Guns

[Phoebe]

If your position is that we need to enforce the restrictions on gun ownership and purchase we already have in place, and that would help stop mass shootings, then great, I agree with you. You started off saying you were okay with basic steps like registrations, preventing people who have violent felonies, DUIs, other major issues. But then it turned into this deal where anyone who wants gun control, or is moved by the horrors of a mass shooting to seek reform, is lying about their secret motives to get rid of all guns, and we should mock concern for the kids who were shot, and vote GOP forever. That's where I have no idea how it went off the rails.

If you're happy with Obama's effort to move human resources in support of background checks, then the above makes little sense. The GOP and NRA would fight you tooth and nail on that, while applauding Israel's violent suppression of Palestinian protests and moving the capital to Jerusalem, and everything else that is opposed to things you care about. It's like this completely distorted idea of what is happening with one issue is the single most important thing to you, politically, and I don't get that any more than I understand people who are sure that women should be forced by the government to carry dead babies until they deliver them "naturally", because God says so, and thus we must vote Republican no matter what. I don't mean to exaggerate but sadly, I'm not exaggerating and I have the crazy family members to prove it. Sometimes it's hard to deal with how people are.

[mimekiller]

[mimekiller]

I also think this is interesting.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/ ... 497285002/

[Phoebe]

I would be more open to considering the arguments presented if I could trust in the truth of even one thing the author says. It's a problem. Some reliable source would have to go through and explain which parts of what he was referring to were true, and then we could have a conversation about the intersection between law enforcement failures and possible solutions for gun violence. Like, what is the school program they're indicting? We don't even know but my money is on it being something good that Glenn hates.

[mimekiller]

the school program that's named and explained in the article? and not by the author but in a quote by one of the Parkland survivors?

[Phoebe]

Bingo. "Behind Cruz's Florida Rampage, Obama's School-Leniency Policy"
I knew there was a way Obama was to blame for all of it. Didn't your little red flag go up inside when you read about that, the very idea that a progressive school program to help troubled youth is the reason why one of them shot up the school?

[Bonefish]

Well, to be fair, he's a brownskinned kid. If he was white kid who maybe could be gay but we're not really sure, I'm sure he'd be plastered over the news, and we'd get to hear... Ah man, who am I kidding. The kid is putting the blame squarely where it needs to be, but you're not about to see the Republican party support a brown skinned immigrant who is attacking the Thin Blue Line. And the Democrats arn't about derail their anti-gun feeding frenzy and the hope that they will "get out the vote" to recognize a kid who should be a celebrated hero. Instead... Well, you know.

And this is why I don't take the left any more seriously than I take the right. It's not about me being a one-issuer voter: I voted for Bernie in the Primaries, and he wasn't exactly friendly to guns(and still isn't). I voted for him because his platform was remarkably consistent with my own personal ideas about what this country needs. And I have watched his progressive movement be hijacked and conveniently brought back into the mainstream fold. It's rather amusing to watch the media spin this into a "revolution of the youth", when comparatively few of the people protesting are the "youth". It's mostly the same group of people who were protesting Trump a year ago. Gasp, shock, but it's being spun as a social awakening. It's not. Red state kids who grew up using firearms ad hunting, they arn't suddenly switching alliegience. One of my younger cousins is worried about not being able to buy an AR15 when he gets older because of this. Now, he won't vote for three more years, but he's not the only one.

You guys on the left are really going to have to stop acting like you are angels and the republicans are demons: to those of us unaffiliated with either political party, you both look like demons. It's absolutely ridiculous for the left to put the amount of spin on the media curve ball they do, and then insist that the right is the only one who does it. It's also absolutely fucking ridiculous for someone to castiate me for rightfully calling Israel's actions in Palestine "genocide" and likening me to defending hamas, and then TURN AROUND AND THROW A HAMAS LED PROTEST AGAINST ISRAEL IN MY FACE. Fuck outta here with that noise.

Flip and flop. The worm is a lie. The worm is a big lie, a simple lie, loudly and repeatedly chanted.

[Bonefish]

And spare me the "progressive program to help troubled youth". You wanna help troubled youth: END THE GODDAMNED WAR ON DRUGS THAT LEADS TO MASS VIOLENCE IN OUR MOST AT RISK COMMUNITIES! Obama was not a saint, and while he did some good stuff, he also did a whole lot of bad, rotten shit that if Trump or Bush had been at the helm for, you would have wailed and gnashed your teeth.

Maybe the promise program had good intentions. That's a reasonable belief to have. However, there are reasons to believe that even well meaning government programs can become oppressive when the incentives for the agents involved are different from those for the well being of the subjects. Ya know, "No Child left behind", or "Welfare Reform", or the comprehensive Crime Omnibus, or the Patriot act, or the No Fly list, or dozens, maybe even hundreds of government programs over the last century that have often failed to address the concerns of their supposed beneficiaries, and have instead caused harm to the very same people they were intended to protect.

[Phoebe]

Dude, you must be high? That's the only charitable explanation I have for that.

[Phoebe]

Now that I'm laying down in a quiet place, let me take a small crack at this though I don't have high hopes. There is a body of people, and I don't know whether they agree with your views or not, who are very keen to blame the Parkland shooting on Obama, on the black school superintendent who governed that school, on specific people whose job is to care for students who have problems, and generally speaking on any progressive policies that seek additional support for caring for students who have problems. The idea that any of these people or systems are the cause of this kid having a violent meltdown and slaughtering people is utter fantasy. The fact that there are headlines blaming Obama for the shooting should be a small sign that something here is incredibly f***** up. They are managing to "Thanks, Obama" a mass shooting. I'm just going to stop here and let that rest and soak in. The idea is that Obama wanted to support school systems so that kids who have serious problems of different kinds can somehow get the resources they need to stay in school and get their lives back on track. Obviously this is the kind of thing that leads to mass shootings. I don't know if I can go on from here, if we are not on the same page about how this idea comes from Another Universe from people who are fundamentally f***** up and wildly racist.

Now let me address another thing you have said that troubles me. I am not throwing anything in your face. I'm trying to point out to you that nobody you seem to want to vote for now, because of the single issue of guns, is going to do much of anything else you want them to do. I don't know why you're saying all these things to me in response. I vote for Republican and Libertarian politicians all the damn time, in some cases because that's my only choice, and in some cases because the alternative was pathetic or worse. If you can't respond to me without lumping me in with all these leftists you're pissed off at, well, I guess don't. We definitely disagree about the legitimacy of the state of Israel. I thought you and I agreed that Israel was doing bad things in suppressing nonviolent protest. Guaranteed that the Republican party is not your friend on that issue. I'm not sure why you are so outraged that I would point the simple fact out.

[mimekiller]

I like this.

https://medium.com/@bjcampbell/everybod ... 08ed400be5

[Phoebe]

Why do you like it?

[mimekiller]

I think it made some good points. Good question!

[buckett]

[WillyGilligan]

[WillyGilligan]

[mimekiller]

a good guy with a gun

https://www.cnn.com/2018/04/22/us/waffl ... 1524525515

oh and clearly cops are mostly incompetent bafoons.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nati ... D=ref_fark

[WillyGilligan]

[mimekiller]

I mean true it would of been nice if he had his own gun but it still works! He still had a gun lol.

[Phoebe]

I find it amusing, sometimes the same people who love to comment on how you can lose weight if you simply stop putting food in your mouth are unable to see that if there are no guns in a given situation, there won't be a shooting. This is merely an amusing observation and does not reflect my policy positions, lest I be accused again of secretly wanting to take everybody's guns and melt them down in a giant bonfire, because what else could explain wanting to compromise on anything besides cold dead hands philosophy.