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New York, 4:48 AM
Thu Nov 12
59 posts in the last 24 hours
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11/10/09
Because us white folk never do anything bad ever. #shooting
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Hey, a little cinematic revisionist history is called for every now and again, yes? #shooting
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It really is sad the number of people in this country who seem to die only because they were in the wrong place at the wrong time with the wrong person. These are not our finest hours, America. #shooting
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Also, what the hell happens when we all have guns to stop other people with guns who think they can take advantage of you because you don't have a gun, but you do, so you shoot them, they shoot you, and then Canada can just "come on down", laugh at us because we're stupendous idiots...trapped in our caves with our guns and canned spam, ready to shoot any damnable thing that moves, until we de-evolutionize ourselves and have to learn how to walk and talk again. "Me have fire stick. Me want meat. Me use fire stick take meat. Where me get shoes?"
This, apparently, is where we're headed. #shooting
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@misslinda: Yes, I agree. Just seems like without even trying we'll be back in the wild west or the primordial sludge where rational thinking goes completely out the window and all that's left is kill or be killed due to constant fear mongering and the ease of which any absolute psychopath or mother of two can procure a loaded weapon. "Milk, bread, eggs, Glock 9mm, cheese, Oreos for Billy...." #shooting
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Not to take away from an important debate, but I believe there have been some very, very late nights when those exact words have crossed my lips. #shooting
11/10/09
They had just declared war against Britain at the time--of COURSE they'd sneak in there something about the God-given right of ordinary Americans to bear arms.
Am not a constitutional scholar, and you seem to be more schooled than I am on these matters. Somehow, I agree that, barring some catastrophic reversal of fortunes, guns will never, ever be outlawed in the US--as a matter of principle. It hasn't much to do with logic at this point, but more with tradition and national character. #shooting
11/10/09
Or have they somehow convinced themselves that this is all the fault of Kenya? #shooting
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I'm not making light of this incident, and we really have nothing to go on as of yet, but like someone said down-thread, general civil unrest does seem right around the corner and it doesn't help the situation that national leaders, LEADERS, are saying spurious shit about what's really going on and thereby frightening people unnecessarily. #shooting
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I'm not interested in debating it, really, just adding my two cents.
I will say this, the NRA is a terrible organization that does more harm than good and is not interested in reasonable responsible ownership. I will never be a member.
Oh, and 'constitution, constitution, constitution'. #shooting
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Didn't think so. #shooting
11/10/09
1. what would happen if all guns were outlawed in the US?
2. do you want to live in a country like that?
@QueenCeleste: I have no problem with restricting some types of guns. What types and how much restriction is an arbitrary line not worth hashing out on a post so lets just say restrictions are certainly OK. #shooting
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2) I already do. #shooting
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I, for one, would just be happy if we enforced the damn laws already on the books without any exceptions. #shooting
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Also, look up your own laws, hunting rifles abound in France, especially in the Aveyron, which I frequently visit. And despite your own tightening of gun laws in 1995, black market guns and the associated crimes have been steadily increasing in the bad arondissments. #shooting
11/11/09
If one ignores Washington DC and the US cities that are larger than
Canadian cities, the murder rates in the US are not much higher than
Canadian homicide rates. What do those cities have in common? Really restrictive gun laws. NYC has a zero firearms policy and yet firearm murders abound. Our current gun policy does not work. I won't argue about training or class restrictions, I have no problem with that.
And I am far more frightened of a state where only the police have guns than being shot by a whacko who busts into my office armed to the teeth. #shooting
11/11/09
By the way, your assertions are incorrect. The annual murder rate for King County, Washington, for instance (ie Greater Seattle) is larger than the murder rate for Canada, just to give you one example. #shooting
11/11/09
By the way, we also appear to be better at math than you people. #shooting
11/07/09
11/07/09
Anti-Obama folks hoarding guns and ammo and showing up at rallies with assault rifles? Now this?
Also, everything points to this guy being a known problem who was shuffled around by his supervisors. When he should have been kicked out of the military to begin with.
Good lord. What a mess. #nidalmalikhasan
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To me, I'm bored senseless by the "why" of the nihilistic disregard for human life displayed by all these fuckers, the absolute narcissism of thinking your "reasons" trump anyone else's right to continue living. Fuck no.
Muhammad told you to kill your fellow soldiers? Fuck him. Jesus wanted you to invade a country and take out a few hundred thousand civilians? Fuck him. Lord Krishna order you to torch that mosque and take back your temple? Fuck him and fuck your temple. Fuck your mosque, your church, your synagogue, your scripture, your holy places and your heritage. Fuck your cause.
Because if this is the service your God asks of you, your God is an asshole.
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That's not at all what she's doing. If killing isn't a service your god asks of you then your god isn't an asshole!
But, arguably, it's not your god but you whose the asshole in that equation, right? So god's off the hook! Unless even the good gods are as much a projection of their believers as the bad ones--something that does go toward understanding the complexities of religious affiliation, but not one that the religiously affiliated would appreciate. Too bad. #nidalmalikhasan
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And I concur. #nidalmalikhasan
11/06/09
Hmmmm....how about man made god long ago out of ignorance and fear?? #nidalmalikhasan
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It's bullshit like this that makes embarrassed to be an atheist, sometimes. But then, there are short-sighted nitwits in every group that reflect badly on the whole, amirite?
Anyway, the serious point to make is, it's monumentally stupid to boil down something like this to simple religion. It's never that simple. The foulest thing about this whole mess is that no one will learn from it. Islamic nationalism / militarism has little to nothing to do with Islam, and everything to do with elements of regional cultures violently resisting western encroachment. The idea of a global network of religious extremist only kind of came into reality after 9/11, when the Bush Administration became the proverbial bull in the china shop of the Middle East. The seeds of it were sewn long before that, in Cold War politicking and CIA meddling, in the side effects of American economic imperialism. This is all international politics.
"Al Qaeda" didn't spring from whole cloth. They were a locally-focused group who, after failing as a popular movement (fancy that, a bunch of devout muslims not deciding democratically to submit to ultraconservatives!) decided they'd use violence against their regional states, and ultimately came to the (probably accurate) conclusion that they would never come to power with Western nations involved in local events.
But the point is, it's kind of ridiculous and typical of lazy atheists to think that a person just picks up a holy book and becomes a violent warrior of faith. Yes, there is history behind it. Yes, there is sociology behind it. There's got to be an explanation why there are some muslims who never murder anyone and some who have the desire to murder everyone. It's grotesque and dishonest to paint them with the same brush.
What if we find out that this particular murderer was not part of a terrorist cell, but acted on his own spontaneously? It would make more sense to assume that there was something about his job, something about the war that pushed him irrevocably to the edge. But that's too difficult to think about, isn't it? Best to just sever that Gordian Knot. What's the worst that can happen? Yeah, fuck this nebulously defined group of astounding breadth. Punk rock!
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For the record, my problem with religions has everything to do with their hijackers, the fundamentalists, who use these dogmas for their own selfish, narcissistic purposes. I think most people in all religions couldn't really give a shit, go through the motions and are embarrassed by their co-religionists' misuse of their various dogmas.
And I reiterate my opinion that anyone who undertakes the murder of unsuspecting, unarmed people really doesn't have an excuse grounded in any wothwhile philosophical or metaphysical paradigm because it is, by definition, an act of insanity. To me, Charles Whitman, Tim McVeigh and this prick have nothing to say to me because they're all just nuts.
But again, I'm not here to harsh on anyone who gets off on feeling intellectually superior to me. It's the least I can do, right? #nidalmalikhasan
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