Guns Because

[Blind groper]

You going to answer my questions?

No because they are irrelevant to the point I was making. You are trying to create a red herring.

[Gallstones]

You going to answer my questions?

No because they are irrelevant to the point I was making. You are trying to create a red herring.

You posture yourself as some kind of knowledgable person who can make claims to rebut my resources, I think it is incumbent upon you to be willing to support your claims.

[Blind groper]

Gallstones

You made a claim that the Iroquis had a democratic "league of nations" hundreds of years before the Declaration of Independence.

I pointed out that, with no written records, this claim is unsupportable. What I said is correct. Word of mouth information passed down over hundreds of years is so unreliable as to be useless. When you ask irrelevant questions that I choose not to answer, it does not change the fact that your 'league of nations' claim is unsupportable.

[Seth]

The last agonal gasps of a political carreer [hopefully] about to die?

Sen. Feinstein Says Congress Poised To Restrict Video Games

April 5, 2013

Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) said Wednesday that Congress may be forced to take action to limit video game violence.

Speaking to an audience of around 500 in San Francisco, Feinstein, who led the charge in the Senate on an assault weapons ban, said the video game industry should take voluntary steps to make sure it does not glorify guns in the wake of the December mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn. She added that if the industry does not, Congress is prepared to take action, according to the Associated Press.

Feinstein said that video games play, "a very negative role for young people, and the industry ought to take note of that."

This micromanaging codependent buttinski needs to retire.

She needs to be retired to a small room wallpapered with the First and Second Amendments so she can read them again and again for what's left of her miserable life.

[Seth]

Gallstones

The bit I challenged was the statement that the Iroquois had practised a democratic league of nations for hundreds of years. Without written records, they would not know that.

Go look up the term "oral history" and then contemplate Beowulf and epic poetry.

[Seth]

Gallstones

You made a claim that the Iroquis had a democratic "league of nations" hundreds of years before the Declaration of Independence.

I pointed out that, with no written records, this claim is unsupportable. What I said is correct. Word of mouth information passed down over hundreds of years is so unreliable as to be useless. When you ask irrelevant questions that I choose not to answer, it does not change the fact that your 'league of nations' claim is unsupportable.

It's supportable, and has been supported by legions of historians and researchers, not to mention the Iroquois themselves. Just because you're ignorant doesn't mean the claim is unsupported.

[Blind groper]

Go look up the term "oral history" and then contemplate Beowulf and epic poetry.

Sure. And do you also believe that Woden is the king of the Gods, and Thor throws his hammer round, and the world is built over a giant snake. Because all these things came from unsupported oral history as well.

Sheeesh!

[Jason]

Guns bitches! What the fuck would I have fired off 8 times while extremely drunk if I didn't have a gun?

[Blind groper]

Well, if you could have fired the alternative 8 times, I would call you superman!

[Gallstones]

To recap

You posted this:

Yeah. Tyrannical really does suck at history. His statement about a Republican government not beholden to a king is also an outlier is total bullshit.

The word 'republican' has a moderately fuzzy definition, but one definition is simply a political system in which the government and national ruler are elected by the people. By this definition, the whole British Commonwealth, and all of western Europe are republics, along with much of the rest of the world. A constitutional monarch cannot be called the national leader, which means all those nations meet the definition.

Americans often like to think of the USA as a world leader in democracy and in liberty, and that also is bullshit. The developments leading to democracy and personal liberty took place in Europe - not North America.

The first parliament anywhere in the world was 1236, after Magna Carta, when King John was forced to accept a parliament to oversee his dictates. Democracy and personal liberty grew from this seed, long before the USA was even dreamed of.

To which I posted this response:

Note how mine contains links and references to credible, academic sources and how yours (above and below) uses absolutist terminology like "first anywhere in the world" and "long before the USA was ever dreamed of." The latter would be true even in my example BTW. At any rate yours is, as it stands, is unsupported opinion and bigotry.

Yeah. Tyrannical really does suck at history. His statement about a Republican government not beholden to a king is also an outlier is total bullshit.

The word 'republican' has a moderately fuzzy definition, but one definition is simply a political system in which the government and national ruler are elected by the people. By this definition, the whole British Commonwealth, and all of western Europe are republics, along with much of the rest of the world. A constitutional monarch cannot be called the national leader, which means all those nations meet the definition.

Americans often like to think of the USA as a world leader in democracy and in liberty, and that also is bullshit. The developments leading to democracy and personal liberty took place in Europe - not North America.

The first parliament anywhere in the world was 1236, after Magna Carta, when King John was forced to accept a parliament to oversee his dictates. Democracy and personal liberty grew from this seed, long before the USA was even dreamed of.

The Iroquois [Haudenosaunee] Confederacy

[the book]The Genius of the People, alleged that after the many weeks of debate a committee sat to combine the many agreements into one formal document. The chairman of the committee was John Rutledge of South Carolina. He had served in an earlier time, along with Ben Franklin and others, at the Stamp Act Congress, held in Albany, New York. This Committee of Detail was having trouble deciding just how to formalize the many items of discussion into one document that would satisfy one and all. Rutledge proposed they model the new government they were forming into something along the lines of the Iroquois League of Nations, which had been functioning as a democratic government for hundreds of years, and which he had observed in Albany. While there were many desirable, as well as undesirable, models from ancient and modern histories in Europe and what we know now as the Middle East, only the Iroquois had a system that seemed to meet most of the demands espoused by the many parties to the debates. The Genius of the People alleged that the Iroquois had a Constitution which began: "We the people, to form a union. . ."

Highlight mine.

Also see the book 1491 by Charles C. Mann Chapter 11 The Great Law of Peace pages 358--362 2005 copyright edition.

"The Haudenosaunee were probably the greatest indigenous polity north of the Rio Grande in the two centuries before Columbus and definately the two centuries after."
....
"The alliance rules of operation were contained in the Haudenosaunee Constitution, AKA the Great Law of Peace.
When issues came up the the fifty sachems, representatives of the clans of the Five Nations would be summoned. It was a consensus driven body and all decisions had to be unanimous. The heads of the clans (matrilineal societies) were all female and they chose the sachems--all male."
...

"When there was a matter of great emergency or importance, the sachem council had to submit the matter to the people for a decision."

...

"Scholars debate estimates of the founding of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy, but nobody disputes that the Haudenosaunee exemplified the formidable tradition of limited government and personal automomy shared by many cultures north of the Rio Grande."

The first American Libertarians.

You then responded:

Gallstones

At the time the Iroquois formed their 'constitution', they had no written language. Anything decided was passed down by word of mouth. Such things are really, really, really unreliable. What was originally decided most probably did not resemble in anything other than vague outline, what was later claimed.

We have the same thing here in NZ, with our native people, the Maori. They also had no written language, and their claims as to their 'history' based on word of mouth errors were laughable.

All that can be declared about the Iroquois agreements are those that prevailed at the time. Anything earlier will be so error filled as to be useless. Of course, what I am saying is not politically correct, and all the PC morons out there will vow and declare that the word of mouth bullshit is accurate. Doh!

Anyway, the point of what I am saying is that any claim of democratic government hundreds of years before the time has to be taken with a very, very big pinch of salt.

What you are doing is assuming that because the Haudenosaunee did not have a written language--like white people--that the claims even of a literate white man who wrote it down are not good enough. Not only that the literate white man very clearly discounts European influence in favor of what he observed and knew of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy, "While there were many desirable, as well as undesirable, models from ancient and modern histories in Europe and what we know now as the Middle East, only the Iroquois had a system that seemed to meet most of the demands espoused by the many parties to the debates." <--I bolded this part in the original post. It is easy to find.

Whether the Haudenosaunee had a written language or not, there is credible evidence that they did develop their own version of a representative democracy. And that they did so with no influence, no borrowing from, no knowledge of white Europeans. It's not the duration or the date of inception--it is that it was. And your turning this into a "well-they-didn't-write-it-down [hand waving]" is the red herring and it is yours.

[Gallstones]

Guns bitches! What the fuck would I have fired off 8 times while extremely drunk if I didn't have a gun?

This one, fire this one next time.
You'll only get five shots, but that's all you'll need.

[Gallstones]

The last agonal gasps of a political carreer [hopefully] about to die?

Sen. Feinstein Says Congress Poised To Restrict Video Games

April 5, 2013

Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) said Wednesday that Congress may be forced to take action to limit video game violence.

Speaking to an audience of around 500 in San Francisco, Feinstein, who led the charge in the Senate on an assault weapons ban, said the video game industry should take voluntary steps to make sure it does not glorify guns in the wake of the December mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn. She added that if the industry does not, Congress is prepared to take action, according to the Associated Press.

Feinstein said that video games play, "a very negative role for young people, and the industry ought to take note of that."

This micromanaging codependent buttinski needs to retire.

She needs to be retired to a small room wallpapered with the First and Second Amendments so she can read them again and again for what's left of her miserable life.

And the 3rd, 4th, 5th, 8th and 10th.

[Tero]

When then gubment decides to send drones to spy on me, what's the best thing to use on them? Shotgun?

[JimC]

When then gubment decides to send drones to spy on me, what's the best thing to use on them? Shotgun?

A shotgun would work well on those pesky quad rotors, being controlled by a nosey neighbour...

If I was living in the country, and one of those appeared on my property, I'd shoot the fucker!

Government drones might require a shoulder launched missile; I'm sure Seth will know the details...

[Gawdzilla Sama]

When then gubment decides to send drones to spy on me, what's the best thing to use on them? Shotgun?

Davey Crocket Missile. Aimed at the Faith Church on Gravois.