Too Much Bonding Time or Something Else? Some possibilities:
- COVID related stress? (ie bills, stress, confined, etc)
- Protests, protests, protests?
- More Gun Sales, More Gun Use?
- De-motivated Police?
Of course, the Far Right media talking heads are using this to scare their viewers into watching. And some seem to be listening and freaking out. 😱 I hope those old folks are taking their heart medications. 😊
Though it is worth monitoring, we are still far better off than in the 1990s and we survived that. And hopefully if people get vaccinated and an officer does not kneel on a dying man while on camera instead of helping him, this Summer will be much better.
17 comments:
I watched a "Frontline" documentary on the Supreme Court nominating process. It's the beginning of the month and I have new credits on my Kanopy account. The documentary summarized the history of the process from Bork to Kavanagh (it was produced in 2019). In broad strokes, it's a story of a decline of civility and and an increase in dysfunction. I do feel that in it's current state, our system is almost completely dysfunctional. Things that people support simply do not happen, contributing to feelings of hopelessness and alienation. After the attacks on the credibility of the last election, we are well along in the process of making sure the next elections have no credibility at all.
If our system doesn't function, except to the extent that it preserves itself, what is the alternative?
--Hiram
Do you mean more things people support like voting themselves even more stolen money?
I am not sure the USA can support more changes that the tax payers are not willing to fund.
But you are correct our citizens are screwing up our country. When a large portion do not trust main stream network media for fear of it being too liberal or too conservative, we are in trouble.
I have been thinking a lot about the arguments against gun control and how similar they are to arguments against various measures taken against the virus. In each case we are told that it is an issue of freedom as opposed to safety. In each case their are 'studies" which tend to show exactly what people with preexisting positions want them to show. There are the sweeping statement which always sound more like lawyer talk than science talk, "There is no evidence, of this or that." And of course, there are the denials of reality. Just as I am pretty sure I won't get a communicable disease if I don't come into contact with the ways it is communicated, I am also pretty sure I won't get shot if I avoid people with guns, however much studies promulgated by gun supporters argue to the contrary.
--Hiram
Humans are wonderful at rationalizing their beliefs...
Whatever they are !!!! :-)
The gun folks had a hard time wiggling around my simple questions though. Usually they just left in a huff...
What is your concern about ensuring that all gun transactions require a background ? If it is easy for you to buy a used gun, it is easy for criminals, killers and sociopaths to do the same.
Since new gun sales are highly regulated and monitored, where do you think criminals, killers and sociopaths buy their guns?
A knife / shank is NOT a gun is NOT a semi-automatic rifle. If you think they are, are you okay trying to kill prairie dogs or a grizzly bear with a knife?
If someone has a history of drunk driving or is obviously over the limit, would you let him keep his car keys? And yet the anti-gun control folks are against red flag laws, that take weapons away from people that a court has deemed to be a risk to himself, his family or the public.
Another friend last another friend said that "he was done with the covid precautions" and would just risk getting sick and dying...
I reminded him that his health was not the question... Luckily his elderly mother is fully vaccinated and he has had shot 1 of 2...
Do you mean more things people support like voting themselves even more stolen money?
Exactly that. Exactly. We don't see the authority of our government as rooted in the consent of the people, instead we see it as rooted in power. We see taxes as theft which means that government is illegitimate, doesn't have lawful authority. So if there is no law, what is left?
I think a lot about "A Man for All Seasons", particularly the devil speech: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PDBiLT3LASk&ab_channel=dniete97
When this movie was made during the height of the Vietnam War, Robert Bolt's words given to Thomas More were fairly conventional and uncontroversial. But today they aren't. Today, I would say he is pretty widely disagreed with. Largely agreeing with him as I do, makes me feel old fashioned and out of touch.
--Hiram
Another friend last another friend said that "he was done with the covid precautions" and would just risk getting sick and dying...
Sure, and very predictable. This was why it was so important to shut down the pandemic early on before it became normalized. We didn't hear stuff like this when the mobile morgues were parked outside hospitals. In the Kubler Ross stages of grief analysis, we were always headed for the acceptance phase. The risk we face is that we will see death from COVID in the same terms we see alcohol, drug relate, and gun deaths, as inevitable things that can't be helped. Indeed, any effort to prevent to deal with them is an interference with our freedom, an exercise in force that people complain about.
--Hiram
I was not equating taxes to theft...
I was equating voting for a lot of government spending and low taxes, and paying for it with debt to theft.
Irresponsible selfish generations living high on the hog and passing the bills on to future generations. (ie theft)
I was equating voting for a lot of government spending and low taxes, and paying for it with debt to theft.
Feel free to make the substitions.
Living on Social Security reaches only a very low level of the hog.
--Hiram
That is the argument every special interest group makes...
Death by a thousand little cuts...
As all those little entitlements went from ~10% to 50% of the budget...
We didn't used to have Social Security. And bear in mind the reason we have entitlements is because there are things like Social Security to which we are entitled.
--Hiram
SS, Medicare, Medicaid, TANF, SNAP, etc are all just welfare programs that can be cut, adjusted, etc whenever there is the political well to do so...
I mean they are not even constitutional items like guns, religion, etc...
Promises don't have to be kept. But that doesn't mean they aren't promises.
--Hiram
The US government has a LONG history of making and breaking promises, why would this be any different?
why would this be any different?
Because they are promises, I suppose. Doing something wrong in the past isn't a reason for doing something wrong now.
--Hiram
I don't understand consistency arguments.
A Minnesota Republican official comparing reaction to Georgia's suppression law to the Olympics in China. His argument was that if you are against Georgia's law, why don't you advocate taking the Olympics from China? Who says we don't? Is the Republican advocating boycotting the tyrannous regime in China? If so, he might very well find a lot of bipartisan support. The fact is, I wouldn't equate Georgia Republicans leadership to the murderous tyrants of China, but if Republicans identify a commonality between the two, who am I to object?
--Hiram
My point was that sometimes people "promise" and other people need to correct that "error".
Change is part of our modern world.
Post a Comment