Comments by "Frenchie’s Philosophy" (@tsuich00i) on "Do We Need Stricter Gun Control? - The People Speak" video.

  1. Nexus Organization If your Law enforcement is killing you, and you feel confident in operation of a firearm, as well as empathize with the young, old, or ill-minded unable to protect themselves in the event of abuse or being taken advantage of, perhaps you should join them instead of fending for yourself and relying on vigilante justice to solve your problems.  And don't tell Europeans we can't tell you how you should Live. Europe founded your little new world extravaganza, and have dictated the cultural landscape of the United States for five hundred years. We're not about to stop now. Where civilized society is concerned, we know best. 
    7
  2. Ciscogrande Western, perhaps, but "civilized" is a generous attribute to attach to the United States. 
    5
  3. Connor Dunn As a matter of fact, it does. Colonization is the process by which people are 'civilized'. That is not to say however, that the "process"- the means by which you get there- is right.  Rome conquered and civilized the tribesmen from whence I descend, for which I am eternally grateful, and how did we repay them? By killing them, leaving us in the dark ages.  So yes, it's not always pretty but it is very necessary. 
    3
  4. Jaime Rios There is plenty of American support for greater gun control. But as with most anything else, the public lacks the political will, and your nonfunctional form of government yields nothing. 
    3
  5. Nexus Organization Actually my country, France, provided both the necessary arms and training to win you your trifling insurrection.  Why the militia men, most of them farmhands with the brain the size of beans they harvested, didn't know the first thing about warfare, never mind which end of the bayonet goes where, before educated, and well equipped French Veterans of the Europe Theatre came on the scene.
    2
  6. Jaime Rios "It was the British who wrote the constitution and that it the document we follow."  Rouseau, (liberal social contract) Montesque (seperation of powers) Voltaire (Religious tolerance) and so on, are just a few of the influences of the French that proved instrumental in the composition of that document.  What, you didn't reeeaallly think the Founding fathers pulled the ideas they enshrined in their constitution out of their ass did you? If by some chance you did, well then you make my point for me.  P.S. I don't think the founders would look kindly on being referred to as "British" at this late stage of the game. You know, with America being a country and all by now, and the fact that (spoiler:) the constitution wasn't written in Britain. 
    2
  7. fmlAllthetime I don't know. Seems like just about anyone who get's there hands on one has a burning desire to use it. I'd hardly call this "phenomena" an isolated event in human history.  I mean my people invited the Guillotine, and it was tuns of fun for a while, believe me, on second thought don't because I wan't there, but i've heard stories to that effect, anyway, at the end of the day it was a terrible mess, and, as hard as it is to imagine, killing people senseless is bad press. Who knew?  More seriously, an instrument of destruction, invented and intended to be used, especially in the context of war, where mass casaulties are the aim (thats why shooting sprees are so deadly: the imitate military scenarios), can never be "redeemed" as something less dangerous then what it is made to be.  It doesn't matter that they're inanimate when people are always there to animate them! so that oversimplified contention is nonsense. There is however, some pretty basic mathematics to the contrary however. Less guns = less harm. If you reduce the temptation of an individual to live-out their fantasies by denying them the opportunity to do so through a lack of means to kill, then the problem is no more. 
    2
  8. Jaime Rios Laws cannot be made right, no matter how much they try. Laws can only follow from the just.  it is fairly apparent to any by-standard of American society that there is a problem there. How people within that society can be so deluded as to this forlorn conclusion is bizzare and bewildering to those of us on the "outside" of central nexus of world power that is the United States. If you were using that power for good, like say world war II, no one would be complaining. 
    2
  9. Connor Dunn When did I say it helped?
    2
  10. Jaime Rios lol, the shortsightedness in this statement is almost as alien to me as I seem to you.  Neither do you! Is there a referendum coming up? Has your senator written back to you? Have you ever even been asked what local statutes should stand? Do you really claim to even have the most remote advantage over me when it comes how the federal government regulates firearms? Really?  You keep thinking that. 
    2
  11. Connor Dunn It did. I don't think that even a historical point of contention...  a basic definition of "civilized" is to live in cities. Did Europeans get indigenous peoples to settle permanent dwellings? If the answer is yes, then those people meet the minimuim requirements of what it means to be "civilized".  Civilization has a more nuanced connotation, but that's a more complicated topic. However, anyone living in a city interested in how to organize their community, will civilize themselves naturally and without the intervention of some third party. 
    2
  12. Jaime Rios You do know how the senate works right? As a percentage of the population, those new incumbents represent a meager morsel of the country.  So while the south-central United States might be more fortified in their stance against "liberal" ideas of not shooting other, for the urban centers that actually compose the vast majority of the United States, this is not new, and they are far from few. 
    2
  13. fmlAllthetime To be fair to myself and mr. Rios, the topic shifted from the moral matter, to one concerning the reason to care at all. Because if you can't do anything about it, it serves to nothing to invest yourself in trouble to begin with, that is illogical.  I have already gone over my ethical principles throughout this thread.  You would do better to follow the flow of the conversation before commenting. 
    2
  14. fmlAllthetime If you're not inclined to trust your government, you have two options:  1. Change it.  2. Move. Arming yourself to the teeth to spite "the man" isn't exactly the adult way to handle one's grievances.
    2
  15. fmlAllthetime This comment is so frawt is vaunted, indignant stupidity, it hardly warrants reference to. But here are a few points for anyone else interested in precisely how maniacal you are.  1. Wars are expensive. Governments rarely make a profit from them. Remind me, how much debt did Iraq rep up for you?... Oh and that's rhetorical.  2. Police, real police, require training, discipline, organization, and most importantly knowledge of the law, ALL things the average citizen lacks in abundance. They also must coordinate between themselves to prevent and end crime in an ever-evolving elicit environment. All of this seems to escape you however.  3. Psychology isn't magic. Many men see and use guns as a way to assert there masculinity, forcing people to pay attention to them, because they failed to develop the social skills necessary to be confidant in who they are in-themselves, which grows into a negative and twisted self-image which casts everyone around them in a poor, and even paranoid light. (your distrust of all public organizations is a good example of this) Which is done to avoid the a self-critical look at how they might be wrong. It is something in their childhood I would gather, leaving them damaged and broken, a danger to the public and therefor useless to the rest of society, which is a source of resentment on their part, and the cause of lashing out and clinging to guns as their only outlet and power they have over the world. That is it's most extreme expression, but those who find it with themselves to act on their fantasies, are symptoms of a larger, more common problem. 
    2
  16. fmlAllthetime You have it in the reverse- your argument was my right (to bear arms) is necessitated by some insane notion that I could potentially overthrow a tyrannical government, with my trusty shotgun and my dog, Toto.  "This is an unethical statement from you as well of you." I didn't know there were two mes. Next time you see me tell him I said hello.  Also, you whine a lot about the perceived irrationality of other people when you seem to succumb alot to it yourself...
    2
  17. fmlAllthetime 1. nnnooooo, wars make profit for the military-industrial complex, and major corporations intertwined with the political body, but not a dime goes to wellfare, healthcare, public services, infastructure, or the treasury department. Unless you can show proof, I call bullshit.  government isn't in the business of making money because it isn't a business. Government oversees the orderly conduct of it's citzens, and fair and equal participation each plays in the economy, through rules and regulations. You haven't the slightest clue what your talking about.  2. Proof that your police system is flawed doesn't not make policing a flawed enterprise. Talk about fallacious.  3. http://onlinestatbook.com/case_studies_rvls/guns/index.html
    2
  18. The2ndPatriot Few posses the skill and rigor to become pilots, many succumb to the selfish desire to play guns at the expense of their fellow man.  All news is biased, what would you have me read? That you suggest I do not have my "own opinion" but am the mouth-piece of someone else is not only insulting, but a sign of bias on your part, not my! I wonder if you would say the same if I had the right (your) opinion. Somehow I doubt it.  Until you have cause to claim otherwise, I remain comfortably confidant I understand plenty. 
    2
  19. fmlAllthetime LOL you said "the government", which refers to everyone in it. (it's a totality) I don't know how more straight forward it gets then that.  Additionally, saying "fallacies are not allowed" falls for the fallacy fallacy.  I've had more luck communicating with children, and they catch on a lot quicker... 
    2
  20. ***** gee thanks for that brilliant input. It's so much more clear now that I have your worthless opinion in mind. 
    2
  21. fmlAllthetime What the hell is an actual debate?  Oh and you deleted the comment. There is literally no comment of yours above my second response. Nice move. 
    2
  22. The2ndPatriot If it really was so few, it wouldn't be a problem, and if your denying there is a problem, your not paying attention.  everyone has an agenda. What makes corporations special is that they have money. Do you know what individuals do when they get money? Incorporate their organization(s) so that their opinions get heard.  if your smart, you can read into the opinions of others, see past them, and get to whats important. Thats always been the case. People who whine about "bias in the media" don't know how to read. 
    2
  23. fmlAllthetime Here it is: "so only the government whom we all know never lies or murders unarmed civilians should have access to these arms." Quite the blanket statement, point and case.  Your quite an angry person for someone who complains so much about everyone else. 
    2
  24. fmlAllthetime You never made that distinction, I looked at your follow ups carefully to compare.  More blanket statements about government as a whole by you:  "my corrupt government?" "Government is a monopoly on force in a given geographical area." There isn't room for interpretation. Your mind is made up. 
    2
  25. fmlAllthetime Yes, and you added that qualifier only after I protested the blanket statements.  Here is your original statement, proceeding that: " If you believe that a corrupt organization that murders people for profit can own weapons" No distinctions here. My how you love to reinvent your argument every other post.  Your agitation is so charmly quaint. It's like watching monkeys at the zoo throw feces at the glass. 
    2
  26. fmlAllthetime Your like a parody show powered by anger, huffing and puffing, saying next to nothing while you blow hot air into the room. How delightful.  oh and what about a "monopoly of force" is unethical?  By the way, I don't have to argue for authoritarianism: It's a fact about how human organize themselves, universally. There is no such thing as a libertarian society, and all those that have tried, have failed. 
    2
  27. fmlAllthetime I very much doubt you need a reason to get upset, lol.
    2
  28. fmlAllthetime Your personal life and view does not interest me. You talk about illogical a lot, yet you have yet to describe the contradiction or error in my argument whatsoever. You are spouting a mere tautology, and that is poor form. 
    2
  29. fmlAllthetime That is one contradiction, not two. And it isn't even one: Force is not synonymous with violence, we are "forced" to do things all the time, and with good purpose, like school for example. Unless your prepared to argue that school is unethical, in which you'l find yourself in poor company.
    2
  30. fmlAllthetime you give them no other option.  I don't have to hurt my cat in order to keep it inside the house. 
    2
  31. fmlAllthetime It's an analogue. It's logically equivalent. A cat is like a child, I am like the government.  We force people who are over the age of eighteen (and under, laws still apply to minors) to do the speed limit. All laws fall within the perimeters of "forced"- if you don't believe in force, you don't believe in law.  At the very worst, a government is granted the power by law to restrain* a disorderly,  non-rule abiding citizen, in the event they are unwilling to comply (if they are unable by menta/physical disability they aren't punishable) and then either made to pay a due to the community, or detained and confined for their safety and the safety of others. There is nothing violent about that. Police Brutality is a feature of the American policing system, most of the western world has found a way to go about enforcing the law without resorting to violence.  *restraint is not violent for the following logical reason: restraint is in fact, the prevention of violence by apprehending the offending subject, and securing his faculties (limbs usually), so that he can not bring harm to himself or others. 
    2
  32. fmlAllthetime I was not comparing rights, because an analogue is not a direct comparison. If you were a writer, you would know that. I was comparing the status and power dynamics of cats relative to myself. People and their government share a similar relationship.  What is unprovoked about the enforcement of law? It's the opposite of unprovoked: a crime must be committed beforehand. You are retreating from your original position by adding another meaningless distinction as you did before.  what earlier examples? 
    2
  33. fmlAllthetime Government exists at many different levels, in many different ways.  If you like Presidents, there's the executive, if you like Judge's you've got your judicial, if you fancy a new law or two, try out the Congress.  If your like me, and want to keep radiation out of your food, and curse words out of your day time television, you've got your FDA, FCC, and EPA. My favorite kind of government.  If you want something that has the most immediate impact, look into your city council or mayor.  Political Parties aren't the best place to look to improve upon the structure and function of government.  Democrats and Republicans don't have to differentiate themselves, because they know it's only between the two of them, so as long as the cater culturally to their camps, it doesnt matter: the South will go red, the coasts will go blue. It has nothing to do with liberal or conservative. That is the problem with only having two. In Europe, we enjoy a variety of parties that have to work hard for our vote. 
    2
  34. Nexus Organization One need not know anything about the constitution to discern right from wrong. 
    1
  35. fmlAllthetime 1st reason. "other than... blah blah blah" It also has the right to eat, shelter, etc. Sounds like rights to me. First reason debunked.  2nd reason: the analogue was to children. Children have no say in what they do. They have rights, but they are not actors, they can not assert their will or have say in society. "limited physical control" What other control is there? Mind control? Lol. Objection sustained.  3rd. It is possible I have more than one cat. As for me having to be a cat, that isn't important to the analogue, because that isn't the "like" quality I am targeting.  What makes me an arbitrary force over my cat? I adopted my cat, take care of it, it likes me, its a fairly reciprocal relationship. "cats cannot overthrow your will" Cats run away all the time. Like kids.  "We as the people can" So what? What does that have to do with ethicacy of government? Your sidetracking into oblivion over a very simple analogue which has clearly gone over your head, so I will repeat my even simpler original question- What is unethical about a monopoly of force?
    1
  36. fmlAllthetime now your returning to an even early argument which you didn't even read, because if you had, you would know for a fact that isn't my position. Aztec were civilized because they lived in Cities. That is the definition.  Secondly, I never defended colonization. Not even once, or for a moment.  The rest is more of your by now trademark whining.  So far you have laughed at, ignored, deviated from, but never some much as touched why it is unethical in-itself. 
    1
  37. fmlAllthetime You don't know how an analogue works at all. "a literary work that shares motifs, characters or events with another, but is not directly derived from it" You want cats to be exactly the same as children. Guess what? if they were, we wouldn't need the analogue! The point is to abstract similar qualities to get a sense for a simple case of a more complex phenomena. "Life is like a river" is also an anlogue: it moves in one direction, it has twists and turns, and it ends. But they aren't exactly the same. But the ideas translated perfectly. You just don't have the education to figure this out, I can't help you.   2. Murder is physical last I checked, and unless your talking about the death penalty or war, I'd happily accept those could be immoral, I have no strong feelings about them anyway. But by your own logic you'd have to concede a war of defense is justified. Otherwise, I don't see the reason to bring this up.   "...provoking force upon adults acting peaceably.." uhm, where did you even get this? Who said or implied this? I'm utterly confused. "unprovoked force" was your term, not my. I asked why you think "force" is never justified, don't put words in my mouth. Secondly, you presume everyone is acting peacefully all the time in this statement. what? Thirdly, you connect the two in the weirdest way possible, as if to suggest the government is "out to get everyone" and "looking for trouble" which is a thought consistent with the rest of your paranoid preconception, but is still bizarre and bewildering beyond belief. 
    1
  38. fmlAllthetime when did I ask if the destruction of indigenous cultures is unethical?...  you draw very strange conclusions from words having nothing to do with each other. That is my opinion. Something wrong with taking pride in the accomplishments of your people? I'm sure the Chinese, Brazilian, and Russian feel the exact same way, and why shouldn't they?! Technology is the global standard of civilization most used throughout the world, but I don't agree that it's the only one. I think the high cultural works of other peoples have great merit. Take the Louvre for example: Most of it's contents are not European, but are in fact from ancient cultures outside our domain, like Egypt, Sumeria, Babylon, Assyrian, Polynesia, Nubia, early dynastic China, Inca, Aztec, Mayan, and so on. 
    1
  39. fmlAllthetime I think my analogy was pretty general. I didn't say anything specific about the cat or myself, just that the power relationship is similar not the same. As for what I believe, I could say the same of you, saying so doesn't get us anywhere.  Really? So a war of self-defense is also unethical? Thats strange. So what gives people the "special" ability to defend themselves and not groups of people?...  If you fail to contribute to your community, which is all a tax is, you loose the privilege of living in it, which is what prison is- a separate society which sees to your needs and needs alone. What is so hard about this concept? Taxes are collected to do what individuals cannot or will not do. Like disaster relief, research, education, safety and utilities.  In theory, you should have a say in what your taxes go towards, like a war you don't support, many liberal thinkers feel that is highly unjust, and I am sympathetic with that view, but the feelings of a minority, do not outweigh your obligation to support the majority. 
    1
  40. fmlAllthetime Never defended colonization.  and yes, colonization is destruction of the current population, via displacing then, thereby replacing them as there population diminishes. 
    1
  41. fmlAllthetime again, you keep adding qualifiers, I already argued unambigously that not all force is violent under the concept of restraint.  Actually I just took it as granted: If a community raises you you owe them. Period. If you ever drank from there fountains, open a book in their library, or accepted medical services from their hospitals, you owe them. Now, if they asked you for six cents for that book you read, and 13 for the water, and 1450 for the stitches in your head, that wouldn't be very efficient or neighborly. So instead we do it lump-sum at one time. Think about what it costs for you to exist even before you are born. Think of the planning your parents put into beforehand, the advice they took from friends in family around them, the cost of the pediatrician they saw to oversee the health of the embryo, the incubator that may have breathed for you when you couldn't, the opportunity cost of the nurses who delivered you when they could have been out shopping, the amount of research that went into any medication you've been prescribed, vaccine you've had, or antibiotics you've needed over the course of your life. And then theirs the education you've had, the sidewalks you've walked on, the water, food, electricity, and shelter you've consumed, the training of the military that kept harm far from your home, and so much more. So by the time you reach the age of eighteen, you already owe your society a tremendous debt, which is offset and payed for by the previous generation (because babies don't make money) as you will one day pay for the next succeeding batch and so on, cyclically, forever. That is the foundation for the Social Contract and why it works, and it's a very ethical exchange if i've every seen one. 
    1
  42. fmlAllthetime Well then it's simple, if you don't like the way the rest of us live and rule, then the only thing to do is find somewhere else that you do approve of.  Criticism of the US governments is not representative of government as a whole, compared to other governments conceptually, historically, and as a percentage of the land on earth. So an anecdotal account doesn't have a place in this discussion. On those grounds, I don't reason to find government "unethical". 
    1
  43. fmlAllthetime The alternative is to not exist. Since that isn't possible, It isn't an ethical question, for it is already presupposed. Leaving a child out in the wildness to fend for itself is the only other option. The state in that context, is the lesser of two evils.  Social stratification is a natural consequence of the inequality inherent in mankind. All nations have their elite classes, but these individuals do not have special powers over anyone else. They are people who simply have a greater share of the means either earned by skill or passed on through inheritance. Because at some point, every community gave power to leaders that promised them the greatest protection and chances at survival. Those that chose poorly, did not make it, and those that fared well, exist today as the nations now recognized on our modern maps. That is the way of things.  
    1
  44. WOLFMAN1469 Very. 
    1
  45. Jacob smith I do? Interesting, never thought of it like that. Was that supposed to be a bad thing? your ludicrous examples not withstanding.  
    1