Real-world sensitivities and game names

[Agema]

I would prefer not to debate gun control.

However, if I can continue it's use in relation to liberty. To take your car example, you need a licence to drive, because cars are dangerous. In that sense, you do not have liberty to just drive a car, it is restricted by the state. If you apply similar principles of adequate training to own and use guns, you are supporting a form of gun control.

When liberty potentially endangers others or denies them their own liberty, it is reasonable to restrict it to some degree. There is a balance that needs to be found.

[thejeff]

Great rant, Atreides.

I'd like to suggest that most of those ranting on TV aren't really insane. They're actually canny politicians. They may or may not actually be offended by whatever they're ranting about, but they know they'll gain audience and thus money or votes and thus power by ranting about.

There are people who are offended by trivial things, but I'd look closely at anyone who's getting paid or holds any kind of public position or is pushing an agenda. Are they really offended or is this just another chance to boost their standing or shut down debate.

One example of this from the Jewish side, since you seem to have covered the Christian side, would be the political groups that scream Antisemitism at any suggestion that Israel is anything but an innocent victim in it's dealings with Palestine. Another can of worms, like gun control, probably better not dug into here, so I'll just note that there's more open debate in Israel itself than in the mainstream US media.

[lch]

JimMorrison said:
Gun control is a great subject for you to bring up, because it is such a hard issue. The best answer that I can offer you, is that twice as many people die in motor vehicle accidents, as die from violence in all forms (in the US itself).

That's a total bull**** comparison, IMHO. Car accidents are an unwanted byproduct of public transportation. "Violence in all forms" sounds like a very active act compared to that. People aren't shooting bullets just to kill time or say hello to each other, or are they? To get a fair comparison you'd have to compare fatal car accidents with fatal accidents involving firearms, where the death toll from car accidents are probably a lot higher because of its continuous use unless maybe you factor in the total amount of time that people are driving versus aiming and firing, too, but to be able to be really comparable lots of people would have to be facing each other and shoot at the same time. Or you'd have to compare the death toll from people consciously running over / crashing into people with a car to kill them versus shooting them with a gun, where the guns will trump the stats by far, with the utmost probability.

[thejeff]

Ich, you're a moderator. You might want to avoid calling people's arguments bull****. And possibly just avoid the incipient gun control flame war entirely? Until it's time to shut it down.

Gun control has been brought up. A flame war is probably inevitable, but I'd think the moderators should avoiding fanning the flames.

To All: Going further down this path is a bad idea. We've all been through it before. There are places far more appropriate and it'll just get shut down here.

[lch]

thejeff said:
Ich, you're a moderator. You might want to avoid calling people's arguments bull****. And possibly just avoid the incipient gun control flame war entirely? Until it's time to shut it down.

So maybe "bad comparison" would have been more politically correct. That's just syntax, but not semantics.

I certainly don't plan to discuss gun control here and my post didn't mean to encourage that. As far as I'm concerned, I haven't been discussing it so far, anyway, what I did was point out a nonsense comparison of apples and oranges. That's what was really itching me, not the actual subject.

[JimMorrison]

lch said:
Car accidents are an unwanted byproduct of public transportation. "Violence in all forms" sounds like a very active act compared to that.

Well this is a fair assertion, sir. But I was Googling around for a comparison of "death rates", and the first well compiled list that I found did not go to the extreme detail of listing "fatal gunshot wounds", whether accidental or not. I actually thought it was useful to show the relationship in numbers that I found, to illustrate how big a "menace" cars are to innocent people.

Agema said:
I would prefer not to debate gun control.

However, if I can continue it's use in relation to liberty. To take your car example, you need a licence to drive, because cars are dangerous. In that sense, you do not have liberty to just drive a car, it is restricted by the state. If you apply similar principles of adequate training to own and use guns, you are supporting a form of gun control.

When liberty potentially endangers others or denies them their own liberty, it is reasonable to restrict it to some degree. There is a balance that needs to be found.

To be honest, my intent was not to derail this train onto a a Gun Control debate. It was brought up, and I do think it is a perfect example for the larger discussion of civil liberty.

I hardly think that education and licensing are considered by many to be a form of "car control". When the US government uses the word "control" in relation to anything, it implies severe limitation, or partial or total banning. For example, drugs in general are referred to as "controlled substances".

It is becoming increasingly obvious as time passes, that government intervention in personal lives, on the level of "control", is a failure to the common good, and causes more strife on many levels, than a lack of control would cause.

Imagine this: if we maintained the same level of police protection that we "enjoy" now, but decriminalized most things that are difficult to enforce at best - then those police could focus on the one thing that everyone should agree is the worst problem of society - violent crime.

Perhaps if we directed our resources towards making sure that all of our citizens were safe, then we would find that peripheral concepts like gun control would become much more manageable. Chasing after guns, or drugs, or pornography - these are all emotionally charged persecutions that are heavy-handedly executed, causing untold amounts of misery among the people, many of whom are basically innocent - and would remain "more innocent" were they not persecuted unfairly.

To um all of this up, my point was that if you want to live in a 100% gun free neighborhood, for example - then you should be able to mandate that if you and all of your neghbors wish it to be so. However, you and your neighbors should not have any say whatsoever about whether the people in my neighborhood own guns, or what kind of guns, or how we regulate them - that should be for us to decide. The only impact that has on someone from this community, would be if they were traveling, but what kind of idiot travels with a gun without checking on the appropriate local laws?

I hardly doubt that Oregon, as a separate entity, would ever get designs on "invading" one of its neighboring states. I'm reasonably certain that if we focus on making ourselves better people, rather than telling other people how to live their lives, that it won't come to that, either. <3

[chrispedersen]

JimMorrison said:
To um all of this up, my point was that if you want to live in a 100% gun free neighborhood, for example - then you should be able to mandate that if you and all of your neghbors wish it to be so. <3

"Power flows from the mouth of a gun". Mao

Part of the responsibility in a democracy, are the acts required to maintain that democracy.

Our forefathers, having experienced restrictions to the right to bear arms under the Sedition Acts [?], and knowing the problems in overthrowing the british, decided that one of those reponsibilities was that the right to bear arms.

So, no, while you may elect to be gun free, and live with like minded individuals, you cannot mandate that none bear arms.

[thejeff]

But that "100% gun free neighborhood" argument breaks down. If it can be mandated only if everyone agrees, then that's no mandate, that's just no one living there owning a gun. If one person wants to move in and have a gun then suddenly all the neighbors don't agree and it's no longer 100% gun free.
From a more legal point of view, nothing in US law (or any other country I know of) requires 100% approval. So every law imposes on someone.

And it doesn't scale. Neighborhood is vaguely defined. If you define a large enough area then you'll never find one where everyone wants to be gun-free. If you use a small enough scale everyone who wants to lives in a gun-free area, even if it's just their own house.
And easy access to guns in one area, makes it easier for criminals to get weapons for use in the gun-free area.

More largely, you can't divorce gun control from violent crime. Those pro-control will say violent crime often uses guns and thus reducing access is a way to reduce violent crime. Those opposed to gun control often say armed citizens reduce violent crime.

[JimMorrison]

thejeff said:
But that "100% gun free neighborhood" argument breaks down. If it can be mandated only if everyone agrees, then that's no mandate, that's just no one living there owning a gun. If one person wants to move in and have a gun then suddenly all the neighbors don't agree and it's no longer 100% gun free.
From a more legal point of view, nothing in US law (or any other country I know of) requires 100% approval. So every law imposes on someone.

I'm not talking about 100% agreement per se - but jurisdiction. Very few things should be regulated beyond city limits - even fewer across state lines.

If your city decides to be firearm free, then so be it, I won't try to stop you. If I owned a gun (and I likely never will, personally), then obviously I wouldn't want to live there, and if I DID choose to live there, I'd willingly give up my weapon, or I'd be moving to a jail cell instead of that nice condo I had my eye on.


As it stands, since we try to homogenize freedom, we instead dilute and adulterate it with conflicting points of view. If we truly want to prosper, then we need to let people grow up, on their own terms, and make their own rules. As long as they aren't hurting people, then what is the problem? What they do is not the business of someone 1000 miles away, so long as no one's liberties are threatened. That's the thing, any form of overarching "control" on a national level, is merely a pre-emptive restriction of civil liberty. And unfortunately, bringing it back to the gun control point (since Chris went there ), quite possibly an attempt to control people, more than any little thing that is made the issue.

[chrispedersen]

Atreides said:

Being as I am from the United States, if you want to talk about religious nutcases on television getting easily offended about absolutely nothing, you might want to pay a little more attention to evangelical Christians and the Republican party who somehow think that homosexuals existing and living in this country, where tolerance and freedom of expression is a right, is offensive to G-d. The American media is crammed full of hate-mongers who bask in finding offense in everything and nothing and speak for and represent millions of like-minded fundamentalist Christians, like George Bush "No, I don't know that atheists should be considered as citizens, nor should they be considered patriots.", James Dobson "Homosexuals are not monogamous. They want to destroy the institution of marriage. It will destroy marriage. It will destroy the Earth," Jerry Falwell (currently in Hell learning that hating people probably wasn't what Jesus wanted him to spend his life teaching people) "If you're not a born-again Christian, you're a failure as a human being," and Pat Robertson "The Constitution of the United States, for instance, is a marvelous document for self-government by the Christian people. But the minute you turn the document into the hands of non-Christian people and atheistic people they can use it to destroy the very foundation of our society. And that's what's been happening." So I hope I'm not offending you Zeldor, but these are the guys with millions of followers in the US and they are on TV, or organizing politically, or running the government, and they are on TV everyday spouting their hate and bigotry and when it comes down to it, these are the groups who can't stop *****ing about violence in video games, violence and profanity in movies, pornography, and a host of other issues that would honestly not be offensive if not for the fact that these people want to impose their social views, their religious beliefs, or their bigoted judgment and puritanical standards on people who think differently.

Since it is almost inevitable that someone will say that I am bashing Christianity (because they are easily offended and won't actually read my arguments or my justification for my statements) I'm not suggesting that only Christians do that, but in the United States Christian fundamentalist groups are by far the largest radical religious groups in the country. To argue the other side, there are certainly Jews and Muslims that are also offended by violence and whatnot, Senator Lieberman is a prominent example of hating the video game industry and getting outraged and offended for political purposes, and he is quite frankly ridiculous and a douche bag who is in no way representative of any Jew that I know. Anyways, the possibility certainly exists that I'm wrong and maybe there is some satellite television channel of Jews and Muslims giving "I'm offended by X" diatribes that I'm not aware of, please feel free to inform and correct me.

Well, by quoting you, I illustrate that I have read your statements; and I am not easily offended. Having done that, I will now opine that you *are* bashing Christianity.
Your biases - while politically correct in the circles you probably run in, are none-the-less fairly strong.

For example - calling Christian fundamental groups 'radical' in the same vein as muslim terrorists. Or calling Lieberman a douche bag - because he holds beliefs contrary to yours.

It may be my misreading, yet I would opine that when the original poster was commenting about jews and muslims being the most easily offended that there is enough evidence to support the utterance of the statement, if not support or prove it.

I believe he was referring to the world wide muslim response to things like - the danish cartoon, the film in the netherlands where muslims responded by killing the producer, or even the reactions to 9-11.

On the jewish side, I think the case much less strong, although the actions of the israeli state, the constant tit for tat middle east violence; and perhaps even the actions of the antidefamation league might support his case.

Regardless; I don't support his position. In this area I happen to believe that all peoples are to greater or lesser extents capable of violence. And to argue who is most qualified is bootless.

But your whole rant about hate-mongering, gay hating christians right wingers etc etc. is exactly that. Bashing