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One simple question: How can Obama be so broken up about the massacre of the school children but apparently unconcrned about the over 160 children killed by our drones? Are Afghanistani children's lives worth so little compared to children in the U.S.?
Regarding 'evil'.
On Friday Thom asked about 'evil' and the source of 'evil',
By chance, while I was reading about Chinese history, I came across some mention of the Chinese philosophers' ideas about 'good' and 'evil'. The periods of rich intellectual and philosphical ferment occurred in certain periods, one around 500 BC with Confucius (this predates Socrates in ancient Greece) and a later period during the Song Dynasty (by the way, at that time Europe was busy with The Crusades, sacking and looting, etcetera.) -- and there it was, mention of these thoughtful peoples' ideas about 'good' and 'evil' in human experience.
What I read was that the philosophical view was formed that 'good' is that which is in 'harmony' with natural principles and patterns. Conversely, 'evil' is that which deviates from nature's principles and patterns.
The philosophers of that time discussed the differences between the ideas of 'wen', that is, humanly-produced patterns in reality and 'li', that is, perceived coherent patterns and principles created by Nature.
Surely in our world now dominated by human-made patterns (for example, proliferating technologies, unfortunately all oil-based and synthetic) and principles (for example, Wall Street's financial notions, like the propagation of derivatives being more important than the actual lives, health and sustenance of the majority of the people on Earth), one can see there is relevence in these concepts. Natural principles and patterns have been disregarded and trashed consistently since the Industrial Revolution, until now there is utter freedom in our Culture for the Corporate Profiteering System that shoves Nature to the side and removes mountain tops for coal and renders irreparable pollution, and even replaces natural foods with a genetically engineered Frankenstein Monster version.
Regarding the tragic slaughter of little children, we can see humans turning themselves into killing machines when they embrace their human-conceived death tools which function in direct opposition to the natural Bloom of Life seen in the innocent faces of little kids.
Just wanted to share this with Thom, since he was posing the question about 'evil'.
I too am fortunate, having lived in Austrailia for 3 years and a few other countries, along with my travels while in the Army (which were not as glorious).
Anyone with a curious mind and heart that takes the time to travel and live in other countries will discover just how connected we ALL are regardless of language, politics and religious views.
Read Thich Naht Hanh "Walking Buddah Walking Christ". For me it answered alot of questions about how we - as a collective - are on the same course, we all struggle and suffer, and we all want peace and happiness.
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Most of the shooters if not all, had known mental problems.
R. Reagan, during his terms in office in California thought the mental hospitals were not doing a good job bu that the solution to the problem was to put the occupants back into society. This was a reversion to conditions before psychology began to develop rational theories of mental health and potential cures. The condition then was not perfect but better than Bedlam as previously practiced in England and France. The result of Reorganization of mental health many people with borderline psychopathic tendencies were released into conditions that actually increased their problems, thus leading to the small group of people such as the recent shooters. Reorganization did decrease costs but had the unfortunate result of increasing prison populations and the practice of self-medication leading to other more costly solutions to many borderline social problems. Often the solution to problems in society is to increase funding for dedicated workers and studies on the problems and reducing the profit motive in many salutations to problems today that often lead to unsuccessful treatment, high recidivism and greater variant behavior with unintended consequences, Least cost without considering the loss in effectiveness often leads to higher total costs and poorer societal benefits.
The idea of Free Markets controlling such matters shifts the costs from one sector to another but allows individuals with marginal traits of social responsibility to make a profit but not solving the problem. Thus the costs of medical care in the US is twice as high and provides less benefits to the body politic that in other industrialized countries. The same holds for our education system as well as our so-called government as illustrated by the dysfunction of our present legislatures and congress.
There is a disturbance in the force, the country lost its way, or that famous expression we lost our compass. No matter how you say it we all sense it; a feel of the opposite side of divine, for many calling out this guy as evil.
However, to me it is an extraordinary hatred intentioned with that in your face book, cable television, and political hate talk radio buzz saw of commercials that profiteer, that too lie in gross spectacular dissemination by advertising in America’s popular mainstream media, Hate News. All this examples exactly the way it steers our culture while destroying instead of serving.
Ladies and Gentlemen of America yes the politics and the media brought America to where we are today. And the one percent who drives it has just displayed their particular kindness. A peculiar kind of economic sacrifice, with a side order of collateral damage, called personal tragedy, and whaling grief.
As if a spirit from the other side possessed that young man. Contrary to some, I think Thom Hartmann is on target. Perhaps mysterious with some of his argument. But, when making the claim this young man, his mother gets hundreds of thousands of dollars of child support from her x husband a banker, sent my thoughts went sailing. Here, the one percent club went hooey.
This afternoon watching Martin Bashir talking about perhaps the entertainment industry has an effect on our population sent me laughing and giggling. Ronald Reagan went from Hollywood to silver screen politics via the Republican Party. The big Gulp. The whale can consume predator. Too big to fail sure happened there. Screwed failed deceived flimflammed, and according to Link-TV Reagan was the most important swindler of the twenty century. No business like political show business, everything about it is unregulation. Then after a commercial break away to the premier of Les Miserables that happens to be considered one of the greatest novels of the French revolution. About the poor rising up to rid of the tyranny and the aristocrats. Sheesh. Haven’t you noticed the electromagnetic journalist power their faces just like those aristocrats of the eighteenth century?
Guns are not the only instrument of violence but they are efficient. I am a gun owner - I have a shotgun, a deer rifle, and a hand gun. They are tools of my sport of hunting and I keep them in a safe.
I have never had a legitimate excuse to own an assult rifle. I have no need of one. I'm not hunting people. I have been invited to join the NRA but I don't like their militant attitude about arms. Well I believe it is militant. I believe we need to correct a lot of things in this nation in order to support those who have emotional problems and curb the potential for creating emotional problems. This will require some voluntaty gun control as part of a large and multi faceted safety net that includes many elements
of pschology, therapy, respect and kindness. Not to mention not driving one another crazywith just plain crazy shit.
MY opinion,
the GOP wants a well armed white population -
and probably would not mind seeing a race war -
while it is still in the majority.
NRA is the market stimulation arm of the domestic individual gun sales industry.
Even if the NRA evaporated tomorrow, what about all the twisted values and militant/militarist ideas we hold as a 'Culture'?
Just getting rid of the NRA isn't enough. There's still all this stuff:
O Children raised on violent "entertainment" peddled by Violence Profiteers.
O Children taught to believe that weapons of death make a good birthday or Christmas gift that they want, something they want under the tree in toy form.
O Our entire economy -- anchored in the Military Industrial Complex -- is an economy of black budgets, death machines, exploitation and propaganda, and domestic and foreign 'gun' and weaponry mayhem.
O We have become a Culture of Violent Militarists, and even this tragic event in Connecticut shows our psychological split about this topic: As a nation we mourn the loss of our own school children, however, when our government and our weaponry products CAUSE the deaths of thousands and thousands of children throughout the world with OUR guns and weaponry, drones, undying land mines and depleted uranium toxic waste,-- how come WE LACK any consistent national response to the deaths of children EVERYWHERE on Earth? There's something very dissonant about this inability of Americans to see that the death of our school children is part of a LARGER PATTERN of destruction that our Militant Culture CAUSES.
Tragically, it seems the murderer with the guns who killed the children was himself a victim. (And, may I ask, victim of what specifically? The dangerously altering psychotropic drug he was prescribed? The alienation he felt in his community? The Violent Militarist Culture in which he was raised?)
And, am I the only one who finds it bizarre and twisted that a President -- whose executive branch DRONE PROGRAM has killed many six-year-olds and infants and children of all ages by the hundreds -- gave such an emotion-arousing eulogy for the twenty little innocent girls and boys who were murdered by a suicidal and confused victim?
Finally a last thought on this awful issue: Much is being made of the odd motherlyness of the murderer's mother, who knew her son was having psychological problems and yet still provided him access to her extensive private gun collection. Is it true the murderer's father worked for GE -- creator of death devices so huge and deadly they are killing people all over the world, and because of the long-life of nuclear radioactive waste, will kill for hundreds of thousands of years to come? And, is Connecticut home to a large number of guns and weaponry corporations? http://www.ct.gov/ecd/LIB/ecd/20/14/md998-7.pdf http://www.armsdealer.net/businesses/category/gun-manufacturers/connecticut
We've got alot more to reflect on than the NRA alone.
I really do not think this problem will be fixed by a one size fits all solution. If this individual was not inflicted with some major mental problem that drove him to commit these horrific crimes against the most innocent in our society, than he has to be one on the most evil of humans in our society. There will be dozens of professionals giving their thoughts on why this happened and how could anyone be so cold blooded to massacre children. I personally cannot bring myself to read the newspapers and look at these poor innocence that were gunned down or to see the faces of their families. My fear is that this will end up as just another crazy trying to get even with someone and it will be forgotten in a few weeks from the minds of the public. Everyone has voiced good ideas on how to handle the epidemic of murder that seems to be running wild in our country. We need easy access to mental health facilities across our nation open to everyone who feels they need to seek help, regardless of their ability to pay for it. Maybe the new healthcare act will help with some of the needs of the people who need help. The families of people who are seen to be violent need to speak up and see their family member gets help, whether it is by voluntary or non-voluntary means.
While serving in the Air Force we were allowed to own handguns and rifles, but they had to be stored at the military police headquarters, checked out of the military police headquarters and returned that day. Would that stop someone who wanted to destroy another person or persons, probably not. We have approximately 300,000,000 weapons in the hands of American citizens. How are we going to control that amount of weapons across America in very diverse locations? In a time when our politicians cannot even agree on a budget, where will the funds come from to support new programs of storage or for that matter mandatory training? I don't think we have much of a chance to change things in America, even after the killings of these innocent children. I have heard and read slogans such as you can have my guns when you pry them from my dead cold fingers! And in many situations weapons are a necessity for protection and hunting. My brother lives in Arizona and while visiting him several years ago I got very concerned because a young man entered the convenience store with a gun on his hip. And my first response to my brother was, someone needs to call the police, that guy is carrying a handgun! I was reassured it was legal as long as it was visible to the police! This did not make me feel any better and I left the store ASAP! I am not sure if they ever changed the law that allowed civilians to walk around with handguns as long as they had permits. I live in an area about 25 miles southwest of L.A. and the police respond immediately if shots are reported or a person is seen with a weapon (rarely happens). Unfortunately two weeks ago an 80 year old man living in an expensive retirement apartment complex, just a block from my home, had been having words with the manager and one of the caregivers. He returned with a handgun and shot and killed both women, then killed himself! People had heard him make threats in the past, but just shrugged it off as a grouchy old man. Point being, we never know what someone is going to do. He had no history of any violence in the past, except for complaining a great deal. How are we going to make Federal laws that would prevent these types of crimes from happening when each state and county is so different and with different needs? I sincerely hope I never have to hear about another mass shooting, especially with children, happening in our country. I hope God reaches out and comforts these poor souls that have lost their children, brothers and sisters in this unspeakable event...
I live in Chicago and I was just talking to two police officers in the local cigar shop. They told me that the gun crime did NOT go down. There bosses just made them count the homicides differently. They said (anecdotal) that gun crime is much worse. Illinois is the ONLY state in the U.S. that does not have concealed carry permits. Up until recently it was virtually illegal to own a gun in Chicago. Law or not most people owned one.
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It hard to estimate, but according to answers.com there are approximately 350 million firearms in America. 5.5 million were produce in 2010, 95% were for the U.S market. I don't know about the “those of us, and them” but Americans want guns! And the NRA represents us! Anti gun people try to make the NRA into big business which nowadays is easy to hate but the reality is that there real power are the people that belong to it. When a tragedy like this happens gun sales go thru the roof. It makes people feel safer and in a free country we have the right to feel safer. If “those of us” would spend more time on trying to make America's obsession safer. And spend there money on education, prisons for violent criminals, and care for the mentally ill and start blaming the criminal instead of the weapon of choice America would be better off.
Yes, we need comprehensive gun control. But these guns don't drive themselves to schools, theatres and malls and pull their own trigger. People do and more specifically, young men do. So we also need to address the use of anti-depressants (SSRI's) by these young males. Apparently there's compelling documentation that SSRI use and more importantly, their discontinuance, causes violent behavior and suicidal ideation in young men (male brains are not fully mature until mid to late 20's).When are we going to connect the dots here and address the effect of these prescription drugs on our young men's mentation?
We need to end the republican inspired trend towards a society filled with poor, desperate, and crazy, but well armed citizens!
Surprised Moore liberals are not in favor if gun ownership. Specifically for the reason outlined in the constitution (nothing to do with hunting deer).. Nice try but I reject the idea of a public armory, because gun ownership is about separation of powers in govt, so the people can overthrow an oppressive govt if necessary.. And the people guarding the armory would a different branch of govt, and therefore negate the reason for the arms amendment..
i doubt verg much making guns illegal would have a dramatic effect on the nun bets of murders (people wanting to kill will simply grab a rock, bat, bomb, knife instead (or use an illegal gun for that matter). Some guy with a knife killed 20 kids in china the same week we lost 20 some kids to a shooting here in America.
So because of the Above reasons, the strategy to make guns illegal would have little effect on stopping nuts jobs from killing people (but I am in favor of waiting periods, background checks, and enen mandatory training and licensing)..
hitler outkawed guns, as did every fascist dictatorship I can think of. Might the resistance in nazi germany base better success before hitler gassed 6-million Jews, if the citizens were armed?
AND IS THERE A WAY TO FOLLOW THIS DISCUSSION? I usually forget to search for the threads I comment on..
As usual it's the big money of a few blocking the needs of the many. We have the few gun manufacturers armed and dangerous with the NRA vs the countless, "those of us," demanding that our so called representative govt. represent us and do the right thing with gun control laws. Will they do it? I don't know, but I agree the time couldn't be more right to press ahead with the assault weapons ban, go Dianne Feinstein.
One of the, "those of us," commented that teachers stand up to gunman but politicians won't stand up to the NRA. This may end up being true with the Republicans blocking the assault weapons ban and if so, come November 4th 2014 it's up to "those of us" to fire as many of "them" as possible. Then let's give Democracy a real chance to work, and as Thom says, solve the underlying cause of many of our troubles, that cause being wealth inequality.
In many cases, such as this one in Sandy Hook, the shooter came from a prosperous family, although a broken one. In Colorado, those young shooters had every material advantage. I don't think poverty has much to do with mass shootings, although maybe it does in drive-by shootings.
Tom, I am very disappointed with you. I finally thought I found someone in the pubic eye that used common sense and did not have any other agenda then the truth. ALL democrats are not anti-gun. And after seeing a picture of you at a gun range shooting, on your blog I felt that we thought near completely alike. The Connecticut shooter used two handgun so why is this a call to arms (pun intended) against assault rifles? Would people be happier if these innocent young people were killed with machetes, or gasoline, or run over by a school bus? Do you think this would not have happened if there were no assault rifle's? Many people responded by saying it just makes it easier for people to kill. Throughout the history of the world people have not had any problem killing with or without firearms. And this is probably the first time in history that people are so stupid that they blame the weapon in a killing and not the person. So what is your agenda Tom! I know you are smart enough to know what I'm saying. We both know that this situation is mostly cause by the news media making these psychopathic losers, hero's. Bigger then life. More popular then god. Certainly more popular than they could ever hope to be without this song and dance by the media. PEOPLE THIS IS ALL B.S.. The copy cat killings that will happen by all this media attention will far outweigh the number of deaths in Connecticut and it will not be stopped by making more things illegal! These people don't go by laws. There will always be a way for these scum to get attention. As far as the NRA. I got my first shotgun when I was 14 and I am now 58. I am a life member of the NRA. There are millions of gun owners in this country and this is our representation. Why do you assume that the NRA represent predominantly the gun industry? THEY REPRESENT US! The gun owner of America. Tom, what are you looking to get from this hoodwink you are perpetuating?
One aspect of this rash of mass gun shootings by young males, which has hardly been mentioned, is the violent video games that almost all boys play, where they shoot down a constant stream of cyber people. It is well known that you can de-sensitize people to almost anything by repeated exposure to the act, whether it is cruelty to animals, bloody surgery, or killing others. Soldiers are desensitized through practice, even very young soldiers, as is done by African warlords. Mentally healthy individuals who are taught right and wrong, will probably never go beserk and mow people down, but mentally unstable people who strike out from fear or anger will likely use the method they are most comfortagle with. They become very comfortable with mowing down people from years of playing violent video games.
Based on their track record of blocking every imaginable thing for the common good, I'd bet money the Republicans will block the assault weapons ban again. With luck, maybe some of those SOBs will get caught in the crossfire next time somebody decides to go on a murder spree.
Do you think that the President or the NRA, or the Republicans :Care" President Obama who how to talk to People but what about the 98% do you think he Care or with the Republicans
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