Lauri Carleton’s career in fashion began early in her teens, working in the family business at Fred Segal Feet in Los Angeles while attending Art Center School of Design. From there she ran “the” top fashion shoe floor in the US at Joseph Magnin Century City. Eventually she joined Kenneth Cole almost from its inception and remained there for over fifteen years as an executive, building highly successful businesses, working with factories and design teams in Italy and Spain, and traveling 200 plus days a year.
With a penchant for longevity, she has been married to the same man for 28 years and is the mother of a blended family of nine children, the youngest being identical twin girls. She and her husband have traveled the greater part of the US, Europe and South America. From these travels they have nourished a passion for architecture, design, fine art, food, fashion, and have consequently learned to drink in and appreciate the beauty, style and brilliance of life. Their home of thirty years in Studio City is a reflection of this passion, as well as their getaway- a restored 1920’s Fisherman’s Cabin in Lake Arrowhead. Coveting the simpler lifestyle with family, friends and animals at the lake is enhanced greatly by their 1946 all mahogany Chris-Craft; the ultimate in cultivating a well appreciated and honed lifestyle.
Mag.Pi for Lauri is all about tackling everyday life with grace and ease and continuing to dream…
What a waste. A tragedy for that whole family for literally nothing. No reason at all other than small minded assholes.
We’re literally already in one. We’ve been in a cold civil war for about a decade now (arguably the past few decades), and the war’s been growing hotter with every mass shooting and tragedy like this one.
This is how civil wars are fought in the modern age. It’s not all fancy suits and muskets. It’s large swaths of people with opposing views killing each other over it at every opportunity, like this one.
Why do you think school shootings happen? Or mass shootings in general? The vast majority of them are committed by members of right-wing hate groups and it’s part of this civil war they’ve been waging against the left. The whole point is to eradicate the left or force them to submit to their will.
A viewpoint like that is very subject to confirmation bias. Literally any crime is held up as evidence that it is correct. Look at the terms you are using “cold” “about a decade”. It isn’t a who, what, where, why, and how. It is vague.
Reverse it for a moment. Treat it like a claim in science. What evidence would you use to try to prove your hypothesis wrong?
My guy, it’s obvious to the rest of us what’s going on and if you can’t observe current events for five seconds and see it for yourself, nothing I ever tell you will change your mind.
The truth doesn’t depend on you believing it. All I have to do is express it. It’s up to you what you decide what you’re going to do with it. Listen to it and you have a chance to prepare and you might survive when it all blows up next year. Don’t and you won’t unless you get lucky – at the very least, you’ll suffer the way refugees of civil wars always do. It’s your choice.
It’s the truth. It’s like asserting that because I can’t give the scientific explanation for why the grass is green, it must not be, while I am pointing at the grass on the ground and showing you its color.
Again, it’s up to you to be willing to accept the reality in front of you and what has been happening innthis country for decades together. It’s up to you to be willing to overcome your own pride to save yourself and your family from what’s coming. I can only lead you to water. It is you who must choose to drink. Choose wisely. Your family depends on it.
’s like asserting that because I can’t give the scientific explanation for why the grass is green, it must not be, while I am pointing at the grass on the ground and showing you its color.
Your analogy is false. We have as much data as we want that grass is green. We have no data about the future since it hasn’t happened yet. To predict the future to any degree we have to look at trends of the past and apply the scientific method to it.
Again, it’s up to you to be willing to accept the reality in front of you
Forgot the name for this one. It is when you assume the conclusion to get the conclusion. I know it’s a basic logical fallacy.
I can only lead you to water.
Ok your Cassandra/Jeremiah routine is wearing thin.
I’m giving an analogy to demonstrate why his basis for denialism is wrong. He demands a scientific explanation for why an easily observable phenomenon is the way it is in order to accept what his eyes see. It’s not enough for him to look at something and see it for what it is.
As in he needs to be told why the grass is green to accept that it is green. It’s not enough for him to just look at it and see for himself that it is, in fact, green.
Replace “grass is green” with “civil war is happening”, and you’ll understand.
…Right. So, based entirely on faith, with nothing to substantiate it, and with a healthy dose of some weird Messianic complex.
Also, as another commenter pointed out, we actually have surprisingly robust data affirming that yes, indeed, the spectral albedo of grass does show peaks in the 530-550nm range correlating to M-type cone photoreceptor cells— I.E., Is green. Civil war isn’t the sort of thing you’re going to be able to pass off as self-evident.
Here’s a podcast where the first handful of episodes lays out what it’d look like if a civil war were to happen and why the author thinks there’s a reasonable chance that it could happen.
I do really like Robert Evans, but this is something I wholeheartedly disagree with. Civil War 2: Electric Boogaloo could definitely happen, but I think it’s far more likely that we’ll see an American version of The Troubles. I don’t think there are enough people who would truly be willing to fight and die over this; but there’s plenty of people willing to commit terrorist bombings or acts of sabotage if they think they can get away with it.
While I agree that is what should happen, there is literally nothing about current day Democrats that makes me think they’ll actually take the hard stance and punish people for their actions. We’ll have Biden or whoever is in charge at the time saying some bullshit “we need to heal now. We’ve been though rough times, let’s welcome our neighbors back home. Blah blah blah no repercussions other than for the ring leaders.”
These same people couldn’t go three weeks without a haircut in 2020. There are some who’ll shoot someone over a pride flag, but not enough to fight a war. They’d be begging to surrender the first time their grocery order doesn’t arrive.
Actually American gun owners have about 78-157 billion bullets stockpiled between them, most of them right-wing. They regularly train with their weapons and have made this second civil war into an important aspect of their culture. A lot of them believe it’s the end times because the book of revelations talks of brother turning against brother.
The left is actually woefully untrained and outmatched, and that’s because of years of nonviolence being browbeaten over their heads and used to propagandize them to do nothing to meaningfully advance any of their causes. The left was fattened up with decades of propaganda and are now ready for the slaughter.
So is the right, really. The only ones who are going to win this coming civil war are the BRICS countries.
Statistical averages are, however. 47% of Americans own a gun. They have on average 500-1000 bullets on hand at any one time, enough for one or two trips to their gun ranges, which totals up to 78 to 157 billion bullets.
Just because you are insulted when faced with the fact that the left is woefully unprepared for that does not make it not true. Reality does not bend to your wishes.
You can either accept the facts as I present them to you and prepare yourself, or when this whole thing blows up next year, suffer. Your choice.
Jesus Christ, you actually are offended 🤦 Look, if you care about ensuring the right wing loses, which you’ll need to do to prevent fascism and genocide, you’ll put aside your pride and fix the problem. You don’t, and everyone suffers. It’s as simple as that.
And you’re really bad at hiding it, too. But the reality of my words is there whether you want to believe it or not. I can only lead you to water, you’re the one who has to make the choice to drink. The only one who’s gonna suffer from it is you and your family if you don’t. 🤷
500-1k rounds is nothing. Most of us have usually 10-20k rounds. 500 rounds is what I burn through in a range day. Hell I’ve got probably 50k 22lr at this point alone. And that’s just for plinking. 9mm/308/x39/556/54r/20g/12g/45 combined that’s probably another 40k rounds.
Most of us buy in bulk, ammo isn’t cheap, so when deals come around you buy as much as you can afford.
Huh? Having ammo doesn’t make anything worse. People have been stock piling it for decades now. Ammo doesn’t expire if it’s properly stored. I don’t see how having it magically makes anything worse.
As a left leaning individual with multiple firearms and plenty of ammunition for them, might want to consider there are plenty of us are part of that 47%.
Obviously a sample bias, but quite a few fellow veterans that I went to college with could put my meager collection to shame and share similar viewpoints.
That being said, your doomer outlook and gross oversimplification/assumptions are a joke. There will be no civil war, assholes will continue to be assholes, and you are still making this shit up as you type. Most of these Meal Team 6, cosplaying motherfuckers are too chickenshit to have an altercation where they aren’t the only one with the scary broomstick, and 99% of the blowhards wouldn’t last a day in an actual combat scenario let alone a “war”.
Bigots are bigots and will constantly attempt to suppress that which doesn’t align with their narrow minded worldview, however a civil war is not on the horizon… JFC get over yourself.
There’s no real evidence to substantiate that claim, but a whole lot of right wingers are open about their gun ownership. Which I agree is stupid, but that’s just how reality is.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, there is a stark partisan divide in gun ownership. About 44% of adults who identify as Republican or lean Republican say they own a gun, while just 20% of those who identify as Democrat or lean Democrat say they do, according to Pew.
Where a person lives also plays a role. The Pew survey found that 46% of those who lived in rural areas said they owned a gun, while only 28% of suburbanites and 19% of city dwellers owned a gun. The Northeast has the lowest rates of gun ownership at 16%, while roughly a third of people in the South, Midwest and West report personally owning a gun.
So clearly right wingers are twice as likely to own guns as left wingers, meaning they will likeky win a civil war when it comes down to it, and given what they want, you can’t afford to continue being in denial about this. Your life is at stake here.
I know so. I used to be a centrist who ran with them for several years, so I know their ways and habits, and how and what they think. They are just waiting for some kind of signal to start, and that signal will likely be Trump going to jail or being barred from the presidency under the Constitution upon conviction.
It kinda sounds like you listened to the original run of the “It Could Happen Here” podcast series a few too many times. It could happen here, but the probability of it sparking is very low, and even then the probability of that spark growing beyond anything more than localized/isolated incidents is even lower.
They’re really, really not as stupid as you think and underestimating them to make yourself feel better will only result in suffering for you and yours. It’s enabled them to do so much damage already.
If they’re really so stupid, how did they manage to pack the courts and get abortion banned? Get Trump elected?
I’d say there are more gun-owning Democrats than there are critically thinking Republicans. Trump voters are the kind of people that fall for Nigerian prince email scams…twice.
You’re confusing normal Americans with the owners of the country. Also, plenty of militant leftists are armed in the US and not all gun owners are crazy fascists.
The ones that think they can win a civil war are pretty fucking dumb. They do have a lot of weaponry though and that is something we should be concerned about and needs to be acted on.
A bunch of Dems arming up isn’t the answer though. We need to make sure the war mongers don’t get back in charge and we need to keep hunting down the dangerous threats and arresting there asses.
I’ve seen enough Doomsday Peppers to know that these “prepared” right wingers will be gasping for breath on the floor when it actually comes time to run and do something physically strenuous. Fat fucks couldn’t even breath through a thin mask, their brain cells are the only thing they’ll slaughter due to lack of oxygen.
Are you confusing Y’all Quaeda with the Gestapo? Wtf. Even if 100 militias somehow defied everything we’ve been seeing for decades and somehow evaded getting caught early in the planning phase due to the surveillance state, what makes you think anything they’d do wouldn’t be shut down by military police within a week?
It sounds almost like you’re getting off on a weird horror fantasy from a super shitty movie.
A lot of the people brigading are actually alt-right dipshits from other servers. Some are left-wingers in denial … and when this thing blows up next year, they might die. :(
Oh look, found an antifascist. Yeah, you guys are way too little in number to really be able to do anything about them and you guys know it. There is over a hundred million of them armed to the teeth and a few thousand of you, tops.
Look in the thread. A lot of these motherfuckers even deny that a second civil war is starting or has been going on. They cling too closely to their narrative that it’s just hopelessly misguided brainwashed chumps committing random acts of violence instead of seeing it for what it really is: a collective act from a fascist political faction, and they cling to it because letting it go would send them down a spiral of fear because they cannot cope with the very real possibility they’ll likely die at the hands of one of those cultists unless they change their perceptions and prepare.
So what makes you think you’ll get the manpower to really stop the right? Can you convince enough left wingers that using violence against those scumfucks is okay in time? Can you convince the denialists in the thread to change their minds?
The right seems to be blinded by the thought that the US Military would support them, but luckily the modern US military would never support any side of a civil war and would simply squash any serious attempt of a fascist rebellion. What are they even going to be able to do? They can’t shoot down drones with their AR-15s.
Actually a lot of veterans are right wingers and right wing regulatory capture is so extensive, including in the military, that some of it would, in fact, help them. But not one inch of it would help the left, in fact, all of it would only harm them under guise of keeping order like they did back in the 2020 uprising.
They would quash any serious attempt at civil war or revolt of or between any political extreme in order to maintain the current status quo. The government and the military are both owned by the corporate class. The left is a very very small minority in the US and they don’t even have a mainstream political influence or party. The US just has the socially liberal right-of-center Democrat party and the far-right conservative Republican party.
The right wing has succeeded at enough regulatory capture that they only stand to benefit from the military “intervening” AKA helping them.
There was a skirmish of left vs. right protesters a couple of months ago at some school board meeting. The right wingers were the clear aggressors, but the police only arrested the left wingers.
That’s what the military would actually do, accomplishing the goal of slapping down the left, all under the guise of legality and status quo.
Well, I suppose we’ll just have to disagree, but even though I find your opinions and perspectives to be mostly generalized embellishments and without nuance I still appreciate you for providing them.
Well, I find your denialism stupid, dangerous and harmful for this country too, but we’re pretending to agree to disagree so we can be sarcastic and fire emotional barbs at each other on the down low, so who am I to judge?
Imagine calling yourself an antifascist while refusing to acknowledge basic and obvious problems your group has that can and will be exploited by the right wing when they snap and try to kill you all next year.
Could you possibly stop being arrogant for five minutes and genuinely look at the situation objectively?
They would have been correct as far as Germany not having a civil war. However, it was because too few opposed the Nazis, not because the country did not contain enough “psychopaths”.
If you just call it terrorism more people will understand you. I understand you’re trying to draw a distinction and I’m here to tell you as someone who grew up in a rural town of 1200 people…just call it terrorism. These people aren’t backtracking on language because they thought of an exception. It’s part of why they hate us.
There are enough conservatives on lemmy for that to work? I honestly have been on the lookout and it feels like 99% of people are actively anti-conservative here.
Honesty I’m so done with this shit. Next confederate flag I see I’m ripping it down. Yes I know it’s illegal but I just don’t give a fuck anymore. If they do it to our flags we should be able to do it back to their traitors symbol of stupidity.
Alright I’m done venting now. I probably won’t do shit since I’m crippled and I use a cane to walk around 🤣
Blat blat. Fire power’s something no american has bragging rights over `cause we all can get it. Legal or illegal. We’re in a slow motion civil war so don’t go bragging about shit everyone has access to if you’re a soft handed new age patriot.
I find it important to make clear it was a hate crime, but Lauri Carleton was NOT killed “over a rainbow flag outside her clothing store”.
No one gets killed because of a rainbow flag. You get killed because an asshole who wants to rather die than adapt to the world changing wants to spread fear with his last action and needs desperately to find a “reason”. Let’s not pretend he had a reason any other than being a coward.
My heart goes out to her family, friends and the community impacted.
Why has calling murderers cowards become such a thing? I blame someone who acts out of fear less than someone who acts out of hate or greed. Fear is a normal emotion and often reasonable. I don’t think this person acted out of fear though.
A lot of them are terrified of LGBTQ people and mask it as outrage. They honestly believe the shit they get told and it terrifies them what the world is becoming.
The reality is that terrorists like this guy are armed and carrying all the time, but the second amendment is for all Americans including liberals, lefties, moderates and everyone in between.
Im not advocating for violence, in fact having a concealed carry permit nearly always means the exact opposite. Someone being aggressive? You walk away and let them win. Someone tailgating you? Let them pass.
Carrying is about situations like this, between a shop owner with a rainbow flag and someone out looking for an excuse to murder someone over rage bait.
You likely don’t hear much about it because liberal gun owners don’t fetishize guns or base their personality around them like the chuds on the other side of the fence do. Guns are tools, not an identity.
the problem I have with this is that you’re basically saying more people should have guns. a significant part of the issue is that there already are too many guns around and accessible and that is statistically going to result in more alterations resulting in shooting. you can talk about how much respect guns should be given all you want. but if more people have guns then there will be more gun violence.
It’s a balance between individual rights and societal safety. You have a right to defend yourself from threats to your life and safety by using deadly force. To say otherwise removes the ability for a good chunk of the population to adequately defend themselves. I’m related to plenty of people who cannot defend their life against the average male aggressor without a gun, and you are too. At a certain point size and strength are insurmountable.
But yes, encouraging people to responsibility engage with firearms for self defense use means that there will be more guns floating around, which means more accidents, suicides, and murders. Just as with any other choice for the rules of society, it’s a trade-off. How much do we value keeping the right to adequate self-defense as a universal right? How much do we value preventing accidental injury and death?
The classic comparison is cars, simply because the annual death numbers are similar, and pretty much no other reason. But even so, we can draw parallels. Cars have mandatory features that reduce the likelihood of injury without impacting the usefulness or general experience of using a car. So too do guns, with nearly all guns having to meet industry requirements for safety, like being able to handle an overpressure event, and being drop-safe.
Cars have a licensing procedure (though it’s essentially a joke here in the US) and a licensing procedure would be fine for guns, so long as it can’t be used to restrict access (racist approvals and denials would become a problem in a hurry). My ideal licensing program would be a free handling skills course where failure would require some sort gross negligence, and even then you’d still get racist denials.
And really, this is the fundamental problem with guns: I (and many others) view them as a necessary tool to accessing a highly valuable right. The chances you’ll need a gun are very low, but the cost of not having it can be very high. You don’t have full control over whether someone else will attempt to take your life, and I don’t want to say to a large chunk of the population “we’re going to take away your ability to defend yourself in order to save other people who would still have that option either way.”
And I want to be clear, I completely agree with the other person. If you’re going to bring guns into your life, you had better learn medical skills, social skills, and you had better train with your firearm in somewhat realistic conditions. You should carry pepper spray, you should practice learning how to actually effectively calm people down, you need to learn how to safely store your guns and ammo, etc. Etc.
I get the desire ban guns in order to save lives, but you’d also be endangering others. Compare that with the car analogy, and banning cars would have a similar trade-off. Some people would live thanks to not getting in a car accident, others would die thanks to not having the same level of mobility (which has about a billion knock-on effects for quality of life).
I think your argument sounds good until you look at other countries. I don’t know for sure but I’m guessing there aren’t more violent attacks on vulnerable people in countries that have gun bans. I think it’s possible you’re exaggerating the fear of attack without factoring in the overall safety benefits of removing so much gun violence. I’m convinced that if it could be done the benefits would fast out weigh the draw backs.
obviously the reality is that actually accomplishing this task in a country whose identity is so pathetically attached to guns is the impossible task. there’s already just too many gun nuts so that ship had long sailed.
regardless, to me there’s no question whether it would be better or worse for there to be more people with guns.
Oh, no, it’s just that I don’t weigh all violence as equal. I have a different value system then you do when it comes to interpersonal violence and that’s okay that we disagree there.
To me, removing a potential victim’s ability to protect themselves isn’t worth removing a potential victim from being attacked at all. To me, they’re not a 1:1 trade. You probably disagree, and that’s okay, but I place a high value on an individual’s agency, to the point where I’m willing to let them live in a slightly more dangerous society to get it.
This trade-off exists in all areas of life, and I don’t necessarily side with personal freedom in all of them (I would ban cars if I could), but I do in this area.
so selfishness then. got it. your desires for yourself are more important than what’s better for everyone. you can’t pretend this is your choice for others. it’s definitely for yourself.
Uh, no, it’s so that everyone has the ability to make the choice for themselves. We could force everyone to live in padded cells for their own safety, but we both agree that’s ridiculous. We’re just arguing over what is and is not an acceptable trade-off between safety and agency.
in this case there’s only really 2 options: better for society or better for yourself. you can’t argue it’s better for everyone to have the choice to own killing weapons when it’s clear that position results in more gun violence and death.
You’re not wrong and I mainly don’t disagree with you.
But look at it from another perspective.
Those millions of guns in households are largely in the hands of conservatives since gun ownership skews heavily towards white people, males, and those living in rural areas which we already know also skews conservative, within which is a subset that fantasize about having a reason to murder their neighbors over dumb shit like colorful flags or opinions.
Liberals are much more diverse of a population than conservatives which means that when it comes to liberals, women or poc the odds of them having a fighting chance are not great in a life or death situation they didnt create, vs who is most likely to be the aggressors, conservative white men.
My take on it is that the cat is already out of the bag. In a perfect world I would prefer not having easy to operate life-ending tools spread freely throughout the country, but that’s not the reality we live in. The best shot we have is to even the playing field so to speak even with the downsides it presents. The current status quo is letting terrorists gun us down with impunity and that doesn’t sit well with me.
I mean… I kind of get where you’re coming from but “with impunity”? The shooter is now dead. If they weren’t dead they’d be either executed eventually or in prison for 50+ years, or more likely, life.
The trouble with this is that like @Liz pointed out in her comment about individual rights vs societal safety, from the perspective of the individual being shot, it is with impunity.
That woman had a right to life and safety and some stupid asshole came along and ended that no matter what justice the shooter rightfully faces after the fact.
I’m open to a solution, but it’s unrealistic to expect Americans to give/sell back enough of their guns for it to work like it did in Australia.
We have A LOT more guns here, and each one lasts 100 years or more. We could give up 99% of them (we wouldn’t though) and there would still be like 6 million guns here.
Demanding people give up their guns would just cause an open civil war. The solution that worked in other countries wouldn’t work here because the ideology is different.
I have no faith that what has worked in europe would work here given the political and cultural landscape before us. If it was feasible for america I’m not sure we would be in this situation now.
I wish it was, you and me both, but until that changes I’m simply accepting the lay of the land for what it is and reacting accordingly. We can work towards a better solution in the meantime; these actions and thoughts are not mutually exclusive.
However, your argument was very well written, and I appreciate both its intention and its focus on the human.
Thanks for the kind words. It is rather annoying being the change I want to see in the world though.
Carrying doesn’t do crap for self defense. The moment a crazy asshole pulls their gun at you and shoots you won’t even be able to comprehend the situation quick enough and get your own piece out of the holster.
The crazy asshole always wins as they shoot first (they are usually cowards on top, so you might just get shot in the back).
More guns just leads to more crazy assholes with guns, I feel much safer in European countries.
In the situation you outline, yeah you’d have no real chance at protecting yourself. And those situations do happen in cases like the Las Vegas hotel shooting or any of the various school shootings we’re seeing all over these days.
In many other cases even the most craven assholes need to work themselves up to shoot another human being.
That means arguments, harassment and threats.
These are helpful advance warning signs that tell you that you’re entering dangerous waters and de-escalation tactics take priority. Many of our lady friends can already tell from a mile away if someone is dangerous even before they start flapping their mouthholes as a matter of everyday survival.
If all of that fails and I hope to god that it doesn’t, that’s when having a concealed weapon gives you a fighting chance at defending your right to live. Especially for women, guns are the great equalizer.
More guns just leads to more crazy assholes with guns
You’re right, this is true.
Unfortunately the cost of encountering a rather persistent strapped terrorist is extremely high even if the chance of it happening to you is low.
Well, I rather live in a country where pretty much no one is strapped (except police and military and even then not all of them).
Even the whole hero fantasy a lot of Americans have, it doesn’t work out. There is a famous video of someone shooting up a mall. A random guy carrying tried to sneak up on him. Then the girlfriend of the shooter popped him right in the head from behind (as he didn’t notice her following at a distance).
It’s not about self defense in this case, I think. It’s about sending a message that they/we/the lefties ain’t gonna take it laying down. If you truly want to see the right shit themselves, start arming lefties.
It’s odd, I don’t think I’ve ever heard of a lefty or a gay person outright killing someone over a Dixie or Trump flag. I keep reading about far-righties killing people over the scary rainbow flag though
Hm, it’s one example, while he claimed he never heard of such occurence. Clearly there have been Trump supporters murdered for their allegiance. Can’t say there haven’t been.
President Donald Trump commended the U.S. Marshals for shooting Reinoehl, describing it as “retribution”, and claiming to have personally “sent in” the U.S. Marshals to “get” Reinoehl during the first presidential debate with Joe Biden.
That’s especially disturbing considering that it seems more like a political hit job on a left-wing activist. Dude killed somebody allegedly in self-defense, then he was gunned down - why was a fugitive task for necessary when the dude was just chilling at home?
He was executed my a shady task force, probably without ever firing his gun, and then the president boasted about revenge. archive.ph/OFvJi
You couldn’t be more wrong Telllos. If I didn’t have this gun, the King of England could just walk in here any time he wants and start shoving you around. Do you want that? (Pokes Telllos) Huh? (Shoves Telllos) Do ya!?
Please elaborate as to how that would be worse. At least half these nutters wouldn’t be able to figure out how to use a printer, let alone a 3d printer.
This thread has, predictably, devolved into a hugely disrespectful exchange given the linked post.
But as an aside, I shudder to think of trying to design an additively manufactured part that would reliably contain a propellant blast using anything less than an industrial $100k-$1m DMLS or at least really really good SLS machine. If the goal is to harm somebody using a 3D printer, you’d probably be better off bashing them over the head with it.
Full plastic guns generally don’t last very long- but they have been proven to somewhat work since 2013. Now there are more stable designs that use off-the-shelf plumbing parts with plastic components. There are also designs that can be CNC’d with a cheap machine
Why does everyone thing 3D printing is magic? You’re not going to be 3D printing weapons that can kill scores of poeple. Any firearm printed on an FDM printer is lucky to fire once without injuring the dipshit wielder.
This comment betrays a lack of understanding around 3d printed firearms.
Of course there are your (nearly) fully plastic single shots like the Harlot that fire small calibers and dont always last long.
On the other hand, there’s plastic lowers (the only part considered a firearm and thus the onlynpart that needs to be bought through an FFL) for AR15s that use off the shelf plumbing supplies for the pressure bearing components.
The files are readily available and able to be printed on low end FDM printers with little adjustment and troubleshooting completely bypassing the need to purchase a firearm from a dealer.
If we acted the same way it would reinforce their agenda. My comment blew up.
Update/Edit: if you think killing people is the answer to solving the world’s problems then you are a fucking premtitive shitty human being and are a part of the problem.
You’re not allowed to get strapped up like a larping moron in every western country in the world that isn’t the US.
The US would be doing a lot better if they stopped pretending like they were the only country in the world that’s ever tried to solve a problem. Owning guns just increases the chance that you or a family member will commit suicide or a murder suicide.
Honestly, the gun culture is way too entrenched among the right wing for something like that to be viable and any attempt at meaningful gun legislation will ignite the civil war I’m talking about.
The right wing is open and emphatic about their willingness to wage war with the government to be able to keep their weapons. And they are serious. There’s enough of them that they could give our military a good run for its money.
That’s basically how it’s been, only with a very racist bent. Gun control only really became a thing once Black people started arming themselves.
I agree with you that once people start popping off politicians that we’ll see real change on the matter. And then the right wing will be signaled to fight once they see mass disarmament programs begin, and it’ll be downhill from there.
Gun control only really became a thing once Black people started arming themselves.
Negative. Gun Control in the United States predates the founding of the country and it was both racist and classist from the very outset. As documented in that link Gun Control laws have been around for over 200 years and were instituted against Blacks but also against the Irish, the Chinese, and Native Americans.
Your comment is based on The Mulford Act, a stupid and racist piece of California legislation passed with bi-partisan effort and signed by then Governor Ronald Reagan in response to publicly armed Black Panthers. It wasn’t even close the first serious gun control law to get passed.
For instance Mulford was modeled on The Sullivan Act enacted by New York State in 1911. It intentionally targeted Italian immigrants, another distinct minority at the time.
This country has ALWAYS enacted Gun Control in response to racial and class elements.
Also holy shit, why would any reasonable person support stupid shit like gun control in that light?
In yesterday’s society it was to protect the wealth and position of the Upper and Middle classes. In today’s society it’s because it seems like an obvious response to things like Mass Shootings and Gun Crime. The hidden in plain sight truth though is that modern day Gun Control proposals are doing the same thing as yesterday’s Gun Control proposals because if you have enough money they will not apply to you.
Pass a new Federal Assault Weapons Ban? No problem for the wealthy, they’ll just drop $20,000 on a pre-ban machine gun that can be legally transferred to them. Pass a Federal “Red Flag” law? They don’t care as they know it’ll never be enforced against them; their connections, money, and lawyers will see to it. Federal UBC? Again, no worries as their connections, money, and lawyers all make sure they won’t be impacted. Remove the 2nd Amendment and ban the private ownership of firearms? No worries, the bodyguards surrounding them and their families will still be armed, just like they are everywhere else in the world.
What makes it even more stupid is that no direct causal link between the number of guns in circulation and the amount of “Gun Crime”, however you define that, has ever been shown. In fact the data shows something very different than the reality most people believe in.
In short US Citizens bought a SHIT ton of guns starting in the 90s and tens of millions of new owners were added as our population grew…all while both Violent and Gun Crime continued to drop. We have a problem for sure, but it ain’t the number of guns in circulation.
It’s a good theory and one that I bought into as well but the statistics should have stayed down if that was the cause. Since they didn’t there must have been another factor.
The real world where without it, I stand a very high likelihood of being raped or murdered at the slightest aggression of an angry male who will always carry a power advantage over me without them, you psychopath.
You’re more likely to be killed by a mosquito than raped, and men are far more likely to be murdered than you. You might want to reevaluate your threat assessment.
Only at today’s death rate. Prior to malaria being cured it would have taken 4 years to 40. PS. They’ve been at it for 250,000 years the death toll isn’t even close. You’re arguing in bad faith.
Oh yeah, Canadian and European women are just casually murdered and raped all the time cause they’re not strapped. That’s so totally a thing that happens and we all hear about in the news day after day!
Yes, they are. 1in 6 of all women on average are raped in their lifetime. Girls under 18, those rates are 1 in 4. And many of them could have been prevented if they had a firearm.
And you’re evil for claiming otherwise. And for insinuating women should have to accept any risk of being raped at all just to not offend your sensibilities. My sensibilities are more important than yours.
It’s higher even than that everywhere because the number of reported rapes is lower than what the numbers show. It’s actually a lot worse. Everywhere. The numbers I gave you are estimates from RAINN.
But let’s say what you want to believe is right – that rape is extremely rare, too rare to justify gun ownership or self-defense in general.
You’re arguing that rape is rare anyway, so rape victims shouldn’t have a tool they can use to stop it from happening, and if that means any big, strong male threatens to or actually does rape them, they should just bend over and take it, and go to therapy and move on so you can make yourself feel better. If that means more completed rapes, so be it. If that means aggressors will therefore always be at an advantage and enjoy protection from you when you morally condemn and even physically force victims to stop when they try to resist, all the better. If that means even survivors will likely die from pregnancy complications because of so may countries around the world imposing abortion bans specifically so men can forcibly impregnate them against their will, too bad. Fuck them bitches – literally.
It doesn’t matter that it is very much worse than death – in fact, that’s what you’re gonna argue next, because you don’t care about other people or human life. You only care about being right.
And no sane person thinks like you.
You’re sick.
[citation needed]
Resisting against rapists works:
When confronted with a sexual attacker, women are often extremely concerned with avoiding rape completion. While narrative reviews typically suggest that the victim resistance is linked to rape avoidance, much of the existing literature relies on overlapping samples from the National Crime Victimization Survey. The current meta-analysis examines whether victim resistance is related to a greater likelihood of avoiding rape completion. Results from a systematic literature search across 25 databases supplemented by a search of the gray literature resulted in 4,581 hits of which seven studies met eligibility criteria for the review. Findings suggest that women who resist their attacker are significantly more likely than nonresisters to avoid rape completion. This finding held across analyses for physical resistance, verbal resistance, or resistance of any kind. Limitations of the analysis and policy implications are discussed, with particular focus on other research findings that resistance may be linked to greater victim injury.
Wong JS, Balemba S. The Effect of Victim Resistance on Rape Completion: A Meta-Analysis. Trauma Violence Abuse. 2018 Jul;19(3):352-365. doi: 10.1177/1524838016663934. Epub 2016 Aug 12. PMID: 27519993.
Resisting rapists doesn’t actually result in greater physical injury:
The impact of victim resistance on rape completion and injury was examined utilizing a large probability sample of sexual assault incidents, derived from the National Crime Victimization Survey (1992-2002), and taking into account whether harm to the victim followed or preceded self-protection (SP) actions. Additional injuries besides rape, particularly serious injuries, following victim resistance are rare. Results indicate that most SP actions, both forceful and nonforceful, reduce the risk of rape completion, and do not significantly affect the risk of additional injury.
Tark, Jongyeon & Kleck, Gary. (2014). Resisting Rape The Effects of Victim Self-Protection on Rape Completion and Injury. Violence against women. 20. 10.1177/1077801214526050.
Stop fucking telling women not to resist rape:
Women’s resistance strategies to rape were examined using police reports and the court testimonies of 274 women who either avoided rape or were raped by subsequently incarcerated sex offenders. The sequence of behaviors in the offender-victim interaction was analyzed to determine whether women who resist rape with physical force are, as some have suggested, exacerbating the potential for physical injury or are simply responding to the severity of the offender’s physical attack. The results indicated that 85% of the women in the study who resisted with physical force did so in response to the offender’s initiated violence. The remaining 15% who resisted with physical force did so in response to the offender’s verbal aggression. Moreover, those women who responded with physical aggression to the offender’s violent physical attack were more likely to avoid rape than were women who did not resist such force. Also, the potential for physical injury was no greater for these women than for those who used other resistance strategies or who offered no resistance. These analyses suggest that the frequently found correlation between physical resistance and injury of the woman might be the result of the initial level of the offender’s violence and should not be used to discourage women from physically resisting rape.
ULLMAN, S. E., & KNIGHT, R. A. (1992). Fighting Back: Women’s Resistance to Rape. Journal of Interpersonal Violence, 7(1), 31–43. doi.org/10.1177/088626092007001003
Guns allow for more effective resistance:
What are the consequences when rape victims resist rapists? Analysis of a nationally representative sample of rape incidents reported in the National Crime Surveys for 1979 to 1985 yields the following findings: (1) Victims who resist are much less likely to have the rape completed against them than nonresisting victims, a pattern generally apparent regardless of the specific form of resistance: (2) The form of resistance that appears most effective in preventing rape completion is resistance with a gun, knife, or other weapon: (3) Most forms of resistance are not significantly associated with higher rates of victim injury. The exceptions are unarmed forceful resistance and threatening or arguing with the rapist: (4) Even these two forms of resistance probably do not generally provoke rapists to injure their victims, as ancillary evidence concerning assaults and robberies indicates that resistance rarely precedes injury. Attack against the victim appears to provoke victim resistance, rather than the reverse: (V Only about three percent of rape incidents involve some additional injury that could be described as serious. Thus it is the rape itself that is nearly always the most serious injury the victim suffers. Consequently, refraining from resistance in order to avoid injury in addition to the rape is a questionable tradeoff.
Kleck, Gary & Sayles, Susan. (1990). Rape and Resistance. Social Problems - SOC PROBL. 37. 149-162. 10.1525/sp.1990.37.2.03a00020.
Now sit down and shut the fuck up you worthless rape apologist
You are an enemy to women and freedom-loving people everywhere. Including us independents.
Yes you’ve made it very clear that you value your own paranoia over the statistical safety of everyone.
You’ve made it very clear that you value being superior to others over their literal lives, so you’re not anyone that should be taken seriously.
It’s higher even than that everywhere because the number of reported rapes is lower than what the numbers show.
Yeah, you didn’t answer the question. European and Canadian women do not get raped at a higher rate than American women, despite not being strapped up like a commando.
And guess what? They suffer lower rates of spousal killing, and their children do not die from gun violence at any statistically meaningful rate.
But let’s say what you want to believe is right – that rape is extremely rare, too rare to justify gun ownership or self-defense in general.
Never said rape was rare, just pointed out that making guns easy for every psychopath to gets their hands on doesn’t make it less rare. Increasing gun ownership increases the rate of rapists who own guns as well, you, evilevil gun wielding rapist supporter 🙄
Congratulations on living in the only country in the world where dozens of children are regularly gunned to death at school. All your decisions are going great.
No they wouldn’t. Our military doesn’t even need to respond most of the time, just the cops, and when they do these jackasses are so poorly trained and organized, The National Guard doesn’t even get to play with their big toys.
Source: lefty (in both ways) Navy Veteran, and there are way more of us than the braying jackasses want to admit
I question this idea that violence should only be viewed through a lens of who is superior to the other. Morality is not about being better. It’s about reducing suffering in the world. And your opponents think nonviolence simply doesn’t accomplish that, and in this case I don’t blame them.
All I’m saying is there’s a that universally every nation in the world has constructed laws on this; that just because you disagree with an opposing view vehemently you cannot strike out physically, violently. Inevitably, if you abandon this notion, then it will backfire by those most willing to commit violence — and in that regard, we revert back to survival-of-the-fittest winner-take-all mindsets. When that happens, will we have “reduced suffering in the world?”
Not sure if you are aware but the Nazi agenda is still around.
One could make the argument war didn’t get rid of them and had just reinforced their way of thinking even moreso for the ones who still supported nazism.
One could also make the argument that the best way to deal with hitler was to send him chocolates and ask him to leave France very nicely. Doesn’t mean its a good argument.
I dunno. I’ve thought, for quite some time, that we’ll lose because the only way to combat the far-right is to stoop to their levels and we, naturally, are to ethical to do so. I’m increasingly on the side of see-a-nazi-punch-a-nazi, although I’m horrified by violence and probably wouldn’t have the courage to do so.
I hope you realize that you’re falling right into the far-right playbook. This right here is their goal. Not sure if you’re familiar with ProPublica’s research but they seek to muddy the waters. The whole punch a nazi thing actually helps their recruitment. They turn around and go, “See? They’re no better. They claim to preach these beliefs about a civil society and freedom of speech and not preemptively striking, yet here we are.”
In a way wouldn’t we all. But this is clearly posturing anyway since I’m not seeing much in the way of nazi punching. For instance we saw how many nazis were in DC on January 6th or at Charlottesville, yet not much punching occurred.
Either way there are better ways to undermine their goals.
That just helps prove my point. One side is just not violent to begin with and to expect to beat violence with violence from a group unwilling to stoop to such a level themselves is absurd. Either way there are better ways to solving the problem. Nobody is going out “punching nazis” as much as it may feel cathartic to say. That will literally just land you in prison and feed their cause.
If you are unable to fight, then prepare yourself in other ways. Teach your family how to help fighters who are injured, how to evac people who need help and how to escape/survive a conservative attack (such as an active shooter).
Even if you are not a fighter, there is a ton you can do to help those who will fight.
At minimum, teach your children why we don’t do business with or engage in personal relationships with conservatives. Together we can maginalize hate by marginalizing haters.
It seems unlikely that this would have any political effect, let alone a negative one. Perpetual gun violence is an unremarkable feature of life in the United States.
History has shown time and time again that pacifism cannot defeat conservatism. Conservatives see pacifism as an invitation to attack.
They do no rely on our actions to advance their agenda of hate. Conservatives will advance their agenda of hate with or without our input. They can only be stopped by force.
We are not going to sit here and watch people get killed for no reason just for nothing to happen to the terrorists in return. As terrorists, they deserve to be treated as terrorists. A hundred years ago killing Nazis after the liberation of Germany was the right thing to do, but now it’s supposed to be wrong?
So what are you recommending? It sounds like you’re recommending pre-emptive violence towards people with no crime, no trial, no jury. That is likely to end badly. It’s also likely to be used as an excuse to kill people who aren’t involves in hate in the first place.
What do you define as “one of those terrorists”? Any person who is a conservative, or any person who has already murdered someone for being gay? Or somewhere in the middle?
There are times violence is necessary, with Nazi Germany being the classic example.
That said, most of the time, even for many times where violence might be “right” it’s still a strategic error. It’s much harder to build than destroy and any “successful” deployment of violence requires physical and institutional/relational rebuilding.
Violence can make it harder to attract supporters to your cause. It gives your opponents the feeling of moral justification in also exercising violence. In a full on conflict, it reduces the ability of key supporters (the young, elderly, disabled, many women) from contributing to the struggle compared with non violent action
How much of a pussy do you have to be to go shoot somebody over a rainbow flag. What a fucking fairy. People are so sensitive these days and don’t know how to act. We can blame the internet all we want, but at the end of the day, people need to learn to have some social skills. How to talk disagreements out and let people have an opinion, even if it may be wrong or stupid in their eyes. It absolutely infuriates me that people gotta die over stupid shit.
In like 2021 when the truckers were protesting g the vaccine at the border I made a man snap in public over what was legitimately a luke-warm shot at the protest.
I said something like “these dipshits are acting like they didn’t get their mandated MMR shots already.” And a guy next to me, not in the conversation, dramatically stood up, and loudly announced “You know what?! All you fuckin idiots think the situation is simple, but it’s a lot more fucking complex that the corporate media is making it out to be!” He stormed out. Didn’t pay his tab.
The whole bar just sat there in awe. Like “damn I guess some of us really got hit with that isolation crazy”
Two sides of the same coin, since all “regular” conservatives are also “far-right” extremists. Any “moderate conservative” is just a centrist Democrat at this point.
When they vote for, and are ok with open arms for far right extreme shit, what should it be called?
I know some people might seem to be normal and perhaps moderate, but when you sit down with them and explain some of this shit to them, and they basically are ok with it because they feel the bad shit will only impact other people and not themselves (for example religious persecution - “I’m Christian so I’ll be fine”) what does one call that?
I was with you until that line. I know too many people who voted for Trump because they were ignorant and detached from politics, not because they were alt-right.
There is a difference. Many of those detached-from-politics people are seeing Trump face all those charges, and moving on. Some are being told that it’s part of some Democratic conspiracy against Trump. If you’ve ever traveled to a red state on business and seen the local news, you’d understand how easy it is for someone to get convinced of the lie even though they are more aligned with Democrats on the issues than Republicans.
I’m torn on how to respond to this. On one hand, I grew up in rural Appalachia in a Republican household. Eventually my family pivoted 180 towards Democrats and never looked back. I shudder to wonder if we would’ve been the idyllic Trump supporter 20-years-ago. I know what it’s like when Fox News is blaring in every doctor’s lobby, every bar, etc. When on the job site every other person is espousing those same conservative views. So I recognize that people are capable of change and we should not give up entirely on them (though their vote is less needed these days).
The thing is, many voted for Hitler not out of dyed-in-the-wool SS Nazi beliefs, but as you said: Complete ignorance.
Most of the people who voted for Trump knew what he was for and agreed with his platform. That platform was far-right. In the end, I don’t find much difference between those so incredibly gullible (useful idiots?) enough to fall for the shallow fox news propaganda of far-right extremism, versus those who know the game and commit 100% — both lead to the same dangerous logical conclusion. Besides, I think every far-right extremist at their core is ignorant in themselves.
Most of the people who voted for Trump knew what he was for and agreed with his platform. That platform was far-right
I can’t speak for everyone. But I knew quite a few Trump voters who clearly did not understand the for-right platform. They thought they voted:
Anti-corruption
This idea that both parties are the same and here’s someone who actually wants to pull a Perot
Saving jobs (he actually dramatically overperformed the labor vote that, while they can be racist, don’t usually run towards the dogwhistle candidate)
This, to me, is similar to a lot of the folks voting for Obama thinking he was actually progressive despite openly being conservative.
In the end, I don’t find much difference between those so incredibly gullible (useful idiots?) enough to fall for the shallow fox news propaganda of far-right extremism
There is a drastic difference between evil people and stupid people, and knowing that is both important for keeping your sanity in a country that elected him, but also politically important for knowing that we’re not just a few votes away from the majority of Americans wanting a fascism.
both lead to the same dangerous logical conclusion
This is true, and why it’s both important that we educate people, and that we work towards a country where campaigns of lies are either illegal or at least made ineffective. The Democrats ran fairly hard on “everything Trump said is a lie” and were able to prove it, and that wasn’t enough.
Besides, I think every far-right extremist at their core is ignorant in themselves.
Sure, but not every fool is a racist. Most of them are “centirsts” or merely uninterested in politics and just want to go on with their lives.
A lot of Americans are certainly being duped by right-wing propaganda. Distinguishing between the right-wing propaganda that dominates the airwaves and what is actually right-wing are two different things, which I think you fairly note. There are many people, including members of my extended family and many others who I’d consider generally “good” people, but duped and led astray — no doubt. I too have met these same people who cited the same points you did. But man, at this point if they haven’t changed, I have very little hope that they ever will. These aren’t centrists; these are largely red-hats through and through.
Like I said, this is how fascism rises to power. it hinges on the gullible and ignorant, not as I said the dyed-in-the-wool believers. They Thought They Were Free is a great book that examines this. That 1940s, “Don’t be a Sucker” video illustrated this well, too.
There is a drastic difference between evil people and stupid people, and knowing that is both important for keeping your sanity in a country that elected him, but also politically important for knowing that we’re not just a few votes away from the majority of Americans wanting a fascism.
I think there’s somewhat of a difference as to origin of beliefs, but I don’t know if there’s much in the outcome or even the capacity to move these people. I’d be more likely to fully buy that argument if this was still midway through Trump’s first term. For instance, after all has been said and done by Trump over the years. Scandal after scandal. Lie after lie. From grabbing women by the pussy, racist comments toward Mexico, Trump University fraud, or even the very first lie of his Presidency: the size of his inauguration… To catastrophic response to COVID, the damning 2 impeachments and even more compelling 91 criminal charges across 4 Grand Jury indictments… All of this is public record. All these losers know what Trump is, and yet they still continue to vote for him. Don’t count on a large number of them simply being innocently gullible. At what point do you simply conclude, “They just don’t care, do they?”
After all, even after showing his true colors and saturating the national media spotlight for 4 years, he came away with 11 million more votes. If people are that ignorant, then I regret to think there’s little hope for the vast majority of them and they are just as complicit in the outcome. Willful ignorance at best. Still, so incredibly dangerous. And after nearly 8 years of trying to get through to these people how bad Trump is, how much progress have we actually made among those who already fell for the cult?
Here’s where I hope we can find common ground: Every year there is a new batch of citizens who enter the political fold for one reason or another — whether that’s coming of age and finally taking an interest in civics, or someone who has had some major issue personally impact them. Generally there are a lot of the middle-ground “enlightened centrist,” fence-sitters who have yet to fully commit to a side. These are the people we must reach out to. They’re the ones not too far gone and too isolated among right-wing echo-chambers to catch before they’re gone (great allegory for this in The Matrix / Plato’s Cave). As we’re pursuing these fence-sitters, we must also energize the left by actually committing to progressive policy that we know works. Time and again, we shoot ourselves in the foot by trying to water down our policies in order to appeal to voters whom we’ll never get on the right anyway — only to disenfranchise the most active part of the left and water down our policies to such an extent that it backfires when implemented.
I agree with quite a few of your points, but not all of them. The biggest disagreement we have is on the nature of Obama.
In his political career, he was always a conservative/moderate. The fact that he seemed to hide his conservativeness in his campaigning suggests he knew progressives might be a fair draw and he needed their vote. Maybe he’s a lifestyle liar, but I wouldn’t bet on it.
As for Trump voters. Yeah. Two counterpoints.
Undecided voters are often short-sighted. Hell, most voters are short-sighted. We don’t remember 6 months ago if we’re not repeatedly reminded.
Buttery males, Bernie the commie, Hunter’s laptop. Birth Certificate. To someone distanced, the scandals started around 2007 and hasn’t stopped since. It takes actually paying attention to the scandals to realize that they’re not all fake. This is one of the neocon strategies: desensitize us to the evils they cannot hide.
Generally there are a lot of the middle-ground “enlightened centrist,” fence-sitters who have yet to fully commit to a side. These are the people we must reach out to.
1000% agree. But it’s not easy. I look at some of my family members in their formative voting years (19-22). They are uninterested in the left… why? Because they have family who won’t shut up about how bad Trump is. I kid you not. They have analyzed enough to realize it’s true, but then found themselves just not caring to vote because some people are just so damn passionate. Like passion is a bad thing. And it’s not just one or two people. The attitude seems fairly common, and reiterates the “desensitize” thing. The real problem could well be that after this influx of gen y upping the vote out of fear of Trump, we’re going to watch the voting rate plummet again… and we all know what happens when not enough people vote.
I think there were some hints to Obama’s progressive streak, and while I generally agree that Obama was probably as centrist as they come in terms of his Presidency – if not center-right in many respects – I think deep down he was frustrated that his hands were tied from enacting more progressive policies. Some of which he clearly signaled in the lead-up to his win in '08, like the desire for universal health care, initially seeking single-payer healthcare (something his rival Clinton famously espoused, “would never happen.”), then public option, then settling for an insurance mandate because of obstruction. As left as Bernie or Warren at heart? I wouldn’t say so; or if he is, he approaches it not with strong convictions but of pragmatism. That pragmatism unfortunately only works if the other side has the mutual interest in improving the country and they do not.
I can see that a bit. Fortunately my younger sister in that age group is still very active and gets it. But my sister in-law who is normally quite outspoken and willing to discuss and debate simply “did not have time to vote” and more or less bought into the rhetoric of her conservative dad that your vote doesn’t matter. I tried so hard to to ensure they voted, but it just hasn’t clicked with them. MAYBE passion like mine has driven them away, but let’s be honest, there’s a reason the crazy uncle who listens to Limbaugh or the latest charlatan runs their mouth and everyone else remains quiet. The loud mouth gets their voice heard and to the detriment of the country, that’s influential. I think it’s high time the left gets loud and vocal; for if not now, when?
Overall I’m hopeful, considering youth showed up big for a midterm no less last year. I think that trend overall might continue with Gen Y and Z, considering there has been no progress on abortion and Republicans have only continued to cripple LGBTQ rights as well as obstruct tuition forgiveness. Though I’m thoroughly convinced we’re not doing ourselves any favors running Biden again, it is what it is. For the sake of the country, I certainly hope it’s Trump who is their nominee. If someone like Chris Sununu runs, then we’re fucked. Even NPR was kissing his ass yesterday…
Overall I view Trump supporters as a lost cause, and I literally cannot count more than 2 people I know who regretted their support for Trump since 2015. Most cultists, no differently than the casual nazi party members before them, will double-down on the lie because that’s what people do when they’ve been hooked. Sure they’re capable of change if they really work for it as my family did, but it’s not worth the time and effort. Now it’s a matter of containing the spread of misinformation, inoculating the apathetic before they get in too deep.
I think deep down he was frustrated that his hands were tied from enacting more progressive policies
Ultimately, I cannot know what was going on in his mind, so we are theorizing. But here’s my counter-theory. He was frustrated because he believed in bipartisanship, in both parties working together for a better country despite neither getting everything it wanted, and he discovered the other side would literally burn the country down for an edge. I think he was an idealist, but his ideal was “one country, one people” instead of this Plymouth/Jamestown contrast we still seem to represent. To that end, he was willing to sacrifice almost anything, and only started playing hardball when he realized after he gave EVERYTHING, the other side smiled and said “so we’re going to vote against that”.
MAYBE passion like mine has driven them away, but let’s be honest, there’s a reason the crazy uncle who listens to Limbaugh or the latest charlatan runs their mouth and everyone else remains quiet. The loud mouth gets their voice heard and to the detriment of the country, that’s influential.
You’re not wrong. I don’t like that we can’t have successful left-loudmouths. I like to say/think it’s because a large part of the Democratic base is interested in truth and facts, but that doesn’t explain the lazy people who are willing to allow for alt-right nonsense but not leftist discussion.
there has been no progress on abortion and Republicans have only continued to cripple LGBTQ rights as well as obstruct tuition forgiveness
I used to think that Roe being overturned would be the last nail, that Red states would spontaneously turn Blue from people who suddenly realized they were in Gilead. I used to actually think they wouldn’t let their best tool to rally the alt-right go away. And I was right that it hurt them now that people are living in the hell of abortion being illegal, but it hasn’t been the wave I expected. I really hope you’re right, but look at Texas. It was supposed to be purple already, and quickly turning Blue in the next 20 years. And that was before Dobbs. I just don’t see that motion yet. I hope to see it soon.
Overall I view Trump supporters as a lost cause, and I literally cannot count more than 2 people I know who regretted their support for Trump since 2015.
Sad, but true. I swear, there’s a mile-long list for why the Republican party should be failing. And they KNOW it. They hate Trump as much as we do. Coming in to 2016, Republicans were internally talking about looking more moderate because they were afraid they’d alienated too many people. Trump wasn’t supposed to have a chance in the Primary. They’re like a zombie party. Things that would destroy almost any other party in the world are reinvigorating them. Non-stop sex scandals? MORE VOTES.
Regarding Obama, that’s a fair take. There was a hefty amount of naivety in his belief that Republicans would sincerely reach across the aisle and work together for the common good. Those days were long over, and they’d happily slap his hand down every time while accusing him of being partisan. It just happened over and over again. And because right-wing media has such a grip on America, the general apathetic citizen didn’t recognize this, and by the time Obama realized it, he had lost his strength in Congress.
True I can only theorize, though Obama did proclaim himself to be a progressive through the 2008 campaign with progressives naturally drawn to him as well. Unfortunately his “pragmatic progressive” approach did not work out. Though you know on hindsight I can’t really fault him. At the time we needed a leader to bring back stability and rebuild the country on the brink. He had to fix the broken puzzle, but lacked the circumstances to build upon it. Two of the biggest faults to his presidency was not prosecuting the bankers and not listening to Ambassador Ford’s advice to support the FSA and put an end to the Assad regime — but for the latter, again I somewhat understand in the context of seeking withdrawal from Iraq and Afghanistan.
It was supposed to be purple already, and quickly turning Blue in the next 20 years. And that was before Dobbs. I just don’t see that motion yet. I hope to see it soon.
Texas is tricky. It’s my view that New Mexico is 10 years ahead of Arizona politically-speaking, while Arizona is 10 years ahead of Texas. AZ had yet to even shed Arpaio at the time while the thought of having “2” Democratic US Senators seemed a far-away concept (hopefully AZ remedies the disaster that is Sinema). I still have some hope for Texas, but of course change never comes soon enough.
Trump wasn’t supposed to have a chance in the Primary.
What’s crazy is that the idiots could’ve likely prevented this in the 2016 GOP primaries if they rank a ranked choice voting system. All the “moderate” Republicans initially too scared to vote for someone as crazy as Trump split their votes across something like 8 other “normal” candidates. This party sustains itself off ignorant fear, anger, and greed. Ethics and reason have no place beneath their banner.
Your reply deserves more time than I have, I’m sorry. I am really grateful for this type of conversation where nobody reduces to name-calling. It’s refreshing after reddit.
But I do want to point to 1 thing. "True I can only theorize, though Obama did proclaim himself to be a progressive through the 2008 campaign with progressives naturally drawn to him as well. " I don’t think that’s actually true.
I used google historical search a couple years back to look at what Obama ACTUALLY campaigned as and proclaimed. Surprisingly, he wasn’t saying a ton of progressive things. He campaigned heavily on words that could be taken multiple ways, but on the issues he seemed fairly conservative. When I pulled up even slightly over, lots of news articles from unbiased (or left-biased) sources referring him to a Party Moderate.
I think the wool was pulled over our eyes, and I go back and forth between thinking he did it, thinking his campaign staff did it, and between thinking our optimism did it.
What’s crazy is that the idiots could’ve likely prevented this in the 2016 GOP primaries if they rank a ranked choice voting system.
I didn’t follow it as closely as I’d like to. Didn’t it go like Primaries usually do, with the bottom-polling candidate trying to step out and redirect their votes towards their favorite… with a lather-rinse-repeat? The final vote was apparently down to 4 candidates. And Trump got more votes than the other 3 combined, nearly 50% of the Primary Votes. RCV doesn’t beat him basically having a majority vote among the field.
Brown shirts aren’t inherently bigoted, but they can be a reference to the colloquial name for the SA, the brownshirts, called that because their uniforms included brown shirts and also to differentiate them from other fascist militias of the era that wore different colored shirts. The SA used similar styles of military imagery, threats of violence, and acts of violence to modern right wing militias.
I am actually interested to know the race of the murderer. I know some people are against giving that information, but truth is, that provides a lot of information.
Yeah it is really easy to fall for the schadenfreude when a POS gets got by cops but don’t forget cops are wrong about who did what all the fucking time…
It’s not their job to execute people. It’s their job to arrest them and provide evidence in a court of law to get them jail time. Even if it’s the perpetrator.
That is why I’m arguing for not celebrating this way of handling problems. Executions, even official ones that are done “correctly” by the state, often kill innocent people. And, as you said, people that have directly commited a crime still deserve their rights.
Situations like this, where no one wants to see a killer like that get away, it becomes easier to overlook bad policing, and everyone should make a conscious effort try and hold police to a higher standard to do things properly.
I guess he should be allowed to shoot whoever he wants and fuck our human right to self defense then. 🤷
I hate cops too but this is one of the few cases where lethal action on their part is justifed. Him shooting at them gives them the right to shoot back, not as cops but as human beings. And how dare you tell human beings that the machinations of an old, decrepit, broken system is more important than their own lives?
From another article (The Sun is owned by Murdoch iirc), they suggested that the murderer did not want to get arrested and was aggressive. It’s sad that people get so hateful that they would rather die hating people than just going about life.
Do they ever want to get arrested? That sounds like a poor excuse not to hit him with a bunch of taser darts and take him down that way. Sure, that might kill him too, but at least there would be a chance. Easier for the cop to reach for their gun and “solve” the problem.
You should know it is a win. Justice is dealt swiftly, there’s no bullshit trials or wasting anyone’s time on this murdering asshole. Time or money.
Sure, he “suffers less” getting a quick death, but let’s price this out for fun. This is in CA, Jesus, those idiots spent on average $64K per inmate annually as of 2015. Let’s not forget we’re in the era of Magic Biden Bucks™; according to Google we have experienced roughly 26% inflation since 2015. That $64K becomes $80K. Averages are just that, average, let’s be very generous & assume this guy is nothing special. Costing the taxpayer $70K per year incarcerated. Nice, even numbers. :-)
That’s at least $700K per decade, not accounting for any future inflation. You want decades, so this revenge/justice venture will cost at minimum $1.4M. Versus 10 mins & $10 in bullets.
I don’t really seek vengeance in the form of life sentences. The end result is the same; death is death & he got his. Justice has been served accurately with zero delay, a modern day miracle.
Oh yeah, police just shooting who they feel like is a modern day miracle! Nothing bad can come from that! Totally won’t end with a police officer kneeling on a man’s neck and slowly choking him to death for being black!
I don’t care. They can think how they want and you do not have the moral authority to tell them they can’t. Go find something better to do with your free time than exploiting a tragedy to bully other people into adopting your way of thinking.
You ought to listen to yourself there. I am not gonna be quiet because you don’t want me to speak the truth, and the truth is he HAS no moral authority to dictate anything to anyone. He’s just some schmuck like the rest of us, and so are you.
The moral authority to tell someone that their stance that police can shoot anyone they want without due process because it’s cheaper that way is morally wrong?
Yeah, everyone has that.
I’m not trying to make light of the tragedy that happened to the original victim, nor am I saying it’s sad that the killer got killed himself. But if someone is arguing to eliminate due process because of this case, I’ll argue against that. And so should anyone else.
Yes. You have no authority to tell them any moral stance is wrong, especially telling people they can’t kill obvious hateful cultists who are a threat to the community and have proven it by killing actually innocent people. You have NO business saying that in a modern society AT ALL.
No one has the authority to tell someone that. Not even you. And if you claim it I will pit you right back in your place, far below actual decent people, where you belong. You will get what you give and you won’t like it.
I’m not trying to make light of the tragedy that happened to the original victim,
Well you are, and you make light of countless tragedies both violent and nonviolent across this nation and across this planet when you open your stupid fucking mouth and insinuate something so evil. And until you stop, my stance won’t change.
But if someone is arguing to eliminate due process because of this case
The only one who took away his right to due process was him, and he did it of his own volition by being dumb enough to fire at cops. When you shoot at ANYONE unprovoked, you have to accept the very high risk of being killed for your trouble and therefore never seeing a trial because that is how reality works.
Self-defense is a fundamental human right that supercedes any right you claim an aggressor to have.
Final reply, because I feel this not going anywhere.
I, or the person I was defending, was not talking about this specific situation. Of course they have the right to self defense. I explicitly mentioned that before two comments ago.
I’m also not trying to defend the killer or feel sad at all he got killed by the police.
All my replies were aimed at the comment from CoffeeJunkie who apparently was advocating for the police to be judge, jury and executioner because that’s cheaper. That’s a major simplification and I’m sure that’s not what they meant, but that’s how I, and probably others, interpreted it and why I chose to go against it.
Again, I’m done arguing with you. You’re resorting to ad hominem attacks because you’re misunderstanding what I’m saying.
That isn’t at all what I said, and this isn’t a case of “shooting who they feel like”. 🤨 This was a case of a killer, a true murderer, getting killed. No one will be prosecuted for fatally shooting this murderer. Stop making false equivalence arguments.
We’re in agreement on that. But when in pursuit of an armed & dangerous individual, armed with a gun, I do believe lethal response in self-defense or pursuit of neutralizing the threat is authorized. If the killer is killed in an armed standoff with police, while not the goal, I’m going to call that a bonus.
I think it is a lapse in moral judgment to command others to act in ways that we wouldn’t act ourselves…I think most people, pursuing an armed & dangerous killer, would want a gun & permission to use it when their lives are threatened. Tasers, stun weapons, and other non-lethal forms of detainment require getting uncomfortably close to the armed & dangerous person.
As much as I will defend my stance that I’m glad the shooter is dead, I still do agree with Flying Squid to an extent. Immediately murdering the aggressor goes against the whole of the system of law, I suppose a fair trial should still be taken place, but I’d be the happiest if they got the death penalty. Keeping him behind bars just keeps the hate alive
Trying to make memes is a waste of time. Spend an hour trying to make something funny in photoshop, 4 upvotes. Literally just read the second line of an article and put it in the comments, 50 upvotes. Not that I care about internet points, but if I did I would never waste my time actually trying to make something insightful!
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