Phoenix Wright
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Posts posted by Phoenix Wright
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been watching the wire recently so it seems even more plausible than it prolly would have before lol
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6 hours ago, XRay said:
A law that bans private cars to prevent traffic deaths is stupid because that law is extremely restrictive and onerous on the individual.
this isn't necessarily true. if cars are banned in the future it'll be because there are better methods of transportation, hence we can afford to ban them. this country will ban things despite personal freedom. if you had bothered to look at any of the links i gave you, you'd be more aware of this.
cars are horrible--they're horrible for the environment, they're horrible for our safety, and they're horrible for our wallets. i fully support banning cars (or heavily limiting their utility such that no one ever feels a need to drive) when it's viable. i also support subsidies that would speed up this process.
QuoteI know they can. That is not the point. The point is that they are not interpreting the law anymore if they are ignoring whatever the law says and replace the law with whatever they say. This is just an exaggeration, but imagine if we got the edit to pass and the Second Amendment now says "The people's right to bear arms shall not be infringed." and then the liberal judges regain control of the Court and interpret the law as the people have the right to hold each others literal body arms but not actual firearms.
you're missing my point which i'm trying to make as clear as possible but you aren't following: your opinion is meaningless. the supreme court's interpretation of a law is the law regardless of what their interpretation is and how incorrect you perceive it to be. if you'd like that to change, your only options are to support an edit to the constitution or support new laws that erase the old. or you could leave i suppose.
QuoteI do not see it from the liberal side starting a secession, but I can see it happening in conservative white majority states once more states turn purple or blue due to demographic shifts.
i'd like you to look up the largest rebellions in human history (and modern human history) and then think really hard on how ridiculous your point of view on this is. as a hint, the largest march in american history is (generously) 2 million people. you're talking about mobilizing 150 million.
QuoteAny material can be made bulletproof if it is thick enough, but there is a big difference in weight between a breastplate made of half inch thick steel and a lighter material like kevlar.
yes. your point?
QuoteCivilians need morale too. They need to believe in what they are doing to protest, speak up, etc.
unless you're suggesting to protest violently guns don't help with this.
QuoteAnd that is why the weaker side uses guerilla tactics.
and pretty much always lose in modern times....
Quote42% who are independent are not neutral either, as many lean one way or the other. The article states that 47% identify as Democrat or lean that way while 42% identify as Republican or lean that way. It is not exactly 50/50, but I think it is close enough.
...no
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4 hours ago, XRay said:
Alcohol and smoking cause far more deaths than guns. Banning them would save more lives, but it is not something I would support. There is a balance between safety and freedom and I am not willing to prioritize safety over freedom after a certain point.
you can cleverly ban them. what you do is ban smoking in every building, have designated smoking areas, and make a pack of cigarettes so expensive people can't afford them. it works. also, you talk as if alcohol is something that's figured out in a legal sense, but it isn't. there's a lot of strides to make in that area. it doesn't matter what kills more, what matters is how easily can we prevent future deaths.
QuoteLaws are meant to protect people, but if it is too onerous and it severely restricts freedom, then I do not support such a law.
this is vague and therefore useless...
QuoteI know it is their job to interpret it, but you cannot have the law say one thing and interpret it as something completely different. If the law says A, the Supreme Court cannot say the law says B. The Supreme Court can interpret A as "Á" or "a," but saying A is B is not what the Supreme Court can do.
sure they can--they're literally the interpreters of the law! if you've got a problem with it, for the 5th time, you are in support of an edit to the constitution.
QuoteRoughly half the country is Democratic and half is Republican, so I think 50% is pretty reasonable. Not all of them have to march in protest or fight on the front lines.
what on earth...do you actually think this is plausible?
QuoteMy comment about medieval armor is that any material can be made to resemble a medieval styled armor, and that includes bulletproof materials.
even if this were true, you don't need bp materials to make the armor. there's no reason for it.
QuoteMorale is always important in warfare, it does not matter what time period.
we're talking about civilians, not militaries.
QuoteGuns boost morale. If you are telling your troops that the enemy has tanks, planes, the best tech in the world, etc. while your troops do not even have guns, morale is going to drop.
if the enemy is loaded and you're not, you're going to be scared regardless.
QuoteOur voter turnout is not great, but it is improving recently. The last few presidential elections hover around 60%, and Trump's election caused midterm turnout to spike to 50%.
still bad.
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8 hours ago, XRay said:
The best short way I can put it is that I do not think it is worth it to give up gun ownership to save lives. Banning alcohol and cigarettes would save even more lives than banning guns, but banning any of these products is not worth the lives saved.
I support having more stringent background checks and wait times. It is not going to stop all of them, but it should prevent the more obvious unhinged people from getting guns.
The Constitution is the supreme law of the land and it is the job of the Supreme Court to uphold it. It is not their job to cherry pick the wording to suit their own needs. Setting precedents and interpreting something vague is fine, but the Second Amendment's right to bear arms is clearly linked with being part of a government's security force. You cannot just throw out half the sentence and just say people have the right to bear arms without any responsibility.
It is like if the Constitution says "For the purpose of self defense, people have the right to kill others." and the judges just ignores the first half of the sentence and legalizes all murder. I like that the conservative judges are all for gun rights, but I do not support how they went about it.
I am fine with banning them from being driven on city roads since tank tracks are pretty rough on roads, but I would allow them to be transported in an oversized load truck.
Depends on the percentage of the population revolting. I think any revolt with at least half the population actively revolting has a pretty good chance of overthrowing the government.
Sorry, I got you confused with Tryhard since his location says Scotland, and I was not paying enough attention while scrolling.
2if you don't think it's worth it to save lives then i think we've drawn an uncrossable line between ourselves. i'm not sure why you believe in the rule of law at all with such a belief.
maybe. the thing is, those are easy enough to fake and the us, as tryhard has pointed out, cares very little at the moment for mental health issues. it wouldn't be enough.
no, it's their job to interpret it. i don't know how many times i need to say this, but if you disagree with the interpretation, then you want a new law written. the executive branch's job is to uphold the law.
it does not depend on the percentage revolting. first of all, good luck getting 50% of a nation-state to revolt (that's a ridiculous percentage). secondly, you are still depressingly unaware of the force behind the us military. again, this is not the 1800s. you've talked about medieval armor, rebellions, and morale like we're living in the times of yore--but we're not, xray. guns do not "boost morale." (please cite why you feel it does.) the united states is a nation with one of the highest guns per capita in the world but our election turnouts are abysmal and the political efficacy of our citizens has remained quite low for decades. guns exist and have always existed to kill. unsurprisingly, that's what we've seen them do more than virtually any other nation...
so you've admitted 2 things: 1. the point you brought up was irrelevant 2. you aren't reading my posts because i've directly stated it...
ps, in a discussion thread if i ask for an opinion the purpose is for discussion
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20 minutes ago, XRay said:
Gun owners are not crazy people. They are regular people and they are not going to shoot you just because you disagree with them politically.
you are responding to logical points of dialogue emotionally and are beginning to respond in ways that make little sense. it's now clear to me you're not here to listen, just argue. i'll try to speak more plainly from now on.
anyway, i don't care who gun owners are; that's irrelevant. when something is dangerous, you try to mitigate the danger that something represents. as a ridiculous example, say i am an alligator trainer and can keep my alligator in check wherever i happen to bring it. should i be allowed to take it for a stroll in the mall? take it to the gym? bring it with me on a date? i hope for this discussion's sake the answer is no because it's not the human i'm necessarily worried about, it's the threat and possibility of violence (accident or no) i'd like to prevent. reminder: this is a ridiculous example, but this is how it works on a fundamental level for all dangerous things. i'm not interested in the people operating the dangerous things--in fact, the whole point is to remove them from the equation (because they're often the most chaotic component).
QuoteI would like to expand the right to bear arms to include tanks, rockets, etc. but even then, a group of individuals with all that hardware honestly is not going to stand up to the entire military due to sheer numbers. The point is not really to win in straight fight, it is to give people options and hope maybe they can topple the government.
i don't know how to respond to this, honestly.
QuoteI cannot really explain it in any other way other than guns are ingrained in our culture. The closest comparison I can compare it to is that even though I am Asian, I never understood the appeal of white rice when there are so many carb options to choose from and white rice is bland and textureless.
just so you know, culture can change. and does. constantly. it used to be our culture to force black people to go to different schools and drink from different fountains.
QuoteI agree that the government is not truly representative of the people right now, but people should not rebel due to one election cycle. Based on how the government is setup, you win some you lose some.
i don't understand why you're saying this. you brought this up and keep talking about it...
QuoteWhat I disagree with is the course of action. I think we should prioritize removing deadly people from society. The closest policies to banning guns that I would support are temporary bans and restrictions.
you know, the problem with that is there's no way to know if those people are deadly until after they commit the crime. so i'm interested in crime prevention, which is a fundamental reason for law.
QuoteI do not think it is worth it to prevent gun crimes by removing most guns from the public. Mass killings would be less deadly, but it is not a benefit that I am willing to trade the right to own guns for.
https://www.theonion.com/it-s-an-honor-to-continue-being-valued-over-countless-h-1819585030
QuoteIn my opinion, state in that case refers to individual states, since states are the ones with militias. The national government can utilize the armed forces.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Militia_(United_States)
militia, today, refers to the military reserves in certain corps (still federally controlled) and all able-bodied citizens...
and militia as the 2nd amendment refers to have not existed for nearly 200 years...and even back then it was never rag-tag soldiers. they were professionally trained and everything. at the time, it was essentially the united states' standing army...
QuoteCourts can set precedents, but the Supreme Court in this case grossly twisted the wording of the Constitution. While I agree with conservatives that the people should have the right to bear arms, I do not approve of how they handled it. Completely hand waving and ignoring the militia element is not an interpretation or setting precedent, that is making shit up with willful utter disregard of the Constitution.
the supreme court is the supreme law lol. if you think the sc is "grossly twisting" the words of the constitution, then you should be arguing the constitution needs an edit lmfao.
QuoteThe Tenth Amendment grants rights to states and people equally. For example, the right to privacy is for the people, as it does not make sense for a state government to have privacy.
in us v darby lumber: "The amendment states but a truism that all is retained which has not been surrendered. There is nothing in the history of its adoption to suggest that it was more than declaratory of the relationship between the national and state governments as it had been established by the Constitution before the amendment or that its purpose was other than to allay fears that the new national government might seek to exercise powers not granted, and that the states might not be able to exercise fully their reserved powers. "
it does not grant rights, it simply says any that are not surrendered are retained. as states have the power to take rights away, the people therefore retain only the rights not surrendered under federal and state laws.
QuoteThat goes for anything. I drive a car and ran someone over with it. I will go to jail for it, but that does not mean cars should be banned.
the point is there are restrictions. also, if you sell the alcohol, that is technically illegal--it's just hard to catch someone committing that sort of crime.
QuoteI do whatever the hell I want with my body. I am not going to take anyone's crap about what I can or cannot do with my body. If people want an abortion, they should go for it. If they want to get high off of cocaine, they should go for it. If people want to go into prostitution, they should go for it.
i meant that as someone who does drugs (rarely nowadays but still) and knows enough about cocaine to tell you it's not worth it lol. if you want an upper molly is better, or even adderall or someshit lol. i'm not sure what drugs you've done already, but "hard drugs" extend much farther than cocaine/crack, meth, and heroin. there's a lot of cool shit out there if you can get your hands on it.
QuoteJust because a person owns an RPG, machine gun, grenade launcher, or whatever does not mean that they are going to use it to kill people. Just because some conservatives are whack jobs does not mean all of them are. I have talked to quite a few conservatives when I was fundraising for the Audubon Society and we were able to hold a civil conversation discussing our differences and common grounds. There was only one incident where a group of conservatives were being rude, but that is only one incident and all other interactions I have had with other conservatives were cordial.
in your country, should tanks be allowed in public areas? where would these tanks go?
QuoteGuns and violence are a last resort to change the government. Guns are a huge morale booster. It is probably not very effective when you consider what the military has, but guns give people hope that they might stand some chance.
morale booster for...who? lol
"probably" not what the military has? my friend, you need to read up on the forces maintained by the united states government. citizens have no hope of a violent uprising. this isn't the 1800s.
QuoteThat document created the United States of America. That document is a big deal to Americans. It would be like me telling the British people to stop adoring the royal family so much since the royal family have little political power anymore and all they do is eat taxpayer money. The Declaration of Independence is a symbol of the United States, just as the royal family is a symbol for the United Kingdom. What the Declaration of Independence says might not carry legal weight, but it still carries some weight, similar to whatever the Queen says carries some weight, even though she might not have much legislative power.
many brits do say that, just as many americans say what i said (often in much stronger terms). this shouldn't be a surprise, but i'm american so i don't really get why you think this is even worth arguing.
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14 hours ago, Tryhard said:
I don't get it either. Protection and tyrannical government justifications are extremely flimsy to me. Recreational use I can at least commend for honesty, even if I personally will never see the appeal.
I agree that a large part of this is due to easy access to firearms, but I don't think tackling that should be the only issue. I would suggest that in addition to gun control methods, the United States should also be looking at an emphasis on mental health awareness and acceptance, and funding for anti-extremist groups. Evidently, I reject the notion that the US is just "more violent" than other countries.
Gun control has many avenues including very popular ones from the public that are far removed from the 'grab the guns' narrative that certain types would have you believe. Not having as many guns in circulation through buybacks where possible, actually putting some restrictions on proper training and usage of a firearm including storage for gun owners so that kids don't pick up a gun and shoot them with it, which is another issue that happens all the time in the US. The big problem with gun control laws is that they need to be done federally to have any effect. If your state implements harsh gun control laws, then it still isn't going to help when people drag them in from surrounding states other than maybe making it slightly harder for them to sell them (but probably not much).
Mental health is the pivot that Republicans will usually go to, but they seem unwilling to fund anything that would help in that area either. The US is known for having particularly bad stigmas and views towards those suffering - you just need to look at the conflation of mental illness and ringing of hands for that after these mass shootings. Most mentally ill people are not aggressive, but it doesn't take a genius to work out that a better societal acceptance of such issues would not be a bad thing, including reactions to those being abused (or being abusive or showing cruelty, towards animals or otherwise).
Funding for anti-extremist branches of government have been slashed, particularly in relation to far-right domestic terrorists. Where possible, government enforcement should work with local communities in order to detect possible radical groups, and actually put pressure on them. (instead of, in many cases with shooters, visiting them once and leaving - it's happened several times in the past) This is for all types of terrorism, and if you actually attempt to work with communities instead of making them pariahs, you may see better results (such as happened in Canada where there were multiple cases of Imams and Muslims reporting radicals that were planning bomb attacks). This is one that may be looked at as a crackdown on liberty or something like that, but provided it is done in the right way with community outreach and action after reasonable suspicion, it doesn't need to be.
But of course, apparently defunding one of these branches to combat far-right terrorism was the thing to do.
In addition to preventing mass shootings, you would also be helping matters in terms of accidents with firearms if somewhat trained and responsible individuals are the main owners of firearms, for the mentally ill, the majority of which are far more likely to hurt themselves than others, reduce gun suicides (easy access to firearms makes an easy suicide... while suicidal people may still do so through other methods, they will likely not be as guaranteed - i.e "what if it goes wrong?"), and stopping proliferation of radical or militant groups.
But now I'm expecting the US government to do anything about gun control, mental health awareness or combating extremism, so I suppose I'm just dreaming.
i agree with everything here and didn't mean to imply that: 1. what i'm proposing here is good enough (as you said, it definitely is not) 2. that it should happen at the state level--we need a national change
and for anyone who's reading that going, "that'll never happen": 1. i'm aware it's far-off from right now, but i'm not a legislator that has to compromise with anyone, so i can be as idealistic as i want 2. people have been convinced of dangerous ideals pretty quickly throughout history--i don't think trying to convince the american public guns are more dangerous than they think is out-of-touch.
12 hours ago, XRay said:While I agree that access to guns increases the death count of an individual mass shooting, however access to guns does not increase the number mass shooting incidents. Taking away guns is not going to decrease the amount of mass killers out there. In my opinion, the chief problem with mass shootings is not the form of weapon used, it is the fact that there is not a strong enough vetting system to prevent crazy people from owning guns.
this is a moot point because i'm interested in making deadly people less deadly (or removing them from society in a humane way), not trying to decrease the number of deadly people (which, right now, is not a controllable factor). taking away guns makes people less deadly, period. this is not something that can be disagreed with...
QuoteAt least in California, not anyone can get a gun. A person needs a reason to own a gun, and protection is a legitimate reason. Some examples include living in a neighborhood with a relatively high crime rate or having a job that can be dangerous (being a liquor store owner, a truck driver assigned on an unpopulated route, etc.).
yes, protection is a legitimate reason, but few actually need it. i used to live in one of the most dangerous areas in the country (certainly california) and we didn't need guns. besides a home invasion in which you catch the perp first, i don't see any scenarios in which owning a gun diffuses the situation.
truck drivers, etc. have legitimate reasons to own guns, yes. but, how much gun violence is prevented by truck drivers, etc owning guns? does it outweigh how much gun crime could be prevented by taking guns away from (most of) the public?
QuoteFor advocates of harsh gun control, the Second Amendment is fine as is and it is not due for an edit. With the way it is worded, the right to own arms is entwined with the state's right to organize a militia. It is not meant for an individual's right to own firearms without the responsibility of joining the police, militia, armed forces, etc. The conservative judges on the Supreme Court have stretched and twisted the wording to include an individual's right to own arms and I do not think that is appropriate.
For advocates of gun ownership, the wording of the Second Amendment should be revised to exclude the militia requirement and decouple the right to bear arms to the responsibility of joining some kind of government security force.
12 points of confusion: 1. "State" refers to the country, not an individual state. though, this is ambiguous (another reason for an edit!) 2. courts set precedent--so a "twisting and stretching" of a law is to edit that law to mean something new. so--another reason to edit the law!
QuoteMost laws are reasonable and I can generally do whatever I want as long as it does not hurt people or cause a nuisance. Any right or freedom not enumerated in the Constitution, legal codes, etc. are still assumed to exist and it belongs to the people, and I have faith that our lawmakers word our laws to be as unobtrusive as possible to maximize the benefit to the greater good without significantly reducing personal freedom.
wrong, the 10th amendment grants rights to the states first, then to the people. that's an important distinction because it's another filter of our personal freedoms.
unwarranted advice, but i don't think you should trust lawmakers with a goddamn thing. this is possibly the worst thing you could have admitted to me. lawmakers are elected for a reason--you need to pay attention and hold them accountable!
QuoteIn the United States, there are no stringent laws surrounding the production of alcohol for personal use, at least not any that I know. I can make as much wine, beer, liquor and whatever alcohol I want in my own home to be shared with friends and family. As long as I am not selling it, I do not have any restrictions.
if what you share kills people, even on accident, you'll go to jail (or prison). also, so few people make alcohol personally that it just hasn't needed to be addressed yet. guns are far more prolific (and far more dangerous by themselves).
QuoteOutlawing bullet proof vests is horrible. It is a form of protection, not a weapon. And how are you going to prove that the protection I am wearing is a bullet proof vest when I can argue that it is simply a medieval styled armor, or that my vest is simply weighted with a thick steel plate for exercise purposes? Outlawing bullet proof vests is a slippery slope that can get other things banned for no good reason.
since when do bulletproof vests look like armor from the middle ages? what are you saying here??
it is not a slippery slope. i gave a clear purpose for banning them (or at least the widespread sale of them) and kept it at that. it was specific with specific reasoning behind it. it's so far from a slippery slope that you're strawmanning to the point that i don't even know what you're talking about lol.
Quoteof the I enjoyed weed, and I would love to at least try out cocaine and other hard drugs. I believe those should be legalized too. On the firearms side, I also believe that it should be expanded to include grenades, rocket launchers, mines, etc.
cocaine is not worth it, seriously.
i truly feel for the people of your country that would have to deal with random people owning rpgs and landmines...
QuoteRealistically, an individual or even a group of individuals is not going to do much with firearms against a government's military. But that is not really the point for me. The point of the right to bear arms is to give the people as a whole more willingness to exert their right to self determination and political freedom.
the second amendment obviously fails to do this...
QuoteJust because the American government right now is of the people, by the people, and for the people, it does not mean that it is guaranteed to remain so. My loyalty to my people and land is practically unconditional. My loyalty to my government on the other hand is conditional. I want the individual right to firearms more for its symbolic value than practical value. What topples a government is not guns or weapons, it is the people having enough will to end the government.
something much less dangerous can hold that symbolic value much better...
"thoughts and prayers" do not topple governments. action topples governments. to overthrow the current government of the united states, you either coup or do it legally via impeachment, amendments, etc. so yes, civilians can (and should) absolutely be involved, but guns would never be an effective part of it.
QuoteRebelling and seceding is technically illegal, but I believe that we do have a duty to replace the government if it no longer represents us as mentioned in the Declaration of Independence. The Declaration of Independence is not a legal document so we cannot derive any laws from it, but I believe that the intent and spirit it embodies is just as important as the actual laws that the Constitution lays out. I cannot just rebel every time the Electoral College chooses a president I do not like, but I do believe that I have a duty to replace my government, with violence if need be, if the government no longer represents the people as a whole.
you're rambling a bit here, but i would suggest to not place so much importance on that one document. keep in mind that document was borne of a rebellion on a much smaller scale than you think...(paying a very small share of taxes to the home government)
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sorry i forgot to add this and it's not letting me edit the post lol: @xray
alcohol has stringent laws surrounding its production, use, etc. it's not like alcohol simply exists freely in any society. enjoyment of dangerous things is not a very good argument to keep things.
it doesn't matter if they're unreasonable, they're unreasonable for entirely different reasons, that's why you shouldn't conflate the 2. mass killings in other forms would have far fewer body counts...which is partly my point...you can't kill 70 people with a knife.
it's "horrible"? really? what's "horrible" about it? the difference is videogames and other forms of media are not proven in any capacity to influence mass shootings (or other forms of violence). riot shields, extended mags, etc actively make it easier for these terrorists to kill and protect themselves at the same time. i have no idea why you brought up medieval armor.
again, something being satisfying is not a reason to continue doing that something. lots of people enjoy dangerous, banned things.
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7 hours ago, Tryhard said:
phoenix, was there a reason that you hold this opinion on gun control now? as I recall, you used to not exactly be in favour of it. or am I mistaken?
i personally think the enjoyment of something is the best argument when it comes to guns, though the cost of this is to be admitted. which is to say, the other arguments are not good.
the united states has mass shootings more regularly than many countries, probably all countries that have a reliable count of them. in your opinion, what are the reasons for this? in my opinion, there's a good number of them, but chiefly it's our access to guns.
ultimately, i don't have a problem with gun ranges. or shooting for sport, or whatever. but we need to get guns out of the hands of those who would weaponize them for terror. even in my state of california it is still too easy to get a gun.
part of it is also that i just don't get it. i think guns are cool and i enjoy talking about them, but 100% of the people i know personally have no reason to own one for "protection," yet that's their reasoning for it. i don't understand why americans feel like they deserve to be equipped like soldiers (or at least nearly so. you can buy just about everything an army pfc has access to). i think the 2nd amendment is due for an edit; the world has changed too much for that right to make sense anymore. weapons are too deadly.
7 hours ago, Dr. Tarrasque said:They don't but most gun deaths do not involve such things.
Trump's ban of bump stocks is more gun control than Obama ended up imposing despite all the fear-mongering the right did to Gun owners and banning accessories in order to gain brownie points with people getting sick of mass shootings may not be the best way to tackle the issue. Truth is, gun owners that aren't nuts would be willing to impose some gun control laws to make it more difficult for nutcases to get guns, shoot up people and make gun owners look bad and that would be more effective at mitigating gun deaths overall than trying to push a sweeping removal of guns in the country, that will never succeed.
The key is to remove the NRA from the conversation and get rid of politicians taking money from the NRA but good luck making that happen.
my point is there's no reason to have them and when they are involved the perpetrators are often much more deadly.
money out of politics is certainly a good start.... 😞
5 hours ago, XRay said:I see product control as a type social control. I am fine with gun control as long as it is reasonable. Licensing requirements, mandatory training, etc. are fine and I support those policies for safety reasons. The minor inconveniences these policies impose do not restrict a reasonable person from owning and enjoying firearms. Bans and limits do restrict a reasonable person from owning and enjoying firearms, and I do not support these policies.
The freedom to enjoy something IS an argument for why something should exist. Alcohol does nothing productive but intoxicates people and could potentially make a person violent and kill people, but that does not mean alcohol should be banned.
It is a few wackos. Nobody would consider a mass shooter or political extremist as a reasonable person. Yes, mass shooting rates are higher in the United States, but it could have been mass killings utilizing other forms of weapons, so banning guns does not solve the problem that there will be mass killers.
99.99% or civilians do not have a reason to own riot shields or medieval style armors either, but banning things simply due to association is horrible. I can just as easily argue that a lot of recent shooters have played violent videogames or are religious, so violent videogames and the Bible therefore should be banned.
Extended magazines allows a shooter to shoot without reloading as often. I imagine being able to unloading a large magazine of bullets with an automatic rifle would be satisfying for some gun owners.
Fucking asshole. I am sick of people blaming videogames and social media. People who are unhinged are mentally ill due to other reasons, and the fact that they use videogames and social media does not mean those mediums cause it.
if you see product control as a type of social control, then "social control" has lost all meaning to me. please define it for me. all laws are social control, are they not? they all have the purpose of limiting your ability to do something, usually perceived for the greater good.
4 hours ago, Dr. Tarrasque said:Trump Rallies
The White House
Congress
NRA Convention
The National Republican Convention
Mar-a-Lago
Republican Town Hall meetings
All of these places are "gun free zones". Democrats should call out their Hypocrisy and push a bill to allow gun owners their right to have their guns at those locations and see how those "thoughts and prayers" fuckers like it. After all, according to Mike Huckabee Sanders, it's not the guns, it's the lack of thoughts and prayers. Surely there's enough thoughts and prayers are these locations right?
Politicians have nothing on video games leading to a mass shooting and they'll never have it. Blaming video games for it is the same as not saying anything.
this is a good idea for a dialogue to start imo
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9 hours ago, XRay said:
I am a left leaning moderate, so not your typical pro gun person.
As a social libertarian, I see excessive gun control from the left no different from the harsh immigration rules from the right. I despise most forms of direct social control.
Yes, assault rifles are primarily tools of war, but banning them makes little sense if criminals can use other tools like cars, knives, IEDs, etc. to harm or kill. In my opinion, the cost of banning firearms does not outweigh the benefit. Unless there is a national emergency like an invasion or something, sacrificing freedom for security is not a trade I will support. Some people legitimately enjoy owning and/or shooting guns, and their right to such enjoyment should not be infringed just because a few wackos were on a murder spree.
Bullet proof vests should not even be lumped with firearms as it is a form of protection, not a weapon.
I am fine with more background checks, training, licensing requirements, tax on gun ownership, etc. as long as it is within reason, like owning a car. These are policies that I support since they do not actively restrict people's freedoms, and enjoying the right to own firearms should come with some responsibility. However, any hard restrictions like bans and magazine limits crosses the line in my opinion.
in what way(s) do you feel gun control is direct social control? it's product control. is boeing's 737 max being temporarily unflyable social control? is recalling social control? i don't think it is--when it becomes clear that the product is an issue, you make attempts to get rid of the product. immigration and gun control are nothing alike. to reiterate--one deals with a product and the other real people. abortion banning, for example, is another example of "social" control. banning certain tools used to administer abortions, especially in the name of safety, is product control.
the enjoyment of something is not an argument for why it should continue to exist. i enjoy explosives. should i get to play with explosives, even in a controlled environment? the issue we face is: guns are dangerous. they have been used to murder and terrorize the public across the united states unlike anywhere else in the western world. and for those places that have more gun violence, it's because access to weapons is an unfortunately small part of the rest of their problems. baltimore, though still in the us, is an interesting microcosm of what i'm talking about: guns are definitely part of the issue, but getting rid of guns there will not suddenly fix all of baltimore's issues. but most places in the united states are not like baltimore. a young man dressed as the joker shot up a movie theater in denver. there's virtually nothing anyone could realistically do in that situation; and, we can squarely place blame on the weapons of war the perpetrator used that allowed him to cause so much harm. if that man couldn't get his hands on the stuff he did (which he did legally) that tragedy simply would not have happened.
it isn't a "few" wackos. you're using mental instability both as a scapegoat to erase the other issues with gun proliferation and to undercut the seriousness of mass shootings. sometimes it is mentally unstable people. sometimes these shootings are a result of political extremism. these two kinds of people should not be conflated!
guns are also argued to be protection. i would need to know the facts first, but i am willing to bet more people die as a result of gunmen owning vests than civilians live by owning them. 99.99% of civilians don't have any reason to wear a bulletproof vest. especially on a daily basis, which is what you would probably do, right?
ironically, it sounds like you're more for social control-type policies that would limit the number of people that could purchase guns. they actively restrict freedoms--but they do not directly restrict them (think voting laws vs product bans), i think you've got the purpose of those kinds of laws confused.
can you explain to me why a civilian needs extended magazines?
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yeah maybe. *spoilers* he's definitely not a "friendship wins over all" kind of character
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i haven't played it yet, as the game is too long, but i had a feeling edelgard's would be the worst route. it's definitely interesting, but it wasn't handled super well in the golden deer route to begin with.
i will say, before we all dissect this game thoroughly, i genuinely enjoyed claude and the rest of the yellow deer a lot throughout the story. i realized something that i subconsciously knew years ago: i don't care for support conversations. the backstories are contrived and, for me, have a feeling of being hastily written. they're disconnected, especially in this game due to the timeskip, and i don't feel immersed when i read the supports. my feelings about the characters themselves come purely from their involvement in the plot--in that sense, at least with the deer, i was satisfied--more than almost any other fe i've played.
that being said, i agree with the op in some ways. byleth is lame (expected, as i think all silent protagonists are lame) and the choices really are uninformed when you're making the choice. with claude, i just chose the options that i assumed would lead to good things (the church liking me and all that). "choice" in a video game is hard to do well, fuck it's hard to even do "okay." this game, so far, has been "meh" with how choices are implemented.
the plot, though? i actually like the overall plot a lot. and it really shines at a good number of points in the story. but my god, pre-timeskip is such a slog, especially if you've beaten the game once. i don't understand why the chapters aren't different for the different houses. i don't understand why int. sys. keeps going for the 3 games in 1 thing--just make 1 damn game lol
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you're absolutely right. do pro-guns people want to provide insight as to why we should allow people to legally obtain not only the weapons used for war but also equipment that simply makes murder sprees easier? why do civilians need extended mags, bulletproof vests, assault rifles, etc?
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there's nothing to say about it; it's time for action. trump should be impeached, these children should be returned to their families and given money for physical and psychological trauma.
what the republican party has become is...scary.
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12 hours ago, Shoblongoo said:
Anyone wanna venture a guess why we're trying to unilaterally start a war with Iran???
the ny daily podcast ep. provided some insight into wtf is going on--i'd like to hear more takes on it but what they presented had at least a very logical flow. the short of it is that the united states wants iran to understand they can't act against us without fear of retaliation militarily. trump might (hopefully not) want to start a war, thankfully the strikes were called off for a good reason but at an odd time. according to the podcast the move "seems to have worked," but i think it's a bit too soon to know what's going on for sure.
iran wants the us and europe to know that they're capable of disrupting the oil trade.
it's difficult for me to try and guess why trump makes decisions outside of the realm of "this will turn america into a reality show/make me money/typical trump bs." listening to him speak, he seems genuinely hesitant to begin a real conflict though, which i think is a good sign.
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are you in the us? assuming you don't care about photo quality, i don't think there's much competition for the oneplus 6t or oneplus 7 pro.
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itunes is awful, good riddance. it makes more sense to do it the way google does it anyway. (although, google's music app is not great either. aesthetically worse, functionally as bad as itunes. at least it allows you to upload 50k songs. too bad google is killing that too. 🙄)
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i think it's a sliding scale. tiki is definitely fanservice, but there's a difference between tiki and camilla.
it usually takes away from the immersion, makes the character less interesting, erases any semblance of seriousness in the plot, and looks ridiculous. so yes, i think fanservice is bad--bad because it's lazy and gets people to not care about the things that make consumers care about the things that make a story good.
a character being sexual is not fanservice. dressing in sexual ways is not inherently fanservice. but 99/100 it's done because it's easy, not because that's how the character was designed.
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23 hours ago, Shoblongoo said:
I'm not sure I entirely understand what you're getting at, but...
Trump is either dumb-as-bricks or compromised because those are the only plausible explanations for the course of conduct uncovered by Mueller's Investigation.
The FBI's job isn't to prove that Trump is stupid or compromised, because those aren't crimes. The FBI's job was to investigate whether or not Trump was party to a criminal conspiracy.
Facts showing just how dumb and/or susceptible to blackmail Trump really is came out incidental to that investigation.
______
I mean just think for a moment about what has to be true for the collusion narrative to be false.
Trump--without any collaborative purpose or intent to conceal same--hired an unregistered foreign agent working for Russian proxies in occupied Ukraine to be his campaign manager during the 2016 election. Publicly called for the Russians to "find Hillary's emails," as the Russians were in the ongoing process of conducting espionage and cyber-theft against her campaign. Repeatedly told the American People that the Russians never did this, after they did it and his top brass kept telling him that they did it. Then tried to shutdown the Russia investigation + invalidate its findings, at the same time he was also trying to conceal that his campaign team had hosted a meeting with a Russian spy promising "dirt" on Hillary Clinton.
If that really was all just one big Whoopsies, thats the special kind of stupid that bankrupts a casino.
i'm not really trying to get at anything, i'm genuinely curious because this is a subtle legal procedure and i am not trained in any sense of the word. i think me trying to make sense of this would be like having you do an assignment in how density perturbations grow in the early universe leading to overdense pockets, yielding galaxies.
having said that: why must those be the only explanations? we are simply unaware of the evidence--how can we make any conclusions from that? if the fbi's job was to investigate whether trump was party to a criminal conspiracy, i would consider the investigation incomplete, no? at the moment, it seems the conclusion is "we don't know," which is as good an answer as before the investigation began.
it's fishy for all of those things to happen, but it isn't proof. at least not to me and i can't see why my opinion on that should change. what's making evidence so hard to find? what resources should be provided to get the answers we need?
21 hours ago, Johann said:Bearing in mind that Barr's letter is not the report itself and is very likely misrepresenting the findings in subtle ways, consider this line quoted from the report:
- "Did not establish [x] happened" is different from "established [x] did not happen" in that the former says they can't confirm it happened, whereas the latter says they can confirm it didn't happen.
- "Conspiracy" and "coordination" are terms being used under the scope of criminal liability. "Stupid", "compromised", or even "colluded" do not have that same legal significance.
Combining these two points, a more careful reading of that line says that the investigation did not find enough evidence for the legal prosecution of those specific criminal actions. It does not dispute Trump's stupidity or whether or not he was/is compromised, however. We'd have a more concrete understanding about it all if we could read the full report, of course.
i am paying no mind at all to barr's letter.
as above, that seems to me that the investigation is incomplete...
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On 3/27/2019 at 3:01 PM, Shoblongoo said:
I think that particular investigation is done unless new evidence emerges. (i.e. someone with very close and very specific knowledge of high crimes whose hereto-now been ardently protective of Trump decides to flip, and starts handing over damning recordings and documents that were never produced to Mueller before he compiled his report)
For some this was purely political: there were rightwingers who just wanted a rubber-stamp that the president and his men had done no wrong, and were smearing Mueller when he was uncovering serious wrongdoing. Now they're praising him as honorable--not because they care about the content of his character and won't flip on a dime again if in the future he finds something incriminating--but because they like the conclusion he reached. Thats petty and dishonest.
Likewise: there were lefties who just wanted the president impeached and were waiting on the Mueller report to give them the foundation to do it. They were praising Mueller's good work and professionalism when he was uncovering serious wrongdoing. But now that the report is 'out' and it (allegedly) doesn't give them the foundation they were looking for, they're throwing shade on it and back-peddling that Mueller didn't REALLY do a full investigation. The fix was in. Thats also petty and dishonest.
For me it was never about that--it was a question of rule-of-law and fair process and confidence that whatever conclusion was ultimately reached was the product of thorough investigation + well-reasoned decisionmaking. Not partisan quackery.
I say today what I've said for the past 2 years: Mueller is an honorable and professional public servant who puts the serious duties of his job above the petty politics of the day, and has done so under Republican and Democratic presidents for decades now. He put together a team of ace attorneys with experience prosecuting corporate conspiracies, mob bosses, corrupt politicians, and military dictators.
I am confident that his report + his decisions on who to indict and who not to indict were the result of thorough investigation and well-reasoned decision making. That there was a fair process put in place for subjecting allegations of criminal misconduct in the 2016 election to prosecutorial scrutiny. That we can accept the conclusions reached by that process as accurate and reliable, without wondering what the investigators buried and who they were trying to protect and what really happened that they aren't telling us. (as opposed to--say--the sham investigation in the House Oversight Committee conducted by Devin Nunes)
And at the end of the day, thats what really matters.hmm, right, but i suppose my question was a direct response to your assertion that trump is either stupid or compromised. the question was: shouldn't the fbi be competent enough to prove that? why do you still feel he's compromised when the evidence (or lack thereof i guess) says otherwise? why is your conviction so strong?
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On 3/25/2019 at 4:15 PM, Shoblongoo said:
I mean--w
Again--friendly reminder--because its easy to lose sight of this 2 years out and there's some people in this thread who might not remember this.
The investigation started because Trump in 2017 refused to accept evidence presented to him by his intelligence agencies that Russia interfered in the 2016 election + publicly rebuked them for reaching this conclusion. Then met with the FBI director in charge of investigating Russian interference and demanded a pledge of personal loyalty. Then fired the FBI director when he refused him.3so what's different now? mueller didn't pledge loyalty--shouldn't (isn't?) the fbi be competent enough to discover collusion?
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1 hour ago, Tryhard said:
I think you are reading too much into it, and splitting hairs. When I said "pretty right", I envisioned center-right in my mind, maybe a little further, which is what you said it this post it is.
to put it into perspective, the republicans are the fringe party in almost any european country. they shouldn't even be mentioned in the same breath as a reasonable party. the democrats are our conservatives.
guns are banned for general citizen use here, so where does gun control stand on the left-to-right spectrum? that said, I have a hard time believing that quite a few self-described socialists don't want to ban guns.
trump wanting out of afghanistan? good, if he actually is going to do it. american conservatives would argue that their anti-war position is not left-wing because they are libertarians or paleoconservatives. of course, I don't buy that, but this by itself or 'state' marijuana laws are the minority when it comes to actually representative government.
besides, earlier you said I was cherry-picking - how is this not?
this will be my last post on this subject (in this topic). feel free (mods) to cut/paste this in us politics as well. or tryhard, feel free to pm me :)
well, when i say "pretty" it's basically a synonym for "considerably," so... ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
i don't know--it's literally in our constitution so it's not really a "right" or "left" issue, tbh. this is my thoughts on it, though. i don't support banning, i support the so-called "common sense" reforms. i guess i should say "democratic socialist," rather than straight-up socialist, though. admittedly, i'm not entirely sure of what the differences are, so i can't be more precise.
the rest of the disagreements stem from me reading into your posts a bit too much as well. i guess that's what i get for not posting in awhile...
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5 hours ago, Tryhard said:
if calling the US an oligarchy is alarmist and factually inaccurate, then I suppose you would disagree with both Bernie Sanders and Noam Chomsky on what they've said about oligarchy. there's barely any places on earth that are laissez-faire capitalist, if any can be truly called that. Somalia, perhaps?
2yes, sure, i'd disagree. what is fundamentally different from how other western systems work from ours? i'm 100% not okay with money in politics. i think a constitutional amendment is required and fully necessary to overturn citizens united (2010) and remove the strangehold money has in our politics. but aside from this, which is huge and cannot be understated, i don't really see how other systems are performing astronomically better.
articles like the above aren't tossed around anymore. i am simply skeptical that the published results are as dire as they are made to be.
i am fine with a representative democracy anyway. a mob rule does not work.
Quotedon't necessarily disagree, because even self-described conservatives can often be in favour of left-wing ideals - just without wanting to give themselves that label, with perhaps the exception of the death penalty which still holds a majority opinion in the united states. but conservative politics has always dominated the conversation in america. perhaps if voters actually turn out then it would change my opinion, instead of sticking with the republicans when the time comes because the democrats are socialists, apparently.
i' m a little wary about what the US public thinks, though, considering the US public was 80% in favour of the Iraq war at the time. just something to keep in mind.
6you're cherry-picking and removing context from individual issues. on average, the usa is not really "pretty right wing." probably center-right, if not moderate leaning right-wing.
Quotehowever, corporations will have more power in america than almost anywhere else. defense contractors get paid by the government to construct excessive weapons even when the Pentagon advises them that they already have enough. billions are giving to corporations for R&D by the government every year - essentially, corporate welfare, which the US is top of the world in, ahead of China. the US eschews workers rights like annual leave and maternity leave that is not neglected in other western countries. a great deal of push is made by republican politicians about cutting corporate taxes, and most democrats don't even want to increase corporate tax.
agreed, this is incredibly frustrating. but i think this is not evidence of an oligarchy, but instead an economically conservative policy/set of policies in action. american citizens do not vote in volume or frequently enough to change things. that is partly the reason why things are the way they are.
QuoteI'm not going to pretend that other western countries don't have the same problems to some degree, but the US is worse than most in this regard. hence I would call the mainstream politics in the united states skewed to the right-wing. if you're framing this from a populist perspective, then you very well may be right - but there is no representation of these views really, yet, with the republican party pushing so far right that they're in risk of falling off a cliff if they haven't already.
you're changing your argument here--i'm not just trying to be nitpicky either. i never argued the opposite, but earlier the way your posts read was like the us was basically alt-right.
there's plenty of representation--perhaps the picture scotland gets is simply inaccurate. guns, for example, are extremely nuanced because even self-described socialists like me don't believe in banning them. trump wants out of afghanistan--what do you think of that? what do you think of the federal govt's relaxed views on marijuana (or at the very least relaxed enforcement)? (though this can dramatically depend on the state you're talking about as well.)
310+m people introduces many complications that smaller countries just don't have to deal with. and for those that are bigger, they've either got total control (china) or a suite of their own difficult issues to try and solve (india, indonesia, pakistan, brazil). for our immense size and political system, one could argue we're doing the best of all of top 10!
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3 hours ago, Tryhard said:
republicans certainly will have no problem characterising even conservative european states as communist. they think that anything that could be considered social welfare is.
my statement is with that in mind, not that this is an actually true viewpoint.
even so, the people currently in power are republicans, which make up a decent amount of the country in general, the ones with the aforementioned aversion to even milquetoast conservative ideology. i'd say america is skewed pretty right-wing. as to where it will be going in future, that's another matter.
i'd argue america is much more accurately described as either corporatism, or just an oligarchy. A mixed economy is not that descriptive when the alternative is laissez-faire.
that's a weird way to frame an argument. it isn't true, so why are you stating it? i'm not concerned with what republican members of congress would say what about anything lol. what is true is that the united states is not that far right.
you'd say that, but it's still incorrect. the statistics say otherwise. i know it certainly feels that way, because trump and his cronies are ruining our image, but voters by and large just don't poll like we'd expect a far-right country to.
if america could be described as "corporatist," then basically any other western, stable country could be too. calling the us an oligarchy is also alarmist and factually inaccurate--how are other western countries radically different in structure?
our wealth gap and income gap, in addition to our lack of education, are our biggest socio-economic concerns. coupled together, these two things have broken our (representative) democratic system in various ways. closely following those are failing to implement social programs that keep us workers/citizens safe and healthy.
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ok sure, and good point actually, but you're ignoring what its definition currently is. right now, progressive basically does mean socialist.
i agree with you overall. but because of political branding and identity, unfortunately, politics/political language will never be precise... :(
General US Politics
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i'm curious--why warren?