[Lingster]

You don't think that every human being has the right (and responsibility) of self-defense?  A free society can only last as long as people are able to defend their freedom, because it's socially hygienic for political elites to fear the people they govern.

[Lingster]

Well, there are background checks.  There is a federally-mandated background check on all gun buyers in the U.S., which can take up to three business days to complete.

The shooter at VT had no criminal record, therefore he was able to buy a gun. 

There are crazy, evil people in the world.  We can't always control them, and we don't always spot them before they act.

There's a great opinion piece in the New York Times today, by a college professor in Michigan: Here.

[Lingster]

OK, didn't have time to reply seriously 'til now.

First off, the U.S. doesn't claim to be the world's only true democracy – in fact we don't even really claim to be a democracy.  If you look at the CIA Factbook, you'll see that the U.S. government classes itself as a "constitution-based federal republic; strong democratic tradition".  The UK is described as a "constitutional monarchy", and France is classed as a "republic".  Canada is described as a "constitutional monarchy that is also a parliamentary democracy and a federation", and Japan is a "constitutional monarchy with a parliamentary government".

We have 50 states and numerous indian reservations, all of which enjoy a fair amount of sovereignty and independence from the federal government.  These entities and their sub-divisions (counties, cities, towns, townships, boroughs, etc.) are responsible for their own daily operations and are answerable to their constituents, not to the federal government or federal officialdom.  Louisiana is responsible for Louisiana.  When disaster strikes the federal government has the ability to respond within a few days to a week, but during that time the local authority is in control.  It's their show.

Normally this works pretty well, but Louisiana is a special case.  Louisiana was a French colony acquired after the formation of the United States.  It has parishes, not counties, and its state law is more strongly influenced by French and Napoleonic code than English common law, which the other 49 use as the basis for their civil code.  Its citizens are highly tolerant of political corruption, and large government projects there typically suffer enormous waste from corruption.  Louisiana is a political basket case, and always has been. 

Regardless, in the late 1960s the federal government's Army Corps of Engineers set out to build a massive hurricane protection system for New Orleans.  It was opposed locally in Louisiana, especially by local environmental groups.  After a string of court decisions the plan was scrapped in the early 80s.  Instead of building a new levee and drainage system, the old one was upgraded.  Even with the upgrades, the system was not built to withstand a category 5 hurricane, which is what Katrina was when it hit New Orleans.

With my own eyes I have seen a house under construction disintegrate in a category 3 hurricane, chunks of the roof spinning off down the road.  A category 5 hurricane is a vastly worse thing.

There are still a lot of Americans who expect people to be able to do for themselves – that's part of what gun ownership and teaching kids to hunt is about.  The idea that some Americans would live below sea level in a coastal flood zone in houses without pilings, and without at least inflatable boats at the ready, is astonishing to me.  It is not something I would ever do.

Anyway, the point is that there are 50 states in the Union.  Some of them are run very well, some of them very poorly.  None of them are at present run by George W. Bush, and blaming him, or Americans in general, for the failure of one state is just ignorant.

And finally, in defense of Louisiana, the extent of failure there was vastly overstated by both the US and European media.  There were "Lord of the Flies" type horror stories being reported at the Superdome which turned out to be completely spurious.  There were casualty numbers of 10,000 to 20,000 being floated, which were likewise absurdly overstated.  There was also a common theme in European coverage that suggested the U.S. Government was withholding support because most of the victims were black.  However, the death tallies from Katrina in the New Orleans area show that marginally more whites than blacks were killed.  So not only did European media misrepresent the role and responsibility of the U.S. Government, it also very quickly made very dark assertions about motives and intent.

The European coverage of Virginia Tech is very similar in character to the Katrina coverage.

[Lingster]

More evidence of British perfidy.  When will it stop!?

[Lingster]

cpbell0033944:

Firstly, where does it stop?  How many things should we ban because they're dangerous?  Automobiles kill ten times as many people each year in the U.S. as are killed in firearm homicides.  Alcohol, tobacco, red meat, SHOWERS – what else would you ban?  What else should be sacrificed on the altar so that the sheeple can have a false sense of security?

Secondly, I suspect that like many Europeans you have a very simplistic view of the United States.  Many people throughout the world believe that they understand the U.S. because they've seen our movies and TV programs.  I can assure you that what goes on in movies and TV programs is fiction and does not much resemble daily life here.  If you haven't lived here, you probably don't know us.  As a people we Americans tend to be inward focused – we're constantly derided for this in European media, but the upside is that we don't feel the need to pass judgment on other peoples around the world, a failing to which Europeans often succumb.  When a tsunami or a typhoon kills tens of thousands of people, we don't point fingers and say, "You should have built sturdier houses."  Instead we send money, food and clothing and try to help them prevent future incidents of the same kind – the U.S. is currently financing a tsunami warning system for nations in southeast Asia.  We're also trying to build a missile defense system over Europe.  We don't often feel the need to explain that we're doing it because prior to the U.S. establishing a permanent military presence in Europe, you people were making excellent progress toward exterminating yourselves.  (On two separate occasions.) 

It seems that the practical outcome of the recent phenomenon of European multiculturalism is that Europeans are not allowed to hate and disparage anyone but Americans.  And you spend quite a bit of time doing that.  What you don't understand is that the U.S. has very social trust.  I am not afraid of my neighbors having guns.  In fact I feel better having armed neighbors than I do having armed police in my neighborhood.  I do not trust the government with my defense.  I am glad my neighbors own guns.  I am glad that I can look to them for help when there's trouble.

Finally, the wisdom of the U.S. system of government is that it is entirely oppositional.  Not just insofar as the right fights the left, but also that the Legislative, the Executive and the Judicial are necessarily in opposition and forever pushing against one another.  Also, the 50 state governments are necessarily in opposition to one another much of the time, and in opposition to Washington much of the time.  And finally the citizens, themselves armed with hundreds of millions of firearms, represent a power block that must at all times be considered in Washington and the state capitals.  The implicit meaning of the Declaration of Independence is that Americans have the right to overthrow our government if (when) it eventually descends into tyranny.  300 million firearms goes a long way toward making that a credible threat.

In part because of that threat, we have kept one form of government without interruption longer than any other people in the history of the world.  Along with Britain (if you don't count Irish independence) and a tiny handful of other nations, we suffered no interregnum or revolution or conquest during the 20th century.

When Katrina hit New Orleans there was no end to the criticism of the U.S. in European media.  To hear your newspapers and magazines, it was an indictment of the American system itself.  Never mind that Europe doesn't get hurricanes.  Never mind that North America has the most violent weather on the planet.  It was all our fault.  Gone unmentioned was that the year before, a heat wave in Europe KILLED TWENTY TIMES AS MANY PEOPLE AS KATRINA.  A freakin' heat wave.  But by all means, feel free to pass judgment on what we did over three days when a section of the Gulf of Mexico moved several miles inland and inundated several major cities, versus what you yourselves did when you had an unusually hot summer.

We know how to run our own affairs.  And you should mind your own, because we're a little bit tired of having you Europeans attributing moral fault every time we suffer a tragedy.

[Lingster]

I recall that she tried out for a place on the Canadian Winter Olympics team a few years back.  Luge, maybe?

[Lingster]

I think this was the first major site outage not caused by me.

[Lingster]

Yeah. This Korean guy…two pistols, with quick reloading skill…and all that. But youre right. The police kinda did act pretty stupid about this… First shots reported, and they didnt do anything until the second set… >_<

In the U.S., about 11,000 people are murdered with a firearm each year (out of about 2.5 million total deaths).  So only a tiny fraction of deaths in the U.S. each year are murders, and spree killings make up a tiny piece of that 11,000.  So in defense of the cops, the odds are pretty small (thousands to one) that a killer is going to murder two people, then reload and massacre more people nearby.  It almost never happens, and it's probably not right to condemn someone for failing to act to prevent something that almost never happens.

[Lingster]

Turns out he's not Chinese.  News this morning is that he's a South Korean national with permanent U.S. residency status.  When not in school he lived with his parents in Fairfax County.

[Lingster]

I frequently see server log entries from Blacksburg, VA, so hopefully all our members there are OK.

I'm pretty disgusted by the media coverage of this – especially the foreign media coverage.  The UK's "Indepedent" newspaper is using the attack as an indictment of American culture, etc.  Apparently the newspaper's deadline tonight was before law enforcement released info indicating that the perpetrator is a Chinese national in the U.S. on a visa.

So will the Independent run an editorial tomorrow apologizing for jumping the gun and indicating that the shooting is actually an indictment of Chinese culture?  Don't hold your breath.

[Author]

Posts