Author Topic: Who's making it and how?  (Read 26849 times)

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Offline Tampa survivor

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Who's making it and how?
« Reply #30 on: November 17, 2002, 10:02:00 PM »
I saw one in 2 years. 1981.
Uh, since when is Pat Buchannen running anything but his mouth?
Notice we dismissed him to the same woodshed as Robertson and some of our favorite other freaks of American politics like Al Sharpton and Jesse Jax.
Leftist outsiders might quote Buchannen when talking about America, but we have sent him away every time he comes knocking.
We are not stupid.
Bill
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Bill H
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Offline Froderik

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« Reply #31 on: November 17, 2002, 10:22:00 PM »
"You're bringing up ONE anecdote against the overwhelming odds of your country's own statistics!"

Hamiltonf - I'm sorry, I guess you were looking to get into a 'Canada vs. the US' discussion...I'm not. I like Canada. I'm a Neil young fan. Joni Mitchell's cool, too. All I'm saying is that if your right to bear arms is taken from you, so will ALL of your other rights as well, it's only a matter of time...peace, out - 'Uncle $am'
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Offline ClayL

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« Reply #32 on: November 18, 2002, 10:11:00 AM »
The only way to arrive at the astounding figure for "children" killed by guns in America is to include "children" up 21 yrs. These are mostly gang related.

Wasn't 1997 BEFORE the total gun ban in GB? Why don't you take the CURRENT crime figure for GB? See http://www.reason.com/0211/fe.jm.gun.shtml for starters. You can, if you look find a great deal of this kind of information, in both British and US newpapers. The figures for Accidental shootings of children show you are more likely to be seriouly injured playing ping-pong than with a firearm.

YOu know what, I was brought up to believe life is tough, unfair, and if you want ot get ahead you have to be very lucky and want to. Nobody owes me anything. That is America. If you don't like it, stay where you are, but don't criticize us from the outside. I happen to thin that with all our thought this is the best nation in the world and this is just sour grapes from the have nots.

CL
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Offline Antigen

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« Reply #33 on: November 18, 2002, 11:59:00 AM »
To be fair, and in the interest of not wasting a chance at a good dialog, there are valid reasons for people outside the US to criticize US policy. Gun control is not one of them. But drug policy is.

Right now, our lackeys inside the beltway are threatening unofficial trade sanctions against Canada should they chose to pass on the drug warriors' hysterical advice about drug policy.

And on that point, Hamilton, your argument gets a little pschitzophrenic. When talking about crime and accidental death rates in America, you attribute the cause to lack of gun control. When talking about crime and death rates in GB, you attribute the cause to US exported drug policy. I tend to agree with your latter attribution. It's the black market, not the right of self defense.

I'm all for reeling in US interference in foreign affairs, especially wrt drug policy. But some things work pretty well in this country; the right to bear arms (where it's still respected) is one of those things. Florida reinstituted it's right to brandish, violent crime dropped. DC and NYC banned personal handgun ownership, violent crime skyrocketed. Sure GUN deaths and injuries dropped. Who needs a weapon to rape a woman or mug an old lady when you know good and well that no one for blocks around is armed?

Michael Moore's a great satirist, but a lousy statistician.
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Offline Froderik

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« Reply #34 on: November 18, 2002, 12:31:00 PM »
Man, Ginger - you sure nailed that one... After I posted last night in defense of the 2nd, I thought, "yeah, but I forgot to comment on the drug laws...) As usual, your response was thoroughly on-target. I agree, our drug laws flat-out SUCK. The see-eye-ay take their payoffs and let in rivers of coke & heroin across our borders, and then they turn around and want to implement the WOD (war on drugs) against the lower heads on the totem pole, all the way down to US.
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Offline Hamiltonf

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« Reply #35 on: November 18, 2002, 01:25:00 PM »
I'm happy I provoked some reasonable discussion.  I actually subscribe to Reason magazine, so I can see where you are coming from.  Unfortunately, I don't have the time to discuss  this further right now.  One thought, though, My son, who is now in China, (and introduced me to "Reason", by the way, is telleng me that he feels VERY safe, and that the Chinese he has met seem incredibly capitalistic -- go figure. )
I still don't see Americans facing up to the real answers to the question "why do they hate us?"
later........
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uote of the Year
The Bush administration has succeeded in making the United States one of the most feared and hated countries in the world. The talent of these guys is unbelievable. They have even succeeded at alienating Canada. I mean, that takes ge

Offline ClayL

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« Reply #36 on: November 18, 2002, 03:26:00 PM »
Hmmmm,





I guess the reason I argue the gun restriction stuff is that I well and truly believe our drug policy is immature and childish. The only issue I have with drugs is the crack-heads who smashed in one of my car windows to steal my camera and my wife's purse. This meant I had to go down to the bank change the bank account, cancel the credit cards, change the locks on the house, and she had to get a new drivers lic., SS card and so on.



I have a problem with this and I suspect y'all would also. I also suspect that said crack-head would not be smashing in my car window if he could go to the corner liquor store and buy a couple of well taxed rocks. Perhaps he could afford so much of the new and inexpensive rocks that he'd OD and go on to the next life, but that's Darwin rearing his ugly head again.



My point, through all the sarcasism is, that if the crack-head wants to be able to smoke his life away, that is the crack-head's decision and I am quite content to let them skip down that merry path. Perhaps they'll get off the path perhaps they won't. A person has a right to choose what they want to do with their life. That person also has to be willing to accept the consequences of his/her decisions. I really believe no sane person would smoke crack, but I don't know as I have never done that.





CL



[ This Message was edited by: ClayL on 2002-11-18 12:31 ]
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Offline METALGOD8

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« Reply #37 on: November 18, 2002, 07:30:00 PM »
Hi CLay, I was just curious to know if you would have blown that guys head off had you caught him! I think I would have. GUNS! YEAH!   !!!!!!!!!    MG8
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Offline Tampa survivor

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« Reply #38 on: November 18, 2002, 10:07:00 PM »
I can't go to work today...
...the little voices said to stay home and clean the guns.
Bill
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Bill H
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Offline the other anonymous

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« Reply #39 on: November 18, 2002, 10:20:00 PM »
guns suck.  y'all are nuts.  I am nuts, and cannot ever own one.
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Offline Anonymous

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« Reply #40 on: November 18, 2002, 11:48:00 PM »
Quote:




On 2002-11-18 16:30:00, METALGOD8 wrote:

Hi CLay, I was just curious to know if you would have blown that guys head off had you caught him! I think I would have. GUNS! YEAH!   !!!!!!!!!    MG8




To shoot a crack head is just a plain waste of good lead, and a complete hasle with the cops. Save those actions for the more voilent criminals.

For the crack head, a good skull cracking with a bat would be perfectly acceptable.

Now excuse me while I clean my..........Is that a rabbit?????? Yeeeeee Hawwwww!!

A good shot means never having to say your sorry :wink:

[ This Message was edited by: SysAdmin on 2002-11-18 20:52 ]
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Offline Antigen

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« Reply #41 on: November 19, 2002, 12:09:00 AM »
Thanks!

Quote:


On 2002-11-18 09:31:00, AlexL wrote:Man, Ginger - you sure nailed that one... After I posted last night in defense of the 2nd, I thought, "yeah, but I forgot to comment on the drug laws...) As usual, your response was thoroughly on-target. I agree, our drug laws flat-out SUCK. The see-eye-ay take their payoffs and let in rivers of coke & heroin across our borders, and then they turn around and want to implement the WOD (war on drugs) against the lower heads on the totem pole, all the way down to US.

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Offline Anonymous

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« Reply #42 on: November 19, 2002, 12:52:00 AM »
From the recent posts, could it be, with the hatred here that Straight Inc., KIDS, and the American Way  -- The training ground for terrorists.
Your all crazy.

In The United States
The Source Of Terror November 18, 2002
By Saul Landau

"Wherever the standard of freedom and independence has been or shall be unfurled, there will be America?s heart, her benedictions and her prayers. But she goes not abroad in search of monsters to destroy...by once enlisting under other banners of foreign independence, she would involve herself, beyond the power of extrication, in all the wars of interest and intrigue, of individual avarice, envy and ambition. She might become dictatress of the world; she would not longer be the ruler of her own spirit."


John Quincy Adams, July 4, 1821

Terror... is any act which is done to fill with intense fear or to coerce by threat or force.

Rogers v. State, Tex.Cr.App., 687 S.W.2d 337, 341.

"Act of terrorism" means an activity that involves a violent act or an act dangerous to human life ...intended to intimidate or coerce a civilian population; (ii) to influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion, or (iii) to affect the conduct of a government by assassination or kidnapping.

18 U.S.C.A. ยง 3077.

We live in terrifying times. But into what context can we Americans place the terrorism we?ve recently experienced? Until 9/11 Americans could pretend that we were different, that God or something had truly blessed us. Yes, Al Qaeda tormentors tried to use an explosive-laden truck to blow up the World Trade Center in 1993.  But after 9/11/01, Americans woke up from their collective nightmare. We now share the common experience, as Edward Said put it, of "violence and terrorism dominating consciousness."

The world reached out in sympathy. Good will poured forth for the American people -- from friends and purported enemies -- as if people understood that the innocent Americans have finally lost their ingenuousness. Even Cuba and other so-called "rogue states" expressed their commitment to fight against this kind of terrorism.

But President Bush, who cowered in fear after the foul deeds had been done instead of being at ground zero where the leader belonged, soon turned his cowardice into arrogance: the rest of the world is with us or against us on our terms. Instead of discussing in Congress and other informal bodies the nature of the threat and the best means of combating it, Bush bombed Afghanistan to take out the training centers Al-Qaeda used to prepare the terrorist bombers.

As for the terrorists? motives, the great psychologist George W. Bush simply pronounced: "They hate because we?re free." Then, he rammed through Congress bills -- like the Patriot Act -- that make us less free. Flag waving replaced discussion in Congress and much of the media. "They are out to destroy us" became the leitmotif for the Bush political opera.

They? I asked myself. The Muslims I know love America, despite the actions of the US government. Jealous of our wealth or freedom? They adore our way of life. Educated Arab leaders ask why the US government acts so heartlessly when dealing with the third world people who love the United States.

Obviously, the bin Laden and Wahabi sects who have organized terror cells feel differently, but in just over a year the US government has reversed the outpouring of international good will. Now, when I travel to Europe, Latin America or the Middle East, I find anti-Americanism -- not toward people, but directed against the Bush government.

"It is as if," a Spanish writer related, "Americans have finally experienced the terror that most of the world has known. But before 9/11 Americans could not relate to the terrorized feelings that people in the rest of the world have long since internalized. I?m not sure they can today. Except, of course, for the terror felt by Israelis."

The media does dramatize Israeli suffering, but if one looks at history one sees that at almost any given time in the past much of the world?s population has lived in terror -- of nature?s power, plague, famine, war.

World War II cost some 50 million lives. It ended when the United States dropped two nuclear bombs on Japanese cities. Then came the carnage to Americans in Korea (1950-53) and Vietnam (1960-75). Multiply by one hundred or more to get the figures of Asian casualties in those wars. Think of the horrors perpetrated by the French in colonized Algeria in the late 1950s, by the British over centuries in subduing their colonized people. Then, in recent decades, Muslim fanatics in independent Algeria have slain thousands of their own "heathen" brothers and sisters.

Think of the countless wars in colonial and post-colonial Africa, some instigated by the CIA, others by Europeans and Africans themselves. Thanks to war technology, terrorism -- which began with the 1793 Reign of Terror after the French revolution in the name of Reason -- has now become universal and completely unreasonable. Until recently, only Americans on their home soil had escaped from the daily fear and pain that Europeans knew when daily bomb blasts in the name of Irish, Basque or Corsican movements killed those who happened to be near the bomb.

Then on April 19, 1995 came the Oklahoma City bombing of the Murrah Federal building, by 100% American Timothy McVeigh and his army buddy Terry Nichols, from very middle America and trained by the US military. They hated us also supposedly because the US government (FBI) had massacred the Branch Davidian sect in 1993. From then on, Americans sensed that mad bombers could wear a "made in the US" label as well, and that US military training could serve the cause of any and all terrorists.

Right and left terminology made little sense in the post Cold War era. What label would one place on the IRA or Basque ETA or, for that matter, on Timothy McVeigh? "Terrorist" became the official nomenclature to those -- with exceptions, like anti-Castro Cubans who remain "Cuban patriots" -- who practice violence against the state, any state. Anti-terrorism would then apply to all military and police actions carried out supposedly against terrorists. Responding to the 9/11 attacks, the US military bombed Afghanistan to destroy the terrorist training camps of Al-Qaeda, to make us less vulnerable to trained terrorists. It bombed and missiled Afghanistan, killing thousands of civilians in order to get -- unsuccessfully -- Osama bin Laden and his coterie of terrorists.

What might have been principally a police action to find and destroy organizations bent on wreaking horror on western societies, and pro-Western governments in their own areas of the world, became a military operation.

After more than 13 months, Congress and the media still do not ask: Did we hit the right target? Did we use the right methods? Are we safer from terrorism today or have we mis-focused our efforts? Will one of the government?s dire predictions about imminent terrorist attacks from Al-Qaeda actually take place or will Attorney General John Ashcroft become the little boy who cried wolf?

Since 9/11 only two terrorist attacks occurred on US soil. The anthrax-letter fiend remains at large, although the FBI has destroyed one scientist?s career when it hinted, without evidence, that he might be the perpetrator. In any case, the FBI now assumes that the anthrax killer worked out of a US lab and was trained and educated in the USA, not in Afghanistan.

Then came the DC area sniper, now identified as possibly two men, the older being John Allen Williams, who adopted the new last name "Muhammad." Police arrested Williams and his sidekick, John Lee Malvo, on October 26 in connection with the sniper shootings that had terrorized the residents of the Washington metropolitan area over the previous three week period. Ten of their victims have died, three remain in critical condition. Some of the area schools closed, others kept the kids inside, people prayed and hid inside their cars as they pumped gas since the sniper seemed to favor fueling stations for his attack zone. For a few weeks the people of the area forgot about Saddam Hussein and George W. Bush?s threats to change his regime.

Area theorists had predicted without fear, or fact, that the sniper might be linked to Al-Qaeda. A police profiler had him as an angry, rejected white man who probably didn?t learn his ambushing skills in the military, because military snipers go for head shots and this mysterious killer had shot some of his victims in the body.

But an October 24 UPI story, based on a Defense Department source, reported that Williams-Muhammad qualified as an expert marksman in the U.S. Army with the M-16. "Expert" meaning the highest level of Army marksmanship. The shooter must "knock down" at least 36 targets with 40 rounds, from distances of up to 300 meters. Williams also had expert status in throwing hand grenades. He had served in the Persian Gulf War and prior to that was on active duty in the Army from Nov. 6, 1985 to April 26, 1994, when he was discharged as a sergeant at Ft. Lewis, Washington, with decorations on his chest: the Southwest Asia Service Medal and the Kuwait Liberation Medal for his participation in the Persian Gulf War, the Army Achievement Medal, the Army Service Ribbon, the National Defense Service Medal, and the Non-Commission Officer Professional Development Ribbon.

In addition, the accused sniper also served in the Louisiana National Guard from 1978 to 1985, and in the Oregon guard from 1994 to 1995. The army trained him as a combat engineer, a field that includes mine laying, removal, demolition and combat construction. The army also taught him metal working.

Ironically, the Washington Post, in contrast, called him "a mediocre soldier who was once convicted of striking a sergeant in the head."  Did the Post not investigate his army record? They quoted a former platoon leader saying that he wasn?t "anything special," but didn?t check his record.

The sniper, like Oklahoma bomber Timothy McVeigh, did not receive his killer training in Afghanistan or Iraq. The US military trained him to kill, like millions before and after him. The military?s job is to take non-killers and train them to kill -- with advanced weaponry.

We know little about Williams-Muhammad?s motivation or the role of his teenage sidekick. But we do know that the sniper follows a long line of serial killers that seem to grow in our fertile and lethal soil. We have lots of angry, depressed, and downright crazy people in this country who have easy access to weapons and know how to use them.

When police revealed the sniper?s identity and the origins of his violence training, I thought again of John Quincy Adams? warning about not going abroad "in search of foreign monsters to destroy." Did he have premonitions about Afghanistan and Iraq? HE CERTAINLY KNEW THAT WE HAD ENOUGH MONSTERS AT HOME TO KEEP US BUSY FOR A LONG TIME.

Enjoy.
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Offline dreammagician

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« Reply #43 on: November 19, 2002, 07:14:00 AM »
I hate guns, sure I have my trusty 44 which will blow your head off, but I still hate having to use one as a scare tactic. I prefer dealing with people straight up. All my friends know how I feel and generally I don't intimidate people with power. I love practicing law and too many people depend on weapons when our best one is our mouth. Straight sucked and will always suck in my opinion.
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Offline ClayL

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« Reply #44 on: November 19, 2002, 09:37:00 AM »
Most likely not, unless I felt my life was being threatened. If I thought that about the wife and kids, yeah I'd have punched their ticket right quick. Had someone steal my car once and was ridong my bike (imagine that) shortly thereafter and passed my car pulling into a pawn shop (they were pawning my golf clubs). Well the court house is about a block away so I rode on down there and told them to go and get my car. Can you believe they had the nerve to ask where I had gotten the bicycle? Well they got my car and found three people in it and not one of them went to jail. Why? the police never did give me a good answer. Leter they caught the fellow I had signed a warrant for and I sent him to prison. Tried to get his crack smoking head in treatment, but our state doesn't allow for that. Sending a person to prison does nobady any good.

CL
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