Another Mass Shooting In The Us...

[StevePalermo]

Off topic but this is why I think affirmative action is not the worst kind of racism. Someone just sent me this link. https://www.youtube....h?v=fTcSVQJ2h8g

As for the different treatment in employment, a cousin used to work in the recruitment agency business. She changed careers after seeing the number of times employers used to specify 'White English only', sometimes subtly, and often not. Mainly in skilled and well paid jobs. The lower end jobs didn't matter so much.

 

[camberiu]

ARTICLE: For black gun owners, bearing arms is a civil rights issue
"There are signs that attitudes are shifting. A survey by the Pew Research Center found that 54 percent of blacks now see gun ownership as a good thing – more likely to protect than to harm – compared with 29 percent just two years ago(...) Gun enthusiasts are quick to remind critics – correctly, historians say – that gun control laws have their roots in racist policies. Throughout slavery, the Civil War, the Reconstruction years and the Jim Crow era, historians say, laws were enacted to separate black people from firearms."

 

[twin]

I've just read that the RNC has prohibited guns from their convention. What kind of hypocrisy is that?

Both conventions are National Security Events under control of Secret Service and FBI among others. Look for hypocracy elsewhere.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Special_Security_Event

 

[steveinbsas]

I think is is safe to say that NPR is far less likely to report biased information (aka propaganda) than a group like the NRA regarding gun violence in the USA.Here is an article with some surprising statistics that was published in 2013:

Rate Of U.S. Gun Violence Has Fallen Since 1993, Study Says

Since 1993, the United States has seen a drop in the rate of homicides and other violence involving guns, according to two new studies released Tuesday. Using government data, analysts saw a steep drop for violence in the 1990s, they saw more modest drops in crime rates since 2000.

"Firearm-related homicides dropped from 18,253 homicides in 1993 to 11,101 in 2011," according to a report by the federal Bureau of Justice Statistics, "and nonfatal firearm crimes dropped from 1.5 million victimizations in 1993 to 467,300 in 2011.

There were seven gun homicides per 100,000 people in 1993, the Pew Research Center study says, which dropped to 3.6 gun deaths in 2010. The study relied in part on data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

"Compared with 1993, the peak of U.S. gun homicides, the firearm homicide rate was 49 percent lower in 2010, and there were fewer deaths, even though the nation's population grew," according to the Pew study. "The victimization rate for other violent crimes with a firearm—assaults, robberies and sex crimes—was 75 percent lower in 2011 than in 1993."

All of that is good news — but many Americans don't seem to be aware of it. In a survey, the Pew Research Center found that only 12 percent of Americans believe the gun crime rate is lower today than it was in 1993; 56 percent believe it's higher.

In an effort to explain that finding, the Pew researchers noted that while mass shootings are rare, they capture public interest and are often viewed as touchstone events that help define they year in which the crimes occur. As examples, they cite three shootings in the past two years, in Tucson, Ariz.; Aurora, Colo.; and in Newtown, Conn.

The U.S. gun crime rate peaked in the late 1980s and early 1990s, the Pew study says, ending years of growth in gun violence that began in the 1960s. But the rate of suicides committed using a firearm hasn't fallen as fast, they add, noting that 6 out of every 10 gun deaths in America stems from suicide.

"Looking at the larger topic of firearm deaths, there were 31,672 deaths from guns in the U.S. in 2010," according to the Pew Center study. "Most (19,392) were suicides; the gun suicide rate has been higher than the gun homicide rate since at least 1981, and the gap is wider than it was in 1981."

The study also analyzed the people who've lost their lives to gun violence.

In 2010, 84 percent of those killed were male; 69 percent were between the ages of 18 and 40. And 55 percent of gun homicides that year were black, the researchers found — far higher than their share of the population (13 percent).

The study also notes that while the number of gun homicides has dropped, the number of guns in America hasn't.

Noting that it isn't clear how many Americans have guns in their households, the Pew researchers found that the "2009 per capita rate of one person per gun in the U.S. had roughly doubled since 1968."

The federal report included data about where criminals had acquired their weapons.

"In 2004 (the most recent year of data available), among state prison inmates who possessed a gun at the time of the offense, fewer than two percent bought their firearm at a flea market or gun show," according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics. "About 10 percent of state prison inmates said they purchased it from a retail store or pawnshop, 37 percent obtained it from family or friends, and another 40 percent obtained it from an illegal source."

Source: http://www.npr.org/s...1993-study-says

PS: The text in the NPR website includes links to the source of the statistics.

 

[ElQueso]

Off topic but this is why I think affirmative action is not the worst kind of racism. Someone just sent me this link. https://www.youtube....h?v=fTcSVQJ2h8g

As for the different treatment in employment, a cousin used to work in the recruitment agency business. She changed careers after seeing the number of times employers used to specify 'White English only', sometimes subtly, and often not. Mainly in skilled and well paid jobs. The lower end jobs didn't matter so much.

Again, I never said that affirmative action is the worst kind of racism. And a video that shows that racism still exists doesn't support affirmative action. Using one form of racism to combat racism is not the answer. In my opinion, the answer is to let it sort itself out over time. In point of fact, if there were more black businesses instead of more black poverty - let black people hire black and white people hire white if they want to. I'd be willing to bet in that case that you would see more white people hiring black people than you would black people hiring white people.

You can't force people to feel things that you want them to feel. that's just a very basic principle of psychology and something these things completely ignore. You can force people to follow the laws of society - but the more force you apply the more problems you create, force returned in various ways. I can go as far as supporting a law that you can't discriminate based on race, but it is very hard to prove individual events of discrimination unless the discriminator is really stupid.

The video you linked to is interesting, but I would want to know "why". An example was a study (I can't remember now where it was, and this is now anecdotal) where a police department (or sheriff or constable) in the countryside was cited for harassing black drivers. They had given an inordinate amount of black drivers tickets. Later it was discovered the reason was because there were two nearby towns that had predominantly black populations that drove back and forth and this department was int he middle.

That there exists racism I have no doubt. That the US has created all sorts of laws and such to combat it, I have no doubt. That the news in the US highlights racism all the time is obvious. That it's as bad, generally, as shown, I do have doubt. That it's worse in the US than in other countries I have serious doubts. Seems to me that the US loves to air its dirty laundry for all to see and I'm not so sure that other countries do. and I live here in Argentina where I have experienced some racism as a "yanqui" and my Paraguayan family experiences it nearly constantly.

But I still don't believe that one should combat racism with racism.

 

[steveinbsas]

The recent assassination of five policemen in Dallas happened after this thread was started but I don't think it has been brought up in this thread. The "gun violence" (also arguably a mass shooting) was carried out by a young man who was black and wanted to kill white cops. One of the victims was Latino, but the point is that none of them were black.

The question most often asked after the shootings in Dallas was "Why did he want to kill white cops?."

To answer a question with a question: "Given everything that has been reported in the media and/or said by by the leaders of the country, both in and out of office, why wouldn't he?"

I'm sure he saw demonstrations afer the shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson where the participants were chanting, "Pigs in a Blanket, fry'em like bacon!" and "What do we want? Dead cops now!"

I was labeled a racist here when I opposed the "Afordable Care Act" in 2009 or 2010. Recently, (in the past week) I was labeled a hater because I have disagreed with a number things President Obama has said, done, and continues to do. I don't hate him or anyone, for that matter. I don't compare him to Hitler or Stalin and I previously posted. It doesn't matter (at least to me) if he fits the strict definition of a Socialist or a Communist. I have been critical of anything he has done or has proposed to do that violates the Constitution, which he swore to uphold and defend in the same minute he became President.

Someone asked what's so important about the US Constitution. It is obviously not perfect, but it provided the foundation for the US government and serves a a limit on the power the government has over the people. It is the "Law of the Land" and can be changed through the amendment process. There have been over 20 amendments to the Constitution and not all of them have been good. One resulted in the greatest crime wave (and gun violence) in the history of the USA.

No other constitutional government in history has lasted as long as the one created by the "Founding Fathers" of the USA They were not perfect men. Some owned salves, including George Washington and Thomas Jefferson. They (among the others) have been vilified for owning slaves and not ending slavery when the government was founded. The reality is that they would not have been able to get the original Constitution ratified if they included the abolition of slavery. The southern states would not have signed and there would have been no country. Some criticize y the three fifth's clause (counting slaves as three fifths of a person for the purpose of apportionment) as an example of racism, but it was included to prevent giving the Southern States a greater percentage of representatives in the US Congress.

We all know that it took a long time to finally end slavery. The Abolitionist movement started in the churches (mostly white) in the North and the US fought an horrific (and perhaps unnecessary) Civil War to preserve the Union. Along the way slavery was abolished at the cost of over 7000,000 men (also mostly white) killed or wounded and a tremendous amount of property was destroyed in the South. It took another hundred years to pass the Civil Rights Act of 1964 into law (thanks to the Republican caucus lead by Evert Dirksen at the personal request of President Johnson).

I remember the civil unrest in the mid to late sixties. I was 14 in 1964. It is nothing like that in the US now, but I fear it could become even worse in the future if the racial divide widens.

The following article was published three years ago; before the death of Micheal Brown (shot by a white cop) in Ferguson Missouri and the lie of "hands up. don't shoot" and the hatred it help spawn (fueled by the professional race-baiters) and the racism it has helped resurrect:

Saturday, July 20, 2013
by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger
Editor of NaturalNews.com (See all articles...)
Tags: racism theater, Obama, mainstream media


(NaturalNews) America is a nation in great need of healing. It is a nation subsisting on a food supply poisoned with GMOs, pesticides and herbicides, suffering under an epidemic of chronic disease and nearly bankrupted by the gutting of the U.S. economy by parasitic Washington bureaucrats.

Thanks to politicians like Obama, America has been driven to the brink of financial disaster, and thanks to former presidents like Bush, the "land of the free" has been turned into a dystopian surveillance police state (which Obama then multiplied and expanded). At numbers never before seen in U.S. history, everyday Americans are unemployed, living on government food aid (over 100 million Americans!), and seeing the "American dream" slip away from them more and more rapidly as the reality of the bleak future fully sets in.

America is a nation in desperate need of healing: nutritional healing, medical healing, economic healing and racial healing.

So what does Obama do? He fans the flames of racial hatred and joins with the "racism industry" to spread hatred and mistrust for his own political gain.

Obama assaults the psyche of America
He is beyond shameless... he is destructive to the very psyche of America. Just as the nation needs to come together for the common causes that unite us all -- GMOs, deadly vaccines, fluoride in the water, the Fed's grand money theft, etc. -- Obama keeps us divided along racial lines with trumped-up fear mongering and muckraking that's intentionally designed to keep America divided.

If America were a patient, Obama and the racism industry would be a deadly cancer spreading across the body, destroying healthy tissue and causing pain and suffering. Instead of encouraging Americans to call for peace, unity and understanding, Obama takes to the airwaves and claims racism remains so bad in America that Trayvon Martin could have been him, implying that even the President could have been shot by an angry Latino who the brain-damaged media continues to somehow call "white."

The myth of systematic oppression of blacks in America
The very premise that black people are systematically oppressed in modern-day America is a myth. America is a nation where the President is black, the Attorney General is black, most of the highest-paid athletes and sports figures are black, the highest-paid entertainers are black, and black people hold key positions as mayors, governors, senators and members of Congress. If anything, the racial composition of our nation and its political, entertainment and business leaders is absolute proof that the era of black oppression is ancient history in America. I'm not saying there aren't isolated cases of one-on-one racism that still go on, but the idea that there is systematic oppression of blacks is absurd.

Remember: It was white people who ultimately put Obama in office, their votes proving that white people wanted a black person to hold the highest office of the land. For that very person to now fan the flames of racial division and hatred is catalyzing damaging ripple effects far beyond what most people are even considering right now. Obama has set back racial tolerance three decades or more in America, actually fomenting new distrust where none existed. All across America, white people who used to be completely non-racist are now seeing the black community go completely and irrationally insane over a wholly contrived issue that has been viciously manipulated and shaped from the very beginning to spread hatred.

MSNBC, the propaganda division of the White House, continues to go out of its way spewing racism and hatred, just as directed by Obama who then joins in with his own racial division and hatred. The plan, of course, is to foment so much contrived hatred that America collapses into a massive race war that distracts everybody from the monumental failures of bad government.

Racism industry is the enemy of economic abundance
Detroit, a city largely run by Obama-supporting African-Americans, has collapsed into bankruptcy. The same kind of failed thinking that brought Detroit to its knees is now being unleashed by people like Al Sharpton -- the Don King of race-baiting hatred -- who is behind a new call for an economic boycott of Florida.

This idea, just like most of the racism industry's ideas, make absolutely no sense. What do all the people of Florida -- many of whom are black -- have to do with Trayvon Martin or George Zimmerman? Is the hatred now so intense that black America will boycott an entire state of many black-run businesses simply because they happen to be in the same geographic region where something went down that they don't like?

The irrationality has reached the point of insanity. The mere application of logic is now called "racist."

And why are blacks now lining up against "stand your ground" self defense laws when it is their own people who need those laws the most? The vast majority of murders in the USA are black-on-black crime, and when those murders are stopped, it's often the case that a responsible black man with a legal gun intervenes to STOP violence and save an innocent life. Standing your ground is the essence of family security and personal liberty, yet Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson and black America now seem to have been hornswaggled into believing that the right of self defense should be stripped from everyone, including themselves.

I've never understood why black riots often result in people burning down their own neighborhoods and smashing out the windows of their own black-run businesses. But that's actually indicative of what we're also seeing with the desired economic boycott of Florida and the "racism industry" idea that self defense laws are somehow racist. The racism industry is, above all, an industry of black self destruction.

Self defense is now a "selective" right depending on your skin color
There would be absolutely zero issue in all this if an armed black man shot a crazed white junkie in self-defense, or if a black man shot a young black punk in self defense. Charges never would have even been filed. No, this contrived outrage is not about the right to self defense: it's about the selective targeting of races.

And that's where the insanity gets even worse: These racism industry black leaders are essentially saying that it's WRONG for an Hispanic to have self defense but it's right for a black man to have self defense.

No Latino, Hispanic or white person is allowed to exercise any form of self defense at all in America today -- but only if attacked by someone of dark skin color. When a white person is being grounded-and-pounded into the concrete by a gangster, the only politically correct response is to surrender and beg for more. Taking any action whatsoever -- including throwing a punch in return -- gets you immediately labeled a racist.

Racism theater
That's the insanity that Obama and the racism industry have created in America. It's a kind of mental sickness that has turned America into a self-destructing mental patient. And the real point of it all, of course, is to create massive contrived riots and "racism theater" that distract people from all the failures of big government: failed health care, failed economic policies, failed crony capitalism, failed international relations, failed wars in the Middle East, failed government-run education system, failed currencies, and even a failed system of justice where the worst criminals of all are the people running the government.

The spectacle of it all is mind-blowing. Because if you're like me, you aren't one bit racist and you've never called anyone a n----r or a c-----r. You've treated all people equally not by trying to do so, but because it always seemed natural to be open-minded about everyone, regardless of their physical appearance. And now people like you and I are suddenly being labeled "racists" because we legally own guns, or because we believe in the sacred right of self-defense, or because we disagree with Obamacare or some other failed White House policy.

Now, we are all racists, it seems, not because we judged somebody by their skin color -- which we didn't -- but because we don't agree with the politics of the black leaders. Now, "black" has become a dogma, not a race. It is a set of beliefs that you have to embrace, or you'll be called a racist. And those beliefs are wholly irrational, including things like the belief that a socialist-style government based on entitlement handouts to the entire population is the answer to economic prosperity. Somehow, black America went from completely distrusting government in the 1960's to completely worshipping government today. And if you want to see where that leads, just look at Detroit, which is a microcosm of where America is headed soon.

America needs racial healing and unity, not division
I have been called a racist for calling for racial unity in America. The "racism theater" is now so insanely stupid that if you aren't publicly calling for the murder of George Zimmerman, then you are labeled an outright racist.

In other words, you must now call for violence against "White Hispanics" in order to be politically correct according to the new standard of black dogma.

These are the kinds of insanities that have been witnessed, historically, right before nations fell into collapse. And I believe America is on the verge of self destruction, and that it is being accelerated toward that by Obama himself.

If there's any marching that really needs to be done in America today, it should be a march against media manipulation of racial hatred. Or perhaps and march against the President abusing his office to destroy America.

Instead, black America is marching today across 100 cities, calling for... something. They want "justice" which, in their definition, means the murder of Zimmerman, his family and all his supporters. You are witnessing the complete downfall of law and real justice in America, replaced by mob rule.

Why you will never see another black President in America

The backlash against all this will be enormous. Obama has done enormous damage to the idea that a black President can bring unity and healing to America. When white people initially put Obama in office in 2008, they were thinking, "Let's put a black man in the White House and demonstrate how tolerant and color blind we really are as a nation."

But now, many of those same white people are being called racists by the people closest to the President. Now, Obama is fanning the flamed of racial division and hatred, betraying the very reason why so many white people voted him into office.

The memory of this nightmare of a presidency will last for at least a generation, maybe longer. Almost no white or Hispanic person living today will ever vote for a black president again because they are seeing how their good intentions have been twisted and betrayed. Instead of racial unity, we got racial division and hatred spewed by the President himself.

Black people are 12% of the U.S. population. The other 88% are mostly Latinos and Whites, both of which have been viciously smeared and vilified throughout the TMGZ trial. Those 88% are not going to voting for a black president ever again.

And thanks to Obama, race-based paranoia is now at an all-time high in America. Distrust between those of different races has reached a frightening peak, and there are race-based beatings and shootings happening all across the country right now because of all this. (It's mostly young black kids beating up whites and Hispanics.)

Even as more wise black cultural leaders like Bill Cosby are calling for peace and calm, it's people like Al Sharpton -- whose very power depends on continued racial hatred -- who are whipping up division and paranoia. For their own political power, they will drive America to the brink of a race war, and nothing bad that happens is ever their fault. It's always the fault of "cracker ass whiteys" who are the devil, they say.

Well, if I'm the devil, then Rachel Jeantel is Ralph Waldo Emerson.

Source: http://www.naturalne...ream_media.html

This link (purposely selected from many) includes excerpts from President Obama's remarks at the memorial service for the five slain officers in Dallas and includes the assertion made in previous speeches that it is easier for a teen to get a glock than a book or a computer:

http://www.awwba.com...sier-get-books/

 

[StevePalermo]

SteveinBsAs, I said something to the effect that you hate the President. That's just the impression I get from all you posts. They are generally extremely disrespectful and contemptuous of him and everything he stands for. If you say you don't hate him or anyone, fair enough, I'll accept that, its just that you certainly give that impression. I tend to believe what I see people do, not what they say they do.

 

[StevePalermo]

Again, I never said that affirmative action is the worst kind of racism. And a video that shows that racism still exists doesn't support affirmative action. Using one form of racism to combat racism is not the answer. In my opinion, the answer is to let it sort itself out over time.

I'm sure I didn't accuse you of saying "that affirmative action is the worst kind of racism". We agree that "a video that shows that racism still exists doesn't support affirmative action".

But, I certainly disagree with your opinion that the answer to combat racism is "to let it sort itself out over time". I think the victims of racism would prefer something more proactive than being told to wait, and something might sort itself out eventually. The perpetrators of racism might need some more persuasion than moral pressure. Like the Civil Rights Act for instance that SteveBsAs mentioned above. If nothing had been done (and I've read about the struggle to get that legislation into law - I'd recommend Robert Caro's biography of LBJ for a great account of that) black people in the south would still be waiting for the vote. I agreed with you before that affirmative action could be described as a form of racism in the strictest sense, but I get a sense that you think its on a par (or even worse?) with not being able to vote, or discrimination in housing, employment and the enforcement of the criminal law. That's where we could have another disagreement.

 

[StevePalermo]

Both conventions are National Security Events under control of Secret Service and FBI among others. Look for hypocracy elsewhere.

https://en.wikipedia..._Security_Event

It was a joke. If they had allowed in guns it would have been insanity not hypocrisy, as well as illegal. The hypocrisy lies in the Trumpsters bringing their guns to the areas outside the Convention, but agreeing that it is better not to have them inside.

 

[steveinbsas]

SteveinBsAs, I said something to the effect that you hate the President. That's just the impression I get from all you posts. They are generally extremely disrespectful and contemptuous of him and everything he stands for. If you say you don't hate him or anyone, fair enough, I'll accept that, its just that you certainly give that impression. I tend to believe what I see people do, not what they say they do.

I can provide the quote. I didn't reply to it but I will now.

Is Democracy A Failed System ?

Posted by StevePalermo on 12 July 2016 - 10:08 AM in Newcomers Forum

steveinbsas, on 12 July 2016 - 09:26 AM, said:


It was apparently a slip of the tongue on the campaign trail, but it is worth noting that there really are 57 states.


Sometimes you just can't hide your hatred of the President. Why the italics? Do you seriously think that he believes that there are really 57 states? Not a sense of humour failure on my part, your post just wasn't funny."



Fellow Steve, Yes,I seriously believe that he thinks there are fifty seven states; they just aren't in the USA. Obama was on the campaign trail when he make the comment that he had visited fifty seven states However, there is a plausible explanation for the slip of the tongue. Obama actually said he'd "been in all 57 states and had one to go, the 58th.” He apparently knows there are fifty seven member states in The Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC).

I hope he wasn't (and still isn't) hoping that the USA will become number 58. That's something I would not find the least bit funny.

I have tremendous respect for the office of the President of the United States, but I am critical of any President of the United States that oversteps the boundaries of his office. I am critical of the present title holder, not just because of what he has said, but much more for what he has done. I don't think I have ever misrepresented anything BHO has said or done, and he's done some things in office that are worthy of a great deal of criticism.

My grandmother used to say, "If you can't say something nice about someone, don't say anything."

If I followed her advice in this case I probably would never mention his name, but there's too much at stake here and I happen to believe that it's the survival of the Republic. I see no reason to keep silent while the Constitution is being shredded and the future stability of the USA is being jeopardized. Obama may or may not turn out to be one of the worst presidents in US history, but, by a definition he cannot dispute, he is clearly the most unpatriotic.

What I feel most is not hate or even anger. What I feel most is despair about what has happened to the USA since 2000, the year I left to live SOTB. I did not leave the USA for political reasons, but I would leave for political reasons now. If HRC is elected in November I may never return. That makes my sad, but I really feel badly for those who are going to be mired down in the deepening muck of an expanding government and the rise of a federal police state.