Tuesday, January 15, 2013

Please, Don't Let's Bathwater the Baby


26 comments:

fishy said...

Wonderful of you to share this find.

Karl said...

Good afternoon Moi,

Interesting that you chose this one, I've been passing it around in other circles for several days now. For those with an open mindset, the message will get through. Many have already close their minds to rational thought. They believe it's the tool and not the mind operating the tool causing the problem. Nor do they want to address the real issues of prescribing psychotropic drugs to children and then giving them access to hours and hours of mind numbing violent video games to work their perception of dealing was society. No ma'am blaming the tool is much easier.

chickory said...

what Karl said.

Great video, I have seen this, loved it, and wish some news outlet with some still small shred of journalistic integrity would air it. Maybe Ben Swann. This video addresses about 1% of the day in and day out disinformation campaign that news is now -that is of course, when it isnt engaged in celebrity worship.

Aunty Belle said...

Didn't I heah somewhat' that we has more deaths by hammer than guns? Gotta ck that....terrific video
Moi, Cherie.

Aunty Belle said...

Yep.....Breitbart on Jan 3. (I would paste link but new rottèn apple toy doan copy and paste too well, or speak Cracker, fer that matter.)

Aunty Belle said...

Grrrrr.......fer sake of acurracy:more hammer and blunt objects than by rifles

moi said...

Very disheartening, the comments:

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/17/us/politics/obama-to-ask-congress-to-toughen-gun-laws.html?_r=1&

Karl said...

Good afternoon Moi,

The commenters are New York wac jobs. A solid effort by freedom loving citizens can stop this lunacy. Write letters and start now.

The following is a suggested format for letters. I used the senate. Don't forget your representatives from the house:

John Q Citizen
Po Box 123
Your Town, Your State 12345-6789

January 16, 2013

The Honorable (pick one of your Senators)
United States Senate
503 Hart Senate Office Building
Washington, DC 20510-2003

Re: The president's gun control proposal

Dear Senator (pick one of your Senators):

I urge you in the strongest possible terms to reject the president's proposals for gun control.

His call for legislation would infringe on the rights insured by the second amendment.

The president's proposals have little to do with controlling the actual problem.
(feel free to elaborate on your own opinion of what the problem is)

Please, strike a blow for freedom and American prosperity by stopping this misguided proposal in its tracks.

Sincerely,


Your name here

czar said...

I got about three minutes into this video realizing that about three of six minutes were spent spinning wheels and not talking about the issue y'all seem to be discussing. So I stopped.

Is the point that increased gun ownership is correlated with a reduction in violent crime? Yippee. Is the point that most violent crime is urban (dog whistle, anybody?)? Yippee. How many other social effects can we correlate with lower incidents of violent crime? Increased acceptance of gay marriage? Greatly reduced affiliation with traditional Christian churches? Increased doping among athletes?

How about violent crime is reduced because more violent criminals are working as incarcerated slaves, thanks to the private prison industry?

How about violent crime is reduced because many people who might be committing such crimes are finding more rewarding careers, willingly or not, in our volunteer military?

Has this writer chosen his own crime stats, drawing a dot on the wall and a circle around it, and saying he's hit the target?

You listen to people these days, and you think there's talk of banning all guns. Talk about bathwatering the baby.



thats MISS boo boo to you said...

I think the NRA is a big problem. Wayne LaPierre is a doofus, that press conference he gave was a disaster. to say the solution is to arm teachers in schools is missing the point! And now, this stupid ad calling Obama an elitist hypocrite for not arming schools when his kids have bodyguards is so stupid I can only guess that the same advisors that made millions giving the republicans bad advice was behind this as well. Of course the presidents kids need protection - what a total waste of airspace.

The NRA is doing more damage with their poorly articulated reasoning behind the right granted in our constitution by the framers who had tremendous insight than 40 thousand huffpo posts. if they would shut the hell up, it would help.

I have to say, Czar got it right when he observed:

the usa is the world leader in private incarceration and it is a growth industry. if you are a cynical money grubber, this is a great stock option if you have discretionary cash and

the military is where the criminals are. Agreed. Starting at the top, with war criminal BHO, dronebombing the crap out of civilians each and everyday hopefully to get one person on his kill list. and you want these folks in charge of disarming the citizens, er "voters" or "consumers"? Our foreign policy is a disgrace, and the american left has zero moral authority to instruct anybody on anything now that their figurehead has out bushed bush 10-1 and they give this devil cover.

People against guns are definitely not for gun control because they are tacitly giving their approval for "authorities" to take guns, by force of gun.

We should put honey boo boos picture on our currency - she gets more respect than dead presidents.

Marshall McLuhan said...

Yes. please make all your points in less than 3 minutes. this is aMurka, after all.

Aunty Belle said...

Feelin' gritty in the gizzard, time pressures etc. but, two points:
We need the guns to kill the government goons-- not deer. Our nation was born to prevent tyranny of the people by their government. The Founders were not naive. Keep yore guns and git more every time the libs mouth off about limiting guns

Second, if anybody in government really cared about safety of the people, they'd demand a control on cultural rot. Gun grabbers are violent sucker-uppers of the worst the culture, they snicker over every stretch of any boundary of decency, they are the killers of manners, kindness, respect....an' some poor sick-headed confused victim of their cultural sewer--funded with our taxes--will pay the price.

Karl said...

@Czar: I re-watched the video and saw little of spinning wheels. Inclining me to think your mind was closed before you click the play button.

I don't believe he specifically makes the point that increased gun ownership reduces crime. However I will pass on a statistic published in the Washington Post, last Sunday. Your state of Virginia has 223,000 registered firearms. The violent crime rate is 214 per 100,000 people. My state of Maryland, with much stricter gun control laws has 82,000 registered firearms. The violent crime rate is 548 per 100,000 people. You figure it out.

Regarding the private prison industry, I admit knowing very little. What I do know is, when the document we're trying to protect was drafted. A felon received a brand on the hand demonstrating the nature of his crime for the first offense. He was hung by the neck until dead for his second. If this system was still around today we would likely not have the prison issue you're concerned about.

The current volunteer military is under the tightest requirements for acceptance in history. They have the toughest rules of engagement that have ever been. As far as the boots on the ground, you will find no higher quality soldier in the world. They do with their told. Suffer through multiple tours of duty and follow orders even though their commander in chief is unqualified for the position.

Did the writer hit his target? I would say so. Look at the discussions created.

The baby and the bathwater discussion has little to do with guns. It has to do with the fiber of this nation. And the rights of all the people that live in it. I believe in fighting for those rights.

czar said...

"We should put honey boo boos picture on our currency - she gets more respect than dead presidents."

Not to mention live ones.

czar said...

I'm all for making points in more than three minutes. I tend to like people who lead with their strong points, instead of apologias and data explanations. I wouldn't read a book that began with the footnotes.

Karl, the level of education is higher in Maryland than Virginia. Am I to conclude that higher educated are more violent? Simply putting two pieces of information next to each other doesn't indicate cause and effect, or give me anything to figure out without a lot of more information.

Of course, the biggest problem in this debate is health care, and I daresay that the same people railing against any change to gun ownership are the same ones saying that Obamacare -- hell, any change to health care -- is a move toward communism. It's hard to know how folks hold this tension together.

I had someone tell me how wonderful Switzerland was because veterans get to keep their arms. I told him that, overall, I could probably go for a lot of things Switzerland does.

It's hard to imagine how little anything to do with guns affects my life, other than hearing about how any restrictions on them or ammunition somehow means the end of the world.

The Second Amendment is in place. The United Nations is not taking over our country. The US is not becoming a dictatorship. Take a deep breath.

czar said...

Karl: "Suffer through multiple tours of duty and follow orders even though their commander in chief is unqualified for the position."

Check the document you're so wishing to protect. What qualifications does he need? The election of the populace. If that hasn't gone your way lately, it's too bad the man has had no intelligent competition. What the right doesn't seem to understand is that Obama isn't as loved on the left as one might assume. And what Republicans don't seem to understand is they could have won this year in a walk if their primary season hadn't revealed their base to be, well, idiots.

moi said...

I think the main point of this video is that the argument that we are the most violent nation on earth--and therefore need more controls against the tools used to create that violence-- is incorrect and therefore a false basis from which to formulate rational gun control policy. Also that no amount of controls on anything is going to stop that violence. That it is endemic to who we are so long as poverty and hopelessness prevails in our inner cities.

Yes, Czar, we get the government we deserve. Because we have no faith in the alternative. And, yet, we allow our government the use of offensive force. Why do we only get up in arms when middle class white children are killed. What about the hundreds in our nations ghettos. Or Obama's drone strike victims?

Auntie is right about the purpose of gun ownership. But do I believe my small arsenal would make a dent against the US military? Of course not. I'm not that stupid. My ownership is SYMBOLIC. For nearly a thousand years, only the elite were allowed to own the means of self defense. Then something unprecedented in the history of government happened: the right of the "people" to,bear arms. It's non-negotiable.

Oh, and I'm no fan of the NRA. They can't back up their position with a rational philosophical argument. Therefore, they are just as hysterical as the anti-gun lobby.

czar said...

Of course we're the most violent nation on earth. Look at our defense budget; if we're truly supposed to be running government as a business, we should consider the return on this investment. Last war won? 1945? This is a way to run a business? As they said about the Reagan administration, the fish rots from the head down.

And who'd have thought that our defense spending would go through the roof in an age when we're the sole world superpower? Gee, you'd think that would mean we "won." We continue to throw increasing amounts of money down an awfully big rat hole, much in waste and corruption -- to ultimately glorify war and violence, not avoid it and prevent it. The DoD probably spills more money in liquor than the State Department gets to do its yearly business.

Of course, I'm not blaming gun violence on the military. I'm saying that glorification of the military by definition glorifies violence. And we love our military, don't we?

And video games? The military has benefited mightily from generations of at-home, virtually from-the-cradle training in first-person-shooter technology or military video simulations. Talk about indoctrinating the populace from an early age, almost as good as those pesky Hollywood Jews.

Was NBA-glasses-guy-with-stubble-and-a-dark-T-shirt-so-he-must-be-earnest eventually going to say that gun violence is just one part of violence in America? Hell, that doesn't require six minutes of statistics.

Nor does it excuse any type of violence. But you can kill a lot more people quickly with certain types of guns and ammunition than others. The clown in the CT school . . . how far would have have gotten with a hammer, Aunty? Or even a shotgun? Or any of the other tools typically thrown up against the threat of higher firepower? When someone kills twenty children in a few minutes with a hammer, I'll start listening to any such arguments.

Karl: You're a man who seems to know about such things. Wouldn't killing 20 children with any weapon requiring much thoughtful intention (knife, hands, hammer, even different type of gun that fires fewer shots or less quickly) require a hell of a lot of physical energy, mental exhaustion, plenty of opportunity for an interloper? Using anything but what are being called assault rifles, is it likely that someone in a civilian situation (let's discount something like My Lai) could methodically kill (making sure they are dead) 26 people so easily in ten minutes?

Symbols are great, Moi. There are graveyards in CT full of them.

czar said...

Karl: I, of course, didn't mean to say that you know about killing children. But as the World's Most Interesting Man, you probably know something, personally or intellectually, about hand-to-hand combat. Certainly more than I do.

moi said...

Czar: Again, my point is this: it's ALL MEANINGLESS, who is more violent, who kills whom with what. No amount of laws are going to curb our impulses, stop our serial killers, halt our mass murderers. Only banning ALL weapons will do that. No access to guns? How about dynamite a la Oklahoma City? That's large scale. Small scale? How about all those crazy mothers out there who suffocate, drown, and poison their children? When will it stop? It won't. It's part of the risk of being alive, that crazies are out there and sometimes, there isn't shit we can do about it. Our government is POSTURING.

But, okay, you want to stop GUN violence? Then the government has to start. They lay down theirs, I lay down mine. Until then. Fuggedaboutit. I'll make my symbolic stance and I won't apologize for it. You want to talk graves? Okay, how about Chicago, Los Angeles, South Bronx, Pakistan, Iran, Iraq, Libya.

Again, I ask, why the outrage now?

Karl said...

@ Czar: You are correct that there is much more to the Virginia Maryland story than those two statistics. That's part of the point. The statistics and realistic perception of the issue are being skewed.

I'm not sure why Obamacare is necessarily part of this debate. I will say that it's a bad bill. There were much better ways to go about implementing some of the needed changes in the Healthcare System. And perhaps statistics come into part of this is well, in that they cooked the books to get the bill passed.

Switzerland also has a mandate for service of all their able bodied citizens, those veterans go home with their arms are trained to use them. Try that on a scale for a country the size of the U.S. And you're talking about a major military buildup.

I didn't say the panderer in chief was constitutionally unqualified for the job. The first election after Bush was any democrats to have. The second one he bought by pandering to special interests.

I'm going to bypass to rant on the military industrial complex because I believe it's a discussion for another time, other than to say. Yes, I do love our military. They are my family, my friends, most alive and too many dead. And oh by the way, you might want to research the new Chinese Aircraft carrier or the new class of boomers that the Russians just launched.

No type of violence toward children is excusable. Not the children in Connecticut, nor the children on the streets of Chicago or Detroit. All technically gun free zones by law.

Repeating that crime against children of that age would not take much weaponry for any motivated attacker. The adults would be another matter. A hammer not likely. A sword in the hands of the trained user, very possible. The motivation of the shooters has more to do with their perceived glory and fame, than what they are shooting and they don't want to be in a position where someone can shoot back. The common denominator seems to be. All have had mental issues, apparently been heavily influenced by video games. Treated by modern psychotropic drugs. This needs to be a bigger part of the discussion.

One other thought. Today happened to be my range day. I generally shoot once a month, between 200 and 500 rounds depending on how much time I have. Using the proposed Federal standard of 10 rounds per magazine. Firing at 15 yards (about the size of the schoolroom), using a semiautomatic AR type rifle it took 35 seconds to put 30 rounds in a killzone, using 10 round magazines. Duplicating it with a 9 MM handgun, using the new New York standard of seven rounds per mag took 40 seconds. What they're proposing will not stop the problem. Changing the culture will.

Sorry for the slow reply. I have been busy.

czar said...

I'm all for changing the culture. Frankly, I wouldn't mind chemical lobotomies for people who need it. And I'm quite serious.

And I'm all for some type of national community service -- military or otherwise. But certainly we can't do that, right? Impinging on freedoms.

The czarina and I were discussing it, and what do you do with a kid who's a loving child 90 percent of the time, but 10 percent of the time is likely to go into a classroom and start firing?

You get rid of the 10 percent by some means (psychotropic drugs are obviously not working in many cases; hence, chemical lobotomy), and you feel a bit sad that your 90 percent loving child is going to live the rest of his life without some degree of affect . . . but he's no longer a threat.

Let's remember that the free market is driving the culture -- video games, violent films. And heaven forfend anything should get in the way of our beloved free market.

Guns and ammunition aren't the only problem, but I disagree with Moi that this is an issue that has seemingly just arisen.

I said it months ago in some response to Aunty. The problem is people. The human condition. We live lives of misery, and we do whatever we can to achieve some level of internal peace. For some crazies, that means shooting people until the voices in their head quiet down.

And I'm also all for quick resolution of the legal issues surrounding these deals. Jared Loughner? Fuck him. Take him behind the courthouse, put a bullet in his head and let the vultures take care of disposal of the remains.

"Liberal" doesn't necessarily mean "bleeding-heart." At least not in my case.

czar said...

Karl: On foreign issues, I read recently a plausible argument that the end of the cold war opened the door for terrorism. Perhaps a stronger Russian and Chinese military would help things worldwide. It seems that we need more policemen these days.

If what everyone is saying around here is true, and that we're all just being played, don't the larger interests have more of an interest in keeping things peaceful than the insurgents and terrorists anyway? I mean, everyone -- Russia, China, the US -- wants to make a profit these days. You can't say that about 1958 or 68 or 78 or maybe even 88.

And on NPR two years after 9/11, I heard what remains the most cogent argument for our approach to worldwide affairs: "You want to end terrorism? Get gas back down to 30 dollars a barrel." The military can't do that.

I'm not antimilitary. I think, however, that the military receives far more of a percentage of the federal budget (and I don't even know the number) than it should, for a number of reasons that have nothing to do with waste, corruption, or the military-industrial complex (from, presumably, the last man qualified to be commander-in-chief). Those reasons are the military's overall ineffectiveness at achieving its ultimate aims (and I'm very tired of the excuse that "it's the politicians' fault," whether it's true or not), and its horrible return on investment. Bring all the damn troops home from places like Korea and Japan and Germany, and let them spend a few years rebuilding this country instead of ones we destroyed (not Korea, of course).

Aunty Belle said...

A good conversation wif' much fodder fer chewin' ---

A quick note on countries we destroyed ...has y'all seen that photo of Hiroshima of today vs. Detroit of today? Sobering.

Yes, the problem is people, the human condition. It means two things: you cannot eliminate events such as Sandy Hook 100percent, but you can lower the number of incidents by rebuilding a decent culture. I do not think the blame for the culture begins or ends witha free market. The market responds to choices made by free people. Choose filth and more filth will be offered. Social sanction works, simply recall the success of the anti-littering campaign. It isn't enough, we need to admit that stronger families mean a stronger citizenry , overhaul the lying deceitful educational system...thar's a heap more, but reckon y'all see the direction. (. Sorry fer the typos-the toy doan let me retrace to correct , so jes' know I know it should be choose not chose in sentence above)

Aunty Belle said...

Heh....fingered out that I has to do PREVIEW to retype typos.

moi said...

Czar, you and I are on the same page about administering preventative and "final" justice. The NY Times's story on child psychopaths is as chilling in its ultimate assessment--there is NO HOPE--as it is in its illustration of all those potential Jeffery Dahmers currently flinging their train sets at their teachers: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/13/magazine/can-you-call-a-9-year-old-a-psychopath.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

I also agree with you that we spend far too much money on our military. I may be pro-gun (for lack of a better word), but I am NOT pro-offensive force.

And a note on your comment about a violent culture: Do you think all those hollyweirdos who just made the pro-gun control film would vow to never, ever again appear in a movie where gun violence of any kind was even a minor feature? Nope, don't think so. Just like they're leaving Hollywood in droves to avoid paying high taxes on their incomes.