peacefuljeffrey

Exactly. The problem is, the majority of the British public are thinking these kinds of encroachments by government are GOOD things, done for everyone's BENEFIT. So the fact remains that even though they should have already, no one yet is thinking, "Gee, this stuff we're applauding is exactly the kind of thing that 1984 was condemning." Keep it up. It's amusing as hell from across the sea. Would you mind telling me what fuckin' difference that's gonna make? Do you think those protests are going to get those policies rescinded? If not, then they are meaningless, and you WILL have to live under them. Right? So again, my point: not nearly enough Britons are opposed to the very encroachments of their government that will probably end up eventually making them slaves under a despotic system. Did someone hold a (banned) gun to your head? Why'd you go in if you hate it? You lacking the strength of your convictions and saying, "Sorry, I will not go in there for a business meeting," is not the fault of smokers who are in there. Besides, I thought it was clear I was talking about banning smoking in places that sell the actual smoking products. That's just stupid. - -Jeffrey "With tha thoughts of a militant mind... Hard line, hard line after hard line!"

I always took "living, breathing Constitution" to mean that it can be amended and does not have to remain exactly the way it was first written. NOT that THE SAME WORDS can suddenly be read to have a different meaning from what they had when written. People have bastardized the concept of "living, breathing" to the point where they can claim up means down just because "we're living in different times." It's bullshit. The Constitution lives and breathes because it remains open to being amended -- through proper due process, not by whimsy. - -Jeffrey "With tha thoughts of a militant mind... Hard line, hard line after hard line!"

You seem to be getting more and more detached from reality lately. How you got from what he said to what you said is really puzzling. I guess you just want to have read that, huh? - -Jeffrey "With tha thoughts of a militant mind... Hard line, hard line after hard line!"

You've mentioned this what, 100 times now? It's a speculative opinion by a retired Army General. Doesn't mean shit. Besides, he's not even a real professor! Oops, wrong thread. - -Jeffrey "With tha thoughts of a militant mind... Hard line, hard line after hard line!"

Isn't that the same argument about handguns, the right to bear arms, and the Second Amendment? That there were no weapons like that then therefore the FF's couldn't have been talking about that...and so we can make our own laws about it (i.r. registration, tracking, owning, et cetera)? Or did I misunderstand your comments, or perhaps misapply them? Just wondering if it's the same thought process... Ciels- Michele I thought it was clear that he was playing devil's advocate, pointing out the absurdity of the contemporary claims made about a "living, breathing Constitution" -- which is the term used by anyone who wants to bend it to do their bidding, outside of what it really is supposed to allow. - -Jeffrey "With tha thoughts of a militant mind... Hard line, hard line after hard line!"

And then realize that the country hastening most ardently toward it is England itself. - Ban this - Ban that - Define "antisocial behavior" and then ban it - Keep everyone under near-constant surveillance - Confiscate the means of resistance - Indoctrinate everyone to the idea of the government as the people's keeper (the younger the better) - Regulate the people to death - Did I mention the cameras everywhere? - -Jeffrey "With tha thoughts of a militant mind... Hard line, hard line after hard line!"

Funny, they like to say that the jokes go right over my head. - -Jeffrey "With tha thoughts of a militant mind... Hard line, hard line after hard line!"

Boo-hoo. Yer breakin' my fuckin' heart. Listen to YOU -- the arbiter of who is entitled to make fun of what! You must truly have no idea how sickeningly fuckin' pathetic that sounds. - -Jeffrey "With tha thoughts of a militant mind... Hard line, hard line after hard line!"

Why do you think I've been down on the sorry state of England for so long? They're doing truly idiotic things over there, and no one seems to have the balls to rise up and say STOP IT, EVERYBODY -- CAN'T YOU SEE HOW ABSURD THIS IS?! - -Jeffrey "With tha thoughts of a militant mind... Hard line, hard line after hard line!"

Well, the Centers for Disease Control did analyze something like 50-odd studies on gun control, and despite the political activism in the CDC (they funded Kellerman, after all), they were forced to announce that they could NOT correlate gun control laws of any kind with reduction of gun crime. And you know they would have loved to have been able to do so. I think that goes some distance toward your request, anyway. - -Jeffrey "With tha thoughts of a militant mind... Hard line, hard line after hard line!"

I flippin' LOVE this statement. PERFECT, kelpdiver!

That's idiotic. I might as well say that if SkyDekker claims to be an astronaut, he's a liar. Kinda: 1) makes an implication that you have claimed to be an astronaut 2) then calls you a liar for something you didn't even do And you honestly think that if someone makes a claim about another person and it's untrue, that person is guilty of the lie? WTF, man? It's just bizarre, and scary, that you believe that. No wonder anti-gunners think that gun companies should pay for what criminals do with guns. (But amazingly don't believe that liquor, car, baseball bat and knife companies should bear the same responsibility...) They have zero understanding of the concepts involved. - -Jeffrey "With tha thoughts of a militant mind... Hard line, hard line after hard line!"

Deserved a repeat, Micro. Nice job.

Does your assistant professor have a PhD in economics? You people are being pathetic, splitting hairs about whether someone has the actual title "professor." How much more OBVIOUS can you get that you don't have a thing to say to counter his statements? - -Jeffrey "With tha thoughts of a militant mind... Hard line, hard line after hard line!"

Not only is John Lott NOT a professor, his research has been thoroughly debunked on account of serious methodological errors. You mean like cherry-picking individual U.S. counties in order to make statistics fit his argument? Oh, wait, that wasn't LOTT, that was the anti-gun ARTHUR KELLERMAN, the idiot liar who brought you the, "Your gun is 43 times more likely to kill you or a loved one than an intruder" garbage. Lott was the first one who used ALL of data available from ALL U.S. counties in his statistical analysis. Maybe we can remember that moron who wrote the book "Arming America," which tried to disprove the notion that early Americans held guns near and dear. That loser claimed to have used materials in his research that had been destroyed after the big earthquake in San Francisco in the early 20th century... We can send you to any number of websites that debunk anti-gun nonsense, kallend. What do you have besides an empty claim that Lott has been debunked, to prove that he's been debunked? It's very clear that you desperately don't want to believe his research, so you'll make up any unfounded claim against him. - -Jeffrey "With tha thoughts of a militant mind... Hard line, hard line after hard line!"

Good post, ROK. I am right there with you -- something is different about this generation that's growing up (or the one that just grew up) from how we were. Like you, I'm seeing this ...unbridledness in them -- an utter lack of learned self-control. Whatever they want, they take. Whatever they want to do, they do. Doesn't matter if it's antisocial or violent or even murderous. Your last line reminds me of a quote from a song in the remake of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory: - -Jeffrey "With tha thoughts of a militant mind... Hard line, hard line after hard line!"

Where've you been? LOTS of places in the U.S. ban smoking -- not just in restaurants, but shopping malls, ANY commercial establishment... Shit, that's over a decade old... - -Jeffrey "With tha thoughts of a militant mind... Hard line, hard line after hard line!"

It'll fuckin' suck if they crack down on every motherfucker's use of fuckin' profanity. Those cocksucker fascists love to control freedom of fuckin' speech. It's the first fuckin' thing to go, usually -- at least after the fuckin' gun confiscations. - -Jeffrey "With tha thoughts of a militant mind... Hard line, hard line after hard line!"

Don't hold your breath. Most anti-gunners refuse to avail themselves of any kind of information that (they know) threatens their puerile anti-gun dogma. Some part of them knows that their position is illogical, and so they guard against having to face facts. - -Jeffrey "With tha thoughts of a militant mind... Hard line, hard line after hard line!"

Your thesis here is so simplistic as to qualify for the term "puerile." (Childishly simplistic -- very nearly stupid.) How does this theory square with the fact that in many places around the U.S., gun ownership has gone up, gun carry permits have gone up, and murder rates have gone down? (This is statistically true in many cities and states over the last decade or so, maybe more.) If your theory is valid, there should not be a decrease in murder rates EVER as long as there is no decrease in gun ownership. And I doubt there has EVER been a year in which gun ownership has gone down against the prior year. Do YOU feel that if YOU had a gun, YOU would shoot people "over petty things"? Or do you believe you are a good enough person to have self control and not be a violent criminal? Because if you think YOU are trustworthy enough to not feel compelled to kill people just because you had a gun, perhaps I am just as trustworthy and you should not worry that MY having a gun is going to increase the murder rate. And even if YOU don't think YOU'RE trustworthy enough to have a gun, that has no bearing on whether I know I am. To believe your theory, we'd have to believe that guns make people murder others, and that's just absurd. - -Jeffrey "With tha thoughts of a militant mind... Hard line, hard line after hard line!"

very funny coming from a guy whose every second word is fuck. What the fuck does that have to do with anything? - -Jeffrey "With tha thoughts of a militant mind... Hard line, hard line after hard line!"

The simple fact is, white boy, you don't get to decide. They do. And they have. rl (Edited to add: I just couldn't resist. I had an old friend in my head at the moment I wrote that, and I just had to channel her. Sorry.) Too bad. Don't fuckin' call me "white boy" if you don't expect -- and will get angry -- if I as a white person call anyone here I know is black "mah nigga." If I should decide to "joke" and call someone black here "spooky," is it alright, as long as I say, "I just couldn't resist"? Not even, "I'M SORRY -- I just couldn't resist." Just, "I just couldn't resist." Fuckin' stupid. - -Jeffrey "With tha thoughts of a militant mind... Hard line, hard line after hard line!"

That's fucking disgusting. It's part of the culture and community in which she lives. rl That's your excuse? What's your excuse for her not trying to hold herself above the degeneracy of use of that word in her "culture and community"? Rosa Parks lived in a community in which it was standard for blacks to ride at the back of the bus. I suppose that, like your daughter, she bore no actual responsibility for making a change in a positive direction, so she really should have just schlepped her ass to the back like a good little darkie. Everyone can start to be part of a solution if they abandon negative old ways. Your daughter could start, but instead she has you defending her for keeping the status quo. That's really sad. - -Jeffrey "With tha thoughts of a militant mind... Hard line, hard line after hard line!"

I have to respect it, just because you say I do? Where is my option, where is my freedom to believe that it's stupid even for YOU to use the word? That it's stupid to keep it around, just on account of how divisive it is, and how negative its background is? Would you PLEASE explain to me what it is that makes black people want to keep it around? What NEED they feel they have to keep using it, instead of a simple fuckin' word like "PAL"? "BUDDY"? "FRIEND"? "DUDE"? "BRO"? Fuckin' ANYTHING but that one -- and that one is the one they won't let go of? How about Nazi flags? What if Jews decided to keep Nazi flags hanging in their homes, because now they have triumphed over the Nazis and now they "own" that symbol? And then if I decided that since I also hate Nazis I put up a small such flag in my home, and now they'll be offended? If it's a historically offensive thing, that's what it is. This "context" and "who's using it" bullshit is just totally irrational. - -Jeffrey "With tha thoughts of a militant mind... Hard line, hard line after hard line!"

Since I am reasonably confident that there remain plenty of liberals in the Canadian legislature, I suspect that those liberals, who have given Canada a weak court system and weak sentencing structure because they are bleeding hearts and soft-on-crime, are probably just being hypocritical in calling for Harper to "fix this." Because if he does fix it, he'd have to be turning it into the opposite of what liberals have made it! I mean, it's liberalism and softness on crime that make sentences go easy on bad people; now those same legislators (or their ilk) are laying down a challenge to a conservative to fix what they themselves broke. It's pretty fuckin' cynical. You know that on one hand, they are trying to look "tough on crime," and on the other hand, they want Harper to FAIL to make the law tougher on crime. This would serve two purposes: 1) to make Harper look like he can't get anything done (and the liberals in Parliament will probably put up block after block and objection after objection to keep tougher sentencing laws from being enacted) 2) to keep their liberal sentencing laws, which are their preference as well as their fault, left in place. - -Jeffrey "With tha thoughts of a militant mind... Hard line, hard line after hard line!"