“Gun violence culture”: A red herring?

by ROB Fri Jan 18, 2013 9:01 pm

'Gun Culture' - What About the 'Fatherless Culture'?
Larry Elder

The face of gun violence is not Sandy Hook. It is Chicago.

In 2012, President Barack Obama's adopted hometown had 506 murders, including more than 60 children. Philadelphia, a city that local television newscasters frequently call 'Killadelphia," saw 331 killed last year. In Detroit, 386 people were murdered.

Of the 11,000 to 12,000 gun murders each year, more than half involve both black killers and black victims, mostly in urban areas and mostly gang-related. The No. 1 cause of preventable death for young black men is not auto accidents or accidental drowning, but homicide.

What happened?

Dads disappeared. Or, more precisely, to use Bill Cosby's term, the number of "unwed fathers" exploded.

In 1965, Daniel Patrick Moynihan wrote "The Negro Family: A Case for National Action." At the time, 25 percent of black children were born out of wedlock, a number Moynihan called alarming. Fast forward to the present, 72 percent of black children are now born out of wedlock. In fact, 36 percent of white children are born out of wedlock. Of Hispanic children, 53 percent are born outside of marriage.

http://townhall.com/columnists/larryelder/2013/01/17/gun-culture--what-about-the-fatherless-culture-n1490940/page/full/

The steady expansion of welfare programs can be taken as a measure of the steady disintegration of the Negro family structure over the past generation in the United States.

Daniel Patrick Moynihan

http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/d/daniel_patrick_moynihan.html

“Gun violence culture”: A red herring.

In 1960, in South Los Angeles, “Tree Top”, the leader of the Slausons, was gunned down by the Comptons in a drive-by shooting murder. The Los Angeles Times did not run the story on its front page.

In 1971, in South Los Angeles, the brother of 1984 Olympic Gold Medalist Valerie Briscoe-Hooks was gunned down by street gang members (Crips? Bloods?) in a drive-by shooting murder. The Los Angeles Times did not run the story on its front page.

In 1987, in Westwood, an Asian girl was gunned down by street gang members (Crips? Bloods?) in a drive-by shooting murder. The Los Angeles Times ran the story on its front page.

Violence against young persons did not begin in Sandy Hook, Columbine, or Westwood. Perhaps White (and Asian) children must suffer before Western society takes notice of tragic violence which has festered in my neighborhoods all of my life. Perhaps now some will search for and address core causes, including fatherlessness, rather than continuing to mouth ideological platitudes.

by oftenwrong Fri Jan 18, 2013 10:54 pm

Does dirt-poverty have any part to play in the above scenario? Or is the provision of Welfare automatically responsible for a general lowering of standards?

by ROB Sat Jan 19, 2013 12:46 am

oftenwrong wrote:
Does dirt-poverty have any part to play in the above scenario?

No.

oftenwrong wrote:
Or is the provision of Welfare automatically responsible for a general lowering of standards?

Although it is not the only component, it is a key component. Regulating the Poor: The Functions of Public Welfare, Frances Fox Piven and Richard Andrew Cloward, breaks the disempowering welfare system down in historic detail.

Thomas Simard's Reviews > Regulating the Poor: The Functions of Public Welfare

Reading this book should change the way in which you look upon the poor and upon welfare programs.

http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/347531933

Emily's Reviews > Regulating the Poor: The Functions of Public Welfare

Connects Britain's enclosure movement to the plantation ecomony of the U.S. South and relevant to Off the Books.

http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/256057416

by oftenwrong Sat Jan 19, 2013 11:38 am

Britain's Enclosure Acts of the XVIII and XIX Centuries ensured that every scrap of Land belongs to someone, whose name is shown in the Land Registry and may of course be the Local Authority, though there are vast tracts of England and Scotland in just a handful of aristocratic names.

Prior to that thousands of commoners scratched a subsistence living from the earth, which usually involved them paying a tithe to the local Lord of the Manor, and could rarely have been described as efficient use of resources. Modern Agri-Industry creates larger and larger farms, employing massive machinery and relatively few employees.

Displaced former farmworkers either migrate to the Cities and/or spend the rest of their lives on the Welfare system.

by starlight07 Sat Jan 19, 2013 7:48 pm

The gun culture is a problem.

by oftenwrong Sat Jan 19, 2013 10:50 pm

Yeah. Things are tough all over.

by ROB Sun Jan 27, 2013 6:40 am

Bureau of Justice Statistics
Special Report
Black Victims of Violent Crime
August 2007, NCJ 214258

by Erika Harrell, Ph.D.
BJS Statistician

Blacks were victims of an estimated 805,000 nonfatal violent crimes and of about 8,000 homicides in 2005. While blacks accounted for 13% of the U.S. population in 2005, they were victims in 15% of all nonfatal violent crimes and nearly half of all homicides. These findings are based on data from the Bureau of Justice Statistics’ National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS) and the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s (FBI) Uniform Crime Reporting Program (UCR), Supplementary Homicide Reports.

During the 5-year period from 2001 to 2005, comparative nonfatal violent victimizations showed –

Black males were more vulnerable to violent victimization than black females.

Younger blacks were generally more likely than older blacks to be victims of violence.

Blacks living in urban areas were more likely than those in suburban or rural areas to be victims of violence.

Black victims of homicide were most likely to be male (85%) and between ages 17 and 29 (51%). About 53% of homicides against blacks in 2005 took place in areas with populations of at least 250,000 people, compared to about 33% of homicides of white victims. Blacks were killed with a firearm in about 77% of homicides against them.

Between 2001 and 2005, about half of all nonfatal violence against blacks was characterized as a serious violent crime, which includes rape or sexual assault, robbery, and aggravated assault and excludes simple assault.

http://bjs.ojp.usdoj.gov/content/pub/pdf/bvvc.pdf

by boatlady Mon Jan 28, 2013 8:46 pm

So what's the cause of this preponderance of Black victims?

by ROB Mon Jan 28, 2013 10:18 pm

boatlady wrote:
So what's the cause of this preponderance of Black victims?

In my initial post of Friday 18 January 2013 at 21:01, I reported that Larry Elder posits this:

'Gun Culture' - What About the 'Fatherless Culture'?
Larry Elder

Of the 11,000 to 12,000 gun murders each year, more than half involve both black killers and black victims, mostly in urban areas and mostly gang-related.

Dads disappeared. Or, more precisely, to use Bill Cosby's term, the number of "unwed fathers" exploded.

In 1965… 25 percent of black children were born out of wedlock… Fast forward to the present, 72 percent of black children are now born out of wedlock.

http://townhall.com/columnists/larryelder/2013/01/17/gun-culture--what-about-the-fatherless-culture-n1490940/page/full/

I agree. When I grew up, most black males were raised in homes in which the father was present times two. 1. The father was present physically. 2. The father was present influentially.

Number 2 was far more pervasive than number 1. I was my father’s son twenty-four hours per day seven days per week. My friends were their fathers’ sons twenty-four hours per day seven days per week. If any of our fathers witnessed any of us misbehaving… let’s just say that we knew better, acted accordingly, and benefitted for our lifetimes. One of us even retired as a decorated law enforcement officer.

To become a man, a boy must be raised by a man, or better yet, raised by men. As a young boy, teenaged boys, and young adult male, I was surrounded by top notch examples of manhood. Today, in the neighborhoods in which I was raised, young boys, teenaged boys, and young adult males are surrounded by “players” and “hustlers.” Please take a moment to view the following entertaining and informative video.

Jody Got Your Girl and Gone - Johnnie Taylor
http://youtube.googleapis.com/v/E4MzSU44ewc

Boys seek to become whomever they have idolized. My friends and I idolized our fathers. Today’s young boys?

by boatlady Mon Jan 28, 2013 10:29 pm

Back to gender studies, then.
Many might want to look at alternate causes such as - poverty, social exclusion, frustration with lack of opportunity, racism in society.
I suspect conceiving of the problem solely in terms of the lack of a male role model in-house, as it were, may be to over-simplify the matter.
Since you and I were young, many things have happened in the world, only one of which is the rise in the numbers of single parent families, and I guess any of these changed factors may impact upon the experience of young Black men.
And I just wonder how your analysis might deal with the expewriences of girls and women, equally deprived of a strong male role model?

by oftenwrong Mon Jan 28, 2013 10:56 pm

It must seem perfectly logical to victims of persistent injustice, to regard a Firearm as "The Equaliser".

by ROB Tue Jan 29, 2013 2:30 am

boatlady wrote:
Back to gender studies, then.

I cannot go back to a place to which I have not gone. I have not gone to gender studies on this thread.

Conversely, I’ve gone directly to crime statistics and a sociological study (referenced by Lee Elder) authored by Daniel Patrick Moynihan.

boatlady wrote:
Many might want to look at alternate causes such as - poverty, social exclusion, frustration with lack of opportunity, racism in society.

I might not want to do so.

I grew up in Black neighborhoods that were and are located in two US cities. I know first-hand what it was like then and what it is like now. Back in the day, perhaps before your birth (I’d be surprised if you are as old as me), and almost certainly during your tricycle-riding days, we were poor (“cracker meat”), socially-excluded (Black folks couldn’t join country clubs, Black Shriners do not exist), frustrated by denial of opportunity (quotas were originally established to redress the long term denial of opportunities to qualified Black folks due to, for instance, “glass ceilings”), subjected to racism (I’ve told of being directed to drink “colored water” and use “colored toilets” on other threads), and law-abiding. This applies even more so to the generation preceding my own. In fact, I regularly speak with cognizant persons who knew, spoke with, and interacted with two of my slave ancestors at a time during which it was safe for a young, fine lady to walk alone through Black neighborhoods at night.

The differences between then and now? Less poverty (I’ve met and shaken hands with Black multi-millionaires), less social exclusion (I’ve cousins that are members of country clubs that once excluded Blacks), less frustration at denial of opportunity (the appointments/elections of Black mayors, police chiefs, school district superintendents, district attorneys, state legislators, U.S representatives, and even U.S. senators, is no longer headline news, and we even have an elected Black President of the United States), less racism (no more “colored water” or “colored toilets”), fewer “24/7” fathers, and more crime.

Anyone who chooses to believe that less poverty, less social exclusion, less frustration at denial of opportunity, and less racism causes more crime is free to so choose. I chooses to believe that fewer “24/7” fathers causes more crime.

boatlady wrote:
I suspect conceiving of the problem solely in terms of the lack of a male role model in-house, as it were, may be to over-simplify the matter.

I believe and pretty much know that conceiving of the problem in any other way overcomplicates the matter.

After typing the above sentence, I spent a few minutes thinking about that of which I personally know. Insofar as I know, only one male child of a sibling or first cousin has committed a violent crime; he was raised without a father. Some thirty have never committed a violent crime; each was raised with a “24/7” father.

boatlady wrote:
Since you and I were young, many things have happened in the world, only one of which is the rise in the numbers of single parent families, and I guess any of these changed factors may impact upon the experience of young Black men.

See above.

boatlady wrote:
And I just wonder how your analysis might deal with the expewriences of girls and women, equally deprived of a strong male role model?

In my circle of men, we often speak of “inoculating” young girls and, by so doing, “immunizing” them against “hoochie-mama-ism.”

Sons and daughters both need the 24/7 influential presence of fathers, sometimes in the same ways for the same reasons (all of my brothers’ and my sons and daughters have either finished or on track to finish college, “university” to Brits and Canadians), sometimes in different ways for different reasons. Concerning the first instance and example, regardless of gender, four year undergraduate degrees were “dialed into” all children almost from birth. The difference in ways and reasons seems to lie in differences in hard wiring.

My sons and nephews needed to know to their cores that they were cool and tough. I personally and intentionally took action in several arenas to ensure to the best of my ability that each nephew and son had ample opportunity to achieve coolness and toughness. Cool and tough, however, are not enough; gangsters perceive themselves as cool and tough. Sons and nephews were also taught goodness. In my family, men are expected to be good in several specific ways, two of which I’ll list here. 1. Men don’t hit women and boys don’t hit girls. The sole exception is if hitting a woman/girl is necessary to protect/save the lives of or prevent harm to other humans. 2. Men and boys protect women, girls, older folks, helpless folks, and children.

My daughters and nieces needed to know to their cores that they were pretty and smart. Once again, I personally and intentionally took action in several arenas to ensure to the best of my ability that each daughter and niece had ample opportunity to achieve prettiness and smartness. Prettiness and smartness, however, are not enough; girls need to know that their prettiness and smartness are not dependent upon predator males’ approval. They don’t need to “prove” their worthiness as women by “laying down” with/for every chump posing as “playa playa” that casts lustful eyes in their direction; hence the need for “hoochie-mama” immunization at an early age.

Post note: Look again at “playa playa” in the video.

Jody Got Your Girl and Gone - Johnnie Taylor
http://youtube.googleapis.com/v/E4MzSU44ewc

Does Jody appear impoverished to you? Did the cuties hanging off Jody’s arm fail to receive their immunizations as little girls?

by oftenwrong Tue Jan 29, 2013 12:17 pm

Sugar and Cotton have a lot to answer for.

by boatlady Tue Jan 29, 2013 3:54 pm

Some conversations are just doomed

by ROB Wed Jan 30, 2013 11:54 pm

The Media and Black Homicide Victims
By Heather Mac Donald
March 29, 2012 7:00 A.M.

Why don’t [Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson, and every member of the black protest establishment] protest more black crime victims? Because the only black victims who interest the race industry and its mainstream media handmaidens are blacks who have been killed by “white” civilians… or blacks who have been killed… by the police…

Unfortunately, there are very few such victims. Ninety-three percent of all black homicide casualties from 1980 to 2008 were killed by other blacks, and are thus of no interest whatsoever to today’s race advocates…

The coverage of New York City’s West Indian Day Parade in September 2011 exemplifies this rule. The New York Times and other local outlets spilled an enormous amount of ink on an altercation between a black city councilman… and the New York Police Department.

What else happened on that parade day in 2011? A black-on-black bloodbath:

… one man was fatally shot, crowds were sprayed with gunfire, and several people were stabbed. A shooting at a McDonald’s…

… a shootout near the parade route killed its intended victim as well as a 55-year-old mother…

None of this violence was given the intense and loving press treatment accorded to the detention of [the black city councilman]. In fact, it was barely mentioned at all…

— Heather Mac Donald is a contributing editor of City Journal and the author of Are Cops Racist?

Much more: http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/294726/media-and-black-homicide-victims-heather-mac-donald

by ROB Thu Jan 31, 2013 8:28 am

Dr. Dre, Snoop Dogg - Nuthin' But A G Thang
https://www.youtube.com/v/_qkP8SvHvaU

Notice the attractive, downright gorgeous young lady that first appears at 2:57. She is slender and shapely, with long hair, and is attired in a black top and black skirt. Notice what happens to her starting at 3:21.

One of my sons, thirteen years old at the time, informed me that he liked this video, brought to us by Dr. Dre and Snoop Dogg, both of whom have made multimillion of dollars selling CDs and videos to young Black boys/men and girls/women. We sat down in front of the TV and watched the video together, perhaps on BDET (Black Entertainment Television).

When the video reached 2:57, I mentioned to my son that the attractive young lady looked like an older version of his younger girl cousin, my niece. My son agreed. In fact, since she reached twenty a few years later, our niece/cousin has very much resembled the young lady in the video.

When the video reached 3:21, I looked over at my son; he was staring intently at the screen, his face had turned hard, his fists had clenched, and his demeanor had turned deadly.

I waited until the video was over, and then asked him what he thought the video now. He softly said “I don’t like it anymore.”

I asked him how he would feel if his cousin had been treated like the young lady in the video was treated. He softly said, “If they did that to her, I’d lay some hands on them.” My son has big hands.

That’s the story of a young man being influenced at a key “teaching moment” by a 24/7 father. Remember that it is the influential presence, not the physical presence, that is and needs to be 24/7.

What happens to the young Black boys who lack a 24/7 father with and from whom to learn as my son learned? Nearly half of the murder victims in the US, about forty-nine percent, are Black. Ninety three percent of Black murder/intentional manslaughter/homicide victims are murdered by black murders/intentional manslaughters/homicidists. The difference in cases (upper and lower) is entirely intentional. The facts are “in”; the conclusion is yours to reach.

Fast forward to 2007 or 2008 (I think) and the boy who learned at my feet, now an honorable man, teaches the father that taught him. He told me to watch the following video, gifted unto American USV Black folks by Lupe Fiasco. I did; I now use the video as a teaching tool as I attempt to influence another generation of young Black males.

Dumb It Down - Lupe Fiasco
http://youtube.googleapis.com/v/q1Et1siZhTk

Another Lupe teaching video “hot of the presses”:

Bitch Bad, Woman Good, Lady Better – Lupe Fiasco
http://youtube.googleapis.com/v/C3m3t_PxiUI

by oftenwrong Thu Jan 31, 2013 11:51 am

England and America are two countries separated by a common language.
George Bernard Shaw
Irish dramatist & socialist (1856 - 1950)

by ROB Sun May 12, 2013 8:06 am

THE Word NR.A.-vana The Colbert Report May 1, 2013
http://youtube.googleapis.com/v/PB-T-KeGUlg?ytsession=AOlxRe0J-hYDXGW3wu5HS2-EAQ0ps-pVot7yCHopooe7ZCeZ56owhM6wqF94y4Vp87TGpjWknkXWUVetVGNr_wvpMCGCUbRedHTWDSrxyYxUuRuoixJWC9m3PhVfBGmGkoO9edyqf1hsxEvzidVOQQ

by oftenwrong Sun May 12, 2013 5:47 pm

Whatever happened to Wikipedia?

by cranberry49 Tue May 28, 2013 4:28 am

Where has everyone gone? Exclamation

by Shirina Tue May 28, 2013 5:17 am

Meow?

by Curious Cdn Sat Jun 29, 2013 9:09 pm

Some conversations are just doomed

Meow?

... catatonic ...

by boatlady Sat Jun 29, 2013 9:50 pm

So, Curious, what's your take on gun violence?

by Curious Cdn Wed Jul 03, 2013 10:16 pm

Well, I live about a 45 minute drive from the American border, so it is very much on our minds, here. The Canadian public is relatively unarmed and the vast majority of firearms here are "long guns" owned by rural dwellers. We are not allowed to own automatics of any type and handgun ownership is severely restricted. There are plenty of ill-gotten handguns about, smuggled in from the United States but for the most part, this is a peaceful place. Typically, there are around 200 gun homicides per year, here (population 35,000,000). Firearms homicides among our neighbours in the U.S. run somewhat over 30,000 per year in a population that is 9 times that of Canada's ... 16-17 times more likely. This is not a new situation. The United States has been a fundamentally violent society for it's entire existence. The country was formed in war. The violence of slavery persisted there long after the rest of the English speaking world (Southern Africa excepted) dropped the "institution". Overt genocide has been practiced against various native groups, notably around the War of 1812 and after the Civil War when the "West was won". Violence is a deep foundation of the USA edifice and, frankly, by their own measure, gun violence is such an every-day part of their world that it is indeed a "Red Herring" ... by the culture and standards that the U.S. lives by and has always lived by.

We should be building a 100 foot high wall along the length of our border, I sez.

by boatlady Thu Jul 04, 2013 8:46 am

You may not be the only Canadian to say that very thing.
Having very little personal experience of violence, I've been inclined to think of the phenomenon in terms of social issues, such as poverty, social exclusion, a governmental bias towards violence in war, policing etc, but also in terms of gender roles.
The gun being seen as a phallic symbol and a sign of manliness is an expression of the violent nature of the male hegemony, and what we maybe need is a redefinition of gender roles, to include some 'softening' of gendered assumptions about behaviour.
There's a bit of evidence out there about the importance of early experiences in formation of personality and gendered behaviour, and I guess I'd like to see governments looking at some of those ideas and maybe looking at the way power structures problem solving and competitive activities in schools for example can be used to foster better models of behaviour for children to aspire to.

by oftenwrong Thu Jul 04, 2013 11:06 am

The Official Canadian view:

The Government of Canada is committed to effective firearms and weapons control. Firearms and weapons are high-risk commodities that can impact the safety, security and welfare of Canadians. It is the mandate of the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) to control the flow of firearms, weapons and other devices, in order to ensure compliance by all stakeholders with existing laws, regulations and orders. CBSA border services officers are authorized to search for and interdict the illegal and unjustified movement of firearms and weapons across the border, while also streamlining the process for low-risk and law-abiding persons travelling with firearms for legitimate purposes and with the required documentation.

http://www.cbsa-asfc.gc.ca/media/facts-faits/107-eng.html

by Curious Cdn Thu Jul 04, 2013 4:16 pm

boatlady wrote:You may not be the only Canadian to say that very thing.
Having very little personal experience of violence, I've been inclined to think of the phenomenon in terms of social issues, such as poverty, social exclusion, a governmental bias towards violence in war, policing etc, but also in terms of gender roles.
The gun being seen as a phallic symbol and a sign of manliness is an expression of the violent nature of the male hegemony, and what we maybe need is a redefinition of gender roles, to include some 'softening' of gendered assumptions about behaviour.
There's a bit of evidence out there about the importance of early experiences in formation of personality and gendered behaviour, and I guess I'd like to see governments looking at some of those ideas and maybe looking at the way power structures problem solving and competitive activities in schools for example can be used to foster better models of behaviour for children to aspire to.

Unfortunately, there is more going on than a "toxic side-effect of testosterone". The ownership and appreciation of firearms is a deeply held aspect of American(U.S.) culture and it spans both gender and age. Their Second Amendment (to the U.S. Constitution) that is used to justify the arming of individuals can be interpreted many different ways. I interpret as the authors of the Constitution encoding the need to maintain an armed citizen's militia to preserve the young republic, not a licence for everyone to keep a loaded Glock under their pillow. The Americans choose to see it differently. As scary and crazy as that is, it is their right to do so. It is also their right to collectively jump off of a cliff, as well. Anyway, tying it strictly to gender stereotypes is sort of sexist, don't you think? I'm afraid to say it but Sarah Palin is far from being an anomaly. I haven't looked up the female rate of NRA membership, yet but I'll bet that it is in the tens of millions. BTW, my fourteen year old daughter, a Leading Seaman in our Sea Cadets absolutely LOVES to shoot. She also likes bow and arrows. We don't own any firearms and don't shoot for sport. There is something far deeper in the human makeup that enjoys sending projectiles about. It is so deeply engrained in us that, unfortunately, it is part of what makes us human ... like our need to be near fire.

by boatlady Thu Jul 04, 2013 6:36 pm

I guess you're right, but I would also want to consider that the popularity of firearms and other forms of violence might have something to do with an identification within some cultures of violence with power.
There's a difference, it seems to me, between an enthusiasm for activities that involve 'sending projectiles about' and the mindset that thinks violence is a valid problem solving strategy.
Maybe it is a bit sexist to lay all this at the door of male hegemony, but the fact remains that women exercising political and other forms of power in the public arena is a relatively new phenomenon, and maybe in the West anyway, our understanding of power is still conditioned somewhat by centuries of history involving men shooting, stabbing and generally beating the crap out of each other in the name of whatever political principle they cared to invoke.

by oftenwrong Thu Jul 04, 2013 10:36 pm

"....beating the crap out of each other in the name of whatever political principle they cared to invoke."

or religious conviction.

by boatlady Fri Jul 05, 2013 8:47 am

True, religion is often also invoked as a reason for violence, and has been throughout history.

But surely, there's a better way of resolving our differences than killing strangers?

by oftenwrong Fri Jul 05, 2013 11:25 am

It's in the genes. Xenophobia is as natural to the human male as eating, sleeping and ensuring continuance of the species.

by Curious Cdn Fri Jul 05, 2013 6:52 pm

boatlady wrote:I guess you're right, but I would also want to consider that the popularity of firearms and other forms of violence might have something to do with an identification within some cultures of violence with power.
There's a difference, it seems to me, between an enthusiasm for activities that involve 'sending projectiles about' and the mindset that thinks violence is a valid problem solving strategy.
Maybe it is a bit sexist to lay all this at the door of male hegemony, but the fact remains that women exercising political and other forms of power in the public arena is a relatively new phenomenon, and maybe in the West anyway, our understanding of power is still conditioned somewhat by centuries of history involving men shooting, stabbing and generally beating the crap out of each other in the name of whatever political principle they cared to invoke.

Human civilization is only about 250 generations long. That sounds like a lot but in evolutionary terms for a complex species, it is probably almost nothing. Many culture identify with violence because it is endemic in our (and most vertebrate) species. There is a tendency for males to be more violent. About 20% of males even carry a "warrior gene" that presumably expresses with sufficient doses of testosterone. Women, though, have their moments. When two boys fight in the school yard, they beat each other up and eventually (often, anyway) emerge as friends. When girls fight, the fight ends when one of them leaves town. We've seen a girl literally kicked to death by a gang of girls out on our West Coast a few years back. The lack of historic evidence of female violence may just be a symptom of a lack of historic opportunity. There are plenty of other Boudicas / Catherines of Russia / Elizabeth Tudors / Margaret Thatchers out there who have merely lacked the opportunity to burn down some villages.

p.s. I resent the implication that males are naturally xenophobic. That hateful rumour was probably started by ignorant foreigners who envy our freedom.

by Penderyn Thu Sep 19, 2013 2:09 pm

While their masters control them totally, the mugs over there are convinced they are 'free' as long as they can still murder one another with their bang-bangs. It is the natural development out of treason designed to save slave-holders from paying taxes, after all. Long live Fox!

by oftenwrong Thu Sep 19, 2013 7:44 pm

I don't have much of a problem with mugs murdering each other, if that's what their Law says they can do, but where does it say in anybody else's Law that they can replicate that behaviour anywhere else in the World they want to?

by sickchip Sun Sep 22, 2013 9:42 am

Interesting article and debate here:

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/sep/21/american-gun-out-control-porter

My contribution was a reply to somebody suggesting deaths from firearms were insignificant:

32,000 deaths per year from firearms, represents 1 in 10,000 of the population of 320 million.
I don't think they'll bother to do much.....

If you think those figures are small potatoes.........what do less than 3000 persons killed on 9/11, and fewer than 20 terror related deaths on American soil since, represent in terms of % of population - extremely small potatoes? Do you think they've bothered to do much about that - how much have they spent because of it - how many $billions?

Oops! Did I say $billions? The estimated cost of the very silly and misguided 'War on Terror' is approx $4trillion! Why is the US government happy to blow/waste such an amount of it's citizens taxes on this folly when many of its own people are in near poverty and/or struggling to make ends meet due to swingeing austerity measures? My my - what topsy turvy logic and priorities those who govern have.

- Do the American government believe they are there to govern America and it's people, or do they believe they are there to govern the world and it's people?

by boatlady Sun Sep 22, 2013 11:23 am

There does seem to be developing a discourse that sees America as a malign influence on world affairs - was reading something recently by John Pilger about the overthrow of the Allende regime in Chile that shows up American foreign policy in a very dubious light - and it does seem likely, looking at those statisitics, that the 'War on Terror' has been, to put it kindly, based perhaps on an over reaction.
link here http://www.newstatesman.com/international-politics/2013/09/even-age-realists-and-vigilantes-there-still-cause-optimism

Having said that, the psychological shock of an air attack in peace time is quite horrifying, and the whole country must be experiencing a form of PTSD following 9/11, perhaps cynically exploited by the Bush administation.

Using the spectre of an aggressor from outside is a lovely way to divert attention from human and civil rights abuses and neglect at home.

by sickchip Sun Sep 22, 2013 12:08 pm

boatlady,

Good post!

I do think the War on Terror was a knee jerk reaction, and think your comment about the whole country experiencing a form of PTSD following 9/11 is astute.

And thanks for that link.

by oftenwrong Sun Sep 22, 2013 1:06 pm

We are possibly being somewhat hypocritical about criticising the US for its gun laws, which don't affect us in any practical sense, whilst also apparently expecting them to have accepted the indignity of 9/11 without making a fuss.

by sickchip Sun Sep 22, 2013 1:19 pm

A $4trillion dollar fuss without any real planning, forethought, focus, or logic?

by boatlady Sun Sep 22, 2013 7:47 pm

But isn't that the sort of thing you do when you're in shock?

by Sponsored content