Guns, Guns Guns

namelessfly wrote:SMR might be incorrect to presume that Tenshimi is engaging in anti American trolling. I think that Tenshini's anti American sentiments are so deeply ingrained that it does not occur to him that his expressions of anti-American sentiment are offensive.

Except i´m not anti-american and i´m actually selfmoderating to not actually be offensive as this is a forum for RFC and i respect that.

The real problem is that "you" think that anything that doesn´t sing the almighty praises of USA, is "anti-american".

I have learned far too much about reality to twist it into such dishonesty.

namelessfly wrote:This is why I regret the US squandering so much blood and treasure to defend Europe and other allies for over a century. The US would be wealthier and freer if we had simply allowed the totalitarian despots to have their way withtheotherwomen rest of the world.

Shortsighted. And that´s an extremely nice way to say it.

You´re damned lucky your politicians are so much smarter and savvy than you.

With you in charge, USA would be a backwater eddy of no real importance. If it still existed at all. Or ever.

LOL! Thanks for laughs. The only thing that I see you like is some movies from the US. Have you ever visited the US? I never visited Sweden, so I do not have any first hand experience of the country.

Where I have a problem with you specifically is the Anti American bashing. Multiple people have pointed out the rhetoric towards America seems to be extreme hatred. When debating points try to leave the personal feelings out. Second, when you attack (I was just as guilty because you got more than a little personal and I returned the favor!) people rather than the points being debated it usually means you are conceding the debated point(s).

Here's a short article on debate: http://www.ehow.com/info_8736679_debate-rules-techniques.html

If we both follow these rules, the civil discourse will allow a free flow of ideas to be exchanged without denigrating anyone. My only alternative is just to ignore your posts. The reality is I really do not care but let's have honest and open debate. The topic is guns not American bashing. If you wish to have a topic about the evils of America open a new topic for discussion because we are extremely off topic.

Tenshinai wrote:

smr wrote:Notice that he refused to say he likes anything about America.

1. Perhaps you should stop lying?
2. Again, that isn´t even relevant to your argument. But since you´ve already shown logic to not be your thing, i guess i shouldn´t be surprised.

smr wrote:He complains when the US acts and he complains when the US does not act in Ukraine.

Please stop lying. I have said absolutely ZERO about "when the US does not act in Ukraine", so that statement is a blatant lie.

smr wrote:He complains that the public owns guns and turns right around calls a fascist police state. (don't understand that?)

You SERIOUSLY need to learn how to read.

I said that USA behaves as a facist police state towards the rest of the world.

And i have absolutely nothing what so ever against "public gun ownership". I have a damned lot against such happening too easily or with zero precautions.

I also very much do not like the foolish attitude that basically say "having guns solves everything".

When i was young, as part of martial arts training, i practised how to handle people with guns, fake guns sure, but using a real trigger with a mini firecracker.

Noone within 1m of me ever managed to get a shot off before i took the gun from them.
And that´s against people with extremely good reflexes.

I´m good at it, but it is a skill just about anyone can learn.

smr wrote:That's why I got little snarky and I even warned him but his hatred is so ingrained that I do not think he realizes how he comes across in the forum.

So ingrained in your prejudice that you can´t even see beyond your own nose. Do notice that i get along perfectly fine with Pokermind, among others.

smr wrote:What I had problem with is obvious trolling that taking place by Tenshinai.

I never troll. Ever. I´m honest and people like you apparently can´t handle that.

But considering how you base your main argument in your post on lying, i guess i´m not surprised.

http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2014/07/13/killer-of-rookie-cop-reportedly-told-witness-to-watch-the-news-because-he-was-going-to-be-famous/

To the family of the officer, I am truly sorry that this shooting occurred. Gun Control would not have stopped this type of crime! He stole the gun from a security guard that he beat up and then went looking to kill someone to be famous. The weapon did not cause the crime rather the evil within the man's heart did!

smr wrote: Have you ever visited the US? I never visited Sweden, so I do not have any first hand experience of the country.

Personally, no i have not been in the USA. I have some relatives there and one of my cousins lived there for several years as a company "headhunted" her for her biochemist skills.
2 of my friends have been there, one for work, the other just for some vacations, my brother has been in USA repeatedly due to his work...

And so on...

smr wrote:Where I have a problem with you specifically is the Anti American bashing.

If you can´t handle the truth, that´s a pity.

smr wrote:Multiple people have pointed out the rhetoric towards America seems to be extreme hatred.

Which only shows how sadly twisted some minds can get just to excuse their own delusions.

smr wrote:When debating points try to leave the personal feelings out.

Why should i when you don´t? And if you read what i write, you should soon notice that i usually separate more or less clearly between what my opinion is and what the facts are.

smr wrote:Second, when you attack (I was just as guilty because you got more than a little personal and I returned the favor!) people rather than the points being debated it usually means you are conceding the debated point(s).

Ah, so you folks calling me hating means you´re conceding to me then, well now thats mighty good to know.

I only attack people under specific and rather rare circumstances, normally i attack their opinions or statements.
With my base level being reciprocity or less.

If i actually started to attack you personally, it would be blatantly obvious without any doubt.

smr wrote:Here's a short article on debate: http://www.ehow.com/info_8736679_debate ... iques.html

Again, why should i restrict myself to your rules when YOU don´t follow them yourself.

Sorry, but i refuse to accept two sets of rules. This is sadly a very common way for US debaters to try to deny opposition or views they dont like. Regardless if they do it intentionally or not, it´s still a "questionable" tactic.

smr wrote:If we both follow these rules, the civil discourse will allow a free flow of ideas to be exchanged without denigrating anyone.

I very much doubt it.

"anti-american", standard phrase that allows you to dismiss something without the need to think.

"hatred" this or that and then placing the burden of evidence not on the claim but on rejecting it, which is effectively impossible.

"trolling" another standard excuse for dismissal.

"bashing" one more.

"US saved your ass" this is such a pathetic excuse that it should be burned then buried, such claims completely ignores what actually happened in history (like say how in mid 1941, opinion polls showed that more people in USA wanted to join Germany against USSR than those that wanted to support UK against Germany), but also tries to maintain the fiction that this is some sort of oneway street, not to mention how it is a classic logic fallacy, because seriously, it has zero relevance even if there had been actual truth in the claim.

As well as all the other little needlings and questionable debate smackdown techniques used by some of you US folks in this thread.

So, instead of countering my opinions, statements or facts, you go for personal attacks and dishonest debating techniques like those mentioned above.

smr wrote:My only alternative is just to ignore your posts.

That´s your choice.

smr wrote:The reality is I really do not care but let's have honest and open debate.

Make up your mind then.

smr wrote:The topic is guns not American bashing.

Really? I never would have guessed... Now then, are you even aware that you are using a dishonest debating tactic again here?

You are effectively asscovering, placing blame on me, artificially trying to give yourself a moral high ground, diminishing me and exploiting personal feelings to make those inclined to agree with you to do so even more.

Not to forget that you´re also making a common linguistical mistake, because writing "American" with capital "A" means you are referring to the name America, and that´s the name of the continent, and i do believe i have said nothing about outside of USA.
Since there exist no nation named America, if you want to refer to USA, the correct form is "america" without capital "a".

smr wrote:If you wish to have a topic about the evils of America open a new topic for discussion because we are extremely off topic.

Why bother? I don´t have nearly enough interest in something ridiculous like that.

And FYI, you´re using debating tricks again.
If you want me to even consider being "nice", you should lay off those.

smr wrote:Have you ever visited the US? I never visited Sweden, so I do not have any first hand experience of the country.

I've visited the USA.

In general, the people there were pleasant, happy to help (or at least offer advice) and terrifyingly ill-informed about anything outside America's borders.

Do you have cars in England?

My friend Jack went to England once, did you see him?

While I am aware that the two above questions (which I did indeed get asked) may have been uncommon, they do show that some Americans do indeed have very little idea about how the rest of the world operates.

Since quite a bit of the world thinks that the film "Team America: World Police" is an accurate representation of American foreign policy, then I guess that the bastions of willful ignorance will remain standing for quite some time to come...

Tenshinai wrote:
Really? I never would have guessed... Now then, are you even aware that you are using a dishonest debating tactic again here?

You are effectively asscovering, placing blame on me, artificially trying to give yourself a moral high ground, diminishing me and exploiting personal feelings to make those inclined to agree with you to do so even more.

Not to forget that you´re also making a common linguistical mistake, because writing "American" with capital "A" means you are referring to the name America, and that´s the name of the continent, and i do believe i have said nothing about outside of USA.
Since there exist no nation named America, if you want to refer to USA, the correct form is "america" without capital "a".

America is one of the accepted short names for the USA. It's an accepted commonly used contraction of the United States of America (which is the only nation in North or South America with 'America' in it) and is used all over the world. Using America for the continent is inaccurate since there are two American continents. It's usually North America or South America and sometimes Central America on the North American continent to describe which areas or continents are meant. Or the Americas when indicating both of them. But to say that using America as the name of the USA is a common linguistic mistake is a mistake on your part. World wide, America means the USA. This is especially true when you can say 'they are Americans' and everyone immediately knows what country you're talking about.

AS someone who knows around 10 to 15 people from the USA, all were glad to leave.
They felt several parts of the laws and culture, including that around guns, god, and general remuneration were overall bad for the country, and an anchor around the USA's Neck. When you spend time trying to fleece the small guy instead of looking to take a short term loss for a much better long term gain, when you are more focused on rejecting ideas, or forcing them on others because they conflict with your beliefs, and when your first thought in a violent situation is the question of weapons, as opposed to talking them down, you have toxic elements of your culture. And before you say good riddance, 5 phds, 3 masters, 2 bachelors and 2 getting bachelors, plus 2 business owners. SO the bright and savvy are the ones leaving....

If the US had remained uninvolved, Japan, Germany, Russia and the other European powers would have destroyed their industrial infrastructure and decimated their populations. The world population would be smaller and less industrialized so the resources of the world, including oil, would be ours for the taking.

PeterZ wrote:I don't think we would have been freer or richer had we let Hitler, Stalin and Tojo consolidate their positions. Since Japan did attack us, letting that attack go without response would have invited more. So we wage war against Japan and let Europe become the bone Stalin and Hitler fight over. Where does that leave us?

Europe at war for a much longer period of time and not able to trade in goods and services with us. Their manpower would be spent being soldiers not producing wealth to trade with us. Our citizens would not have the same prosperous post WWII as we actually realized. Whoever wins in Europe would have tried for us eventually. That attempt would hardly make us freer.

namelessfly wrote:SMR might be incorrect to presume that Tenshimi is engaging in anti American trolling. I think that Tenshini's anti American sentiments are so deeply ingrained that it does not occurtohim that his expressions of anti-American sentiment are offensive.

This is why I regret the US squandering so much blood and treasure to defend Europe and other allies for over a century. The US would be wealthier and freer if we had simply allowed the totalitarian despots to have their way withtheotherwomen rest of the world.

If the US had remained uninvolved, Japan, Germany, Russia and the other European powers would have destroyed their industrial infrastructure and decimated their populations. The world population would be smaller and less industrialized so the resources of the world, including oil, would be ours for the taking.

That might be a bit optimistic. Had the US not entered, the probability that Europe and the Pacific would have fallen is high. Give Hitler a few years to rebuild his destroyed infrastructure and he would have been able to launch an attack against the Western Hemisphere which we would have had to fight virtually alone. Looking at WWII with the rose colored glasses of time, it's "obvious" that the Allies would win. In reality, it was a close call especially at the beginning before the US was able to ramp up it's war production capability. Had a few more key incidents fallen in Germany's favor, they might have won. The world is blessed that they didn't. For all of those who don't like the US, imagine a world dominated by Nazi ideals.

Spacekiwi wrote:AS someone who knows around 10 to 15 people from the USA, all were glad to leave.
They felt several parts of the laws and culture, including that around guns, god, and general remuneration were overall bad for the country, and an anchor around the USA's Neck. When you spend time trying to fleece the small guy instead of looking to take a short term loss for a much better long term gain, when you are more focused on rejecting ideas, or forcing them on others because they conflict with your beliefs, and when your first thought in a violent situation is the question of weapons, as opposed to talking them down, you have toxic elements of your culture. And before you say good riddance, 5 phds, 3 masters, 2 bachelors and 2 getting bachelors, plus 2 business owners. SO the bright and savvy are the ones leaving....

Keep in mind that you are dealing with a very non-random sample set. These are individuals who have self selected themselves and have preferred to leave the US. The vast majority of US citizens by far, including the vast majority of PhDs, Masters, etc think that the US is a wonderful country and choose to stay in it.

Personally I do think that the US is a wonderful country and is the best country in the world. It is however not perfect, and I am more than happy to expound on areas in which improvement is needed as you can see from my posts. Incidentally most people I know from other countries feel the same way about their OWN country. So I tend to feel that this type of feeling (from the majority of citizens, you'll never get all of them to feel this way) is a "biomarker" for countries that are good places to live.

There are things I like and dislike about other countries throughout the world. Some individual things I like better than the US. Although in the aggregate I prefer the US.

I like some things about Sweden's socialized system for example their handling of the disabled and semi-disabled. However overall I think it's overdone which has made it horrendously expensive and it may not be sustainable in the long run.

I like England's constitutional monarchy, which separates the ceremonial duties from the governmental ones. Given our history, no monarchy would work in the US. So we just have to borrow yours when we feel the need. And you get to collect all of our tourist dollars.

Germany's economic might is impressive. They do a much better job balancing free trade and self interest than the US has been doing lately.

I love Australia and would love to visit some day. Australia has always been a great Ally to the US (note I said Ally, NOT lapdog or minion). Australia strikes me as in a lot of ways having similar values as the US (note I said similar NOT the same).

New Zealand seems like a great place to live as well and also appears to have done a reasonably good job of keeping their citizen's happy.