Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[nenjin]

I'll concede the point. When truly awful shit happens, you expect legislation to address the circumstances that created it. Yet no matter how many school shootings, no matter how many police shootings, no matter how many random acts of violence, gun sales are higher than ever in the US and the prospect of actual gun regulation seems the least likely it's ever been. Democrats don't feel like they can depend on their representatives to fight to the bitter end for gun regulation, and even if they did, the Supreme Court means it won't become law. Unless something so truly awful happens that no sane person can see us continuing on this way.

The alternative doesn't seem much better though. Every American pointing guns at each other and settling their differences with them is what the most insane parts on either end of the political spectrum want. Because it's the opposite of democracy.

[delphonso]

The alternative doesn't seem much better though. Every American pointing guns at each other and settling their differences with them is what the most insane parts on either end of the political spectrum want. Because it's the opposite of democracy.

Yeah, I think we all agree here that a new civil war is just about the worst outcome of all this.

[LordBaal]

I just want to say to all of you: I consider a lot of you good friends, having been sharing our fair share of comedy, tragedy, misadventures and fortune for many years. For all of you there, the ones on USA or anywhere with unrest, please be safe pals. Would hate anything bad happens to any of you. Love you guys.

[Micro102]

The right is always going to be violent and bring guns. I've seen countless pictures of obese guys wearing camo and little flaps of body armor with rifles running around LARPing as militia. So until the laws change, I truly think the best thing to do is for the left to also bring guns, so the gun-nuts don't think there won't be consequences if they shoot someone. You may have heard about the concern for gun control that suddenly appeared when the Black Panthers started open carrying.

I can't say I buy this "if the left doesn't bring any guns, the right will start playing nice" idea.

You seem to have bought the "the only way to stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun" idea though

I'm talking about preventative action in specific events where guns will be known to be present. Action that has precedent for getting a response from government to increase gun control. If you want to boil this saying down to "someone with a gun can stop someone else with a gun better than a guy with a baseball bat can", sure, that's objectively true. But that's not what right-wingers mean when they say that. They mean "ignore the rest of the world, there is no way to stop people from getting guns, therefore everyone must be allowed to carry guns anywhere". So no, I don't buy into that idea.

The Left has to be unimpeachable because that makes what the Right does look that more insane, and that more unreasonable and that more dangerous. You wanna know why the Capitol riots didn't come off well for Conservatives? Because only one person died. If 30 or 40 people had gotten blown away there, the narrative around it would be much, much different today. Restraint is what the Left needs to do. The Right is gonna do what they're gonna do, and the more black and white the atrocity, then maybe one fucking day, America as a consensus will become so disgusted by it and its shadowy offshoots of casual racism, entertaining terrible discourse for the sake of politeness, etc.... that we'll rightly condemn this shit and the true believers can slither back into their earthen warrens and wait for their next chance to destroy democracy.

We are already past this point. Republicans deny reality to spread a plague and doom future generations to climate change that will cause mass migration and starvation. They attempt coups and chant for the death of people who defy their cult leader. They post edited videos depicting them killing their political opponents. They send bombs. They rig elections. They run protestors over with cars. They defend pedophiles. They defend anti-semites. Their talking heads spread stochastic terrorism. They are literally a party of fascists. The only way they could get worse if they actually just start gunning people down in the streets. Full-on bloody coup. Anyone who is turned off by horrible actions should have already have been turned off by now. Anyone still humoring the idea that the republican party can be decent is already unreasonable. They have decades of material to look at and I'm not planning on waiting to see how many of them will change their minds after a massacre.

How many protests and revolutions in history have succeeded without any crime happening? The Boston Tea Party caused plenty of property damage. How effective can a protest be if the law prevents any actual consequences from happening? I don't care if skechers loses $10000 in shoes to people who can barely afford rent (if they even have a home), when they make billions a year and spend billions bribing politicians to protect their profits. If the law was perfect there wouldn't need to be protests.

[anewaname]

I for one not taking sides on this particular discussion. Its pretty simple, if you go out with a gun, stick or whatever, or just the will, with the willing to killing someone else because it has a different political view, you need to take a hard long look at your life.

That "with the will" is more important than the guns those people carry...

Before guns, there were blades and clubs. The people "with the will" look for any justification to hurt others, if there is value to them for doing the hurting. They choose economic slavery, they choose actual slavery, they choose taxation, extortion, or theft. There is no feeling of safety for individuals when people "with the will" are looking for someone to exploit.

[nenjin]

How many protests and revolutions in history have succeeded without any crime happening? The Boston Tea Party caused plenty of property damage. How effective can a protest be if the law prevents any actual consequences from happening? I don't care if skechers loses $10000 in shoes to people who can barely afford rent (if they even have a home), when they make billions a year and spend billions bribing politicians to protect their profits. If the law was perfect there wouldn't need to be protests.

I could easily Madlibs conservative talking points into this and it would be indistinguishable from a speech exhorting people to violence. "How many revolutions have succeeded without blood being shed?"  At either end, each side believes the law no longer serves them, that real change can't happen through established political means. Both sides want revolution going in totally opposite directions. Meanwhile most in the middle want something "a bit less" than what either side is gunning for.

Which inclines me to lock both sides up in the Thunderdome and arrest whoever walks out alive. The law isn't perfect, nor are the organizations and people that write it and enforce it. But arguments that it "doesn't work" and it's "not enforced" are approaching the same level as the "stop the steal" folks. Because it does work, every single day, all across America. I think people lose sight of that when they get swept up in revolutionary thinking, even as many enjoy its benefits.

Would hate anything bad happens to any of you. Love you guys.

Aw, thanks. I'm not in any rush to engage in revolutionary behavior. I won't be buying a gun. I felt a bit bad about not being out for the George Floyd protests but shit got crazy enough even here in the Midwest it was not a scene I was going to take part in. Plus Covid.

[Micro102]

I could easily Madlibs conservative talking points into this and it would be indistinguishable from a speech exhorting people to violence. "How many revolutions have succeeded without blood being shed?"

You say it's easy, but you don't seem to be able to do it. I had a lot of nuance to go along with my initial point but you failed the first sentence (you removed the word "protest", the main subject of this conversation).

At either end, each side believes the law no longer serves them, that real change can't happen through established political means.

O it can happen through established means, the problem here is that millions of people are dying in the process, whether it be to the inability to afford, food, housing, healthcare, from covid, and whatever factors are caused by global warming. And they are dying because the right is being fucking insane. Do not equate "both sides" here. If two people say that the rich are looting the country, and one says that taxes and minimum wage should be raised, while the other says "I love Trump's new permanent tax for the rich, so much trickle down", then you call the other person insane and realize that they don't actually believe their own words.

Both sides want revolution going in totally opposite directions. Meanwhile most in the middle want something "a bit less" than what either side is gunning for.

More false equivalency. And what does "totally opposite directions" even mean? What revolution does the right want? Their political party has repeatedly been in power and had full control under Trump. Are you equating "let's have free/cheap healthcare and educations like most of the first world" with "we must stop the deepstate antifa immigrant hordes being funded by Soros from taking over the country under communist Joe Biden!"?

Which inclines me to lock both sides up in the Thunderdome and arrest whoever walks out alive. The law isn't perfect, nor are the organizations and people that write it and enforce it. But arguments that it "doesn't work" and it's "not enforced" are on the same level as the "stop the steal" folks. Because it does work, every single day, all across America. I think people lose sight of that when they get swept up in revolutionary thinking, even as many enjoy its benefits.

This is objectively false. The amount of examples I could google and post here could take me all day. Surely, you must have seen examples of a corporation doing something illegal that makes them 100x whatever the fine they had to pay for it was. Or how a homeless man who steals $100 gets 15 years while a CEO that commits $3 billion fraud get's 40 months. Or how that black women who didn't know she couldn't vote and filled out a provisional ballot (the thing you fill out specifically when you don't know if you can vote) got 5 years in prison for it, while a Trump supporter who intentionally tries to vote twice and commit voter fraud, gets probation... The examples are endless. The republican party (specifically Mitch McConnell) barred Obama from filling many, many court positions, and then loaded up those positions when Trump was in office. They did the same with the supreme court who is now refusing to hear the case of Texas' taliban-level abortion law. They are intentionally stacking the justice system with biased pieces of shit, so this is only going to get worse. Playing this off as two sides being delusional about a system that is working fine, when one of those sides is actively causing that system to not work properly, and are trying to destroy democracy, is horribly, horribly wrong.

[nenjin]

More false equivalency. And what does "totally opposite directions" even mean? What revolution does the right want? Their political party has repeatedly been in power and had full control under Trump. Are you equating "let's have free/cheap healthcare and educations like most of the first world" with "we must stop the deepstate antifa immigrant hordes being funded by Soros from taking over the country under communist Joe Biden!"?

Let me clarify by picking out a couple extreme viewpoints on each side:

-We don't need cops.
-Eat the rich.
-Legalize everything

vs.

-Legislating morality
-Idiotic levels of personal freedom
-Abolish government

That's part of what I see the two ends of the extremes wanting in terms of their revolution. Almost everything else you mentioned falls "in the middle" to me. Average people don't want to see people starve, have their own bills to pay, get crushed by the economy like everyone except the rich. And I don't think at least in terms of media coverage the two are remotely equal. There is far more emphasis put on extreme conservatism right now than extreme liberalism. Although I guess that depends on which "sources" you choose to indulge in. But like I said, most of what you listed above is middle ground for most people, including moderate conservatives. I wouldn't call that revolution, I'd call that reform.

Revolution is crazy stuff like abolishing police nationwide. Letting states decide stuff for themselves that's guaranteed by the Bill of Rights. Forcibly redistributing wealth. Banning teaching evolution. The extreme left wants to hang all the power structures out to dry, and so does the right. Just for the completely opposite reasons. The left feels used by the wealthy and betrayed by government. The right views government as just another impediment to what they want.

Playing this off as two sides being delusional about a system that is working fine, when one of those sides is actively causing that system to not work properly, and are trying to destroy democracy, is horribly, horribly wrong.

I'm talking about law in society in general, not the shit show that is the National American political scene. At the local and state level, law does function, the trains are on time, people have food, power, and law and order for the most part. Murderers, crooks and frauds get caught and punished and justice does get served. All the time? No. Especially when we want it? Often not. But if nothing worked this would already be the world's largest burning wasteland. That's what I mean when I say lose sight of the bigger picture when they, often rightfully, get outraged about stuff happening nationally.

[Micro102]

I don't think it's reasonable to chalk this up to "the left wants to legalize everything and the right wants to abolish government". These aren't anywhere near mainstream ideas and would put some fascists "in the middle" with some communists. The mainstream ideas are "what the rest of the first world has" on the left and "there are national and global conspiracies designed to hurt conservatives" on the right. If healthcare is middle ground for conservatives, then why are they still voting for the party that attempted to just straight up remove it? Why are democrats only digging up old conservative healthcare plans and gutting them? Why did 70+ million vote for someone who just handed trillions to the rich, if the middle is "tax the rich"?... The middle here is significantly rightwing, and the extreme right is the republican party, and they have almost half of the government. It would be a revolution to undo the control the rich has on the country. There is no revolution for the right because they caused and maintain this system.

I'm talking about law in society in general, not the shit show that is the National American political scene. At the local and state level, law does function, the trains are on time, people have food, power, and law and order for the most part. Murderers, crooks and frauds get caught and punished and justice does get served. All the time? No. Especially when we want it? Often not. But if nothing worked this would already be the world's largest burning wasteland. That's what I mean when I say lose sight of the bigger picture when they, often rightfully, get outraged about stuff happening nationally.

I really don't get this response. I said "If the law was perfect there wouldn't need to be protests.". The response shouldn't be "well the country isn't literally on fire". There is gross inequality and it needs to be protested, because it has failed to change through the system. And if that results in looting, so be it. It could very well lower the inequality.

[Starver]

The statements were, I note, the relative extremist ends of the spectrum. If it is indeed a linear spectrum.

(There's definite wrap-around on 'legalise everything', hence the abolishment of any government (which again bounces back again into the leftist defund-the-policers, and back once more to ultimate personal freedom to do anything - perhaps or perhaps not "...to anyone", where there might be a smidgen of disagreement.)

[MrRoboto75]

Only a Sith deals in absolutes

[scriver]

How many protests and revolutions in history have succeeded without any crime happening? The Boston Tea Party caused plenty of property damage. How effective can a protest be if the law prevents any actual consequences from happening? I don't care if skechers loses $10000 in shoes to people who can barely afford rent (if they even have a home), when they make billions a year and spend billions bribing politicians to protect their profits. If the law was perfect there wouldn't need to be protests.

I think you have a very unrealistic view of who is plundering stores, and what people have to pay for those damages.

[dragdeler]

a

[da_nang]

Kenosha trial update:

The shooter is taking the stand. High risk/Low reward. What is the defense thinking?!

The cat is in the bag. Are they trying to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory?

[nenjin]

The shooter is taking the stand. High risk/Low reward. What is the defense thinking?!

The cat is in the bag. Are they trying to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory?

If he has a good lawyer, he put him on the stand for a reason. Probably because he believes the jury is sympathetic. The judge surely is.

Seems to me like this whole fake moral dillemna could be resolved with insurance though I wouldn't be surprised if those mofos conveniently leave that off the menu.

Insurance will dick you over too when it suits their needs. Anyone remember flood insurance claims being denied during Katrina? Yeah. I wouldn't count on insurance companies to fill the cracks here.