Trump

[ThetaReactor]

It's not politics, it's business. The government paid all the major sports leagues to put on patriotic displays, and we can't have some uppity colored boys messing that up.

[F-ZeroOne]

Mr. Trump decides to help victims of Puerto Rico in his own personal, special way:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-41452995

[F-ZeroOne]

To be completely fair to him, so far Trump appears not to have said anything silly about the tragic events in Las Vegas (though going by comments he made in Puerto Rico in relation to events there, it likely won't be long).

[zip accident]

To be completely fair to him, so far Trump appears not to have said anything silly about the tragic events in Las Vegas (though going by comments he made in Puerto Rico in relation to events there, it likely won't be long).

There is nothing the gun lobby could say that wouldn't sound silly, and they know it, that's why they're keeping quiet.

[Deckard]

Yeah they kept pretty quiet about the 3 7 2 mass shootings in 2015 - a crazy amount.

[Little stoned kiwi]

In three months time it will be common knowledge to their support base the shooting at Las Vagas were fake news, a hoax by the un-American leftist communists.

[F-ZeroOne]

Apparently a standard NRA tactic is not to immediately respond to such incidents but make statements a few days later. Presumably the "good guys with guns" aren't in that much of a hurry to rush into potential danger...

Reflecting more on Trumps statements, it could be argued that with his "Demented" comments hes playing the "White guys are mentally ill, not terrorists" card...

[ThetaReactor]

Look, we got caught flatfooted with Vegas. We simply don't know how to react to a rich white guy gone rogue. It's just not in the script. These types usually just go into politics if they want to ruin hundreds of lives.

[(o)(o)]

Reflecting more on Trumps statements, it could be argued that with his "Demented" comments hes playing the "White guys are mentally ill, not terrorists" card...

That's how it sounded to me.

As Noam Chomsky has pointed out many times - with verifiable references to specific examples and in accordance with the exact US military legal definitions : every US president in modern history has engaged in terrorist acts and so can be described as a terrorist.

I'm sure Trump will continue that trend, and he's demented.

[Portland]

And now the foreshadowed option to allow employers to opt birth control out of their employees medical cover.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-41528526

[(o)(o)]

An article that struck me lately spoke about the cultural differences in America and how, for example, providing free healthcare at point of access is perceived as a loss of liberty..

Rand styled 'objectivism' trumps (sic) over progressives attitudes, and who are the drivers for that? Paramedics? Teachers? Prison officers? Or is it the most wealthy in society who have the power to control 'the narrative'. Neoliberalism is dead they said. Now Britain wants to adopt "American Dreams".

Actually, I had a few online interactions with Mr 'life-saving-medicine-price-gouging' Martin Shkreli. Some of you may recognised this fellow. A somewhat disturbed, possibly sociopathic pharma-boss heralded by many followers as an inspirational, hardworking, aspirational, self made man. And a provocateur and social media whore. Dude was found guilty of fraud. Dented his supporters admiration not one bit. Yes he lied to his investors - but he paid them back! So that's alright then. He's rather emblematic of the many ills of American society, and a Trump supporter, so here I share some amazing photographs, taken immediately after he was found guilty on 4 counts of securities fraud. Moments before, he had told the media how delighted he was with this result. He's in prison now - and not of the easy going blue collar variety he bragged on social media was the worst he could expect.





Stop the virus!!

[merman]

As the Grand Old Party (Republicans) see it, guns are a right that must be defended and healthcare is apparently a privilege that can be taken away - and costs more to provide a worse outcome than a centralised universal system.

[KlaxonCow]

Yes, that's what they think. But they are quite, quite wrong about that. Demonstrably so.

We can trace the origin of the Second Amendment - and, indeed, pretty much the whole Bill of Rights - to the Virginian Declaration of Rights.

If you look at these texts side-by-side, then it's bloody obvious that the one copied the other.

Section 13. That a well-regulated militia, composed of the body of the people, trained to arms, is the proper, natural, and safe defense of a free state; that standing armies, in time of peace, should be avoided as dangerous to liberty; and that in all cases the military should be under strict subordination to, and governed by, the civil power.

A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.

You can basically see that the latter is really just a concise rewording of the former.

Putting the Bill of Rights next to the Virginian Declaration of Rights and comparing, it's pretty clear that the Bill of Rights is just a more generic assimilation of the Virginian Declaration of Rights.

And what's interesting about this is that the Virginian Declaration of Rights, as you can see above, uses its greater verbosity to actually explain why these rights should exist.

Second Amendment advocates often talk about needing guns to "defend themselves from the government".

Even ignoring the patent ridiculousness of thinking that a shotgun or a pistol would be of any use against an enemy armed with cruise missiles, aircraft carriers, nuclear warheads, tanks, jet fighters, etc. coming over the hill to murder you, this is not - as can be seen in the Virginian Declaration - the actual stated reasons for having well-regulated milita.

The worry was that standing armies in peacetime is potentially dangerous. Remember, this was a new nation and we only have to look at the military coups / military control in places like Egypt, Turkey, Myanmar and so forth to understand their concern.

Having formed a standing army to see off the British, the worry was that it might try to wrestle power from the civil powers. Hence "in all cases the military should be under strict subordination to, and governed by, the civil power" at the end of Section 13 there.

So, ironically enough, it's not at all about defending yourself from the government. It was always about defending the government from the prospect of military coups and warlord-ism.

Thus, in my view, their historical understanding of the Second Amendment is simply completely wrong.

Meanwhile, what's not in doubt, as the very foundation stone of America in its Declaration of Independence, are the inalienable rights.

Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness.

These are birth rights. They are inalienable. They may never be infringed by government under any circumstances whatsoever.

But what greater enemy to Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness is illness and death? Death is the ultimate denier of Life. Of Liberty. Of any hope of Happiness. What steals Happiness and Liberty more than prolonged illness?

Oh, I'm sure they'd claim the greater qualification of being American. But I feel that my qualification of having paid fucking attention and bothered to read up on these things is objectively superior.

But then, somehow, the American version of Jesus is all for the Second Amendment - rather than, you know, "turn the other cheek" - and cheers on the death penalty - rather than, you know, "let he who is without sin cast the first stone" - and hates healthcare - despite, you know, spending most of his ministry going around healing the sick. The American Jesus loves money, even though the Biblical Jesus constantly went around telling folks to give all their shit away and trust unto the Lord to provide. Greed in the House of God? That was the only time Jesus got physically violent. He whipped those bastards out of the temple and flipped all their tables - (╯°□°）╯︵ ┻━┻ - in righteous anger.

The American Jesus is basically the Bizarro world version of the Biblical Jesus. Yet, somehow, none of this is even noticed by most Americans.

I'm sure they absolutely entirely believe what they say. Without question nor doubt.

But this doesn't stop them from being totally wrong, of course.

[F-ZeroOne]

At the risk of making this about gun control and not Trump, Victoria Cohen-Mitchell bought up a point on "The Last Leg" on Friday which also resonates with me a bit; that the attitude in the US is very different to the UK one and we shouldn't make the mistake of thinking that many Americans see things the same way as we do. I've never been to the US but I have been to Canada, and spoken to someone who personally had to fire a "cracker" (a loud, noise-making scare shot) round into the face of a polar bear or get eaten. This is not something likely to happen to you in the UK. I also frequent a couple of more US centric forums which sometimes have threads about firearms and this is where the "otherness" of the whole thing gets really striking; one person posted an image of a bag of bullets just lying on their table, which if you did the same thing in the UK would probably raise eyebrows.

Obviously, in the first instant, we're talking about a firearm as a tool to support or that is necessary in that persons chosen line of work/life, which is clearly different from requiring a fully automatic assault weapon as a personal possession, and I'm using the example to illustrate that there may be factors regarding gun ownership that might not be immediately obvious to those whose biggest threat in the garden is stepping on a hedgehog barefoot. In the second, I want to make clear that I'm not arguing such posters are right, but that - as Cohen-Mitchell said - that the idea of what is "normal" as regards gun ownership in the UK or Europe is rather different.

Regards the birth control thing, does anyone know if there have been any proposals in the US to limit access to mens healthcare? Say, you go for a prostate exam and the doctor is legally required to make you watch a video, ask extremely patronising questions, and then tell you you've got to go away and think about it for three days before he can examine you?

[Barney]

Regards the birth control thing, does anyone know if there have been any proposals in the US to limit access to mens healthcare? Say, you go for a prostate exam and the doctor is legally required to make you watch a video, ask extremely patronising questions, and then tell you you've got to go away and think about it for three days before he can examine you?

Only if you're going to enjoy it.