02-02-2017, 04:49 PM | #3526 |
Only Mostly Lurking
|
"Donald Trump administration 'wants to cut white supremacism from counter-extremism programme'"
Not only despite the far, far greater prevalence of white terrorism that islamic extremism in the past decade+, but also mere days after a mosque shooting by a white nationalist. You can't make this shit up.
__________________
[JAU]
Spoiler: show |
02-02-2017, 05:07 PM | #3527 |
Flashbacker
Join Date: Aug 2013
Posts: 9,068
|
Bannon must enjoy having his hand planted firmly up the rectum of the acting President.
This is becoming absurd. JAU is right, you couldn't write this shit. |
02-02-2017, 05:59 PM | #3528 | |
Archbishop of Banterbury
|
Jesus. I mean the travel ban was one thing, but we knew something like that was coming based on campaign promises and it's not like the Obama administration attitude towards certain Muslim majority countries wasn't fairly shitty to start with. Deciding white supremacy isn't extreme is a fucking shit show.
Here marks the point I lost any hope this administration might turn out to be tolerable.
__________________
Quote:
|
|
02-02-2017, 07:35 PM | #3530 |
我が名は勇者王!
|
That's the spirit, Jeri! Blitzendegen! Pax Romana! Live Long and Prosper! All Hail Britannia, etc.
... That said, has our counter-terrorism program (referring to the special forces?) ever been deployed against white nationals in the US, given incidents like the mosque shooting are lone wolf events and they're American citizens? To me the implicit part of using something like Delta Force is targeting non-American terrorist groups abroad. I'm probably just making excuses but this might have been a poorly timed brand refinement effort.
__________________
あなたの勇気が切り開く未来
ふたりの想いが見つけだす希望 今 信じあえる あきらめない 心かさね 永遠を抱きしめて |
02-02-2017, 08:03 PM | #3531 |
Only Mostly Lurking
|
Ehhh... it's a fair point, but it still rings a few too many alarm bells for comfort, especially given how there are known white supremacists holding governmental power right now. Fascism tends to take a little at a time to get to it's goals. Gotta keep an eye on the early warning signs.
__________________
[JAU]
Spoiler: show |
02-02-2017, 09:09 PM | #3532 |
Fog Badge
Join Date: Apr 2007
Posts: 6,513
|
Let's keep piling on the 'WTF' shit, because there seems to be an endless stream of it.
http://www.politico.com/story/2017/0...st-jews-234572 |
02-02-2017, 09:45 PM | #3533 |
プラスチック♡ラブ
Join Date: Mar 2007
Location: 蒸気の波の中
Posts: 14,766
|
The "inclusive" excuse is just rich. If you want to be inclusive, than you can name off the targeted minority groups, but that would require showing sympathy for homosexuals and Romani people, so it's better to just insult the Jews.
|
02-03-2017, 12:27 AM | #3534 | |
Foot, meet mouth.
|
Quote:
Sorry, but it's really difficult to believe that the mosque shooting is a lone wolf event. Also, the counter-terrorism program includes the FBI (and, I'm sure, several state police forces.) So there is pretty much no excuse for removing white supremacism from the program, because white supremacy-based terrorism most certainly exists inside the USA and is investigated by the FBI.
__________________
Spoiler: show |
|
02-03-2017, 01:12 AM | #3535 |
Ducks gonna duck
Join Date: Jan 2012
Posts: 2,824
|
|
02-03-2017, 09:29 AM | #3536 |
我が名は勇者王!
|
The converse is harder to believe. If you don't think it's a lone wolf event, that means there's some kind of cabal out there organizing shootings like this. Some guy getting excited after reading some particularly inflammatory /pol/ pot and deciding to shoot up a mosque is still a lone wolf event, even if the root cause might inspire similar copycat crimes.
__________________
あなたの勇気が切り開く未来
ふたりの想いが見つけだす希望 今 信じあえる あきらめない 心かさね 永遠を抱きしめて |
02-03-2017, 10:40 AM | #3537 |
Fog Badge
Join Date: Apr 2007
Posts: 6,513
|
Can we talk about the GOP congress voting to remove background checks for mentally ill individuals wanting to purchase firearms? And the approval to deregulate coal waste being dumped into streams?
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-us...-idUSKBN15H2PC https://www.washingtonpost.com/natio...d2a_story.html |
02-03-2017, 10:42 AM | #3538 |
我が名は勇者王!
|
I don't care about the latter.
The former, what kind of mental illness are we talking about? Not all mental illness = shoot someone in a Burger King. That could merely be foodborne illness.
__________________
あなたの勇気が切り開く未来
ふたりの想いが見つけだす希望 今 信じあえる あきらめない 心かさね 永遠を抱きしめて |
02-03-2017, 11:02 AM | #3539 | |
Fog Badge
Join Date: Apr 2007
Posts: 6,513
|
Quote:
B. It doesn't really matter. A person with severe depression, for example, should have that taken into account via background check before they buy a gun, especially with how high the suicide rate is (especially among veterans). This actually could be a matter of life and death for some individuals. And I say that as someone who has clinically diagnosed depression. I doubt someone with narcissistic personality disorder would be prevented from purchasing a firearm, for example, so there should be nothing wrong with checking the background of someone first to see if they are deemed mentally capable of safely possessing such a thing. |
|
02-04-2017, 11:13 AM | #3540 |
Foot, meet mouth.
|
Meanwhile, the so-called President calls a federal judge a so-called judge.
__________________
Spoiler: show |
02-04-2017, 11:45 AM | #3541 | ||
我が名は勇者王!
|
Quote:
Quote:
I stand by what I said that what mental disease matters. A sociopath with a history of violent crime is a big no. Someone with high-functioning autism? So what.
__________________
あなたの勇気が切り開く未来
ふたりの想いが見つけだす希望 今 信じあえる あきらめない 心かさね 永遠を抱きしめて |
||
02-04-2017, 12:01 PM | #3542 | |
Naga's Voice
Join Date: Feb 2014
Location: somewhere gay idk
Posts: 3,279
|
Quote:
__________________
|
|
02-04-2017, 12:08 PM | #3543 | ||
Barghest Barghest Barghe-
|
Quote:
Quote:
__________________
|
||
02-04-2017, 01:34 PM | #3544 | ||
我が名は勇者王!
|
Quote:
Quote:
I feel like discrimination is rampant and emotionally damaging to the point of stimulating other crimes, while armed violent crimes are relatively low in comparison, so I'd be more on the side of blind issuing of guns rather than case-by-case discrimination. Unless you could prove that most gun owners are not legitimate, I would say fewer rights are violated on the blind side of things.
__________________
あなたの勇気が切り開く未来
ふたりの想いが見つけだす希望 今 信じあえる あきらめない 心かさね 永遠を抱きしめて |
||
02-04-2017, 02:02 PM | #3545 | ||
Barghest Barghest Barghe-
|
Quote:
On the other hand, is there a quantitative measurement to discern risk? I don't really think so. Someone's height, weight, or build isn't going to determine if they're more likely to commit a violent crime with a gun. Something like testosterone levels might, but I don't think there is a strong enough correlation to justify undermining the levels of privacy involved in this. So qualitative reasons are often the best we have, and they aren't obviously going to be perfect. Quote:
On the other point you pointed out about skin color et al. I'm going to first address it by pointing out its a slippery slope and that it can always be checked if we're educated and involved enough. Those are issues though that I feel either have no real correlation or correlation that's only convincing out of context (such as skin color). Mental health could be the latter, I'll admit. But I feel the causation is at least somewhat present there.
__________________
|
||
02-05-2017, 11:29 AM | #3546 | ||
我が名は勇者王!
|
This show is amazingly topical, so much so it's hilarious. Apparently the "Deus lo Vult" episode aired the day Trump was inaugurated too. Freaking amazing entertainment coming out of torrent and TV these days.
Quote:
Our society is built on the "innocent until proven guilty" criminal system, and laws in general merely tell you what you can't do, not what you can do. This isn't the kind of system where people who are fearful can look to the law to feel safer, since it prioritizes rights over safety by default. Given that, rather than strike a balance, I'm for allowing guns to people with criminal backgrounds. I fully acknowledge the United States, as an experimental democracy, has also demonstrated how democracy can be abused. It would require a fundamental change of the US' founding character to change the nature of how the laws are. I'd rather not change that, so while it's painful, people abusing the system comes with the territory. Better to not judge then beforehand and bar them as likely abusers before they've actually done something condemn-worthy. One of my current roommates is Muslim, from one of the African countries Trump didn't set a ban on; I accepted him despite 100% of the people I consulted saying it was too dangerous. But I met him in person and determined he was a good person. Quote:
That's why I'm against the mental disabilities ban, because probably, more people are disenfranchised that would would be due to a violent crime. I feel like this logic is pretty consistent with me. Using the same approach, I would be against any mass surveillance privacy violation in the interest of national security, because you are violating billions of rights to privacy in the interest of protecting at most, empirically, the 3,000 something lives lost during 9/11.
__________________
あなたの勇気が切り開く未来
ふたりの想いが見つけだす希望 今 信じあえる あきらめない 心かさね 永遠を抱きしめて |
||
02-05-2017, 12:34 PM | #3547 |
Snackin'
Join Date: Nov 2011
Posts: 2,754
|
Hi, so, I really wanted to stay out of this discussion because I understand that I have a larger amount of and much more personal experiences with the dark side of the second amendment than pretty much anybody on UPN and thus shouldn't hold everyone else's views on something they have a far less drastic perspective on to the same standard, but just... that last post is something I can't not respond to.
Some rights absolutely have more intrinsic value than others, with the right of a person to live being the most important right by a long-shot. If you take away someone's right to live, you also take away every single other right they should have. You can't enjoy free speech, freedom of religion, free press, a right to a fair trial, or any of that when you're in a coffin six feet underground because some nutjob shot up your school. If you take away someone's right to own a gun.... they lose literally nothing else. It's absurd to insinuate that stripping even a single person of absolutely everything down to their own existence is a reasonable exchange for keeping intact a minor luxury a relatively small group of people wish to possess. Maybe it's because I live outside of Chicago and know that every day I leave my house could truly be the last day of my life due to our rampant gun problem. Maybe it's because multiple students at my school, one of which I shared a class with at the time, attempted to smuggle a gun into my school. Maybe it's because a man was drive-by shot across the street from my school last year while I was in class. Maybe it's because I know from my own experience just how much of a danger you can pose to yourself when you're mentally ill- because I know there have been multiple occasions where if I had a gun in my house it would have made it so easy to kill myself that I would have died three times over by now from my bouts of severe depression. It's probably all of those things that make it fundamentally impossible to see your argument as even slightly valid. You can posture about the second amendment and how America will always be an imperfect place in terms of safety due to our emphasis on democracy all you like, but you cannot reasonably put one person's, or two people's, or 3,000,000 people's, or even 300,000,000 people's so-called "rights" to own a literal killing machine that serves little to no realistic purpose that couldn't be fulfilled by something non-lethal over even a single human being's right to exist in the world without being slaughtered like a calf. It's absurd to even try. Sure, you can say that violent crime can occur with knives or crowbars or a bow and fucking arrow if you want. Sure, you can say that guns are important to hunters if you want. Sure, you can say the overwhelming majority of people who own guns don't use them for violence against other people. Sure, you can even try to argue that the people behind the guns, not the guns themselves, are the problem. But what, exactly, does any of that prove? Do we allow people to own grenades because they're useful for breaking down your back door when you lost the key? Is it okay for a random guy to own weapons-grade plutonium because he likes to keep it in little containers on his shelf and look at it like some kind of collector's item? Should we let anyone at all own a tank because violent crime happens even when tanks aren't roaming the streets? Should we be allowed to own an arsenal of explosives because the vast majority of bomb-owners would never actually light them, and sometimes they slip through the cracks and get into the hands of bad people anyway? No. That's all preposterous. No one in their right mind would agree with any of that. The only real difference guns and any of those things in this regard is that a piece of parchment drafted 250 years ago by people who found dueling an honorable affair and had access to little more than a shitty musket in terms of arms gave guns the A-OK. Those same people gave the A-OK to things like the right of white people to literally own other people. They were right about some things, but wrong about a lot of other things. We as a country need to stop taking the word of James Madison as gospel. He was a fallible human being, like anyone else, who expected the Constitution he drafted to change with the times as necessary. To assume he was correct in all matters is to do him and the system of government he created for us a massive disservice. Of course, it's just as idealistic of me to think that guns can ever be unilaterally banned from the United States as it is for a member of the NRA to think that guns are a non-issue. It can't and won't happen. But maybe at some point people will realize that this needs to become an issue that we allow the states to handle, because while Alaska surely has no problem with and perhaps even a legitimate use for their guns, firearms absolutely need to be outright banned in the State of Illinois and perhaps should be in most other urban states, too. |
02-05-2017, 01:29 PM | #3548 | ||
我が名は勇者王!
|
Quote:
This is why I tier everything on a single axis, quantity. In that way, the majority will always win over conspiracies and cabals. The good of the many will always outweigh the inconvenience of the few. It isn't perfect, but it's the best way to sabotage small elite power. Quote:
Guns shouldn't be used to settle disputes. That's a problem with America culturally that needs to be fixed.
__________________
あなたの勇気が切り開く未来
ふたりの想いが見つけだす希望 今 信じあえる あきらめない 心かさね 永遠を抱きしめて |
||
02-05-2017, 01:29 PM | #3549 | |
Archbishop of Banterbury
|
From a practical view point a major issue with gun control laws is how easy it can be to illegally bring them in from a jurisdiction where they're legal. Gun control works very well in the UK, in part because they're not a culturally accepted thing here but also in part because we're an island with decent border control which makes it hard to bring them in. Contrast with bringing guns across the US-Mexico border or (if done on a state by state basis) across state lines and you can see why that might limit the effectiveness of gun control. Would still do wonders for more impulsive gun crime, but on a more organised level (even that of any street gangs) it probably wouldn't be the magic cure-all. Not an argument for not implementing more gun control, but a practical consideration that would need to be taken into account.
__________________
Quote:
|
|
02-05-2017, 01:33 PM | #3550 | ||
Archbishop of Banterbury
|
Quote:
(Apologies for the double post, on my phone).
__________________
Quote:
|
||
Lower Navigation | ||||||
|
Currently Active Users Viewing This Thread: 3 (0 members and 3 guests) | |
Thread Tools | |
|
|