Countdown to Extinction: The 2016 Presidential Election

[Madiel]

The number of guns owned by individuals in the US is roughly 270 million.   In 2013, roughly 33,000 people died from gunshots, of whom about a third were suicides ( and therefore can be presumed to have killed themselves by other means if guns were not available).  If my math is correct, that means 99.9% of the guns in the US were not used to kill people.  In other words, 269 million guns were used safely.

Actually, a lot of those 269 million guns weren't used. Period.

You're talking about absolute numbers. I was also discussing relative ones. While we're talking numbers, let's discuss how a gun bought "for protection" will only achieve that purpose 1 time in every 23 uses. The other times it will be used for murder, suicide, sheer accident, or used against the owner by the person they thought they needed protecting from. A very recent study showed that owning a gun actually increases many risks associated with home robbery.

We should also apply your math to Muslims. There are over a billion of them who didn't kill anyone in 2013.

[Madiel]

It would be more precise to say that the unholy mess is driven by the mullahcratic ideology in which America is the Great Satan and Israel must be destroyed.

How much do you know about pre-1979 Iranian history/politics? Do you think such ideology sprung out of thin air? I don't. I think it's just one of the cycles of exactly what I was just talking about, about the USA getting involved in other parts of the world... and then being terribly shocked and surprised when it blows up in their faces because people don't like what the USA was doing. Revolutionary Iran didn't hate the USA on a random whim, it hated the USA because the USA supported the Shah and it hated the Shah.

This is the great mystery in why the USA seems incapable of leaving well alone. There are so many USA interventions that simply haven't advanced USA interests, and have created further and often greater disasters. It wouldn't be such an issue if the USA had demonstrated its skill in doing these things, but so often you've just made things worse.

Take Afghanistan, for example. Many people actually supported US action in Afghanistan. But instead of doing the job properly, the US government at the time got completely distracted by Iraq and allowed the situation in Afghanistan to fester. Meanwhile Iraq was drastically weakened as a country, essentially splitting into 3 sections.

[Florestan]

Revolutionary Iran didn't hate the USA on a random whim, it hated the USA because the USA supported the Shah and it hated the Shah.

That´ true but you shouldn´t equate the islamic radicals who overthrew the Shah and turned Iran from a secular and relatively Westernized country into a totalitarian theocracy with the Iranian people as a whole. I am sure many of those (especially women) who initially supported the Revolution out of sheer hatred for the Shah came to deeply regret the course their country took afterwards.

[knight66]

The UK was just as complicit in the Iranian situation. It's oil interests and determination to confine Russian influence lead to what happened.

In Afganistan, again the UK trotted along the USA like a poodle to impose democracy at the point of a gun. I can only think of a single success of that kind of action, Japan. No one took account of the history of Afghanistan, the terrain and the culture. Alexander the Great could not properly subdue it, nor anyone subsequently including the very determined Russians. It is a society that is not in the least Western or first world. It is a tribal medieval society and the terrain makes standard warfare impossible. I don't see that the efforts have brought any lasting fruit. It would have been more effective to have spent half as much money bribing the right people to act as we felt we needed them to.

I don't want to throw the baby out with the bathwater. The US has had a crucial role in saving Europe, we needed help, they gave it.

Mike

[Jo498]

I disagree. The reason terrorist attacks are terrifying is that they are rare and therefore newsworthy. Gun accidents and car crashes are not terrifying; they are mundane. That doesn't mean they aren't relatively dangerous even for "respectable" citizens.

This is also an important point, sure. But at least in Europe, shootings are very rare and the likelihood that one is shot as a "respectable citizen" going about one's daily business is probably as small (or smaller) as falling victim to a terrorist attack. In Western Europe, getting shot is certainly not something that "could happen to anyone" (like a car crash). (That's why we find the idea that widespread guns should be necessary or an inalienable right because of "personal safety" ridiculous. For most Europeans public safety has definitely failed if one feels one needs a weapon in the desk drawer for "personal safety.)
So while the fear of terrorist bombings is exaggerated it is not completely irrational. And I think another aspect is also that one cannot do much about someone as dedicated as a suicide bomber. The only option seems turning even more into a surveillance state which is almost as terrifying...

[Florestan]

It is often said that islamic terrorism has got nothing to do with islam and everything, or very much, to do with the colonial past.

Let´s take precisely Belgium: the atrocities perpetrated in the so-called Congo Free State between 1885 and 1908 when it was ruled as a personal fiefdom by King Leopold II caused massive international outrage. How many terrorists attacks on Belgium do you know whose authors were or are Congolese?

[Madiel]

It is often said that islamic terrorism has got nothing to do with islam and everything, or very much, to do with the colonial past.

Who is this said by? It is quite common to say it has nothing to do with Islam, but I cannot recall anyone linking it to past colonialism.

[drogulus]

     

How much do you know about pre-1979 Iranian history/politics? Do you think such ideology sprung out of thin air? I don't. I think it's just one of the cycles of exactly what I was just talking about, about the USA getting involved in other parts of the world... and then being terribly shocked and surprised when it blows up in their faces because people don't like what the USA was doing. Revolutionary Iran didn't hate the USA on a random whim, it hated the USA because the USA supported the Shah and it hated the Shah.

This is the great mystery in why the USA seems incapable of leaving well alone. There are so many USA interventions that simply haven't advanced USA interests, and have created further and often greater disasters. It wouldn't be such an issue if the USA had demonstrated its skill in doing these things, but so often you've just made things worse.

Take Afghanistan, for example. Many people actually supported US action in Afghanistan. But instead of doing the job properly, the US government at the time got completely distracted by Iraq and allowed the situation in Afghanistan to fester. Meanwhile Iraq was drastically weakened as a country, essentially splitting into 3 sections.

     Here we go. Who made the U.S. solely responsible for Afghan failure, or Iranian ideology? Why is it assumed that American imperial responsibility, acknowledged by its critics like you, operates alone? Is it assumed only for the purpose of condemning it? What does "doing the job properly" mean if it doesn't mean what I say it does?

[Brian]

I suspect you would like to bury this huffie and puffie trump style stuffie. Please conservative up Todd.

Wow, there's a GMGer from Kerrville?!? I'm a Boerne HS grad.

[Madiel]

What does "doing the job properly" mean if it doesn't mean what I say it does?

In the context of going to Afghanistan in 2001, it means not suddenly diverting most of your resources to Iraq on a flimsy pretext.

In fact not just a flimsy pretext, but a ridiculous one. The proposition that Saddam Hussein might give weapons of mass destruction to Al-Qaeda was utterly absurd to anyone who didn't decide that "all Muslims are alike". That's before you get to the minor question of whether there were any weapons.

Let me repeat: there was widespread support for the US going to Afghanistan. There was not nearly like the same support for going to Iraq (though my own government at the time did support it). There was a reason for the difference in support.

[(poco) Sforzando]

Wow, there's a GMGer from Kerrville?!? I'm a Boerne HS grad.

Yes, and drogulus and I are the same age and grew up in the same town, though he hasn't yet told me if he went to Island Trees HS or Division Avenue. It would be creepy indeed if we were HS classmates, as I have made a strict point (with one exception) of avoiding anyone I knew from that time.

[Florestan]

Who is this said by? It is quite common to say it has nothing to do with Islam, but I cannot recall anyone linking it to past colonialism.

https://www.bostonglobe.com/opinion/2015/02/11/french-british-colonialism-bred-root-terrorism/GSaZbcZuqXtbRE9CiwWPcO/story.html

http://www.globalresearch.ca/terrorism-originates-from-the-western-colonial-powers/24104

http://digitalcommons.pace.edu/lawfaculty/833/

[drogulus]

In the context of going to Afghanistan in 2001, it means not suddenly diverting most of your resources to Iraq on a flimsy pretext.

In fact not just a flimsy pretext, but a ridiculous one. The proposition that Saddam Hussein might give weapons of mass destruction to Al-Qaeda was utterly absurd to anyone who didn't decide that "all Muslims are alike". That's before you get to the minor question of whether there were any weapons.

Let me repeat: there was widespread support for the US going to Afghanistan. There was not nearly like the same support for going to Iraq (though my own government at the time did support it). There was a reason for the difference in support.

     That's an argument about cases that assumes I've correctly described the role of the maritime superpower, not an argument that assumes there must not be one. Is there such an argument that draws on real world dynamics and history? Do you want a stronger version, World Government, or a weaker version that abolishes not only the title of empire but the roles it plays so badly?

     

[Florestan]

Re: the US "Empire"

The key to understand the reasons for its rise and the mechanisms whereby it was established is not the history of the Roman Empire, but that of the Roman Republic. Read Theodor Mommsen´s Roman History to see how a tiny agrarian state, founded upon, and officially devoted to, the strictest and most austere republican virtues, has become, step by step and quite often against her stated will, an empire in all but name. Once the first step, admittedly small and apparently benign, was taken, all others followed logically and Rome´s course was inexorably set in motion.

[drogulus]

    The Islamic empire was established by Arabs. It did not coexist within a great urban civilization for centuries like the Jews of Babylonia and the Greek world, and of course the Christians within the Greco-Roman civilization. Christians called the country people who still worshipped at the old shrines "pagans". Muslims hated the cities, urban culture and sophistication. Though Islam urbanized and sent out tendrils of accomodation with cosmopolitanism, every revolutionary movement in the culture has been one of purification. Until recently that has been less true of Persian Islam, now they are as backward looking as the Arabs. Pakistan too has turned its back on South Asian reformist Islam. The conflict between Islam and modern secularism is going global these days, even reaching Indonesia, which had never before been Arabized.

[drogulus]

Re: the US "Empire"

The key to understand the reasons for its rise and the mechanisms whereby it was established is not the history of the Roman Empire, but that of the Roman Republic. Read Theodor Mommsen´s Roman History to see how a tiny agrarian state, founded upon, and officially devoted to, the strictest and most austere republican virtues, has become, step by step and quite often against her stated will, an empire in all but name. Once the first step, admittedly small and apparently benign, was taken, all others followed logically and Rome´s course was inexorably set in motion.

     The documents the U.S. disgorged upon the world are certainly remarkable and enormously influential, but they were issued as explanations and justifications for actions taken for a rebellion against the British empire and the founding of our own. We brought representation closer to home. We didn't disallow empire, we stole it. I don't see anything strict or austere about it. It did have some virtue in it, enough for it to resonate around the world, even today. I don't think this would be the case if not for the understanding that Americans are still in some ways the same sort of people who initially were moved by what our documents told us. It's not just a matter of protecting commerce, travel and communication, though it's obviously that in large part, it's also comes down to wide acceptance that some powerful entity must have that role and it should be one that understands what that role is. Then you get down to cases like Afghanistan and Iraq, within the larger context.

     On my reading list is God and Gold: Britain, America, and the Making of the Modern World by Walter Russell Mead. It's not an uncritical analysis, it wouldn't be any good if it were. If it doesn't irritate you, you're not reading it right.

[drogulus]

If you're going to continue down this path at least re-name it the word salad thread.

     Could you be specific? "Word salad" implies meaningless. I don't think anything in my comment is that, but you can tell me if you are in doubt about what anything means. I was going to say "I'm here to help", but that's not exactly true.

[Madiel]

     That's an argument about cases that assumes I've correctly described the role of the maritime superpower, not an argument that assumes there must not be one. Is there such an argument that draws on real world dynamics and history? Do you want a stronger version, World Government, or a weaker version that abolishes not only the title of empire but the roles it plays so badly?
 

I haven't the slightest idea what you're talking about. You seem to think I'm arguing about something completely different from what I'm actually arguing about.

[Jo498]

The Arabs/muslims had huge cities and high culture in the middle ages, both "based on" previous Persian culture but also e.g. in Kairo or Cordova. Far more urban and "urbanized" than anything in Europe at that time (although maybe not than India or China).
The general instability of the middle east today seems the heritage of at least two events: The decline of the Osmanian Empire that, although already weak in the 19th century still kept some of the different tribal and religious faction somewhat in line. And following that the drawing of boundaries by the colonial powers that did not (maybe could not) respect those factions. This apparently made the situation worse. I have heard several historians who compare the situation there to Europe in the age of religious wars and a weakening Holy Roman Empire, and rather pessimistically concluded that a 30 years war could well be expected.

Postcolonial policies during the cold war did not improve the situation. Russia will not tolerate becoming encircled both on the European flank (as we tried with Ukraine) as well as between the Black sea and the Caspian.
Ironically, the most stable and reliable middle eastern country in the last years has been Iran. They also seem the only country going towards less religious extremism (of course this is not hard to do if one starts with 1980 Ayatollahs, but Iran was a fairly "modern" country before that). As opposed to Turkey that is our Nato ally, flattered by the EU (because we need it as some barrier against too many refugees) but is closing down critical newpapers, putting journalists in jail, overall moving into a totalitarian (mix of nationalism and islam) direction.

As for terrorism, it's probably not an accident that "assassin" derives from suicidal terrorists of the middle ages. But until the 70s/80s (I only dimly remember this as I was only a child) most of the terrorist acts by muslims/arabs were on the surface political (often Palestinians). (And back then, IRA, ETA and other European terrorist organizations made at least as many headlines as PLO.) So the "islamist suicide bomber" seems a fairly recent phenomenon.

[Florestan]

Ironically, the most stable and reliable middle eastern country in the last years has been Iran. They also seem the only country going towards less religious extremism (of course this is not hard to do if one starts with 1980 Ayatollahs, but Iran was a fairly "modern" country before that). As opposed to Turkey that is our Nato ally, flattered by the EU (because we need it as some barrier against too many refugees) but is closing down critical newpapers, putting journalists in jail, overall moving into a totalitarian (mix of nationalism and islam) direction.

Come, now, you exaggerate. Much as the situation has been deteriorating in Turkey, it is still far, decades ahead of Iran when it comes to secularism, human (especially women´s) rights and democracy.