The fact the gun lobby won't let the CDC do it's job and collect data on gun violence just shows how insane political right is.

Then the right is blaming ISIS... the idiot pledged allegiance to ISIS and Hezbollah, even though they are enemies of each other. He clearly just had an issue with gays, and was using faith as an excuse. Most of the mass shootings in the US aren't done by Muslims in an act of terrorism, they are done by crazy people who have unfiltered access to guns.

I'd be fine if we don't close the gun show loophole or don't ban people from buying assault weapons, for now, so long as we first at least let the CDC get back to doing its job and collect data on gun violence. Then explore it in a few years of data collection to see what measures would be helpful. The fact the right refuses to let that happen must tell you that they know what the data will show, that some loopholes need closed.

And yes, if you are on the federal no flight list (and I haven't seen that this shooter was on such a list, just investigated twice), then you should certainly be delayed in getting a gun. That should be a huge red flag. You should then be told why you were denied and then have a right to argue for the right to own a gun and/or get off the no flight list. It should be a clear process to make such an application, and shouldn't require a lawyer. But odds are that most people on the no fly list aren't there for search history, or library records, but most are on the no fly list undoubtedly for far better reasons.

I'll fight to retain the right for most Americans to own a gun. Both a hand gun for personal home defense, and hunting rifles and the like. However if you are in a situation that requires an AR-15 to defend yourself, you are way over your head.... and don't give me some bull shit about protecting yourself from the government, remember how well having even more powerful weapons and training did for the people in Waco. Where do people who argue that those should be sold without restriction want to draw the line (and to be clear, I'm not arguing against the right to own one necessarily, but I am against buying it without restrictions, for a smaller wait time than it would take to buy a handgun)? Do we let people buy a bazooka? A surface to air missile launcher? A nuclear bomb? Where do you draw the line on putting restrictions, or at least a wait time on weapons of mass harm?

I never said he was an immigrant, nor made any claim as to such, and I certainly did not mean to allude to such, I apologize for any misleading commentary I posted.

However, on a note which I meant to strike in my original comment, what was the religion of said disturbed man? What was his allegiance? What law did he uphold when he ruthlessly murdered those people in the name of Allah?

Hint: it wasn't any of your American Laws, and the name of the code of laws he followed starts with an S... The same law and religion and practices that immigrants from those countries are coming to your country and mine with...

From an article by Chris Hedges:

Robert Paxton wrote in “The Anatomy of Fascism”:

The language and symbols of an authentic American fascism would, of course, have little to do with the original European models. They would have to be as familiar and reassuring to loyal Americans as the language and symbols of the original fascisms were familiar and reassuring to many Italians and Germans, as [George] Orwell suggested. Hitler and Mussolini, after all, had not tried to seem exotic to their fellow citizens. No swastikas in an American fascism, but Stars and Stripes (or Stars and Bars) and Christian crosses. No fascist salute, but mass recitations of the pledge of allegiance. These symbols contain no whiff of fascism in themselves, of course, but an American fascism would transform them into obligatory litmus tests for detecting the internal enemy.

Goooo Raiders!

Wait is this not the NFL? Where we choose a side to root for based on arbitrary allegiances vaguely formed by perception, statistics, personal vendettas and disagreements with opinions, views and a native alliance attributed by regional position and upbringing? Whoever wins the Super Bowl, in the end we're all losers and the cycle will continue in the coming years.

Then again, I'm not one for getting involved in modern media politics. Vote for the least terrible and get back to work!

/Rant

Side note: Where the heck do I get my Trump steaks with Sharper Image (online) no longer carrying them?

The suffragettes weren't feminists. If you want to honour the beginnings of the modern push for sex equality, then you owe your allegiance to such thinkers as John Locke, Jeremy Bentham and JS Mill - none of whom was a feminist. The entire first wave of feminism is a revisionist fiction.

This is on a par with the hideous christian impulse to annex and purloin all good behaviour into itself - "christian driver", "do the christian thing", "christian decency". So too, feminism appropriates every historical social advance in order to declare that, axiomatically, all female freedom ultimately derives from its doctrine, without which women would be slaves of the constantly threatening patriarchy.

In reality feminism is a phenomenon of the sixties - that's the nineteen sixties - with roots stretching back no more than a decade or two; which did a substantial amount of useful work in spite of its many aesthetic and ideological flaws, and which has now essentially petered out to be supplanted by, god help us, the advent of the filthy third wave and its hordes of ranting SJWs.

I have no particular allegiance to either brand and have bounced back and forth between the two for years. This is my first Nvidia card in a while, the main reason for buying ATI cards came down to price for me, why spend hundreds more when I could get a comparable ATI card with more VRAM to boot? That changed with the 970, I could get a better GPU with another gig of VRAM over my Radeon 7970, or is this only a half a gig now?

While I know that parents have an enormous influence to empower their children to be able to think for themselves I always think of this, from Mr. Philip K. Dick, when I think about advertisement and the such:

"The power of spurious realities battering at us today—these deliberately manufactured fakes never penetrate to the heart of true human beings. I watch the children watching TV and at first I am afraid of what they are being taught, and then I realize, They can't be corrupted or destroyed. They watch, they listen, they understand, and, then, where and when it is necessary, they reject. There is something enormously powerful in a child's ability to withstand the fraudulent. A child has the clearest eye, the steadiest hand. The hucksters, the promoters, are appealing for the allegiance of these small people in vain. True, the cereal companies may be able to market huge quantities of junk breakfasts; the hamburger and hot dog chains may sell endless numbers of unreal fast-food items to the children, but the deep heart beats firmly, unreached and unreasoned with. A child of today can detect a lie quicker than the wisest adult of two decades ago. When I want to know what is true, I ask my children. They do not ask me; I turn to them. "

from 'How to Build a Universe That Doesn't Fall Apart In Two Days'

Yes, monarchies are inherently oppressive. They're an archaic throwback and an embarrassment to any country that still clings to them.

For the record I am a citizen of the Republic of Ireland and a permanent resident of New Zealand. I'm a member of the NZ Republic movement. I am not a subject of the crown, and the requirement to swear allegiance to the Queen is the one thing that is stopping me getting my NZ citizenship (which I have long since qualified for).

This is a point of principle and I would support any movement in any country to remove the monarch as head of state, even if they are only a figure head.

Now, all that said, what does that have to do with my approval for Norway's oil industry, NZs gun laws or socialised healthcare in pretty much the entire developed world?

You do realise that one can approve of one aspect of something while simultaneously disliking another aspect of the same thing? I think fast cars are cool, but I don't like their environment impact. I love beer, but I know that it's full of calories, and so on.

Anyway how would secession work in this case? There's no single geographical region to secede. Unless by secession you mean that the citizens of a country should have the right to determine how their country is run, in which case I wholeheartedly agree.

Rex Curry is the nation's leading authority on the Pledge of Allegiance. You're right to post the video. The video is completely accurate. The salute used by the Nazis was NOT derived from the socialist Mussolini. And the gesture was not based on the so-called "ancient Roman salute" because the "ancient Roman salute" is a complete fictional, as stated above.

Jacques-Louis David's painting "The Oath of the Horatii" did not associate the salute with classical Rome, and David never said such a thing, and the painting does not show the gesture, it shows three people reaching for weapons, including the use of the left hand. The Horatii lie is a very modern lie, fabricated circa 2006(?) on wakipedia in order to cover-up the Pledge of Allegiance's putrid past.

The socialist Mussolini did NOT adopt what he thought was the Roman salute.

No one should stand for nor chant the Pledge of Allegiance because it was the origin of the Nazi salute and Nazi behavior (see the discoveries of the historian Dr. Rex Curry). The early pledge began with a military salute that was then extended outward to point at the flag (thus the stiff-arm gesture came from the pledge and from the military salute). The pledge was written in 1892 for kindergartners to be forced to recite under the flag at government schools (socialist schools). The pledge was written by an American socialist who influenced other socialists worldwide, including German socialists, who used the gesture under their flag's notorious symbol (their symbol was used to represent crossed "S" letters for their "socialist" dogma -another of Dr. Curry's discoveries). The pledge continues to be the origin of similar behavior even though the gesture was changed to hide the pledge's putrid past. The pledge is central to the US's police state and its continued growth.

Indeed, however with small exception I thought we were being fairly civil. That said, we all know what to expect from the 'little f*#king thing'. It's why the admins are constantly on his ass, and he may be banned again.

My point about veracity was that one has to trust the 'reporting' by others who may have an agenda to further. Without first hand knowledge, it's difficult for some (like me) to give full trust in ANY reports. I tried to read the first link you provided, but it started with a 'letter' to Saddam and I admit I didn't go farther.
As I recall, the numbers were more in the 1-300K dead from the ethnic cleansing (I have 175K in my head, but I don't know if that's right). I was old enough to watch the reports live when it happened in the 80's-90's and worry I might be drafted. I have not intended to imply Saddam wasn't terrible, only to imply he was not as bad as possible.

What I've seen so far from ISIS were hundreds if not thousands of 'prisoners' marched to their execution after surrender, even after swearing allegiance to ISIS, reports of mass rapes, village destruction, 'warnings' to all those not in line to leave or die, takeover of 1/2 the country in weeks (or less), all by 5000 people. Reports are that they are gaining members, allies, and massive amounts of money and arms. For their size, they appear to be worse than Saddam, who had hundreds of thousands, if not millions at his disposal. If you multiplied the videoed crimes of ISIS in just the last week by 200+, you would understand my point that they seem worse than most weeks of Saddam's rule....when you consider their respective sizes.
I'll hope you are correct, and ISIS is soon to be wiped out, but it's certainly not happening yet. No matter how it plays out, you are certainly right that ugly times are ahead for Iraq.

My argument about what? I thought we finished all the arguments when you started the derision, with you conceding the points by default.
That's why I asked what ELSE you need to know, for my arguments, re-read. They're there.

edit: to clarify (and not force re-reading of a wall of text) my arguments were
1. That border states are not considered confederate or union when discussing allegiance during the civil war, because they all supported BOTH sides.
2. that the first shots fired in the civil war were fired by the confederates, making them the one's that 'started the war' in my, and many others opinions.
3. that the blanket statement "everyone is against slavery in 2014" was incorrect, and remains so, no matter how you wish to modify it. Blanket statements are almost always incorrect on some level.

"it just sounds like a return to feudalism."

How so specifically? An agrarian culture based on farmland ownership?

It sounds to me that your imagination is getting the best of you. Creative, but not at all what I am describing. Somalia is a failed state, and a socialist failed state at that. However, as you know, things from medical services to life expectancy to infrastructure to child mortality to crime all dropped in the 20 years in which Somalia had no functioning government. Things got better not worse. Why do you think that is?

Saying a free market would be like Somalia is like saying that a government-regulated market would be like North Korea. There are other issues to consider.

Libertarianism does not posit that a free market automatically means a perfect or even a great society. But it does posit that a free market system will ease poverty, increase wealth, and ensure peace at a faster pace than a statist one. At whatever level a culture/society starts at, they will improve and be better off in a free market rather than under state rule. Somalia started off in a mess, caused by its failed state circumstances. You cannot seriously expect to go from one day to the next, eliminate the state, and expect that overnight all that damage will sort itself out just because now -- a day later -- there's no state. You have to rebuild and accumulate wealth over time. And Somalia did remarkably well considering the mess it started from.

A society like the US, which is much better off (for the time-being!), would improve even more, rather than deteriorate, with less or even no government. But of course, if a meteorite wipes out DC overnight, that does not mean overnight improvement. After all, the government has wiped out many private institutions that would need to be in place to take over from the government in providing the services they put out of business.

On the other hand, the road towards more state control (which you, strangely continue to support and defend) leads to more deterioration of the society/culture. The US is doing better because of all the capital it accumulated during the century in which it functioned under little government intervention with regards to its economic matters. That wealth has been badly squandered, and now Americans are living off what remains, slowly but surely bankrupting the country though more government interventions, currency inflations, needless war, bailouts, surveillance, ad infinitum.

But make no mistake: whatever wealth the US as a nation has came about though free exchange in commerce, and was not the result of government regulation. The more government interferes, the slower the growth, until now it has reached the point where there is no growth, only debt. (The Treasury should be renamed the Department of Debt, because it has no money, only debt -- just like a majority of Americans.)

In sum: Somalis are improving. Americans are not. Whoever you are, I assure you, you started off in a much better place than the average Somali did. But look at their rate of change!


EDIT: Somalia also did not have a "free market" when it came to warlord gangs. Unless people had a choice as to which warlord to hire for protection or not, then that is not a free market when it comes to protection services. If allegiance to a particular warlord was voluntary, then you could more honestly make the claim that they had a "free market." Still, the situation is improving. And I think it would have improved faster had there not been the (UN-fueled) expectation of a future centralized government, had the UN not been financing groups towards this end, and had they not been incentivizing gangs to fight each other for position in a future "government."

There is nothing "free market" about forced conscription. I don't know why you would even say that.

*quality, especially his ending about owing allegiance to humanity and not to his country. Nationalism needs to die a quick death.

Ralph & Paul, What you're looking for is giving our allegiance to the long 1st Nation sovereignty here. Humanity's worldwide 'indigenous' (Latin 'self-generating') 1st Nations cultivated local power by organizing the 'economy' (Greek 'oikos' = 'home') through multihome living with critical-mass of 100 people in each Longhouse/apartment, Pueblo/townhouse & Kanata/village. Such grouping enables local livelihood economies of mutual aid multiplying time, resources & money for women-men intergenerationally. 70% of people in the USA & worldwide live in multihome dwellings but aren't organizing their livelihood economies because we are programmed as colonists. Here's a software development we're working on for neighbourhood web-based Human Resource Catalogues, Resource Mapping & accounting in a Community Investment & Exchange System. Lets become indigenous to our time & place. [url redacted]

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