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Post by Deleted on Dec 2, 2015 22:59:43 GMT -5
So the 9-11 attack on the Pentagon isn't terrorism because it wasn't random? It was an attack on an organization that actually planed specific harm to terror groups. The guy who attacked Planned Parenthood may have been a "lone wolf" in the sense that he didn't get specific orders from Carly Fiorina or Ted Cruz. But he's part of a chain of anti-Planned Parenthood attacks and rhetoric, and he targeted a specific organization. Did he pick Planned Parenthood out of the blue? Was he mad at them because he went in to get change for a dollar and they refused him? Seems unlikely. Perhaps he targeted Planned Parenthood because of months of inflammatory hate speech by various conservatives individuals and groups? I'd say it's very likely that he was inspired by organized groups even if he isn't officially listed as a member. If the current definition of terror makes some people squeamish about including lone wolves who act on the hate speech they hear on FOX News and on conservative talk radio, I'd say it's way past time to broaden the definition a little. The meanings of words change all the time in order to make the definitions a little more useful. I really don't see the utility of a definition of "terrorism" that includes the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks and excludes the Colorado Springs attack. If he were Muslim he wouldn't have to be a dues paying card carrying member of ISIS to be labelled a terrorist. |
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Post by Deleted on Dec 3, 2015 10:20:23 GMT -5
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Post by wildfire2099 on Dec 3, 2015 10:36:51 GMT -5
IMHO, for an attack to be 'terrorism' rather than just a random nutjob, there has to be a goal in mind. The attacker has to be attempting to use his act of terror to influence somebody or someone to do something they want.
The Planned Parenthood thing is certainly that.. weather the shooter was part of an organization or not, the goal there was clearly to send the message that PP is bad.
This California thing... I think it could be terror, but until ISIS or some other group claims it and makes a point with it, it's hard to say.. it could just be psychos that happened to be Muslim.
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Post by dupersuper on Dec 3, 2015 11:27:48 GMT -5
All the gun news from your country continues to sadden and mystify this peaceful Canadian.
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Post by Prince Hal on Dec 3, 2015 12:22:53 GMT -5
All the gun news from your country continues to sadden and mystify this peaceful Canadian. It is a national shame. And the discussion about and reaction to all of this makes you feel as if Kafka is writing you into one of his novels. |
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Post by Prince Hal on Dec 3, 2015 12:31:36 GMT -5
But I'm sure it'll turn out to be some sort of false flag operation created to justify the seizure of guns from the stalwart patriots who have turned their homes into arsenals. Just like Sandy Hook was. I guarantee you there'll be lunatics arguing that on Facebook. Yesterday at 4:30 EST. Fox was wetting its trousers yesterday in excitement that this was ISIS-led or inspired. |
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Post by Rob Allen on Dec 3, 2015 13:40:21 GMT -5
NY Times columnist Frank Bruni wrote a scathing anti-Ted Cruz column yesterday: www.nytimes.com/2015/12/02/opinion/anyone-but-ted-cruz.html"Anyone but Cruz: That’s the leitmotif of his life, stretching back to college at Princeton. His freshman roommate, Craig Mazin, told Patricia Murphy of The Daily Beast: “I would rather have anybody else be the president of the United States. Anyone. I would rather pick somebody from the phone book.” [...] ... a combative style and consuming solipsism that would make him an insufferable, unendurable president." |
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Post by Phil Maurice on Dec 3, 2015 16:03:26 GMT -5
All the gun news from your country continues to sadden and mystify this peaceful Canadian. It is a national shame. And the discussion about and reaction to all of this makes you feel as if Kafka is writing you into one of his novels. Particularly galling is the notion that there is no way to stop or decrease, even slightly, incidents of gun violence since restrictions will only make the law-abiding citizen more vulnerable to the criminal element. Yet the "War on Drugs" has churned along vigorously despite making no appreciable progress, at least in its stated aims. I should note that it has been fabulously successful at beefing up the arsenals of various police organizations throughout the country, and in making us a world leader in incarceration (in your face, China!).
This idea that nothing can be done and we must simply accept our terrible burden IS Kafkaesque, and darned un-American. We've never in the past allowed the certainty of failure to dissuade us from our course, and I see no reason to start now.
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Post by Deleted on Dec 3, 2015 17:44:15 GMT -5
If the drug cartels started filling politicians' pockets with money the way the NRA does, I assume there would be no "War on Drugs." Though I suppose illegality keeps prices high, so perhaps this is exactly what they want.
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Post by spoon on Dec 3, 2015 21:32:34 GMT -5
It's frustrating to me that the same people who crow about American exceptionalism seem so negative about the American people if it gives them an excuse to promote the gun culture. They say this mass shootings are really just a mental illness problem, as if mental illness was a product of nationality rather than the human condition. They portray their country as more beset by criminal than the rest of the world.
The truth is the U.S. isn't the awful place that gun nuts trying to make it seem (except, of course, for the fetishization of guns). Mental illness is a problem everywhere on Earth, and most mentally ill people aren't violent. But most countries do give violent, mentally ill people such easy means to kill others. Furthermore, if you look at crimes other than murder (like robbery, assault, etc.) many nations in Western Europe are statistically comparable to or worse than the U.S. Places like Europe, Japan, Australia, etc. are not made up morally superior angels. Rather, their criminals aren't nearly as well-armed as our criminals are in the U.S. Our criminals are given the means to graduate from lesser violent crimes to murder.
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Post by DE Sinclair on Dec 4, 2015 9:14:47 GMT -5
I often think that the mass killing problem isn't an issue of the US being peopled with violent killers, it's more of an efficiency problem. Our violent killers are being given the equipment to be far too efficient on their killing sprees. If automatic or semi-automatic, high capacity assault weapons weren't available and all they had to use were low capacity hunting rifles or handguns, the number of fatalities per killer would drop. If they didn't have handguns available and had to use knives, then the number would drop again. To carry it to the point of ridiculousness, if they didn't have knives and had to use rocks and sticks, the numbers would drop again.
We've simply made it too easy for nutjob killers to be too efficient.
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Post by Prince Hal on Dec 4, 2015 11:06:37 GMT -5
I often think that the mass killing problem isn't an issue of the US being peopled with violent killers, it's more of an efficiency problem. Our violent killers are being given the equipment to be far too efficient on their killing sprees. If automatic or semi-automatic, high capacity assault weapons weren't available and all they had to use were low capacity hunting rifles or handguns, the number of fatalities per killer would drop. If they didn't have handguns available and had to use knives, then the number would drop again. To carry it to the point of ridiculousness, if they didn't have knives and had to use rocks and sticks, the numbers would drop again. We've simply made it too easy for nutjob killers to be too efficient. I do think, though, that we have a culture steeped in gun violence. The gun is a fetish that we as a culture glorify and even sanctify, from the Minutemen and their muskets to Boone and Crockett and their long rifles to the Colt .45s of the Old West, to the tommy guns of gangster movies, to Dirty Harry's Magnum, and on and on. We are immersed in a popular culture and a historical tradition in which using a gun is the answer to problems, from cleaning up the streets of Dodge City to making war on terror. (Another empty slogan. When does the war on horror begin?) Thus it's no mystery that the easy availability of virtually any kind of gun coupled with our celebration of gun violence in movies, comics, TV shows, fiction and non-fiction has made for an evil brew, made even more toxic by our nonchalant acceptance and acquiescence. |
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Post by DE Sinclair on Dec 4, 2015 11:17:26 GMT -5
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Post by DE Sinclair on Dec 4, 2015 11:22:52 GMT -5
I often think that the mass killing problem isn't an issue of the US being peopled with violent killers, it's more of an efficiency problem. Our violent killers are being given the equipment to be far too efficient on their killing sprees. If automatic or semi-automatic, high capacity assault weapons weren't available and all they had to use were low capacity hunting rifles or handguns, the number of fatalities per killer would drop. If they didn't have handguns available and had to use knives, then the number would drop again. To carry it to the point of ridiculousness, if they didn't have knives and had to use rocks and sticks, the numbers would drop again. We've simply made it too easy for nutjob killers to be too efficient. I do think, though, that we have a culture steeped in gun violence. The gun is a fetish that we as a culture glorify and even sanctify, from the Minutemen and their muskets to Boone and Crockett and their long rifles to the Colt .45s of the Old West, to the tommy guns of gangster movies, to Dirty Harry's Magnum, and on and on. We are immersed in a popular culture and a historical tradition in which using a gun is the answer to problems, from cleaning up the streets of Dodge City to making war on terror. (Another empty slogan. When does the war on horror begin?) Thus it's no mystery that the easy availability of virtually any kind of gun coupled with our celebration of gun violence in movies, comics, TV shows, fiction and non-fiction has made for an evil brew, made even more toxic by our nonchalant acceptance and acquiescence. You are absolutely correct, that's the other half of the problem. Fetishism is a good description of it. Take for example, a news article today, about a man who hoarded in excess of 5000 guns: “This has completely changed our definition of an ass-load of guns”. |
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Post by Hoosier X on Dec 4, 2015 11:26:00 GMT -5
A little off-topic, but I thought this was interesting: The Company Behind All Those Right-Wing Scams. The post I linked to has a link for the Mother Jones article. I'm going to try to support Mother Jones by buying it this month. They probably have it at Barnes and Noble. |
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