Exacty! In my opinion (however huge that conquest might be) that's because of a tentative move toward civility. Nothing less.Scott SoCal said:You are right.
BTW, in your opinion, why the huge reduction in gun violence in the US?
Exacty! In my opinion (however huge that conquest might be) that's because of a tentative move toward civility. Nothing less.Scott SoCal said:You are right.
BTW, in your opinion, why the huge reduction in gun violence in the US?
Oh, please. Act like you can try a little harder than that to work though causality and socioeconomics. You sit around 19 days out of 20 with harangues for the liberals that govt. is not solution to every problem.Scott SoCal said:The first thing we need to do is be honest and assess what is causing the breakdown in the family unit particularly with inner city black families.
Having a government program replace the role of the father or gangs serving the role as daddies to young black males has proven to be a bad recipe.
aphronesis said:Oh, please. Act like you can try a little harder than that to work though causality and socioeconomics. You sit around 19 days out of 20 with harangues for the liberals that govt. is not solution to every problem.
The flip side of that (go hard if you're going to go) is that you can't blame govt. for all of society's woes. Funny that.
Back to your other post. People's comments on a third rate huffpo article constitute dissident anti-americanism that might pose a challenge to the status quo and the reigning order. Let alone accredited media that gooner might be in touch with?
yeah right. in what way does that challenge what i said in the original post?
and no, i'm not going to read the comments: there are reasons I live the places that i do.
And I'm right, 19 out of 20 days. What's driving black out of wedlock birth rates? What is substituting the role of black fathers.... particularly inner city black fathers?Oh, please. Act like you can try a little harder than that to work though causality and socioeconomics. You sit around 19 days out of 20 with harangues for the liberals that govt. is not solution to every problem.
Not saying govt is to blame for all society's woes.The flip side of that (go hard if you're going to go) is that you can't blame govt. for all of society's woes. Funny that.
Can't vouch for what he reads, can you? The anti-Americanism is fairly well established among some. A (willful?) misunderstanding of what American Exceptionalism actually means seems rife in that group.Back to your other post. People's comments on a third rate huffpo article constitute dissident anti-americanism that might pose a challenge to the status quo and the reigning order. Let alone accredited media that gooner might be in touch with?
I am going to state that liberals aren't the ones promoting an idea based in a comment by Alexis de Tocqueville, so there isn't an equivalence there. If they're going to spout the bullsh!t idea without knowing the context or author, they deserve nothing but derision.Scott SoCal said:I'm going to just state that there's probably as many liberals who have never hear of Alexis de Tocqueville as conservatives. Excluding academia, of course.
There's more to the idea of American Exceptionalism than what de Tocgueville writes, don't you think?ChewbaccaD said:I am going to state that liberals aren't the ones promoting an idea based in a comment by Alexis de Tocqueville, so there isn't an equivalence there. If they're going to spout the bullsh!t idea without knowing the context or author, they deserve nothing but derision.
Ireland, really? Your mental health problem seems to manifest itself in violence against women and the fact that almost 1 in 20 children are molested. But this is a US thread.gooner said:I repeat. We had cuts in mental health in recent years over here in Ireland. There was uproar over them. Now why isn't there anything like the level of gun violence we see in America?
Yes, it's a US thread and my question in the end was specifically on gun violence/mental health cuts in America after first giving an example of what impact mental health cuts had here in Ireland. You still haven't answered why there is nowhere near the gun violence over here on the back of our own mental health cuts.JRTinMA said:Ireland, really? Your mental health problem seems to manifest itself in violence against women and the fact that almost 1 in 20 children are molested. But this is a US thread.
What part of you can't compare the two do you not understand? We are not Ireland. We are not Norway either who has a larger per capita gun ownership than the US and WAY less gun violence.gooner said:Yes, it's a US thread and my question in the end was specifically on gun violence/mental health cuts in America after first giving an example of what impact mental health cuts had here in Ireland. You still haven't answered why there is nowhere near the gun violence over here on the back of our own mental health cuts.
A bit of a hint, it might have something to do with guns nowhere near as easily accessible as in the US.![]()
Scott SoCal said:Actually, UK stats are not very good for your argument.
Guns do not make a nation safer, say US doctors who have compared the rate of firearms-related deaths in countries where many people own guns with the death rate in countries where gun ownership is rare.
Their findings, published Wednesday in the prestigious American Journal of Medicine, debunk the historic belief among many people in the United States that guns make a country safer, they say. On the contrary, the US, with the most guns per head in the world, has the highest rate of deaths from firearms, while Japan, which has the lowest rate of gun ownership, has the least.
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/sep/18/gun-ownership-gun-deaths-studyThey examined data from 27 developed countries, using gun ownership figures from the Small Arms Survey and deaths from the World Health Organisation, the National Center for Health Statistics and others. They also looked at crime rates compiled by the United Nations for an indication of the safety of each country.
More guns meant more deaths, they found. "The gun ownership rate was a strong and independent predictor of firearm-related death," says Bangalore. "Private gun ownership was highest in the US. Japan, on the other end, had an extremely low gun ownership rate. Similarly, South Africa (9.4 per 100,000) and the US (10.2 per 100,000) had extremely high firearm-related deaths, whereas the United Kingdom (0.25 per 100,000) had an extremely low rate of firearm-related deaths.
"There was a significant correlation between guns per head per country and the rate of firearm-related deaths with Japan being on one end of the spectrum and the US being on the other. This argues against the notion of more guns translating into less crime. South Africa was the only outlier in that the observed firearms-related death rate was several times higher than expected from gun ownership."
And yet another intellectually dishonest argument.gooner said:
To YOU the discussion is guns. If you want to discuss inanimate objects that "kill people" then we should also talk about cars, swimming pools and bathtubs. Wash buckets even.Amsterhammer said:Like so many on the US right when trying to use comparative stats to put the UK in a worse light, Scott has confused the relevant stats for firearm related deaths quoted by Gooner above, with UK stats for numerous other crimes, including violent, but unarmed crime, which are indeed the worst in Europe in a number of categories. But, that's not what the discussion is about. The discussion is about guns. Nor are the the UK's poor crime figures directly attributable to the banning of guns, as I regularly see the pro gun right attempt to argue on the webz.
Like Dana Loesch said we should talk about spoons as well.Scott SoCal said:To YOU the discussion is guns. If you want to discuss inanimate objects that "kill people" then we should also talk about cars, swimming pools and bathtubs. Wash buckets even.
Shall I march out those stats again?
Yes, it is about guns. How about if the mentally unstable, who don't get the treatment they require because they are no kind of priority for politicians, don't have such easy access to guns? How many mass killings with cars, swimming pools, or bathtubs do you think we would see? All kinds of inanimate objects have caused death, I'm sure, but hardly the kind of regular massacres we only see with guns.Scott SoCal said:To YOU the discussion is guns. If you want to discuss inanimate objects that "kill people" then we should also talk about cars, swimming pools and bathtubs. Wash buckets even.
Shall I march out those stats again?
No, it doesn't. But it is sold that way by conservatives to idiots who don't know any better. Read my first quote on the subject. I stand by it 100%. And the term itself is derived from de Tocqueville regardless.Scott SoCal said:There's more to the idea of American Exceptionalism than what de Tocgueville writes, don't you think?
That when America was founded, the government was to serve the people, not a king, not aristocracy. "Among a democratic people, where there is no hereditary wealth, every man works to earn a living ... Labor is held in honor; the prejudice is not against but in its favor."
Life, Liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Inalienable rights. Rights not given by any man to another. Foundational principles.
It has nothing to do with Americans being better than anyone.
And why? Over the generations we no longer adhere to our founding principals. A government that serves the people doesn't really exist anymore and may never really have. Power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely. See our govt today.ChewbaccaD said:No, it doesn't. But it is sold that way by conservatives to idiots who don't know any better. Read my first quote on the subject. I stand by it 100%. And the term itself is derived from de Tocqueville regardless.
And if you don't think the term is used by people who don't understand it in any way other than to insinuate a superior state, you aren't listening. That is EXACTLY how it is used.
EDIT: And let me state clearly that we are not exceptional any longer if we truly ever were. Believe it or not, there are actually a lot people and governments that are from different geographical locations, that we can learn a lot from. The longer we treat the rest of the world like they are children who haven't grown up enough to do things right, the dumber we will continue to become. And that is precisely how American conservatives treat other countries and people foreign to our land.
You may be right, but with the exception of maybe one, no one here is arguing against you on that score.Scott SoCal said:And I'm right, 19 out of 20 days. What's driving black out of wedlock birth rates? What is substituting the role of black fathers.... particularly inner city black fathers?
Not saying govt is to blame for all society's woes.
Can't vouch for what he reads, can you? The anti-Americanism is fairly well established among some. A (willful?) misunderstanding of what American Exceptionalism actually means seems rife in that group.
Well, luck, no, but through war, pilfering, mendacity, baseness and every sort of financial sorcery.Scott SoCal said:And why? Over the generations we no longer adhere to our founding principals. A government that serves the people doesn't really exist anymore and may never really have. Power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely. See our govt today.
But to the extent that it existed at all... The US economy is a 16 trillion dollar economy. That wasn't all luck. Much of that was exactly what Tocqueville observed.
What do you mean, "why"? Because, like, the whole of the Western world now shares these values you mentioned yourself:Scott SoCal said:And why? Over the generations we no longer adhere to our founding principals.
Life, Liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Inalienable rights. Rights not given by any man to another. Foundational principles.
It has nothing to do with Americans being better than anyone.
don't forget those pesky alcohol related deathsScott SoCal said:To YOU the discussion is guns. If you want to discuss inanimate objects that "kill people" then we should also talk about cars, swimming pools and bathtubs. Wash buckets even.
Shall I march out those stats again?
Please do, but factor in human agency while you're at it. (Which would encapsulate the whole mental health canard as well.)Scott SoCal said:To YOU the discussion is guns. If you want to discuss inanimate objects that "kill people" then we should also talk about cars, swimming pools and bathtubs. Wash buckets even.
Shall I march out those stats again?
Hmmm. I don't know how to respond....aphronesis said:Please do, but factor in human agency while you're at it. (Which would encapsulate the whole mental health canard as well.)
Then we might get somewhere.
We can't talk about alcohol. Or cars. Everybody drinks. Everybody drives. That cars and alcohol kill people is totally irrelevant.patricknd said:don't forget those pesky alcohol related deaths![]()
hrotha said:What do you mean, "why"? Because, like, the whole of the Western world now shares these values you mentioned yourself: