Politics & Stuff

[Dion 2,476]

NRA must have some really exceptional people working for them if they can somehow shift the blame from how easy it is to buy a gun in the US and how a country with 5% of the worlds' population accounts for almost 1/3 of mass shootings. Maybe that's just me, but I wouldn't feel the tiniest little bit safer if everyone around me was armed. It would be the opposite really. And sadly there has been a rise in conservative agenda recently here in Brazil. I wouldn't be surprised if the US was funding this in the background again. We have enough gun killings already as it is, we don't need more.

[Spike 12,049]

20 hours ago, CHOULO19 said:

 

In the case of the native Americans, they were kind of affected by the fact that they almost fucking wiped out by genocidal maniacs from Europe who committed heinous crimes in the names of kings and churches. 

 

Come now, you know that most North Americans died due to Europeans having in/active diseases such as small pox and that it's categorisation as a 'genocide' is debated. It wasn't simply a methodical extermination like the Jewish and Armenian Genocides, there is much, much more to the colonisation of North American than that. There were massacres and there was violence but I'd wager the vast, vast majority died because some guy sneezed and the wind carried it. It all happened over such a long time with so many different incidents, causes and motivations. Maybe it was a genocide but when that word comes to mind I think of the two aforementioned examples.

[Fernando 6,589]

1 hour ago, Dion said:

NRA must have some really exceptional people working for them if they can somehow shift the blame from how easy it is to buy a gun in the US and how a country with 5% of the worlds' population accounts for almost 1/3 of mass shootings. Maybe that's just me, but I wouldn't feel the tiniest little bit safer if everyone around me was armed. It would be the opposite really. And sadly there has been a rise in conservative agenda recently here in Brazil. I wouldn't be surprised if the US was funding this in the background again. We have enough gun killings already as it is, we don't need more.

Question, once you ban guns do you think that will stop the terrorism?

What will you do with homemade suicide bombers?

[OhForAGreavsie 6,085]

5 hours ago, Spike said:

Come now, you know that most North Americans died due to Europeans having in/active diseases such as small pox and that it's categorisation as a 'genocide' is debated. It wasn't simply a methodical extermination like the Jewish and Armenian Genocides, there is much, much more to the colonisation of North American than that. There were massacres and there was violence but I'd wager the vast, vast majority died because some guy sneezed and the wind carried it. It all happened over such a long time with so many different incidents, causes and motivations. Maybe it was a genocide but when that word comes to mind I think of the two aforementioned examples.

Good question and of course it does not. What are the tests of morality in which people of faith score higher than others? I don't know any other than made up ones created and judged by the faithful themselves. They believe themselves to be morally superior because they tell themselves they are morally superior. 

On 28/03/2016 at 8:36 PM, Fernando said:

Wait a moment, what about survival of the fittest?

Doesn't that concepts apply here? or that gets thrown away?

I'd be interested to know what you understand the phrase 'survival of the fittest' to mean. Your question appears to impute undesirable characteristics to those who survive and then to extrapolate a judgement from it. I'd rather not rely on assumptions however so I hope you'll clarify for me. I raise this because Darwin's phrase, and its implications, are very widely misunderstood or at least misrepresented. Sometimes wilfully so.

On 28/03/2016 at 8:36 PM, Fernando said:

How evolution beats creationism? If you have major faults in your transnational species. Not to mention the dating test that you use for measuring age of something is so wrong. Giving that you don't take into account the acceleration of radio active decay. You guys "assume" that this was constant all the time. And that's a wrong assumption to go by.

Some evidence, a massive amount in fact, beats no evidence all day long. Worse, from a creationist point of view, the evidence just keeps piling up. Now that we (clever people, not me) understand the role of what was once termed junk DNA we have a deeper understanding of how evolution happens.

There is some work which suggests there may have been changes in rates of decay and perhaps in the speed of light too but not anywhere near enough to reconcile biblical time and geological time. The difference in scale is simply vast. To imagine that the Earth is less than ten-thousand years old, is equivalent to believing that North America is about 2.5 metres wide; to calculate the conversion rate required to make light which has been travelling for 13 billion years before entering the lenses of our instruments, complete the journey on a biblical time scale, is beyond the power of most calculators.

5 hours ago, Spike said:

Come now, you know that most North Americans died due to Europeans having in/active diseases such as small pox and that it's categorisation as a 'genocide' is debated. It wasn't simply a methodical extermination like the Jewish and Armenian Genocides, there is much, much more to the colonisation of North American than that. There were massacres and there was violence but I'd wager the vast, vast majority died because some guy sneezed and the wind carried it. It all happened over such a long time with so many different incidents, causes and motivations. Maybe it was a genocide but when that word comes to mind I think of the two aforementioned examples.

What about the intentional and systematic destruction of the buffalo in the full knowledge of its vital economic importance to the indigenous peoples of the continent? Destroy a population's means of living and their lives are destroyed.

[Spike 12,049]

2 minutes ago, OhForAGreavsie said:

 

What about the intentional and systematic destruction of the buffalo in the full knowledge of its vital economic importance to the indigenous peoples of the continent? Destroy a population's means of living and their lives are destroyed.

You do know that the Native Americans weren't exactly tactful with their own techniques of preserving the buffalo? They'd driven entire hoards off the side of a hill to kill them sometimes just for a single cut of meat.

http://nationalhumanitiescenter.org/tserve/nattrans/ntecoindian/essays/buffalo.htm

Besides that happened two hundred years after first colonisation, I'm not saying what the Americans did with the buffalo in the 19th century was in any way okay, I'm just simply stating there is simply a lot more to the demise of the Native American peoples than massacres/genocides/slaughter and whatever other synonyms you have.

[CHOULO19 24,332]

1 hour ago, Spike said:

Come now, you know that most North Americans died due to Europeans having in/active diseases such as small pox and that it's categorisation as a 'genocide' is debated. It wasn't simply a methodical extermination like the Jewish and Armenian Genocides, there is much, much more to the colonisation of North American than that. There were massacres and there was violence but I'd wager the vast, vast majority died because some guy sneezed and the wind carried it. It all happened over such a long time with so many different incidents, causes and motivations. Maybe it was a genocide but when that word comes to mind I think of the two aforementioned examples.

Diseases were by far the leading cause but there were plenty of massacres. Even in the first few years after Colombus arrived. If I remember my Howard Zinn correctly it was something like 250,000 in the first 2 years (first voyage) and then up to 8 million people in the next 6 years (second and third voyage). That's genocidal. 

And let's not forget the millions who died from slavery in the mines or on the journey back to Europe to serve as slaves. 

As for north America, even the US has officially come to admit that what they did amounts to ethnic cleansing. 

Bottom line, however you want to define genocide, the crimes of colonialism be it in America or Africa are some of the worst in human history. 

[Dion 2,476]

3 hours ago, Fernando said:

Question, once you ban guns do you think that will stop the terrorism?

What will you do with homemade suicide bombers?

No banning can ever completely negate anything. What it does is make it harder. If you really wanna kill another person you can always find a way. But guns make it easier. Isn't that the purpose of guns anyway – making killing easier? Homemade bombs take a lot more effort and knowledge to be used. You don't even need to ban guns for good, here in Brazil you can buy and keep one, as long as you meet certain requirements.

[CHOULO19 24,332]

Labor MP shot and critically injured in what sounds like a terrorist attack. 

Hope she pulls through. 

[OhForAGreavsie 6,085]

On 15/06/2016 at 8:28 PM, Spike said:

You do know that the Native Americans weren't exactly tactful with their own techniques of preserving the buffalo? They'd driven entire hoards off the side of a hill to kill them sometimes just for a single cut of meat.

Yes this behaviour is regularly mentioned in histories, as it should be. The indigenous peoples had been rubbing along with buffalo for millennia and yet, invading Europeans were able to observe great herds of bison stretching as far as the eyes could see across the plains. Unlike what was done by the invading Europeans, the impact of this behaviour was clearly sustainable. That's not the key difference however. Native people's acted either in ignorance or, at worst, laziness. What  a contrast with the motivation of the invaders.

On 15/06/2016 at 8:28 PM, Spike said:

Besides that happened two hundred years after first colonisation, I'm not saying what the Americans did with the buffalo in the 19th century was in any way okay, I'm just simply stating there is simply a lot more to the demise of the Native American peoples than massacres/genocides/slaughter and whatever other synonyms you have.

I would put it a little differently and say that there were many factors contributing to the demise of the indigenous populations but that there was only one cause; the European invasion. Ensuring the success of the invasion is precisely why this deeply selfish method was devised.

The invasion had achieved many of its goals but, after two centuries, there were still some hold outs among the native populations. Times had changed. The Europeans no longer were able to cast the indigenous ethnicities as one dimensional bad guys.  A gentler form of colonisation by stealth, treaties, had been tried but these proved unequal to the task. They left natives in possession of some highly desirable resources and worse, gave them legal rights to their territory. Many treaties had been broken by the Europeans of course but it was a slow and awkward business. The destruction of the buffalo weakened the native economy fatally and solved the problem. While resistance lingered on into the 1920s, pushing bison to the edge of extinction was, in effect, game over.

The invaders achieved in the west of 'their' continent, what a later invading force failed to do in the east of theirs between 1941 and 1945.

[Iggy Doonican 4,186]

3 hours ago, CHOULO19 said:

Labor MP shot and critically injured in what sounds like a terrorist attack. 

Hope she pulls through. 

I'm afraid she didn't. Mother of two young kids as well just senseless on every level.

[CHOULO19 24,332]

30 minutes ago, Iggy Doonican said:

I'm afraid she didn't. Mother of two young kids as well just senseless on every level.

So sad. It's just horrible on so many levels. Thoughts with her family and friends and those poor kids. 

[kellzfresh 7,229]

Damn, mother of two killed just like that by an illegal gun owner. Just so sad.  

[CHOULO19 24,332]

55 minutes ago, kellzfresh said:

Damn, mother of two killed just like that by an illegal gun owner. Just so sad.  

She was killed by a terrorist. If the eye witness accounts are true, then it was an act of violence against a civilian motivated by a political agenda. That is the definition of terrorism even if the media won't use the word because he's white. 

[kmk108 1,186]

 

[lucio 5,418]

31 minutes ago, CHOULO19 said:

She was killed by a terrorist. If the eye witness accounts are true, then it was an act of violence against a civilian motivated by a political agenda. That is the definition of terrorism even if the media won't use the word because he's white. 

the "britain first" shouts have been rubbished. sad attempt to politicise her death.

we have no idea about the motive yet, just a heartbreaking story

[Fulham Broadway 17,346]

1 hour ago, lucio said:

the "britain first" shouts have been rubbished. sad attempt to politicise her death.

we have no idea about the motive yet, just a heartbreaking story

Just had a bloke who saw her murdered, on the news. He said the killer shouted at least twice ''Britain First''.

Two other witnesses Graeme Howard and Ahmir Tahir also heard the same thing

[cosmicway 1,333]

They say now the killer was a member of a pro-apartheid action group.
Those groups have been guilty of many terrorist actions but this one was senseless.
In Greece they murdered musician Pavlos Fyssas in 2013, but the days before that they had "promised" us a hot month of actions. Whatever excuses they made up later, accident, madman killer, were proved to be false.

The murder of Jo Cox was senseless I must admit.
Although an mp, she was moving about without personal guards and exposing herself, but it was senseless for right wing activists to attempt anything now.

The killer is mad, like Bravik in Norway.
For the Brexit movement it has to be said however that it's heart beats in the neo-nazi rhythm.
Take away the ideas of ethnic cleansing and racism and there is nothing left in it - they would n't even bother to vote.
After the event I expect many similar victims of right wing violence, this time organised.
It looks bad for persons of the "wrong colour" or ethnicity.

 

[lucio 5,418]

8 hours ago, Fulham Broadway said:

Just had a bloke who saw her murdered, on the news. He said the killer shouted at least twice ''Britain First''.

Two other witnesses Graeme Howard and Ahmir Tahir also heard the same thing

amhir wasn't a witness and not even that close, and it seems to have started from him. so i'm not sure

[Muzchap 8,966]

1 hour ago, cosmicway said:

They say now the killer was a member of a pro-apartheid action group.
Those groups have been guilty of many terrorist actions but this one was senseless.
In Greece they murdered musician Pavlos Fyssas in 2013, but the days before that they had "promised" us a hot month of actions. Whatever excuses they made up later, accident, madman killer, were proved to be false.

The murder of Jo Cox was senseless I must admit.
Although an mp, she was moving about without personal guards and exposing herself, but it was senseless for right wing activists to attempt anything now.

The killer is mad, like Bravik in Norway.
For the Brexit movement it has to be said however that it's heart beats in the neo-nazi rhythm.
Take away the ideas of ethnic cleansing and racism and there is nothing left in it - they would n't even bother to vote.
After the event I expect many similar victims of right wing violence, this time organised.
It looks bad for persons of the "wrong colour" or ethnicity.

 

Mate - let me start by saying, one bad apple is not representative of the whole. 

West Yorkshire has a very diverse culture - this was one man acting like an idiot and sadly now, all MPs will be tasked with a security detail. 

The moral decline in Britain is staggering - in my lifetime (nearly 40 years) - I have seen the Police armed with nothing but a truncheon, now equipped with guns - that would have been unthinkable 20 years ago. 

The world has become a bitter and twisted place and sadly the Internet holds a big role in it. For all the good the Internet has provided, it has sadly given a voice to people with less than sane ideas - they can be whipped into a frenzy and indulge in their craziness 24x7x365 

i feel for her family

However, I don't expect further action along the lines you allude too - Britain has and will continue to work tirelessly to ensure full integration of all ethnicities. 

The easisest thing to remember is children - they have no bias or agenda at a young age and they ignore skin colour, that's the future right there! It's only the old prejudices that hold things back - those will be eradicated soon as the surviving prejudice holders die out. 

[cosmicway 1,333]

1 minute ago, Muzchap said:

Mate - let me start by saying, one bad apple is not representative of the whole. 

West Yorkshire has a very diverse culture - this was one man acting like an idiot and sadly now, all MPs will be tasked with a security detail. 

The moral decline in Britain is staggering - in my lifetime (nearly 40 years) - I have seen the Police armed with nothing but a truncheon, now equipped with guns - that would have been unthinkable 20 years ago. 

The world has become a bitter and twisted place and sadly the Internet holds a big role in it. For all the good the Internet has provided, it has sadly given a voice to people with less than sane ideas - they can be whipped into a frenzy and indulge in their craziness 24x7x365 

i feel for her family

However, I don't expect further action along the lines you allude too - Britain has and will continue to work tirelessly to ensure full integration of all ethnicities. 

The easisest thing to remember is children - they have no bias or agenda at a young age and they ignore skin colour, that's the future right there! It's only the old prejudices that hold things back - those will be eradicated soon as the surviving prejudice holders die out. 

I 'm talking about the fanatics.
It's exactly like I describe.
White jihaddists.