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Maybe we shouldn't hire mercenaries and let them run around war zones shooting civilians.

Maybe we shouldn't randomly abduct people, take them to countries with "vague" legal systems, and torture them in secret prisons.

Maybe we should listen to the ranks of Army interrogators that shun "intense" interrogation methods and have first-hand success with "soft" interrogation methods.

Maybe we shouldn't condemn other countries for human rights violations and then operate the same way they do.

It just baffles me that you want to protect our way of life by throwing it away.

posted 2 years, 10 months ago
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@jacob

Haha, wow.  OK.

First, worrying about how to comfort victims is an appeal to emotion.  Which is exactly the thing that creates so many unenforceable-at-best laws in this country.

Second, the burden is not on me.  The burden is on you.  You are the one that wants to take our rights and privacy away.  History does not look kindly on those who to take away rights and privacy in the name of security.

But, if you want some suggestions...

Maybe we shouldn't have let the CIA act with impunity to use bin Laden in that little Afghanistan proxy conflict with the Red Menace.  Hey, the threat of global annihilation was "real," so we needed to do whatever it took to keep America secure right?

Maybe we should have skipped the whole Iraq adventure and used that money to build up Afghanistan this time instead of just leaving it to languish like we did in the 80's.

Maybe we should stop using drones.  Anyone we kill with them can be easily replaced...especially when hand them propaganda by killing civilians with the same drones.

Maybe we shouldn't have walked into Iraq with complete arrogance and allowed the violence to get away from us to the tune of 97,000 documented civilian deaths.

Maybe we should stop thinking about foreign policy with the same short-sighted quarter-to-quarter-profit thinking that subverted our economy.

Maybe we should look at Israel and see what 60 years of hardline, no-compromise thinking gets you.

Maybe troops overseas should get out of their APCs and live among the people, protect them.  Maybe we should use that as a model for intelligence collection instead of the CIA's model.

Maybe we should consider disbanding the CIA, an organization with verifiably accurate books dedicated to their list of failures that border on war crimes at best.  An organization that, conveniently, is allowed to keep its successes (if there are any) secret.

posted 2 years, 10 months ago
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@jacob

Because I'm feeling punchy today I keep going around with you.

Yes, terrorists go for the big bang.  People like you always point that out.  Blowing up 200 people in a security line at the airport would be pretty easy (there's no security at the front door, is there?) and it would do some serious psychological damage to people like you that think security lines are necessary.

That's totally besides the point, though.  The point, again, is that no matter how hard you crack down; no matter how many rights you revoke; no matter how much privacy you invade; no matter how much profiling you do...  There is always an easy way around it and only the innocent suffer.

You are looking at the problem with a typical lack of creativity.

posted 2 years, 10 months ago
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@jacob

It is a red herring.  Even if suicide bombing was a daily threat in the US, it would be a red herring.  You do not achieve anything by throwing out the rights of the people.

And you didn't answer my question about blowing up people in a security line and you did not answer scottmill's suggestion above of someone blowing up a Regal Cinemas.

I can sit here all day and think of very easy ways to kill hundreds, thousands even, of people that are easy to implement.  And THAT is the point.  THAT is why suicide bombers are a red herring.  You can't solve anything with security (theatre) and privacy invasion.  There is always a way around it and only the innocent suffer under it.

posted 2 years, 10 months ago
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The Constitution doesn't deal with the suicide bomber because the suicide bomber is a red herring.  60 years ago people like you were screaming at the tops of their lungs that the Constitution was getting in the way of protecting us from the Red Menace.  Heroes like McCarthy were going to save us from Communism.

It's funny how you dismiss all of the white terrorists in your previous post despite a growing number of Americans traveling to Afghanistan in an attempt to train with Al Qaeda, Americans caught supporting Al Qaeda, and Al Qaeda launching an English magazine to actively recruit English-speaking white people.

What are you going to suggest we do when a white guy walks into one of your lauded security lines, blows himself up, and kills 200 innocent people waiting to be probed and profiled?  What then?  Do we just stop air travel because it is too unsafe?  Do we just throw the Constitution out and let the government keep annual background checks on everyone and only let government-approved people on planes?

Where do you draw the line between (perceived) safety and freedom?

They killed 3,000 people on 9/11.  That same year, 30,000-40,000 people died in car accidents in the US.  There were 16,000 murders (excluding 9/11) and 91,000 rapes.

Your family was more safe on a plane on 9/11 then they were driving to the airport or walking down the street at night.

And, yes, I would rather my family die because a terrorist detonated a nuke in Portland than live my life worrying about the possibility and throwing away all my freedoms to give myself even (a laughably unrealistic) 100% chance of it not happening.

posted 2 years, 10 months ago
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Yeah, there always will be people beyond reason.

You know, it's depressing to think that we can only work to reduce genocide because a utopia is impossible.

But, the idea that genocide would be possible even in a utopia...  That's depressing on a whole new level.

posted 3 years, 1 month ago
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Germany certainly was not as bad off as Rawanda.  But, Hitler's rhetoric was far stronger than anything we have ever heard in this country from a presidential candidate, and the people were receptive to it because, in their frame of reference, they were pretty desperate.

Jeez, we have a correction in our economy and we are already elevating Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin to Best Sellers because we feel "desperate".

posted 3 years, 1 month ago
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@ Sylvia

Everything I have read, especially "The Nazi Doctors", has painted a picture of Germany that should make talking about the subject pretty easy.

The German people were, overall, good people in a really bad situation, and they were, in no way, uniformly blind followers of Hitler...even those in the military.

You have to remember that, after World War I, the US and Britain imposed extremely harsh sanctions that made it hard for Germany to recover economically.  So, there were reasons other than killing Jews for joining the military.

If you approach from that direction...a direction of: "Tell me about your life." instead of "Why did Dad join the Nazis?"...your relatives will probably be much more open and you might get some amazing insight.

posted 3 years, 1 month ago
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In the case of Rawanda, I think so.

In the case of Germany, it is not that clear.  German citizens were not made aware of the eugenics program at first.  Family members of the mentally ill, for instance, were just told that their relative was transferred to a special hospital for "new and special" treatment.  The family would receive a death certificate a short while later with some benign sounding cause of death.  People started putting 2 and 2 together with the help of physicians that started speaking openly against the program.

That program attempted to operate in relative secrecy, but with a sense of propriety and due process by setting up (literal) death panels of expert physicians that "assessed" the patients and decided whether or not to kill them.

So, that was very different from flat out mob slaughter.

posted 3 years, 1 month ago
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Well, not that we will stop hating each other, but we will be far less likely to carry that hate to the next level.

Think of the bogus Tea Party people of today versus the people that actually carried out the American Revolution.  Or racists today versus the KKK that used to be able to operate outside the law and, thus, without consequence.

People whine and complain, but no one is really going to overthrow the government, or start murdering black people, Republicans, and/or Democrats on a large scale.

...if conditions ever changed enough, though...  Well, the US is not special, we are just as capable of genocide here as anyone else.

posted 3 years, 1 month ago
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No, and fear is a very incomplete explanation.

Physicians involved in the German eugenics program (a domestic health program separate from The Holocaust) that murdered the mentally ill and other lives undeserving of life, adults and children, were neither uneducated nor fearful.

Their actions were very authoritative and based in, what they convinced themselves to be, very sound medical science.

posted 3 years, 1 month ago
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What would it take for ethnic-based killing to never happen again?

Everyone would have to have everything they would ever need; economies would have to be perpetually stable; we would have to figure out a way to run our world on completely renewable, cheap, abundant energy; nationalism and cultural/religious identities would have to go away...etc...etc...etc...

Basically, it is not going away.

We would have a better chance of reducing it, though, if people would stop the constant drum beat of Holocaust reminders and the "Never Again" rhetoric, and started working to raise the overall standard of living in the world.

When people have something to lose, they are less likely to be so extreme.

posted 3 years, 1 month ago
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I guess I have just heard too many of these stories (and I am only 31).  That cyclical drumbeat that the latest generation of kids is being ruined by this, that or the other.

...yet, every generation grows up, is productive, and life carries on.

posted 3 years, 1 month ago
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Seriously?  We are having a "these kids these days!" conversation?

posted 3 years, 1 month ago
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Steve,

Glad things are working well for you.

So, I was always under the impression that methadone was more of a way to taper off and remove the heroin addiction.

Are you saying that the damage done by heroin is permanent so that methadone is a dependency in the same way levothyroxine is a dependency for people that have had their thyroids removed?

Or, is the length of time MMT is required proportional the heroin usage?  For instance, if someone were lucky enough to get on MMT after maybe a couple of weeks of using every other day, would they only need a year of MMT?  (numbers are completely arbitrary)

Or, is just totally dependent on the person?

posted 3 years, 1 month ago
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@ mac0164

Regardless of how I handled the situation, it does not change the fact that I have encountered many people with, at best, blasé attitudes about firearms.  It stands to reason that I have not encountered the last of these people, and so I will never trust a stranger walking down the street with a gun on his hip.

I actually regret saying earlier that I would be OK running into another hunter.  After going back over all my experiences at ranges, and even knowing some hunters, I would probably be extremely cautious at best.

Anyway, I am glad your club is safety conscious.  Then again, everybody thinks their club is safety conscious, and safety is not the only issue anyway.  It is that blasé attitude as well.  Those are people that would open-carry if they could with very little consideration beyond following the letter of the law.

So, long story short: I do not know you, and I do not want to be around you and your gun in a Starbucks.  I will leave, that's fine.  But, it amazes me that people in this forum are calling other people ignorant for being suspicious, concerned, afraid of open-carriers.

posted 3 years, 1 month ago
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@ GoDawgs

Background checks do not mean anything.  There have been eight background checks on me for the eight handguns, rifles, and shotguns I have bought.  However, those have zero relevance in my everyday life.  They are recreational/collector's items only and I do not keep ammunition in my home.

Further, how many of those people already had guns?  How many of those people are actively carrying their guns in their everyday life?  How many people keep them in gun safes rendering them nearly worthless as home protection tools? How many of those people actually kept their purchases after realizing they were just caught up in the stupid gun buying bonanza after Obama was elected?

Yes, the US has 90 guns per 100 people.  That statistic is essentially meaningless.  Guns are not the everyday tools they used to be.

I would actually suggest that both sides have it wrong.  Guns have very little long-term effect on crime compared to the general economic and standard of living conditions in the country.  And, even in our current state, the probability of encountering a situation where a gun would actually be helpful is pretty close to zero.

But, besides all that, since a person open-carrying agitates the crap out of me (and I'm not the only one apparently), the Heinlein quote is bunk.  That is not the basis of a polite society.

posted 3 years, 1 month ago
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What has changed is the culture and people..the quality of people pouring into the country. The celebration and promotion of violence by the media lay at the root.  I know it is not PC to say this, but I can only suggest the reader look up the incidence of violent crime by race and percentages within the population.

I figured open racism would enter the conversation eventually.  I was almost starting to think it would not happen.

Have you ever read about the late 1800's and early 1900's?  Do you know what people were saying about crime back then?  They were saying: "Everything was fine until these chinks, micks, and wops started pouring into the country.  The quality of people is just going down the toilet."

It's not that it isn't politically correct for you to infer that "low quality races" are to blame for crime, it's just stupid and wrong.

But, just for fun, I will call you out and give you the statistics you suggested I check...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_and_crime_in_the_United_States

Murder & Non-negligible Homicide in 2008:

• White: 32.8%
• Black: 36.5%
• Unknown: 29.0%

Non-Lethal Violent Crime in 2008:

• White: 65.2% of rapes, 41.7% of robberies, 63.3% of aggravated assaults, 58.3% total.
• Black: 32.2% of rapes, 56.7% of robberies, 34.2% of aggravated assaults, 39.4% total.
• The rest are negligible.

Yeah, so I guess we need to stop those low quality white people from pouring into the country.

Oh, and with a whopping ~0.5% chance of being a victim of one of those crimes, I still fail to see how open-carry is necessary.

posted 3 years, 1 month ago
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@ igot it

I've posted over and over again that I have plenty of experience with handguns, rifles, and shotguns.  I used to shoot skeet, I own authentic WWII firearms, I regularly practiced handgun shooting before moving here, I have taken safety courses, and I have been around plenty of gun owners.

All of that experience has taught me one thing: do not trust a person with a gun.

I do not know you, I do not know your experience with guns...specifically the one you are carrying, I do not know your level of marksmanship, I do not know how emotionally stable you are, I do not know what you consider a threat to you or your family, in short: I do not trust you with a gun.  Period.

Do you trust people on the road?  More training is required to drive a car than to own a gun and both are deadly weapons.  I guarantee you drive under the assumption that others on the road have no idea what they are doing.  That's defensive driving, it is good practice.  Yet, you claim it is ignorance for people to be suspicious of other people carrying guns.

In fact, it is ironic that people like you claim you carry guns for safety.  You have an overblown fear of that 0.5% chance you might be a victim of a violent crime and then have the audacity to tell someone she is ignorant for being afraid of some random guy walking around with a gun on his hip.

posted 3 years, 1 month ago
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@ Penny and PROZACME

These were not gang members.  They were punk college students from the University of Florida showing off their guns to their girlfriends.  By "punk", I just mean stupid.

I have only been to one range in Portland, and I was the only person on the range at the time, so I cannot really comment about gun manners here.

But, my point is that for every person that is well trained in guns and goes around advocating that anyone should be able to open-carry a gun, I can produce 10 complete morons that I would not trust with a toaster let alone a hand gun...or, love of whatever you believe in, a .50 caliber sniper rifle.  ...they will all be from Florida, but that is inconsequential.

posted 3 years, 1 month ago
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