I really really do not want to make this post, it bores me to death. But apparently there are lots of people, outside the Jewish world, that are commenting on this story with terrible fallacies that need to be corrected.
Besides for this being such a boring topic for me it repulses me to have to discuss this. I find it entirely repulsive for the news to discuss Jared. He killed six people, or how ever many it was, it does not matter. Big deal. There are people being killed everyday, with more numbers, in the middle east by US soldiers. People who are entirely innocent and who pose no threat to your life. Completely innocent families have been destroyed and ruined by the ungoing war. This has been going on for years. But this is never mentioned. I guess these people are not Americans. And if they are not Americans then their lives are inferior to ours, it does not matter if they get killed. Ever notice some disaster or terrorist attack in the forgein country discussed on the news? Ever notice how they tell you how many people died and then mention how many of those people were Americans? Why is the evil caused by Jared being discussed when there are far greater evils that go on undiscussed every day? This repulses me and I want to mention nothing about this story, but again, I am forced by the stupidity of people to respond.
I am also repulsed by why this person needs to get attention. Why are you giving this person the attention that he seeks? TheAmazingAtheist made one of my favorite videos in response to Virgina Tech. I will not repeat his arguments, he does it more eloquently than I can ever do, here (reuploaded video since original one was taken down). Just ignore it and move it. Ignore him as if it never happened, instead of having him being for a week or two weeks as the primary object of discussion.
The stupidity that I am responding to is the blame game. A guy decides one day to go and kill a few people with a firearm. If I am a reasonable person then who do I blame? I blame the killer. The killer is responsible for the consequences of his actions. That is it. No one else is responsible for his actions. Stop trying to find excuses to whom to blame.
There are people on the left-wing who blame elements of the right-wing movements for what he did. Just read this blog. They give you five reasons why he was part of the tea party. The strange thing is that I am very certain that if I was to confront the author of this post and ask him, "are you blaming the tea party and right-wing movements for the actions of Jared?", the person would respond "of course not". Well, if you do not blame right-wingers then what is even the point of saying he was associated with right-wingers? Notice how they have to single out Ayn Rand and Glenn Beck because he mentioned a novel by Ayn Rand as one of his favorite books.
There are people on the right-wing who blame elements of the left-wing movements for what he did. Just read this blog. He blames left-wingers because Jared's favorite books include the Communist Manifesto and Mein Kampf. He also liked to burn US flags, which is usually a left-wing statement, right-wingers are in general nationalists who think American is #1 so they will never burn a flag.
It gets even dumber. There are people who blame atheism and nihilism for what Jared did, here. Right, because we all known that nihilism is a statement, nihilism is a massive tome of a way to live your life. I can understand the statement that "Jared was inspired by right-wing ideas" because the right-wing does have ideas to follow. I can understand the statement that "Jared was inspired by left-wing ideas" because the left-wing does have ideas to follow. How does it make sense to say, "Jared was inspired by nihilism or atheism"? It makes no sense. Nihilism is an empty statement that does not say anything. While atheism is simply a statement "I do not believe in God", that is it. Atheism does not say a moral system, it does not say how to live your life, it does not say anything. How does the statement, "I do not believe in God", make anyone do anything. A person might be an atheist and do violence. A person might be a nihilist and do violence. But how do you conclude that atheism/nihilism caused the act of violence?
When will people understand that correlation is not the same thing as causation? How many times does this point has to be addressed before people finally understand that you cannot blame the left-wing just because he shared something with them, like you cannot blame the right-wing just because he shared something with them, and just like you cannot blame atheists just because he was an atheist (or whatever he even was). This is the blame game that I get to listen to all the time. Oh right, I forgot guns. Guns are going to be blamed, of course.
Stop it with the blame game. There is only one thing to blame here. It is not liberals, it is not conservatives, it is not atheists, it is not guns, it is not Sarah Palin, it is not Barack, it is him. And only him. He is responsible for his actions.
I did not see any news about this story (as I said how much it bores me) nor did I read a news article on it for the same reason. But I was wondering. Did the news call him a "terrorist"? My guess is that he was not called a "terrorist". Why not? Because he was a white male. You see, if he was a Muslim then he would be immediately called a "terrorist" and his actions would be called "terrorism" as opposed to just a "crime". I hate political language, it is a language of confusion and deception.
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I knew that you were a Jew, the moment that I saw your poll - and before looking at your profile. Only Jews try to convert pervesity into normality with your fixations with bestiality and child sex and scatology and this is coming from a gentile who is not a God botherer. If you can normalise the abhorrent, you do ... and this is how I can tell a Jew a mile off!
ReplyDeleteP.S .. and I bet that 99% of Jews voted to stick a penis in a vagina from birth!
ReplyDelete"I knew that you were a Jew, the moment that I saw your poll - and before looking at your profile. Only Jews try to convert pervesity into normality with your fixations with bestiality and child sex and scatology and this is coming from a gentile who is not a God botherer. If you can normalise the abhorrent, you do ... and this is how I can tell a Jew a mile off!":
ReplyDeletePerhaps you knew I was Jewish immediately by the fact that the name of this blog has the name "Jewish" in it?
By the way, I do not care so much about child sex. What I really care about is excessive interest payments to banks. I own three banks myself. I make a lot of money by charging people interest.
"P.S .. and I bet that 99% of Jews voted to stick a penis in a vagina from birth!":
What does this have anything to do with the post?
I agree with you. But this just another example of how often statistics is unreliable and even sometimes a completely useless science. You do realize that 99% of people who come to this website are Jewish, either religious or not? All other choices were voted for by 99% of Jews too.
Its pretty easy to just say no one is to blame except the killer. After all, he was the one who bought the gun, he was the one who planned and carried out the attack, right?
ReplyDeleteBut as with any killer, this guy didn't just emerge out of a vacuum. There are factors that made him what he is and enabled him to do what he did. Attempts to find out what those were and to understand how they might be changed to help prevent this type of thing from happening in the future is not just 'playing the blame game'.
For example: Of course guns had something to do with it. Why do you think this happens far less often in places where guns are less readily available?
The idea that we should just ignore it and move on because talking about it is giving him the 'attention that he seeks' is ridiculous. This is what usually happens though, he will get written off as some lone nut and that nothing could have prevented what happened. Then everyone goes back to sleep until it happens again.
By the way, this doesn't really fit the description of terrorism, I don't think it's a media conspiracy to not call him a terrorist because he's white. Terrorism usually refers to attacks on civilians that are used to achieve some sort of ideological end. From the information we have so far, it appears to be more motivated by mental illness than some ideology.
ReplyDelete"But as with any killer, this guy didn't just emerge out of a vacuum. There are factors that made him what he is and enabled him to do what he did. Attempts to find out what those were and to understand how they might be changed to help prevent this type of thing from happening in the future is not just 'playing the blame game'.":
ReplyDeleteIf I say to kill the president in a joking manner and somebody does that am I responsible for that? If you say "yes" then there is something wrong with you, and you do not understand the notion of personal responsibility at all.
Even if I say to kill the president in a serious manner and somebody does that I am not responsible. I have done nothing about that. It is true that my words have influenced another person to kill the president, but it is the killer who still has all responsibility.
And yes it is playing the blame game when people blame Sarah Palin for causing this to happen. Insane people do insane things. Regardless of whether or not Sarah Palin existed. Even if these people do listen to what Sarah Palin said we can be assured that Sarah Palin was joking when she said that and was not serious. Hence, all the fault lies on the person who did the crime.
"Of course guns had something to do with it. Why do you think this happens far less often in places where guns are less readily available?":
Privacy had something to do with it. If people had no privacy from the police, and the police can walk into your house and inspect that you have no plan to kill a politician then this would happen a lot less. Why do you think political assansinations happen a lot less in places that have no privacy rights? End these privacy rights!
"The idea that we should just ignore it and move on because talking about it is giving him the 'attention that he seeks' is ridiculous.":
Why is it ridiculous? Can you answer the questions that I bring up in that post. I ask about the greater injustices that plague the world right now. What about the more terrible crimes that happen everyday? Why are those never discussed but this story is? On the contrary, it is ridiculous to play attention to a special story that in the grand scheme of things is not even that important.
"This is what usually happens though, he will get written off as some lone nut and that nothing could have prevented what happened. Then everyone goes back to sleep until it happens again.":
You cannot stop insane people from doing insane things. Bad things will always happen. The correct question to ask is not "how do we prevent bad things from happening" but rather "how often do bad things happen?". Let us talk about guns since you brought them up. You cannot stop gun deaths, ever, even if they are banned. To think otherwise is some utopian fantasy that people have. The correct question to ask is "how frequent are gun deaths?". The answer to that question is, "extremely rare". Just consider. There were 50 million gun owners yesterday that never killed anybody. Looking at a few bad examples and ignoring all the millions good examples is a terrible way to look at this issue.
"By the way, this doesn't really fit the description of terrorism, I don't think it's a media conspiracy to not call him a terrorist because he's white.":
ReplyDeleteIf he was a Muslim do you really think it will be called "a mental instability"? Come on, be serious.
Hey again, thanks for the response. I truncated your quotes to save characters...
ReplyDelete"If I say to kill the president in a joking manner..."
No I wasn't suggesting anything so silly as that. I am not suggesting that he is not to blame for his actions, just that the reason these things happen is a lot more complicated than the simplistic black-or-white fashion you are presenting it. Attempts to identify factors that could have contributed to the tragedy and working to change them in the hope that it may help to prevent similar things from happening in the future is not tantamount to absolving him of responsibility.
"Even if I say to kill the president in a serious manner..."
Really? Wow that is a surprise. Ok, so are you suggesting people who incite to murder are not responsible for the murders that might ensue from their actions? For example say that if Charles Manson or Adolf Hitler or Osama bin Laden may not have personally killed someone but inspired others to do so, we should not be holding them accountable for what they have done?
"And yes it is playing the blame game when people blame Sarah Palin..."
Of course no one (or no one with any sense) is BLAMING Sarah Palin for what occurred. No one is saying that she is directly responsible for causing it, that would be ridiculous. What some have suggested is that maybe some of the violent rhetoric and imagery that people such as Sarah Palin are prone to use contributes to the overall levels of violence in the culture at large, and maybe discouraging its use would help to promote a less violent society. That is pretty damn far from directly blaming her.
"Privacy had something to do with it..."
So you are granting that the easy accessibility of guns was a factor?
"Why is it ridiculous?..."
I agree, there are plenty of other injustices happening in the world that deserve attention also. But I don't think that means this case should be ignored. You are right that this sort of thing gets a lot of coverage. That doesn't seem very surprising to me. It is a pretty shocking incident and people are looking for answers about why it happened and whether it could have been prevented.
(cont'd)
ReplyDelete"You cannot stop insane people from doing insane things. Bad things will always happen. The correct question to ask is not "how do we prevent bad things from happening" but rather "how often do bad things happen?"."
I wasn't suggesting that you can always stop bad things from happening. Again, you are presenting this in a very black or white type of way. What is wrong with saying 'ok here are the factors that might make bad things happen more often, so if we try to reduce those factors, maybe bad things will happen less often'? For example, say that crime is more common among poor people. Do we just say 'oh well nothing we can do about it, crime will always happen' or would trying to alleviate poverty be a more reasonable response?
"Let us talk about guns since you brought them up. You cannot stop gun deaths, ever, even if they are banned. To think otherwise is some utopian fantasy that people have. The correct question to ask is "how frequent are gun deaths?". The answer to that question is, "extremely rare". Just consider. There were 50 million gun owners yesterday that never killed anybody. Looking at a few bad examples and ignoring all the millions good examples is a terrible way to look at this issue. "
Black and white again. I wasn't suggesting you can stop all gun deaths. But it doesn't seem to me that controversial to suggest that having fewer people owning guns and maybe having some tighter regulations governing the ability to acquire them might have the outcome of less gun violence. Do you disagree?
"If he was a Muslim do you really think it will be called "a mental instability"? Come on, be serious. "
ReplyDeleteBecause of the Islam's uneasy relationship with the west right now, yes I am sure that terrorism would come up if he was Muslim and some people would say that it was a terrorist act, but if he was actually just mentally ill and not motivated by a fundamentalist Islamic ideology then they would probably be wrong in calling it terrorism. It might sound pedantic but if words keep getting tossed around when they don't apply then they lose their meaning. If every random act of violence just gets called terrorism, then everything is terrorism and so nothing is terrorism.
I would like to begin by calling you out on what I call the "moderate fallacy", the belief that the truth must always lie between two extremes. This position has an obvious self contradiction. Sometimes what is true/right is extreme, sometimes it is not. If I say "killing innocent people is wrong", that is an extreme statement, black and white, as you would put it, but what is the problem with that. If you want to refute my points you need to put more work into just saying "you are just being too simplistic with black-and-white".
ReplyDelete"Attempts to identify factors that could have contributed to the tragedy and working to change them in the hope that it may help to prevent similar things from happening in the future is not tantamount to absolving him of responsibility.":
He is responsible, that is my arguement. There may be factors that made it possible for him to do it, and there may have been events that influenced him to do that, but all responsibility lies upon the person who did the action, yes that is what I am saying. Insane people will capitalize on violent imagery regardless how it is used.
I sense political euphemistic doubletalk in that paragraph when you write "working to change them". That sounds to me that you want to impose speech control laws that prohibit how people can speak political in the fear that some insane person can be influenced and act on the violent language. If this is what you really advocate with that message then you can go fuck yourself for being anti-free speech. If however all you mean is that you want to spread awareness without any government action intefering with speech then I appologize for misunderstanding you.
"Really? Wow that is a surprise. Ok, so are you suggesting people who incite to murder are not responsible for the murders that might ensue from their actions? For example say that if Charles Manson or Adolf Hitler or Osama bin Laden may not have personally killed someone but inspired others to do so, we should not be holding them accountable for what they have done?":
Manson, Hitler and Laden are responsible because they have contributed to the actions. Hitler was the man in charge and pushed for orders for the extermination of Jews. Laden was part of the terrorist group that taught, trained, studied, and contributed to the attacks, even though he did not do so himself. So those people are responsible.
I believe that if Osama bin Laden wrote a book in which he screamed "Death to the US!" and encouraged people to fly planes into buildings then he has that right. Because he had done nothing at all. And that is free speech. If you ban what he said then you are violating free speech. All speech must be protected, even offensive speech, if you do not believe in that, then you do not believe in free speech at all.
"I wasn't suggesting that you can always stop bad things from happening.":
ReplyDeleteLet me quote you again from what you said previously. You said, "Attempts to find out what those were and to understand how they might be changed to help prevent this type of thing from happening". If you find factors that you think make the violence possible and you end them the insane people will still find ways to do violence. You claim it will be even less. But I say you are looking at the situation in the wrong way. You should be asking yourself how often do these crimes happen? Not very often at all. So going out of the way to make them happen even less is being fearful. There is no reason that I see to try to put an end to things that very rarely happen. Because even if you find a way to reduce it and something bad happens are you going to now impose more controls? And something bad will happen again, you are going to impose more controls? You never going to end it, even if you do bring down the crime rates, why go so far? If there was a crisis then you would have a point to try to end it, but there is no crysis. It is rare. There is a right and a wrong beyond just safety. Not everything is about as much satefy as possible.
"What is wrong with saying 'ok here are the factors that might make bad things happen more often, so if we try to reduce those factors, maybe bad things will happen less often'?":
Because there is a right and a wrong beyond just satefy. People die in car accidents. If you impose for everyone to wear a helment and drive at 30 miles per hour then you will save a ton of lives. Do you advocate this? I doubt that you do, because, as I said, there is a right and a wrong beyond just satefy. The question should be asked, not, "let us end crime or at least keep reducing it", but instead, "how often does it even occur?". It occurs very rare, much rarely than car deaths. So get over it and move on to something else. Not everything is just about satefy.
"Do we just say 'oh well nothing we can do about it, crime will always happen' or would trying to alleviate poverty be a more reasonable response?":
It depends on the situation. If the crime rate among the poor is 1 per 50,000 and amount the right 1 per 100,000 then I say the crime is basically non-existent and move on to some other issue. It is just not too important anymore to discuss. Not everything should only be about improving satefy and reducing crime.
"Black and white again. I wasn't suggesting you can stop all gun deaths.":
ReplyDeleteMy point was a good point. I said that gun crime are rare. Especially if you compare it so something like car deaths. McDonald's kills more people than guns. Why should your concern be to keep on reducing gun deaths as little as possible? As I said, there is a right and a wrong beyong just satefy. Not everything is about safety. Irresponsible gun owners, when compared to responsible gun owners, are far far outweighted. So there is no gun crysis. It is standard human nature to look at the bad and overlook the good. What you are doing is looking at the bad and overlooking the millions and millions of responsible gun owners who never did anything wrong.
"But it doesn't seem to me that controversial to suggest that having fewer people owning guns and maybe having some tighter regulations governing the ability to acquire them might have the outcome of less gun violence.":
It is controversial. You are legislating the people from the right to defend themselves and from severly limiting their ability to fight against tyranny in the government if a second revolution should ever come about. The right to bear arms is important to many Americans and you treat it as a simple issue. What is more important, a well-armed society with overwhelmingly responsible owners for self defense, or imposing upon that free society just because you want to reduce a few more crimes?
Besides, you are committing an economic fallacy here. That is, the believe that outlawing something will make it go ahead. Economics is so much more complicated than that. Often what you want to outlaw simply gets redirected to the black market. Still is accessible, and crime and still be done. Just recently I heard on Russian news about a bank robbery with two assault rifles. Handguns are banned in Russia, rifles are hard to get, imagine the strict bans on assault rifles, but it still happens. Economics is more complicated than just "ban it".
There are good argument also that suggest that gun ownership reduces gun crime. And I strongly agree with those arguments. But let us say that it did not. So what? Not everything is about satefy. That is the meaning of "give me liberty or give me death". If ending the 4th amendment means there is less crime do you stand by that too? If ending free speech means there is less crime too do you agree still?
"Of course no one (or no one with any sense) is BLAMING Sarah Palin for what occurred. No one is saying that she is directly responsible for causing it, that would be ridiculous.":
ReplyDeleteDid you watch the news? It is pretty clear they were basically blaming her. See this ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7oSLR3bW4vI ). Yes, yes, we all known Ayn Rand is to blame, Sarah Palin is to blame, Glenn Beck is to blame, right-wing to blame, and so forth. Maybe you are not one of these dumb people, but many of your fellow news viewers are.
"So you are granting that the easy accessibility of guns was a factor?":
No, I am showing how your argument reduces to abusrdity. You are blaming guns and saying that being able to access a gun is a problem. I say that having privacy rights are a problem. If there was no privacy rights and police and inspect your house for no political assasinations that would reduce assasinations. Also, if police can randomly search you they will catch more people who do have guns, what do the innocent have to fear, right? Another fact is having hands. All gun shooting were done with people who have hands. So having hands is a factor, right? If we cut off people's hands then that would end or at least strongly limit the number of gun shootings. You see how ridiculous this all is? Blaming guns on a shooting is like blaming gravity for a plane crash. After all, if there was no gravity, there be no plane crashes. I reduced your argument to absurdity.
"Because of the Islam's uneasy relationship with the west right now, yes I am sure that terrorism would come up if he was Muslim and some people would say that it was a terrorist act, but if he was actually just mentally ill and not motivated by a fundamentalist Islamic ideology then they would probably be wrong in calling it terrorism.":
You are sure? How about we get more serious and just realize that if any person of Muslim origin would get accused for being a terrorist immediately. Not probably, not likely, but certainly this would happen.
"If every random act of violence just gets called terrorism, then everything is terrorism and so nothing is terrorism.":
I hate the world 'terrorist'. I try not to use it, but I am forced to by people are me. A terrorist is just a label on whose team the person is at. The founding fathers were terrorists against England, but heroes for Americans. The Iraqis are terrorists for the US, but civilians for Iraq. You see how ridiculous this word is? This word is used a propaganda tool to immediately label enemies. That is why I hate it. People define a terrorist as someone who uses violence against people. Well then, why is the US not called a terrorist? It uses more violence than anyone else in the world.
“I would like to begin by calling you out on what I call the "moderate fallacy", the belief that the truth must always lie between two extremes. This position has an obvious self contradiction. Sometimes what is true/right is extreme, sometimes it is not. If I say "killing innocent people is wrong", that is an extreme statement, black and white, as you would put it, but what is the problem with that. If you want to refute my points you need to put more work into just saying "you are just being too simplistic with black-and-white". “
ReplyDeleteI am familiar with that fallacy but I don’t agree that I have committed it. I didn’t say that the truth is always in the middle of two extremes. But as you just granted, sometimes it is, and sometimes it is not. In this case, if the two extremes are ‘Sarah Palin and Glenn Beck are 100% at fault’ (which we both agree is absurd) and ‘the killer himself is 100% at fault and it is wrong to assign any blame to other factors’ (which I think is absurd because it relies upon a contra-causal libertarian view of free will which I don’t subscribe to), then yes, I would argue that the truth is in the middle in this case. If the question is ‘is evolution or creationism correct?’, then I agree that one extreme is 100% correct and the other is not.
“He is responsible, that is my arguement. There may be factors that made it possible for him to do it, and there may have been events that influenced him to do that, but all responsibility lies upon the person who did the action, yes that is what I am saying. Insane people will capitalize on violent imagery regardless how it is used. “
Ok. I agree that he must be held accountable, but it looks like we disagree about whether responsibility can be distributed to some extent. I don’t believe insane people ‘capitalize’ on violent imagery; they are mentally ill. I think that psychological research (and common sense in my opinion) shows pretty clearly that people are subtly influenced by things like violent imagery. If it can be shown that this is true, is this not a good argument in favour of discouraging its use?
“I sense political euphemistic doubletalk in that paragraph when you write "working to change them". That sounds to me that you want to impose speech control laws that prohibit how people can speak political in the fear that some insane person can be influenced and act on the violent language. If this is what you really advocate with that message then you can go fuck yourself for being anti-free speech. If however all you mean is that you want to spread awareness without any government action intefering with speech then I appologize for misunderstanding you. “
ReplyDeleteYou suspect I want to muzzle everyone and ban free speech because I am suggesting that perhaps violent political rhetoric could contribute to the overall level of violence in society and maybe those who constantly spew it should be discouraged from doing so? Apology accepted.
“Manson, Hitler and Laden are responsible because they have contributed to the actions. Hitler was the man in charge and pushed for orders for the extermination of Jews. Laden was part of the terrorist group that taught, trained, studied, and contributed to the attacks, even though he did not do so himself. So those people are responsible. “
That is the danger of using examples; they get focused on too much. Fine, you can argue that those particular examples were not apt. But the point I was trying to make is that those who incite violence ARE in some sense responsible for violence that ensues from their speech. This is a grey area, and exactly what is considered an incitement to violence is not easy to define, but I certainly disagree with you that there is no responsibility for it and that all responsibility is with those who actually carry out the act.
“Besides, you are committing an economic fallacy here. That is, the believe that outlawing something will make it go ahead. Economics is so much more complicated than that. Often what you want to outlaw simply gets redirected to the black market. Still is accessible, and crime and still be done. Just recently I heard on Russian news about a bank robbery with two assault rifles. Handguns are banned in Russia, rifles are hard to get, imagine the strict bans on assault rifles, but it still happens. Economics is more complicated than just "ban it". “
ReplyDeleteNo I didn’t say that just banning things will stop it 100%. Please, I am not that naive. Look at alcohol prohibition for a prime example. Yes, people who really really want to get a gun and commit a crime with it might find a way to do it even if there is an outright ban. It doesn’t follow that therefore it should just be completely unregulated and we should make it as easy as possible for any idiot to walk into a store and buy one.
“There are good argument also that suggest that gun ownership reduces gun crime. And I strongly agree with those arguments. But let us say that it did not. So what? Not everything is about satefy. That is the meaning of "give me liberty or give me death". If ending the 4th amendment means there is less crime do you stand by that too? If ending free speech means there is less crime too do you agree still?”
I guess it depends how far you think liberty should extend. I do not agree with banning free speech as I have said, but I am in favour of regulating the ability to acquire deadly weapons that can kill at the stroke of a finger and that the vast majority of people have no serious reason to own (I don’t count paranoid fantasies about the government suddenly turning into a tyranny with which a revolutionary war must be fought by the populace as a serious reason).
Also I don’t know what statistics or whatever you are citing that suggests that gun ownership reduces gun crime but I would love to know what they are because that sounds pretty ridiculous on the face of it.
“No, I am showing how your argument reduces to abusrdity. You are blaming guns and saying that being able to access a gun is a problem. I say that having privacy rights are a problem. If there was no privacy rights and police and inspect your house for no political assasinations that would reduce assasinations. Also, if police can randomly search you they will catch more people who do have guns, what do the innocent have to fear, right? Another fact is having hands. All gun shooting were done with people who have hands. So having hands is a factor, right? If we cut off people's hands then that would end or at least strongly limit the number of gun shootings. You see how ridiculous this all is? Blaming guns on a shooting is like blaming gravity for a plane crash. After all, if there was no gravity, there be no plane crashes. I reduced your argument to absurdity.”
ReplyDeleteYour reasoning is what is absurd here. This is the slippery slope again, mixed in with some bizarre things about cutting off hands. Cutting off everyone’s hands does far more harm than any good that would be gained by the reduction in gun violence. You can’t be serious about that one. Gravity is an intrinsic property of the universe and is beyond human control. Guns are not a natural part of the universe which we have no control over. We have the ability to decide if they are a greater harm than good to society and regulate their use accordingly if we want. Gravity regulation is not an option so far. The comparison is ludicrous.
“Because even if you find a way to reduce it and something bad happens are you going to now impose more controls? And something bad will happen again, you are going to impose more controls? You never going to end it, even if you do bring down the crime rates, why go so far? If there was a crisis then you would have a point to try to end it, but there is no crysis. It is rare. There is a right and a wrong beyond just safety. Not everything is about as much satefy as possible. “
ReplyDeleteI didn’t say it was. I contend that you have committed the logical fallacy this time. It is called ‘the slippery slope’. From this and some of your other comments, what it sounds like you’re saying is that any preventative efforts will lead to some kind of stifling totalitarianism in which privacy rights and free speech are completely eliminated and therefore we should do nothing.
“It is controversial. You are legislating the people from the right to defend themselves and from severly limiting their ability to fight against tyranny in the government if a second revolution should ever come about. The right to bear arms is important to many Americans and you treat it as a simple issue. What is more important, a well-armed society with overwhelmingly responsible owners for self defense, or imposing upon that free society just because you want to reduce a few more crimes? “
ReplyDeleteThis kind of argument always blows my mind. As if there is some imminent danger of the government suddenly deciding to turn against its citizens and so it is imperative that the people have the right to arm themselves for protection. I also find it funny that above you were criticizing the idea of certain preventative measures against crime on the grounds that it was being too ‘fearful’. This is the ultimate in fearful, some fantasy of an uprising against the evil government that the citizens will fight with their handguns and rifles. This is not the 18th century, get real. Even if this did happen, what you think a bunch of people with their guns would be any match?
Sorry looks like some of my comments got cut off or something ... sorry if I missed or didn't address something...
ReplyDeleteInteresting discussion though, thanks for taking the time to respond.
I do not at all consider Glenn Beck or Sarah Palin to be responsible for what happened. We can both agree that if Glenn Beck or Sarah Palin truly advocated using violence against anyone they would probably get fired. Not because of anything illegal, but rather that it be so controversial that the stations would not want to deal with it. I do not watch Glenn Beck or listen to Sarah Palin so I have no idea what they say. But he or she may sometimes come off in a nationalist or patriotic or tough-guy attitude or anger and use violent language to say their ideas. There is nothing wrong with that at all. I do it all the time on this blog. In fact, I am way more harsh than most people you would find on the TV's and radios. I have stuff on my blog about cruelty, torture, molestation, killing little babies, bestiality, and so forth. If you take some time to read more you would perhaps agree that I have some offensive things written here (and that is my intention). But let us say that some person will come along and say that he read what I wrote on child molestation so he went out an molested children. Can you blame me? You can. But you would be foolish for doing so. Because people need to learn to make moral judgements. I cannot take any responsibility upon people who are foolish enough to take what I said in those posts seriously and act them out. The real source of these sort of problems is not who said (or wrote) what but rather the failure of some people to make moral judgements or the failure to see the humor (dark humor) in certain messages. So even though I do not like Sarah Palin at all, I defend her 100% here, she is completely innocent from my view. Shame on those who try to use this story to try to get out their revenge on her who do not like her.
ReplyDeleteYou say you do not agree because the libertarian view is of free-will. What if I told you that most libertarians that I have came across my life are materialists, determinists, and atheists? There are a lot of religious ones out there, and a lot of non-philosophical ones out there, but from the one I interact online a vast majority of them are in those categories, maybe a few differences, but for the most part they lie in that category. The question of free-will is not related to libertarianism. Libertarianism is a political philosophy, not a moral philosophy (though it can be), not a metaphysical statement (though it can be), and not even an economic system (though this is rare). I do not believe in free-will, I am a determinist all the way, I wrote a post on this issue which I think is a little original if you are interested to read it. But I need to pretend that free-will exists to make some sort of sense of the world, if you know what I mean. Yes, objectively there is no free-will and so there is no responsibility at all, we are just an unfolding of a mathematical optimization system, and have no control. But in political philosophy we just need to kinda pretend that there is such a notion otherwise the whole discipline is useless. The same with morality, by the way. I am a nihilist and I do not believe in morality but I still use "good/evil". Why? Because they are useful terms to use even though I know that objectively there are no morals. Basically, what I am doing is like a mathematician who makes a simplified model for the sake of simplisitic, he knows it is not right, but it simplifies a lot of problems.
"I think that psychological research (and common sense in my opinion) shows pretty clearly that people are subtly influenced by things like violent imagery. If it can be shown that this is true, is this not a good argument in favour of discouraging its use?":
ReplyDeleteI do not believe that people are uncruel, and it is violent images that make them violent. The human species is amazingly cruel. Cruelty is something that runs through the bodies of all people. Consider the interesting and creative methods of torture and exectution people came up with over the reasons. Violence, like in video games, is not a cause of violence in people, but a response to it. The violent people are drawn to violence. Video game companies do not spread violence, it always existed within the cruel and savage nature of people, they simply make a profit by appealing to what people like already.
But let us say that violent videos or words make people violent. Do I think it needs to be discouraged? No. It limits the way people can communicate themselves. It limits expression. It limits the feelings that people want to show. So for me, I do not care if some violent stuff on TV makes a few more crimes every year. I am not some sort of pussy whose goal is to strive towards a peaceful world of weak-minded people who are afraid to express themselves honestly.
"You suspect I want to muzzle everyone and ban free speech because I am suggesting that perhaps violent political rhetoric could contribute to the overall level of violence in society and maybe those who constantly spew it should be discouraged from doing so? Apology accepted.":
Why is this so surprising? In my experience the fascists against freedom that I speak with online always sell you their ideas without making it sound very political. They like to use political euphemisms to hide their true intentions. If they suggest to ban porn or at least control it, like some feminists I have spoken with, they would say, "I believe there needs to be some guidelines in how porn is shown". It sounds harmless, but what do they really advocate? A government commity with a ban list on what is okay and what is not okay decieding what kind of porn can appear online. Or consider when some people want to ban smoking, say, they might appear this issue by saying "society needs to become more healthy". The word, "society", is a favorite euphemistic word of these fascists, whose true meaning is simply "the state". So in my experience people who want to ban and control a lot in your life always do it with euphemisms, they try to avoid talking about the state as much as possible. So I immediately thought that your ultimate goal is to have the FCC control the content of news on TV so that they fit the FCC guidelines and avoid mentioning any kind of violence.
"But the point I was trying to make is that those who incite violence ARE in some sense responsible for violence that ensues from their speech.":
ReplyDeleteAs I said, people should have the right to write books saying about who needs to be killed and how to be killed. They can talk about torture of these people to. Freedom of speech quite simply means that speech is free from state control. Entirely. If the state can decide what is okay to say and what is not then congratulations you have destroyed free speech. If the state can decide what is "inciting hate" or "inciting violence" then you have control over speech. Whenever people want to end free speech they will never openly admit to you that they want to end free speech. They will rather say "I believe in free speech but not hate speech", or something like that. The moment these restrictions are created then free speech is destroyed. I take a strong stance in defending free speech.
I do not judge Laden as guilty for what he said, I judge him for the actions that he used in contributing to violence. I do not judge Hitler as guilty for what he said, I judge him for the actions of executing orders to exterminate people. If I tell someone to kill someone and I finance him, give him weapons, and aid, then yes, I should be considered guilty, but not for what I said, my speech should not even be brought up in court, rather for my support and contribution for murder. Note the difference between making someone guilty for what he said and making someone guilty for being involved in murder. Big difference.
"It doesn’t follow that therefore it should just be completely unregulated and we should make it as easy as possible for any idiot to walk into a store and buy one.":
This is why I hate the word "regulation" and "deregulation". Of course, there are regulations. I cannot take a gun and shoot you for no reasons. That is a regulation. I cannot take out my gun in public and point it at people. That is a regulation. There are regulations.
Saying that I am for "complete unregulation" is disingenous. Inadvertently disingenous. Freedom comes with responsibilities. I am for people to be free, but that does not mean, free to kill. Freedom does not mean do anything you please to others. That is not what it means and that is never what it meant. So immediately there are regulations. The question is what kind of regulation I am okay and what kind I am not okay. Not whether there is a complete ban or do anything you please.
"Your reasoning is what is absurd here. This is the slippery slope again, mixed in with some bizarre things about cutting off hands. Cutting off everyone’s hands does far more harm than any good that would be gained by the reduction in gun violence. You can’t be serious about that one. Gravity is an intrinsic property of the universe and is beyond human control. Guns are not a natural part of the universe which we have no control over. We have the ability to decide if they are a greater harm than good to society and regulate their use accordingly if we want. Gravity regulation is not an option so far. The comparison is ludicrous.":
ReplyDeleteOf course it is ridiculous. That was my entire point. I wanted to show how your reasoning was absurb by using the same reasoning to a different issue which lead to an absurd conclusion.
Your argument put very abstractly was this. X happens (something bad). For X to happen there needs to be Y. Therefore, Y is to blame. That was the argument you used on guns. Murders happened with a gun. To have such a murder one needs a gun. Therefore, let us blame the guns. That argument is bad. Why? Well, you said it yourself, it is absurb. If you want to use an argument against guns you need to do a lot more than just saying they are necessary in a murder. Because that is not enough.
"I didn’t say it was. I contend that you have committed the logical fallacy this time. It is called ‘the slippery slope’. From this and some of your other comments, what it sounds like you’re saying is that any preventative efforts will lead to some kind of stifling totalitarianism in which privacy rights and free speech are completely eliminated and therefore we should do nothing.":
I did not bring up totalitarianism anywhere. You were the one who decided to bring it up. I did not say anything about privacy rights or free speech going away. And I was not even creating a doomsday scenario. I just asked you a question: at what point will you stop caring about the crime and move on? That is all I asked you. I said that crimes will always happen. Some are more rare, some are less rare. At what point do we stop caring about the crimes? If 1 out of 1000 people is killed in car is that a reason to be concerned? But what if it is 1 out of 10000 people? When do you care and when do you stop to care? That was my question. I said if you always care you never going to run out of trying to fix the problem because it will never go away. I added to this point by bring up guns in this discussion. I said that there is no gun crysis. And so I am not concerned about guns at all. I am way more concerned about cars, and ever more concerned about McDonald's. I thought that was a pretty reasonable argument.
"This kind of argument always blows my mind. As if there is some imminent danger of the government suddenly deciding to turn against its citizens and so it is imperative that the people have the right to arm themselves for protection. I also find it funny that above you were criticizing the idea of certain preventative measures against crime on the grounds that it was being too ‘fearful’. This is the ultimate in fearful, some fantasy of an uprising against the evil government that the citizens will fight with their handguns and rifles. This is not the 18th century, get real. Even if this did happen, what you think a bunch of people with their guns would be any match?":
ReplyDeleteThis is on the contrary an excellent argument and my main defense of firearms. States have killed in war, in the 20th century alone, over 200 million people. This is not even counting its own citizens that they have slaughtered. The most blood stained institution in history is the state. When dicators rose in power they have taken away guns from the citizens to defend themselves. Including Hitler, Mao, and Stalin, and many other dictators. These dicators did not want the population of people to have any means at all to defend themselves. The state is a power structure. Their main goal is the accumulation for more power. It does not care about you, or your rights, or your welfare, or your children, but more power for itself and expanding it whenever it is possible. There is a reason why statism is soaked with so much blood in all of history.
You think it is foolish to be scared of totalitarianism rising. But I disagree. Whenever totalitarianism did rise the population never imagined it can happen. They did not imagine it was possible. There are many reasons to be concerned about the US. The US has destroyed very important freedoms. The US in debt trillions of dollars, it has complete control over the currency, it is involved in wars, it kills so many people on an everyday basis. And this power is still growing and growing. I am concerned, and there are many other people who are concerned. It is rather foolish not to be concerned about this from happening. I think there may be a real danger unleashing, hopefully I am wrong, but I do have my justified fears.
You think that hand guns, rifles, and even assault rifles (with machine guns) are useless to overthrow the government. I agree. They are useless. The European Union will not be able to overthrow the US at this point. I think the US will end itself by empire building (as all other empires did), but that is a separate discussion. But imagine the following situation. One day the US gets out of control. The people grow furios and 50 million (1 out of 6 people) gunowners take up their arms to fight the US government. Will they be able to over throw the government. I doubt it. But they will have a means to defend themselves nonetheless. They will at least be able to fight back. States are a little afraid when that many people are willing to fight back. They will have a revolution within itself, and it will be a very bloody scene. So I do disagree, guns are very important, and they can end up being the last resort the citizens will have to fight tyranny.
This is why, for me, "arms" refers to any arms. Including tanks and helicopters. I think that people have the right to own tanks and assault cannons. In time of a revolution they will be able to take these out and fight the tyranny if another revolution was to come about. But that is a separate discussion.
"Also I don’t know what statistics or whatever you are citing that suggests that gun ownership reduces gun crime but I would love to know what they are because that sounds pretty ridiculous on the face of it.":
ReplyDeleteStatistics do not mean anything. There is no causation one can draw, only correlation. I have seen statistics that do show more guns mean less crime, but I am not comfortable jumping to the conclusion and saying that this is conclusion, even though I believe in it. The reasoning behind it is very clear. I agree it does sound ridiculous at first, but it is rather counter-intutitive. If you ban guns then the people who will not have guns are the good people, they will follow the rule. The bad people will not care. So you are disarming the good responsible people and doing nothing in disarming the bad people. So the bad people have an easier time to commit crime without worrying that other people have a means to self defend themselves with a firearm. You might be interested to watch Penn and Teller's Bullshit episode on Gun Control here ( http://www.megavideo.com/?v=6T10XE79 ).