It's About Freaking Time!!!

[shooter3]

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x3232899

[Charles Owlen Picket]

This is actually why elections for President are so important. It's not the President that makes laws but the Judiciary that rules on them (in the long run) as many of the Legislative branch of government can propose most anything, etc. When a President that puts forth idiots to the Supreme Court exists; we get stupid rulings.

When a Supreme Court position is vacant, that President can affect policy and Law of the Land for decades to come. If I remember correctly some of the whack-jobs we have had came from LBJ & Jimmy Carter. The names of the appointees evades me but the initial rulings regarding the 2nd Amendment began there. In was under LBJ that we had the backlash to the assassinations via gun-control (1968). it was under Carter that we had the actual rulings that a person's home was not worth fighting for, that the 2nd Amendment was about hunting or some shit (Militia's can't come from the People) & that the 2nd Amendment "wasn't functional in today's society", etc ad nausium.

[Rbick]

Yeah my wife was watching CNN when I walked in the room and this story was on. To my suprise, they (CNN) seemed to be in support of the decision. I nearly had an orgasm and fell to the floor convulsing due to shock.

The point I was particularly happy about was the actual statistics they mentioned on TV. They claimed "Citizens of DC do not have firearms, but it is apparent that the criminals still do". They also stated the dramatic rise in crime rate since the banning of hand guns. Finally, people are looking at the facts!

Yes, they still claim that the gov't has rights to restrict firearms, which to a degree makes sense. I still think we should be able to obtain silencers and fully automatic weapons however :) On that note, I'm actually saving up for a silencer for my AR. Its 200$ for the stamp and 600 for the silencer. Thinking about it makes me drool...

[Charles Owlen Picket]

When a society enacts laws that govern how an object should be used, they do so (in theory) in order to maintain that society as cohesive and interaction as productive. Automobiles are given rules of the road so that traffic can move in an orderly manner. Disclosures on home products exist so that a shopper can know what they are buying.

Firearms have a variety of uses but are designed to simply propels a bullet. Therefore society defines it's uses. It's the interpretation of an object with seeming different uses that causes variation on a theme. Emotionalism in this context is counter productive.

America has become feminine. The feminine values are now the norm and are placed at a higher status than the masculine. The popular entertainment portrays the "husband" in a TV show as being dull, foolish, & low functioning. The "wife" as being smart, considerate, & intuitive. The wife is "cheered" by canned applause as much as the husband is laughed at (by canned laughter). The insertion of women in the US military has altered it's attitudes, mission directives, & problem solving dynamics. This is systemic now; we have embraced all that is feminine - to the EXCLUSION of the masculine! Word like "macho" are essentially demeaning. The word (hormone) "testosterone" is a problem or a poison.

The more feminine we become as a nation, the more we have to cope with feminine issues and answers. We have become a nation of "feelings" People do not use the word "think", they use the word "feel": as in "I feel (think) like he's lying to me". The emphasis on emotion over logic is profound. This may be the heart of not only the firearms debate but many more issues as well.

We cannot cleanse our personal demons by catharsis. Re-hashing our emotions endlessly only perseverates our angst. By the feminine emphasis on expressing our feelings endlessly draws us into discussion over feelings with no resolution in sight. This may be why there is little treatment for such issues like PTSD...because the therapist only ask the clients to endlessly talk about their feelings and not what to do about such feelings. The action, the steps necessary to overcome a challenge is what is deemed masculine and therefore not as comforting as a continual re-hash of "feelings".

This, therefore may be the heart of the debate over control of weapons and hoplophobia in general. The symbol (firearm) takes on an endless strength to continually arouse feelings and has a power beyond it's functionality as a weapon. Many people with a knee-jerk reaction to weapons have feminine responses to life's challenges and the continual "swimming in angst" may be the only response they have any affinity with. if this were not to be the case; the actual construction of the weapon [from mortars to derringers] would make little difference.

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EDIT:
I got some several pieces of mail in response to this; some of it complimentary, some of it asking how I can be so sexists......I wanted to clarify that my position is simply an observation of generalities in the USA and that there are (no doubt) women that can be icy logical as there are men that are big balls of emotion. HOWEVER....I believe that those roles developed and have been enhanced by the operand conditioning from our modern world. I am also somewhat sexist if the definition implies that I believe that women have specific traits and that both men and women are actually very different. I do honestly believe that they are. I also (truly) believe that feminine values are needed in society but that exclusionary feminine values are a poor substitute for pluralism. And that's what I think is happening in our society today. We have been overwhelmed with the feminine and that is WHY we have struggles with bizarre laws limiting object (symbols) where we had not before.

[Rbick]

America has become feminine. The feminine values are now the norm and are placed at a higher status than the masculine.

Look who is running for president :eek:

You bring up some very good points. I've noticed that whenever there is a shooting, some mother of a student who died goes on a crusade to impose gun control. As if this would immediately fix the problems of our fucked up society which is the real issue. This seems to be a reoccuring trend. Before she can even get a grip on reality, her emotions take over and guns are deemed as evil.

I'm not a sexist pig who thinks women should be our slaves, but I do believe men where made to act like men for a reason. Men are more practical and analyze the facts while women bring the emotional aspect to make sure no one gets their feelings hurt. We kind of balance each other out.

While on the topic of Hilary: That bs she pulled while campaigning when she cried while giving a speech. This happened more than once. The scary thing is that it worked! Anyone think that this might make the US seem a liitle weak? When we get a nuclear missile shoved up our ass, is she going to get emotional and cry or fight back?

Anyway, I hope the supreme court is able to see past the teary eyed bs and make the right decision based on facts and sound judgement.

[Enkidu]

I disagree with the notion that all women are emotional and men are rational. Men are just as emotional as women, albeit with different emotions, like anger. Think about sports brawls or bar fights. One of the most ridiculous 'bar fights' that I ever got in was when I was a freshman in college. I was at the Pike house, and they were giving out free Bud Lite (yuck, I know). I asked they guy sitting behind the bar if there was any more beer left, and he said no, while obviously holding a case in his lap. I asked 'What's that in your lap?' He yelled, 'Are you calling me a liar!?' I paused for a moment, and said, 'What's that in your lap?' You can imagine the rest of the story. I got (ineffectually) banned from the Pike house after that. :D

My aunt and uncle spent much time stationed in Egypt (IIRC in the 70's) and they said that the men in the middle east wear their emotions on their shirt sleeves. The one thing that they laughed about a lot was the road rage in Cairo. There is (or, at least, was) a lot of traffic in that city, and if you cut some guy off, he'd get out of his car and start beating on yours with a stick. This happened to my uncle on two separate occasions.

Men are also more prone to the 'us vs. them' mentality, in my experience. Us vs them = confrontation. Sometimes this works well, but other times it doesn't work quite so well... it's one of those 20/20 hindsight situations.

One of my best female friends just graduated with a history / political science (pre-law) double major. She's probably one of the most rational people I know. I can't say I'd like to see her become president, but I have no problem with the idea of a woman president as long as she agrees with me. :p

All in all, I think that we must judge each individual on a case by case basis, regardless of sex.

[Hirudinea]

An interesting fact is that in a country whenever women get the vote the amount of social programmes, and the spending on social programmes in general tends to go up sharply, one example is when politicians in Newfoundland were trying to convince Newfies to join Canada the campaign aimed the message to women that joining Canada would mean that they would have Canadian Welfare programmes available to Newfoundland, and women voted in the Majority to join Canada. Now while I know there can be some very sensible women out there, Maggie Thatcher is a good example, in general they seem to be more colectivist than men, and more open to socialist ideas.

[Bugger]

(cut)Now while I know there can be some very sensible women out there, Maggie Thatcher is a good example, in general they seem to be more colectivist than men, and more open to socialist ideas.
THATCHER? You must be very young, not to remember what she did when British Prime Minister in the 1970s and early 1980s! She was a Fascist, and a lackey of the IMF and World Bank, and multinational companies and moneyed interests generally; and anything and everything but a Socialist! She sold off billions of £s worth of state assets (mostly to her rich cronies) at much less than their real value, just so that her rich cronies could have tax cuts they did not need, calliing it the "trickle-down theory". Unemployment soared to over 3 million.

Unfortunately, her rule as Prime Minister lasted much longer than it should have, because of the propaganda advantage of the Falklands War/Whore in 1982, which she used for all it was it was worth to divert public attention away from her gross economic and fiscal mismanagement. To make things worse, right-wing governments in the U$A, Australia, and New Zealand copied her lunatic economic experiments, totally ignoring the fact that they are quite different countries economically from the U.K., and even that Australia and New Zealand differ again considerably from the U$A. And in spite of her clearly gross economic and fiscal mismanagement, the Queen was stupid enough to give her a Damehood, then make her a Baroness!

[shooter3]

I believe that this ruling should have not been needed. Why do we have to let them tell us it's ok to use a "right". This could have been settled by a sensible President just saying (and backing up) a statement like; "Of course the average American can carry a gun, It's only illegal if you use it in the commission of a crime! That's the "plain meaning of the second amendment". The "collective right" argument was pulled out of thin air, and it was backed up by the mass media, managing and censoring what you hear, for the last 50 years.

Please don't loose heart when you read the decision though. Expect a lot of hedging about some controls being allowed. On the federal level, they have NO control except by the ICC. On a State level, there is NO authority to "manage" that "Right" whatsoever. (Look at Rhode Islands Bill of Rights and Article 4 sec 2 of the Constitution).

I for one, the day the ruling comes down, am going to strap on my 380 backup. I've gotten thru 3 assaults already. All of them had to be resisted in very dangerous (to me) ways. It sure would have been safer with my pistol! (Also, mountain lions are back in our area!)

John Wayne used to say; "A man's got to do, what a mans got to do". and he was right. It's not the cops responsibility to protect us, it's ours, to protect ourselves and our family, and our neighbor, and our country.

Lastly, in my opinion, there are very few women with the knowlege and temperment to be President. Margret Thatcher was one, possibly Phyllis Schlafly, and even these 2 would be better in an advisory roll. There has to be a guy there to think, "crap, she's in a mood, I guess I won't launch the missiles!".

Chauvanistic?, you say? Yes I am. Websters defines that as "Someone sure of their position." Women in general hate that, because they're never sure of anything!

[Charles Owlen Picket]

That wonderful fount of information, AlJazeera has taken a stand on the "Gun Issue" in America. With it's usual spin the offering by AlJazeera is carefully crafted to put the "reasonable" light on the Gun debate from a woman's perspective. Intelligent, articulate and reasoned....While the man is a crazy. I love this shit.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xH0TGaYXrq4&feature=user
AlJazeeraEnglish 20, March 2008

I bookmark AlJazeeraEnglish to watch in the morning as it has so many wonderful leftist rants that just get my blood boiling. I do NOT watch this in the evening or before bed as it can keep one up at night like a lot of coffee. If you watch the video you will see the spin albeit carefully crafted...it's a good job.

[Rbick]

C'mon man! Why did you show me that? Now I'm going to be pissed off all day. :p That woman in London got my blood boiling, what a bitch.

I like how our buddy in DC stated that Criminals don't follow the laws, which is a great and obvious point. Then the bitch in London says that we should have laws to restrict guns and it will make us safer? So criminals who don't follow these laws still have guns but law abiding citizens don't? Something is missing here...

The police are the ones who protect the people? So when the rapist who is on parole for "good behavior" in prison jumps through your window at night, instead of being able to defend yourself all you have to do is say: "I can't shoot you because in a democratic society, shooting people isn't the goal. Hold on, let me call the police. Until they get here, take me!"

This leads me to another point; The liberal corrections system. They seem to work on this idea that if we treat the inmates nicely, they will be nice back. Because of this, people who get arrested for rape get about 5 years in jail and then are back on the streets. I can't remember off hand, but I think the stats were something like 90% of those released on parole recommit the same crime again.

My point is (and its been said millions of times) is that guns are not the issue here. Something needs to be done about how we operate as a society. Sorry I had to vent, things like this get me pissed off. I want to slap that bitch in the face.

[Hirudinea]

THATCHER? You must be very young, not to remember what she did when British Prime Minister in the 1970s and early 1980s!

She broke the backs of the Unions that gave Britian the winter of discontent when grabage was piled in the streets and people couldn't get to hospital because ambulance drivers were on strike.
She turned around Britians economy, and made socialism a bad word.
She stoped the decline in British prestige by putting steel in Britians backbone and retaking the Falkland Islands after they were invaded by the Argentine Junta. (Which also led to the downfall of the Junta and the restoration of democracy in Argentina, and never a word of thanks from the Argentines?) Yes she was anything but a socialist.

To make things worse, right-wing governments in the U$A, Australia, and New Zealand copied her lunatic economic experiments, totally ignoring the fact that they are quite different countries economically from the U.K., and even that Australia and New Zealand differ again considerably from the U$A.

Tragically that "lunatic economic experiment" was never tried in Canada, do to intrenched state socialism and french control of the government(s).

(T)he Queen was stupid enough to give her a Damehood, then make her a Baroness!

Her Majesty has very little say in who is given an honour, the goverment gives her the honours list and she complies, remember the goverment rules the Queen reigns. (And from what I heard the Queen wasn't to fond of Maggie anyway.)