braincell wrote:Gary,
Maybe you think gun control advocates are brainwashed but that sounds very patronizing. Other countries are more advanced than we are in many ways.
I was lamenting with some friends in a chat room about having to do taxes and I asked the Scott if he has to do them and he replied that the government does the taxes for the people. That is so much better but it won't happen here. We are not organized and I contend on average not as intelligent.
People in other countries pay more taxes than we do but they are more happy than we are. It has been measured through surveys. We are way down on the happiness scale. Forty million people with no health insurance and the cost keeps going up. We get less vacations and less or no maternity leave. Our educational system is among the worst in the world. We have unequal schools because municipalities fund schools instead of the federal government as it should be. Many of our bridges are in danger of collapse.
Our electrical grid is outdated and could be on the verge of a meltdown. Our Internet speeds are the 6th slowest in the world. We are more religious than other countries which leads to more stupidity such as Kansas trying to erase evolution from science textbooks. It's bad enough that private religious schools are getting tax breaks to indoctrinate children into a fantasy view of reality but now they want to do the same thing to public school students.
In the US - increased 'dumbing' down in the school systems, reduction in school budgets (including getting rid of music programs), increased passiviity through increasingly mindnumbingly stupid television programming (i.e. 'reality' shows - effectively watching other people fuck up their lives), increased taxes (that only pay down debt and pay for war machine), trillions spent on stupid wars while leaving the poor people to swim in the streets of New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina - and then blaming THEM for being lazy and living off welfare, increased toxicity and fat content in foods, GMO crops that farmers can ONLY grow by using GMO seeds - (also rumored to be killing off the bee population - effectively killing off plant vectors for crop polination), crumbling infrastructure, increased 'security' while also leaving the borders and school systems wide open for criminal attack - it's ALL upside down, and is an international epidemic.
So, OK I'm 'anti-brainwashed' in the sense that I'm 'brainwashed' in maintaining an ideal that was 'prototyped' in the US over 200 years ago as a POSSIBLITY and a HOPE for a country based on individual sovereignty distinct from living under the King (FUCK = Found Under the King - or something like that), and CHOOSING to support what's left of that intent by CHOOSING to own and maintain a gun - as a first line of defense - is NOT an elitist, or left/right religious construct, but rather a VERY distinct hope we have for everyone - and despite what BOOSH makes us look like, Americans do NOT feel elitist over anyone else in the world. As a matter of fact, when traveling abroad I PURPOSELY avoid obnoxious Americans because I just really get tired of the blatant ignorance. It's just really sad not being able to do much of ANYTHING about it other than living my own life by example.
I work with engineers from all over the world, and find them ALL VERY interesting to converse with, since many come from lands where there are hardly ANY individual rights, including from Iraq, Iran, UK, Africa, China, etc. We all get along great, play soccer together, music together, basketball together, etc. - and NONE of them care if I'm maintaining a gun or not. They know the distinction.
So, instead of just getting angry and say 'FUCK GUNS', try on FUCK IGNORANCE, or FUCK CONSPIRACIES (the real one's whether perceived that way or not), or FUCK STUPIDITY, or whatever.
<rant over>
Greg
