zombieslayer
11 years ago

Will we get government compensation for that, or are you actually suggesting we do that for free?



Originally Posted by: dfosterf 



Do it for free.

Humans are social animals. Without social activity, they go nuts.
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Wade
  • Wade
  • Veteran Member
11 years ago

Does anyone have any specific proposed solutions that we might debate?

Originally Posted by: dfosterf 



This used to be where I said, "Call a constitutional convention."

But I've changed my mind.

Now my answer would be:

"Call a constitutional convention and allow no one on the following list to be a delegate:
1. Anyone who has held elective office in the last 25 years.
2. Anyone who has held an appointive office at the level of Assistant Secretary or above.
3. Anyone who is currently CEO of a company with >$1 billion of revenues, or has held said position in the last 15 years.
4. Anyone "general officer" in the US military (including your Marines, Foster, sorry) who holds 2 or more stars. Any retired general officer who has held 2 or more stars.
5. Anyone who works the "national desk" or "international desk" at any newspaper, news magazine, or network.
6. Anyone other than Hannah Storm or Sage Steele who has ever worked in front of a camera for CNN, ESPN, FOXNews, or MSNBC.
7. Anyone currently sitting as a judge on ANY federal court, up to and including the SCOTUS.
8. Anyone who holds a Nobel Prize.
9. Anyone who teaches at an Ivy League Law School.
10. Anyone who holds a degree from Harvard.
11. Anyone who has ever been a partner at Goldman Sachs or who has ever served on the Federal Reserve Board of Governors.
12. Anyone who cannot correctly answer 90% of the questions on a basic written 100-question multiple choice exam covering only what is said in: The Declaration of Independence, The Constitution, the Federalist Papers, and Thomas Paine's Rights of Man. [Questions would not be interpretative ones, merely "What is said in...?" type questions.

The dyslexic or the legally blind would be allowed to take the exam of #12 orally. There would be no exceptions to 1-11 whatsoever.

I am convinced there are no solutions, Foster, other than (i) one that engages issues on the most basic of constitutional levels or (ii) that involves violent revolution of the French/Confederacy/Bolshevik sort.

And this is just me, but I'd rather not go to (ii).

(Though that would prove wrong once and for all that bastard Hobbes was wrong.)

(a condescending "huzzah" to the first non-historian* who explains the preceding parenthetical -- sorry, ZS you armed fiend, you're disqualified; besides, I'm betting it wouldn't challenge you at all. It's these other dweebs I want to challenge.)

*Can you tell? I've finally finished my grades, I'm pissed off at the state of the nation, and I'm ready to get feisty again?

[ass]



And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.
Romans 12:2 (NKJV)
Wade
  • Wade
  • Veteran Member
11 years ago

Sure. You want to fix things?

Work less hours. Spend more time with your family. Stop drugging up your kids. Get to know your neighbors.

Do those 4 things and violent crime will plummet. Guaranteed.

Originally Posted by: zombieslayer 



I.

Actually, violent crime has already plummeted rather a lot, hasn't it? I haven't looked at these stats lately (and everyone knows I hate generalizing about trends from short run variability), but I seem to remember that the trend for some time has been that violent crime has actually decreased rather substantially from where it was, say, at the end of WWII or during the peace-and-love 60s.

Do people really think serial killers, gang killings, and out-and-out thuggery are inventions of the 21st century?

Contrary to the received wisdom, the path of crime doesn't follow a nice linear path, any more than "environmental degradation" does. To be sure economic growth often gives rise to increased crime _at first_, as people try to come to terms with the new social and economic organization that such growth brings. Ask anyone who lived in the industrial north of England circa, say, 1820-1850. But then something amazing happens. Just as people in Parliament, or Congress or the NYTimes or wherever, speak of "something must be done," the system of affluence finds ways of improving those very conditions. ANyone who thinks that Englishmen in 1910 weren't substantially better off, virtually across the board, than ANYONE was in 1810 knows nothing of economic history. And anyone who thinks the America of 2012, even with the whacked government policies and the rapacious rich bastards, isn't better off, AND FAR SAFER IN THEIR HOMES, than the America of 1912, is similarly mistaken.

Do we have more serial killers and spree killers today? Probably. We have more than three times as many people after all. And we certainly know of more -- how often would someone in Dakota or Iowa or California in 1912 hear even the most outrageous news out of Connecticut or Colorado? Seriously.

"How big is 'big'?", indeed.

Hmm, I think I'm going to have to make a "crime statistics" project part of my new "basic numeracy skills" course this spring. Damn, another thing to do in January.


II.

To ZS's list I would add: turn off your damn TV news. Stop worrying about what's happening in Connecticut or New Orleans or Las Vegas. Stop letting your fears of dark and nasty things make you into a minder of everyone else's business.

Yeah, it's a tragedy. I get that. People think I'm a heartless bastard sometimes, but I'm not. I was in Iowa City when a disturbed graduate student went off and killed several students, professors, and an associate dean. One of my best friends was *in the seminar room* where the main killings took place. I frankly couldn't have handled it.

But you know what? He weathered that horrible event just fine. And you want to know why? Because he was one of the most grounded people I've ever been privileged to know. He put his life for God first, his family and his personal "community" second, and everything else -- EVERYTHING AND ANYTHING ELSE -- third. He did before the tragic events of that day, and he did it afterward. (I don't know if he still does, because I don't know, to my shame, what came of his bout with colon cancer several years ago and I've been afraid to find out. But that's my problem, not his.

We almost never agreed on politics. And, as I wasn't much of a Christian back then, I expect he didn't think much of my lifestyle choices. He probably still wouldn't, since though I do think of myself as a Christian in ways I never did then, I still make a lot of horrible -- and yes, immoral and all the rest -- choices.

Next to my father and, perhaps, my college advisor/former colleague, though, I think I learned more about what a person should be from him than anyone else I've known. And among the most important things I learned from him was how incredibly much of life in the big bad world was my concern. "Saving the world" is not an adult ambition. It is an adolescent one. The adult's ambition should be to be a good person. To be what you all are -- good friends...good parents...good neighbors. That's it.

That's enough.

Frankly, it's more than any of us fallen human beings are able to do all of the time.

After all, isn't that what we hate most about the busybody down the street or across the hall at work? That we know that *they* are as fucked up as any of us, and that *they* should spend more time worrying about how *they* are fucking up and less about how to stop us from fucking up?

In the end, we've all faced into the abyss at times, haven't we? Foster on the battlefield, Troy with his lovely little daughter's cancer, Jeremy's loss of his father, Kevin's loss of his mother, etc., etc. And if you think about it, how well you've handled those things says far more about your character and what's important about you as human beings as anything you or I might ever say about what a tragedy somewhere else means about life, the universe, and everyone.

I know it bugs some people when I get all religious on them, but I have to end it this way.

Strive to take care of your little part of the world to the best of your abilities. Strive to deal with the slings and arrows that fortune throws at you and yours. And let God worry about the rest.

After all, in the end, He's the only one capable of doing so.

Really.
And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.
Romans 12:2 (NKJV)
dfosterf
11 years ago
5 round magazine. That's it. Big mags in the trash bin. Sorry, you crazy bastards fucked yourselves. You were TOLD not to shoot at the deer crossing signs and the insulators on the power lines as a kid. Now you pay, as the pinkos run the show.

Open all the data on a juvenile offense. We need to look HARD at these so-called kids that do very bad things, so very often. Opening that rap sheet is a START.

Background check on all firearms purchases, without exception, including private sales- could be done at local gun shop. No more gun-show silliness.

Treat all gun-related offenses as the serious crimes that they are. I don't care if we have to erect tent cities in our jails to house the offenders (Joe Arparo [sp?]-style). Hell, let the pot-heads out to house 'em for starters...

Nut jobs getting treated in any capacity, including in a friggin' jail when they go off (my rather broad-brush description of a very complicated issue [duh] ) get reported and access to firearms denied until some authority (judge?) authorizes it when subject nut job is deemed to be un-fucked.

Alcohol, drug, and violence offenders of any kind lose the right to own/possess firearms, unless a judge decides otherwise.- Misdemeanors, not just felonies.

...I'm just throwin' stuff out as food for thought.
dfosterf
11 years ago

Actually, violent crime has already plummeted rather a lot, hasn't it? I haven't looked at these stats lately (and everyone knows I hate generalizing about trends from short run variability), but I seem to remember that the trend for some time has been that violent crime has actually decreased rather substantially from where it was, say, at the end of WWII or during the peace-and-love 60s.

Do people really think serial killers, gang killings, and out-and-out thuggery are inventions of the 21st century?

I think I'm going to have to make "crime statistics" part of my new "basic numeracy skills" course this spring.

"How big is 'big'?", indeed. Hmm.


Originally Posted by: Wade 



What difference does that make?

We live in a country where the citizens don't bother to even breathe hard when the politicians start outlawing sodas beyond 16 ounces for our own good.

Wade
  • Wade
  • Veteran Member
11 years ago

What difference does that make?

We live in a country where the citizens don't bother to even breathe hard when the politicians start outlawing sodas beyond 16 ounces for our own good.

Originally Posted by: dfosterf 



Well, all I can do, in the end, is try to persuade the ones that I come in contact with that they should breathe hard. To try to show them the silliness (much of it, IMO, quantitatively idiotic silliness) at the heart of such politicians and their ideas.

I can't make a sheep have courage or a lemming stop from running off the cliff. Only the individual sheep can give himself courage. Only the individual lemming can turn aside.

The best Marine NCO in the world can only try to show the grunt why its important to charge that damn hill. But, in the end, only that grunt can decide what he's going to do when confronted with that hill. Will he charge up it? Or won't he?

Now that NCO is better at what he does than just about anyone else. And so his charges are, almost all the time going to charge that hill. But that's because that NCO is a real person in their world and they are real people in his (regardless of the names he might call him during said training.

But can that best of all NCOs inspire a bunch of strangers 500 or 5000 miles away to charge up their own hills? Can he go out on the Internet, or get the ear of the President, or pass a law that says, "take all hills owned by scumbags and kill the scumbags?"

I think not.

The greatest of the great -- business, military, education, whatever -- these all have been great because of what they've done in a sandbox. In a community.

That's why politicians qua politicians and economists qua economists are such bad role models. Politicans and economists speak in terms of abstractions, not in terms of communities. The politican or the economist, unlike the marine NCO or the fireman or the individual neighbor or father, can't be great by what he does for some abstraction called "society" or "nation" or "economy". He can only be great insofar as he is a good leader for his team, or good father or neighbor.

It's not about solving society's problems. It's about being a good father, son, neighbor, spouse, and friend. Screw up those things, and I don't care how many social problems you worked on or how much you did for a cause or how much international power and recognition and wealth you accumulate. To the extent you haven't been striving toward good personal relationships first and foremost, then that is the extent to which you have been a failure. And to the extent that you HAVE been so striving in your personal relationship (and regardless of whether you have actually managed to succeed all the time or not), *then* you have been successful.

IMO.

And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.
Romans 12:2 (NKJV)
dfosterf
11 years ago

Do it for free.

Humans are social animals. Without social activity, they go nuts.

Originally Posted by: zombieslayer 



I had a humor-thing going, there.


The libs can whine and parade, the Euro-soccer suckers can condescend, the Dems can milk the issue, but let's not get confused...

Not one single gun will get confiscated by the government from an otherwise law-abiding citizen.

Not safely for our society, anyway.

Gun owners are not New Yorkers or Nancy Pelosi Feinstein/ Boxer voters. I would like to witness the attempt to take the guns from self-perceived-law-abiding citizens, that would certainly be fun to watch.
dfosterf
11 years ago

Well, all I can do, in the end, is try to persuade the ones that I come in contact with that they should breathe hard. To try to show them the silliness (much of it, IMO, quantitatively idiotic silliness) at the heart of such politicians and their ideas.

I can't make a sheep have courage or a lemming stop from running off the cliff. Only the individual sheep can give himself courage. Only the individual lemming can turn aside.

The best Marine NCO in the world can only try to show the grunt why its important to charge that damn hill. But, in the end, only that grunt can decide what he's going to do when confronted with that hill. Will he charge up it? Or won't he?

Now that NCO is better at what he does than just about anyone else. And so his charges are, almost all the time going to charge that hill. But that's because that NCO is a real person in their world and they are real people in his (regardless of the names he might call him during said training.

But can that best of all NCOs inspire a bunch of strangers 500 or 5000 miles away to charge up their own hills? Can he go out on the Internet, or get the ear of the President, or pass a law that says, "take all hills owned by scumbags and kill the scumbags?"

I think not.

The greatest of the great -- business, military, education, whatever -- these all have been great because of what they've done in a sandbox. In a community.

That's why politicians qua politicians and economists qua economists are such bad role models. Politicans and economists speak in terms of abstractions, not in terms of communities. The politican or the economist, unlike the marine NCO or the fireman or the individual neighbor or father, can't be great by what he does for some abstraction called "society" or "nation" or "economy". He can only be great insofar as he is a good leader for his team, or good father or neighbor.

It's not about solving society's problems. It's about being a good father, son, neighbor, spouse, and friend. Screw up those things, and I don't care how many social problems you worked on or how much you did for a cause or how much international power and recognition and wealth you accumulate. To the extent you haven't been striving toward good personal relationships first and foremost, then that is the extent to which you have been a failure. And to the extent that you HAVE been so striving in your personal relationship (and regardless of whether you have actually managed to succeed all the time or not), *then* you have been successful.

IMO.

Originally Posted by: Wade 



Should I put you down as favoring the 5 cartridge magazine max or against? Personally, I'm totally ready to give up the high-capacity magazines if only it would shut Dakota T's liberal-assed-big-yap for just five fucking minutes. Alternatively, should we discuss Plato's 36?

Sorry, Wade, lol - I can't help myself- good stuff...
DakotaT
11 years ago

Should I put you down as favoring the 5 cartridge magazine max or against? Personally, I'm totally ready to give up the high-capacity magazines if only it would shut Dakota T's liberal-assed-big-yap for just five fucking minutes. Alternatively, should we discuss Plato's 36?

Sorry, Wade, lol - I can't help myself- good stuff...

Originally Posted by: dfosterf 



How can a beaurocrat like you living on the dole since the last man you killed in duty even begin to have the nerve to call anyone a liberal? It's okay for you to suck off the tax teet, but not others? I sure do enjoy making the fright wingers in here defend their positions though.
UserPostedImage
dfosterf
11 years ago

How can a beaurocrat like you living on the dole since the last man you killed in duty even begin to have the nerve to call anyone a liberal? It's okay for you to suck off the tax teet, but not others? I sure do enjoy making the fright wingers in here defend their positions though.

Originally Posted by: DakotaT 



I got you down as a vote favoring the 5 round magazine limit, comrade. lol





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