A talk on Sharia law and human rights was about to begin at Queen Mary, University London, when someone made an announcement.
Five minutes before the talk was due to start a man burst into the room holding a camera phone and for some seconds stood filming the faces of all those in the room. He shouted ‘listen up all of you, I am recording this, I have your faces on film now, and I know where some of you live’, at that moment he aggressively pushed the phone in someone’s face and then said ‘and if I hear that anything is said against the holy Prophet Muhammad, I will hunt you down.’ He then left the room and two members of the audience applauded.
The same man then began filming the faces of Society members in the foyer and threatening to hunt them down if anything was said about Muhammad, he added that he knew where they lived and would murder them and their families. On leaving the building, he joined a large group of men, seemingly there to support him. We were told by security to stay in the Lecture Theatre for our own safety. On arriving back in the room I became aware that the doors that opened to the outside were still open and that people were still coming in. Several eye witnesses reported that when I was in the foyer a group of men came through the open doors, causing a disruption and making it clear that the room could not be secured. Unfortunately, the lack of security in the lecture theatre meant we and the audience had to leave and a Union representative informed the security that as students’ lives had been threatened there was no way that the talk could go ahead.
This event was supposed to be an opportunity for people of different religions and perspectives to debate, at a university that is supposed to be a beacon of free speech and debate. Only two complaints had been made to the Union prior to the event, and the majority of the Muslim students at the event were incredibly supportive of it going ahead. These threats were an aggressive assault on freedom of speech and the fact that they led to the cancellation of our talk was severely disappointing for all of the religious and non-religious students in the room who wanted to engage in debate.
Guess what? Cowardly extortion works! The talk was cancelled.
I guess we’re not supposed to say anything against holy Prophet Muhammad, but he didn’t say we couldn’t talk about his benighted followers. So…fuck you, rabid Islamicists. I hope people in the audience snapped open their phones and got pictures of angry ranty threatening guy and his followers, and that the police will be giving them a few lessons in the rule of law and how to live in a civil society real soon.
This was exactly my (outraged) thought
“Holy Prophet Muhammad Batman, what jerks!”
There’s more on Namazie’s blog:
http://freethoughtblogs.com/maryamnamazie/2012/01/17/you-can-expect-threats-if-you-discuss-sharia/
And another ‘real gem’ in her comments:
*headdesk*
Religion of peace my arse. Religion of self-righteous violence and bollocks, more like.
Rog
Many of these people are not cowards who will back down if confronted. They’re fanatics who are willing to kill and die for their mythology.
If someone was close enough to me to push a phone “in my face”, I would treat it as an assault and defend myself.
So, Walton, assuming the guy didn’t explicitly threaten violence, does your free-speech absolutism extend to him?
“I will hunt you down and give you a box of chocolates.”
That’s what he really meant.
Sharia law is for wife beaters and child molesters.
Wow,
Such an empty feeling reading shit like this in the morning.
If it’s not a women enrolling in college and having her hand copped off by her husband. It’s the threat of violence for speech and ideas.
Violence to the sound of god is great makes my stomach turn.
“and that the police will be giving them a few lessons in the rule of law and how to live in a civil society real soon.”
Lets not be holding our breath now.
Cell phone jihad! What a sad little man he must be, to threaten people’s lives if they dare to say anything bad about someone who has been dead for a 1500 years or so. Do you see this man, believers? This is what real “militants” look like. Amend your dictionary of epitaphs promptly.
In other words: “Let’s give this Muslim saying he will hunt people down for trash-talking Mohammed the benefit of the doubt, because we all know that Muslims are so violent that they will clearly state when they are going to hunt people down”. I just don’t understand how they manage to dismiss this fellow while simultaneously buying the “all Muslims are so violent!” meme. Brains aren’t supposed to be performing these kinds of gymnastics!
Right. Because it’s impossible for a Muslim to be wary of laws concerning uttering threats. The maroon goes on to say that he was outside having a smoke when he overheard the individual in question talking to others outside:
What is it about the atheist community that attracts these dolts?
Well that shows them. Imagine if anyone had actually claimed that Islamists use violence to suppress freedom and prevent peace.
Now no one needs to say it, the terrorist proved it.
Glen Davidson
Sorry, but people should have piled on him and beat the shit out of him.
The correct response to this statement is “Muhammad is a pedophile”, but he (the crazy islamist) may not think it is a bad thing.
Pteryxx, quoting a dumbass: “I was there and witnessed the whole thing. The part about hunting down is true. But the individual made no reference to violence or killing.”
Why does this remind me of elevators and coffee?
On a related note, Rhys Morgan had to back down in face of threats about the image too.
He had posted the J&M pic – the one that ’caused’ the talk at ULC – on his own website to show support. An unnamed muslim demanded he take it down, and when Rhys didn’t comply, posted the image on his own facebook page!!!
Results: Rhys alleges that he was openly threatened in school with promises of egregious violence. So the school made him take down the image; as far as I gather under threat of expulsion. Beautiful: Aiding and abetting vitriolic intolerance under the guise of peace. I can’t eat nearly as much as I want to puke.
One can argue that a school is the wrong place for such a fight – but really, what are the students learning from this? Today’s lesson: If someone does something you don’t like, bully them into silence. As long as you are many, the school will support you.
And Rhys’ lesson: Don’t stand for your ideals. Always back down. Tiptoe around idiots. Let stupid win.
If the cameraphone-wielding Muslim is reading this, I would like to take this opportunity to say that Mohammed the prophet was a douchebag.
It’s a pity no-one asked him which Mohammed he was talking about, like
“do you mean the one who works in my local Indian takeaway or the one that raped a 9-year old girl” (piss be upon him)?
As is Biblical law. Just to be fair and balanced.
For extra fairness and balancedness: Unholy Mohammed (pea-brain up in him) was a shit-stain of a human being who sucked the dick of his magical horse and called the ejaculate “divine revelation”. Mohammed wore a coat made out of the skin of every third person he met and drank the blood of young virgins in order to keep his hair silky for another three weeks. Mohammed invented the Cleveland Steamer and was famous as a teenager for being the most likely to set the village on fire, for the lulz. Mohammed once punched a toddler just to show that he could. Mohammed was once bitten by a rabid Christian and would transform into a Christian during every night with a waning gibbous moon. And, finally, Mohammed faked his death so that he could avoid paying off his gambling debts, while actually dying a full month later, when he exploded due to putting too many incendiary objects up his rectum. The consensus of the time was that he would not be missed.
For accuracy rephrase to “Muhammad had sex with a prepubescent”
Issues
a) Pedophile is a sexual orientation. Given the rest of Muhammad’s sexploits it might be inaccurate or arguable to say that he was a Pedophilic. Especially since IIRC the marriage was an arrangement for political gain (like all of them)
b) Not all molesters are pedophiles
c) Not all pedophiles are molesters and they seem to have avenues of aid cut off due to the presumption that they are.
d) Corrects for cultural bias and time by stating a fact not a judgment
e) You have the same weasel way out by pointing out you just stated a fact, not passed a judgment.
One thing we can judge Muhammad on. Fucker did a shitty job at setting up rules for succession.
Islam is so weak and pathetic that it can’t handle any criticism.
This is just terrorism.
I do hope the cops pick these terrorists up and charge them. Religious fanatics aren’t too coherent and don’t understand things like laws and human rights. But some of them understand being locked up in prison for a while.
They need to make an effort. If terrorists get away with it once, they will do it again. And again.
The trick with the camera and cell phone was clever. But it works both ways. It would have been great to have the whole incidence videotaped and the terrorists photos taken. For the Youtube video and a few websites. As well of course, for law enforcement.
If he tried that with me his phone would be sent sailing over my head and behind me in a good, fast arc.
What’s really annoying is that everyone else is now going to have to put up with a load of crappy racism from the white supremicists.
I hope there is a serious backlash from the muslim community and students who were there. These people need to be found. They are clearly dangerous.
Oh brother, wait until Pat Condell posts a video about THIS.
The better approach would probably have been to interpret the act ad hoc as a threat of a terroristic act. The it would have been sensible to politely ask the guy friendly and firmly (i.e. without breaking too many bones) to stay until the police arrive and then to press charges according to the local law on terroristic acts…
Intellectual cowardice would be a better label.
*Internet soapbox*
The ever-so-holy Prophet Muhammad/Mohammed sucks cocks in hell.
So…Mr. Toughguy, want to come hunt me down? I don’t live in the UK, but it’s really just a quick jump across the channel. I’m waiting…
Ah just what we need to make the problem worse and make the victims appear unsympathetic.
Or taken his phone and erased the pics/videos.
BTW, this was Moslem fundies in the UK.
Don’t think something like this can’t happen here in the USA.
Here it will be xian fundies, most likely and at atheist meetings and events.
If I was an organizer of anything that would attract xian terrorists, comprehensive security would be a priority. At the least a trained group of camera weilding, videotape camera weilding people.
As US xianity declines, the ones left will be the hard core, ignorant, dumb, crazy, and filled to the brim with hatred. I wouldn’t be surprised if they start getting more violent. Just look at what happened to a 15 year girl in Rhode Island.
This story reminds me of when I was first in university in the US back in the late 1970’s. Our school emphasised engineering, and about 7% of the students were Iranian.
About a year after the Iranian ‘revolution’, there was a big campus rally that devolved into a confrontation between the anti-Khomeini students (who were more numerous) and the pro-Khomeini ones (fewer but crazy). The police eventally sent everyone away. However, after the rally some of the pro-Khomeinis came to visit my anti-Khomeini neighbours two doors down from my apartment. With weapons.
At least one of my neighbours was stabbed and serious injured. There was blood all over the place outside my apartment, and a bunch of the students apparently got deported.
Anyway, when Islamists threaten to ‘hunt you down’, you should believe them and turn the matter over to the police, although to be honest kicking their asses then and there would be tempting (although probably counterproductive).
Fucking whiny babies.
I am disappointed that nobody saw fit to detain the individual under a citizen’s arrest, as his actions would seem to constitute a public order offence. At the very least snatching his phone from him and retaining it until the police arrived might well have kept him put.
I doubt very much that the argument that “hunting down” could be taken to be innocuous would hold much water in court.
They really need to hunt these terrorists down.
Death threats and depriving or attempting to deprive people of their civil rights are serious crimes in the USA. They are felonies with maximum 5 and 10 year sentences.
There are a lot of people in prison doing multiyear terms for death threats. Experience has shown that where there are death threats, what often enough follows is a few dead bodies.
Terrorists don’t care about the laws and obeying them. But the brighter among them do understand the concept of being held behind bars.
And give them chocolate bunnies right ;)
Who knows? Those words could mean anything. Literally anything.
Probably not. In this case, the cops sure as hell didn’t assume ‘shoot’ could just as likely have meant ‘with a camera’.
Accepted.
The “prophet” mohammed’s father was a hamster, and his mother smelled of elderberries. I fart in the general direction of mecca.
Well sure. Along with arresting them, trying them, and sentencing them if found guilty. They are entitled to due process.
Deport any of them that are non citizens.
I always wonder why people who hate 21st century modern civilization and democracy choose to live in a modern 21st century democracy. They would be much happier in a medieval hellhole like Afghanistant or Somalia.
In my case, I was born here. It’s the only life I know.
The idea that the person issuing threats wasn’t immediately detained by security makes me feel nauseous.
The reports I read suggest the individual had left the building and joined a group of protesters outside by the time security arrived.
Muhammed was either delusional or a con man.
Under US civil rights laws, it can be a felony to attempt or deprive someone of the free exercize of their civil rights.
In certain cases where someone is seriously injured or killed, the maximum penalty is a death sentence.
This was enacted during the civil rights struggle of the mid 20th century where voting rights and civil rights activists occasionally ended up murdered.
So, this genius essentially turned up to say “don’t you dare say Islam is violent, or I will hunt you down!”
It seems that Mr Braintrust is oblivious to the fact that he is contributing rather more to the image of Islam as a toxic religion than the conference ever could.
One begins to wonder whether banners/sayings/T-shirts proclaiming Islam the ‘religion of peace’ are being waved/spoken/worn ironically…
We Are Ing @ 38;
Chocolate bunnies containing non-Halal and pork-based food additives…
*Cue manic, evil laughter and the dramatic crashing of thunder in the background*
carlie : 46;
May I humbly suggest that this sentence could easily dispose of the ‘either’ and accommodate an ‘and’ instead of an ‘or’…?
:-)
I see 3 proper responses to a gentleman of an Islamic persuasion threatening to “hunt me down” for insulting Mohammed.
1) “Hunt me down and….? Come on big boy, tell me what you’re going to do. Don’t be shy, let the dog see the rabbit. Or let the prophet see the 9 year old girl, whichever you deem more appropriate.”
2) “BWAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHHAAHAHA!”
3) “That’s nice dear, now would you like a cup of tea? No? Then do toddle along, we’ve got a talk to do.”
Louis
P.S. I am a peaceful man, but threaten me and I’ll kick the shit out of you. ;-)
Two thoughts on this in reverse order of when I thought of them
1) Are we sure this guy wasn’t a Poe? It sounds a lot like something that someone from Pam Geller’s group would do.
2) I know it will be unpopular with a lot of folks here but, This sort of thing makes me really glad I own guns. ‘Please Mr. Crazy Fundamentalist, stop by my place any time, be sure to bring lots of friends as I have lots of bullets.”
I was looking on the BBC website for a story on this incident. I was unable to find one. Can anyone else point me to one? (I am asking in case I have missed a prominent story because of my admittedly spotty web searching abilities – and before the top of my head blows off if there is no story).
Googling did not turn up anything, either. (cranial pressure is rising! >:-( )
@Nifty
Source is New Humanist. Link is in OP. Not picked up by BBC. niche story probably.
Lemme guess: you’re one of the responsible gun owners.
Erichoag, if you can stop stroking your penis proxies for a second, here’s why we can never know if it’s a Poe and why it doesn’t fucking matter.
But I like your style: call into question the individual’s intent, and then declare your willingness to execute anyway. Bang, bang!
I’m a responsible gun owner.
The rifles are in a locked cabinet on the main floor and I have no idea where the keys are.
The ammunition is in the basement, somewhere.
Well, the BBC are hardly likely to run a story that paints religion in a bad light, are they?
They always are, or so they tell me.
It’s nice to know religion makes people moral, upstanding individuals, who would never use violence in the name of religion. Between this and the crap going on with that prayer banner, I just have to wonder where the whole “Religious Morality,” comes from.
After all, I’m just an immoral atheist, so what do I know…
“Muhammed was either delusional or a con man.”
Can’t this be said of all proponents of revealed religions? (And the “either” can be viewed as decidedly optional.)
Xian morality comes from the same place it always has.
Hitchens: Xianity lost its best argument when it stopped burning people at the stake.
Xianity has lost the power of the gun, piece of rope, or stack of firewood. A lot of them never got that memo.
Islam isn’t any different, just a whole lot further behind the curve. They can and occasionally do execute people for not following the party line.
It seems pretty common.
We know a lot about some prophets. Joseph Smith, L. Ron Hubbard, and Reverend Sun Myung Moon were (and are, Moon is still alive) pretty shady and dubious characters.
It doesn’t take much to start a new religion. Being a creepy, divorced, Korean excon didn’t seem to hurt the Moonies at all.
Fucking cowardly appeasement-junkies. Orwell was right. Everyone is equal, just that one are more equal than others. The prophet Mo was a sick and twisted little pig fucker when children weren’t available.
platyhelminthe:
Really? How about this one:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-16522447
Or this one:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-derbyshire-16581758
I wonder if anyone actually told him to “be the better person.”
Too effing bad that six people didn’t jump him and hand him, and the parts of his phone, over to the police.
… by the way, what’s with all the references to US laws when this happened in London?
So where does one find cell phones with cameras in the Koran or the Hadith ?
radpumpkin,
What the shit? Many people I know suck cock because they enjoy it, don’t use it as a stand in for punishment.
I know the feeling.
It might have been better if six people stood up with video cameras and starting filming him.
While another six popped flashbulb cameras at him. I’d like to see this guy’s picture plastered on posters all over campus.
A lot of these wannabe terrorists are basically cowards and bullys and don’t react well to being opposed. Or caught. A lot of the time, they fold up into a pile of quivering jello.
It’s not complicated. We in the USA are mostly familiar with US laws and unfamiliar with the UK laws.
The assumption is that, while they aren’t identical they should be similar. They are a democracy with the same problems we have with terrorists.
“Or taken his phone and erased the pics/videos.”
Erase?!!! It should have been stomped into a million pieces and his arrogant muslim ass should have been beaten to a pulp by the audience! You can’t pussyfoot around with these bastards! Didn’t we learn that with the Nazis? It’s time to come down hard and fast!
Allencdexter,
I am all for taking the phone and perp into custody and calling the police, but mob justice is seldom just.
Brownian, I am sorry you feel the need to personally attack and belittle me for excercising my rights.
I will point out one thing to you, I live in a three story walkup with only one way in or out(Short of jumping out a second or third story window). If this, or some other asshole kicks in my door, I can do something about it. You on the other hand can call 911 and hope they get there before you actually die.
And no, it isn’t a Penis substitute, it is a part of my Hurricane kit after what happened during Ike.
And finally, if you don’t like me owning a gun, feel free to drop by and try to take it from me.
Not cool. Not cool at all.
Well sure the authorities need to come down hard and fast. But beating the guy up is just dumb and counterproductive. What if he has a knife or gun?
We employ police and prosecutors for that. And really, they can make some terrorist wannabe a lot more miserable than a mob beating him up. Due process is slower but a lot more severe. If nothing else, the bad publicity will be much greater and last for months and months. And the message will get out, don’t threaten people and don’t deprive them of their civil liberties.
If this guy is a noncitizen, he would likely be deported and banned from ever coming back to the UK.
74: No, the phone should have been taken as state’s evidence. Smashing it into pieces merely would have helped him out, whereas keeping the thing intact and playing back his performance for the benefit of the court would make a conviction pretty much a slam-dunk.
I foresee a new cellphone etiquette emerging for presentations of this nature: “Ladies and gentlemen of the audience, please put your phones on vibrate, and refrain from answering calls. However, you are all encouraged to record as much video of the meeting as your device has capacity.”
Would love to see his face the next time he tries this, with two hundred cell phones aimed right back at him, with the polite request, “Could you repeat yourself please, for the benefit of the court record? Speak into the microphone, right here.”
If only believers would trust their god (and prophets) to fight their own battles.
I believe radpumpkin was referencing the film “The Exorcist”.
I don’t think beating the guy up or erasing the video from his camera would be appropriate. When the Metropolitan police engage in such activities we condemn them for it, and rightly so.
Dhorvath, OM,
Ok, that one went completely over your head, didn’t it? Here’s where that quote is from: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f5-xa3jQ5nc
Do you understand now why I picked that one in particular? It ain’t just a cheap gay insult…
radpumpkin,
So the fact that it was not caught as a movie reference, (and even by someone who has seen that movie more than once,) doesn’t concern you? Harm comes in many guises.
These threats were an aggressive assault on freedom of speech
just in case it hasn’t already been said.
the best word to describe this behavior is:
terrorism.
why in the holy fuck isn’t the UK anti-terrorism force stomping on this shit?
I don’t think beating the guy up or erasing the video from his camera would be appropriate. When the Metropolitan police engage in such activities we condemn them for it, and rightly so.
false comparison.
if the police were directly threatened in such a manner themselves, they have any number of legal powers they can exercise on the spot to deal with the threat.
seriously, what the hell do you think SHOULD happen if you run up to a cop, stick a camera in his face and threaten to hunt him down?
yeah.
me personally, I would have joined with a couple of others, grabbed the guy and held him until security arrived.
sorry, I see no reason at all to put up with terrorism.
Dhorvath, OM,
Nope, not in the least. Now I can snicker mischievously over your clear misunderstanding of the quote, while also having the satisfaction of having made a somewhat clever reference. Unintended trolling atop of reference!
In all seriousness, I thought the reference to The Exorcist would be pretty clear. It was in no way intended as some insinuation that Mo is gay (not that there would be any problem with that!), just a) something disrespectful to the guy’s religious beliefs, b) the notion that his was not the Truth (TM) since Mo is in another deity’s hell, and c) everything being tied together with exorcism – the cleansing of demonic possession.
Yes, legal powers. As in, arresting the guy for making threats, rather than employing physical violence or deleting video from his camera as was suggested by another poster above.
radpumpkin,
It cannot possibly have been a clear reference to people who haven’t seen the movie, it also wasn’t clear to this person who has. Your message is easily lost and rather than being concerned about this you seem content to revel in your cleverness. That is not a good sign.
Also, while the sentiment is disrespectful to many religions, it is also disrespectful to people who like to do that. It could have been the intent in the original line to indicate that the demon wanted to hurt these people, but I doubt it was more than the common misogyny and homophobia of it’s era. Resurrecting an anachronism such as that does you no credit.
erichoug, I don’t really get where the gunfear comes from in this group either, but I assume some of it is a difference in background, culture and location. There are some widely differing cultures even within the same state(in the US) not to mention other people in other countries.
I own a gun, and yes, I am responsible with it. I do not live in a city, but in an area where the nearest neighbor is +1 miles away. I also have a large dog. I have had training with both gun and dog because there are times when my husband is not home for spans of time and I am a realist. I am smaller than men, I have not near as much muscle, and a gun levels the playing field. So does a very large dog. They are both backup systems, much for comparable reasons you suggested above. (And dogs are snuggly).
On subject of post, I think people above have a great idea – everyone who signs up for such a public event should be asked to bring their recording device of choice. Someone starts something, record away! Be prepared to turn the media in to the authorities, and to youtube. This sort of thing needs to be nipped in the bud.
If the ASHS manage to reschedule this talk, with better security, they’ll probably get twice as many attendees and more media interest.
I was a little disappointed in these words from Jenny Bartle, president of the National Federation of Atheist, Humanist and Secular Student Societies: “More and more atheist, humanist and secular student societies are forming on campuses across the UK and we deserve the same levels of respect as any other community.” I wish people would avoid the word “respect” in such contexts, because its double meaning is problematic. I accept someone’s right to believe in this or that religion, you could say I support that right, but I certainly don’t respect them for it. Right now, when Muslims have been threatening student atheist groups, is not the time for an alleged spokesperson for such atheist groups to be using language which can be interpreted as implying that all ideas are equally valid and we should all just hold hands and be friends. Grow a fucking spine, Jenny.
Yes, legal powers. As in, arresting the guy for making threats
and you as a private citizen have what options?
this is why it isn’t a fair comparison.
get it?
On subject of post, I think people above have a great idea – everyone who signs up for such a public event should be asked to bring their recording device of choice.
I’m very happy to see that as a gun owner, you didn’t recommend that everyone should have been armed with guns at the meeting.
I’ve seen it happen dozens of times in threads like this in other places that gun owners suggest that if everyone were armed, this stuff wouldn’t happen. Crazy.
Common??? Are you actually lending credence to the possibility that it’s real? To me those are the only choices (well, maybe “scientific experiment” is in there)
Do you get that the people at this lecture had other options besides assaulting the guy making the threats as another poster suggested? That’s all I’m trying to say and I’m surprised you’re objecting to it.
Do you get that the people at this lecture had other options besides assaulting the guy making the threats as another poster suggested?
yes, i get that, what I’m saying is that your analogy to police is faulty, and nothing less than just taking a dig at misbehaving cops.
do YOU get that?
No, I belittled you for not exercising your brain, idiot.
Of course you are. It’s every gun owner but you that’s the problem.
I mean, what’s the possibility that one or both of you is actually dumber than shit but doesn’t know it? Hell, every dog owner claims they’re responsible, but there’s still dogshit on my lawn.
Here’s the situation: the two of you are barely capable of explaining how to tie shoes. In Eric “Dead-Eye” Hoag’s first post, he, without breaking a stride, expressed that he wasn’t sure this individual was actually making a threat, but then went on to say how happy he’d be to execute him and his friends anyway.
I understand that it’s completely incomprehensible to you that I wouldn’t immediately want to surrender life-or-death-making decisions to Nobel laureates such as yourself, but…
Right after you claim it’s not a cock substitute.
That’s twice you contradicted yourself in the same goddamn post, shit for brains.
Stick to shooting stuff you don’t like, Eric; you’ve lost all ability to make a compelling argument that doesn’t flow from the barrel of a gun.
To the various posters discussing the utility of guns in such a situation:- I would point out that this criminal act was perpetrated in the UK, and our gun laws are rather more strict than those that operate in the US.
I think that raven @ 72 and instrumentjamlord @ 79 had the right idea;
and;
This way the people effected can amass ample evidence of the terrorist-wannabe’s actions such that conviction is pretty much assured. A distinct deterant effect is achieved with no violence required, and thus little credible opportunity for this cretin or his supporters to try to tar the victims of his attack with the brush of islamophobia. It strikes me as the best way to go.
without breaking a stride, expressed that he wasn’t sure this individual was actually making a threat, but then went on to say how happy he’d be to execute him and his friends anyway.
I actually just read the original to which you refer, and now have to retract my earlier statement that slap-happy gun owners suggesting this all could have been avoided if the participants were armed happens in OTHER places.
*sigh*
here’s an hypothesis:
gun owners feel the need to rationalize why they own the gun.
This results in huge leaps of logic like the one exhibited by Eric, and the ones we see so often whenever the issue of guns arises on internet forums.
Stick to shooting stuff you don’t like, Eric;
now, don’t go giving him any ideas!
Hi Ichthyic! No, guns *in public* are really not a good idea. Guns in your place of residence for self defense are another matter, depending on your familiarity, training and background, and contingent on safe behavior.
Interestingly, and not necessarily having anything to do with guns, but -something odd I’ve seen in so many threads recently, here and elsewhere, is the lack of awareness-of-context that so many people seem to argue from. Not just about guns, or feminism, or religion, or frankly anything. People almost seem determined not to realize that context does apply and should have an effect on action.
Rather folks seem to want to pick the most extreme form of X, just so they can argue that all versions of X are bad, because the extreme version is bad, when no-one (but them) was talking about extreme versions of anything.
Is there a word for that by any chance?
Whoah, guys. Definitely not in the “take your guns to a meeting” camp. Sorry if I gave that impression. Recording devices are legal in both the US and the UK, AFAIK. They also aren’t generally fatal if people don’t have training with them.
And somebody obviously needs to be recording these damn thugs disrupting honest academic discussions.
What a bunch of cowards for caving in. And where are the immigration authorities? Even if these terrorists were born in the UK, they should deport them back to the Islamic paradise their parents came from, where no one can insult Islam without getting their head chopped off. If Islam is so wonderful, why do so many Muslims want to emigrate to western democracies, while almost no westerners(with the exception of oil contractors and a few others) want to move to their countries?
The UK needs to do a better job of keeping out fanatics. Now there are so many of them, it’s harder to eradicate their hate-mongering fanaticism. I guarantee you if this kind of thing happened 3 decades ago, he would have gotten his ass kicked for his threats and it would have been justified.
. Guns in your place of residence for self defense are another matter, depending on your familiarity, training and background, and contingent on safe behavior.
too many dependencies for my tastes.
In fact, the data suggests you’re safer without one:
http://aje.oxfordjournals.org/content/160/10/929.abstract
not to mention your risk of suicide should you happen to get overly depressed one day.
Icthyic, I’m a fan of gun control too, but check your statistical inferences better. Showing that someone is more likely to die of homicide while owning a gun does not prove that owning guns make you more likely to die of homicide. A good alternative explanation, for instance, is that the person owned the gun because they lived in a place which has more homicides, for instance.
There are a lot of variables here, and I don’t think the data make for a simple case, but truly responsible gun owners are probably just as safe as the rest of us. Irresponsible gun owners are less safe.
So, are they going to go through with the meeting at another time?
Showing that someone is more likely to die of homicide while owning a gun does not prove that owning guns make you more likely to die of homicide.
actually it does exactly what it says it does.
nothing more, nothing less.
I never used the word “proves”, I specifically use the word “suggests” as in SUPPORTS.
and yes, this is conclusive statistical data, which supports the idea you’re better off without a gun in your house.
Unless you have issues with the way the analysis was done, and I see you don’t, then you haven’t got a leg to stand on.
A good alternative explanation, for instance, is that the person owned the gun because they lived in a place which has more homicides, for instance.
five bucks says you didn’t bother to check the link to see if they controlled for such an easy variable.
It’s an open access paper.
I suggest you actually read it before assuming no variables were controlled for.
Ichthyic: “too many dependencies for my tastes.”
Well, you’re welcome not to own one. And there’s little chance of me taking mine into the public space, so it’s not likely to ever become your problem.
I read the link you gave, and I’m sure its correct. Here’s the thing. Once again its a matter of context. If I am attacked, I happen to believe my odds are better to have that option available to me. I’m an individual with my individual “dependencies”. I grew up in a family where we supplemented our food supplies every winter with wildlife. I have that background, and I have training. I do behave safely, and I will not be doing something as silly as taking a gun to a meeting. If I had close neighbors, I’d likely not have a gun. The dog is not negotiable ;) . So you really don’t need to worry about it, or me. Thank you, though. I do actually appreciate the kind concern.
Now I’m going to stop about the guns as it really wasn’t my intention to derail anything. My apologies to anyone who is annoyed. Sorry.
I’ll second zeekthegeek’s question: Does anyone have any idea if the meeting will be rescheduled?
I happen to believe my odds are better to have that option available to me.
point is, you have no data to support you in your belief.
which of course, is why I posted the study.
people BELIEVE they are safer with a gun than without.
when put to the test, however, time and time again, all relevant studies that are properly controlled show this NOT to be the case.
your belief is FALSE. It’s most likely based on being raised in a culture which has constantly reinforced (by peers, entertainment media, etc.) the idea that you ARE safer with a gun.
more and more I’m finding my rationalization hypothesis to be supported, by people just like yourself.
I personally have nothing against you owning a gun. My problem is with your rationalizations.
Bronze age savages…
They don’t deserve this amazing universe…
What solutions do we have to this problem? Simply put, Islam is not compatible with humanity.
My problem is with your rationalizations.
as an addendum and wrap-up, I could easily see a supportable rationalization for owning a hunting rifle in an area where you can, and do, hunt game for food.
after all, a rifle is certainly more effective for this use than say, a harpoon or a stick.
but, say you’re talking about owning a handgun in the same home.
the same rationalization is hardly supported in that case.
nor is the rationalization that you are personally safer in your home with a handgun present, simply because you grew up hunting game.
That’s better.
For fuck’s fucking sake.
Brownian, Once again it saddens me that you feel it necessary to resort to petty personal attacks. It really undercuts your argument. Now I’m going to undercut mine: I don’t need the gun to sort you out, friend.
As far as the ass clown at this meeting. It doesn’t matter whether he is a poe or not,agreed. The only reason he feels confident in making this threat is because he knows that if him and 6 of his buddies kick in someones door, in England, they won’t get shot. This guy would not be so brave in a country where people own guns. Although ass clowns can be fairly thick, can’t they Brownian.
I have seen all the statistics about Gun ownership and I have heard all of the arguments but it is my option, not yours and frankly, Brownian doesn’t seem really sharp abour convincing people otherwise, so let me give you my story.
Funny thing is I used to would have agreed with Brownian. I was a pacifist and strongly anti-gun for nearly 20 years. I was waning in both convictions when Ike happened. 3:30 In the morning, the Tuesday after Hurricane Ike rolled over Houston, someone bangs on my door. I am home with no power(4 days at this point), no phone(911 came up as busy before my phone stopped working) and no gun. It is frickin dark, 92 degrees and HPD is off chasing looters and helping people in worse shape than me. At that moment, I realized exactly how trivial all my(and your) arguments against gun ownership are. When they knock on your door in the middle of the night, you can hope and pray. But don’t bother telling me that’s my only option.
Vae victis
The UK needs to do a better job of keeping out fanatics.
right, because there’s a shortage of homegrown ones.
you need to rethink your attitudes there, bud.
it has far less to do with immigration, and far more to do with just extremist personalities, which run the gamut.
Or did you forget about that European shooting spree a couple months back?
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/norway/8656143/Norway-At-least-87-killed-in-terror-attacks.html
The man responsible for over 90 deaths?
Anders Behring Breivik, a 32-year-old Norwegian national.
so, tell me again how immigrating Muslim fanatics killed all those people, and that’s why the UK needs to crack down on immigration?
Fanatics are fanatics, and while religion tends to enable such behavior, it’s hardly unique to the Muslim faith.
Ichthyic, my thanks on your input regarding data vs. rationalizations.
Mighten it be more true that the influx of immigrants has fanned the flames of all the extremist type personalities, regardless of their religious persuasion?
Why not? Sounds like it worked.
Brownian, Once again it saddens me that you feel it necessary to resort to petty personal attacks. It really undercuts your argument.
strangely, I found them irrelevant to his argument.
your argument, OTOH, is so poor that personal insults only ADD to it.
In fact, if he hadn’t insulted you, I wouldn’t have even bothered to read your inane, completely unsupported, screed.
I was a pacifist and strongly anti-gun for nearly 20 years.
“I was an atheist for 20 years before I wised up and became a Christian!”
yeah, like we haven’t heard that one before.
pathetic.
Icthyic
I can’t answer for others, but for myself, I own for protection and that’s it.
Yes, if someone breaks in, they can get it and shoot me.
Yes, it is possible that one of my nephpew’s or nieces can get hold of it and shoot themselves or someone else.
2 words – Gun safe
Oh, 2 more – Trigger Lock
Yes, In an argument, me or my wife/girlfriend could get mad and shoot me or vice/versa. But I have a fireplace poker and a lot of kitchen knives that acan be just as deadly.
And finally, yes, I can kill myself with it. But, I can also drive my car off abridge or jump in front of a train. This one is none of your damn business one way or the other.
And finally, I am not rationalizing my gun ownership. I own a handgun, it is made for one reason and one reason only and that is to kill people. I firmly hope that I never have to use it for anything other than target shooting. But, It is better to have it and not need it and need it and not have it. In this case, if you really do need it, you REALLY do need it.
From across the room?
Ichthyic, my thanks on your input regarding data vs. rationalizations.
I didn’t mean it to be a personal attack, just to be clear.
We ALL should constantly be examining our belief systems for false rationalizations.
being a scientist at least taught me that much.
Mighten it be more true that the influx of immigrants has fanned the flames of all the extremist type personalities, regardless of their religious persuasion?
mightn’t it be true she was raped because she was wearing a short skirt?
be careful of victim blaming.
Yes, it is possible that one of my nephpew’s or nieces can get hold of it and shoot themselves or someone else.
but you’re more than happy to suggest that:
The only reason he feels confident in making this threat is because he knows that if him and 6 of his buddies kick in someones door, in England, they won’t get shot. This guy would not be so brave in a country where people own guns.
sorry, but you’re full of irrational logic and false conclusions.
dude, they wouldn’t have been shot in the US either.
you fail.
Wasn’t blaming the immigrants. People presented with people who have differing lifestyles (both the immigrants and the one’s who were already there) generally are alarmed with each other (as populations, as well as individuals). The US had similar waves of people coming in – at one point the Irish were the “evil drunks”, then the “Chinese peril” (or whatever garbage was being spewed). People with different perspectives will have friction until they get used to each other. Some perspectives will necessarily have to change for there to be integration. The extremists will be the ones who make the loudest racket about these changes.
As for blaming, I was only blaming extremists, not immigrants.
FFS no you do not.
Not just as. As you’ve said the gun is built for a specific purpose. It is made to efficiently do that. Other tools such as knives and pokers CAN do the same task, but aren’t as efficient or easy to use, because that’s not what they’re built for.
Yes knives can be and were weapons, but why did armies replace them with guns? Because guns were better tools, they are more deadly.
Musket is replaced by a rifle which is replaced by an assault rifle. Ignoring that there are different values of deadliness, even between fucking weapons, has no other purpose than either propaganda or self rationalization.
As for blaming, I was only blaming extremists, not immigrants.
righto, fair enough.
it is indeed, as you point out, not actually a new phenomenon.
Azkyroth
And what if it hadn’t? What if they had kicked in my door? What then?
I mean for some reason this argument doesn’t extend to other weapons.
“Why are you confiscating my knife but not my nail clippers? They’re exactly as dangerous!”
Ignoring that there are different values of deadliness, even between fucking weapons, has no other purpose than either propaganda or self rationalization.
I recall after the columbine shooting, someone claiming that they could have done the same damage as the two teens did… with a knife.
I asked them if they had superpowers and had studied under this guy:
Pai Mei
The problem with keeping a gun in the house for protection is that the gun should be kept in a locked cabinet, with the ammunition removed, and the key to the cabinet preferably stored secularly.
The problem with that is any intruder in unlikely to co-operate when you ask him to hold on five minutes while you arm yourself.
Actually the guns have nothing to do with it. If a guy and 6 of his buddies kick in someone’s door and attack them in their own home, here in America, where handguns are all too common, there’s actually decent odds that the aggressors won’t suffer for it. That is, as long as the victim’s discountable; say for being a POC, or a woman.
If this particular jackhole wanted to cause violence, he could’ve done that, guns or no guns. Most likely his threats were intended to intimidate and silence. Would they be so effective if secular criticism wasn’t already discountable?
And what if it hadn’t? What if they had kicked in my door? What then?
why then, you would shoot them…
with the gun you have locked away in your gun safe.
hope you have a quick release mechanism for that thing.
idiot.
Most likely his threats were intended to intimidate and silence.
IOW, textbook example of terrorism.
Then you’d grab your
can of spinachguns and your biceps would swell cartoonishly and you’d proceed tothrashblast them. Right?To the “responsible” gun owners above, how does it work? When a break-and-enter specialist knocks on the door what do you do? Tell him to wait while you find the keys, go to the basement, unlock the gun safe, load the gun, then tell him “OK I’m ready now”? Or do you carry a loaded gun with you every minute of the day? Hide it under the pillow while you sleep?
I imagine popping a paper bag between your hands would be a sufficient proof that you’re armed and dangerous? And much safer all round?
As for the religious nut cakes, anyone planning a talk against religion should have a contingency plan on hand for dealing with them before the situation escalates. It’s not as if their turning up is not predictable, you know.
evader, no religion is compatible with expanding our knowledge.
And no one ‘deserves’ the universe. And no one expects the Spanish Inquisition.
Ichthyic
Sorry friend but it is a violation of the Houg (not Hoag by the way) family security protocol to discuss the exact details of gun storage.
But no, mine isn’t secured unless there is company coming.
But at least you answered the question correctly.
The funny thing is that so many of you point out that criminals have guns too and yet you don’t see any reason for me to own one.
To me, the Genie is out of the bottle. And all the statistics and wishful thinking in the world aren’t going to put it back.
There are all kinds of dangerous shit out there. But none of you are strongly opposed to gasoline, or axes or chainsaws or cars for that matter. Do you know how many people die each year in car accidents? Or how much shit I burned in my teenage years with a few dollars worth of gas.
I don’t think owning a gun protects me from the government as they have AC-130 Gunships and tanks. I do think it can be dangerous if you don’t take it seriously or even if you do take it seriously, accidents happen. But they do protect me from other people who would do me or my family harm. Including the ass hat in this article
In the end, it is my choice and I made it. It is my right and I excercised it. I know you may not like it, but part of being free is being allowed to do things that other people don’t like. In return, I let people do things I don’t like.
If you want to ammend the Constitution and take that right away from me, you are welcome to try. And if that day comes, I will have to decide then what I do. I honestly don’t know. I may surrender the guns or I may bury them in the back yard like Toby’s dad did in “The Year of the Flood”. But until then, I’ll continue to keep my guns.
But no, mine isn’t secured unless there is company coming.
you can’t have it both ways.
either a free gun makes you safer, or it doesn’t.
what happens if company is there, but your gun is locked in the safe when you get a breakin’ of thugish villains?
again, your logic fails.
In the end, it is my choice and I made it. It is my right and I excercised it.
fine and dandy.
I’m not trying to take away your rights.
I’m trying to show you that your rationalizations for exercising that right are unsupported and irrational.
but then, you wouldn’t be doing such a poor job of defending them if they weren’t poor rationalizations to begin with.
maybe someday you’ll do some self analysis, but I doubt it.
Hope you don’t become a statistic in the next version of the paper I cited.
Icthyic
Ah, but my logic doesn’t fail, the Thuggish intruders can be kept busy with my guests while I get the gun.
Unless I am you, in which case the Thuggish intruders can be kept busy with your guests until they get around to your turn.
So, my logic is sound.
Gun = chance, possibly small
No Gun = No chance.
So erichoug admits that unless people are coming round he does not bother with the basics of keeping a gun secure.
I would point out that the police here in the UK keep their firearms securely locked away, with ammunition stored separately, at all times they are not actively deployed.
Thuggish intruders can be kept busy with my guests while I get the gun.
LOL
you’re happy to sacrifice your guests for a few moments of time I see.
there is no way your logic works here.
I know you can’t see that yet, but someday you might. I hope sooner rather than later, but statistically, it’s still unlikely you’ll ever have need of the gun, or that something bad will happen to you in your house, with or without it.
so probably nothing in your actual real world experience will shake your false belief that you are safer with your gun.
just make sure you apply the same false logic when you read any scientific paper, and you’ll be right there with the rest of the average americans.
gratz!
Some people just feel safer with a penis substitute on hand.
….
…you wouldn’t happen to have also had issues with extended bedwetting and a habit of mistreating animals, would you?
Some people just feel safer with a penis substitute on hand.
or in hand?
Let me show you the difference between my gun and my pistol.
Icthyic,
“five bucks says you didn’t bother to check the link to see if they controlled for such an easy variable.”
I did. They didn’t. Where people lived was coded for as North, South, East, or West. So there was no attempt to control for high crime or low crime neighborhoods.
“‘Showing that someone is more likely to die of homicide while owning a gun does not prove that owning guns make you more likely to die of homicide.’
actually it does exactly what it says it does.
nothing more, nothing less.”
My point exactly. The authors proved a correlation, while controlling for quite a few variables. That doesn’t prove causality. There is one part of that on which I will concede. Allowing people to have guns in their homes clearly gives one family member a tool with which to kill another more conveniently, so we should expect parricides, etc. to increase. But it doesn’t make you more vulnerable to an external threat, certainly. So it’s not unreasonable for a person, particularly one living alone, to think that they are safer (and potentially they may be safer), for owning a gun, even though the gross statistics say that on average gun owners are less safe.
By the way, from the paper’s discussion section, in a part discussing possible problems:
“Third, it is possible that the association between a gun in the home and risk of a violent death may be related to other factors that we were unable to control for in our analysis. For instance, with homicide, the association may be related to certain neighborhood characteristics or the decedent’s previous involvement in other violent or illegal behaviors.”
So I have to ask, did you read this before you linked it?
Gun = chance, possibly small
No Gun = No chance.
you’d think that makes sense. but it’s simply not supported by real world data.
again, I know you can’t grasp this, but it’s simply because you refuse to examine your own preconceptions.
At least be aware that this is what you are doing; it might help you make better decisions on other issues at least.
Mohammed (you notice I never call him a prophet) has always struck me as a con man and a thug. He used all the tactics of threats, false promises and lies to achieve his goals. He’s caused irreparable harm to the arab world, leaving a religion that causes its followers to even kill each other over tiny differences.
There, I said it. Do your worst.
That’s exactly what it was supposed to be. The Met deserve every dig we can get in.
I’ll think up some more analogies you can pick apart later, for your amusement.
Jesus Christ, if there’s somebody out there who gives two flying fucks about your emotional state, tell them.
But it’s nice to have and to hold, just in case, eh?
Seriously, the ‘everybody’s polite in an armed society?” argument? At this point, me calling you braindead isn’t a personal attack, it’s a diagnosis.
Yes, and you’re responsible too. Got any evidence for these claims, or am I supposed to take it on a spit and a handshake that you’re one of the good guys?
“After hearing all the evidence, and considering all the evidence (and did I mention I heard all the evidence?) it is my considered opinion that ‘nah-nah, you can’t tell me what to do!'”
Not really funny. It’s a common rhetorical trick morons use before they launch into a personal anecdote which they use in lieu of evidence. “I used to be atheist like you, until…”
Yup.
Thanks for that, Eric. It’s important to me that the people who’ve decided to take my life in their hands as well as their own reason exactly like Jenny fucking McCarthy.
Nonetheless, in all of your mood-setting, you forgot to mention how the gun saved your life.
[Reads again.]
Right, so you had no gun, and now you’re here telling us about it. What the fuck am I supposed to take away from this? YOu got scared by outsiders? If you’d had a gun, one of you would be dead. How is that supposed to be better?
Seriously, that’s your big takedown, ‘friend’?
Don’t you ever lie that you’ve read all the statistics and heard all the arguments again, you dishonest fucker.
You got scared, and didn’t have a gun, and now that you do you figure you won’t be scared again. That’s it. That’s your entire argument. You had the fucking floor, and you came in your pants.
Keep telling us you’ll make better decisions now that you’re armed.
Then why did you need to buy a gun, you lying dipshit?
Icthyic,
I am not rationalizing my gun ownership. I am not making up a reason. I have a reason and a right and so I own a gun.
You haven’t shown me anything. You haven’t made any argument, you haven’t put forward any evidence. You have attacked and belittled me but you haven’t really told me anything.
If you are trying to convince me to give up my gun, you certainly haven’t presented much of a case.
You make the common mistake of thinking that the only reason I don’t agree with you is because I haven’t seen all the information that you have seen. you also, along with brownian, imply that I am somehow mentally deficient and that this is why I don’t agree with you. But, despite the fact that I can prove neither in this forum, I am not stupid and I have seen all the same studies you have. And yet I own a gun.
Maybe it is you who are rationalizing.
Well the premature ejaculation of one is going to be much worse than the other.
So I have to ask, did you read this before you linked it?
oh, you cherry picker you.
did you read the methods section?
here, you must have missed it:
so stop trying to pretend this was a study that cited uncontrolled correlative data.
it wasn’t.
Matt P,
True enough.
Brownian,
Well it certainly has been an education discussing with you. You have made some cogent and insightful arguments and I will certainly take everything you said to heart in making any future decisions regarding my gun ownership.
P.S. If you’re ever in Houston and would like to go to the range, let me know. No it isn’t a veiled threat merely an extension of Southern Hospitality. I’ll even buy lunch.
That’s exactly what it was supposed to be.
then it had no use in this discussion, and should be presented as what it was:
an OT dig at misbehaving cops. I explained exactly why this isn’t a fair comparison to what the options are for the average citizen being directly threatened by someone. We hold cops to HIGHER standards because they have OTHER OPTIONS available to them. I would have far less issue with someone deciding to defend themselves from direct threat as a citizen by hitting someone who threatened them, given they do NOT have the option of arresting someone.
sweet plastic jesus, let this be the end of it.
I am not rationalizing my gun ownership. I am not making up a reason. I have a reason and a right and so I own a gun.
*facepalm*
what’s more to say?
you don’t even recognize a rationalization by definition.
Icthyic, I’m not cherry picking, you are! As I stated before, “region of death”, refers to North, East, South, or West. It does not control for urban vs. rural, much less high crime vs. low crime neighborhoods. It’s not completely uncontrolled correlative data, and I never claimed that it was. But it isn’t, as the AUTHORS THEMSELVES told you, controlling for every other variable. This isn’t a lab experiment. Data sets are limited on what variables they contain, even when they are extensive. I’m serious here. Did you read the whole paper?
translation:
Eric says he’ll pray for you, Brownian, and to have a nice day!
Icthyic, I’m not cherry picking, you are! As I stated before, “region of death”, refers to North, East, South, or West. It does not control for urban vs. rural,
oh yawn.
do you have ANY data to suggest that variable would have significantly skewed the results when taken into account over all the other variables?
no, you don’t.
you’re making shit up.
Oh, so the fact that I called you a moron made it impossible for you to read the rest, such as where I pointed out that your entire argument was based on a single scary incident, not unlike Jenny McCarthy’s son’s autism diagnosis?
That threw you off, and yet you maintain you’ll remain rational under threat?
No thanks. I might step in some dogshit from some responsible dog owner’s pet, mention it aloud, you’ll mishear it as me calling you “dipshit” and shoot up the place while having a hurricane flashback.
Since gun owners only speak in hypotheticals, after all.
Not to mention they will have been trained in restrain techniques, whereas most people will not have been.
As someone who hasn’t commented on this yet, an outsider’s perspective:
You all have completely de-railed this thread for over 50 posts now. A full third of it. It’s now the Gun Debate Thread.
No, I’m not telling anyone what they may or may not talk about. But yeah, it’s irritating.
…what’s more, that’s just one study I pulled out of literally DOZENS of controlled studies done within the last 20 years alone.
check the bibliography.
do you REALLY, seriously think for one second, all those studies are irrelevant because they didn’t control for neighborhood type?
that’s a notion that’s entirely laughable.
Icthyic, I don’t have to have evidence of that. The authors said that it’s a relevant set of data to which they did not have access. I take them at their word, because they’re professionals in this field and I am not. Feel free to post studies that you haven’t read, but I’m going to think less of your scholarship as a result.
It’s now the Gun Debate Thread.
then talk about the subject, rather than commenting on what’s irritating you?
I mean, what, exactly, is stopping you?
if “Southern Hospitality” is anything like “North Dakota Nice”, it’s indeed not a “veiled threat”; it’s an open threat if you’re sufficiently Other, but courtesy and helpfulness galore if not
feh
Feel free to post studies that you haven’t read
I take it by implication, you are accusing me of not having read it.
tell you what chump, I couldn’t fucking care less of what you think of me or my scholarship.
I posted exactly what variables the paper controlled for, and you have NOTHING to support the idea that those aren’t the primary variables worth controlling for.
nothing.
when you have SOMETHING, ANYTHING, then we can legitimately discuss the issue of scholarship on this matter.
until then, fuck off.
“do you REALLY, seriously think for one second, all those studies are irrelevant because they didn’t control for neighborhood type?”
Again icthyic, read the whole thing
From the second paragraph (everything after the abstract is so tedious, I know):
“Although an estimated 40 percent of adults in the United States report keeping a gun in the home for recreational or protective purposes (3), the risks and benefits of this practice are widely disputed in the literature (4, 5).”
So I could go read every study on this ever, or I could take these authors’ word for it, and assume that there is some divide in the research over whether guns in the home make people safer (again, I’m for gun control, and my guess is that it’s unlikely to make communities safer, certainly).
“I posted exactly what variables the paper controlled for, and you have NOTHING to support the idea that those aren’t the primary variables worth controlling for.
nothing.
when you have SOMETHING, ANYTHING, then we can legitimately discuss the issue of scholarship on this matter.”
No you didn’t. You posted a really bad reinterpretation of them. I cited the actual text of the paper at you, showing that the authors and I both think that they’re missing a very important variable. So I have a lot here.
“until then, fuck off.”
I’ll take that as a concession.
Kitchen knives? Fireplace poker?
Getting out of the house by a back door or window ?
No you didn’t. You posted a really bad reinterpretation of them.
I posted a direct quote of the conclusion of the paper, and the exact variables used as cotnrols.
here i was logging back in to apologize for telling you to fuck off, because I thought you might actually be interested in the research on this topic.
you aren’t.
you want to play gotchya, and fail to even understand how regional variables would override urban/rural ones.
you don’t care about the science at all.
so, instead of apologizing for telling you to fuck right off, I’ll actually re-emphasize it.
you’re a moron that has NO CLUE what he’s talking about, have never read any of these papers before skimming this one today, and only then because I linked it directly.
You pulled something out of your fucking ass, and then tried to invalidate the paper with it before you even looked, and THEN tried to post hoc rationalize why you still think it invalidates the paper.
think about that the next time you try to project your own poor scholarship onto someone else.
Fuck you, racist.
Seriously. Fuck off. No one wants this kind of racist shit here.
How did this turn out to be about guns [/rhetorical]?
You gun enthusiasts should stop stroking your weapons and deal with the subject in the OP.
I’m a gun owner but I wouldn’t have brought it to a talk about comparative religion/non-religion.
+++++++++++++++++
So, not being familiar with just how religious* college being founded after those folks who claim to be descended from god is, I’m wondering WTF didn’t the college defend the right to discuss different views?
+++++++++++++++++
* divine right of kings. And fuck you, that’s why.
erichoug brought up guns at home, and I jumped on his comment. And his comment was in the context of potentially violent people coming to his home, which was in the context of the OP.
I clearly disagree with the man, but I’m as much to blame for any derail as the gun owners in this instance.
That assumes topic drift is blameworthy.
Conversation is started, staying on topic would really require more moderation than this space is built around.
“The UK needs to do a better job of keeping out fanatics.
right, because there’s a shortage of homegrown ones.
you need to rethink your attitudes there, bud.
it has far less to do with immigration, and far more to do with just extremist personalities, which run the gamut.”
My point is that the Muslim fanatics weren’t in the UK until the immigration system let them in. This shows there are serious flaws in their immigration system if a significant number of them are unwilling to assimilate and want to impose sharia on the UK. A few are violent, but they have many sympathizers. Violent religious extremism, as a rule, is very rare in secular Britain, at least until recently. And this isn’t really an anti-immigrant rant so much as an anti anti-religious fanatic immigrant rant. Nothing I say applies to the good Hindu and secular immigrants who enrich Britain.
The simple solution is to just look into the backgrounds of immigrants better, and favor those with strongly secular backgrounds who can assimilate. Concerning that Norwegian racist mass murderer – this is mostly a red herring, as I was talking about how a broken immigration system can let in religious fanatics who can do harm(in the UK, not necessarily Norway). Homegrown fanatics are still a problem, I didn’t deny that, but it wasn’t homegrown fanatics who murdered Theo Van Gogh in the Netherlands, make death threats against Ayaan Hirsi Ali, shut down Academic talks about Islam, or threaten many other people in Europe who have been critical of Islam.
It also appears that the Norwegian killer Brevik(and, as far as I can tell, he had few if any sympathizers luckily), who suffers from schizophrenia was reacting to Muslim immigration to his country(even if he didn’t target Muslims, but the children of the politicians who let them in). As said before by another poster, more Muslim immigration may just fan the flames on both sides in much of Europe.
Now I’ve calmed down, I’ll explain why forestspirit’s comments are so offensive. Anti-immigration laws are fundamentally grounded in racism. They always have been. The exaggerated fear of Islam and Muslims is just the latest convenient bogeyman dreamed up by the far right to justify depriving immigrants of civil rights.
And immigration controls come at a horrific human cost. In Britain, refugees and asylum-seekers – among whom are plenty of victims of theocratic Islamist régimes, such as women and LGBT people facing death, torture or rape in those countries – are treated as though they were criminals, often detained for years at a time in appalling conditions in places like Yarl’s Wood
(scene of a hunger strike to protest the awful conditions), and expected to navigate a confusing and unfamiliar legal system with limited help. If they lose, they face deportation back to a country where they may be tortured or killed. Irregular migrants are stigmatized, demonized, and often left destitute because of their inability to work legally or to claim public benefits. Immigrant women are often trapped in abusive relationships with no protection, knowing that they face arrest and deportation if they go to the authorities. And so on.
And the argument that the UK should deport “fanatics” is utterly stupid, not to mention blindly nationalistic. Why does it do any good to force said fanatics to move from one part of the Earth’s surface to another? This only makes sense if you think that Britain and British people are more important than everyone else in the world, and that the state’s first priority should be to keep “undesirables” out of “our” country – a racist and nationalist belief.
And why, at root, should people’s civil rights depend on where on the planet they or their parents happened to be born? It’s utterly arbitrary. And it’s just another form of institutionalized racism, aimed at discriminating against ethnic minorities. Discriminatory immigration laws are today’s Jim Crow laws (there’s a reason why SB 1070 was dubbed “Juan Crow” by immigrants’ rights groups in the US).
Forestspirit,
So you are saying it’s better to keep them somewhere else where they can exhibit their biases against other people? Exposure is a sure tool in breaking down the barriers that keep these cultures repressed, not in an immediate fashion, but at the generation level.
Sorry but I got busy for a while there. First I want to apologize to anyone who feels like I was being anything other than politea. Also, brownian suggested that I was lying about something. To the best of my knowledge, everything. I said here is the truth. Just a few points before I go finish dinner.
1) I am not a theist.
Actually I guess that does it. Have a good evening.
“Fuck you, racist.
Seriously. Fuck off. No one wants this kind of racist shit here.”
Islam is a race all of a sudden? What a foolish remark. So I guess the solution to Muslim fanatics threatening people in the UK is importing more of them.
Makes perfect sense!
If you’re too stupid to see the way that anti-Islam rhetoric has been coopted by the likes of the BNP, the EDL, UKIP and the right-wing tabloid press to promote racist bigotry against immigrants from Muslim countries, then I can’t help that. However, I’m more inclined to believe that you’re being disingenuous than that you’re actually that stupid.
Does this mean Islam can’t be criticized? Of course not.
As I said above: The argument that the UK should deport “fanatics” is utterly stupid, not to mention blindly nationalistic. Why does it do any good to force said fanatics to move from one part of the Earth’s surface to another? This only makes sense if you think that Britain and British people are more important than everyone else in the world, and that the state’s first priority should be to keep “undesirables” out of “our” country – a racist and nationalist belief.
If you actually wanted to stand up for people oppressed by Islamist theocratic régimes, the way to do it would be to adopt a pro-immigration stance – given that current immigration laws make life a living hell for refugees, asylum-seekers, and others trying to escape these régimes (including women and LGBT people under threat of death, torture or rape). But as far as I can tell, you don’t give a shit about what happens to people outside Britain.
I ask you again: is there any rational, non-bigoted reason to defend the idea that people’s civil rights should be contingent on what part of the planet’s surface they, or their parents, happened to be born on? There isn’t any. It’s completely arbitrary. And it’s all aimed at pandering to racists whose fundamental aim is to keep “foreign people” and “foreign cultures” out of “our” country.
If you don’t believe me, try reading Maryam Namazie on the subject.
I have been reading this blog for many years, but I rarely post. I tend to agree with most of what Myers says. But I am not sure exactly when it became a pro-Islam/pro-Sharia board, or is it just a few posters?
If what I am saying is so beyond the pale and evil, PZ Myers should simply ban me. Be sure to email him to report me.
As a huge fan of sending them all back where they came from and shooting people, I own several personal cannons. When the immigrants with their ricin covered strap on dildos try and cornhole me in my sleep with their Homosexual Agenda I, as a free and peace loving citizen of the world, will shoot them. And any surrounding individuals.
I want to make that very clear.
I may also shoot people pre-emptively because I am very responsible.
Semper Gun!
Louis
Please provide the comment numbers and the actual verbatim quote of anyone who is pro-Islam/pro-Sharia in this thread.
Walton, I have trouble understanding you. Maybe it’s because you misunderstand me.
My position: The UK should let in all the immigrants it wants, just not the fanatics(and the same goes for any country). Blonde, blue-eyed Christian or Muslim extremists – keep them out. Black Africans or Arabs or Indians who have secular beliefs, they are more than welcome.
I happen to have immigrant friends from Muslim countries who are atheists and even they hate how the Muslimfanatics have followed them into their new homeland. They fled their homeland to escape this, not to have to put up with it all over again in their new country.
You have friends too? Oh no.
I know a brownshirt when I see one, and forestspirit is a brownshirt.
There isn’t going to be any documentation that could demonstrate any particular Pakistani immigrant is secular-minded.
So he’s advocating that tens of thousands of lives should be fucked up by denying people the chance to move somewhere where they have better economic chances.
All so that one dude could have been prevented from disrupting a lecture. (It’s usually a case of deontology strikes again, when ingroup-outgroup prejudice is “strikingly insensitive to quantitative indicators of success”.)
Dhorvath,
Yes, and some of them are a bit brown. Possibly more a fauny colour. Anyway, some of them have tans is what I am saying. So Forestspirit TOTES cannot be a racist.
I just want to know how you prevent the fanatics from getting into a country. I am hoping it’s some form of questionnaire.
Q1. Are you a fanatic.
A1. No.
Q2. Are you sure? {administers stern look}
A2. Oh all right then, I am. But only a bit at weekends.
I can see this working well.
Louis
Now now, you don’t necessarily deserve that level of his attention.
PZ lets a lot of evil people run amok here. One that springs to mind is shonny, an antisemitic homophobe. He’s never been banned.
Therefore, merely not being banned does not demonstrate that you are not evil.
Louis:
I consider myself a mild-mannered man. Yet I have been described by theists, on at least two occasions, as a dangerous fanatic. So my question for you is, who gets to decide who is, and who is not, a fanatic? You? Forestspirit?
[meta] I suspect forestspirit is trolling. Beware the Troll …
(Unless you need its diamond teeth for falsies, of course.)
Say what? I’m “pro-Islam/pro-Sharia” because I disagreed with your support for anti-immigration laws and punitive deportation?
Apparently, by this standard, Maryam Namazie is “pro-Islam/pro-Sharia” too. Go figure. :-/
This doesn’t help your case. Moving to a country should not be a privilege contingent on one’s particular religious beliefs or lack thereof; it’s arbitrary and discriminatory in the first place to limit immigration. And what good does it do to exclude religious extremists from one particular part of the Earth’s surface, while letting them run amok elsewhere? Again, you’re making the nationalist, quasi-racist assumption that Britain and British people are more important than the rest of the world, and that what happens elsewhere doesn’t matter.
Furthermore, your view would still lead to more suffering and more horror. Plenty of people are Muslims, Christians, or adherents of other religions and are also victims of oppression, violence, torture, poverty and other horrors. (Reality isn’t as simple as you seem to think.) These people should not be denied the right to move to a safe haven merely because you disagree with their religious beliefs.
Denephew,
Deary me, is it that late that it isn’t immediately obvious I am taking the piss? Well if it is not, the only proper answer I can give you is to refer you to the arbiter of all things, my rubber chicken.
The rubber chicken will decide who is and who isn’t a fanatic. Don’t upset the chicken Denephew or it’s Gitmo time.
Louis
Louis:
Stop evading the question. Who determines who is a fanatic?
Denephew,
Are you serious?
Louis
I would suggest the inability to recognize even sarcasm that’s obvious to people with ASDs as a prime trait.
Louis:
Yes, I am serious. Answer the fucking question!
Ogvorbis, I think Louis did:
Denephew,
Okay, erm just what do you think I am advocating, please be specific, because I thought I was mocking Forestspirit, you seem to have the wrong end of the stick.
After all I couldn’t have made it more clear I was waking the piss out of Forestspirit’s idea about screening fanatics than by advocating a fucking rubber chicken is the arbiter of who is or isn’t a fanatic.
Now I’m pretty certain I haven’t missed the point, I’m equally certain the same cannot be said for you.
Louis
^waking = taking
Sorry. Apparently I am fucking clueless. G’night.
To be fair, “taking the piss” is extremely provincial.
Louis:
I referred to the wrong commenter. I am sorry for being so clueless and I promise it will happen again. And again. And again.
I’m still unclear on where we deport the homegrown UK blonde-haired, blue-eyed Christian fanatics, as per comment 104.
I’d hate this board to be accused of being pro-Christian.
How do we know if they are a fanatic or not?
Their wife wears a burqa?
Officials find out they are a fan of an imam with extreme anti-western views?
They attended a mosque in their homeland known for producing dangerous fanatics?
And yes, I would discriminate against such people. But hardly all Muslims or all immigrants, and I never suggested deporting ALL Muslims. Plenty of other posters suggested some kind of punishment for this Muslim fanatic who disrupted this meeting. I suggested another type of punishment for a person who made death threats.
See, there’s the one I thought I was arguing with. Again, sorry, Louis. I conflated your sarcasm with this asshole’s bigotry and Islamiphobia.
“And what good does it do to exclude religious extremists from one particular part of the Earth’s surface, while letting them run amok elsewhere?”
This makes no sense whatsoever. Wouldn’t it make sense to keep out those prone to such extremism? You know, to avoid problems? I’d prefer it as far away from me as possible, but that’s just me. I sure as hell don’t want what’s happening in Somalia turning up in my neighborhood. Bring in the immigrants, just not the trouble-making fanatics.
It’s like you’re saying if a contagious, very dangerous disease is a big problem in Mongolia, with so many Mongolians infected, it should be okay to let Mongolians into California, since if this disease is a terrible problem in Mongolia it should be okay if it is a problem in California too.
Icthyic,
It’s awfully kind of you to think to apologize about the language, even though that in no way offended me. What does offend me, however, is when you open up claiming that the paper demonstrated something which the authors didn’t ever say that it demonstrated, and when I bring up something that is in their findings as one reason that I don’t find the argument that you made out of it compelling, you claim that I must not have clicked the link, and then proceed to demonstrate your own ignorance of the contents of the paper.
If you can explain to me why the authors of the paper and I are both wrong, and how categorizing deaths in just four regions of the United States (meaning that, for instance, New York City and Albany, or Baltimore and Annapolis are in the same category) adequately controls for the diversity of risks that face different citizens who may be considering owning guns, I’d be glad to hear it.
To advance an argument as to why this variable is clearly relevant, let me say this: When economists talk about people behaving rationally, it is not meant that they make brilliant decisions, but rather that they alter their behavior based on circumstances. If this paper did a really good job of controlling for almost all relevant variables (and the authors appear to have had a reasonably exhaustive data set), but ignored how dangerous neighborhoods are, and people believe that guns make them safer, then it follows quite clearly that, ceteris paribus, people in more dangerous situations would be more likely to buy guns. This confounds the ability to show that A causes B through correlation, because there is AT LEAST ONE WAY in which B can cause A.
I’m interested in an amicable discussion if you’re willing to have one, but I’m not going to be talked down to about data analysis or my ability to read the results of a paper without actual evidence that I’m misunderstanding it.
1) Oh I don’t know, 60 odd million Brits plus a few million Aussies and sundry other Antipodeans is hardly “extremely provincial”.
I did telegraph it just a teeeeeensy bit. I rarely opt for comic subtly in a blog comment! Poe’s law, that kind of thing.
2) I wouldn’t say you were fucking clueless Denephew. Evidently not from past posts, IIRC. I would say that missing the fact that I was advocating a rubber chicken as supreme decider of fanaticism in others as a blatant comedy clue is a bit difficult to achieve mind you! I blame the weather myself. ;-)
3) Deconstructing these things is never fun, but briefly before I too go to bed:
a) Forestspirit advocates screening fanatics at point of immigration.
b) Forestspirit claims some of his/her friends are immigrants. This is a standard line used by bigots. I.e. “I can’t be prejudiced against X, some of my friends are X”, as if this is coherent!
c) I comment to Dhorvath, tongue firmly in my cheek, about b). Obviously Forestspririt cannot be a racist, qua Walton’s comments, because he has friends who are immigrants. {eyeroll indicating extreme sarcasm here}
d) Part two of comment to Dhorvath mocks the screening methods available to prevent fanatic immigrants coming to the UK. How is this to be determined? Quiz them about their beliefs? People can LIE! Hence my mocking “questionnaire”.
I’ll freely grant this isn’t Monty fucking Python, but it’s hardly fucking rocket surgery! Seriously, the rubber chicken didn’t give it away completely? I need a new standard. The second I see a rubber chicken I think “Someone is taking the piss here”. I’ll wear clown shoes and a fucking red nose next time.
Sheesh!
Louis
forestspirit @ #213:
Because embracing sexist cultural practices = terrorism!
Because the only reason behind extreme anti-western views = terrorism!
Because the only reason to attend a fanatic-factory of a mosque = terrorism!
Any more tenets of the Jack Bauer School of Sociology and Cultural Studies you can provide us with?
Freespirit,
But the cure to that disease is available here, who the hell are we to deny access to that cure?
Denephew,
It is not only totally fine, it is to be encouraged! I remain ever an admirer and heartily amused.
I am greatly amused to have to move from the Rubber Chicken Standard, however. It will probably be good for me!
;-)
Louis
BTW my 217 is intended in good humour, think Lewis Black style comedy rant as opposed to outrage or annoyance.
Louis
forestspirit @ #215:
The problem with your analogy is that unlike contagious diseases, extremism can be spread through the Internet (teh scarry mooslems has INTERTUBE ACCESS? OH NOES!). I’m sure you are aware of instances of home-grown extremism that develops through online contact, which, unless you also want to establish a Great Firewall Of Britain, it would remain an issue regardless of whether or not you allow evil extremists foreigners into your hallowed lands.
Furthermore, the kind of immigration policy you suggest could (and probably would) be used by extremist elements to “prove” to local Muslims that their government is against them.
I envision the “Are You A Fanatic Immigrant Foreigner Person Questionnaire” going something like this.
The relevant bit is at 3:59 and then again at 4:40, but frankly the whole thing is good. If only these fanatics were as honest as the Russian spies in Monty Python sketches. Luckily, the enormous drain on the public purse it is going to take to investigate each an every immigrant’s background to the nth degree has been sponsored by Red Bull. So that’s all right then.
Louis
Violent religious extremism, as a rule, is very rare in secular Britain, at least until recently.
Good thing The Troubles stayed confined to Ireland, eh?
Oops, forgot the blockquotes. Must be the Muslim influence.
FFS what is wrong with you? I just pointed out how fuckign stupid this is.
How about show them a picture of Muhammed in drag and see how they react?
There is a good reason why you are “not exactly sure”. It isn’t.
The problem is much simpler. You are an illiterate troll.
Yah; the other reason Forestspirit’s plan of excluding immigrants to reduce extremism is deluded and stupid is that there are already millions of Muslims living in Britain who were fucking born there. They are no more or less prone to radicalization than immigrant Muslims are. In fact I recall reading somewhere that native-born Muslims were MORE prone to radicalization thanks to intergenerational dynamics, assimilation issues, and the lousy economy. Herp a derp.
forestspirit @ #215:
Say, like bubonic plaque that still exists in Mongolia, and occasionally kills people. But is easily treated and prevented in a place such as, say California.
Remember, if the immigrants were not around you would have no one to blame for your pathetic existence.
ihateimmigrants #183
I know it is not entirely religious but isn’t the IRA thing also a catholic/protestant thing?
someofmybestfriendsaremuslim #213
We should extend this reasoning to;
You should lose your license if any one in your extended family has been caught drink driving?
How about locking up people who have lived on the same street as a wife-beater?
And you can be fairly confident that I am a racist troll seeing as I have responded.
That’s brilliant! Why has no one thought of this before?
Also, we could save lots of money by eliminating the financial burden of the courts. We can just have the police only arrest guilty people!
John 11:35
Gregory Greenwoo @50
You mean like this?
This sort of thing angers me no end.
walton, although you found an easy target in forestspirit’s comments, your views are disturbingly extremists in a different manner.
So much for nuance. While there are clear historical examples of purely racist immigration laws, it is not sophisticated or defensible to proclaim that is always to be the case. By your matter-of-fact account it would be “racist” for a society to restrict immigration over any labour market concerns, however legitimate or serious. For all your endless concern about “immigrants”, I see no compassion or concern for people facing high systemic unemployment in their home nation.
So basically anything less than open borders is “racist” and “horrific”?
It should not matter, but we live in reality, not utopia. In reality nation states are the universal means of organisation and citizenship (along with lawful immigration) is the recognised mechanism of belonging to one. Nation states are not some racist conspiracy and it just exposes your extremism to make statements like that.
You sound like an anarchist nutter at that point. Of course societies have a right to regulate extremists in their midst and it is not some “racist and nationalist” hegemony. Just repeating “racist” again and again does not make it valid, by the way.
How could someone have a conversation with you if you take to such extreme denunciation of the basic right of nations to manage their affairs on behalf of their citizenry?
From my experiences when in the United States, I note that the group worst hurt by illegal immigration appears to be African Americans, the most historically persecuted group. Which racism wins out there?
What a trick of legerdemain! You associate “anti-Islam rhetoric” with the worst racist groups but then claim Islam can still be criticised. Yet you conspicuously fail to detail what criticism is permissible. That way if some says something you find is too much, you can begin to scream “racist” at them, since you have already set up the association.
Frankly you are little more than an extremist and bully.
*fucking headdesk*
People like forestspirit are the only reason I have ever considered for moving away from my beloved UK. EDL, BNP, UKIP, all these people making me embarrassed to be white. Jeez. ‘Deport them’? Fuckin’ A. The 7/7 bombers were all homegrown lads from the North. (To where do we deport the BNP gorillas?)
The level of oversimplification and red-top knee-jerkism within more nationalistic sections of my fellows honestly makes no bloody sense to me; it’s like they’re speaking a different language, punctuated by grunts and waving of pitchforks.
/end incoherent rage
I’m going to lie down now and forget the existence of the Internet for a few hours. Between “DEPORT THEM HERP DERP” and poor old Rhys, my head’s on overload.
Where should we ship neofascists like you to?
You really have to be one if you blame peacefull immigrants for the deeds of a massmurderer.
Jack the Ripper probably also only reacted to the increase in prostitutes.
One law for all, you remember?
That means you deal with them here and now and under the same laws.
elisabetht.,
Citation needed. Your “experiences” are worth fuck-all.
Generally speaking, when a person tries to “put the Black against the Mexican” as you do, we can safely say it’s your racism that wins, ’cause yours is the biggest.
Huh? I suppose there could come a day when states persist strictly as power for power’s sake, but at this time in history, nation states still are racist conspiracies.
Racist conspiracies which I support, by the way, since I know of no better way.
Some are more conspiratorially racist than others, of course.
I was thinking elisabetht sounds familiar. Praise google.
Note it is Standard Operating Procedure for her to claim “anti-racists in my experience are often bullies”.
It was my honest opinion as a visitor. It is simply absurd to demand as if I could produce one finite citation to prove such a conclusion. That is not honest of you.
Where did I say “Mexicans”? I said “illegal immigration”. Any finite focus on one nation or ethnicity is entirely in your head. Yet you are the one screaming “racist” at me. Hmmm.
You will also note on the page to which you happily link that I note I am half Japanese. I have both experienced racism from Europeans (white and non-white), but I also know that people who aggressively posture as ‘anti-racists’ turn out to deeply hateful people in frightening frequency.
On that point, for someone who includes the symbol Om in their name, your angry and profane response exhibits anything but the calm that symbol represents to me.
Besides if you agree with me that nation states are the only rational method of human organisation at present, you should spit less venom at me and instead address an extremist like walton. Or you afraid of provoking his obvious anger?
Fine, then produce one infinite citation, if that wouldn’t be absurd.
You apparently don’t know what “racist” means, if you think giving an example like that implies LM was being racist.
And once again, your writing is too muddled to even merit a substantive response. Should we have an infinite focus on some number of nations or ethnicities? What the hell is “any finite focus” supposed to mean? Are you familiar with the word “limited”? Try using that instead of this “finite” nonsense.
The Om symbol is a substitute for “OM.” The “Order of Molly” is an award for exemplary commenters here, and there’s no requirement that they are calm.
I provoke Walton constantly; but I’m failing to understand your problems with his comment, if they aren’t backed up with racist sympathies, your bullshit “experience” and nothing else.
It’s a pretty common racist assertion. Your cognitive biases are not useful here.
Rubbish. If it were true that “the group worst hurt by illegal immigration appears to be African Americans”, there would probably be considerable evidence available for you to cite.
If you are instead content to go around yapping about your unscientific opinions, and indifferent to the demand that you ought to gather real evidence, then that’s intellectually dishonest of you.
And in the United States, debates about illegal immigration are 99% debates about Mexicans.
This is not even a problematic thing for you to acknowledge. It doesn’t make you racist to notice that US Americans are primarily debating about Mexico. It’s just a fact.
No doubt.
But no, you don’t know this. Again, you’re talking out of your ass, which is full of selection bias.
No, because I happen to know that Walton acknowledges the same current inevitability of nation states that I do — I think you’re probably overreaching to call it a rational method — but Walton is capable of doing nuance in a way that you apparently are not.
That is, he will either acknowledge the current inevitability of nation states and the racist conspiracy of nation states, or he will make some cogent objection to one or both of these characterizations.
What he will not do is fall for your false dilemma.
No, I’m accustomed to people being angry with me.
But I’m not dimwitted enough to imagine that anything in particular follows from the fact that someone is angry. Anger, or lack of anger, does not indicate that a person is right or wrong, worthy or unworthy of being listened to, centrist or extremist in their views, smart, stupid, rational, irrational, or anything else.
Anger is just anger. It’s a strong motivator, but that’s all I can honestly say about it.
You seem to believe that there’s something wrong with being angry. That is evidence that you are a lazy thinker, prone to the sort of cliches that pass for common sense.
Alas, I don’t think she’s doing an impression of Stephen Colbert. I think she really does believe in colorblind ideology.
(sorry I’m still away from Pharyngula for personal reasons, and it will take some time until I’ll be back) but since racism is a subject dear to me, let me note that elisabetht seems to be a single-issue drive-by poster. See the thread cited by LM, where she never bothered to come back and respond to the posts challenging her statements…
Elisabetht also, again, as I might say, seems to know little about the US, as a quick glance at the statistics (she might be victim of the Wikipedia blackout though) would have made it clear to her which countries the so-called “illegals” come from. Also, she is European, so why would she assume Walton is American? Many questions we will probably never get any answers to…
Regular posters will know my stance re open borders. I agree with Walton in principle, but if social democrats want to win elections they need to cater to the protectionist/xenophobic sentiment in the population (or at least acknowledge the trade unions’ fear of the “Polish plumber”), which pains me to no end, not just because I’m mixed Asian-European myself (recall the dual citizenship debate in Hesse in 1998. While it was the conservatives pushing the xenophobic propaganda against the social democrats and greens, there was an undercurrent of support amongst some segments of the trade-union ranks.). Does not make immigration controls any less racist in nature though… It’s just that the European right usually support controls for xenophobic reasons and the left more because of parochial economic interests (and here I see a dearth of actual economic scholarship in political debates, people just use emotional arguments, which makes it even harder)..
Also, from an East Asian, especially a Chinese perspective, I see little chance of open borders becoming a reality (even in Japan there is strong push-back against voting rights for Zainichi Koreans every time I end up at 2chan and see what kind of discourse is going on there, I just want to puke….). For Chinese nationalists, open borders can be seen as yet another ploy by the West to belittle Chinese sovereignty, “1900/1901 all over again”.
(or for a more recent example, as I’ve just gotten back from Sverige: the Swedish social democrats have lost quite a number of voters to the xenophibic Sverigedemokraterna, because a large segment which had traditionally voted social democratic, did not necessarily feel inclined to share the welfare state with foreigners who did not share the “Protestant work ethic”, here’s a take by a pol.sci post-doc: http://super-economy.blogspot.com/2011/02/decline-and-fall-of-scandinavian-social.html)
(Got some interesting books: “Världens lyckligaste folk”, the world’s luckiest people, a Swedish journalist (with an East Asian background herself) reports from Denmark and how it could be Sweden’s future, and a book about the “new Swedish elite”. Inequality has been rising, even in paradise…)
oops sorry, wrong friend: the Danes are “the world’s happiest people”, not “the world’s luckiest”
Two points
1) England has seen what happens in America when lots of people have guns. We don’t want that thank you. End of story. Neither do we want our police permanently armed. We have seen what happens when you do that too. Thank you America for being such a good teacher.
2) For those people wondering why this guy wasn’t challenged? Because they didn’t know what else he was carrying and he wasn’t threatening violence there and then. These guys dying for Islam in a large blast is hardly an unknown phenomena.
I am sorry, but English is not my native language. It is a very nuanced language in terms of vocabulary relative to Dutch and English speakers sometimes note that I choose odd, but technically correct synonyms. It is petty to aattck me on such fine points.
Again I am sorry I do not know all the in-group aspects. “ॐ” has a spiritual meaning for a billion or so people, how silly of me to mention it. To be clear I have no problem of any sort with it being used in another fashion, mocking or not. I am agnostic. But the symbol does have a primary meaning associated with calm and clearing one’s mind in meditation, so jumping on me is just being petty again.
His political philosophy is standard left anarchism, which is an extremist ideology relative to world political norms. I believe in social democracy, which includes the right of nations to control immigration. If that is “racist sympathies” to you then you just condemned most people of the developed world as racists, including people of colour!
Your profane hostility towards me does not add to your argument. Here nonetheless is an article that agrees with my premise:
How Illegal Immigration Hurts Black America
1. I knew walton was British. Or rather I thought as such because he mentioned English right-wing groups.
2. I know people from Mexico are a majority share of the illegals in America, but there are East Asians too in appreciable numbers.
3. I just used an American example because it is quite problematic. I provided an article by an African American publication that shares my view above. I am not saying that is proof, but it shows I am hardly the only person of colour to disagree with the anarchist/anti-racist position on immigration. We are not “racists” just because we disagree with you.
I was thinking about ForestSpirits silly comments.
Actually, technically you should let in more fundamentalists to aid world peace. If fundamentalists are constrained by the weight of rationality and culture of the other people in a country, then draining some from more volatile countries would improve those countries. Spreading the load, so to speak.
As long as you stay below the “crazy to not-crazy threshold” ™ you could vastly improve one country, to the slight detriment of another. (If that makes sense)
It is based on my experience so of course it will have some “selection bias”. You find fault with me for giving my opinion even when I properly note it is my opinion or experience?
I notice how quickly you concur (“No doubt”) when I cite my experience that agrees with your Weltanschauung.
So which is it? Perhaps the racism I have encountered from time to time is “selection bias”. Yet I only see you throw that charge at the observation you dislike.
Anyway, I am not interested in fighting further with anarchists and anti-racists. You are the complete other extreme from the BNP/FN/Vlaams Belang people and that is not a compliment. Moderation and calm are the constructive values I embrace. Extremism is the path of violence, destruction and fear.
[Louis Applies His Piss Taking Hat*]
WAIT! Everyone hold their horses. There may be something here.
If we’re going to deport immigrating fanatic Muslims and home grown fanatic Muslims to Islamic nations under the new Forestspirit inspired “Immigration and Repatriation Act 2012”, known in the tabloid press as the “You want it, you got it, son, Act 2012” surely it can be extended to other avenues of life…
Hmmmmmm
Creationists legally bound to abandon any and all trappings of modern life and science and forced to live in creationist internment camps where they are demanded to live by creationist science. Anyone using actual science is shot.
Homeopaths and those who favour homeopathy (IT’S FUCKING WATER! HOW MANY TIMES DOES THIS NEED TO BE SAID?) prevented from access to any pharmaceuticals under any circumstances. Special subset: anyone who complains in a vague and deeply uninformed manner about “chemicals” or even mentions the word “natural” in this context is to be banned from all chemicals of all kinds. All their chemical privileges are to be revoked and thus all chemicals removed from them. The nation thanks you for your service, your chemicals will be recycled.
Global Warming deniers, especially ones who should know better, are encouraged to find a new planet since their denial about the state of this one is detrimental to human survival on it. The Rubbish Rocket leaves promptly at 3pm GMT every day.
Chiropractors are required to be healed by spine wizardry for any and all ailments. See “homeopaths” above. Also applies to naturopaths and quasi-medical “nutritionists” etc.
Libertarian/Randist nutters are to be delicately invited to form their own nation. No resources will be granted for this and no aid given. Obviously they can do it all for themselves because they have never taken anything from anyone or any collaborative system. Good luck finding some land chaps!
Right wing loons and religious conservatives obsessed with other peoples’ sex lives will be welcomed into the Sexual Perversionland, and all new theme park in South Texas designed to allow these people to indulge in the things they rail against. The Dog Fucking section is inordinately popular I understand.**
Nationalists and various species of racists to be forced to set their own nation up right next to the libertarians, see above. Again, no aid will be given, racial purity checks will be applied. Anyone failing the racial purity check will be shot. The standards for the racial purity check will be taken at random from sources factual and fictional. Good luck on passing the Vulcan racial purity check people!
Sexists, rapists, homophobes and ablists. Oh dear, you people are really not going to like this. Forced gender reassignment, sexuality swapping and disability as appropriate. The idea of this is to encourage empathy. Of course when subjects have reached the appropriate level of empathy re-reassignment will occur. We’ll let you know when that is. And by we I do mean the Minister for Empathy, my rubber chicken. Good luck, she’s a right bastard.
Mandatory death penalty for advertisers, insurance executives, PR gurus, television “personalities” and Ant and Dec. No questions asked. What do you mean “for what crimes?”. Sorry I don’t understand.
[Louis Removes His Piss Taking Hat]
That sounds remarkably fine.
Shit, didn’t actually take the hat off did I? This thing is welded on…oh my lack of god, I’ve been exposed to so many utter fucking morons I am unable to remove my hat! I am physically incapable of not mocking these dumb-dumbs. Help! Help! I can’t stop laughing at them! I’m descending into a self mocking spiral of mild irony and sneering derision. Oh this is getting unnecessarily meta….
Louis
*Taking the piss = mockery, usually in a sarcastic vein if it can be managed. At least for the purposes of this post anyway. There. I’m completely covered. Unassailable in my little fortress of humour. Mwah ha haaaaaa! I shall defend myself from assault with my Comedy Laser.
**No actual dogs, or humans, or animals of any kind would be harmed or {ahem} used in the park. All park attractions are incredibly lifelike, non-sentient robots. Wipe clean robots. Created by the huge investment in AI these people will fund. An aubergine was harmed during the making of this post however.
*facepalm*
So, you’re glad you can accidentally kill people when you panic?
Whether it would be a punishment depends on the person’s sexual orientation and other such things. Of course, those are precisely what we shouldn’t make assumptions about.
“These” bastards? Not every bastard is a Nazi with an army behind them.
Where I come from, excess of self-defense is a crime, and rightly so. Take his phone (don’t even destroy it, it’s evidence), hold him (see comment 87), call the police, and accuse him of making threats (or terrorism if possible).
Brownian lives in a place where the police actually come when you call them. It’s not his fault that the USA is, in some respects, a failed state.
*headdesk*
*headdesk*
*headdesk*
Why are paranoid people allowed to have guns?
Bingo.
LOL. In a country where people are known to pack heat, he and his buddies would have packed heat, too – and they’d have made sure to draw first!
That’s more dangerous for everyone, not less.
Also, they can pack heat of their own and shoot you first, precisely because they have good reasons to fear you might be armed.
What the TV failed to teach you: the good guy isn’t automatically faster at the draw.
FFS, what kind of doors do you have in America that people can simply kick them in?
Or what are you trying to imply?
That’s from the introduction, not from the discussion, let alone the conclusions. The introduction of a scientific paper is expected to explain the state of the field up to now, and then the rest of the paper adds something new to it. If it’s mentioned so explicitly that “the risks and benefits of this practice are widely disputed in the literature”, that means the goal of the paper is to end that dispute, or at least to contribute to ending it.
You haven’t read many scientific papers, have you?
The idea that “we should restrict immigration in order to stop foreign people taking our jobs” sounds reasonable, until one thinks about it for thirty seconds. One could use exactly the same logic to propose excluding women from the labour market in order to prevent them taking jobs away from men; and not so long ago, there were people proposing exactly this. Of course one can advocate excluding one arbitrarily-defined group of people from the workforce in order to protect jobs for another arbitrarily-defined group; but that doesn’t mean it’s fair, just, or reasonable to do so. The idea that “our people” are more important than “foreigners”, and that those with particular birth or ancestry should have preferential access to jobs, is rationally indefensible, unless you are a racist.
Furthermore, it’s unrealistic. As long as economic, social and political conditions in some countries are far worse than others (owing to unjust trade rules, the legacy of colonial oppression, violent régimes and a whole host of other factors), and as long as there is a demand for migrant labour in Western countries, people will keep migrating in order to seek a better life for themselves and their families. (And why shouldn’t they?) If we’re talking about America specifically, there are millions of undocumented migrants here*, because there is a demand for their labour. Some came over when they were small children; some are trapped in exploitative work situations because of their inability to work legally; some are trapped in abusive domestic relationships and cannot come forward to the authorities because of the fear of arrest, deportation, and having their families torn apart. Anti-immigration laws don’t stop immigration, but they do make life awful for millions of migrants. Furthermore, there is evidence (from Britain) that immigration does not, as often believed, cause unemployment; nor does it harm the economy.
(*I’m British, but live and study in the United States. Case in point: when American right-wingers rant about immigration, they’re not talking about white middle-class Westerners like me. Anti-immigration scaremongering is a code-word for racist fears. Nor did I have any difficulty getting a visa; if I were from Nigeria or Mexico, say, it would have been rather more of an uphill struggle.)
Not to mention that it’s important to bear in mind the appalling cost of immigration controls for refugees (who do, by virtue of the 1951 Convention on the Status of Refugees to which both the US and UK are parties, have a right to seek asylum in a safe country). Refugees are people fleeing persecution in their home countries – often, in practice, people who have been tortured, raped, detained without trial, and threatened with serious harm to themselves and their families. (LGBT people fleeing homophobic violence in Uganda or Kenya; women who have been repeatedly raped and beaten; opponents of their countries’ governments who have been tortured, detained without trial and threatened with summary killing; and so on.) On arrival in Western countries, they are typically treated like criminals, often detained, and expected to navigate a confusing and unfamiliar legal system with little help. (In the US, since 1996 there has been no federal funding for legal aid for migrants in removal proceedings in Immigration Court, or for those applying for asylum to USCIS. Can you even imagine how hard it is to apply for asylum in a language you may not speak, in a legal system you may not understand, when you’re already suffering from the after-effects of horrific trauma?) Open borders are the only just solution.
Yes. Yes, it is. For the reasons I have given above, immigration controls come at a terrible human cost. And immigration controls are deeply racist. When right-wingers scaremonger about immigration, they are not talking about white immigrants from other Western countries; they’re talking about visible ethnic minorities. Because anti-immigration sentiments are almost always a thinly-veiled racist code-word for “we don’t want any more brown people in our country”. And these are the people against whom immigration laws are, overwhelmingly, enforced.
Look at the history of immigration controls. The US had no formal immigration controls until the Chinese Exclusion Acts of 1882 – passed not in response to any real “problem”, but out of pure racist opposition to the growing population of Chinese labourers, who were seen as “undesirable” on racial grounds. The Immigration Act of 1924 imposed racial quotas on immigration. So, too, the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952, the ancestor of today’s immigration control legislation, continued quotas based on nationality, with expressly racist intentions: Harry Truman actually vetoed it, but his veto was overridden by Congress, under pressure from Southern racist segregationists. So, too, in Britain, the Aliens Act 1905 was passed, in large measure, in response to racist and anti-Semitic agitation by groups like the “British Brothers’ League”, a fascist organization. Immigration controls have never been “necessary”; they were always introduced in response to racist fears about Western countries being “flooded” with non-white people and foreign cultures.
There is no basis for thinking that foreign nationals are any greater danger to a country’s security than its own nationals. What is indefensible, and racist and nationalist, is treating people differently because of the location of their birth or the colour of their passport. If there is actual evidence that a person is involved in criminal activity, by all means charge them with a crime, and imposed the same sanctions that would be imposed on a citizen who commits a crime; why does the state need an additional sanction (punitive deportation) which it can take only against foreign nationals? And why does it do any good to deport criminals from one part of the Earth’s surface to another? This only makes sense if you believe that Britain, British people and their security are more important than everyone else in the world, which is by definition a racist and nationalist viewpoint.
As for “nutter”, people said the same originally about those who campaigned to end racial segregation and apartheid, to give women the vote, to introduce marriage equality, and so forth. In 1800, or even in 1900, believing in equality of the races in America was regarded as an extremist, dangerous, subversive viewpoint, as was believing in full civil and political equality between men and women. Even in 1950, believing in racial desegregation or in gay rights was regarded as an extremist, dangerous, subversive viewpoint (and was liable to get you branded a Communist). These views that are now mainstream were once regarded as “extremism”; being an “extremist” is nothing to be ashamed of, and being a “moderate” is nothing to be proud of. The Overton window can shift over time. And given that the discourse on immigration has been dominated by the racist xenophobic lobby, I’m trying to shift the Overton window in the other direction.
There is, clearly, such a thing as reasonable and non-racist criticism of Islam. Maryam Namazie is a good example (although I don’t agree with everything she says; I disagree with her about the French burqa ban, for instance).
However, we also have to bear in mind that the xenophobic Right are very fond of using fearmongering about Islam and Muslims as a cipher for their racism, and that non-nuanced and over-the-top condemnations of Islam play right into this. Sam Harris is guilty in this respect of playing right into their hands (particularly given his cheerleading for the “War on Terror” and his apologia for torture). It’s important to recognize that not all Muslims are extremists or dangerous (the vast majority are not), that Islam is not some kind of unique threat to our society, and that Muslims are already a marginalized and discriminated-against group in Western countries. And that action for women’s rights and LGBT rights within Muslim communities, for instance, has to be sensitive to these multiple layers of oppression, and to listen to the actual views and needs of Muslim women and Muslim LGBT people.
Oh, I missed this part:
Trying to play off two oppressed groups against one another is both stupid and offensive. The solution to racist oppression of one group is not to implement racist oppression of another group; the solution is to build a society based on equality and civil rights for everyone. And there’s a disturbing parallel between the racist oppression of African-Americans and the racist oppression of (predominantly Latino) immigrant minorities today: there’s a reason why bills like HB 56 and SB 1070 are referred to by immigrants’ rights groups as “Juan Crow laws”. And the racist white right-wing politicians pushing these laws are the same kind of people who were defending racial segregation a generation ago.
Trying to scapegoat undocumented immigrants for the oppression faced by African-Americans today is profoundly stupid and wrongheaded, when both are victims of racism (often from the very same people). If you actually wanted to combat racism against African-Americans, you’d be talking about America’s appallingly racist criminal justice system and the “War on Drugs”, for example, or voter suppression laws, or right-wingers’ knee-jerk opposition to affirmative action, or continued anti-Black discrimination in employment and housing. But you aren’t, because you don’t give a damn about civil rights or equality for African-Americans; you’re just interested in co-opting their perceived interests as a rhetorical device to bash immigrants.
Well, the Americo-centrism bit wasn’t just directed at elisabetht, but I for one had hoped to get some UK views on the debate SEEING that it was about an incident in the UK. Instead we got a 50+ derail from gun-toting idiots.
But now let me add to it too…
Yes, elisabetht great evidence was one article where one politician/activist was quoted as claiming it was true.
Here are some unemployment figures from the BLS
White Dec 2010 8.3% Dec 2011 7.3%
Black Dec 2010 15.2% Dec 2011 15.2%
Asian Dec 2010 7.2% Dec 2011 6.8%
—
Hispanic Dec 2010 13% Dec 2011 11.1%
(unfortunately the above figures are not completely comparable, as Hispanic is not a race. I’m afraid that the figures for W and B also include Hispanics, didn’t find any “normalised” figures.
FWIW, half of the Hispanics are classified as white, then another 30% as “two or more races”, and only 2.5% of Hispanics would be classified as black by the BLS.
So the unemployment numbers are higher for African Americans, and they haven’t bounced back as they have for European Americans or Asian Americans. But I’m not sure if this is because “the illegals take away the jobs of African Americans” as your article seems to claim.
We need more research like that cited by Walton to alleviate xenophobic prejudices.
I don’t know why elisabetht keeps mentioning in every post that she is of mixed heritage. Because minorities could never be racist!
If you don’t believe that immigration controls are racist just read up on what Walton has written here about the topic. He can be sometimes sanctimonious (like in that post where he got called out for being too uncritical on the monarchy) but yeah, we have to face it, in the West, we are keeping migrants away with racist border regimes…
Dear Mr. Marjanović
At the risk of being associated with Dick Cheney, go fuck yourself.
You want to sit out the next hurricane un-armed and hopeful be my guest. You want to stand idly by while some asshole rapes your wife and murders your family, be my guest. You want to rely on the police to show up and prevent you from being murdered, be my guest.
Brownian and Ithyic at least provided some sort of an argument against gun ownership. Neither of them bothered to mention the many incidents where people have successfully used firearms to protect themselves and their families. But at least they were straight up. You appear to be a textbook example of special pleading, not to mention condescension and arrogance.
Why don’t you hang a sign in your front yard saying “This family says NO to guns!”
That’ll scare them off.
Why can’t they use a knife? they’re just as dangerous as guns
also, the same problem exists with the three East Asian democracies.
Indonesia does too, but they’re more a sending country than a receiving one
What is with the gun idiots and their stupid ocntradictory arguements
a) Guns are no more dangerous than knives or fire pokers!
b) How will you defend yourself in your home!? With a measly knife or fire poker!?
1) Ok so a gun is a risk, lots of things are risky? Do you not drive? Do you not fly!?
2) Do you have any idea how dangerous the world is!? What are you going to do if someone breaks in!? How can you take that risk!?
I don’t understand how a gun defends against hurricanes.
@Chigau
It’s to prevent against looters…which, if not intended to, has a racial twang to it.
We are Ing
Did you ever hear the saying “Bringing a knife to a gun fight”
I have nothing and you have a gun, there is no discussion.
I have a fireplace poker and you have a gun, there is no discusson.
I have a gun and you have a gun, there is a discussion.
The real truth is that if you are not armed you are playing the odds. Ithyic likes statistics so here is one, the odds of winning the lottery are essentially the same whether or not you buy a ticket. But no-one wins the lottery without buying a ticket.
Yes, it is long shot odds that someone is going to break in and it is longshot odds that you will have the gun accessible and can succesfully defend your family. But without it, you have no odds at all.
Lots of folks have sucessfully defended themselves, their families and their property using a gun. Something which all of you anti-gun folks seem to enjoy ignoring.
@Eric
Are you so stupid you can’t read at all what I wrote?
Are you just going to keep contradicting yourself?
Lots of folks have sucessfully defended themselves, their families and their property using a gun. Something which all of you anti-gun folks seem to enjoy ignoring.
FFS no they aren’t. They’re pointing out that statistically
a) people have defended themselves WITHOUT it too
b) You’re more likely to harm yourself or a 3rd party than defend yourself
That’s the point. that is an OBJECTIVE measure of whether something is a good idea. Risk vs benefit. They have made a rational decision that given the statistics that an accidental injury is more likely than a successful defense and that accidental injury is more likely than the NEED to defend that keeping a gun is an unnecessary risk.
Chigau
It defends against scumbag looters and other assholes that come out of the woodwork during a hurricane.
I was 4 days without power, at my dads place it was 15 days and many parts of town were more than 3 weeks. For at least the first day and night you are basically on your own. There isn’t anyone to call and often times there is no way to call them.
Frankly, I am starting to think that you Anti-gun people are the ones who haven’t really thought things through.
FFS, yes you do.
You know what’s much better than a gun for home defense? A dog
A dog is better security because
a) Risk to self is lower
b) Other benefits
c) It advertises itself and thus is a deterrent.
d) doubles as detection
C I believe is most important. The odds are low to defend yourself with a gun, and there’s no way for anyone to know you HAVE a gun. A dog not only responds to threats before you can sense them, but it announces itself and thus acts as a deterrent
“THE ENTIRE POINT OF HAVING A BOMB IS LETTING PEOPLE KNOW YOU HAVE ZE BOMB!”~Dr. Strangelove
AKA Black people.
how are eric’s post hurricane traumas relevant to the topic at hand, which is about an event in the UK, where there are neither hurricanes nor gun-toting idiots?
Fucking gun nuts – how do they work? You’d think that if they want to be taken seriously, let alone convince anyone, they would at least avoid the foaming-at-the-mouth paranoia evinced by erichoug.
And FFS, we have hurricanes all the time. We never have a goddamn looter problem.
I spend a lot of time in places without power and with no one to call.
I’ve never seen a scumbag looter.
How many did you see?
We are Ing
Gee, I must be stupid, I don’t agree with you. Let’s try some mental excercise:
four guys with baseball bats Vs. you with a knife
Or,
Four guys with baseball bats vs. you with a gun.
I know where I would put my money.
yes, I know all the statistics, As I have said before I have read all of them.
You make the same mistake that Ithyic makes, you think that because I disagree with you I either haven’t had the same access to the same information that you have had or that I am somehow mentally deficient and that is why I do not agree with you.
So, let me point a few things out,
1) am not a theist in any sense.
2) I am college eduacted with a degree in Electrical engeineer.
3) I was anti-gun for around 15 years but this was already waning by the time Ike hit
4) I know that I am more likely to be shot by my own gun that any other gun in the world
5) I know that owning a gun puts my family at a higher risk of being victims of gun violence.
It is amazing to me that all of you say some variation of “Oh sure, people have used guns sucessfully to defend their families, but that’s just a fluke.” Well, if it’s my family I want to be the fluke.
You all can be the statistic.
Why do gun nuts sound so much like godbots? Nothing but presuppositional thinking appears to be the case.
We are Ing
Funny how you automatically assume racism.
You don’t even know what race I am.
ChiGau,
You mean besides the one that banged on my back door in the middle of the night? Well let’s see, there was the guy Juan chased out of his back yard, the ones that gutted the house across from Garrett. Not to mention the 50 or so people Doug turned aside at the roadblock at the entry to their neighborhood. Oh, wait that was Rita so I suppose it doesn’t count.
No see rather than a mistake, presuming you didn’t have access to the information was a benefit of doubt. Now I see you have it and actively took the more dangerous decision KNOWING it’s the more dangerous one. Because you’re an idiot.
FFS, same person who did the “knife and fire poker jsut as dangerous” which I complained about.
People have fought off bears unarmed. You want to try to be the fluke?
Anecdote =/= proof.
I hope you aren’t as shitty an engineer as you are a home owner.
“Sure this set up usually over heats and bursts into flames, but I think the potential benefit if it works is worth it!”
No you’re mentally deficient because your defense are fallacious.
Nerd of Redhead, Dances OM Trolls
I’m the one making Presuppositions? In this thread I have been called stupid, racist, ignorant, obsessed, nuts oh, and apparently I have some sort of sexual mal-function that requires me to own a gun as some sort of substitute to my penis.
I won’t say I have been completely polite and cordial in the thread but I have certainly made far fewer assumptions about any of you than you all have about me.
I don’t automatically assume racism. I fucking acknowledge and have pattern recognition of what the media and society uses the term ‘looter’ to refer to.
1836 people died in Hurricane Katrina, 705 are still missing. In the immediate aftermath, there was a marked fall in the murder rate. Maybe eric does plan to shoot the hurricane if it threatens his family.
Except the big fucking one that a gun will be useful to you, in defiance of statistics and evidence.
Looter:
Either
a) there are people short on supplies due to infrastructure shut down and are desperate
b) There are opportunists looking to use the infrastructure delay to steal.
Wanting to shoot A) is paranoid and classist and B) is usually racist
Speaking as a violent housebreaking burglar, rapist and family murderer*, the first thing I am going to make sure I have when I break into a house where I suspect the owners are armed, at night or during a hurricane or what not, is a gun. And a willingness to use it…
…the two things I will make sure I have when I break into a house are a gun, a willingness to use it and a ruthless disregard for the house’s occupants…
…the three things I will make sure I have when I break into a house are a gun, a willingness to use it, a ruthless disregard for the house’s occupants, and a great deal of fear making it likely that I will shoot first and ask questions later should I encounter any occupant…
… Amongst the things I will bring when I break into a house are…
…I’ll come in again.
Louis
*Do I really need to point out that I am not a violent housebreaking burglar, rapist and family murderer? Just in case: I am not. Aren’t we all happy?
Anyway, it’s almost like people have not heard of the term “arms race”. It’s weird, maybe someone has thought about these things before? I wonder how the rest of the civilised world copes with and without guns? Gosh, the US isn’t an outlier by any small chance is it? I wonder why. Hmmmm. I doubt anyone has ever thought about this at all ever. Certainly Google Scholar will not bring up any articles for the genuinely curious. Anyway, I’m off to do other people’s homework for them. Oh wait. No I’m not.
We are ing
I don’t automatically assume racism. I fucking acknowledge and have pattern recognition of what the media and society uses the term ‘looter’ to refer to.”
Oh, so you’re racism is caused by the media. It’s not your fault. So I suppose we can excuse it.
I never saw who banged on my door so I really don’t know. But, I am glad you can make assumptions based on your own personal experiences.
Every one of them a murderer, I’m sure.
@Louis
You’re making the mistake of thinking he doesn’t have that data. he does and is a rebel because he stands against the science. I swear, fucking engineers.
The last time somone knocked on my door at 3:30 AM, I would have felt quite bad about shooting my neighbour who just needed a house key.
—
Actually, when we go to those places without power we take guns. Real guns. If you think a “looter” is scary at 3AM, try a grizzly bear.
Newspapers refer to black people as looting and white people as ‘finding’
Grow the fuck up
I’m not even fucking anti-gun. I’m anti-stupid and your arguments are beyond moronic.
We are Ing
You personally assumed that I am
a) white
b) a racist
c) stupid
Not to mention that I have not used foul language to talk to you. In my correspondence with you I have been perfectly cordial. I can’t say the same for you.I also have made no assumptions about you. Nor have I projected my stereotypes on to you.
We are ing,
A) you certainly are anti-gun, why bother lying about it.
B) Your racism gripe is with the newspaper, not with me.
C) You still haven’t shown me anything, aside from your own ability to make assumptions and project onto me your own biases and prejudices.
@Idiot
No I only assume you’re white. I suspect racist and have concluded stupid.
bullshit. You ignore what I say and argue a straw-man. I don’t like being patronized and ignored. I find it insulting. I also don’t find the “let’s accuse people of calling us racist of being bigots by intentionally misunderstanding them HURP DURP” game that racists love as cute.
The looter fear is a fear of the unwashed poor or black hordes descending upon the safe suburbia. Don’t use race paranoia language and terms if you don’t want to be viewed as racist and paranoid.
KG
Doug lives in an extremely rural neighborhood. Most of the people they turned away were like just “Disaster Tourists” we saw plenty here in Houston after Ike. But, there was no way of knowing for sure.
You know that yet still do it ? Sorry, but that that makes you a total moron.
The only claims I see is that you presuppose, without conclusive evidence, that a gun helps you. You won’t let your presuppositions be challenged with evidence, and hold them to your heart, dismissing he evidence. Just like any godbot and their imaginary deity. If the Foo shits, wear it.
For fuck sake you are an idiot.
Except explain how the arguments YOU made are self contradictory and how you’re going against evidence yet insisting your decision is a rational and intelligent one.
Yes, largely. The PIRA* were in theory non-sectarian Irish nationalists and initially at least, Marxist, in practice almost 100% Catholic. The “loyalist” terror groups were AFAIK exclusively Protestant.
Provisional IRA. The Official IRA (dontcha just love that – an official paramilitary insurgent group) and the INLA (Irish National Liberation Army) took their Marxist rhetoric a little more seriously, but the Officials (“Stickies” for some reason) abandoned the “armed struggle” fairly early on, and the INLA, while pretty vicious, were always a very small group.
blockquote>Most of the people they turned away were like just “Disaster Tourists” we saw plenty here in Houston after Ike. But, there was no way of knowing for sure. – erichoug
Right, so you have no evidence whatever that even one of them was dangerous in the slightest. So why mention them?
We are ing
You sound upset, I do not ignore what you say but you may try saying it in a more civil manner.
You immediately assumed I was racist because I used the word “looter”. As I said,I never saw whom it was that banged on my door. So the claim of racism is a bit over-wrought. I have lived in Texas all my life so I am MORE than aware of all the code words and all the racism behind them.
Also, it is a little hypocritical of you to complain about being patronized and ignored. What else have you done to me? you certainly haven’t attempted to engage me, you certainly haven’t responded appropriately to any of my points or counter points. No, you have just pedantically explained to me all the things I already know, called me names and heaped abuse on me.
Are you sure you really want to have a discussion about this or are you just looking for a fight?
But what if the hurricane turns up with a BIGGER gun!!
Let’s face it, 99% of the population do not need guns and the existence of a “gun culture” and laissez faire handling has become a serious problem in the US. Far greater than any “problem” that having guns has solved.
Unfortunately it is exactly the Erichoug mentality that prevents tighter laws and gun condemnation all the harder.
KG
You have no evidence that they weren’t.
Simple procedure, Closed neighborhood without stores or businesses, car drives up, stop car “What are you doing here?” -Helping family, helping friends, My sister asked me to come and stay with them, Check with family and let them in. Otherwise, sorry but you can’t enter right now. Please come back once things are going better.
What’s the problem.
I did above.
I responded to you. I didn’t ignore what you said and argue someone elses point.
Yes you never saw them but presumed they were a looter. *eye roll* and you’re honestly not either racist or paranoid.
After you complain about being being called stupid then agree that you’re making the more dangerous choice while complaining that others think you’re an idiot? Duh.
Also I doubt you know much of anything, as I tried to point out that your arguments relied on the exact opposite premises of previous arguments.
ricardodivali
Ah, more projection from someone who doesn’t even know me.
What exactly is my mentality? Hmmm? Why don’t you take a guess and I’ll fill in the blanks.
Wait…you didn’t see anyone bang
In a hurricane
But you presume it was a looter
IN A HURRICANE!?
Cause you know…not like it’s a storm that causes shit to bang together.
Ok this is just ridiculous. You’re grasping at anything to justify your point when it’s done. You’ve admitted the data doesn’t support your decision. Thus you are an idiot for going against what rationally is the better decision.
There are reasons, rational ones, for having a gun in certain situations. You aren’t giving them. That irks me.
I suppose we must give erichoug some credit for not claiming one reason he keeps a gun is so he can overthrow the Government.
Of course since he has admitted gun safety is not something he cares about (he does not keep his gun locked away, with the ammunition removed unless he has visitors) then his sanity is still very much in question.
Eric people judge you based on what you say.
They don’t presume you’re an idiot for having a gun, they hear your reasons and conclude you’re an idiot/
erichoug would have been one of those people who during the blitz in London in 1940/41 would have wanted a gun to keep the working class oiks coming up from the East End and insisting on being allowed to use the air raid shelter he was in.
We are ing
“I did above”
Really? was that were you said..what was it “For fuck sake you are an idiot”?
Yes, that certainly sounds civil to me.
So please explain to me, why does someone bang on my door at 3:00 in the morning, in the immediate aftermath of a hurricane, and then when I shout “Who is it?” they don’t say anything back? Hmmm, I am sure there is a perfectly innocent explanation, right?
And again, you assumed racism. I assumed that someone was banging on my door in the middle of the night, any way you slice it that means something is wrong.
We Are Ing
Ike rolled through Friday night/saturday morning. This was tuesday at around 2-3 in the morning.
Because they are injured and need help ?
Heh. Disaster tourists. I was turned away at civilian roadblocks numerous times. While in uniform. While working the hurricanes. While in a marked (magnetic markings on a rental) vehicle. And yes, they were all heavily armed. Made me feel so much safer.
Erichoug, #303,
Oh my lack of god, now you’ve done it. You’re illegally restricting a public right of way. In the UK that would get you the Right to Roam people on your doorstep in minutes. There would be tutting, wagging fingers, a lecture on rambling. Have you seen what these people can do with a Kendal Mint Cake? Looters are the least of your worries.
They may even ask you to go looking for badgers.
Louis
P.S.
And yet you own a gun. Please turn in your degree certificate, you seem to have missed out on the required reasoning capacity aspect.
The OP was about someone actually “bursting” into a room and threatening people with a cell phone.
Eric, the same i have seen hundreds of times, every time this matter comes up. Even if your profile doesn’t quite fit the “out of my dead hands” brigade perfectly, you are close enough to the caricature to be used.
Louis,
This isn’t UK and thank god for that. I prefer Texas where I am less likely to get knifed to death by roaming gangs of hoodlums.
And please spare me your projections,
I own a gun because without it you are relying on luck and statistical averages. You don’t want to own one that’s fine with me.
ricardodivali
Oh, so I am a caricature, What sort of caricature? Hmmm?
Actually mohammad would have been really offended by any moslem using a camera in the first place. Graven images and all that. Cameras are immer verboten!
*farts*
Matt Penfold
Oh! They need help. Now I understand, that’s why they didn’t respond to my “Who’s there” That’s why they walked past 20 other appartments to get to mine, upstairs at the far end of the complex. Now that makes perfect sense.
As someone who lived in the UK for most of my life (though I now live in the US), I can attest that residents of the UK are extremely unlikely to get “knifed to death by roving gangs of hoodlums”. Certainly no more so than residents of Texas are.
Sorry, but was it actually a person? There’s a lot of debris around a hurricane site. Or you just had a dream about someone knocking. Happened to me a last week actually. Right nuisance. It may not even have been the door, but just sounded like it.
I see you are pretty clueless. Tell me, did being so ignorant come naturally or is it something you have had to work at ?
Still enjoy living in Texas, with Rick Perry as your Governor. Having someone that intelligent in charge must really make you proud of your state.
Walton,
Thanks, I feel a lot safer. I prefer France to England though. The people there are so much more interesting, not to mention attractive.
David M,
Do you think so? I fail to see how anyone would welcome being forced to do something, but the specific use of cock sucking as a derogatory punishment, often seen on par with torture stems from more than being forced to do something. It is rooted in the notion that having the cock is good, using the cock is good, taking the cock is bad, and being used for the cock is bad.
I think you need to think about this a bit more, this is not about orientation in the sense that I am inferring from you statement. It is about gender roles, not attraction.
ricardodivali
This wasn’t during the storm it was a few days after. And yes, I am sure. The same guys knocked on several other doors in my complex in the days after the storm. Wanna guess why?
It makes as much sense as your thinking they were to kill/rob you, which was my point. I see thinking is not something you do much off is it ?
Matt Penfold
Ah, more assumptions about me. No actualy I have never liked Rick Perrry and I sure as hell didn’t like Mr. Bush either. Especially after all the dirty tricks he pulled on poor Ann to get elected.
But, thanks for accusing me of being igonrant and then projection you own assumptions about everyone in Texas on to me.
I think you will find that being a gun-crazed maniac is no more acceptable in France than it is in the UK.
Matt Penfold
OK, so what should I assume when someone pounds on my door at 3:00 in the morning and then doesn’t answer when I shout “Who is it”
Yes, you’re so much smarter than me. I guess you would think they were selling girl scout cookies, In the immediate aftermath of a Hurricane, in a dark city, at 3:00 in the morning, with little or no police presence.
Well it was a reasonable assumption, given you lack of intellect, but clearly in this case I was wrong. I did ask you a question as whether being as stupid as as you are took effort or came naturally. You did not answer, so I assume you could not understand the question.
Erichoug,
LOL! Knifed to death by roaming gangs of hoodlums? Have you any idea about the difference in rates of violent crime between the UK and the US? Hell, between Texas and the UK? I’m hardly any species of patriot but Merrie Olde Englande is supremely less violent, even given those roaming gangs of hoodlums which are just EVERYWHERE of course, than the Good Ol’ US of A.
But of course you already knew that having {titter, giggle} read “all the data”. All of it. Your word: ALL. Spectacularly well informed about an area well outside your field of expertise. Kudos. Help me out, could you provide me a couple of these sources please, I’m always keen to be educated.
Projections? Really? I seem to have missed them. Perhaps you could outline them for me. Maybe you can be specific.
Really? There are no other things I can rely on? Gosh, it is an interesting place this binary world in which you live.
Anyway, unless you emerge from your comic froth of self contradictory fear-mongering, I’m just going to continue to laugh at your paranoia and drivel. Have a nice day, y’all!
Louis
Just don’t answer the door. Pretty simple really, but for some reason you think it is better to deliberately put your life, and your families lives at risk in the pursuit of your ideology.
You are willing to guess, but not actually find out.
I have helped to enforce a mandatory evacuation of a housing area. We started at 1:00am and kept at it until about 4:30am. (This was due to a wildland fire, not a hurricane.) And we were in groups of three for our safety because where we were, we knew that most of the houses were likely to have firearms in them.
Matt Penfold
Actually there were quite a lot of guns in Paris when I was there. but they were all on the cops/military patrolling the city. But, really it didn’t come up much so I wouldn’t know. Aside from the one couple that wanted to know about my gun that morning at the B&B. They were a lot more polite than y’all but then that was face to face.
Matt Penfold, #323,
Rick Perry is bad, but then that is Texas. They do things bigger over there. And until we are rid of Cameron and the Con-Demnation I fear we have little to brag about.
Now please excuse me, I have to nip out and get knifed to death by a roaming gang of hoodlums. Oh if only I were armed to the teeth and deeply paranoid.
;-)
Louis
So, none of you have answered my question about why someone would bang on my door at 3:00 in the morning after a Hurricane. If I should “Who’s there” there and heard “Police open up” that’s one thing. Why would they not respond and why were they banging?
Hmmmm?
No, I said that you were close enough to the “out of my cold dead hands” caricature to be used for my soap box post. I know, I know it’s cruel, and you can’t protect yourself with your gun against it. Poor you.
And really. Knifed by hoodlums in the UK?? Have you seen our death by violence statistics compared to the US?
There was a comedy routine a long time ago from an American about English vs American crime. All i remember is “We’re the hOoOligans (bad british accent)…we’re the HoOoli[BANG][BANG][BANG]… Dude!?! Who were those dumb fuckers?”.
Can anyone pull it for Eric.
Denephew,
I never did find out why they were knocking, But I have a pretty good idea. when I opened the door they were gone.
My suspicion is that hey were checking to see who had bugged out. If anyone answers or they hear motion inside they just took off. If nothing= they’re staying with relatives in Dallas and they can clear the place out.
Wait — random loud bang at the door in the middle of the night, therefore WE NEED GUNS NOW!
I don’t know, it seems to me that HAVING A DOOR was adequate to defend against the vague threaty late night fears and hyperactive agency detector.
What if it had been a bang, and someone had rattled the doorknob? Would that warrant having a battery of automatic rifles?
And if it had been bang, rattle, and a cuss word, would you then need a howitzer and an array of claymores?
I had no idea England was the land of roving stabby knife-gangs.It’s amazing that the country hasn’t collapsed, given their low gun ownership and gun fatality rates.
In the UK, murders or assaults using a knife that occur in the home are so overwhelmingly carried out by someone living in the home that cases where someone breaks in are minuscule, one or two cases a year at most, and even then it is often someone who is known to the victim. Random knife attacks by strangers outside the home are rare as well. There is a problem with knife crime amongst teenage gangs, so I can assume erichoug is admitting that he is a teenage gang-member.
ricardodivali
Ah, so you know so much about me from reading my posts here you can make all kinds of assumptions about me. Let’s see, I have revealed that I own a gun, am not a theist and graduated from college.
yup, that certainly allows you to extrapolate a lot about me doesn’t it.
{rescue workers}: Knock, knock,knock.
{erichoug}: Bang, Bang, Bang.
{family}: Cry, cry,cry.
{sentient beings everywhere}: Sigh, sigh, sigh.
Yup, I’m betting on libertarian.
To find “empty” houses? Which means you’re would be attackers and rapists could have been seen off with a particularly vicious candle.
Yeah, but they were breaking the rule for
Jesus, eh MO. That’s always acceptable.You also know that words are to be taken literally, not by their actual sense.
So, since he didn’t engrave the pictures, Allah is obviously fooled.
It always amazes me how they think that their god is allmighty, but try to pull tricks that are adequate for preschoolers.
It also amazes me how my BIL’s boyfriend reasons that Yahwe is OK with him fucking guys but would never forgive bacon…
So you don’t know. All you have is a late-night noise at the door.
Also, in your worst suspicion, they are “looters” who fled at the sound of your voice. So how does this justify guns again?
Now you are not being fair on yourself there. You have also done a good job of making it very obvious you have problems when it comes to thinking. You seem to think that is something to be proud of, given how often you are willing demonstrate your difficulty. Why be so diffident now ?
OK, PZ is jumping on me so it’s time to bow out.
Let me just close out gracefully with a few points
1) None of you really know me but all of you have assumed that you do.
2) like it or not, gun ownership is gauranteed to me by the constitution just like free speech and freedom of(and from) religion.
3) I have my reason for owning a gun and not one of you has posted a cogent argument for me to give it up.
As a final thought I will exted my invitation to Brownian to all the rest of you. If any of you would like to discuss this in person, I live in Houston and I always enjoy a good discussion/debate/argument. I will leave the gun at home unless you would like to go to the range to shoot. As with Brownian,. I will buy lunch
erichoug@gmail.com
Thanks for the spirited discussion.
You think i only extrapolate how you think from direct facts you give me? You’re leaking information about yourself with every word and turn of phrase.
My suspicion is that hey were checking to see who had bugged out. If anyone answers or they hear motion inside they just took off. – erichoug
Ah. So you didn’t actually need your gun; and this is clearly another case where a dog would be much more effective if whoever knocked was intending to loot the place, for which you’ve presented no evidence.
Cue Music: Brave Sir Robin.
Erichoug,
Nice! (Who had this one on the BUGFUCKNUTS Bingo card?)
Let me assure you that some of us are considerably less polite in person. Never seems to cause any trouble. I wonder why? Maybe it’s because we’re armed to the teeth. Or perhaps it’s something else.
Louis
P.S. Hint for you Internet Tough Guy, because I love mocking people like you, things like this:
Make you sound really, really, reasonable and not at all like a paranoid gun-nut playing Internet Tough Guy because he’s really really tough in real life. Oh wait…no they don’t! They make you look like a mockable arse. Whoopsie! Now run along before I mock you some more.
That’s not graceful, that’s stupid.
1. I feel like we’ve all gotten to know you very well in your 29 comments in this thread.
2. No one has tried to deny your rights.
3. No one has tried to pry the gun out of your hand. They have pointed out that your arguments are awesomely stupid.
The subject of the debate, which you seem not to have noticed, is not “Can we take Eric Houg’s guns away?”, it has been “Are Eric Houg’s arguments irrational, illogical, and inane?”, and unfortunately, you seem to have been demonstrating on the “for” side in the argument.
Well yeah, since you’re such a shitty person that “your loved ones are more likely to get hurt” doesn’t matter to you.
@ Giliell
Obviously his own personal jebus. (Someone to hear his prayers. Someone who cares.)
You presented such arguments yourself:
Now the following is a real gem:
Texas has a homicide rate of around 60 per million. The UK has a homicide rate of around 15 per million. You must really work at maintaining your ignorance.
PZ,
Oh you fool! Don’t you know Eric has a special gun shaped door that frightens nasty late night callers away? It’s covered with special signs saying “Armed Response” and “Owner is armed, jumpy, paranoid and injecting adrenaline”. I was a SuperDoor.
I have to say what amuses/disturbs me about all this is Eric’s pathetically low standard for fear. Someone knocked on his door during a hurricane therefore guns?
Okay, I had Jehovah’s Witnesses come around to my house for ages, they never go away. THAT is terrifying. I’m off to the nuclear weapons shop. BRB.
Louis
When you what?
I’m not going back over EH’s self-serving bullshit, but does he still think that me saying he is arguing presuppositionally like a godbot does in defense of their imaginary deity means I am calling he a godbot? I’m not. Merely noticing the analogy of the argumentation method he is [was, lets see if he sticks the founce] engaged in.
Weaponizing idiots does not a good constitution make.
You must have that wrong KG. Texas has to be safer, because of all those people who own handguns.
theophontes
Na, he’s got no business with Jebus, he’s a wannabe Jew.
Oh, last time somebody tried to enter our house, they claimed to be UPS.
At 5:30am
On a holiday.
Nobody was shot.
Sorry but I am really laughing. I am going to accost my next burglar* with the line “I’ve got a door and I am willing to use it”.
That’ll fuck ’em. Surreal ’em right out of the property.
Louis
* I’ve been burgled before. Shocking right? My wife went un-raped, my child wasn’t even born and so went un-murdered and they got away with very little, nothing of value**. We didn’t even wake up to be frank, they legged it when the wind closed our bedroom door.
I, however, was viciously murdered because I didn’t leap down the stairs with a helicopter minigun in each hand screaming “Banzai!” and wearing a red bandana.
It’s okay. I got better.
** A VCR and sundry crap. My life for a VCR? Erm, no. Their life for a VCR? Equally no.
Probably a land shark.
Giliell
Woah safari! Do you not realize that Jesus = Yahwe?
(Everyone knows this, they only hide the TRUTH ™ from themselves.)
SC,
That was one of my (very few) serious thoughts about Eric’s predicament.
If I was in fear of my life from late night hurricane inspired looters/burglars/potentially armed folks, I wouldn’t be opening the door.
I’ve seen movies. Even if I opened the door with a battalion and a series of quite well primed howitzers I believe the chap behind the hedge with a BB gun will get me every time. I think it’s a million to one chance or something. ;-)
Louis
No, I did not. I merely raised some points which were absolutely ignored.
Oh. Sorry. You never stated that you were part of a well regulated militia (odd, the ammendment has the word regulated right in it but regulating guns is never allowed).
Your reasoning seems to be terror. Congratulations. You are a victim of Fox news terrorism.
Isn’t posing as the police a COMMON method for gaining access for home invaders?
Ing,
We should take off and nuke the site from orbit. It’s the only way to be sure.
Louis
Well I certainly would not assume someone banging on my door in the early hours yelling they are the police is actually who they say they are. I might open a bedroom window and shout down at them, asking them to put their ID through the letter box.
Louis, mate, you’re diamond. I swear I can feel those posts doing me a power of good.
‘Tis the wind and nothing more. :>
Guess what: you’re relying on luck and statistical averages with a gun, as well, only now the statistical averages are against you, as you readily recognize. You hope you’ll be lucky enough to be one of the people who successfully defend themselves with guns and not one of the people who get shot with their own guns (accidentally or not) or whose guns are stolen (even though you don’t keep your gun locked away most of the time).
Frankly, your whole defense seems to hinge around the fact that the gun makes you feel in control, to such an extent that you are willing to disregard the question of whether it actually gives you more control. You’re like people who take a long road trip instead of flying because they’re afraid of airplane crashes.
I’m fascinated by the legions of secret geniuses who pose as half-brained dumb-as-shit morons here. While every one of them refuses to explain why the elaborate subterfuge, they can never resist hinting at this mystery. “You don’t know me,” they coyly smile, “I’m not who I’ve presented myself as in every argument I’ve made here. I’m actually very smart.”
What eric “I shot myself in the head but won’t admit it, hence the brain damage” houg and the others don’t understand is that they’re the problem. They’re the Other, and now they’re armed.
You think I trust you not to shoot me, or my friend, or my family, or my neighbour just because you post on Pharyngula and tell me you’re responsible? erichoug admits he only secures his weapons when guests are over, which means that the first criminal to break into his house when he’s not at home—a far more likely scenario than this mythical Dirty Harry vs. the Midnight Intruder scenario every one of these fuckballs assumes, since criminals, even thought they’re on average pretty dumb and shitty at planning, aren’t completely fucking stupid—now has a gun. No problem for Second Amendment Eric—he’ll just go buy another. And now there’s one more gun on the street, and eric’s still waving his around at every bump in the night.
But the fact is that nothing eric has said gives me any confidence that he’s competent to work a pistol correctly, and that doesn’t mean training at the range with the rest of his wannabe ranger buddies, that means being competent and able to correctly assess a threat and whether or not to neutralise it with lethal force.
Seriously, the guy can’t even explain why he has a gun other than he got scared one rainy night and the US constitution (clearly written by people unable to forsee the bastion of pugnacious brainlessness that is Texas) grants him the right to one.
That’s the problem. The world isn’t a dichotomy between ne-erdowell criminals and Responsible Citizens Such As erichoag—it’s a dichotomy between those who’ve decided, on their own, that they’re fucking capable of making split-second decisions the police and military have trouble making simlpy because they’re scared, and the rest of us. And our safety is in their idiotic hands. And their solution is that we should all similarly arm ourselves.
Considering how useless it is reasoning with these walking Pliocene throwbacks, I’m considering it.
And I’m gonna reason just the same way as they do, with my dick and a head full of terror. Lock up your kids, because from my point of view, they probably all got guns too, and the first one to headshot wins, right?
It’s quite interesting that many Americans don’t pay attention to the well regulated militia part of their precious 2nd amendment.
My cousin awoke one night to see an arm coming through the broken window of her back door. She said the most enjoyable sound she ever heard was the sound of her baseball bat crunching the arm. Loose the guns, regulate my cousin.
I might also note that despite their OBVIOUS superiority to guns. We are far more likely to outlaw dog ownership based on dangerous breed than gun ownership.
The law in some places says that the same person is clearly not responsible enough to own a Rottweiler…but can own a Glock.
Cogent? Don’t use that word if you don’t know what it means.
As you readily admit:
And then you follow up with:
You know what that means? It means you’re dangerously stupid because you’re unable and unwilling to recognise evidence and statistical inference and apply it to life and death decisions.
No, it’s not that we haven’t posted cogent arguments—it’s that you don’t fucking care because you’re arguing from fear (“Oh, noes! Hurricane Ike!”) and testosterone (“Come and take my gun, big boy”).
That’s how stupid, teenaged boys die. There’s no point in arguing with you, because you’ve all but admitted you think statistics and evidence don’t apply to you, the very antithesis of rational thinking. Like a kid who doesn’t wear a condom because “yeah, I know the stats, but condoms don’t feel as good” you’re a fucking accident waiting to happen.
Maybe you’re not an idiot in other aspects of your life, but in this respect you’re no fucking smarter than the marauding assholes you’re terrified of.
Thanks Opposablethumbs, most kind.
I am however getting concerned. I’m developing a genuine inability to take these people seriously. I can’t turn the mockery off. Help me. I’m being assaulted by dumb-dumbs and it is causing permanent sarcasm. A sort of priapism of the piss taking parts of the brain.
Louis
There’s not much you can do. Incredulous anger and/or sarcasm are the only appropriate responses to someone who thinks statistics don’t apply to you if you don’t want them to.
Well, that and bleed them dry through lotto tickets and Ponzi schemes.
It’s all about choice. This is the delusion that America has bred for itself.
Dogs aren’t a cumshot waiting in a nightable drawer.
Guns: 1
Dogs: 0
Brownian,
[singing]
That’s not what Rick Santorum thinks!
[/singing]
Louis
Found it just for Eric!
An American experiences English Crime
Don’t forget, they have organized crime, too
@Brownian
I do not get it.
I love comments 340 and 347. Note to self: Minnesota, apparently unlike wherever Mr Houg lives, is not a land where you can actually kick in the doors of people’s houses.
I have a gun, the other guy has a gun, the other guy draws faster, there is no discussion.
I have a gun, the other guy has a gun, the other guy shoots first, I happen not to be wearing a bulletproof vest/he hits my head/he’s close/whatever, not only is there no discussion, but I’m actually dead.
No, Mr Houg, that’s not worth it.
And it goes on! If the other guy has reason to assume that I’m not packing heat, he’s less likely to shoot – less likely to even bring a gun to what probably isn’t going to be a gunfight in the first place. See comment 285.
2) Suppose it was a looter. So just shouting “who is it” scared them away – what do you still want a gun for?
1) “In the immediate aftermath of a hurricane”… why are you so sure it even was a person? Was it part of the neighbor’s roof perhaps?
Oh, so it was not the immediate aftermath? Well, then, explanation 1) falls flat, most likely.
LOL! These two sentences in two successive comments! :-D
You’re a caricature of a stereotypical Faux Noise viewer who doesn’t know shit about the world. (Not even where most of it is, for instance.)
That definitely plays a role, at least for people whose thought process even goes that far. But it’s not the whole thing. Apart from the fact that it would be rape – yes, I would find it more disgusting than sucking pretty much any other externally accessible body part. Probably surpassed only by the anus (of either/any sex). I can’t imagine I’m the only person who feels that way.
It’s about both and more.
Having lived in France for 5 years, I think you’re right.
Yes, heavily armed military/police-type people strut around in the train stations. That’s because France had a War on Terror™ long before 9/11 made it cool.
Three days after a hurricane, and there’s still no police present?
:-D
QFT.
So much fun on a thread derailed by a gun nut who may even be clinically paranoid! X-) Truly, nobody is useless.
Thread won.
Aren’t stolen guns an important part of the supply for the black market in the USA?
ROTFL! Into my quote collection.
Ditto.
Turn it into a virtue. Keep doing what PZ always wants us to do: point and laugh.
Giliell@385,
Ah we have the Serious Organised Crime Agency (SOCA) to deal with that sort of thing nowadays. But I do feel more needs to be done to deal with frivolous, disorganised crime.
The joke that guns are a penis extension was made upthread.
I do wonder, what happens if someone breaks into his house (through those paper doors he installed) and steals poor Eric’s gun (because it’s not locked up)?
I lived in the Houston area during hurricane Ike. In its brutal aftermath, I was terrified that I would run out of beer and have to drive all the way to College Station to get some.
Luckily, I had my trusty Thompson to keep my brew safe from looters and moochers.He sure can’t rely on his wits.
<snicker>
I have to say, even if I owned a firearm (which I don’t, and don’t want to), I can’t imagine any likely circumstances in which it would be any use for self-defence. The only possible circumstance in which I could ever imagine myself being willing to shoot someone would be if xe was hirself armed and actively trying to kill me or others; and in that circumstance it would probably be too late for me to arm myself. I certainly wouldn’t be willing to kill anyone in defence of property; no amount of property is ever worth a human life. (And I’m extremely disturbed by Eric’s belligerent rhetoric and apparent paranoid trigger-happiness.)
But I also acknowledge that I’m coming from a position of privilege; I’m a white middle-class person who’s lived all my life in safe places, and I’ve never felt threatened enough to want to arm myself with anything. Some people are not so fortunate, and it’s also very true that someone who is poor or from an unpopular minority can’t count on any kind of police protection in many parts of the world. So I don’t condemn firearm owners, nor do I have a strong opinion either way on gun control. Though I’m also unimpressed by the arguments of the political pro-gun lobby in the US (much of which seems to have turned largely into a front for paranoid right-wing conspiracy theorists and racists).
To clarify this a bit more: all I’m saying is that I recognize that my own experiences aren’t representative of everyone’s, and I’m wary of making any kind of policy judgment based on my own feelings on this subject.
Walton, please stop apologizing for making intelligent, cogent arguments.
Call me naive, but rather than stocking up on weapons to protect yourself against looters in the case of a natural disaster, couldn’t we create a community that will produce less looters, have disaster plans that work (Texas is known to get hurricanes isn’t it), have competent police and government.
There are some countries that have natural disasters and handle them relatively well.
I feel sorry that erichoag feels so unsafe in his own home that he needs to arm himself against people kicking down his door. My door could be easily be kicked in yet I feel safe – I am lucky.
are there even that many muslims outside of Afghanistan who wear/whose wifes wear the burqa? Because the most I’ve ever seen is a full niqab, and even those are extremely rare (and in my very limited experience, more common among alienated children of immigrants (and converts) rather than immigrants); I do see chadors occasionally though.
Or is nitwit calling all muslim head-coverings “burqa”? because that would be a different kind of stupid.
further: what if it’s the woman who’s a fanatic, and not her husband? sometimes, it’s the woman who chooses (yes, chooses) to put on the veil, not her husband. After all, women do have agency, and some of them use that agency to conform as well as possible to patriarchal ideals.
you mean like Obama’s pastor Rev. Wright? Or does this only count for Muslims, not also Christians? And what about the terrorists who go to extremely pro-Western religious services and prefer to terrorize teh ebil Left?
actually, if anything, he “condemned” them as people who hold racist beliefs and/or act in racist ways. Which, given the systemic nature of racism, can’t exclude PoC. Or is your understanding of systemic biases so limited that you really think PoCs can’t hold racist ideas, women can’t hold misogynist ideas, etc.?
well, that’s incoherent. I see you can’t tell the difference between experience and opinion. All experiences have “selective bias”, but since experiences are by definition subjective, that bias doesn’t falsify the experience (it might falsify the interpretation, but that’s something else). opinions, as the term is casually used, are not like experiences; they can actually be wrong, especially when people use “opinion” to describe their interpretation of reality rather than personal opinions such as “blue is the prettiest color”
fallacy of the golden middle. boring.
depending on the quality of the construction, they can be the kind we have between rooms inside an apartment; or made of plywood-like substances, where a thorough kick can rip the lock out of the door. also, in fancy houses, doors to the backyard are often sliding glass-doors. so yeah, in America, you can kick in someone’s door.
still, more likely he’s seen too many movies in which doors are being kicked in.
no; whether or not I have gun, as long as he has a gun and he expects I have a gun, there is no discussion because I get shot the moment dude noticed someone’s moving in the house. Unless I’m a fucking Marine, which I’m not.
Wouldn’t be the case in a place where gun-ownership isn’t common.
i guess the USA (or the parts eric is from) are already a failed state, if a few days/weeks of electricity outage turn people into murderers and rapists on the spot O.o
that’s seriously fucking confused. for one, as people keep on saying, such “flukes” are also possible without guns with the added bonus of not increasing the statistical likelihood of getting your family shot. and two… do you even know what a “fluke” is? there is nothing you can do to make yourself the lucky one who actually defends his family, rather than the unlucky one who kills a member thereof. It’s like special pleading for yourself.
then you don’t know if it was a looter, now do you. so much for not making assumptions.
no KG; looter; keep your terminology straight. all 50 of those guys were definitely looters.
a)one doesn’t need to be white to hold racist ideas
b)you’re repeating racist tropes and seem to believe them; that’s a clue that you… hold racist ideas
c)that’s more of a deduction from the stupid shit you’re writing. People wanted to give you the benefit of the doubt and instead think you were merely ignorant, but you wouldn’t let them.
indeed there wasn’t. so using them to answer the question of how many looters you’ve encountered was a simple lie.
personal pet peeve: using the word “whom” incorrectly. if you don’t know its grammatical function, don’t fucking use it; ever. it makes you look like someone trying to look smarter than they are.
no such thing as right to roam in the us. hence the gated communities and private roads and shit, the unauthorized usage of which can get you shot in some states (especially those states with “shoot first, ask questions later” laws)
HAHAHAHAHAHAAAA
idiot. violent crimes are significantly lower in the UK, and lower still in other parts of Europe, than in the US, and especially places like Texas. Gun or not, you’re significantly more likely to die or be injured violently in Texas than anywhere in Western Europe. Nice stereotypes and assumptions you’ve got there, though.
not any more or less so than with a gun. it’s just that the luck and statistical averages are more in my favor when I have a dog rather than a gun.
colder winters require thicker walls and better-insulated doors, dontcha know (I made that up, but actually walls and doors are thicker up north than they were in California; I wouldn’t be too surprised if they had Californian cardboard-houses in Texas, too).
Random replies to walton:
True, but anarchism as a recognised ideology has been around for just as long as female suffrage advocacy and that has near universal acceptance in the world, whilst anarchism remains a fringe idea everywhere. LGBT rights is a few decades old even, but towers above your ideology in acceptance already.
I thought about it last night, why do you anarchists not move to Somalia? I doubt they have any “racist” immigration controls in place, so your infinite anger on that issue at least would ease. Somalia is in my view the best example of what an open border, laissez-faire anarchist state would resemble.
“Sensitive” is the exact sort of weasel word used by the people that react with censorship and threats to the “Jesus and Mo” cartoons! You try to play the religious critic, but already have your sell out to Islamic misogyny and homophobia at the ready for the sake of what you imagine is some noble anti-racist or anti-imperialist purpose.
I note that you reject Maryam Namazie right when she takes a firm stand on misogyny in Islam. I guess her voice (and that of other Muslim and ex-Muslim women) matters less than the fundamentalists to you? By the way we have the same law on hiding ones face in Belgium and I am proud as ever for it! Vive la laïcité!
Such extremism prohibits a rational response. As I suggested before, you use the term “racist” (and also “stupid”) as much as possible as if it creates some form of meaningful argument via repetition. This page, in theory on a Muslim extremist act, now has 127 uses of the words “racist” or “racism”, but only 102 uses of “Muslim” or “Islam*” (and that includes the article!). That speaks volumes.
Yes, I am responsible for a few of them obviously, but Sally Strange said all that truly needed to be said to forestspirit. His remarks are ridiculous because Islamic extremists, racist extremists, anarchist extremists and others come from their birth nations more than by immigration.
***
Honestly you anarchists and ‘anti-racists’ here are just a step from being the mobile-wielding Muslim fanatic in the news piece. You already exhibit both the aggressive anger and blind belief in the righteousness of your extremism. You need only a reason to unleash your fury. I am frightened of you, but that probably is your goal.
I just wanted to say these final things. The anger and extremism here, from both right and left, is too disturbing for my tastes. I will likely not be posting further.
You seem to have decided arbitrarily that I am an anarchist; I never said so myself. It is entirely possible to oppose immigration controls without being an anarchist. Please stop attacking imaginary strawmen.
My argument is that states should abolish their existing protectionist immigration laws, and cease discriminating on the basis of nationality; and that Western governments’ discrimination against and inhumane treatment of immigrants is a civil rights issue on a par with racism, sexism and homophobia. I have provided extensive and detailed illustration in multiple posts of the catastrophic human cost of the existing immigration laws, all of which you have chosen to ignore. I can only assume that you’re not interested in the real lives of migrants (including children, and including refugee victims of torture and rape) detained in detention centres like Yarl’s Wood and Campsfield House, or deported to dangerous countries; families torn apart by deportation; irregular migrants trapped in poverty by their inability to work legally, or trapped in abusive relationships because of their inability to seek protection from the authorities; or any of the countless other victims of immigration enforcement. I’ve provided links to empirical studies, and links to the individual human stories of migrants who are marginalized and harmed directly by Western countries’ immigration laws. This is about people, not ideology. If you’re just going to yell “anarchist! anarchist!” rather than engaging with what I’m actually saying, then I’m done with this conversation.
My, you’re really having fun bashing away at that strawman, aren’t you? Again, I did not advocate the abolition of states, only the abolition of protectionist immigration laws. And if it is seriously your contention that liberalizing Western countries’ immigration laws would cause them to become like Somalia, I’d like to see some empirical support for that bizarre claim.
I oppose the ban not because of any sympathy with fundamentalists, but, rather, because of the evidence that the law is actively harming Muslim women. See France’s burqa ban: women are “effectively under house arrest” I dislike the burqa as much as you do. But outlawing and criminalizing it is not the answer.
On one level, it is bizarre to think that one can “liberate” women from misogyny by telling them what they may and may not wear in public, and arresting them if they don’t comply. For those women who choose to wear the burqa or the niqab, such a law deprives them of agency and choice. And for those women who are forced into wearing it by abusive family-members, the law doesn’t help them; it just forces them out of the public square entirely. See the interviews with Muslim women in this article. Again, you don’t seem very interested in the actual life-experiences of people affected by this law.
You have no idea what you are talking about. Somalia is a failed state with several factions competing to be the head of a new state. It is no more an anarchist ideal than the Spanish Anarchists facing off against both Franco and the Republican forces during the Spanish Civil War.
Also, what you suggested in neither new nor clever. I doubt you thought very hard about this.
elisabetht.’s a little fallacy factory, isn’t she?
I have not been reading this thread. I just happened to just got back online, read that and had to respond. If this is typical of what elizabethh has been saying, I guess she is a fallacy factory.
Do I need to go back and slog through this thread?
I thought about it last night, why do you anarchists not move to Somalia?
Too many libertarians there.
No, but it’s pretty entertaining, as threads go.
Actually, that sounds like a fairly humane god, much more so than the xian version. I mean, presumably the guys he’s fucking are ok with it, but the pigs probably aren’t too happy about losing their bacon.
Mind you, I much prefer bacon to fucking guys, but still….
Well that’s where you’re wrong. The roving gangs of hoodlums in Texas would never knife you to death.
They carry guns.
And dammit, this is America, they’ve got a Constitutional right to them!
(Unless, of course, they’re Mexican.)
elisabetht’s argument seems to boil down to “You’re an extremist, and you appear to be angry, therefore I don’t have to pay any attention to the evidence or listen to anything you say.” She should change her ‘nym to Miss Golden Mean.
Sweet jesus I can’t stop laughing. . .
I have absolutely no idea how this is supposed to be an argument for anything. The length for which something has been a fringe idea simply isn’t an indicator of wrongness. Most ideas implemented over the last two centuries have existed for hundreds if not thousands of years as fringe ideas, after all.
hell, atheism has existed as a fringe idea pretty much since the invention of monotheism, if not earlier. And it still is a fringe idea in many places. It’s still not incorrect though.
This is the weirdest ad populum I’ve ever seen, TBH
[meta]
elisabetht.:
Your alliteration is less than it could be: shouldn’t that read “aggressive anger and blind belief in the righteousness of your radicalism?”
:)
better still:
“aggressive anger and blind belief in the righteous radicalism of your anarchism and anti-racism”
also available to be worked into that sentence:
careless certainty
dangerous dogma
evil extremism
fraught with fundamentalism
gormless generalizations
hindered by haughtiness
immense ignorance
.
.
.
etc.
Let’s see…
“These gormless generalizations, hindered by haughtiness, demonstrate the immense ignorance of your aggressive anger and blind belief in the righteous radicalism of your anarchism and anti-racism which in turn reflects the careless certainty of those who, in evil extremism follow a dangerous dogma fraught with fundamentalism.”
*alliteration ASPLOSION*
I wish I’d remembered this earlier.
I will admit not responding to you is far more difficult that I imagined.
***
One quote really distills your entire flawed mindset:
First, you are an idealogue, but one driven by ideas rooted in guilt rather than reason. Reasoned ideology means actually having a rational, practical plan to manage society. It is not possible for me to use a strawman against you, because your views are so extreme, I cannot effectively go past that point. You openly condemn the concept of nation states and wish to strip them of a definitive feature in modern times (immigration control), yet wonder why a person describes you as an “anarchist”? The best I can do is taunt you with what open-border states like Somalia are in reality. For all your “evidence” consisting of sad narratives, I see no example presented of a successful nation with open-borders.
Worse, your open-borders mentality is then rooted in a destructive mindset, namely that the way to address issues of inequality is to tear something down. Constructive redistribution has proven much better. Yet you would destroy the social democracy that we in the West enjoy (and that provides aid to the world), just because not everyone gets to partake in it. In that regard your mindset is not so different from the extremist capitalist who relishes a ‘race to the bottom’ in wages.
Then you rationalise your extremist views by telling yourself that you are some sort of vanguard thinker. Probably true, centuries from now nation states will become unnecessary, but it will be an organic process. Again your mindset mirrors another dangerous set of idealogues: neocons. You share their arrogance and paternalism in thinking you can just impose radical societal changes based on good intentions. Open borders would be a nightmare that would backlash with a fury against the very people you seek to aid.
The best example I have of a modern society engaged in the scale of change you advocate is the Cultural Revolution in China. Apparently that is the level of destruction and violence it will take to assuage fevered guilt.
Fortunately I have enough faith in my fellow European citizens that very few people are so guilt-absorbed to actually tear down our society with unregulated immigration.
To have completely open borders with no controls at all may be bad. But also bad is to have restrictions on entry based on nothing more than the race or religion (however much we think it’s fairy woo) of the person.
i see you don’t have a clue what a strawman is. clue: it does not require hyperbole
Somalia is not an “open-border state”, because it’s not a state, what with the lack of government and everything.
yeah, amazing how, in order to lessen inequality, you have to tear down those parts of a system that promote inequality.
Incidentally, I shall note that none of the people you’re whining at has proposed the tearing down of borders right this instant and completely; because unlike you, they’re capable of nuance that acknowledges the flaws in an existing system (and criticizes the support of the flawed aspects; and fights against the sort of mentalities that make the flawed even worse than it is) while understanding that we currently lack a means to safely dismantle/restructure the system.
now you’re just lying, since walton doesn’t wish to do so, neither in intent nor in effect.
lulz; I’d say you know nothing of World System Theory, but probably even if you did, you’d whine about it the same way you whine about anti-racism.
except for the part where it isn’t. but it’s become rather obvious that you can’t tell libertarianism from anarchism anyway.
what the fuck does that even mean? The EU for example was not an “organic process”; people made it happen, on purpose, by pushing their ideas. And now we have a zone with open borders. That’s exactly what will have to happen ultimately globally, but it won’t be “organic”; it won’t happen by itself.
you’re dangerously ignorant; or you’re just making shit up.
except that he doesn’t; stop making shit up.
yeah, the EU open borders policy has been a veritable nightmare.
oh, wait.
(and nevermind that closed borders already are a nightmare; of which people who deal with asylum-seekers probably have a wee bit more knowledge than you do; and so do people who know what the wealth of the Western world is built on)
more bullshit. Your ranting is starting to remind me of those idiots who claim Obama is a fascist communist muslim though, the way you glom together systems and ideologies that are mutually exclusive as if they were interchangeable.
And where is that happening precisely? Certainly not the EU or anglophone nations since forty years ago.
Labour markets, regulation of the social welfare state, concern about population density in small nations like mine, environmental concerns and other factors all play a role in immigration policy today.
This constant claim of “racism” by people like walton is just trying to cause an emotional rather than rational response.
it’s the suggestion made by the idiot who started this conversation on the topic of immigration laws, and the specific suggestion the people you’re whining at have responded to and rejected.
do try to keep up.
Jadehawk, your total hostility to me is received quite clearly.
I looked at your blog, how old are you by the way such that you still think using “fuck” a lot makes you look serious or sincere?
Anyway…
Here is a good essay on the subject of the consequences of open-border on social welfare systems from someone who was a Kurdish refugee to the EU: http://super-economy.blogspot.com/2011/04/open-borders-and-welfare-state.html
Perhaps you will consider him “dangerously ignorant” too, but he is not the only one to address the issue.
When you remove any concept of citizenship and make community a global free-for-all, then what constitutes the legitimate government? I am hardly the first person to point out Somalia as a cautionary example to anarchist, or if your prefer, libertarian fantasies.
That is so profoundly dishonest to compare the opening borders between developed democracies and developing, often marginally or non-democratic nations, that it is merely laughable.
And the EU nations did open the borders organically as Europe proved over several decades that it could peacefully coexist for the first time and maintain democracy. It was rushed with Eastern Europe a bit, and that is where some of the current backlash against immigration began. I think the large pool of shared values between Europeans made that work out in the end.
Sorry, I missed that nuance between hysterical invocation of racism at every turn and shameless appeals to emotion.
See you cannot even represent me honestly. I did not say walton is a radical capitalist or neocon, I merely likened aspects of open border ideology to particular elements of those other ideologies.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jus_sanguinis#Lex_sanguinis
Racist as fuck.
Hahaha!
Fucking tone troll.
Fail. I asked “where”. A “suggestion” made by someone, someone we mutually condemn in case you missed that, is not evidence of its actually being implemented.
Ariaflame, BSc, BF, PhD#s post comes directly after my own, it is perfectly reasonable for me to assume she is responding to me.
Do try and be honest.
Don’t take it personally, now. Not everything revolves around you. Jadehawk is hostile to stupid people in general.
Actually, on further reading, I don’t see anything from Jadehawk that could reasonably be called hostility. The most unkind thing she’s said is that you’re dangerously ignorant, which is true.
Note that you’ve been calling people dishonest and claiming that various people are extremists; you’re hardly in a position to lecture anyone about hostility.
how much of an idiot are you to think I use fuck a lot to look “serious or sincere”? In fact, where in the world are there actual kids who think using fuck a lot makes them look “serious and sincere”?
It’s just a harmless word. get the fuck over it.
I can’t tell whether this is a deliberate strawman, or whether you really are so ignorant as to assume open borders = no citizenship.
do you know that U.S. states have more or less functioning local and state governments despite the fact that there’s free movement between the states?
I see the idea of “proof of concept” is foreign to you.
your use of the word “organically” is confused. Nonetheless, I want you to show me where walton or anyone else proposed anything that couldn’t be done “over several decades that it could peacefully coexist for the first time and maintain democracy”.
Once again, since you seem to be slow on the uptake: acknowledging the problems of closed-borders as they exist now is not a call to immediately and radically open all borders in one fell swoop. It is merely the acknowledgment of the problems of closed-borders as they exist now, with the understanding that it’s something that will therefore ultimately have to be changed. And in this thread specifically, it’s also a rebuke of the racist crap forestspirit suggested
most of it based on a form of racism; “polish plumbers” and all that crap.
you have shown no evidence whatsoever that acknowledging the racism inherent in nationalism, and especially jus sanguinis, is “hysterical”, rather than simply an acknowledgment of a very unfortunate reality.
and incorrectly and dishonestly so, seeing as you projected a bunch of bullshit on walton’s comment (for example the claim that his stance on immigration is ideological, or that it is a call for immediate dismantling of borders).
which was my point; you’re playing weird guilt-by-association games that don’t even work because the ideologies you’re talking about have fuck-all to do with each other or with what walton says, even in the aspects you claim to find similarity.
jesus but you’re dense. she was responding to you, and pointing out what everyone you’re whining at has been having issues with; which was the racism in the original comment. d’uh.
that you don’t understand what this conversation was about before you re-derailed it with whining about things no one said, and me pointing out how ariaflame’s comment related to that topic of conversation does not constitute a fail on my part; it constitutes a severe confusion on yours.
apparently calling her on her bullshit and using “bad” words a lot constitutes hostility.
I’d ask her how old she is that she still thinks “bad” words have some sort of magical power, but I’d rather not stoop to silly ageism. Young people tend to have somewhat shallow views, sure, but rarely do those have anything to do with profanity and the use thereof.
Jadehawk, to be fair, elisabetht may actually be so stupid that she believes in her own false dichotomy. I tried to explain it to her earlier but it apparently went right over her head.
silly. she’s the epitome of civilized behavior; not a single profanity or vulgarity in any of her accusations. You see, it’s never the content that determines civility vs. hostility; it’s always the form. That’s how you know right-wing republicans who condemn anyone and everyone to hell, death, or torture, but do so in measured tones, are the civilized ones, while the person who hasn’t accused or condemned but uttered a “bad” word is the savage, hostile barbarian. oh, and hysterical while we’re at it.
Which is really odd, too, because she specifically responded to the part that she found useful: “Besides if you agree with me that nation states are the only rational method of human organisation at present”.
It’s almost as though she’s motivated to ignore any nuance which doesn’t appeal to her.
*sigh*
I suppose that’s possible. tragic if true, but possible.
This is not worth it. These angry internet discussions do not make us better people. I admit I really want to respond to you on some level, but any more time here is less time doing something constructive or relaxing. Adieu.
Merciful heavens. Your routine anti-anti-racist trolling doesn’t make you a better person, for sure. I suggest you drop it.
Someone said “fuck” to me once.
I got better
Louis
P.S. I’m not sure how, I’m not sure why, but this thread has produced a few cracking opportunities for mockery.
1)”angry”? lol. If I got angry every time SIWOTI, I’d have had a stroke ages ago.
2)I find that better informed people are better people; I also find that internet discussions on pharyngula do tend to lead to better information quite regularly. Not, obviously, for the macguffins such as you, but for the other participants and readers (though, occasionally even the macguffin learns something; but that’s usually a bonus, since not everyone can be a walton).
*snerk*
I do encourage everyone with some spare time to read elisabetht’s link to that Kurdish-Swedish guy, though. It’s priceless.
… and, it should be noted, doesn’t actually quite say what lizzie wants it to say (it’s written by a guy who studies economics at the University of Chicago; figure it out)
So elisabetht once again started up her very usual old shtick about guilt guilt guilt guilt guilt.
In refutation,
here’s a video: http://www.timwise.org/2010/11/the-difference-between-guilt-and-responsibility-video-clip-10610/
«Questioner (off-camera): Um, as a white male, should I feel guilty for the sins of my fathers? I affirm that they exist, but should I feel guilty for them?
Tim Wise: No. You should feel angry. And you should feel committed to doing something to address that legacy. It’s like, for instance, with pollution, right? We think about the issue of pollution. Now none of us in this room, to my knowledge, are individually responsible for having belched any toxic waste into the air, or injecting toxic waste into the soil, or done any of the things… we didn’t put lead paint into the housing, you know?
Individually we’re innocent of that. But someone did that stuff, and we’re living with the legacy of it right now, or in this case might be dying with the legacy of it, getting ill, right?
So it isn’t about feeling guilty about what someone did, even if you were the direct heir of the chemical company that did the pollution, but it is about saying, all of us in the society have to take responsibility for what we find in front of us. There’s a big difference between guilt and responsibility.
Guilt is what you feel for what you’ve done. Responsibility is what you take because of the kind of person you are, right? And so if I see a set of social conditions that have been handed to you, and which not only did wrong by othrs but elevated me and give me advantage that I did not earn, it’s not about beating myself up, I’m not responsible for that having happened, I’m not to blame for it, so guilt is totally unproductive
But in order to live an ethical life, to live ethically and responsibly, I have to take some responsibility for the unearned advantage, which means working to change the society that bestows that advantage. It’s not guilt, but it is responsiblity. It’s no different than looking at the issue of pollution or if you became the CFO of the company, you wouldn’t be able to come in and say, “I intend to use the assets of this company, and I insend to put them to greater use, and I intend to use the revenue stream we’ve got going, but that whole debt side of the ledger? No, I’m not paying any of that because I wasn’t here when the other person ran all that debt up. You should’ve gotten them to pay it before you gave me the job. Now I’m here, and I’m innocent.” We would realize that made no sense.
So isn’t about innocence and it isn’t about guilt, it’s about responsibility, that’s something we all have to take. White folks have to take it, people of color have to take it, … everybody has got to take it, … if we don’t do it, no one does it, and it doesn’t get done. We’re the only hope we have.»
Oh Love Moderately! With quotes like that don’t you know you are hurting WHITE FEE-FEES*?
Why do you hate America/Freedom/Whatever?
Louis
*See also MAN FEE-FEES, STRAIGHT FEE-FEES, and my personal favourite BABY JEEZUS FEE-FEES.**
**THESE ARE IMPORTANT FEE-FEES. THEY MUST BE RESPECTED (especially above the rights of nassssty foreigners/blacks/gays/women/atheists)!
Louis, a fair point.
So let me recommend that the reader play Hulk Hogan’s theme song on loop while reading that quote.
(Hey, I’m only ~70% kidding.)
Love Moderately,
I…I…I just listened to that song. I have no words other than:
I Haz A Bemused.
Louis
P.S. Thanks for the intro to Tim Wise btw, didn’t know about him before. I liked his comments about Ron Paul. I find it hard to believe that any US liberals and progressives (should there be scare quotes there?) regard that guy favourably. We had our own minor kerfuffle over this side of the Atlantic when a Scotland rugby player (and a damned good one as it happens) tweeted an anti-Obama/pro-Paul comment. The best part for me comes at the end of the original article where the manager of a famous Scottish soccer (i.e. not rugby but still sport) club said:
Sorry, I know it’s stereotypical jock bashing (possibly in both senses of the word “jock”) but I laughed at that jocular comment from that manager.
Louis,
Some of it comes from thinking “well, if we had to have a Republican president, who would I prefer?”
But they don’t consider that question critically; a President Paul would never be able to get Congress to do the good things he advocates, like legalizing drugs and slashing military spending. He would only succeed at the evil shit.
I’d honestly prefer Mitt Romney over Ron Paul. At least Romney doesn’t have very many sincerely held beliefs.
“See, people should always be very much in favor of corruption — I’m not kidding about that. Corruption’s a very good thing, because it undermines power. I mean, if we get some Jim Bakker coming along — you know, this preacher who was caught sleeping with everybody and defrauding his followers — those guys are fine: all they want is money and sex and ripping people off, so they’re never going to cause much trouble.”
We have a PharynguWiki page on libertarians now, btw. A separate page on Ron Paul would be nice.
Oh, the Kurdish-Swedish guy is the same guy I linked to in 247. In the link I provided he was describing the phenomenon how a segment of social democratic voters have grown xenophobic over the last few decades (almost like in Denmark, but according to Lena Sundström, Danes have told her that Sweden is still far away from becoming like Denmark, at least for now)…
I have to agree with Jadehawk regarding elisabeth’s link, it’s U Chicago libertarianism. I also fail to see how he “demonstrate[d] that unskilled immigration to current welfare states has led to sizable transfers of wealth from and reduction of freedom of the current owners of the state.” For the US he’s quoting Borjas (I’ve read up on the Borjas v. Card debate, so it seems at least this is not something all economists agree on). He gives some figures (in his Swedish article):
– immigrants receive 40-60b SEK more than they contribute to the public coffers. To which I say: duh. Unskilled migrants will need assistance more. We should be looking at second-generation migrants (who probably are no longer counted as migrants, but as “svenskfödda” (Swedish-born)).
– pension problem. Migrants constitute 21% of the workforce, but only 12% of pensioners. Fail to see the problem here, though I think that he is referring to some “hidden costs” here.
– In 2008, 81.8% of svenskfödda worked, but only 50.6% of “non-European migrants”. Again, what about second-generation migrants, who are also “svenskfödda”? Did he look for correlations wrt “traditional family models” etc. And see how this carries over, or does not, to second-generation migrants?
These seem to be the only figures he gives. I’m not an economist, but I’m not impressed, this looks like propaganda for the Moderaterna party to use in the next political campaign. “Here we have an article by an Iraqi-born Swedish economist arguing against open borders!”
I’m also puzzled by his last bit, which he wisely left out in his published article, but tacked on to his blog entry, but again wisely left untranslated, because it’s ridiculous. He argues against the claim that Sweden has been enriched culturally through immigration, rather it was information (the information technology). “Steve Jobs and Jerry Seinfeld didn’t have flee to Sweden for them to be able to influence us”. Then, he talks about the food culture (and I think it’s all so impressionistic and decidedly non-scientific, wouldn’t you at least expect population surveys and statistics of restaurants etc). And then he says that India and China didn’t modernise based on external immigration but internally, where he ignores the important part the overseas Chinese community, who to the PRC were all foreign citizens, have played (I don’t know enough about India, but I’m sure overseas Indians helped too). And of course foreign investment, which also brought expats to China…
Ironic given the fact that he came to Sweden as a refugee and enriched its culture by being able to give his unique perspective… From my own last trip to Sweden:
– there are restaurants run by immigrants, so they’re obviously enriching the food culture.
– a British comedian was on Raw Comedy Club on TV, something which happens regularly. If they chose to move to Sweden, there would apparently a way for them to earn their living in the country. The comedian was not speaking to the audience through Skype, they were actually on stage!
– as Sundström writes, Södertälje, a 60k+ town near Stockholm, has more Iraqi refugees than entire Northern America. A simple Google search can show you how this community has contributed to Swedish society culturally…
I wonder where elisabetht got her impression from that walton was advocating a Cultural Revolution like transformation of society? Walton is working within the system, trying to improve conditions for the immigrants caught in the racist immigration control regime, not advocating storming the UK Border Agency. As one should do…
Arrgghh! She used a foreign word! These foreign words come over here, taking the jobs of good old indigenous English words such as “goodbye”, and all the politically correct anti-racist anarchists say we have no right to deport them, however extremist they are!
Since LM brought up elisabetht’s spiel about white guilt here, let me quote my question to her from the other thread:
Please, elisabeth, tell the Westerners among us how they can justify slavery and colonialism based on your great theory. That would make them feel so much better!
Also (since you are telling us your background in almost every post you make), do you vote Vlaams Belang? That would explain a lot to me.
well, if you consider that the Chicago Boys definition of “freedom” simply means the absence of (left-wing)government, I’m pretty sure he thought he proved his point when he pointed out that immigrants and their descendants vote left more than whites and specifically “Anglo-Saxons”, and with the comment that Swedish pro-immigration libertarians have betrayed their libertarian principles by cheering growth in Swedish government to accommodate immigrants.
to be fair, maybe her Belgian half is Walloon ;-)
KG,
adieu is Dutch,*) which apparently is one of her mother tongues.
*) German tschüß actually comes from French adieu too, though some say it comes from Spanish adiós or the Portuguese counterpart. (Of course adiós and adieu both come from ad deum, though)
is it? well then I guess she could be Flemish too, and it still wouldn’t be an ebil foreign word :-p
actually, i take that back. it’s a word clearly imported into Dutch from probably French, so it only wouldn’t be a foreign word if she were walloon.
and now I’ve completely ruined that joke with all those add-ons :-p
Yep, looked it up in my Standaard Handwoordenboek Duits-Nederlands/Nederlands-Duits, which was published in Antwerp.
I don’t know about Flanders, but my impression was that in the Netherlands “adieu” and “merci” coexist with “tot ziens” and “dank u wel”
Correction:
Wiktionary seems to imply that “adieu” is used for flouncing.
In the sense of “farewell”. The Haandwoordenboek just says “good bye”, but Wiktionary says it’s the “afscheidsgroet, laatst vaarwel, iemand adieu zeggen”. I won’t say more on it without consulting a native speaker.
Adieu may be a Dutch word, but it’s also a
frogFrench word. That makes it worse.Maybe in adjacent areas of Pakistan, harr harr.
Do you happen to know if there’s a difference between niqab and 3abaya? Both are said to be the Saudi version (black, covering all except eyes).
FIFY :-)
*clenched-tentacle salute*
*lightbulb moment* Makes plenty of sense! Explains the Australian walls that are literally made of 4-mm-thick cardboard. :-)
Precise and accurate. Me like.
Full of awesome. :-)
Win.
It’s clear that elisabetht. believes that good will automagically triumph over evil.
Es gibt nichts Gutes, außer man tut es – there is no good unless {generic “you”} do it.
O NOEZ! Jadehawk doesn’t want to give you a hug! How dare she!!!1!
:-D :-D :-D :-D :-D
She thinks it makes her look like she fucking means what she fucking says. I concur. Hey, we’re talking about the only emphasis particle English grammar has to offer.
Over here, tone trolls are in constant danger of being banned. Tone trolling = “you’re a potty-mouth, so everything you say is wrong and/or irrelevant” (a special form of ad-hominem argument); it’s the failure to distinguish what is said from how it is said.
Seconded.
Wow, did he ever come to the wrong place.
(I also just learnt on my last trip that in the 70s, the Social Democrats ALMOST abolished the monarchy, but they reached a compromise with the conservatives, which are confusingly called moderates, by stripping away all political power from the king, including the right to appoint prime ministers, which now falls on the Speaker of Parliament. The king has been reduced to give the opening speech of parliament and accrediting foreign diplomats. Not even royal assent required for bills.)
And this is important! It’s become a model for other regions to move beyond the bilateral UK-Ireland / USA-Canada type of agreements (though again, the Nordic countries were kind of a trailblazer here with their Nordic Council). My greatest hope is that ASEAN will implement something similar, but this process even if successful, will take at least 10-15 years.
I should also point out that I have said fuck in the past.
Last time I said fuck it laid waste to an area of forest the size of Norway and caused mild flatulence in a goose of questionable morality.
Lois
LOOK! Using the word fuck means I cannot spell my own name!!!!!!! ZOMG!
Louis
AFAIK, the abaya is the dress, while the niqab is the actual face-veil. so usually, wearers of a niqab would also wear an abaya.
and anyway, I just remembered that “burqa” is also a word for those odd metal masks… but I think those are pretty much dying out now and would probably be a sign of a very old couple rather than a very fundamentalist one…
The US had no immigration controls until 1882. When it introduced the first immigration controls, in the form of the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, they were explicitly race-based, and the justification for them was explicitly racist. They were not introduced in response to a real problem, but in response to irrational racist fears.
Britain had no systematic immigration controls until the Aliens Act 1905, which was introduced in response to agitation by growing racist and anti-Semitic groups, such as the “British Brothers’ League”, who had been arguing that “Britain should not become the dumping-ground for the scum of Europe” and opposing, in particular, Jewish immigration. The Act was considerably more moderate than what the racists wanted, but it was brought in only as an attempt to appease them.
Protectionist immigration laws are not an eternal fact of life, nor are they necessary for the continued existence of the nation-state; nation-states existed long before the modern system of immigration control did. You have offered no evidence that liberalizing immigration laws and ending protectionist restrictions on migration would cause Western countries to turn into Somalia. This seems to be an entirely irrational fear on your part.
When a system of law is expressly creating inequality, by legally disadvantaging a group of people based on their birth and ancestry, then the solution to inequality is to change that law. This doesn’t mean that liberalizing immigration laws will fix everything overnight – just as ending racial segregation didn’t suddenly fix discrimination against African-Americans overnight – but the first step is to get rid of the discriminatory laws.
Letting people live and work where they want to live and work is hardly an “imposition” of a “radical societal change”.
There is no reason to believe that ending protectionist immigration laws would destroy social democracy. Immigrants are net contributors to the economy – in fact, undocumented migrants in the US pay substantial amounts into the Social Security and Medicare system through payroll taxes, without being able to claim any benefits from these programs – and there is evidence that, contrary to popular belief, immigration does not cause unemployment.
There is scaremongering in Europe in the right-wing tabloid press about immigrants “sponging off the state”. In the case of economic migrants, including undocumented ones, this is simply a lie: more-or-less by definition, economic migrants work for a living, sometimes in very hard and exploitative conditions (especially if they are undocumented and must work illegally). In the case of asylum-seekers and refugees, the reason many do not work is because governments will not let them. In Britain, those seeking asylum cannot work legally and are thus forced to rely on public benefits. Virtually all want to work, and will do so if permitted.
(In the US, it’s even worse. Since the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996 (a godawful piece of legislation spearheaded by Newt Gingrich’s Republican Congress) asylum-seekers cannot get work authorization for the first 150 days after filing their applications. They can’t claim public benefits either, so many are left destitute.)
Let’s see. Western governments are currently employing men with guns to arrest, detain and deport non-white people (mostly poor and mostly non-white people), or to lock said people up for years in “detention centres” in appalling conditions, for no other reason than the accident of their birth and the colour of their passport. I want them to stop doing this.
Somehow, apparently, this makes me a Maoist. Because, apparently, in elisabetht’s world, being forced to coexist with immigrants from foreign countries is as bad and scary as being rounded up by the Red Guards and put in a labour camp. I… have no words for that level of xenophobic paranoia.
(In fact, comparing me to a Maoist for my opposition to immigration controls is remarkably ironic. Look up the hukou system that existed under Mao’s régime, in which immigration from the countryside to the cities was restricted, and those who migrated without a permit were denied legal rights and benefits. Remarkably similar to the modern-day system of passport-based immigration controls, and it, too, came at a horrendous human cost for those unlucky enough to be born in the wrong places.)
@walton: great analysis. And, actually, the hukou system is still largely in place. Currently it’s created a situation where many Chinese cities are filled with rural labourers who live in substantial destitution, with no real rights or recourse under the law. Rural workers have no access education or other public services outside of their defined rural village (and rural services often lag considerably behind urban ones), which perpetuates poverty. The urban populations, of course, need the extra labour (which largely falls into construction industry and low-wage industrial or commercial work), and the rural workers need the cash to send home to their families. Occasionally the police will come and round-up/beat-up rural workers and send them packing back to the villages.
I could very well imagine a hukou proponent arguing that removing such a system would result in utter economic chaos, but we have solid evidence from democratic countries that an internal passport system is more of an economic hinderance. Considering the similarities of the situations and outcomes, I don’t see why this thinking can’t be applied at the international level.
You know, Marjanović ought to be a verb, something akin to fisking, but involving multiple posts and posters. As in, “This thread needs to be Marjanovićed” or, in its nominal form, “Nice Marjanović”.
Walton, you may be wondering why Elizabeth keeps refering to you as a radical anarchist even as you say you’re not. Perhaps she’s read the same article as me
http://keenetrial.com/blog/2012/01/13/simple-jury-persuasion-the-extremist-effect/
What’s scarier is that if Walton was put on trial and Elizabeth was the lawyer…she probably would be more convincing to the jury simply because she can label Walton an extremist.
walton,
only that the hukou system even exists today. Internal immigration controls are still in effect, and more permeable for middle class people than for working class people.
Indeed, that’s true. This very tactic worked to convict Sacco and Vanzetti, for instance, despite the evidence against them being very thin. Today, for Muslims on trial, I daresay a similar psychological tactic would work by labelling someone an “Islamist extremist”, irrespective of hir guilt.
And there’s also evidence to suggest that juries are very bad at assessing the credibility of witness testimony, for instance, and that they buy into fallacies that run counter to the actual psychological evidence. I wrote about this a while back:
Indeed. The analogy to transnational immigration controls is, I think, a very appropriate one.
QFT.
And we’ve discussed this before in the past, also with the “reverse case” of minorities in China (say Tibetans or Uighurs) or Indonesia (anywhere in resource-rich but sparsely populated eastern Indonesia) actually supporting internal immigration restrictions barring Han Chinese or Javanese respectively from moving into their ancestral lands. Though since in this case we are talking about economically and culturally suppressed minorities, the power balance is different and probably not so much an argument in favour of internal immigration control but rather an argument for better protecting minorities against being exploited.
municipalis
China will not agree to anything that will be seen as infringing upon its national sovereignty, including opening up its borders. I don’t see Japan agreeing to such a thing either.
As I said, as far as Asia goes, I put my hopes on ASEAN.
pelamun:
Yep. Ignoring the root cause of the problem only ends up creating more. In the case of Tibet or Xinjiang, the heavy-handed police-state occupation is the problem; difficulties of cultural integration and assimilation are simply the manifestations of the lack of control the local population has in its own governance.
I wouldn’t expect them to either. I was only pointing out that the economic lessons of the Chinese internal passport system versus the free-movement found within Western countries could be considered a very close analogy to the economic effects of international immigration.
The Brits need to get their thumbs out of their asses.
Check out this video on YouTube:
That is some, major thread-drift :)
Oh good. Racist white man is here to tell us dumb folk how to solve our problems against those dangerous forigers!
nancyhallo-hudson,
Seriously, we don’t need more anti-Muslim scaremongering from known racists like Condell. Go away.
ROTFLMAO!
Um. Dr. Evil? This already exists.
Except the nominal form is in -ing.
@David Marjanovic
Huh what?
If you want a German site in the same spirit of the “fine video” posted above, I found an English-language version of the ineptly named website “Politisch inkorrekt”: http://www.pi-news.org/
Interesting how many people feel mightily offended by the suggestion that the European border regime might actually be racist (especially those Europeans who like to point to the US-Mexican border fence as something to feel superior about)
Ing,
He means the nominal form is Marjanovićing.