Outsider view on US gun problems

Imaginos1892 wrote:Bullshit. If you could magically remove ‘social inequality’ overnight, it would be back by this time next week. Violence would be back first thing in the morning.

There will always be greed, envy, and those with the driving need to control people. There will always be those that believe they’re better than everybody else. There will always be brutes and monsters that get off by hurting, killing and terrorizing others. There will always be groups that hate everybody unlike them.

And, there can never be absolute social equality because people are not equal. Some are smart, some are stupid. Some are industrious, some are lazy. Some are honest, some are liars, some are sociopaths. Trying to make everybody ‘equal’, no matter how much they contribute to or take from society, would be the worst kind of injustice. Good, honest, hard workers must be rewarded; lazy, lying sociopaths must be punished. Fail at that, and it is impossible to maintain a functional society.
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Do the 'progressives' really believe that your waiter should have 'income equality' with your doctor?
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Inequality based on individual accomplishment and merit would be lovely. But that's not what we have.

noblehunter wrote:Inequality based on individual accomplishment and merit would be lovely. But that's not what we have.

And yet Capitalism (despite its many, many flaws) comes closer to it than Communism.

Weird Harold wrote:I would argue that the reverse is true.

Joat42 wrote:IF there where no social inequality:

• There would be no reason to immigrate (except for work/love etc)
• There would be no reason to commit crime (except those that do it anyway)
• There would be no reason to take drugs to cope with reality (except those that do it anyway)

Everything you list is a symptom of social inequality.

"social inequality" is a sound-bite without meaning. Give me some specifics of how to achieve "social equality.

"Socialist" countries didn't pass a law and suddenly wake up in a Brave New World. It took decades of incremental changes and individual legislation to get to "social equality".

Imaginos1892 wrote:Bullshit. If you could magically remove ‘social inequality’ overnight, it would be back by this time next week. Violence would be back first thing in the morning.

You can't remove social inequality overnight so your point has no meaning. To remove social inequality you need to change society, which takes time but if you just give up without even trying you are part of the problem.

Imaginos1892 wrote:There will always be greed, envy, and those with the driving need to control people. There will always be those that believe they’re better than everybody else. There will always be brutes and monsters that get off by hurting, killing and terrorizing others. There will always be groups that hate everybody unlike them.

Which is why you need to change society to where those driving forces isn't accepted. Your whole mindset is based on defeatism, that society is like it is because we can't change it.

Imaginos1892 wrote:And, there can never be absolute social equality because people are not equal. Some are smart, some are stupid. Some are industrious, some are lazy. Some are conscientious, some are irresponsible. Some are honest, some are liars, some are sociopaths. Trying to make everybody ‘equal’, no matter how much they contribute to or take from society, would be the worst kind of injustice. Good, honest, hard workers must be rewarded; lazy, lying sociopaths must be punished. Fail at that, and it is impossible to maintain a functional society.

You are conflating individual equality with social equality which is two different things. Social equality means that an individual should have the same rights and access to the same social benefits as any other individual, ie a basic level of social equality that doesn't mean that the individual is being marginalized.

When you have a society in which many people can't afford basic healthcare or food for their family even though they work themselves literally to death, social inequality is rampant. And why would anyone in that type of system then adhere to the expected social norms when it's easier to rob the nearest convenience store? What should people do when the current system only strengthens their disenfranchisement?

Imaginos1892 wrote:Do the 'progressives' really believe that your waiter should have 'income equality' with your doctor?

No, but many conservatives conflate things and use that as a strawman instead debating the issue at hand.

Do the 'progressives' really believe that your waiter should have 'income equality' with your doctor?

Certainly not, I worked hard and continually studied all my working life to get up the ladder. However I do believe that if the waiter puts in a 40 hour week they should earn enough to live in reasonable comfort. Tipping is very rare in my country, as we know that the waiter is earning a reasonable wage. Many are offended by it, as they see it as demeaning.

Imaginos1892 wrote:Do the 'progressives' really believe that your waiter should have 'income equality' with your doctor?

Wouldn't be an Imaginos post without some strawmanning going on in it.

No, "progressives" do not believe that. Noone, as far as I am aware, does. By any conceivable metric, a Doctor provides a more valuable service to the community than a waiter does, and whatever compensation that doctor gets for their services should reflect that. (Personally, I believe that you should be compensated for your work corresponding to how valuable it is for society for you to be doing that work. Someone working in garbage disposal or as a nurse or as a teacher is more valuable to society than someone who juggles stocks all day, and compensation should reflect that. It's one of the ways in which soft power can be applied: By rewarding activities we decide to be benefitial, we can use the reward-seeking, efficiency-optimizing behaviours capitalism has promoted in ways that benefit society rather than capitalists)

At the same time, however, does that mean that being a waiter means that you should be living in precarious circumstances where getting sick would mean a substantial cut in income?

The E wrote:Someone working in garbage disposal or as a nurse or as a teacher is more valuable to society than someone who juggles stocks all day, and compensation should reflect that.

That, at least, is true. Buying and selling stocks over and over contributes nothing to society. Short-term trading is naught but gambling, and should be taxed until it is not profitable.

But what about the extra people businesses have to hire solely to fill out the government forms required by thousands upon thousands of petty laws? What does that contribute to society? Large corporations have to hire two or three extra accountants to deal with all that chickenshit, but it puts a huge burden on small businesses. Some of them get put out of business by over-regulation, while the huge corporations those laws are supposed to control make 'contributions' and the politicians write exceptions into the rules. They're 'too big to fail', after all.

What has any of that to do with guns?
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How do you get a million dollars day-trading stocks?
Start with two million!

Imaginos1892 wrote:What has any of that to do with guns?

Not a damned thing: the discussion has moved on to root causes of violence with diverges unto comparative ideographs.

Michael Everett wrote:

noblehunter wrote:Inequality based on individual accomplishment and merit would be lovely. But that's not what we have.

And yet Capitalism (despite its many, many flaws) comes closer to it than Communism.

And come much further from it than Social Democracies.

So...

Michael Everett wrote:And yet Capitalism (despite its many, many flaws) comes closer to it than Communism.

Must point out, that modern Capitalism was quite influenced by Socialism - or, to be exact, by the fear of Socialism.