Comments by "Regis" (@Timbo5000) on "TED" channel.

  1. +SpadesCGU I don't see why that would be a shame. We have protected ourselves by building a government that can be trusted and is resilient to undemocratic influences (like Hitler in the 1930's). If I was living in the US I'd want to arm myself against the government too. It clearly can't be trusted. Here, things are a lot different. The way I see it, you can arm yourselfes against a hypothetical tyrannic government or you can build a system and governmental culture that prevents it from becoming tyrannic in the first place. We chose the last option and it works well. And just to be clear, we can have guns, there is just very little want for them. Only those that actually have some use for them tend to own them. Farmers usually do (one close to me needs one to chase rabbits away from his crops, for example), hunters have them for obvious reasons and a small number of gun enthusiasts also have guns just because they like to. That's it, gun ownership is pretty rare. As for the Muslim immigrants, they're mostly just regular people so it's going fine. Don't see why it wouldn't be. And btw, the migrant stream you're probably referring to has been stopped by the EU a few years ago. They're not coming and refugee camps in the Netherlands are actually mostly empty. A lot of them have been sent back, too.
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  2. +SansAuthoritas Wrong. The US government is one of the, if not the most tyrannical government in the West and has been since probably the early 1900's. Americans themselves are to blame for their government. Representation is terrible, as each politician is heavily dependent on corporations to pay for their next campaign. Those campaigns, even for small politicians, cost millions of dollars. As much as one third of their time, politicians spend lobbying for the next elections to gather this money. They defend the interests of corporations above the interests of regular American citizens. You are NOT represented. You respond by distrusting the government and clamping to your guns like a child would clamp to its teddy bear in fear of the monster under his bed. No matter how many guns you have, that government will still be there, binding you by law while improperly representing you. Someone who doesn't care about you can bind you by law. There is no self determination in America as long as this government exists. On top of that, this government does all kinds of questionable things. If an American citizen is suspected of being involved in terrorism, he can legally be abducted and tortured without trial . The NSA spies on US citizens en masse without their consent. In the past the US government has even fully banned alcoholic beverages! Clamping to your guns is equal to ignoring the corrupt nature of the US government and ACCEPTING their corrupt rule over you. What Americans need to do is face their government, not hide from it. You essentially clamp to your guns and pretend that the government can't touch you but it can. It rules you every day, guns or not. You need to confront your government and reshape it until it serves YOU. You can't just sit idly with your guns as the government is under control of corporations and constantly infringes on your rights. There's a good reason you have the second oldest constitution in the world: you never challenged the American government. Zero revolutions since 1776. In Europe we had about three since then, all with new ideas about how the government should serve us . You need to constantly and actively keep your government in check until it is exactly what you desire. Because government exists for its citizens. Our government is exactly what we want it to be, but is yours? You've sat back and did nothing for too long
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  3. +Raoul Duke Sheep? We're not the ones being ruled by a government that has no connection with its citizens, commonly chooses corporate interests over its citizens' interests, commonly spies on its own citizens, etc. and worst of all: accept that as our government. From the European perspective Americans are already being oppressed as we speak. They talk of having weapons to protect them against a tyrannic government, but I don't understand why they haven't taken up arms yet. Give Europeans the American government and they'd have revolted against it 10 times over, weapons or not. Allowing that corporate-controlled hypocrite government to exist is what I would call being a sheep.
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  4. +SansAuthoritas Hungarian revolution against communism: peaceful demonstrations turn violent - civilians arm themselves and take back control of their country - they are crushed by the Soviet army and returned to communist rule. Spanish civil war, 1930's: fascist government is battled by democratic civilians heavily supplied by allies to the point of them having almost equal amount of tanks and airplanes to the government - fascist government wins Syrian civil war: civilians arm themselves against dictator and fight for years with heavy support from America - Assad still in control and winning American revolutionary war: rebels struggle against the British and other European empires, most notably France, have to aid them to achieve victory. Without this aid, no independence. When will you understand? Your guns won't save you
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  5. +Johnny c Oh sure, in what way do we Europeans have no liberty? Do tell... The "Deep State" you speak of exists because it is exactly what we wanted in Europe. In the early 1900's, a change was made from a small government system to an elaborate welfare state BECAUSE THE CITIZENS WANTED THE GOVERNMENT TO CHANGE THIS WAY. What you fail to understand is that here in Europe the government generally takes the shape the people want it to. In the late 1800's there was a movement for more democracy, so the government system changed to be more democratic. In the early 1900's there was a movement for more social policies, so the government grew and became a welfare state. You can NOT equate the US government to any European government. Even if the government wasn't what we wanted it to be, we'd change it again! The current trend is a step back from socialism and more towards privatisation and less social policies, so we in a sense again made a change to the government (we are WAY less socialist today than we were in the 70's, for example). The government moves with the trends here.
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  6. +Johnny c You act as if we don't have constitutions ourselves. We have constitutions, a European constitution, European treaties on human rights, etc. etc. nearing almost 10 documents that protect various rights, including many that the US constitution doesn't protect. As for democracy and the tyranny of the majority, you fail to understand why we are more socialist than the US. We are tight societies in which the people are willing to pay for the wellbeing of other members of that same society. I proudly pay taxes, knowing that my fellow Dutchmen will benefit (and perhaps me, should I somehow get in trouble). We are a society that takes care of eachother. If I lose my house and whatnot, my fellow countrymen have got my back. If someone else does, I have their back. This is why even the most right parties here are arguably still more socialist than the democrats; because we WANT other Dutchmen to profit from our collective wealth. You have to understand that in Europe we have lived here as societies for (tens of) thousands of years. Be it as some Germanic tribe or as a nation, we have been here as close-knit societies for literally thousands of years. We care for eachother, even for our fellow Europeans (why do you think the EU exists?). We may not be of the same specific "tribe"/nation, but the Germans are Germanic just like we are and therefore we care for them too and regarding more distant European countries they are European so we also care for them (but as always: own nation > northern/eastern/southern Europe group you belong to > more distant Europeans). It's about being close and like-minded and therefore being willing to help. The US is more individualistic because of a different and much shorter history. Our socialist tendencies can be explained from our culture and history, your much less socialist views can be explained from your specific culture and history. In America socialism may mean "I don't have responsibilites I have rights", but in Europe it means "I care about my countrymen and I got their back". Neither are strictly speaking wrong, but both do fit the respective countries/regions nicely. You make the mistake of applying your own cultural view to Europe and saying we have "no real liberty". Then I will do the same and tell you America is an ice cold society that doesn't give a damn about others whatsoever. Saying this is a mistake as I apply European views to a country with a vastly different history which perfectly explains the individualism.
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  7. +SansAuthoritas I wasn't referring to that statement. And even so, you also said "perhaps 200 years". States aren't inherently tyrannical, it the US citizens that created the current government, or rather allowed it to become what it is now. Citizens need to actively interact with their government and challenge it if they must, lest that government come to think it can get away with being tyrannical. Tyranny doesn't just happen, it's a slow and steady process in which the government goes further and further in disregarding rights or outright removing rights. As long as the government and its citizens are strongly connected, tyranny is a long way off. We have built an a-tyrannical government over the years. In America, the distance between the government and its citizens is huge, and on top of that the citizens wilfully seem to shy away from confronting the government in any kind of meaningful way. It's like they're asking to be ruled by a tyrannical government. They allow it, as long as they have their precious teddy bear (guns, both equally useless against a truly tyrannical government) to make them stupidly believe they can't be oppressed. Every power, even the most extreme, of the government is morally acceptable through the principle of democracy and proper, untyrannical representation.
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  8. +colainc90 Nice sarcasm there
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  9. +Richard Marshall +Sean Rea I'm a law student so I'm happy to explain the difference. In and before the 1930's, there was a global belief that a democracy had to be neutral to all principles, including even fascism (whose entire purpose was to misuse democracy to abolish it and seize power). The belief was that a democracy that excluded a political belief from entering that democracy was no democracy at all, therefore it wasn't protected. This is what Hitler and Mussolini used to seize power. After WW2, this changed. You and we together built a liberal world order and a new belief gained ground that there were certain rights that belong to everyone (i.e. universal declaration of human rights, ICCPR, ICESCR, ECHR and more treaties like that). Certain rights that couldn't be taken away because they were so basic. Today, the idea is that democracy needs to be defended against anti-democratic entities. Yes, the majority rules in a democracy, but do others have the right to take away my democratic rights just because they outnumber me? No. And believe me, if this wasn't our belief during the Cold War, we'd be communist right now. Communist parties and influences were actively battled due to their totalitarian ideas. If they weren't, they'd have taken power in the same way Hitler did. A very good modern example of the so-called militant democracy is Turkey in 2003. First I'll explain that in Europe we have the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR). Everyone from the Netherlands to even Russia is part of it. And so are some semi-European states including Turkey and Azerbaijan. It's a treaty about basic human rights, like freedom of speech, ban on death penalty, ban on torture, etc. and has its own supranational court that can bind members of the treaty. Kind of a pan-European constitutional judge, if you will. Now, in 2003 Turkey had a huge party that was set to win the elections. They were projected to get a landslide victory of 67+ percent of votes. But then... the leader of this party said something. He wanted to have a sharia law state. Upon further inquiry they stood by this ideal. The government then made that party illegal. 4 million party members suddenly out of a job, the biggest party of Turkey at that moment just gone at an instant. And most importantly: it was a completely non-violent political party like any other. The party went to the European Court of European Rights, which stated that sharia law is incompatible with the principles of democracy and therefore, a complete ban on the political party was completely justified (of course heavily simplified, but that's the core). In the 1930's the Weimar Republic stood at the sidelines as a party that existed for the sole purpose to destroy democracy from within gained ground (and they were violent to boot, which makes condoning the party even worse). In present day Europe, a fascist, communist, islamic or otherwise undemocratic party is illegalised quickly. And if you continue to work for that party despite it being illegal you can be prosecuted. Mind you, I've just explained one of dozens of failsafes meant to protect democracy. Just one of many. Discussing how our democracy is protected against anti-democratic influences would take a book or two. It's solidly protected
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  10. +SadWings Raging There's just a difference in how Europeans and Americans view the government. We see the government as something positive that represents us. We built a strong government that is protected against becoming an oppressor in the first place. We see the government as something that is an instrinsic part of our lives and something that exists to serve us. If it's built in a proper way, it can never become oppressing. There's a strong connection between citizens and the government here. In America there's a gap between the government and its citizens. A rather big one. American politics more often than not don't serve the American people at all, but prefer to serve themselves or corporations. I fully understand why you'd want to arm yourself against that government. The American government is disconnected from its citizens. That is what makes it dangerous and a possible oppressor (if you ask me American citizens are already being oppressed, it's beyond me why nobody seems to have outed serious concerns over the way the government acts there, but whatever). If I lived in the US I'd want guns too.
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  11. +madmatt097 Hahahaha, you think European empires helped you because of shared beliefs? Not quite... we wanted to annoy the Brits. Your independence was a secondary result of rivalry between European empires. It's a plain fact that without especially French intervention, the Americans would have been very likely to lose, almost certain even. "Not because we needed it", sure You speak of terrorist attack but after France you have the most deaths due to terrorism lately. If we include non-islamic mass shootings and such you're number one. The US constitution was made on the basis of the Plakkaat van Verlatinghe (1581) and the English Bill of Rights (1689). Being anti-tyranny was not new, especially since it literally copies the Plakkaat van Verlatinghe in how it justifies the independence. "There is no country like it" ahahaha. That last bit is exactly my point; the US is protected against tyranny because the US army and other institutions are pro Bill of Rights, etc. and NOT because of the right to bear arms. As I said before, you need to make your institutions resilient against anti-democratic influences, NOT trust on armed civilians (a stupid idea from the very start). Your safety relies IN FULL on the willingness of insitutions to respect your rights. The moment they are corrupted, you're screwed with or without guns. It's not the guns that save you, it's the low level of corruptability of insitutions. You have proven only one thing in the US and that's how you can make civilians accept downright crazy things from the government if only you give them guns and tell them they're safe. You have the most corrupted government in the west. Your government spies on you. Your government can abduct and torture you without trial if you're a suspected terrorist. Your government cares only about corporations due to their "donations" keeping the current political parties in power in an artifial manner. You live in a country without proper representation and clamping to your guns will not change this. Try and set up your own political party and you'll find out how chanceless you are at voicing your own opinion in parliament. Does the US government truly represent the people if there is so little freedom to enter parliament and so little diversity in terms of political parties? The quality of the parties doesn't dictate how much seats they get; it's their capability of attracting the most corporate donations to invest it in campaigns. Lastly about freedom of speech, all you have to do is look at the core reason we have it. Voicing our opinions freely in a democratic society so we can have constructive discussions about the future of our coutry and rights. Where does hate speech and unnecessary personal insults fit in there again? That's right, it doesn't. It adds nothing of value to democracy AND damages personal lives of individuals. And hate speech can even lead to violence and disorder. Is riling up others with hate speech so they go on and commit violent offences a right? Is bombarding someone with personal insults a right? Should it be? Does it add anything at all to a democracy? There's more reason not to have it than to have it. Hate speech and personal insults/slander adds nothing but misery to a democracy. Voicing your opinion in a civilised manner does add to a democracy, as long as that opinion doesn't involve mass murder or something like that.
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  12. +Michal Niewiadomski And what can citizens with guns do? Are you going to defeat a modern army with some hunting rifles? Countries with armed populations and countries without armed populations are equally screwed if a fascist comes to power, whether you like it or not. It's a fantasy that a bunch of civilians can match a modern standing army, especially nowadays with body armour and equipment like tanks, armoured cars and helicopters. European resistance forces in WW2 were armed by the British with top-notch military firearms that matched what the Germans had, yet all they could do was harrass the Germans here and there and hide. And this was against a foreign invading force, not against a domestic fascist that would have support locally from other civilians and employ propaganda to brainwash the citizens. When a fascist slowly takes power, you have to question whether the citizens will even take up arms AT ALL. An intelligent fascist slowly takes power and makes sure the citizens won't want to revolt until it's already too late for that revolt to matter and/or will brainwash civilians into never revolting in the first place so that only those smart enough to withstand this will think of resisting. Germans, for example, at first thought Hitler was a good thing for Germany. Why would they take up arms against him at that point? Then he slowly took power and used propaganda against Britain and other European countries to shift focus from his power grab to the "foreign threat", distracting the civilians and hiding his ambitions for power. Any dissidents were dealt with before they could organise and resist. Fascism isn't a clear enemy of your rights, it's something that is slowly slipped in there. The point is that they take power without the civilians noticing and even with plenty of support. But let's assume the civilians get organised against a fascist government that has taken power already. Especially nowadays, those civilians would be crushed under a modern army. They'd arguably be even more helpless than European resistance forces were to overthrow the Germans by themselves. What are you going to do against a helicopter above you picking off the white dots on his thermal vision with his cannon? Here are some examples from history of fascism/communism taking power despite the citizens actually resisting and being armed. The Spanish civil war. The citizens for democracy fought the ruling fascists and were supplied so well they had tanks and airplanes (the difference was so small that the fascists had 290 tanks and the resistance 200. The fascists had 600 planes and the resistance 350). The fascists won regardless and oppressed the population. In 1956, there was a nationwide revolution against the Soviets in Hungary. Local people started peaceful protests against Communism. These protests turned violent after rumours about protestors being shot in other places. They overran local forces at first and started arming themselves, they even seized Soviet tanks. In the end, the government was overthrown, partly because the Hungarian military sympathised and generally didn't fight. Then... the Soviets invaded again and crushed the revolution. They imprisoned and internalised thousands and a couple hundred thousand fled the country. The communist party slowly gained control over Hungary again and after a few years things were back to "normal". This shows two things: an unarmed population is capable of arming themselves against an oppressive government and an armed population is equally helpless against a modern military as an unarmed one. In the end, an unarmed country with good legal preventions against fascism/communism taking power is better protected than an armed country without those preventions. Just imagine what would've happened with the Turkish sharia party I talked about in my previous comment if the party was never made illegal and instead was capable of taking power, but civilians took up arms to protect their democratic rights. There would have been a heavily divided country and a bloody civil war, with a higher percentage of the country actually supporting the undemocratic sharia party. Who was better protected, the militant democracy unarmed Turkey or the fully democratic but armed Turkey? Europe is better protected against undemocratic parties than gun-toting America is: fact. They trust their guns too much, equally naïve as Germans trusting their democracy in the 1930's. If the same instance as with that Turkish party would happen in America, the party would not have been made illegal and would be in government with a majority seat. The opposing citizens might take up arms and plunge the country into a civil war. One side would be a minority group of armed civilians and the other side would be the government plus the majority of civilians supporting them. I wonder who would've won... Your argument is invalid
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  13. +Michal Niewiadomski It seems we actually agree on most points, except perhaps the significance of firearms. I'm also for gun possession, or more specifically; I support the status quo in most of Europe. 1. Yes, an armed population will make a fascist think twice when compared to an unarmed one. But an armed population pales in importance when looking at the possible legal and other possible preventions against fascism. As mentioned before, fascism is all about grabbing power under the radar and brainwashing the population into supporting you. The further they're brainwashed, the further the powergrab can go. The reason for this is that whether the population is armed or not, a nationwide revolution against the standing government is a huge problem. The point of fascism is to take your democratic rights away while having you cheer for it. Attempting to take such rights away from a population that doesn't want it, will inevitably result in that fascist failing. A fascist power grab is a delicate process and entirely dependent on the amount of people it can influence into supporting it. In short, in the early phase of fascism it's irrelevent whether the population has weapons. Any large resistance against the fascist would mean he's done for. In the later phase, where fascism is firmy in saddle and enjoys control over all institutions, things are different. An armed population is going to be in a better position, since the fascists at this point are capable of suppressing resistance. An unarmed population would need to arm itself first (á la Hungarian revolution). The unarmed population is far from helpless, but the armed one enjoys a headstart, if you will. However, in prevention of fascists coming to power, both populations are equally capable, since weapons and violence plays no role in that stage: it's about gaining support in that case. 2. I completely agree, in any scenario it's preferrable to own a gun. 3. At this point we seem to be shifting from domestic oppression to an outside invader. Yes, an armed population is more of a threat than an unarmed one, but is it a relevant threat? If Russia would be prepared to invade the EU, with all the deaths that'd come with it, would the fact that there's 80 million civilian owned firearms here bother them? The main defence of any nation should be the military. If the military is not enough to dissuade a foreign power from invading, neither is a collection of armed civilians, organised or not. An entity that decides to attack the US or EU is prepared to take millions of casualties and in fact risk the destruction of their own country by counterinvasion (not even considering allies of the US or EU aiding them). Armed civilians are not pivotal in such decisions, and if they are, that country has a pitiful excuse of a military. When Germany introduced the volkssturm (arming all civilians from young to old), the allies were more relieved that apparently the German army was on the decline than they were concerned about millions of armed civilians (under potent military command, mind you). When we're talking about invading countries and the casualties that can cause, the armed civilians and possible casualties they can cause are a side note. 4. This point I fully agree with. A society trained with weapons on that level would significantly improve the defence of a country. Civilians would de facto be incorporated in the military. This has the advantage of having a military that can be mobilised with incredible speed. There's a good reason Finland has 1.4 million reservists, and Switzerland also has a system that allows such rapid mobilisation. During the cold war, so did most European countries, in fact (not exactly like that though). 5. I believe in the same principles, but not in the ability to personally defend them with violence. That should be the role of a capable police force and military, in my view. The thing about violence is that it itself is also something that we are opposed to or at least deem unwanted in a peaceful society. This means that in order to protect values of society you sometimes need to breach other values of society. That is what using violence is in this context: protecting values by violating values. To keep the violation of values to an absolute minimum, we must make sure that only the minimum needed violation of one value (use of violence against citizens) is employed to protect the endangered value. Only a competent police force can do this properly. Entrusting protection of values to citizens will in every case mean that excessive violence is used to protect those values. For example: killing a robber is excessive violence, unless it was done to protect another life, in which case it was the minimum necessary violence to protect the endangered life. A society that entrusts civilians with the protection of values is a society with excessive violation of values. 6. If there was a robber in my house I'd want the most effective weapon to defend myself, being a gun. Gun possession should be possible, but not for the purpose of protecting oneself against anything. I believe in professionals that protect civilians with respect for everyone's rights. I don't want to live in a country where people can arbitrarily get shot for stealing a candy bar, as a matter of speaking. I believe that gun possession should be possible for those that have a proper use for a gun or simply are gun enthusiasts, but I fundamentally disagree with the idea that everybody should have guns for protection. At the same time, guns should never be taken away. Keep in mind that there actually isn't a dramatic difference between US and European gun laws in general. In the EU you have background checks (criminal record, mental health) for everything, more strict checks for more dangerous weapons (semi-automatic somewhat modern rifles) and can't own fully automatic guns. In America there is no checks that I'm aware of and fully automatic weapons are legal but very difficult to obtain (heavy background checks and more. The reason for the disparity in gun ownership manly lies in culture differences. If I want to get a gun, I can. I just don't feel the need to. As for shooting a rifle, I can't say I've ever shot a proper one. I have shot an air gun, but that's not a proper rifle. I've also shot blanks on a C8 (Canadian M4, basically), but that's no actual shooting. I do have to say that since not so long ago I've been quite interested in some WW2 rifles and hope to one day shoot the Lee Enfield, perhaps own one because of my interest in it. But that's been one of those things I want to do but never really come around to pursuing. I might own one some day
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  14. +Just_guy_stuff Oh just drop this stupid meme. Does the citizenry of the US have an equal amount of tanks and fighter planes as the government? Well they did in the Spanish Civil War and still lost to the fascist government! Do you also think that the US citizenry is better equipped than military grade weapons that the US supplied to Syrian rebels plus the military vehicles they had access to? No, because many of those weapons are illegal to own in the US, they were still destroyed by the government (with less developed and less numerous equipment than the US military). Not only are you hopeless in the face of a modern army, but you are considerably less equipped than citizens that have failed in the past, while fighting a considerably better equipped enemy . Your safety against tyranny is 100% dependent on the government and its military
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  15. +discodench By giving everyone the right to self defence you create a chaotic society in which everyone uses violence when they see fit. By granting the government the monopoly on violence, you create a police force that protects the citizens and only uses violence where it's absolutely necessary. In this type of society there is no chaos and the least possible amount of violence is applied. It's a much safer society. There is no reason to give everyone a gun when there's better ways of keeping society safe. The police applies less violence and when it does it applies it proportionally and also consistently. There is no random application of violence, like when citizens are allowed to protect themselves. Why should the government not have a monopoly on violence?
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  16. +madmatt097 And European armies are any different? Just face it: the ultimate defence against a totalitarian government is to build institutions that are nigh incorruptable. America isn't protected against tyranny by ownership of weapons (armed citizens would be beyond hopeless against the US army), but because of US institutions having a low chance of becoming tyrannical. And guess what? European institutions have built in multiple safe guards after WW2 to make sure something like that never happens again. The US doesn't have the same level of safeguards and even they are moderately safe from going tyrannical. European countries are so well protected that a totalitarian party can literally become the biggest party and still be barred from ruling (tried and tested: in early 2000's Turkey the biggest party wanted to introduce sharia law... it was promptly disbanded and made illegal. It had 2 million members and was set to win the elections, yet it was succesfully destroyed before it could introduce oppressive religious laws). This is not specifically directed at you, but the notion that the US is better protected because of guns is crazy. The idea of armed citizenry rivalling the government has been outdated for a literal century by now, if it was even relevant at all (after all, even the US itself relied on European empires such as France to intervene in their revolution, otherwise it'd have been a sure loss). The plain fact is that European, gun-less societies are much better protected than the US is against tyranny because we learned from WW2 that our democratic system must be vigilant against anti-democratic forces. We incorporated defences in our actual system rather than relying on firearms.
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  17. +madmatt097 Wrong, according to the world freedom index, America is behind just about all of Western Europe, a substantial amount of Eastern Europe, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Japan and more. You have less political and civil freedom in the US and that's a fact. Gun ownership won't change that... especially since you can own guns just fine in Europe too, if you don't have a history in mental institutions. Nor will absolute freedom of speech, because what you fail to understand is that rights are not a one way road. My absolute freedom of speech would enable me to use my right to invade on other's rights through for example hate speech against them. Why should I need to accept hate speech against me or slander that can affect my reputation? Even in Roman times this was already illegal and for most of history a man would challenge you for a duel to the death for opening your mouth in the wrong way. Compare it to freedom of movement; I have the right to go where I please, but does that mean I can also enter your house at will? No, that would invade your personal space. Rights have to be balanced with eachother, not be absolute to the point of seriously affecting other people's personal lives. And about governments, yours is corrupt and cares more about companies' "donations" than the actual citizens of America. You have so little political freedom that you can barely choose between more than two parties and have zero chance to enter politics with a new party. The success of parties is reliant on the amount of donations they get from corporations, which enable them to launch billion dollar campaigns. Anyone without at least a multi-million dollar budget is doomed to lose. Here in the Netherlands all you need is 30k signatures of support for your own party and you get equal air time to the established ones... Just last elections, 2 new parties entered parliament, of which one is now projected to become one of the biggest next elections. And we have 15+ parties in there, with a wide range of ideals. That is REAL liberty, an actual opportunity to defend your views in parliament instead of the artificial choice you get in the US. You just don't understand what liberty means if you seriously think owning firearms is even remotely relevant for it... You're just stuck in your idiot founding fathers meme about firearms being able to defend against tyranny even though they themselves needed European empires like France and the Netherlands to intervene in the revolution! Remember that without other European empires, the Americans would have had little chance of winning. It was a mediocre idea at best when it was conceived and already hopelessly outdated by... say the 1930's, when the difference between the military and citizens became larger and larger. At this point a truly cruel government can just sit back, relax and murder hundreds of civilians with a joystick and a monitor like it is a bloody game (drones). Yeah your AR-15 will totally save you. You're one of the least free western countries and that's a fact, only some Eastern European countries score lower and you're at the absolute bottom of the first world, with even some second world countries beating you; https://freedomhouse.org/report/freedom-world/freedom-world-2017#anchor-one
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  18. +Sean Rea Just about every western state is built like that. The lower you get in the decentralisation, the closer you get to the people. Yet, in European countries (at least most) the government also is deeply connected with its citizens on a national level. Germany, for instance, even has states like the US with a very comparable position within Germany (quite autonomous). But that doesn't mean the national government is further away from the citizens. The only difference between national and local government is the type of subjects they get to make laws on, not how separated they are from the population. Strange part is that it's almost the opposite in Europe. People care a lot more about national politics than they do local. A lot more people vote in national elections than they do in local elections (myself included). A possible explanation could be that national issues are usually more important than local issues, so strangely I and many others actually feel more connected to national than local government. The national government should be every bit as connected to the citizens as local government should. ALL of the government should be. It's not normal that any segment of the government is as separated from its citizens as the US parliament. If US parliament would properly represent and care about the citizens, I'm sure that Americans would feel more connected with the government. But the reality is that they don't. Campaigning for the elections costs millions and on presidential level even billions at times. Where does this money come from? Corporations that fund individual members of the US parliament. And who can blame those members of parliament for lobbying (btw, 1/3 of all their time is spent on lobbying with corporations to ensure their seat in the next elections, wow)? How is one person going to get millions (just to be able to pay for his own campaign), not just once but every election? It's a horrible system. If you want to even have a chance at entering parliament, you need to lobby. Even Hillary Clinton, a millionaire herself, had to lobby hard to get the money just for one election campaign. Donald Trump, a billionaire, lobbied for funding of his campaign (though a lot less than anyone else would). This is what creates a government that is more worried about what their funders think than actual US citizens. They regard the interests of their own party and of their funders as more important than America itself. Democrats and Republicans constantly block eachother's propositions for this very reason. It's in America's interest for them to work together and create quality laws. Instead, either nothing happens because the other party blocks it or one party gets to push something through. Meanwhile in my country, the Netherlands, our previous government consisted of VVD (right wing liberals) and PvdA (left wing socialists) working together. They are complete opposites, like the Democrats and Republicans. They'd normally never work together. Yet, the Netherlands at the time had serious problems with the economic crisis. They were the two biggest parties and a coalition with many small parties would be too unstable for proper governance. So they put aside their differences and went in a coalition. It's what we call a "purple" cabinet (red and blue together) and happens rarely. They saw that the Netherlands needed a government ASAP so they both did HUGE concessions and in the end, both put away their party's interests in favour of Dutch interests. And indeed, one of those parties paid for it. The socialists weren't happy with the concessions, so they voted for other leftist parties en masse. The PvdA went from the second biggest party in the country to one of the smallest (3rd or 4th smallest of about 15 parties). That's the equivalent of the Democrats going from what they are now to the size of the Libertarian party or another one of those 2-3 seat parties in the US. It was dramatic for them after being a prominent party for decades. They committed political suicide to prevent the Netherlands from suffering unnecessarily under an ineffective government (the VVD got away with it somehow, I guess more forgiving voters). In the US they chose the ineffective government. That's one of the best examples of the difference in mentality.
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  19. +Richard Marshall Sure, and you talk about "God-given rights", yet it's openly known that your government spies on civilians and you do nothing , what about your "God-given right" of privacy? It's openly known that lobbyists almost fully control politicians and their voting behaviour and you do nothing , what about your right to self determination (democracy)? A government that doesn't properly represent you can bind you by law and you tell me I'm being oppressed? Your police loves pulling the trigger real fast, meaning the government is actually killing civilians almost on a daily basis and you do nothing about it. The government can legally abduct Americans and put them in a torture camp if they suspect them of being involved in terrorism (without trial!) and you do nothing . That's the right to a fair trial and prohibition of torture straight up ignored. I find it quite funny how Americans always speak of owning weapons to defend themselves from a tyrannical government, because if I was American I'd have started defending my rights decades ago. It's crazy how much you accept from the government. It's not about it being big or small, it's about fighting for a proper government. I wish you had as much adoration for your fundamental rights as you espouse your precious firearms. And if the voters in my country would suddenly want firearms for whatever reason, it's done. Politics here actually represent the people. Just last elections, two new parties entered parliament and one of them is already projected to become one of the biggest next elections. All you need is 30k signatures and you're in the race. And unlike in the US, where one has to turn to big companies to fund their multi-million or even billion-dollar campaign, here everyone gets the same amount of money and equal time on television. If the voters want weapons, they get it. If you want something from politicians, he has to wonder whether his sugar daddy will still pay for his next campaign or if it's game over for his political career. New party? No money for the campaign. What you don't understand is that the status quo in Europe is the result of civilians constantly standing up to government. All the way from the time of kings to the early days of parliaments. Revolution after revolution introduced new ideas of how government should be and every time the government fell. America prefers to stay the same, for better or worse. You're one of the newest countries, yet you have the second or third oldest constitution in the world. You missed a few revolutions, you never challenged the government, not even once. Stuck in 1776. If Europeans were living under the US government, a revolution would have already started today. What your government does is unacceptable
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  20.  @jeremygrimes9006  The US Iraqi invasion got over 1 million people killed; they were armed. The Vietnam War saw anywhere between 1 and 4 million Vietnamese die (stats vary); they were armed to the teeth. After WW2, Germans were placed in gulags and concentration camp-like circumstances, millions died (multiple millions in Soviets gulags, possibly up to 1 million in a US concentration camp in Germany with the true statistics unknown); they were not only armed but one of the most advanced militaries on the planet and by the end of the war civilians were armed en masse too. The Native Americans in the USA were genocided despite being armed too. In the Yugoslav wars all sides were armed to the teeth, yet both sides managed to commit ethnic cleansing on various occasions. There are many more examples.
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  21.  @jeremygrimes9006  No, the point of the 2nd amendment is to defend against a tyrannical government and I'm pointing out that this is an idiotic way of battling that. Weapons won't help you against even a military that is your match, let alone a military that is many times more advanced and has all kinds of tech you don't have. What you need is a proper system to PREVENT tyranny from gaining power. In the Spanish civil war, the people even got tanks and warplanes to fight the government and at some point had comparable numbers. They still lost. Even having comparable tech is not a guarantee to win against a tyrannical government, let alone some guns (which can't even be fully automatic in most cases). It's stupid to think the 2nd amendment protects against anything, it's a futile law that is hopelessly outdated and arguably even stupid and futile from the very moment it was thought up. Maybe it will save you in a fairy tale world
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  22.  harrylongbaugh1  That is exactly my point: you are protected against a tyrannical government not because of the 2nd amendment (like... AT ALL) but instead because your institutions are designed in such a way to spread power and prevent tyrannical governments from taking power. A tyrannical government is highly unlikely to succeed in America because of the military and other institutions. Owning weapons does nothing and I do mean absolutely nothing against a tyrannical government. If they have the military on their side it's over, guns or no guns. So the 2nd amendment does absolutely nothing in terms of preventing tyranny, it is other aspects of the constitution that do this, just like in any other country.
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