The Arizona Shooting and American Political Discourse

[MrPopo]

As for fixing our economy...well, what would you do?

First, I'd put every one of the bastards that caused the crisis in jail. Everyone from the CEO down to an intern who signed off on questionable documents deserves to go to jail for fraud. (Why hasn't this happened yet? Could it be that our justice system is actually not intended to provide justice, but to protect the extremely rich?)

Can you provide a list of (at least some) of the laws that they broke? There's probably a violation of contract involved but that's a civil matter. I'm fairly certain there was no tax evasion or faulty accounting happening here; the financial institutions simply overextended themselves.

You think anyone actually wants the economy to fail?

I have no doubt that those on Wall Street could really give a shit what they do to the economy as a whole as long as they get their bonuses.

Aside from the small fact that they need a functioning economy to get the bonuses and to continue getting their bonuses. To your point they might not care if they cause the price of corn to tank for three months, but none of them want a systematic failure of the economy.

As for the government being a corrupt organized crime syndicate (again, entertaining but how can anyone take you seriously?)

I don't expect to be taken seriously. People don't want to hear the truth.

You do realize that when you use phrases like that you come off as a massive conspiracy theorist.

Mandate that any bill passed must have a stated intent, and be accompanied with metrics to measure whether it is effective. Review all bills every couple years to ensure that they're effective, if not it's automatically overturned.

The engineer in me tells me there have to be some nasty edge cases that won't work under this model that the public would want to have.

If you really want to go wild, we have the technology to implement direct democracy over the internet. We should cut out the middle men entirely.

Are you suggesting putting more power into the hands of the same people you referred to as ignorant sheep?

While we're at it, let's abolish the corporation and replace them with democratically run workers syndicates.

Karl Marx? Is that you?

[jfrost]

A little bit of drywall and some plywood aren't going to tell it to stop. Bullets have to go pretty fast to kill things. It's a lot easier to punch through a wall than someone's torso.

*looks at cement and brick walls of his house*

Brick and cement houses do not protect so well against cold, thus they're less common in the US.

[jfrost]

While we're at it, let's abolish the corporation and replace them with democratically run workers syndicates.

Karl Marx? Is that you?

It's more of a left-anarchist rather than Marxist point of view.

[Limewater]

Brick and cement houses do not protect so well against cold, thus they're less common in the US.

I think it's more a matter of cost. Brick is expensive in much of the U.S., while wood is comparatively cheap. Brick homes are great if you can afford one. I think concrete is used infrequently just due to aesthetics.

[ZeroAX]

Well concrete is used for the skeleton of the house. The walls themselves are made of bricks (and well the concrete that sticks them together).

What I find ironic, is that an earthquake prone country is making its houses out of a heavy material that will kill you if it gets dropped on your head, and a hurricane prone country is making its houses out of light material, which the hurricane makes short work of. Tragic irony when you think of all the people who have died due to natural disasters.

[Michi]

Well concrete is used for the skeleton of the house. The walls themselves are made of bricks (and well the concrete that sticks them together).

What I find ironic, is that an earthquake prone country is making its houses out of a heavy material that will kill you if it gets dropped on your head, and a hurricane prone country is making its houses out of light material, which the hurricane makes short work of. Tragic irony when you think of all the people who have died due to natural disasters.

Concrete houses are more common in Florida than you think. I should know. I just moved into one after living in a wood frame home for over 20 years and the majority of the houses in my neighborhood (if it can be called that) are also made of concrete. A lot of them don't look it on first glance as they've been decorated on the outside to give the appearance of wood construction, but believe you me, they're concrete.

That's not to say that there aren't flimsy houses in Florida. There are. But the vast majority of new construction that I've seen in my area has been almost exclusively concrete homes, most with facade's made to look like some other material. I think when those 4 hurricanes hit in 2005 people started learning. At least when it came to houses. The newscasters will inevitably still find that same idiot before every impending hurricane that insists on tying himself to a tree to prove his stupidity. You just can't help some people.

[Hatta]

Can you provide a list of (at least some) of the laws that they broke?

That's the convenient thing for them. When you own the government, you can have them write the laws in your favor. Then when your misdeeds wreck the country there's nothing anyone can do. That's what I mean when I say that we have a system of exploitation instead of a system of justice.

You don't think it's an accident that we don't have any laws that cover what they did, do you? If it's just an oversight, why hasn't anyone fixed it? Why did they pass a credit card reform act instead of passing new criminal penalties for the kinds of acts that got us into this situation?

none of them want a systematic failure of the economy.

Then why did they fight the reforms that would prevent another failure of the economy? Why wouldn't they want another failure of the economy? They made lots of money on the last one.

You do realize that when you use phrases like that you come off as a massive conspiracy theorist.

Anyone who asks questions we're not supposed to ask will seem like a conspiracy theorist. It's just one more way to shut down debate.

The engineer in me tells me there have to be some nasty edge cases that won't work under this model that the public would want to have.

Yes, you're probably right. Although, I'd rather deal with those edge cases than continue to pass laws without any purpose, without any follow up, and without any accountability. Empiricism has revolutionized every field we have applied it to. Before science, medicine was leeches and herbs, now it's lasers and robots. Can't we do the same thing with government?

Are you suggesting putting more power into the hands of the same people you referred to as ignorant sheep?

I don't remember saying sheep. In any case, yes, I would rather have power distributed among as many people as possible to minimize the damage any one idiot can do.

While we're at it, let's abolish the corporation and replace them with democratically run workers syndicates.

Karl Marx? Is that you?

I'm more of a Bakuninite. But let's not focus on that, there are practical things we could do today to make our government more effective at expressing the will of the people instead of the will of the elite. But it won't happen, because our government is run by the elite who have no interest in losing power.

[lisalover1]

Who wants to talk about Mosques?

[MrPopo]

Can you provide a list of (at least some) of the laws that they broke?

That's the convenient thing for them. When you own the government, you can have them write the laws in your favor. Then when your misdeeds wreck the country there's nothing anyone can do. That's what I mean when I say that we have a system of exploitation instead of a system of justice.

You don't think it's an accident that we don't have any laws that cover what they did, do you? If it's just an oversight, why hasn't anyone fixed it? Why did they pass a credit card reform act instead of passing new criminal penalties for the kinds of acts that got us into this situation?

Or it could be that we don't think it should be illegal. Or maybe that coming up with legislation that would cover what happened is extremely difficult in the legal sense. All they did was not think far enough forward and took on risk. Should risk taking in finances be illegal? Congratulations, you've now made money lending illegal (though I suppose you could go the Catholic route and let the Jews keep doing it).

none of them want a systematic failure of the economy.

Then why did they fight the reforms that would prevent another failure of the economy? Why wouldn't they want another failure of the economy? They made lots of money on the last one.

The same reason the ESRB fights against laws that would ban the sale of M rated games to minors. People would rather self police than have government oversight and regulation.

You do realize that when you use phrases like that you come off as a massive conspiracy theorist.

Anyone who asks questions we're not supposed to ask will seem like a conspiracy theorist. It's just one more way to shut down debate.

Except that you can have debate without sounding like you have the secret info about how the Lincoln assassination was ordered by Grant.

The engineer in me tells me there have to be some nasty edge cases that won't work under this model that the public would want to have.

Yes, you're probably right. Although, I'd rather deal with those edge cases than continue to pass laws without any purpose, without any follow up, and without any accountability. Empiricism has revolutionized every field we have applied it to. Before science, medicine was leeches and herbs, now it's lasers and robots. Can't we do the same thing with government?

I don't entirely disagree with you on this point, my point is that it needs to be fully hashed out before it's implemented to account for the aforementioned edge cases. Any time you decide to deal with something once you get to it you're doomed to not only get to it, but find that the edge case completely breaks your system.

Are you suggesting putting more power into the hands of the same people you referred to as ignorant sheep?

I don't remember saying sheep. In any case, yes, I would rather have power distributed among as many people as possible to minimize the damage any one idiot can do.

I was paraphrasing based on your earlier comment about how no one wants to hear the truth. And I think you're vastly understimating the power of stupidity in numbers. Sure, it'll keep pork off the ballots because a mass that large can't do the wheeling and dealing that happens today, but instead you run teh risk of things like a nationwide ban on gay marriage.

I'm more of a Bakuninite. But let's not focus on that, there are practical things we could do today to make our government more effective at expressing the will of the people instead of the will of the elite. But it won't happen, because our government is run by the elite who have no interest in losing power.

Personally I just want the government to protect the people. As I said earlier, the will of the people involves ALL the people, which, franky, is not something I want. Maybe if I wasn't seeing groups of people campaigning for Intelligent Design to be taught in our schools I'd feel differently.

[dsheinem]

Watching the news last night they mentioned that the shooter liked Donnie Darko. (OMG!)

Apparently, he also posted on gaming messageboards:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142 ... TopStories

The description of some of his gaming history:

Gaming appears to have been an important part of Mr. Loughner's life. In the 7th grade, he and a friend, Alex Montanaro, began playing the multiplayer online games Starcraft and Diablo, which featured complex virtual worlds where players assume roles and play against other people around the globe, Mr. Montanaro said in emails over the weekend and Monday.

Around the 9th grade, recalls Mr. Montanaro, Mr. Loughner abandoned the old games and started playing Earth: 2025, now called Earth Empires, a text-based game in which players assume the form of a country and develop its economy. Players form clans and battle other clans.

We can now blame Blizzard and Donnie Darko for the Arizona shooting and iD and Marilyn Manson for Columbine. Good to know we got to the bottom of it.