Figured it was about time to start a thread concerning potential changes we'd like to see pertaining to our gubmit. These are some of my ideas. Feel free to add your own or critique my vision......
In my world, right and left are not points on a straight line, but rather directions that can be traveled on a circle or spiral, if you will. Totalitarian regimes can be found on both the far right and left. so in my view, reasonable total personal freedom should be reachable by traveling in either direction around the circle. This is where left meets right. So the labels conservative and liberal really have no meaning in this discussion.
I believe the "republicrats" are really corporationists bowing to the captains of industry who influence policy through cash contributions taking the form of lobbying and political donations/contributions. Policy is currently being set by the highest bidder, imo.
I think the federal gubmit is way too big and over reaching. I'd like to see the feds spend no more than they take in. I would also like to see them change their focus to international relations, national security, interstate travel and social security.
Social security would be defined as protecting and guaranteeing certain rights bestowed upon each and every member of this nation, including but not limited to the rights spelled out in the constitution.
I don not believe any person in this country should be prosecuted for a victimless crime. While I do believe in state rights to choose the direction of their respective states, I would put an individual's right to live life as they see fit above all else. The federal litmus test would be a necessity for the state to show damages or harm to a bona fide victim before charges can be levied.
I would guarantee the right to practice religion and ban the state from defining what exactly constitutes a religion. The state has no right to question religious practices as long as their are no victims. Religions have no right to question the gubmit as long as there are no victims.
Plural marriage would be fine by me as long as all parties involved are consenting adults. As would same sex marriage.
Prostitution and drug use becomes legal. No victim, no crime.
Health care would be available to all, through insurance companies much like medicare is now available to all senior citizens. Maintaining insurance shouldn't be contingent on maintaining a job in the corporate world. Single payer systems allow individuals and families needing health care insurance to purchase a policy at lower rates as the group being insured grows in size. (Economy of scale.) maintaining the current health care insurance system allows insurance companies to gouge individuals seeking coverage if they aren't associated with a large buying group, like corporate employees, gubmit employees and senior citizens are.
That's it for now.... (The cats are getting hugry.)
lw
A vote for lw is a vote for fun!
if I had MY way I would tear this whole building down..........
Hmmm. Mandatory military service, 2 years anyway, maybe 4. Mandatory firearm ownership, whatever you trained on during your military service. If it is growing in your backyard, it is alright. If it is eating what is growing in your backyard, and it isn't a neighbor kid, you can shoot it.
Other than that I suspect I could live in your world, lw.
-G-
Mandatory military service might end wars, if the politicians knew there kids would have to go fight.
What if don't want a gun? You gonna shoot me or just lock me up?
No lock up for lack of weapon due to lack of victim. Case dismissed.
Mandatory military and/or maybe social service, then it shall be. Elected officials shall be chosen at random or through lottery to represent their prospective states for a set term limit.
Public nudity shall be neither encouraged no discouraged.
A man (or woman) legally married to more than one party without all parties involved consent shall be subject to charges of polygamy.
lw
Hmmm. I'm pretty sure you don't want me parading around in public nude, but I'm okay with letting you figure that out the hard way.
I'm okay with social service as a substitute for military service for conscientious objectors, provided that the social service involves basic training and regular drills similar to military service minus weapons training.
JRL, nearly every law I've looked at that compels one to do something, rather than the typical prohibiting one from doing something, allows for objectors. In this case I would expect that purchasing an annual permit from the state, along with proof of proper training for living unarmed, and a declaration of one's own mental stability, would be sufficient to allow someone to roam about unarmed.
Individual states can choose the specifics of price of permit, what level of training, and what constitutes mental stability. The individual states could farm this decision out to local government if they so choose.
LOL If folks don't like it Glider, they don't have to look. However, towels will need to be carried by the naked to place on seat before sitting in public places.
As for permits to NOT carry..... I think its a bad idea to allow for local jurisdiction control of this issue. I'd prefer a standardized set of guidelines, even if each jurisdiction has different problems and therefore different self defense needs to be taught. (My initial reaction would be to run a loop on each local access channel outlining where non-carriers are apt to congregate, as a warning to law abiding gun carriers of dangerous areas to avoid.)
lw
Question for you guys, with all due respect. I have asked many gun advocates this and have not gotten ONE answer(true story):
Do you think anyone should have access to any weapon they want?
Should anyone have access to any weapon? Not in my opinion.
I don't think civilians have need for automatic weapons where one pulls the trigger and the gun fires off a rapid burst. Nor anti aircraft guns nor grenades, etc. I really like the laws in this respect pretty much how they are currently written. Other than standardizing the process at the state level rather than local sheriffs, I have no complaints.
The only guns I currently own are for hunting birds, but I have family and friends who are licensed to carry. (And I do enjoy target shooting with them once in awhile.)
ps: I don't believe a person convicted of beating their spouse has any right to carry a weapon.
lw
Quote from: "JRL"Do you think anyone should have access to any weapon they want?
Do I think anyone should have access to any drug they want?
Yes. Absolutely.
The actions of the individual are the only things we should regulate. Do we punish everyone by forcing abstinence from alcohol because someone can't figure out that it is a bad idea to drink and drive? To drink and beat your wife? To drink and beat someone else's wife?
Or do we punish (try to reform? restrain for the good of Joe Public?) the individual who cannot control their actions?
Now, replace the word 'drug' with 'weapon' or whatever other object the state thinks we are not civilized enough or intelligent enough to deal with.
You want an apache helicopter with 50 cal guns and side winder missiles? Can you afford one? Good, have fun.
You're afraid someone else will buy one and crash it into a building? I suspect that if someone wants to crash into a building, they'll manage to get their hands on an aircraft somewhere. Those that work to build their own, to afford to buy their own, to grow their own, are far less likely to abuse it than those who didn't earn it.
-G-
Thanks for the answer. Not sure if i agree. Like should you sell to someone who is obviously mentally ill, making threats or intoxicated?
You spend much time in bars? In my little world the customer is not always right. case in point, guy was drinking all day at the bar next door, obviously blind drunk, obviously a bad guy. When they cut him off he goes next door to my home club and when the bouncer demanded he pay the $5 cover charge he goes out to his car, grabs a sawed off shotgun, lays in wait and when the bouncer comes out carrying broken down boxes to the dumpster he unloads it into Mark point blank. The only thing that saved his life were the boxes, they absorbed some of pellets and a lot of energy, plus the 60 year old bartender wrestle the gun from the dude while he was trying to reload.
OK, I realize that his gun was illegal and it didn't stop him from having it, but maybe the guys next door should have cut him off a couple hours before they did? The cops were well aware of the fact the dude was a sociopath.
I do believe in the Constitution, and i am not a prohibitionist, and i do believe we should have access to drugs, but I would hate to see sawed off shotguns becoming a growth industry.
Have spent much time in Israel? Every one packs there because they need too. Funny thing any one that says an armed society is polite society has never been to Jerusalem.
People there got guns but no need to prove anything. If people day to day here acted like they do there blood would run in the streets. But you don't worry about being "dissed" when you have people sworn to kill you. Here in the US where a large percentage of high school kids think they NEED to pack a gun with their lunch, it seems that your gun deal would only work if Americans grow the fuck up. A good part of the time a gun is just to prop up ones penis. You can't open The Sacramento Bee with out reading about gun fire
at a nightclub, kids party, or a ball game. It is truly a daily event.
I realize I am rambling, I got no easy answers, I just don't want the Crips, the Bloods, the Brodrick Boys or any of em getting sidewinder missles on my street.
Good point, jrl. Its all fun and games until the jets and sharks go at it with sidewinders in a neighborhood near you.
So, Glider.... What happens when the guys next door decide to go new-cull-ar?
lw
Armed youth is a huge problem here, this mornings paper had a couple more shootings.
And the answer I get sometimes is that i should buy a bigger gun. How is that gonna protect me from a stray bullet from a drive by.(We had one down the street a couple years back.
Random young dude died because he wanted to have some fun on a saturday night.
All you gun guys, how many times have your guns saved you? I hear way less stories about that then about senseless killings.
I wouldn't sell a car to someone who is obviously mentally ill or drunk. I think the same logic applies here.
On the other hand, I was under the impression that our mythical society was intending to take care of the mentally ill rather than letting them wander about buying cars and shotguns.
Sawed off shotguns are really only good for one thing. Self defense. A couple of boxes wouldn't have stopped a round from a good hunting rifle. As such, I'm okay with sawed off shotguns.
I'm not sure that we should allow bird hunting shotguns though. What did the birds ever do to you? No, no, I'm not willing to go down that road. Bird hunting shotguns will have to be okay. We'll deal with people who actually hurt birds, whether they use a bird gun or anti-freeze soaked corn.
I think perhaps your best take home point, JRL, is that membership in a free society requires a populace that is willing to shoulder the responsibility of being free. There really isn't a way around that. It brings to memory a conversation from some other board, from some other time. Should we or should we not have a defining point where an individual becomes a full participating member of society?
Rifles, tobacco, and military service at 18, driving a 2000 lbs chunk of steel (plastic anyway) around well in excess of 100 km/h while burning up fossil fuels (less so now than back then) at the tender age of 16, and you can't have a bloody beer until 21 ?!?! That's assuming you survived your military service. Back in the day we postulated that the gradual ease into adult life, without a defining point where once crossed from child to adult, might play a part in why so many adults act like children.
This shouldering of responsibility is one of the motivations for why my first post to this thread included an obligation to military service. It also is why when lw suggested social service as a possible alternative for pacifists (my apologies if I am paraphrasing incorrectly), I agreed predicated on the social service being hands on, basic training type service, akin to basic training + military service but without the weapon's training. I don't think many people are going to sprout ethics, integrity, or personal responsibility whilst sitting behind a desk during their youth.
BTW, JRL, the Rifleman from the NRA carries 4-6 stories of the type you were inquiring about each month. In some cases they are humorous, with grandma or grandpa greeting a knife wielding thug or a door smashing home intruder with their revolver / shotgun, and the police showing up to take into custody some sheepish young fellow. In other cases the ending isn't at all funny, with a criminal taken out of the revolving door of the court system in a permanent fashion.
Another side of that same coin, JRL, is to compare crime rates in an area before and after increases or decreases in gun control. Just because a woman has never had to draw her weapon doesn't mean that the collective ownership of guns by women in her state hasn't made a statistical difference in keeping her from harm. Please note the crafty use of the feminine pronoun in an attempt to subtly point out that gender inequality of physical form matters a little less when the fight isn't settled via muscle power.
lw, someday someone may press the Big Red Button. Someone who has busted their arse working to earn a weapon is, in my opinion, more trustworthy than some politician who happened to manage 51% of the vote and land in office. At least in this scenario, the person with the Button has actually seen military service. Either way, I'm not going to let a threat of instantaneous oblivion frighten me into yielding any more of my civil liberties and basic rights.
Thanks for flying,
Glider
Any body here ever play the Nation States game?
-G-
Interesting.... If I read it correctly, you would be all for a guy on the block owning a suitcase nuke but have reservations about people being allowed to harvest game with a shotgun.
What if your neighbor with the nuke was named Aziz Hassan?
lw
Take the part about the shotgun wielding bird harvester as a bit tongue in cheek. Bag enough starlings with your 410, and they are actually pretty tasty. Er, so I've heard.
I might be a bit embarrassed around Aziz at first, until I learned how to pronounce Aziz.
-G-
Quote from: "Glider"Another side of that same coin, JRL, is to compare crime rates in an area before and after increases or decreases in gun control.
I believe this has been occasionally done in places that have liberalized their laws (such as in Virginia), and if I'm interpreting the data correctly it seems like the people on the far sides of the debate--both pro and con--are a bit off-base. Not much happens under these circumstances, so I think the arguments have to be framed philosophically. If there isn't much practical difference, philosophy and aesthetics tend to be how we form our opinions.
It reminds me somewhat of the welfare reform that took place in the late 80's/early 90's. Arguments were very shrill, with opponents to welfare reform predicting that there would be mass starvation of the poor, and proponents saying this would provide the impetus to the dissolution of the welfare cast. The reform was passed for the most part, and... not much happened.
There is a certain stability in the outward manifestation of social and cultural milieux that many people overlook.
More specifically on gun control: did any of you see Michael Moore's
Bowling for Columbine? He's not my favorite film-maker (in fact he annoys me), but I decided to watch the movie anyway, and the movie was entirely muddled and schizophrenic. On one hand he would go to great lengths to show that it's not the guns that make a society violent (by, say, going to Canada, where gun ownership is much higher than in the US, but violent crimes rates are much lower), and then he would go to great lengths to blame the gun and ammunition manufacturers. I'm not really sure what his point was, unless is was "Guns don't kill people, gun
makers do."
But at least the movie had some Camper Van Beethoven.
Take the skinheads bowling,
take them bowling..... - CVB -