbook:

Wikipedia says Ecuador has a higher murder rate than the United States.

>32 cpg:

Ecuador sounds pretty safe (and increasingly crowded?) in these two articles:

I moved my kids out of America. It was the best parenting decision I've ever made.
http://theweek.com/articles/703660/moved-kids-america-best-parenting-decision-iv...

Retirees flock to Latin America to live an upper-class lifestyle on $1,500 a month
http://www.sacbee.com/news/nation-world/world/article154209369.html#storylink=cp...

>34 margd:

I have no doubt that Ecuador is pretty safe. So are many parts of the United States. New Hampshire, Hawaii, Vermont, Maine, Utah, Idaho, and Massachusetts have lower murder rates than Belgium. Hawaii and Massachusetts have relatively strict gun laws; New Hampshire, Vermont, and Utah are among the most lenient.

>24 lriley: and 25:

No, I'm not going to let you people get away with trying to evade. There's an entire thread in this very group - and an entire propaganda point on the left in general - that says: If (alleged) right-wingers (allegedly) assault people, then a valid and important conclusion to draw is that right-wing ideas are inherently violent.

So:

If left-wingers assault people, then a valid and important conclusion to draw is that left-wing ideas are inherently violent.

>36 Carnophile: I think right wing violence is the result of climate change conspiracies.

>36 Carnophile:

There are some human beings who resort to violence. Some of them are left wing and some of them are right wing and some of them are centrist and just about any other identifier that one chooses. But if you look at the ideologies, at least in the western democracies, it appears to me that right wing rhetoric is more encouraging of violence than left wing.

#36--have you been on vacation? I hope you haven't spent all that time grinding your teeth and/or shitting on the pot all the time it took you to compose that.

......and I like how I've become a 'you people' and a 'evader'.

So to your premise that people of the left can be just as violent as people on the right. If you're saying that the violence gene is in just about everybody---all I can say is no shit, Sherlock.

When it comes to guns and gun violence in America though I'll offer you the NRA--which is notoriously and ideologically and in its membership right wing. Listen----I don't mind people having a hunting rifle or even a pistol or two depending on a mental health checkup and certificate from a real doctor every couple-three years. It's not my thing but even so...someone wants to hunt or gets his rocks off shooting at a range....leave them be. Here's the problem though--the NRA doesn't like background checks or waiting periods----they fight tooth and nail against each and every common sense gun measure that comes down the pike such as mental health checkups for handgun owners. They love the big gun shows and are all for the unfettered and unregulated exchange of firearms and armaments of all kinds---45 caliber machine guns, bazookas, hand grenades, land mines, rocket launchers, surface to air missile and flamethrowers---it's all good to the NRA and they've been fighting like bejesus for every bit of it. They've very much have helped to create this situation of gun violence in America---which brings us back to congressman Scalise who like a good republican has supported the NRA to the utmost of his ability--which is why he's got himself the gold star A+ NRA rating and FWIW I kind of see the irony end of his being shot than the tragedy end. Let's ask ourselves Mr. Carnophile....which political party's elected members are more likely to get A's and A +'s? The answer is.....it's the Republican party and it's not even close.

And speaking of just random violence...weren't you the guy who suggested just weeks ago that a certain journalist for the Guardian had a face that deserved to be punched? How far away are you from wanting to punch somebody you don't know (and I'd guess you never even heard of this journalist before his incident with the Montana congressman) and wanting to shoot them because you don't like their face? Care to evade that one?

>39 lriley: How can we go into the massive fight against climate changery unarmed?

#40--that's a really good question. I can imagine a hell of a free for all if populations from major coastal cities are forced to move inland.

>39 lriley: people of the left can be just as violent as people on the right.

No. Much more violent.

When it comes to guns and gun violence in America though I'll offer you the NRA...

Don’t try to change the subject away from the violence of socialists.

>39 lriley: weren't you the guy who suggested just weeks ago that a certain journalist for the Guardian had a face that deserved to be punched?

You got me all wrong. The aesthetics of punchable faces are just gravy. The real reason that journalists, especially for The Guardian, deserve to be punched, is that they’re evil. They deliberately lie and omit crucial facts to make white Americans look like racist assailants of everyone else. This is blood libel territory.

See, e.g., http://www.librarything.com/topic/239716#6069881
The lies and general dishonesty in that post weren’t put forth by body-slam boy, but that’s the sort of thing that the Guardian has been doing for years. The leftist press in general has been doing it for decades.

Innocent cops get murdered by BLM activists due to this sort of deliberately violence-fomenting propaganda. It’s not a goddam joke.

What is unfortunate about the Gianforte incident was not that the reporter got a taste of his organization’s own medicine. It was that the taste was so small. Ah, well, we must be patient. This whole situation - deliberately created by the media - is developing rapidly.

>43 Carnophile: This is blood libel territory

Not sure what you mean by blood libel in this context, but if it is libel, as you assert, then take them to court. That's how we deal with libel in civilised law-abiding countries, not by committing criminal acts of violence.

If it is "deliberately violence-fomenting propaganda", then again, take them to court. In many countries there are laws against hate speech and incitement to violence, particularly the racial hatred which you appear to imply ("to make white Americans look like racist assailants of everyone else").

Of course committing acts of violence against journalists is the norm in countries such as Sudan and South Sudan, where journalists are routinely threatened, detained, beaten up, tortured and killed, but I presume you are in agreement with Barney that the US is (supposed to be) different from such lawless countries?

>43 Carnophile:

A little thought experiment.

A disturbed person, possibly of left wing persuasion, considers Carnophile to be deliberately propagating violence-fomenting propaganda, lying and omitting crucial facts. It’s not a goddam joke. He states categorically that Carnophile is evil and deserves to be punched, to be body-slammed to the ground. In fact what is unfortunate about the Carnophile incident (as we shall call it) was not that Carnophile got a taste of his own medicine; it was that the taste was so small.

Do you agree with this? Because this appears to be the philosophy that you are advocating. As long as someone in his own (probably disturbed) mind believes these things of you, then he is perfectly entitled to physically attack you because you deserve it, and the only unfortunate thing is that he used his fists and not an assault rifle. Really?

>43 Carnophile:

Thinking about this later, it occurred to me that I fell for another change of subject trap. The subject here is that leftist ideas foment violence. So I guess the assertion about the reporter incident is that my rhetoric caused him to be body slammed. Alas, I cannot claim that honor. I’m pretty sure I’ve never said anything that would have so inspired Gianforte.

>44 John5918: Not sure what you mean by blood libel in this context

Then look it up.

but if it is libel, as you assert, then take them to court.

Again, look it up. Blood libel is not a legal concept. The media are generally careful to make sure that when they foment violence, they do it in ways that are not legally actionable.

>45 John5918: True accusations are legitimate. Therefore, false accusations are also legitimate!

Argument a la mode: Once an actual murderer was caught and punished for murder. This makes it legitimate to falsely accuse other people of murder.

Being right about these things is important. Obviously. It is good to punish actual Nazis for genocide. This is not a license to falsely accuse normal people of genocide.

>44 John5918: & >47 Carnophile: :

"blood libel" per dictionary.com & Random House dictionaries.

-- " noun
1. the false accusation that Jews murder Christian children to use their blood in religious rituals"

____________________________

If only Michelin tires could get such milage as this comment's invocation!

Blood-libel! Blood-libel! Bwa-a-a-a-a-a-w-w-k-k-k-k!! Bwa-a-a-a-a-a-w-w-k-k-k-k!! Blood-libel! Blood-libel! Polly wants a cracker! Blood-libel! Blood-libel! Polly wants a cracker!

>29 John5918: It is NOT trivial. I keep bringing it up for that very reason.

This thread is about guns. Not guns, really, violence with guns. And killing people with guns.

OK. Killing people with guns. In America, who does the most killing with guns? Who kills and who gets killed?

Now is that different than, say, Japan? Of course. If Japan said to us, you should have gun laws like ours, then we should say, We can't because WE'RE NOT LIKE YOU. How can a law, i.e. piles and piles of paper arrived at through the semi-rational work of elected politicians, be applied to all people at all times in all situations? Their food isn't even like ours. Why do we expect our guns laws to be like theirs?

A life lived in New York City or Chicago is mind-bogglingly different than life lived in Jonesville, Nebraska.

Democracy flattens. It erases differences, distinctions, definitions. So does law.

If you want to think seriously about guns, you have to think seriously about the people who kill with them.

My view is that America will ALWAYS be violent because of certain groups of people and certain ideas that were either born here or have found rich soil in which to spread like poison weeds.

If Finland is less violent, that's because in Finland EVERYONE IS THE SAME. Just like Japan. And Spain. And Italy. And Iceland. And Australia.

I thought Carny's reference to "blood libel" was interesting, not because I share his view, but because it reveals quite starkly how he feels.

Although I'm very skeptical of the legitimacy of this comparison (and we've already argued on any number of issues), I don't doubt his sincerity.

He believes he's persecuted. This colors the conversation. Often, though not explicitly acknowledged, it is the conversation.

>47 Carnophile: Not sure what you mean by blood libel in this context

Then look it up.

I did look it up. That's what prompted my remark about blood libel in this context, which you have failed to explain.

>50 barney67: My view is that America will ALWAYS be violent because of certain groups of people and certain ideas that were either born here or have found rich soil in which to spread like poison weeds.

Well now, that is an admission indeed. You mean certain groups of people like extreme survivalists, extreme libertarians, the NRA, racists, anti-immigrationists...? Poison weeds? Strong stuff.

If Finland is less violent, that's because in Finland EVERYONE IS THE SAME. Just like Japan. And Spain. And Italy. And Iceland. And Australia.

Really? Just as you accuse most of us of not knowing much about the USA, perhaps the same charge could be made against you? In fact you are on record in other threads boasting that you don't know much about the rest of the world because it is of no importance to you (my apologies if my paraphrase has misconstrued your meaning). Do you really think that Aboriginal Australians, Australians of British and Irish convict heritage, Australians of more recent British heritage, Australians of other European heritages, Australians of all the different Asian heritages, etc are all THE SAME (sorry, I'm copying the capitalisation from you)? Have you ever tried asking a Basque or a Catalan if all Spaniards are THE SAME? Italy was formed from dozens of small kingdoms and states, to say nothing of Sicily, Sardinia, and of course the German-speaking area of Sud-Tirol where the people are basically Austrians; all THE SAME? Japan and Iceland I won't comment on as I've never been there and don't know much about them.

>53 John5918: Let us take Italy. A Slovene professor (who spoke more than ten languages fluently, and just by the way once met Samuel Beckett) once told me that a study showed that in Italy there is more genetic difference among Italians than between Italians and non-Italians.

Pardon any faulty use of the words between and among.

>53 John5918: Even on my block here in the American South I don't think we can say everyone is THE SAME, if the battle of blasting AM & FM radio stations during cookouts is any indication.

>55 southernbooklady: I'm glad they are blasting music.

I've never been able to handle most country music--there are exceptions like some of Johnny Cash and the old Hank Williams--anything new is always awful to me--and there's a lot of that in upstate NY--though I imagine it to be worse the further south and into the middle of the country you go. I can appreciate Willie Nelson a bit--his pro pot thing.

>57 lriley: Iriley, I have a south Indian brother in law who makes any country western song sound terrific. I even listen to some of them now of my own free will. 'In the early mornin rain....'

Don't mind a little bluegrass on occasion. ;-)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EIs0KMFJvWE

hear here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FNnRhqnAFPA&t=1858s

>60 RickHarsch: Well, that improved my evening. :-)

Video ad from NRA, "freedom's safest place", with its "clenched fist of truth" against "violence of lies":

The Clenched Fist of Truth | Apr 13, 2017
Dana Loesch's powerful NRA public service TV spot.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tOfLjGg5gP0

Surely this one crosses line from dog whistle to shouting fire in a packed theater (to mix metaphors)? It's bound to set off some nutball, or dozens... :-(

#42-43---nutty.

>53 John5918: Do you really to want to suggest that most gun deaths in America are caused by "extreme survivalists, extreme libertarians, the NRA, racists, anti-immigrationists" ? You believe these people are doing the killing? I guess you really do get your news from Al Jazeera.

>64 barney67: Do you really to want to suggest that most gun deaths in America are caused by...

I don't think I said anything about "most gun deaths in America". I simply listed some of the groups that you appeared to be referring to as poison weeds. No doubt there are other groups which I missed.

You believe these people are doing the killing?

Yes, I believe these are amongst the groups of people you referred to who are doing some of the killing. You can get that news from US news media. As I said, there are other groups. And as you said in >50 barney67:, "America will ALWAYS be violent because of certain groups of people and certain ideas that were either born here or have found rich soil in which to spread like poison weeds", including the "poison weeds" which I mentioned.

>65 John5918: You're wrong in a way that is probably impossible to change, short of medical intervention. Thank God you aren't in America, where you would do more damage with the liberal progressives or whatever the douchebags call themselves today.

If you think NRA members are murderers, then you are not living with your five senses. Eyes that don't see, ears that don't hear. You are covered in a burka of ideology through which you can see very little.

I recall the definition of a neoconservative (who we all hate because they are evil) is a liberal who has been mugged by reality. Congratulations to those of you who have gotten this far in life without being mugged by reality. Life must be really great in your cushy chairs where the only evil that exists is committed by Republicans and others you don't like, and the only effort you have to make to back up your words is to post them on a book forum. Never having to walk the walk must be really great. If you ever grow up and leave your bubble, let me know how it happened. The solution should be bottled and sold all over the world.

>66 barney67: the mugging joke is pretty old, Barney, so old you had to change it to neoconservative...as for the rest, I have no idea who you are addressing (I know you begin with jtf, but you've not understood him and so are not speaking to him at all)...cushy chairs, bubbles...And isn't 'walk the walk' too exhausted to keep walking even in your posts?

>67 RickHarsch: So old, John Agresto even used it as a book title. Mugged by Reality: The Liberation of Iraq and the Failure of Good Intentions

It's a name you should know.

http://exiledonline.com/neocon-like-me-how-i-spent-a-year-in-iraq-teaching-with-...
http://exiledonline.com/mugged-by-mediocrity-dr-dolan-schools-neocon-imbecile-jo...

>66 barney67: the only evil that exists is committed by Republicans and others you don't like

I don't believe I said that. Indeed in >65 John5918: I specifically said that there are other groups. I simply listed some of the poison weeds that I notice; you are welcome to list some of the others which you notice. Because group A does action X, it does not necessarily mean that group B doesn't also do action X. However it might mean that non-members of group A tend to notice more what the group is doing, and vice versa.

Sadly, in the cushy chair in the little bubble where I escape from reality in South Sudan's war zone, a lot of the evil is being done by people I like very much indeed, people who I spent many years in the bush with during their liberation struggle in the last civil war. The world is not black and white with obvious good people and obvious bad people (which seems to be a narrative that Trump believes in), but is a complicated mix of people on all sides trying to do what they perceive as good and/or necessary, interpreting reality as they perceive it.

If you think NRA members are murderers

Firstly, I didn't use the word murder, I said "gun deaths". That includes suicides, accidents, children finding their mother's gun, self-defence, etc. A quick google tells me that the NRA has between four and five million members. Are you seriously trying to tell me that out of a sample of 5 million gun owners, none of them has ever killed anyone with a gun? If you go back to >50 barney67: and >53 John5918:, you'll recall that you said "America will always be violent" because of these poison weeds; you did not specify that you were talking only about violence which involved murder by gun. There are lots of other forms of violence in general and there are lots of other ways in which volence involves guns which would not be classified as murder.

Africa is not America. You will have to accept it someday.

>70 barney67:

America is not exempt from human dynamics and human history. You will have to accept it someday.

>70 barney67: Right, unfortunately in the US the colonizers stayed.

>72 RickHarsch:

Interesting point, interrogating part of the US myth that they were a colony that had to fight for independence from a colonial master. It could be argued that in fact it was a falling out between the colonial settlers and their government back home.

Australia, Canada and New Zealand are settler nations where they apparently did not fall out with the colonial power and the settlers achieved nationhood (and domination of the land they had settled, and its peoples) without major conflict with the colonial power. As with the USA, the original owners of the land (those who were left alive, anyway) had no say in the matter. New Zealand has arguably done a better job of eventually accommodating the original inhabitants of the land; Australia is only just beginning to deal with its genocide against the Aborigines, and the USA is still struggling to come to terms with it. I don't know enough about Canada to comment; maybe Lola can tell us, if she is reading this thread.

Similar settler dynamics with different endings include Kenya (where the colonial government supported the settlers through the liberation struggle, committing massive human rights abuses in the process, but eventually bowed to the inevitable and handed the land back to its original owners), Rhodesia (where the colonial government dithered and the settlers themselves had to accept the inevitable as they lost the military liberation struggle against the local people) and South Africa (where the settlers held out until 1994).

I'm only commenting on former British settlements, as I don't know enough about the dynamics of French, Portuguese, Spanish and other settlers, and anyway it was Britain that the US settlers fell out with.

Antonio Lobo Antunes, who I consider the finest living writer that I have read, writes hauntingly of the Portuguese in Africa; in fact, most of his novels are about the distortions and horrors of the end of the colonial period. He's particularly good on the damage done to the Portuguese themselves (it's very easy to depict the damage done to the colonized).

Anecdotal impressions from working with tribal reps in US and observing in Canada (corrections, additions most welcome): I used to think that Canada had treated her indigenous peoples better than the US did. They were valuable partners in French fur trade, and after British took over, RCMP ("Mounties") were sent out early, so west of British North America was a lot more law-abiding than in the US. (I've read--Pierre Berton--that during the Gold Rush, wouldbe miners from America would meekly hand over their guns to RCMP upon arrival.) Indians fled north to escape American soldiers.

But Beothuks are extinct in Newfoundland due to same factors at play elsewhere--competition, disease, and violence, though latter not sanctioned in mid-18th c: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beothuk. In mid-19th c, Canada hung Metis (French-Indian) leader Louis Riel in uprising, and first PM John A MacDonald apparently fed Natives out west enough to keep them alive, but not to fight.

Canada also went down the residential-school path to "take the Indian out of the child"--reconciliation is currently a big focus: https://www.aadnc-aandc.gc.ca/eng/1400782178444/1400782270488. Musician Gord Downie recently produced 2h animated video about 12-year old Chanie Wenjack's death in 1966 trying to walk 400 miles of RR tracks home from residential school: http://www.cbc.ca/arts/secretpath/gord-downie-s-secret-path-airs-on-cbc-october-.... There is still misery today, particularly in northern communities (seen as alcoholism, youth suicide and drug use). Women disappear. OTOH, a community on Lake Ontario granted its land as a result of 1812 war seems remarkably prosperous and healthy on my drive-throughs(?)

My impression is that Indian rights in US are more crystallized in treaties, maybe because more wars? Although Canada also has treaties, broad cultural rights were enshrined when Constitution brought home in 1982, and these are being defined by Canadian Courts as years go by(?)

>52 John5918: I did look it up. That's what prompted my remark about blood libel in this context, which you have failed to explain.

Yes, I did explain it, in #43.

>76 Carnophile:

Well, I didn't understand what you meant by blood libel in that context, as to my simple mind it had nothing to do with the definition of blood libel which I found online when I looked it up, so perhaps you could humour me and elaborate on it?

Stop being a dick, John.

>78 Carnophile:

You honestly don't realise that what is clear to you is not clear to me? How is it "being a dick" to ask for clarification? Once again, I politely and humbly request clarification.