[Newfie]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('evilgenius', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Newfie', '
')It's also a good example of how we let the media grab our attention and lead us around by the nose.

[Ibon]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Newfie', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('evilgenius', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Newfie', '
')It's also a good example of how we let the media grab our attention and lead us around by the nose.

[vtsnowedin]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Ibon', '
')


The reason Trump got elected was all these stressed out white male americans where made to feel guilty about losing rank to females and minorities. Trump made it all right to be bastards again. We have this back lash of baboon behavior validating the worst and lowest forms of behavior

It's like Trump is telling all these dysenfranchised Americans that it is OK to be an asshole.

[Newfie]

Ibon,

The priblem with the Trump discussion is it narrows the view, too close to ground level.

We need to elevate the conversation recognizing Trump/Hillary as symptoms of a sick society. Why is the society sick? Can it heal? If so how? If not what is the prognosis? How can I personally inoculate myself from the sickness? Can I inoculate my loved ones?

[Ibon]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Newfie', 'I')bon,

The priblem with the Trump discussion is it narrows the view, too close to ground level.

We need to elevate the conversation recognizing Trump/Hillary as symptoms of a sick society. Why is the society sick? Can it heal? If so how? If not what is the prognosis? How can I personally inoculate myself from the sickness? Can I inoculate my loved ones?

[Tanada]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Ibon', '
')
The reason Trump got elected was all these stressed out white male americans where made to feel guilty about losing rank to females and minorities. Trump made it all right to be bastards again. We have this back lash of baboon behavior validating the worst and lowest forms of behavior

It's like Trump is telling all these dysenfranchised Americans that it is OK to be an asshole.

[onlooker]

If you wish to dissect exactly what got Trump elected primarily, it is quite clear that he got the electroral victories he needed in the rust belt. Those States that often vote Democrat, voted for Trump. Those same states which have been particlarly hit by Economic malaise.
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/secret ... 2017-09-21

[Ibon]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Tanada', '
')
So turn your meme around and ask, What did Hillary do to drive a wedge between the three minorities she won, Women, African Americans and Hispanic Americans, and the European American voters she needed to get a majority in the democratic republican system where she ran for President? IOW stop blaming the VOTERS and look at what turned them away from the CANDIDATE.

[evilgenius]

That alienation and subsequent turning away is, in part, what I was thinking about when I suggested a registry for all grey area and offensive weapons and weapon accessories. I don't think they need to be illegal as much as people need to know who owns them. Then let people and businesses make their own decisions. What the people do when they are truly free has great value in determining the structure of a just society. The resultant backlash from people's reactions to the knowledge (for the fearful have rights too, and the power to make certain that they are observed) would open up the legal structure for many who have long sought some kind of relief. Black people, for instance, have been struggling for a long time to get what the gun lobby could have in a mere few years, should they perceive themselves as disenfranchised as black people have been for, oh, so long. And with that gun lobby change there would come a precedent that black people could use in the legal structure. Talk abut a two edged sword.

I appreciated that baboon video. It points out something I've been working into my thinking for some years now, extrovert patterning. There are two types of people, introverts and extroverts. Introverts get their energy from within and extroverts get it from without. Most people are extroverts. In the process of getting their energy from others they pattern themselves after those others. They gather from others in various ways. They might observe the structures that exist. They might observe people's end games. Maybe money is the most important thing to them. It's just like high school, where there isn't always very much recognition of how horrible it can be to suffer from too many illogical examples bending people to become one thing or another. At least in high school you eventually graduate.

I think it's really interesting that the alpha male dominance was what distorted the baboon troop. It's kind of similar to what modern Western Societies face, when arguments for certain things like guns are based upon a fear set that has its origins in primordial history. Most of the reasons for those fears are not relevant to their lives, but they can go on as if they are. As a society we magnify those fears. We don't just do it in our political discourse, but in our popular art as well. Yes, you can't watch many movies or TV shows without someone resorting to the instillation of fear as a means to grip you. It isn't that there aren't really things to be afraid of, but TV shows about all of the scammers trying to get you into debt wouldn't really be all that popular. For some reason they don't appeal to the patterning, unless you find yourself trapped there. I guess a lot of the stuff that is truly scary about modern life doesn't appear that way until we experience it first hand. Even then, in things such as drug addiction and disability graft, there can be so many more people pouring into a thing than are trying to get out of it that it can appear sexy, making it harder to escape from them.

[evilgenius]

Dropping out is no answer, by the way. When you do that you expose yourself to the political decisions of those whom you seek to avoid. You could very well wind up in a situation akin to the people of Ferguson, Missouri. The black community there essentially dropped out. Now, they have to put up with a minority rule that does things like impose heavy fines upon members of the community who do things, or make mistakes, that you can expect everyone to make over the course of time. Then, those people don't want to go to court because they know they can't pay those fines. Pretty soon there are failure to appear warrants out for a significant percentage of the population, and the very thought of taking the situation back seems out of reach. Many of those people, often the most affected by the situation, get stripped of voting rights. People can't find work. People do whatever they need to in order to both comply and survive. The assessment of those who brought the situation to bear upon the community in the first place seems correct, by default. Often, the default attitude brings tighter rules and more opportunity to fall afoul. It's all very legal. It has the appearance of being right.

[Newfie]

Ibon,

Somehow we are talking past one another. I don't know how to fix it.

I would suggest we just drop the whole Clinton/Trump thing completly. It's too loaded and inflammatory.

There are tons of other examples we can use.

[vtsnowedin]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Tanada', '
')
So turn your meme around and ask, What did Hillary do to drive a wedge between the three minorities she won, Women, African Americans and Hispanic Americans, and the European American voters she needed to get a majority in the democratic republican system where she ran for President? IOW stop blaming the VOTERS and look at what turned them away from the CANDIDATE.

[Newfie]

What about India? Why is there culture such a mess? Cant blame that on Trump/Hillary or TV.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of ... s_in_India

Or dowery death

Dowry deaths are found in Australia, [1] India,[2] Pakistan,[3] Bangladesh,[4] and Iran.[5][6] India reports the highest total number of dowry deaths with 8,391 such deaths reported in 2010, 1.4 deaths per 100,000 women. Adjusted for population, Pakistan, with 2,000 reported such deaths per year, has the highest rate of dowry death at 2.45 per 100,000 women.[7][8]

Or look up SATI for some fun reading.

I tell you, people are not a real nice species.

[Subjectivist]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Newfie', 'W')hat about India? Why is there culture such a mess? Cant blame that on Trump/Hillary or TV.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of ... s_in_India

Or dowery death

Dowry deaths are found in Australia, [1] India,[2] Pakistan,[3] Bangladesh,[4] and Iran.[5][6] India reports the highest total number of dowry deaths with 8,391 such deaths reported in 2010, 1.4 deaths per 100,000 women. Adjusted for population, Pakistan, with 2,000 reported such deaths per year, has the highest rate of dowry death at 2.45 per 100,000 women.[7][8]

Or look up SATI for some fun reading.

I tell you, people are not a real nice species.

[Newfie]

Nice analysis. Transfer of wealth also had a lot to do with the RC ban on priestly marriage, and the formal institution of marriage itself. Stalins porgams of the middle class are another example. The local operatives found a lot of the monied folks to be capitalist, who the executed or shipped off. And confiscated the goods for themselves. Until some bigger fish did the same to them.

Greed is a common human element. It has not disappeared in our times. One of the nastier bits of what it means to be human.

I doubt the LV shooters motive was greed. But I DO think greed is behind a lot of our social ills.

[Cog]

The whole time line on the security guard Jesus Campos has changed. Instead of the initial story of Campos interrupting the shooter while he was blasting away at the crowd below, Campos gets shot 6 minutes before the shooter starts shooting at the crowd. Hard to understand how the cops got that so wrong and didn't correct it until more than a week later. This whole investigation really smells bad to me and I'm not given to conspiracy theories.

[vtsnowedin]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Cog', 'T')he whole time line on the security guard Jesus Campos has changed. Instead of the initial story of Campos interrupting the shooter while he was blasting away at the crowd below, Campos gets shot 6 minutes before the shooter starts shooting at the crowd. Hard to understand how the cops got that so wrong and didn't correct it until more than a week later. This whole investigation really smells bad to me and I'm not given to conspiracy theories.

[Newfie]

It does make you wonder why he didn't call for help. Anyone ever see a hotel security guard without a radio or cell phone? I also read he was shot in the leg. Also read the shooter was shooting at airport fuel tanks.

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-lasve ... CE2GM?il=0

[evilgenius]

A reaction that isn't dropping out, changing your buying habits to make them coincide with your beliefs, has been mentioned by someone in the media. I see this woman, Jemele Hill from ESPN, recommended a boycott of Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones' advertisers. Her suggestion was politically motivated. It was due to the NFL kneeling controversy that we have been talking about on a different thread. Jerry Jones came out with a policy that was interpreted as supporting what Donald Trump said about sh*t canning players who don't stand for the anthem. Jemele apparently tweeted that people could boycott his advertisers if they disagreed. She said something disapproving of Trump before. For this second comment, she was suspended.

There is real danger in going against the tide. When there is a very large chunk of people who mostly all react the same way, or can quickly be gotten to react in the same way, people who are seen as different can become targets. The weaker you look, the more likely you are to get picked on. Being strong, however, is no guarantee of protection. When people come in numbers they have not only strength, but confidence enough to allow themselves to perish, sometimes, for what they don't even understand they are doing. Those at the forefront of an argument will act according to their beliefs as part of the group and there is very little a person opposed to them can do to stop them. You need help. Too bad that, in this world, that help may come in the form of a court decision that gives joint custody to the rapist of a 12 year old girl almost 10 years later, when the girl has grown up and in her very early 20's and is seeking sole custody of the child that came from the rape. I'm not kidding, this actually was in the news a few days ago. It's testosterone run amok. Want to make a bet (rhetorical device for you people who don't understand what that is) that the judge is also pro-life? Want to make a bet that the judge, while being pro-life, is also pro-gun? I don't know, but I think you are looking at another example of something going on at the forefront. Being at the forefront can mean being stuck.

This begs the question, what can you do then, if you want to stay safe? I think you can align your buying habits with your beliefs, as long as you don't make any of those controversial or salient purchases. Boycotts are not the same as choosing from a list of things you agree with. While the testosterone crowd will have their list of icons, like the F-150 which they will buy no matter what it looks like, but especially if it looks good with a set of truck nuts, those who oppose them often only have reason to guide them. Reason is a good guide, and may eventually put you in good company. If you feel comfortable with your choices for your own reasons, maybe you can find other people who think like you? You have to hope that the other side doesn't latch onto something you've already bought, that makes you stand out. If the divide gets worse that means that people who want to buy solar, or some other 'girly' alternative to the consumptive status quo, will think twice about it. Hopefully, the marketing for those things will come with enough emphasis upon smartness and savings that people won't have to worry that much. The angry orcs love flashy tech. Solar is one of those things, like electric cars will be soon, that can be positioned as flashy tech. Testosterone loves to play the hero and will want to prove itself by mastery over what goes wrong with flashy tech. The collapse into this polarized, infantilism could, flashy tech aside, become dangerously regressive. It looks like we may be heading there.

[KaiserJeep]

Speculation about the shooter and his deeds serves no purpose. The dearth of information means either that the investigation is fruitless or that there are arrests imminent and they do not want to spook their targets.

I do not doubt that the shooter was mentally ill. He was also fixated on small arms which believe it or not, full auto fire or not, kept the casualties to a minimum.

Now I am going to demonstrate just how foolish the shooter and all of you are. If I were wanting to kill and maim hundreds at that same concert, I would not have selected any firearm as my weapon. I would have plowed through the crowd control barrier in one of these, and killed hundreds, not dozens, driving through the crowd:

(EG, this truck started life as an F-250 or F-350, it would appear.)
If I thought there would be police present, versus the unarmed security at this particular concert, then I would have specificly selected this particular model, complete with run-flat tire disks and the optional small arms armor which is proof against .50-caliber machine gun rounds, meaning that nothing the local SWAT team was equipped with could stop me from killing.

Either of these trucks is a much deadlier weapon than any small arm, and you can buy them freely, and all you need is money - no background checks for mental disease or criminal offenses. Once upon a time, I was more hesitant about discussing such topics, but the terrorists have now used vehicles as weapons of mass murder on several occasions, no longer anything to keep secret.

If I wanted to kill mass numbers of civilians, then I would arrange a huge fuel/air explosion in one of several US ports, using a hijacked LNG tanker:

...this takes a working knowledge of explosives, and a degree in Physics, Mathematics, or Engineering. Then you need access to the Civil Engineering texts on explosives - which I perused at the Engineering Library at my Alma Mater one day as an undergraduate. The equations for fuel/air explosions are relatively complex, but with a PC-based math program, easily mastered. Nothing terrorists could not acquire if they wanted to. Enough said about that, as this has not been done - yet. But I would note that Turkey just banned the transit of such tankers in river ports - for good and sufficient reasons.

The point would be that gun control is foolish, it only works for law-abiding citizens, who then become unarmed victims. It does nothing whatsoever to discourage or diminish mass murders. Indeed - the presence of enforced gun controls would cause those who want to commit acts of terror to become clever and to strike unsuspected targets using improvised weaponry, and ultimately to kill more people.

So I say let the crazies have their guns. When some fool takes an AK and sprays full auto fire into a crown, screaming "Allahu Akbar!", the SWAT team - or a crowd member with a concealed carry handgun - can put a bullet in his skull.