Immigrants make you richer.

[Seth]

I am not sure how much I want to carry on this argument. When I was in it before, I found myself in a head butting exercise, where the idea that having guns was good was accepted by a kind of blind faith, and any contrary argument was rejected before it was even read.

No, they were all read and given all of the consideration that their erudition and logic required. That little was required speaks to the strength of your arguments.

But the idea that not having guns leads to tyranny is clearly bullshit.

History shows us that this is what happens.

Numerous nations today are free (except for the 'freedom to bear arms') without guns.

No, they aren't, nor is there any way to guarantee that they will ever be, or remain free.

Nor did tyranny arrive in China, the USSR, and other places due to a lack of guns. Generally the populace either welcomed in the new tyrants with open arms, or were complacent about it. After all, a peasant in Russia was hardly worse off under the commissars than he was under the Czar. Deepest poverty both ways.

You are woefully ignorant of the history of Russian Communism. The very FIRST thing the Communists did was disarm the populace.

In China, the communist take over was done with the massive support of the peasants, who were the majority of the nation. It certainly did not happen because the peasants lacked guns.

Yes, it most certainly did. Worse, it happened because American diplomats known as the "China Hands" lied to the President and the Congress and got the funding for Chaing Kai Shek and the Kuomintang, who were militarily opposing Mao, pulled. They did so by telling Congress and the President (falsely) that Mao was a friend to the US, that Communism was no threat to the US, that it was a "popular revolution" (it wasn't) and that the Kuomintang were evil and nasty.

Go read some history not written by Communists sometime.

[piscator]

Rights are no more arbitrary than Dollars, and no less real.

[laklak]

Both are shared delusions.

[Blind groper]

Like Seth's delusion that owning guns will stop a government being oppressive. I have this image in mind of Seth and his buddies charging a government and military establishment, waving their assorted small arms, until they encounter the heavy weaponry of the military.

Whoops. Bye bye Seth.

Nor is anything like that needed. Over most of the past several thousand years, the common people of Europe have been little better than slaves, and certainly not owning arms. Yet democracy arose, and human rights were invented, and liberty extended to all the peoples of Europe. Firearms in the hands of the common people were not needed.

[cronus]

Being richer beyond a certain level doesn't make you happier. Same with immigrants. You can have too many of the foreign blighters bringing new fangled ways and eating the cats. Gotta be a cut off point.

[laklak]

We need immigrants that eat mosquitoes. And Cuban tree frogs.

[Svartalf]

Because it's cheap or because it would be a public service?

[JimC]

Being richer beyond a certain level doesn't make you happier.

I would like to subject that hypothesis to experimental testing...

[Svartalf]

Better be miserable in a Ferrari than in a Fiat

[piscator]

Like Seth's delusion that owning guns will stop a government being oppressive. I have this image in mind of Seth and his buddies charging a government and military establishment, waving their assorted small arms, until they encounter the heavy weaponry of the military.

Whoops. Bye bye Seth.

Nor is anything like that needed. Over most of the past several thousand years, the common people of Europe have been little better than slaves, and certainly not owning arms. Yet democracy arose, and human rights were invented, and liberty extended to all the peoples of Europe. Firearms in the hands of the common people were not needed.

Jesus fuckin Christ. Are you really this dumb?

You'd still be a serf if America and then France hadn't shoved democracy up your king's ass.

Matter of fact, try pulling an Australia and start making your own decisions. See how long before your Queen's Governor General overrules your Parliament too.

[Blind groper]

Piscator

The development of democracy was a slow evolution. I know that Americans, who are full of themselves, think it was a gift from them to the world. But it was not. It began a long, long time ago. It began with the first parliaments in Britain. Even King Edward Longshanks, a major totalitarian ruler, had a parliament of advisors. King John was forced to relinquish a big part of his authority with Magna Carta, a major step towards democracy. Britain had an elected parliament long before Americans even began to think of revolution.

The first general election in Britain was 1695. Well before the USA republic. Of course, Britain and the USA did not have a truly representative election till into the 20th Century, since women and (in the USA) non whites, were not permitted to vote. Women were given the vote in the USA in 1920. The first nation to have a truly representative democracy, with women and non whites voting (in 1893), was my country.

So, Piscator, if you have the cheek to claim America gave democracy to the world, I claim that New Zealand was the first true democracy. The USA was a fake democracy until 1920.

[Seth]

Like Seth's delusion that owning guns will stop a government being oppressive.

Worked just fine the last time didn't it? Can you say "1776?"

I have this image in mind of Seth and his buddies charging a government and military establishment, waving their assorted small arms, until they encounter the heavy weaponry of the military.

That's strategy and tactics dear child. Just ask the Afghans how one goes about confronting a conventional army. Or perhaps the Vietnamese.

Whoops. Bye bye Seth.

You've got to see me to shoot me. There's a lesson there for military tactics ignorami such as yourself.

Nor is anything like that needed.

It's never needed...until it's really, really needed, and by then it's too late to set it up. To be sure it's available when it's needed, you have to create it and keep it available every minute of every day forever, which is what our 2nd Amendment does.

Over most of the past several thousand years, the common people of Europe have been little better than slaves, and certainly not owning arms.

Yup.

Yet democracy arose, and human rights were invented, and liberty extended to all the peoples of Europe. Firearms in the hands of the common people were not needed.

You really are insanely ignorant of history. It's just astonishing. Can you say "French Revolution?" How about "Bannockburn?" Or any of a dozen other wars and battles fought in Europe to establish and maintain democracy? Fuck, even the Russian Revolution required an armed citizenry to end imperial rule.

I didn't think so. Go back to school BG. Take a world history class. Please. I've not heard such ignorant idiocy in a very long time.

[Seth]

Piscator

The development of democracy was a slow evolution. I know that Americans, who are full of themselves, think it was a gift from them to the world. But it was not.

Too fucking right it was not. We ESTABLISHED democracy in America with the blood of patriots and tyrants shed by an armed citizenry against the then-most-powerful military force on the planet. And we'll shed blood again to preserve it.

It began a long, long time ago. It began with the first parliaments in Britain. Even King Edward Longshanks, a major totalitarian ruler, had a parliament of advisors. King John was forced to relinquish a big part of his authority with Magna Carta, a major step towards democracy. Britain had an elected parliament long before Americans even began to think of revolution.

A parliament that served the will of the King and could be (and often was) overruled with a wave of his hand.

The first general election in Britain was 1695. Well before the USA republic. Of course, Britain and the USA did not have a truly representative election till into the 20th Century, since women and (in the USA) non whites, were not permitted to vote. Women were given the vote in the USA in 1920. The first nation to have a truly representative democracy, with women and non whites voting (in 1893), was my country.

And those advances were paid for in blood and enforced by an armed citizenry here in America, and in the UK before 1924, when the "Rights of Englishment" were abolished, including the long-standing right of Englishment to keep and bear arms.

Go read a history book sometime.

So, Piscator, if you have the cheek to claim America gave democracy to the world, I claim that New Zealand was the first true democracy. The USA was a fake democracy until 1920.

Fuck the world, America gave Americans a Constitutional Republic that uses certain democratic processes by virtue of an armed citizenry willing to die to establish and preserve it. And we still are. And we are equipped and prepared to do so. And that's the point.

[piscator]

To Blind Groper:

Fuck the world, America gave Americans a Constitutional Republic that uses certain democratic processes by virtue of an armed citizenry willing to die to establish and preserve it. And we still are. And we are equipped and prepared to do so. And that's the point.

Not a lot to add here. Waziristan's got nothin' on us.

[JimC]

Like Seth's delusion that owning guns will stop a government being oppressive. I have this image in mind of Seth and his buddies charging a government and military establishment, waving their assorted small arms, until they encounter the heavy weaponry of the military.

Whoops. Bye bye Seth.

Nor is anything like that needed. Over most of the past several thousand years, the common people of Europe have been little better than slaves, and certainly not owning arms. Yet democracy arose, and human rights were invented, and liberty extended to all the peoples of Europe. Firearms in the hands of the common people were not needed.

Jesus fuckin Christ. Are you really this dumb?

You'd still be a serf if America and then France hadn't shoved democracy up your king's ass.

Matter of fact, try pulling an Australia and start making your own decisions. See how long before your Queen's Governor General overrules your Parliament too.

What an absurd post. The American revolution was not a causal factor in the gradual change in political power between crown and parliament in Britain. And the Governor General example has absolutely nothing to do with any imaginary power the crown may have had in Australian political life - it was one of many political moves in a volatile domestic political situation.