Why the Left Need Guns

I think it must be such a cultural difference between here and the US, over here the majority of the police force aren't even armed.

I just think about how many more gun deaths you would be looking at in the US if the left starting arming themselves, suicides, domestic violence, stupid drunken fights etc... It's a really bad idea IMO.
 
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ledboots said:
Assuming that people (in the US of course!) don't want black people to have guns.
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I'd go out on a limb here and suggest that I also am pretty convinced that most "white" people in the us feel more insecure about "brown" people having guns than themselves having them...
 
A Black person with a gun is viewed differently than a white person with a gun. John Crawford was walking around a Wal-Mart with a pellet gun that he took off the shelf. In a state where it's completely legal to openly carry a real gun, police shot him dead on sight.
 
ledboots said:
And what "danger" are forum members here in that I "made fun of"? I know you love piling on those with differing views, so I believe you when you say you want me to stay.
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I didn't say that forum members are in danger (although some are). I said that some forum members are very much outraged about the danger other people are being put into.

A partial list of the people being put into danger are:

Refugees. They are in immediate danger. In even more immediate danger are those who could take their place in interim arrangements if the refugees who have already been vetted and given visas were allowed to reach safe haven.

Undocumented immigrants. There's a big roundup that is planned - 8 million to start with.

Black people, from LE, which is being encouraged to be quicker on the draw and "tougher."

Other marginalized groups, including Muslims, brown people, non-cis people, Jews, because among other things, white supremacists believe that dt and his administration have their back.

Non-human animals. The pitifully few protections they have have already seen the beginnings of a rollback.

Pretty much every one else, eventually, because the damage to the environment caused by the rollback can't be reversed.
 
WHOO is that a lot to respond to!

ledboots said:
And what "danger" are forum members here in that I "made fun of"?
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The danger faced by minority groups by this administration should be comically obvious at this point, even to bigots who support those groups being in danger. Like, you either love that the cheeto is hurting the people you don't like, or you're outraged by it. That is, unless you're looking the other way and pretending everything is totally fine, which seems to be what you're doing. Probably the easiest thing to do right now, but certainly not the moral thing to do. Forgive me if I then, as a result, lump you in with the bigots cheering this **** on, because you're doing exactly the amount of good for innocent people as they are. There's not really time for carefully inspecting peoples' motivations and trying to see what they're like "at heart." As the great Diane Nguyen said on the (criminally underrated) show Bojack Horseman: "I don't think I believe in deep down. I kind of think all you are is just the things that you do."

I know you love piling on those with differing views, so I believe you when you say you want me to stay.
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That's the thing, though. I can't speak for Mischief, but I certainly don't like to "pile on" those with "different views." Ideally there would be reasonable discussion and people would come to their senses and nobody would hurt each other or sit by while innocent people were hurt. But that's a naive way to see the world, it's becoming more and more clear to me. If people don't respond to reason, if they insist on ignoring the horrible **** going on around them in favor of a more comfortable narrative, they have to be left behind. They are just going to slow down the people actually trying to get things done. They have to be swiftly shut down and told the truth: their way of thinking gets people killed, and the people trying to save those people are under no obligation to sit down and talk it out with them for possibly even the rest of their lives to try and get them to see the good side of it. Even if they, 'deep down,' don't think they want people to get hurt.
 
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I just read the last three pages of this thread, and now my head hurts.

FortyTwo said:
Also, apparently the government sanctioning things is the only way for action against evil to be justified.

The US didn't sanctify a war with Germany until it was far too late to save more than six million people. If a rogue militia from the US saw the threat of the nazis way early and went and put them down before the Holocaust was allowed to happen, would they also be brave soldiers doing good? Or would they be thugs who wrongfully assaulted someone else for having 'stupid opinions'?

People love to say they would have been on the right side of history when the Holocaust, the Civil Rights movement, slavery, etc. were happening, if only they'd been around to see it. This kumbaya attitude toward literal nazis shows that most of them are lying through their teeth, even if they don't think they are.

Want to be on the right side of history this time around? Want to be one of the people who fought tooth and nail to try and save tons of innocent people who an oppressive government tried to silence, deport, imprison, and murder? Then do it. Here's your chance.
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Actually, there's one instance of people (including Americans) wanting to help stop fascism in the 1930's, before doing so was fashionable. They called themselves the Abraham Lincoln Brigade, and they went to Spain to fight against the fascists in the Spanish Civil War.

XV International Brigade - Wikipedia

The American government condemned them as "premature anti-fascists." Like they were supposed to wait to be told when they were allowed to be anti-fascist.
 
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MOD POST
I closed the thread while I deleted a heap of off-topic posts and edited several others for the same reason. The worst offenders will find that they are banned from the thread. (Yes, we can do that!)

The thread is still a train-wreck, and more posts may still have to be deleted, but I will re-open the thread again now.

Please try to stay on topic this time.
 
My personal opinion: I believe the entire world is being played. I think what could possibly be happening is that factions of the elite are going up against each other in a conflict, the details of which we are unaware of.
They basically see people as an army of pawns, to use at their disposal..

they have sucessfully used economic warfare to divide people into classes, even in countries like America, Australia and New Zealand which started out with an egalitarian philosophy.. no more, it is all about class now and wealth worship, competition ...

also they have divided people sucessfully into Left and Right.. so anytime they want to cause some mayhem, they just rark up the Left, or the Right.. or both..

I wonder if they just want all people at war with each other.. even this morning I was reading on my facebook feed that a friend was commenting in and I realised he had been sucked in by the MRA stuff.. so they want men against women too, Christians against Muslims, the healthy against the ill and disabled.. employed against unemployed... I could go on.

In reality we should be looking at who is ripping us all off. Who is trying to destroy our countries, and our relationships too. Who REALLY has all the guns and weapons...
 
I cant say I am a patriot but I am definitely an anti globalist. I believe in taking in refugees and helping overseas countries, but globalism has been a complete disaster for New Zealand, and it has basically been a giant middle finger to Maori.. they have lost so much since NZ decicded to open its economic gates to the world...

they have lost homes, jobs, livelihoods... the problem with globalism is that it is basically designed for large corporations and ignores the fact that indigenous people have a sovereign right to decide what goes on in their own country...

NZ was doing a lot better when it just manufactured its own goods and ate its own foods...

no it wasnt the richest place but people had rooves over their head and food on the table.. the opposite is the case now.

Anyway that is my view of things. I dont think America can be destroyed as quickly by globalism as NZ has been because it is a lot bigger.. NZ is a tiny little place... but people in America need to have rights.. to grow food in their front yard if they want or keep a water tank, they should be able to oppose chemical companies, or fracking companies.. but the same people who are promoting globalism want all these things as it makes them a lot of money. Breaking down national borders is a great thing for corporations, some of which are as large as countries and kind of wish all restrictions to their activities should go away...

So we need to look at who has the worlds best interests at heart. And it isnt who is in charge of the world right now.
 
Freesia said:
My personal opinion: I believe the entire world is being played. I think what could possibly be happening is that factions of the elite are going up against each other in a conflict, the details of which we are unaware of.
They basically see people as an army of pawns, to use at their disposal..

they have sucessfully used economic warfare to divide people into classes, even in countries like America, Australia and New Zealand which started out with an egalitarian philosophy.. no more, it is all about class now and wealth worship, competition ...

also they have divided people sucessfully into Left and Right.. so anytime they want to cause some mayhem, they just rark up the Left, or the Right.. or both..

I wonder if they just want all people at war with each other.. even this morning I was reading on my facebook feed that a friend was commenting in and I realised he had been sucked in by the MRA stuff.. so they want men against women too, Christians against Muslims, the healthy against the ill and disabled.. employed against unemployed... I could go on.

In reality we should be looking at who is ripping us all off. Who is trying to destroy our countries, and our relationships too. Who REALLY has all the guns and weapons...
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Exactly this.
 
Isnt it obvious? Think of the military industrial complex and the vast arsenal of weapons which is contained within.. it isnt some redneck in a truck with a confederate flag waving on it or a hippy man in a tie dyed tshirt who has access to all these weapons, and either are they causing all the wars.
 
Think Lockheed Martin, Darpa, Serco, G4S as a few examples of what is behind the bad stuff which is happening right now.
 
Well, no, I don't buy into all of the problems being part of some huge conspiracy by the military/industrial complex.

First of all, humans were killing each other and/or at loggerheads over territory, religion, ethnicity, tribe, class, property, etc. long before the manufacture and sale of weapons ever became a business. We're just continuing a long and storied history of people hating on each other for whatever reason they can come up with.

Secondly, power and money go hand in hand. Other than ideologues, people generally want power in order to gain wealth, and to some extent vice versa.

The percentage of various countries' GDP spent on military stuff is just not that large. The Biggest Military Budgets As A Percentage Of GDP [Infographic]

If the military/industrial complex was really controlling the world, one would expect them to be much more financially successful than they in fact are. Look at the chart here Economy of the United States - Wikipedia (sorry, it's U.S.- centric, but the U.S. is a considerable producer of weapons.)

Then let's look at the 500 wealthiest people in the world and the sources of their wealth: Forbes Billionaires: Full List Of The 500 Richest People In The World 2016

The way to become really, really rich is not by participating in the military/industrial complex. If the people who are part of the military/industrial complex really control the world, it beats me what their motivation might be, since it's certainly not money.
 
It is not a conspiracy, it is a massive imbalance of wealth and power.

Think about the elite and how much money they have, and how much military power they have, and think about how much the average person in the West has... even more of an imbalance for a person in a Third World Country.

"Basically the top 10% of people are SO MUCH RICHER than “Rich People,” not to mention all the rest of us. The richest people can't even fit on the graph. (below)"
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distribution-of-wealth1.jpg


Mother Jones:

outofbalance.jpg

So yeah, not a conspiracy, people who have this kind of wealth are ruling over us all, and "claim" to understand our problems... they pump out corporate media releases 24/7 and tell us what they want us to believe. I would have thought this was pretty mainstream thinking as opposed to "conspiracy".

Also the graphs are a conservative estimate, nobody knows how much wealth these people actually have because they often hide it in tax havens.

They pay pretty much no tax, can live anywhere in the world because money can buy "investment visas" anywhere.... so unlike us, their passports are just a formality... dont do jail time for their crimes (even serious ones) ..

can afford the best healthcare, education, housing, food and goods, and live in a parallel world to the person walking the streets. That is the huge imbalance I speak of.
 
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I don't disagree about the distribution of wealth - it's obscene. I'm just saying it's not the military/industrial complex; that's not the source of the wealth. It's just another tool of the wealthy.
 
And in terms of military power, I listed the top corporations that are involved in the military industrial complex.. they have websites which anyone can check out... many of them pump out lots of weapons, some of them run jails and concentration camps... just pure evil, they have vast funds and you have to ask who is giving them the money...

certainly in NZ we hosted the Lockheed Martin war weapons conference last year and many protesters were arrested trying to stop the conference... quite a brutal arrest they suffered too as the police were more interested in protecting the purveyors of mass murder weapons than the local people who did not want Lockheed Martin in New Zealand... anyway that is just one example.
 
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