Guns, Guns Guns

Daryl wrote:Hopefully we can avoid emotive language that does incite flaming here. I do find the statement that Obama is "a pure socialist if not a communist" and that this will destroy your country somehow, somewhat puzzling.
Firstly people from generations ago would believe that we are all socialists as all developed countries have some form of welfare nets (admittedly the USA has less than any others), and even the Republican policies are more welfare oriented than those from yesteryear. As I mentioned earlier in this topic the countries with advanced welfare actually have stronger economies, coincidence or better utilization of resources? I'm happy to be called a socialist as it implies compassion and civilization, but would regard Obama as much less a socialist than most western leaders.
Current figures are that the USA has 45million working poor, and the highest incarceration rate in the world, not very efficient. A recent TV documentary on this had adult male breadwinners earning $7 to $8 an hour. Our minimum legal adult wage is $15.96 and due for review, yet our unemployment rate is about 5%.

Agreed. extremely emotive wording is part of what caused nameless to disappear.

@pokermind: Communism and socialism shouldnt really be treated as putdowns. as theoretical ideas they work well as a whole on paper, its just the implementation of the system as a whole that reveals the flaws in the system not accounting for greed and other parts of human nature. however, just as with other styles of government from the left, right and centre, there are individual ideas that can be used to improve society.

@tenshinai: agreed. if he flip-flopped much more, we could probably use him as a metronome. =D

@Daryl: damn, maybe I should move over there.... here its only $13.50 at the moment, although people want to move it up to between 15 and $18.40 at the moment. I think our un-enployment rate is around 6-7% at the moment. so we both have a minimum wage in our country almost double the US minimum, but have a lower rate of unemployment.

Back to the original topic of this thread. While watching PBS's Washington Week last night, I heard one of their reporters say that 2000+ laws had been proposed at the state level since the 1st of January. Of those, 132 have already been signed into law. Those laws cover the spectrum from tighter bans to requirements that businesses must allow concealed weapons on the premises. All are a knee-jerk reaction and almost none address underlying causes.

Until those causes are addressed on a national level, we will continue to have violent events.

Being apparently stupid I hadn't fully realized until now that the term United States of America is actually descriptive, not just a label. If you were a truly unified country then a single simple federal law could override those 2000+ laws on firearms. When ours was passed years ago I wasn't happy to lose my two assault rifles, however I still have fun with guns and now realize that some resentful 18 year old with a low IQ is going to find it harder to kill 30 people with one magazine.

KNick wrote:Back to the original topic of this thread. While watching PBS's Washington Week last night, I heard one of their reporters say that 2000+ laws had been proposed at the state level since the 1st of January. Of those, 132 have already been signed into law. Those laws cover the spectrum from tighter bans to requirements that businesses must allow concealed weapons on the premises. All are a knee-jerk reaction and almost none address underlying causes.

Until those causes are addressed on a national level, we will continue to have violent events.

Daryl wrote:Being apparently stupid I hadn't fully realized until now that the term United States of America is actually descriptive, not just a label. If you were a truly unified country then a single simple federal law could override those 2000+ laws on firearms. When ours was passed years ago I wasn't happy to lose my two assault rifles, however I still have fun with guns and now realize that some resentful 18 year old with a low IQ is going to find it harder to kill 30 people with one magazine.

No Daryl, you are not stupid. Most Americans do not realize that the US was originally designed to be a federation of states rather than a single monolithic country. That is what is causing so much of the drama in US politics. The original founding fathers wanted a weak central government with very limited powers. They realized that each state would have local needs that were different from the others and should address those difference individually.

The main difference in our two party system is that one wants to increase the power of the government and the other wants to decrease it. The original purpose of the central government was to handle matters of diplomacy, war and trade!! PERIOD. The constitution that controlled all of this was envisioned to be simply the minimum standards for all people in the country.

Each state was then supposed to control its own area using those guidelines as their minimum standards! The central government was only allowed to step in when the matter involved every persons [u]rights, [/u]not the way they did things locally. That matter of local vs. federal control is the basis of almost all of the drama seen in the last few years.

KNick wrote:

Daryl wrote:Being apparently stupid I hadn't fully realized until now that the term United States of America is actually descriptive, not just a label. If you were a truly unified country then a single simple federal law could override those 2000+ laws on firearms. When ours was passed years ago I wasn't happy to lose my two assault rifles, however I still have fun with guns and now realize that some resentful 18 year old with a low IQ is going to find it harder to kill 30 people with one magazine.

No Daryl, you are not stupid. Most Americans do not realize that the US was originally designed to be a federation of states rather than a single monolithic country. That is what is causing so much of the drama in US politics. The original founding fathers wanted a weak central government with very limited powers. They realized that each state would have local needs that were different from the others and should address those difference individually.

The main difference in our two party system is that one wants to increase the power of the government and the other wants to decrease it. The original purpose of the central government was to handle matters of diplomacy, war and trade!! PERIOD. The constitution that controlled all of this was envisioned to be simply the minimum standards for all people in the country.

Each state was then supposed to control its own area using those guidelines as their minimum standards! The central government was only allowed to step in when the matter involved every persons [u]rights, [/u]not the way they did things locally. That matter of local vs. federal control is the basis of almost all of the drama seen in the last few years.

So, like manticore, they wanted a head government ( aka the monarchy) that couldnt actually do anything......

No, they wanted a government to act in a very constrained manner in very specific areas (trade, diplomacy and war). Otherwise, they wanted the government to leave them alone.

So, like manticore, they wanted a head government ( aka the monarchy) that couldnt actually do anything......

At the time America had come out of a revolution triggered in part by the tyrannical behavior of George III. This SECOND constitution was actually an attempt at a somewhat more centralized version of government. The FIRST constitution (which everybody including most Americans forgets about) was the Articles of Confederation. The Articles of Confederation provided for a very weak central government and the second Constitution was an attempt to find a middle ground between the tyranny of George III and the chaos of the Articles.

Note to some of those in countries which are trying to form democracies and are having challenges. The USA didn't get it right on the first try either.

KNick wrote:The main difference in our two party system is that one wants to increase the power of the government and the other wants to decrease it.

That really isn´t a good description of either party you know.

Democrats are not trying to increase the POWER of the government any more than the rep´s try to decrease it.

Fact, in the last 12 years, Rep´s have INCREASED the power of the government a lot and in ways that probably are against the constituition.
Democrats have done things either way, probably ending up with a total that isn´t too far from where they started.

Do not mistake power with economic size of the govt. Money can be used for power in many ways yes, but the US govt doesn´t spend it´s money domestically in ways that gives it power.

The original purpose of the central government was to handle matters of diplomacy, war and trade!! PERIOD.

Such a pity to see people so delusional... That kind of extreme noninterference have never worked historically nor will it ever work. It´s based on political THEORY of the time, theories which have been completely trashed since then, as they´re simply not in accordance with reality. The invisible hand is greedy, stupid not to mention shortsighted and prone to causing misery.

Spacekiwi wrote:@tenshinai: agreed. if he flip-flopped much more, we could probably use him as a metronome. =D

Naah, he´s waaay too irregular for that!

Tenshinai wrote:[
Naah, he´s waaay too irregular for that!

=D

KNick wrote:
The main difference in our two party system is that one wants to increase the power of the government and the other wants to decrease it.

That really isn´t a good description of either party you know.

Democrats are not trying to increase the POWER of the government any more than the rep´s try to decrease it.

Fact, in the last 12 years, Rep´s have INCREASED the power of the government a lot and in ways that probably are against the constituition.
Democrats have done things either way, probably ending up with a total that isn´t too far from where they started.

Do not mistake power with economic size of the govt. Money can be used for power in many ways yes, but the US govt doesn´t spend it´s money domestically in ways that gives it power.


The original purpose of the central government was to handle matters of diplomacy, war and trade!! PERIOD.

Such a pity to see people so delusional... That kind of extreme noninterference have never worked historically nor will it ever work. It´s based on political THEORY of the time, theories which have been completely trashed since then, as they´re simply not in accordance with reality. The invisible hand is greedy, stupid not to mention shortsighted and prone to causing misery.


True enough. Unfortunately there is still enough of that idea floating around to cause problems. I do not have any idea of the percentage of people in the US that wish the government would just leave them alone. They don't even mind paying their taxes as long as they can see the benefit of doing so. But when the Federal government stops doing it's job, as it is currently not doing, then they tend to get irate.