The crazed mass killer dollar is a good dollar.

Thanks, attaturk, what joy is life to the Free, without the assurance we can do in the neighbors?

It makes me sad that there are so many people so afraid of the world that they feel like they have to be armed to the teeth. I mean, how is it possible to even enjoy life if one is always so terrified of losing it?

Cheer up, since statistics show that possessors of guns are more likely to perish because of them, maybe the leanings are just … suicidal.

That’s not very cheerful. I guess it’s no wonder that the vast majority of these kind of people are religious.

America has violence in her DNA. We began with the violent slaughter of native *Americans*… almost extincted the buffalo, our founding fathers were slave owners who considered females less that full humans… We’ve carried on since then with all manner of violence.. including the mass murder of 250,000 Japanese with nukes. Out entertainment is laced with violence, pop stars and their videos use it to make money… we’ve found piercing and defiling human flesh a positive self affirming exercise. We execute rather than try to rehabilitate. We believe in an eye for an eye. We spend enormous amounts of our resources on weapons and killing machines and strategies to dominate and not to cooperate.

America equals violence. Gun control isn’t even a band aid on wound. It’s lip service to the guilt that some feel. It’s cognitive dissonance.

This America is not worth saving. This America needs to disappear… It’s amazing that there are any rational people who can exist within this madness AND believe that they can have an impact… or that America is capable of re forming into a just sane society. Most despair… and a few like Sisyphus trudge up the hill of infinite slope with no change of getting there.

We are living through the death throes of this society.

Good morning, pups. Today we’ve got Blow, Kristof and Collins. Mr. Blow says “On Guns, America Stands Out,” and that raw data shows how shamefully we measure up against other countries in gun violence. Mr. Kristof is “Looking for Lessons in Newtown” and says when he made a case for tighter gun control, some passionate readers had a few bones to pick. He has some counterpoints. In “Revolt of the Cliff Dwellers” Ms. Collins sees something akin to a high-stakes poker game, rabid ferrets, a surprise Plan B. These fiscal-cliff negotiations have it all!

Here they are.

The coffee, tea and hot chocolate are ready, and I’ve got blueberry pancakes this morning. The weather has been schizophrenic lately. Yesterday morning it was 35°, and in the mid to high 70s by the afternoon, with people wandering around in short shorts and sandals. Maybe that’s why the kittens have been exceptionally goofy. I can’t blame it on the full moon this time. Of course, I may just have exceptionally goofy kittens… Have a great day.

Gun dealers and pawn shops have reported MASSIVE sales since Newtown. These aren’t people buying guns for the first time, these are people adding to their collections. Most of them are buying AR-15′s or similar.

The standard American response to any chance of Gun Control is to buy more guns.

Boxturtle (We’ll be covered for the zombie apocalypse, at least)

But my neighbor is just as heavily armed as I am. I demand my right to own a cannon!

Boxturtle (If I’m not the toughest around, I can’t sleep)

Darwin rules. Forgive me, it’s the birthday of Grimm’s Fairy Tales, I’ll be talking about them, and the end of the world tomorrow, at Over Easy.

Thanks, Marion, peculiar need for Freedom of individuals’ rights to violate rules does seem to contradict our belief in our own basic decency.

The weather here is about to beat the crap out of us. 50 MPH winds heading my way, but fortunately only a little of the snow, maybe 2″. Predicting wind chills below zero tonight, but it’s 40 degrees now.

Boxturtle (Tomorrow morning is supposed to suck majorly)

While I don’t specifically disagree with anything you say, one is hard pressed to point to a country whose founding was by pacifists, done in a peaceful manner. Humanity is steeped in violence. You’re pointing at one tree in a burning forest and saying that one is the worst.

Gun ownership is only one tiny facet of the multitude of problems with America… and despite some rational suggestions, we sink further down the drain… and getting out is proving more and more difficult.

I don’t see a positive outcome in the future except that something can rise up after the fall. But the fall is the future. Are people arming themselves because they fear a complete break down of law and order? Or a total clamp down from the fascists?

Have you considered safe rooms? They’re on special for Xmas here.

(We’ll be covered for the zombie apocalypse, at least)

Hah! Do you really think at that point those folks will restrict themselves to zombies?

Glad you spoke up, I did consider asking if because it’s been invaded continuously over centuries, Egypt also should be eliminated? And since it really was created by the West’s drawing of borders, can we do it that way? But it seems pointless when there’s so much to explain about history just to get to a talking point.

Yes, yes, we’re all going to hell in a bucket. And those of us who refuse to throw up our hands in surrender are no doubt foolish, bleating sheep or whatever.

How does anybody get from history that America has some kind of monopoly on violence? We’re still one of the youngest nations so I’m pretty sure we had nothing to do with all of the slaughter that took place from the beginning of history until 1776. Or maybe Genghis Khan was born in Texas?

I looked at those. None of them come with turret guns and I’m not enough of a welder to add one in.

Besides, I gotta Stand My Ground, ya know!

Boxturtle (Maybe instead of a turret gun, I get something belt fed)

Oops! Time is getting away from me. Gotta get to work! Laters.

Earlier and less expansive societies knocked off their own, so I suppose that’s ethical superiority.

Or you could serve food from behind the grate. Even drinks. That will make your neighbors want you to survive!

That’s not true…

Violence is often a part of revolution because those in power use force and intimidation to maintain their control. Since it appears that most organizations are top down pyramid structures… those at the top life in fear of being overwhelmed by the will of the vast numbers below. So they top develops all manner of strategies to keep those below incapable of displacing them, from their position of power and privilege.

The democracies we see are only window dressing disguising the injustice of top down control (with benefits).

There seems to be no efficient/effective means to manage huge amounts of people / information with such a top down hierarchy.

We do need to have a more participatory democracy… more anarchistic… diffuse with little concentrated power.

We do little to displace the pyramids of power in this culture… in all aspects or life. We worship competition which moves people up the pyramid (even when they are cheats or don’t play fairly) We embrace competition where there are mostly losers. You had your chance… now life with the consequences of your defeat!

When socially conscience proposals are advanced they are shot down because of the winner takes all and deserves the spoils mentality of the American zeitgeist. This is not a world wide meme… although our disease has been nicely spread by the empire. Our leaders mock and ridicule structures which empower and respect the masses and we call them nanny states or some such derogatory term.

Most nations have no interest in nukes or military domination. They are likely drawn into the meme that they need to defend their borders/people from predators. Most of this is rather local, tribal and non sense and driven by religious ideas… not rational ones.

America is the leader in violence in all things. We kill more and better.

Given a choice of a shooting war with my neighbors, I’d rather try to bribe with a chocolate chip double fudge iced brownie. If he responds with some of his authentic, smoked for hours BBQ I’d we’re on our way to a peace treaty!

Boxturtle (MUCH better option than hollow points, but maybe that’s just me)

Foolish? No… There are many who feel that they must do something. But are naive to think that they can accomplish anything. You either piss into the wind or try to escape the madness and not get into the fray.

The only change can come from the people. Not the leaders. Top down changes are not changing the paradigm.

The people must simply not cooperate with the system. It must collapse completely… and be rebuilt with a completely different paradigm… no top down structures. Simple as that. How that happens is another issue.

This is a non serious comment.

Let’s hear some real solutions of analysis.

I’ll bring the potato salad, for balance.

Speaking of standing your ground… Yikes!

My intention is not to wipe out anything, so of course, it isn’t serious. That would take bad intentions.

As someone who has observed what going on… and I am not too smart or well read either… it’s obvious that there have been many intelligent critiques offered of everything coming down the pike. Thousands of exposes of wrong doing and wrong headed thinking. And this important and valuable.

More and more sh*t and more critiques and people screaming their hair is on fire. And a few souls actually putting their bodies in the works to block something and call attention to it. Not enough of that happening. Why weren’t there hundreds of thousands outside the Bradley Manning Trial? I know… they were reading about it and writing comments about it online!

Wrong…

Wiping out *evil* or hatred or malfeasance is RIGHT. All right thinking people need to wipe out wrong thinking… not destroy life… but destroy and rid the world of negative behaviors.

What is your intention?

Solutions that involve actual use of the mind and lack violence.

What, pray tell, are you doing to “wipe out wrong thinking?”

That’s a good start… My sense is that you accept the system and consider that it needs some tweaking to fix it up… a few regs here and there enforced… and some new laws… and get rid of a few bad ones? No?

I am pointing out as best I can… the failures of logic and lack of critical thinking and analysis. When you focus locally you often miss the big picture… BOTH are important.

I observe lot’s of energy in local issues… gay rights for example… but lack of push at the main problem… the entire system is bogus and unsustainable and subject to multiple flaws… it’s endemic in the system itself.

Beats destroying the country/society/the neighbors.

I would waste my time with the NY Times editorial writers and reporting their nonsense. Who the F cares? Why even acknowledge that these jerks matter? They need serious re education…

Unh, wow. My wife is a supervisor for LC, so that hits a bit close to home.

There should be a Mind Your Own Business exception to the SYG laws.

The fellow who got poor service would have hit the Little Caesars lottery with one phone call. He’d have got that pie free, his next pie free and a couple orders of breadsticks thrown in for good measure. Minimum. No need to shoot him for whining, a 20 minute wait deserves a whine.

Boxturtle (How the hell does a nit like that escalate into a shooting?!?)

No it doesn’t… it’s well past the time to destroy or re found… pick your word… this country and this society.

I don’t think you should slaughter your neighbors. I advocate no destruction but resistance to the system… don’t kill… don’t participate.

Gandhi got the Brits out of India with mass resistance. King would have taken the military down with it… he was killed because he was showing the way. JFK was killed because he was challenging the national security state… he was on the inside but the power was with the guns.

OWS was a major threat because it WAS the beginning or resistance to the system. That freaked them out and had to be crushed. And it was spreading.

One giant leap would be the abolition of religious from the public square and the thinking of the nation… any nation. We need rational thought not nonsense distraction of unscientific beliefs. Religion has as much blood on its hands and armies do.

I guess the ladies have nothing more to say? It’s christmas time… ho ho ho .. time to cook turkeys!

No one I know, hopefully?

Pardon me, but that could be construed as a sexist comment and not appreciated.

I don’t expect to see anything get better in my lifetime.

I am not sexist… but there were only a few females responding to me…. I assume they were females by their nicks. No sexism intended.

Give that girlie a beer!

I thought you were implying that because you didn’t get another response, the ladies must all be cooking, ’cause that’s the wimmens’ job.

Kind of reminds me of the guy who when told he’s being argumentative, say’s No, I’m not. Ha.

hahahahaha

No I am trying to have a serious discussion about some of the issues raised about how we change things…

Have at it.

SanderO. I like your comments, very well thought out I believe. Unfortunately, I for one am fully immersed in the Matrix. I can’t get out. I have 4 children, I can’t starve them. I have to participate…it’s sad, but I feel I have no choice. I don’t have time to go protest what is happening to Bradley Manning, I didn’t have time to participate in OWS. 3 of them are teenagers now so in due time they may be on their own, but the way things are currently going there is just as much chance they will be staying at home!!

As much as I don’t like things, I can’t participate in the change. Sad but true.

Unless, of course, it’s the zombies buying guns.

I went to work. Just like I said in the comment @ 21. Some of us don’t have the luxury to promote our points of view from behind a keyboard all day.