It's an odd thing to take too. If you're hard up enough to be out on the steal then a nice lawn probably isn't (or shouldn't be) your top priority, and I can't believe there's a good black market in turf.

There already are reasonable restrictions.

(I can't really ask to be exempt from laws that don't even exist. But I can ask for those new laws to not be written.)

Consider this.
Maybe /you/ are not special.
Maybe /you/ are not in this world to do with other people's lives how /you/ see fit.
Maybe /you/ should take the very advice you would give to violent offenders, and just leave people in peace.


Yes, this country has clusterfuckish problems.
But guns are not the cause.

We have a very high percentage of uneducated people. For example, my high school, in one of the nicest areas of the entire country, with the super easy U.S. curriculum, with the super relaxed and curved U.S. grading policy, 30% of kids that entered never graduated. And that's one of the better examples in the country.

The problem isn't even the education system. It's cultural. Kids show up to socialize, and smart kids get made fun of. Often they have no parental pressure to perform either. No amount of money can fix that kind of schooling, because it's not a schooling problem.

They don't just miss out on an education that helps them obtain gainful employment. The concepts of empathy and solidarity are essentially omitted.

There is a proverbial horde out there, many under strong financial pressures. Having the same consumer impulses that most people here have, they resort to augmenting their incomes with questionable activities.

The median *individual* income in the U.S. is around 26k / year. Half the population makes less than that... The cheapest unassisted rent in my area is ~800/month. Go to new york, and you could be paying 1600/month each with 3 other people for a rat hole. After water, electricity, food, fuel, you'd be wiped out. Any emergency (broken down car, medical expenses, whatever), and you are in the hole.

The nice areas you see on TV are a minority. Most of the country is a po-dunk shit hole, full of people that get desperate the moment things go bad. Which leads to restricted activities, and that tends to lead to violent encounters.

We have a very high percentage of arrested/jailed people.
When you're arrested, even if not convicted, you're not acceptable by a large proportion of jobs. The police even call your employer right away to let them know you've been arrested. You are essentially marked.

Like I said, 1 in 18 men are in the system. That's a LOT of people. Other than those on parole, they aren't working. Those that are working aren't making much money (on account of the undereducation and arrest record), and will likely be back in the system.

BTW, more than half of them are in jail for an activity that never even involved another person.
Most are there for harmless stuff.

Once these people do get out of jail, if they weren't already under financial pressure, they likely now are, and will stand a good chance at reinforcing the problem population.

(eg. Person with their life more or less in order goes to jail for having a bag of drugs, then they get out, can't get a job, and they need to resort to sketchy crap to make ends meet. Maybe get into violence, but often just return to jail.)

But, it's not by accident. Our jails are for-profit, with people in government making money from the jailing industry. Either by campaign contributions, lobbying, or by having financial stake in the companies.

The most self-serving thing the government can do, is keep the problem going, and tell people that they should rely on the government to fix it by getting tough. Then the govies make money on the jailing side, and they reinforce their public mandate.

The jailing companies themselves put inmates to work making cheap goods (ever bought a t-shirt that was made in the U.S.? It was probably inmate labor.), and then 'charge the inmates rent', effectively paying them a penny a day. Modern slavery.

All along the way, the taxpayers are paying the bills, and it's just a giant trough to feed from.

I hope you can imagine why I'm averse to making more ways to jail people that aren't being a problem.

It's also why I'm inclined to make drugs legal (pretty much try Portugal's approach). So as to bring that trade into the light, and end the gangster turf wars (which are a high proportion of the gun violence).

A lot of this could be fixed long-term by social engineering, using media to elevate the prestige of education and productivity. But we know that that is not going to happen when there is no money to be made on it.

-scheherazade

He's always interesting to listen to, but I still can't see any way this can possibly work. It's too easy for the Kochs and Waltons to continue to buy the legislators, even those who have "committed" to his cause. Which means it will have to be done over, and over, and over. While the corporate media and astro-turfed blogosphere pour out a flood of propaganda against it.

It's a nice dream, but that's all it is. The only way to change the path we're on involves rivers of blood, I'm afraid.

I'm glad we can all get so wrapped up in this one case of violence and continue to ignore the day after day violence, intimidation, and gang warfare that happens every day, all day, throughout America.

It is summer now. That means the local ER is full of people who have been beaten, stabbed, or shot. Some are gang members. Others live on one gang's block, so when they cross another gang's block they will be beaten or shot simply by association. This continues during the school year when kids who walk to their underfunded schools are scared to cross rival gang's turf even though they are not in a gang.

I know only by proxy via my fiance, who is a resident at the county hospital, just how prevalent this kind of violence is.

Then you hear on NPR that kids as early as nine years old are "saving" to buy their first revolver for as little as $25 dollars on the street.

Still, lets ignore all that and focus on one case in Florida with facts that remain unclear...

TYT is a complete waste of time. Even when they are more or less right in principle their reasoning, eloquence, and tone leave much to be desired.

Alright, that's it humanity it's over. Everybody back into the water, this is Octopus turf now.

>> ^Barseps:

@spoco2 .... Sorry bud, I have to disagree with you there. Potential international enemies will think TWICE before invading America because they are the most heavily armed civilian population on Earth. Guns may not be a good thing, but looking at it from from that angle, they're a bloody necessary evil.
Climbs off soapbox.
>> ^spoco2:
Guns have no upside.
At all.



Really? Let's let your hypothetical scenario play out.

Some other massive country with huge resources (let's say it rhymes with vagina) decides to invade the U.S.
Fuck knows why, given that they could simply buy you and be done with it. But for the sake of argument, lets assume that dfinitely not china whoever manages to overwhelm over 1 million of the best equipped, highly trained military in the history of the world on their home turf. Do you really think a bunch of amateur paranoid nutjobs are gonna stop them?

think of the optics of having the working class coming out for one of the biggest plutocrats ever to run for office? Can you say astro-turf?

Say what you will about the Koch-Industry-branded Tea Party -- they certainly know what's effective in politicks [sic].

I have to say that however reluctant I was to participate in one of the many public abortion debates that recur continually without really going anywhere, but felt it would be indecent to allow that discussion to unfold without some token objection raised against common delusions, I'm even more reluctant to talk one-on-one where there's still less opportunity for progress.

One reason these kind of debates, not just on abortion but any political or social topic, don't advance is that they concern questions of applied ethics that really belong very late in our philosophical development. It's as futile for adherents of varying ethical theories to clash on single issues as it is for travellers to row at a crossroads about which way they should go when they all set off from different places, following wildly differing maps, with compasses that all point in different directions. Why not agree which way is north first?

There's so much metaphysical and epistemological groundwork to be done before a sound consensus can be reached. I say 'sound' because with broadly binary questions there will appear to be a lot more agreement than there really is.

So rather than go on a trip with you I'd prefer to tell you where to start. You have to resolve subjectivity (you say that consciousness is "illusive and scarcely understood" - ultimately that's true of everything, which is the fundamental problem; I did give you a definition, in fact - perception and understanding, cognition and identity) and choose the fewest and most basic axioms on which to construct a nominally objective philosophy. That's where the debate belongs; what should those axioms be and what proceeds directly from them?

If you want me to give you a way to distinguish between mind and not-mind, the ability of a candidate to engage with that process would be a pretty good indication.

In reply to this comment by ReverendTed:
I wanted to continue this discussion, but it's going off in a different direction, so I figured I'd bring it here onto your home turf. You've obviously traveled this road before, but I'm coming along for the ride this time. (Road trip!)

We'll start here and see where this takes us: What's your reasoning for saying that a baby (or someone with a cognitive disability, or hell, an animal) is not Mind? I know where I'd like this to go, but I'll let you drive.

I wanted to continue this discussion, but it's going off in a different direction, so I figured I'd bring it here onto your home turf. You've obviously traveled this road before, but I'm coming along for the ride this time. (Road trip!)

We'll start here and see where this takes us: What's your reasoning for saying that a baby (or someone with a cognitive disability, or hell, an animal) is not Mind? I know where I'd like this to go, but I'll let you drive.
In reply to this comment by gorillaman:
So the question you ask yourself when considering the rights of a creature is 'what is the condition of its intellect; to what extent is it conscious; is it Mind?'

Sure, the Taliban is a bit of an extreme comparison, so here's one closer to the truth:

Protesting against government's excessive spending (while supporting extended tax cuts for the wealthy and 2 pointless wars) makes you a hypocrite.

Crying about freedom from big government (while working to limit the freedoms of people you don't agree with on a federal level) makes you a hypocrite.

The Tea Party is a bought-and-paid-for astro-turfing campaign to subvert actual conservatism with something else entirely. It's not grass-roots when your "movement" is paid for by the Koch brothers and Karl Rove. It's a farce, a joke.

How'd I do?

NY Times link.

"As for Mr. Savage, he felt that being on his home turf had actually worked against him. “Playing host put me in this position of treating Brian Brown like a guest,” he said. “It was better in theory than in practice — it put me at a disadvantage during the debate, as the undertow of playing host resulted in my being more solicitous and considerate than I should’ve been. If I had it to do over again, I think I’d go with a hall.”

Your video, Ice Cream Turf War, has made it into the Top 15 New Videos listing. Congratulations on your achievement. For your contribution you have been awarded 1 Power Point.

Heh well said I was going to side with Gordon at first after seeing the hit, then I remembered he's a totaly dick.

>> ^Quboid:

It really didn't look that bad, I suspect if it had been a professional player on the receiving end, rather than a middle-aged professional potty-mouth, he'd have got up and played on - after rolling around in apparent agony until Sheringham got booked, of course.
The really nasty ones are when the player's standing leg is caught so their leg and foot below the point of contact can't give way due to being planted in the turf. Then the point of contact is what gives away; the bone breaks. This is what can end careers.
Ramsey may actually have caused the most damage himself, he landed jarringly on his elbow and could have dislocated his shoulder. It wasn't a very nice challenge, but there's plenty of people who would love the chance to do much worse to Ramsey.

It really didn't look that bad, I suspect if it had been a professional player on the receiving end, rather than a middle-aged professional potty-mouth, he'd have got up and played on - after rolling around in apparent agony until Sheringham got booked, of course.

The really nasty ones are when the player's standing leg is caught so their leg and foot below the point of contact can't give way due to being planted in the turf. Then the point of contact is what gives away; the bone breaks. This is what can end careers.

Ramsey may actually have caused the most damage himself, he landed jarringly on his elbow and could have dislocated his shoulder. It wasn't a very nice challenge, but there's plenty of people who would love the chance to do much worse to Ramsey.

Just out of interest a bit. I'm a referee, I used to referee American football but now it's just Soccer (Football). High schools are not the best competition but they pay well and it's steady so I do those games sometimes cause they're easy. Nearly every school I go to has a million dollar almost turf field for all their sports. The larger schools have stadiums with huge stands and scoreboards and just ridiculous amounts of money being thrown everywhere.

Also the kids are the worst...complete idiots who are entitled as hell. Who wouldn't feel entitled when they get this huge stadium to play their really bad (Seriously these kids suck) level of soccer in and a really expensive coaching staff to coach them. Badly I might add, either that or they just don't listen.

That's education...training morons to be absolute stars at a sport in high school. None of these kids is going to get a scholarship to a college for the sport either because that will go to awesome club players. Awesome club players hardly ever play for High Schools, most coaches won't let them.

We have money...it's priorities. You see parents spending THOUSANDS on fucking Prom...one fucking night of these peoples sad miserable lives. Get a fucking education instead of just being absolute nothings that don't matter.