[Suntzu]

Don't let some nut shoot your family because they have nothing better to do but shoot someone when they are staring at walls and making comments on social media and no one pays attention to that asshole.

Hope they don't target your racist self....who thinks he knows better about being an intolerant racist foolish person. Lol.

Kiss all the shooters your kind LOVE to LOVE. Keep your guns and go to lots of funerals. Live your fucked up values Suntzu. Celebrate the shit values!! YEE HAH, you racist!

You know your society is going to hell when all you know how to respond to these tragedies is by having a gun with you at all times or arming teachers, administrators and security guards at schools. When a school has to be treated like a military outpost and or a police jail holding center? Your society is DONE. It is DONE. Nothing to save. You don't trust the government, you don't trust each other, you don't trust your neighbor, you can't trust a damn thing especially corrupt Republican gun loving freaks in Washington who have secret service and cops with them 24/7 and they get paid handsomely to let more people run free without any control of guns because shit....their lobbyists pay them to do so.

Go ahead. Love that shitty, low life style of life. It is yours Suntzu. Sleep with a gun under your bed and under your pillow waiting for some freak to wait for you to be asleep and get you even when you are armed to the teeth. Live with complete fear and doubt and lack of trust. LIVE YOUR DREAM OF FREEDOM. Because for me? That is being in prison.

I won't live like that. For no one. Home of the cowards. Who have to have 100 guns to protect them from bad values.

We don't even lock our doors at night around here. I ain't afraid of nothin' except maybe a dentist.

[Tainari88]

Which, unfortunately, means you'll be waiting forever. The civil rights movement was in the 60s. It's been three generations since and racists are as numerous and as racist now as ever. We didn't end racism, we buried it. And now some of us even ignore it. How many more generations do you think it will take to eliminate racism completely? 12? 20?

Historically, societies managed to end violence when they killed off or drove out their undesired minority (the losers). Other societies accepted draconian dictatorships who suppressed their violence, but not their hatred (see various middle east dictatorships). Very few societies have ever solved their violence while maintaining an egalitarian society and diversity. In fact, I can't think of any. Even Great Britain had to suppress their violence via centuries of brutality (cromwell?).

Racism is just another form of social control based on class and economics for me Citizen J. Got to always have a good supply of lower class people to not pay well and to consume when you brainwash them enough....and to compete for crumbs from the higher ups with each other instead of uniting and fighting.

For me racism is just an excuse to use when you want a fresh supply of gullible people to exploit.

Class consciousness and class struggle is a lot more prevalent and pernicious. You got elitist Africans, elitist Indians from India in a caste system, you got elitist Chinese, elitist Mexicans and etc, etc. And all of them think their poop doesn't smell and they are above the lower classes due to merit and lies they invent and they live off the big group and don't want to change. They are the big problem.

[Rancid]

Racism is just another form of social control based on class and economics for me Citizen J. Got to always have a good supply of lower class people to not pay well and to consume when you brainwash them enough....and to compete for crumbs from the higher ups with each other instead of uniting and fighting.

For me racism is just an excuse to use when you want a fresh supply of gullible people to exploit.

Class consciousness and class struggle is a lot more prevalent and pernicious. You got elitist Africans, elitist Indians from India in a caste system, you got elitist Chinese, elitist Mexicans and etc, etc. And all of them think their poop doesn't smell and they are above the lower classes due to merit and lies they invent and they live off the big group and don't want to change. They are the big problem.

MARXIST!! MARXIST!!!!

[Tainari88]

We don't even lock our doors at night around here. I ain't afraid of nothin' except maybe a dentist.

Go count your guns every night and love to kiss the barrels and sleep with bullets. Lol. I don't give a damn.

Never owned a gun and never had a gun. I don't give a damn about guns.

For me? If you need a hundred guns to feel safe? Something wrong with you. You either are waiting for WWIII to happen and to arrive at your door. Are in the middle of a revolution and are at war with a government or the military....or you are in the middle of a drug war and you are a drug dealer waiting for a sicario.

Or you think having guns is the solution to any dispute. Lol. Most people have to realize that not even cops shoot off their guns within their police careers and to think civilians need them to 'live'? It is about crazy values. Bad values. A weapon specifically designed to end life usually winds up killing someone innocent or being used in the owner's own suicide attempt rather than preventing some criminal from climbing into your home or invading your sacred property.

I don't even argue with people with bad values. What they should do? Is do what they do in Japan. American man who owns a gun in Japan---this is what he had to do to keep it. You do that? No way any crazy nut is going to own a gun in the USA.

Not willing to do that? You deserve to be called crazy and shit value. Period.

I hope liberals take over your guns Suntzu and force you into going through all that shit to keep a single gun. Lol. My hope for you? I hope you go through this shit in the future. Big smile!!

[Tainari88]

MARXIST!! MARXIST!!

Claro que si!! With the class bullshit system? Marxista all the way!!

Do you think you were born superior Rancid? Than anyone else?

Lol. My parents were the poorest of the poor. Yet they got formal educations. My mother PhD and my father two masters. If they were born as they were...from illiterate rural people with no money at all and total poverty and somehow got an education and became 'valuable' educated workers? What does that mean? That saying poor people are born to lose are all LIES of the worst sort. Changing society and keeping poor people in bad situations is not about merit or who is worthy or who is intelligent. It is about a systemic and violent system. LYING and about exploiting people. Period. Nothing about merit about it. Bullshit lies. That is what class systems are about. Nothing controversial about it. Marxist? You bet. Logical? You bet. Truthful? You bet.

Anyone supporting class systems believe in lies. And anyone defending them? Unjust. That is the reality.

Dialogue about a person who believes that people are naturally innately superior or inferior and that class systems work and should be preserved? This is how bad they think:

Class conscious snob: I was born into a good family. Other people are not. My circumstances were brought to me due to my being special. Being apart. Being superior. I knew it from the very beginning. I was never taught about inequality and my economic privileges as something to take for granted, I was told we worked harder than the next guy. I earned and should be able to make 800 times more than the minimum wage worker because when I was born? The stars rearranged themselves in the sky. I am a GOD. This is what I was taught in my home. Lol.


Worker: I was told I was not really equal to other humans. I eat, sleep, drink, have sex, work and do productive things.....and I think I am human but the superiors really treat me like I am not equal. Not really human. Something wrong with me to be making so little in wages. It must be because in the end? I am not as human as they are. I am less. Why? Because that is the way it is and I should not question what I am told. But I do. I don't want to accept such injustice. But what choice do I have. I might be called names like 'marxist' or 'red' or 'hippie' by some freaks who believe in magical genes and ethnic cleansing.



Crazy isn't it? But the class conscious folks believe this. I still am amazed they do.

[Suntzu]

[Citizen J]

Racism is just another form of social control

I quite agree with you, though I would use the term "enforce enslavement". I see all of civilization as a "form of social control" - as a means of enforcing our own enslavement. I would be a pure anarchist except for one detail. The average human is not moral enough to live in anarchy without harming others. And so we need some system of control to protect people from each other. And that requires an authority. And that authority needs a system of control to protect us from it. And that requires another authority. And so we need an endless hall of mirrors of authority and controls, each taking from us that which it needs to save us from each other. Civilization is a Greek comedy tragedy.

Some of us, however, are more civilized than others. Meaning, we are more comfortable with our position within the socio-economic hierarchy than others. I've seen millionaires behave badly and paupers perfectly content with their station in life. And I've seen young adults who have given up any hope or dream of living past 30. But most people I know just want to keep something in the fridge, a roof over their heads, and a car on the road. They can't afford the luxury of thinking past their next paycheck, lest they get depressed. I'm the odd duck (as are we all) for taking the time to think on philosophies and ideologies that distract from practical matters like securing enough food for the week and getting the car fixed up.

Which brings me to an old attempt I made (and abandoned) at a formal measurement of emotional maturity. I think a lot of our problem people are simply immature (emotionally). I think there's a strong correlation between future criminal behavior and emotional maturity. I would like us to test people for this starting in high school and into one's twenties. Then again once every decade after that. Of course, we would have to suffer through an endless debate to define emotional maturity first. Then devise a measure before we can even test for it. Talk about a PITA (pain in the a..). But if we did, I think it would go a long way towards predicting who shoots a place up and who does not. Or just who commits a crime and who does not.

[Sivad]

Go count your guns every night and love to kiss the barrels and sleep with bullets. Lol. I don't give a damn.

Never owned a gun and never had a gun. I don't give a damn about guns.

For me? If you need a hundred guns to feel safe? Something wrong with you.

If it weren't for people with guns you'd be in a very sorry state right now so stuff your oblivious liberal smug in a sack.

[Tainari88]

Maybe the reason they have so few gun deaths is they have so few Blacks.

Don't worry Suntzu, another Black liberal president will take over the White House and then I hope he seizes your guns and leaves you waiting for an invasion from some Mexicans.

In fact, I will throw a fufu on you and make sure it happens!

[Tainari88]

If it weren't for people with guns you'd be in a very sorry state right now so stuff your oblivious liberal smug in a sack.

If it weren't for some nut that the FBI ignored those 17 kids would be alive right now.

You won't prevent some nut with an automatic weapon from maybe going for another massacre. You foolish man!

Do you carry a gun with you everywhere? Yes or no. You might be caught by another nut never treated for mental issues as you walk around doing ordinary crap. He might be waiting in some tower or building and see you and say....he looks like a liberal. You can wear something to let the other right wing nuts that massacre people and are mental cases that you need to be spared as you go and buy something and are walking to your car.....'Don't shoot. I love guns and will defend your ass to be able to be gun happy. Spare me, I aint a liberal. Shoot the liberals...walk around with a cardboard sign all night and day. Save yourself!!"

[Tainari88]

I quite agree with you, though I would use the term "enforce enslavement". I see all of civilization as a "form of social control" - as a means of enforcing our own enslavement. I would be a pure anarchist except for one detail. The average human is not moral enough to live in anarchy without harming others. And so we need some system of control to protect people from each other. And that requires an authority. And that authority needs a system of control to protect us from it. And that requires another authority. And so we need an endless hall of mirrors of authority and controls, each taking from us that which it needs to save us from each other. Civilization is a Greek comedy tragedy.

Some of us, however, are more civilized than others. Meaning, we are more comfortable with our position within the socio-economic hierarchy than others. I've seen millionaires behave badly and paupers perfectly content with their station in life. And I've seen young adults who have given up any hope or dream of living past 30. But most people I know just want to keep something in the fridge, a roof over their heads, and a car on the road. They can't afford the luxury of thinking past their next paycheck, lest they get depressed. I'm the odd duck (as are we all) for taking the time to think on philosophies and ideologies that distract from practical matters like securing enough food for the week and getting the car fixed up.

Which brings me to an old attempt I made (and abandoned) at a formal measurement of emotional maturity. I think a lot of our problem people are simply immature (emotionally). I think there's a strong correlation between future criminal behavior and emotional maturity. I would like us to test people for this starting in high school and into one's twenties. Then again once every decade after that. Of course, we would have to suffer through an endless debate to define emotional maturity first. Then devise a measure before we can even test for it. Talk about a PITA (pain in the a..). But if we did, I think it would go a long way towards predicting who shoots a place up and who does not. Or just who commits a crime and who does not.

Criminal justice is a subject that is complex and studied. The problem has to do with if a system of social control is about what? If it is based on privileges and is a systemic thing that discriminates? It foments crime.

Most drug dealers for example are people who can work for a living with low wages and with not much material goods. But they decided early on they don't want that. Why? They usual witness how that life goes and they want something flashy, consumerism and so on. Bad values. Most crime is about bad values. And bad values usually happen because the choices and the environment and the particular person all has a toxic mixture of conditions.

It happens in all human societies. Corruption, bad values. Americans are into greed and a corrupt sellout sociopathically bad value system. They think it is normal to be selfish in the extreme and to be looking out for number one. To be defensive and to be thinking this or that false crap. I frankly think that the lack of values is just a natural consequence of believing in a value system that stinks. Any society that thinks making money and being rich and not giving a damn about the larger group is the way to go? Will fail. Guaranteed.

[Citizen J]

That's assuming he's not the nut walking around with a gun.
dunno - haven't read enough of his writings to judge.

It the lure of easy money that's got a very strong appeal
Capitalism is so popular because it caters to our most ancient courtship rituals. Whatever replaces it must also accommodate those same rituals, or you risk people corrupting your replacement. I'm convinced that this, as much as anything, cause the Soviet system to collapse. People are not going to change a few million years of evolution easily.
However, we're drifting away from the subject at hand. And I apologize for my part in it.

It's not that Americans don't know right from wrong. It's that a few choose wrong because it's easier and more profitable. Vis-a-vis - more successful. There I go again, seguing (is that the right spelling?) back into my pet hypothesis again. (Somebody stop me )

[Sivad]

If it weren't for some nut that the FBI ignored those 17 kids would be alive right now.

You won't prevent some nut with an automatic weapon from maybe going for another massacre. You foolish man!

Do you carry a gun with you everywhere? Yes or no. You might be caught by another nut never treated for mental issues as you walk around doing ordinary crap. He might be waiting in some tower or building and see you and say....he looks like a liberal. You can wear something to let the other right wing nuts that massacre people and are mental cases that you need to be spared as you go and buy something and are walking to your car.....'Don't shoot. I love guns and will defend your ass to be able to be gun happy. Spare me, I aint a liberal. Shoot the liberals...walk around with a cardboard sign all night and day. Save yourself!!"

I guess this kind of sentimental folk thinking goes over big with the dipshit crowd but to me it's just mindless reaction. You seem like a very nice person that means well but in my experience nice well meaning people don't have much in the way of substance. The people that are worth a damn in this world are mostly the shitty bastards that mean business. So go be nice and pay pleasantries and leave reality to those with the piss and grit to deal with it.

[Tainari88]

That's assuming he's not the nut walking around with a gun.
dunno - haven't read enough of his writings to judge.

It the lure of easy money that's got a very strong appeal
Capitalism is so popular because it caters to our most ancient courtship rituals. Whatever replaces it must also accommodate those same rituals, or you risk people corrupting your replacement. I'm convinced that this, as much as anything, cause the Soviet system to collapse. People are not going to change a few million years of evolution easily.
However, we're drifting away from the subject at hand. And I apologize for my part in it.

It's not that Americans don't know right from wrong. It's that a few choose wrong because it's easier and more profitable. Vis-a-vis - more successful. There I go again, seguing (is that the right spelling?) back into my pet hypothesis again. (Somebody stop me )

Lol. No, it is simpler, you just need a gun to make sure your little false idea that you own the land. Land that was here before you were even a sparkle in your father's eye. You own all the made in China furnishings and toys, cups and saucers, pots and pans, towels and sheets, beds and plasticware in your home....though most people have to pay a bank to avoid losing ownership of the home, they pay a bank with the fantasy they own the car they drive....but if they park it in the wrong parking slot in the town or city they live in and get it towed and don't have enough money to get it out of the pound? Might lose that too. But you need a GUN to make sure you keep all these possessions owned my banks, land that is not really yours to keep because it was there before you were born and once you croak and can't pay any property tax on it and if someone else doesn't take over the payments the bank keeps and sells to another poor slob who has to pay for it over 35 years if he is dumb enough to believe it is a good deal.

All this myth of owning and being in control drives you to a gun. Where some drunk college student on a Saturday night knocks on your door.....and you being a paranoid right wing dumbell Trump supporter you ask, "Who's there?" You are answered by a foreign language. You get paranoid. Invasion. Freaks. Others. You get your gun and ask again. The drunk college exchange student says something again you can't understand. You open the door a crack and then shoot. Kill. You then say.....I had to protect my crap from these untrustworthy weirdos.....


The property becomes more valuable than human life. Great values. Great American bullshit spirit of MYTHS of being in possession of some plastic made in China stuff. A moment of deep truth. You killed someone that some community spent decades feeding, educating, interacting with, and helping to get work so they could be part of a society that makes them feel like they are doing something worth living for...all ended by one stupid, ignorant person who believes in total lies and myth.

Is there hope for us Citizen J? You tell me?

[4cal]

I guess this kind of sentimental folk thinking goes over big with the dipshit crowd but to me it's just mindless reaction. You seem like a very nice person that means well but in my experience nice well meaning people don't have much in the way of substance. The people that are worth a damn in this world are mostly the shitty bastards that mean business. So go be nice and pay pleasantries and leave reality to those with the piss and grit to deal with it.

Dealing with it is commenting on a message board?

[Potemkin]

Dealing with it is commenting on a message board?

I don't comment on a message board. I am the message board.

[Tainari88]

I guess this kind of sentimental folk thinking goes over big with the dipshit crowd but to me it's just mindless reaction. You seem like a very nice person that means well but in my experience nice well meaning people don't have much in the way of substance. The people that are worth a damn in this world are mostly the shitty bastards that mean business. So go be nice and pay pleasantries and leave reality to those with the piss and grit to deal with it.

Where is your piss and grit? You are prepared by a magic shield that will shield you from a mental case as you go and shop in some supermarket? As you drive your car on the road with a mental case with a gun in the seat next to him waiting to unload on you?

When you are doing something normal and don't notice? A freak with a gun who can be short....and not too smart. Could be intelligent. Could be marginal. Could be a nerd. Could be a sportsman. Could be A or B. The thing they all have in common? They have a human hand and a gun or automatic weapon and can squeeze the trigger and kill you fast. Because they have bad values Savid. Bad values. They don't see you as a person like they are with rights to live and a right to continue and who has to be respected. You are just someone they can destroy because they have bad values.

How do you stop bad values?

It is not about piss and grit. It is about what makes people able to pull a trigger and end another human being's life and think that is alright. Because?

Something is wrong with them. And the gun makes the wrong easy to accomplish.

No piss and grit ever solves that issue. All of the lack of killing resides in your value system. That is where it exists. You got a bad value system? Nothing is going to solve it for you. Except not believing in bullshit selfish shit. Like you have a right to take someone else's life because you CAN. And nothing there telling you there is value in someone else's life.

Lack of filters. And selfish stuff is what creates that 'vacuum'.

I don't live with the illusion that I am not vulnerable to another person's lack of respect for life. A gun is not going to save me. Because no one can live with absolute fear and with a gun in their daily life all the time, every time. No can do. It is a lie. We are all interconnected to each other and rely on our moral compass and our own values of respecting other people's humanity to live. Got to have that fundamental respect.

The racists, the classists, the discriminators contribute to a lack of respect for that. Over time....all of it has an impact on society. In some form. The only way it stops if we choose to respect the rights of others to live as we want them to respect our rights to live.

My right to live depends on others agreeing to respect my right to live. Otherwise? All of us are going to have to accept that we are fragile. We depend on the thoughts and good will of each other. You can't think you are apart. Above society and others. NO such thing. A stranger, or a known person could easily end my life. Any moment with a deadly weapon like a gun in a very easy way. But what keeps me alive? Some sense of respect.

That is what everyone relies on to live. Respect for life.

Substance and the very purpose of life belongs to the nice people Savid. Not the ones without it. Because respecting life is what makes humanity continue to live. The mother feeding the child, the husband working for his family, the mother working for hers, the worker doing a good job, the neighbor not making life hard for his neighbor, the friend making sure a friend feels respected and supported....all these tiny acts done on a daily basis is how human society creates a reality of LIFE. And not death.

The ones without substance are the lost ones. Who wind up killing. It is actually the nice people who are the ones who are the most valuable Savid. Not the other way around.

[Sivad]

Dealing with it is commenting on a message board?

Dealing with it is just recognizing that a harsh reality requires us to accept some evils as necessary. I'm sure your smug plays well with your fellow travelers but that doesn't do much to change the fact that it's just stupid.

[Sivad]

I don't comment on a message board. I am the message board.

But you're an academic right? You're not like a real person with any actual stake in the struggle? It's not surprising then that you'd make that a punchline.

[Citizen J]

Is there hope for us Citizen J? You tell me?

For us personally? Utterly naught.
But for humanity, there is some dim hope yet left. In his later years, Sigmund Freud despaired of humanity. He held humanity in progressively greater contempt. He saw what we see. In all things human, I see primate behavior. More sophisticated, sure; but still the roots on primate behavior exists and manifest itself in nearly everything we do. I hear it in the thoughtless banter and the social games people play at the bar. I see it in the workplace and in the most popular video games. I see it in the the social hierarchy. The antagonism of internet trolls, in all the "isms" we so slavishly demonstrate. I see it in our mating rituals and our markets, and our politics and in our leadership. In our personal loyalties, alliances, and antipathies. We are just as much slaves to our ancient genes as our primate cousins. It's hubris to think we're somehow better than primates while we continue to act like them. Sophistication is not betterment, imo. Adding complexity is not necessarily improvement. Just ask anybody who has built a Rube Goldberg machine. As long as we fail to recognize this fact of our existence, we will see no reason to change it. And it's all because of our genetic code. We are still ultimately enslaved by it, our behavior, our opinions, our emotions, our loyalties, even some of our vernacular and mannerisms are manifestations of our genetic code.

But perhaps humanity can escape our genetic code, or at least our enslavement to it. One day, we might master one of three things: the provision of personal needs, overcome the need for a biological body, or we will master the genetic code itself. The second two would allow us to master our primal instincts or eliminate them entirely. The first would eliminate the need to rely on others, no more need to compete for resources, social interaction solely for the sake of social interaction. But all these things are in some far distant future, and we have to get there from here.

Here's the worst part of it all; even if we were to fulfill every need and desire of every human on the planet, there are still those who would wage war simply because they desire the "power" they feel when others are dependent upon them.
We know we elect the wrong kind of people to rule over us. Yet, we could support better leaders.
Most of us know people are not monsters or beasts, or vermin. We could treat them better.
We don't have to accumulate unGodly sums of stuff. We don't have to hoard. We don't have to antagonize others. We could respect others right to live as they desire (so long as they don't harm anyone). We have these choices. Not just you and I, but entire nations, corporations, organizations, power and principalities. We all can choose. And as long as we all have choice, we have hope that someday, humanity will start making better choices. There is always the hope that someday humanity will grow up.