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El Paso Shooting

We disagree on the most fundamental level, then. I believe these tragedies are all about identity.

Also: people of African dissent have taken the term “black” hard in this country. Because of all the connotations that come with it. It affects their stress, their interactions with law-enforcement, and their sense of belonging in this country.

Any approach, in my opinion, that is not holistic and that does not take into account our constructs of race, will have zero impact on our desire to other and kill each other.
No, we actually agree on that. I just disagree that the solution is an identity formed around one's European ancestry. I'd hazard a guess that white supremacists are more likely to identify more closely to their "Irish" or "German" heritage than the average white person would. We need fewer boundaries between us, not more.
 
No, we actually agree on that. I just disagree that the solution is an identity formed around one's European ancestry. I'd hazard a guess that white supremacists are more likely to identify more closely to their "Irish" or "German" heritage than the average white person would. We need fewer boundaries between us, not more.

To that I would say that diversity is a strength. It should not be treated as a disability. Identifying all European people as “the same” is a problem, and part of the problem it creates is that others other groups unnecessarily.
 
Nope, that's not following that logic at all.

Let me help.

You are saying that if you take away any weapon, this will not reduce murder rates because murderers will kill the same number of people with a different weapon

In other words, restricting any weapon has zero effect on deaths.

So from this one would deduce that a world where everyone has full access to automatic military style machine guns is not less safe than the world where they are fully banned.
 
I guarantee that’ll lead to civil war. Sure, some people will turn in their guns but most wont. It’ll start in small towns like Coldwater, MS and Panguitch, UT. Citizens there will simply refuse to turn them in. You think those local sheriffs are going to confiscate them? Not going to happen. We’ve already got sheriffs refusing to enforce red flag laws in Colorado for instance.

So then what? Door to door searches by federal agents? National guard? Take southern Utah for example. The triple deuce unit from southern Utah won’t raid house in southern Utah. They’re not kicking down doors of their neighbors, friends and family. So what, other stats fairs units come in? How many local police forces will stand for door to door searches?

I’m all for buy back programs and the like. Pay more, offer tax breaks, company discounts...whatever. But if you think criminalizing gun ownership is the answer you’re in for a massive surprise.

Also, making something illegal doesn’t make people consider those doing it to be bad people. Take marijuana for example. Just because it’s illegal doesn’t make people label them “bad guys” or even think of them that way.

I agree you can't forcibly take away guns. However, you can tax the hell out of them. You can ban the sell of automatic rifles and require registration of all guns, background checks with references, limit the number of guns one can own, criminal sentencing for people who don't secure weapons that are used to kill people. To get more people to give back automatic/semi automatic weapons you can do buy backs. No one under 18 can purchase a gun and must be supervised when shooting the gun. Fines for people who don't comply with the law.

We don't just let a 13 year jump in a car with no training and drive around town. The car has tobe registered, they have to have so many hours of driving and take drivers ed. You can't get a license in most states until you are 16 yrs and you have to have insurance. Hey there is a way to pay for healthcare? Charge fees for every gun registered and put it in a Medicare for all fund or use the money for future victims.
 
Whiteness Robs us of our actual identities. And then it replaces it with an identity that is overtly political, and directly tied to our history of human trafficking. For that reason alone, the white construct should be abandoned.
 
To that I would say that diversity is a strength. It should not be treated as a disability. Identifying all European people as “the same” is a problem, and part of the problem it creates is that others other groups unnecessarily.
Diversity need not be derived from similarly arbitrary things like which nation state your ancestors came from 200 years ago. Of course we should celebrate diversity when and where it can be found, I'm not advocating for a sort of nationalistic shared identity, but you can't really force it.

I don't have much in common with my coal digging ancestors from England, and creating an identity around that wouldn't feel authentic to me, but I've found people in my life with similar interests, in the mountain west where I'm from that could be hiking fishing hunting etc, for someone in an urban environment maybe that's art and music, and we form communities and traditions around them.

There's plenty of diversity to be found in this country without trying to force one based on common ancestry. To be clear, I'm not arguing against those communities that exist that are based on ancestry, whether that be Chinatown or Little Italy, that sort of thing does enrich our society, only that you can't really force it, you either have lived it or you haven't.

I'd argue that the lack of community these radicalized young men has more to do with isolation from the rest of society, they don't have another community to belong to, thus the need to form an identity with a bunch of other disaffected goons online.
 
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Latching on to authentic identities, with a rich cultural history and regional traditions does not cause people to become more violent. It causes them to become more understanding, patient, and equitable.
This I can agree with, honestly I think we are closer in agreement than not. I think our disagreement only stems from where we derive that authentic identity.
 
Anyone else split on this?

It sure would be nice if the potus came out and condemned white supremacists and comforted the nation. You know, demonstrate leadership.

At the same time, we all know every time he opens his *** he just makes things worse.

So maybe he should just stay at the golf course and ignore this situation altogether?

I hate Trump, but you're either illiterate or dumb. I just went on Trump's Twitter page and his last seven tweets are about this shooting tragedy. I mean, you should probably get more mad at him though.


**** Trump, but facts matter, remember?
 
I hate Trump, but you're either illiterate or dumb. I just went on Trump's Twitter page and his last seven tweets are about this shooting tragedy. I mean, you should probably get more mad at him though.


**** Trump, but facts matter, remember?
I think you are missing the point. Yeah he hasn't said anything to make it worse, but he hasn't called out the hateful ideology that perpetrated this act, nor called for any kind of action to put an end to it.

It's not hard to put out a tweet offering condolences, leadership is about identifying the problem and working to solve it. Something I don't think Trump is capable of.
 
I hate Trump, but you're either illiterate or dumb. I just went on Trump's Twitter page and his last seven tweets are about this shooting tragedy. I mean, you should probably get more mad at him though.


**** Trump, but facts matter, remember?

Did he condemn white supremacy in those tweets?
 


This is a really good point. As you show, it’s not like this shooter came up with this idea independently. He’s had a ton of encouragement from people like Tucker Carlson, Donald Trump, John Coryn, Laura ingraham, and Ben Shapiro.



When you have such idols on the right as Shapiro selling hate and fear, what do we expect? And people find this *** clown thought provoking? What kind of deplorable people are they?

When every night Fox News engages in white nationalist hour? No wonder why people are living in the alt reality that they are.

And when the president holds rallies nonstop spreading fear of invasion? Ummm yeah. We got problems that need to be solved.



This nonsense shouldn’t be tolerated
 
Did he condemn white supremacy in those tweets?

No. He mostly blamed it on mental illness.

He’s not going to condemn white supremacy. He’s depending on it for re-election. And he’ll be back to kissing white supremacists by Wednesday this week. He’ll lead chants of “build the wall” and attacks on inner cities and the squad in the next 72 hours.

It never changes.
 
This is a really good point. As you show, it’s not like this shooter came up with this idea independently. He’s had a ton of encouragement from people like Tucker Carlson, Donald Trump, John Coryn, Laura ingraham, and Ben Shapiro.



When you have such idols on the right as Shapiro selling hate and fear, what do we expect? And people find this *** clown thought provoking? What kind of deplorable people are they?

When every night Fox News engages in white nationalist hour? No wonder why people are living in the alt reality that they are.

And when the president holds rallies nonstop spreading fear of invasion? Ummm yeah. We got problems that need to be solved.



This nonsense shouldn’t be tolerated



An outside perspective that I think is the right one. We're in the middle of a "cold" civil war, and it's not hard to see what side Trump is on.
 
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