How does the World view America these days?

  On 11/22/2021 at 6:06 PM, joshuatxuk said:

I don't disagree with your logic or concerns but unfortunately gun buybacks and regulation just doesn't work because the people who it's intended to de-arm and regulate 100% refuse to participate. When they go in the U.S. it's literally a shitshow of people cashing in on crap they inherited or would not be able to sell for as much on the used marker. It's not akin to the buybacks in Australia that worked and I think part of that is because there's a massive, massive difference in the state of both countries systematically. 

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i'm not sure that gun buybacks would work in America for all those obvious reasons, yeah. my speculation is that as the prices of the used market are driven up, the gov purchase price would rise in kind and eventually they'd become so scarce that they'd be priced out of most common hands, and even those who owned them wouldn't be using them/loaning out to friends/etc. it'd definitely have to be approached differently than Australia for sure, and again i'm not certain it would work but i don't know any other reasonable solution to the current glut of these high powered weapons tucked away in every asshole's closet.

  On 11/22/2021 at 6:06 PM, joshuatxuk said:

I tout the consideration of people who are gun wary to arm up anyway as a pragmatic worst case scenario recommendation not some absurd "starting an arms war with the far right nutters will help" - it's more of a plea that things are looking so dire and dangerous for maligned and vulnerable communities that the last thing they need to do is make it harder for them to acquire means of adequate self-defense. Gun free zones and heavy anti-gun regulation generally works and is considered reasonable in liberal leaning (if not outright liberal/progressive) cities and states. They are bubbles essentially for many there and it's hard to justify gun ownership especially as crime is far lower than it was in the 70s and 80s. But even NY and CA have very, very far-right pockets. In liberal states in the PNW it's def one extreme or the other.

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i'm all for allowing production and purchase of weapons for personal protection forever. that's fine. but fundamentally i believe that the answer to 'there's too many guns' simply cannot be 'well i guess we need even more guns'. maybe i'm wrong, but it doesn't feel like it. again, i'm not sure there's any perfect way to take things the other direction, there's probably not any one way to do it, in fact (state's rights, etc.), but i'm viewing it sorta like Afghanistan: in 2021 idk that there was a good way for America to leave, but it damned sure needed to happen (and of course the way it did happen was very, very bad). the result is what matters more, and getting there is going to be ugly. no doubt.

  On 11/22/2021 at 6:06 PM, joshuatxuk said:

I would point to the fact that countries with far less gun violence don't just have fewer guns and stricter laws but far, far more stable governments and robust healthcare, public services, public infrastructure, higher standard of living, etc. Those metrics the U.S. is often so behind or woefully lacking go hand in hand with the incidence of gun violence here - not just mass shootings but suicides and financial stress induced robberies and murders. Those things being improved in this country would mitigate it greatly, it's essentially really.

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agreed 100%, and it seems like there's some aspects of America that are leaning towards that direction, albeit very slowly. i think you're right that this needs to happens first/concurrently with any very serious gun regulations. 

  On 11/22/2021 at 6:06 PM, joshuatxuk said:

The irony of the US gun control issue is people would not need guns if they had a safe and providing society in place. That won't happen until we can get and keep progressives in office. The call for aggressive gun control is understandable but it's putting the cart before the horse and to be very specific it very well might cost more Dem efforts to flip seats in the next election.

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yeah, i don't see America getting progressives into many offices soon, certainly not nationally. neither party wants that. i'm definitely not thinking or suggesting anything like buybacks could happen any time soon, honestly there's no world i can imagine within the next decade where it could be viable. i didn't mean to imply it was a 'this needs to be the big issue for the next election!' or anything.... but eventually, that needs to be the goal imo. i'm all for reasonable short term goals but sorta want to have these lofty ones in the future plans we're leaning towards one day, y'know?

  On 11/23/2021 at 4:09 AM, Roo said:

Dr Pepper

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hey, Dr Pepper is pretty damned good.

  On 11/23/2021 at 4:09 AM, Roo said:

Things I’m glad my country doesn’t really go in for: guns, god, pep rallies, college football/basketball, cheerleaders, Mexican food chains, Dr Pepper, miliinduspsychpharmacomplex,white xmas, elect Trumps, cable, expensive healthcare, land animals that can eat you, the worst football code, driving  on the other side, Iran/Russia obsession, all that constitution/amendments mumbo jumbo, evangelists, elderly presidents, lynchings, capital punishment, non-compulsory voting, ‘putting the kids through college’, simplistic English spelling, dadt, kardashians, etc. etc.

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things I'm not glad my country does go in for: creating a culture where it's more offensive to call someone out for being racist than actually being racist, acting like a leading western light whilst mostly free-riding on those values, laziness and self-entitlement from decades of being "the lucky country", the hypocrisy of being crucially dependent on migration as an economic platform whilst fearing it as a social ill and using it whenever convenient to score political points, the appalling media landscape with its high concentration of power in a few aging hands and brutally shit content, climate inaction and an abandonment of basic custodianship of the land (RIP the Great Barrier Reef, one of our greatest national treasures), cultural and ethnic segregation from decades of white flight cos people simply don't like living around darkies, the incestuous relationship between private industry and politicians which ends up determining public policy, a parasitic leadership class that deadlocks us at every turn from moving forward on the most important issues of the century, etc etc.

what's become very apparent in the last 5-6 years is how much Australians enjoy pointing and laughing at yanks and their problems whilst remaining blissfully unaware of their own, quite a few of which are in the same vein. I heard some dickhead gloating the other day about how Australia "doesn't have a cultural history of slavery" like America does. very cool to know.

Lots of problems with the US (obviously) but, now especially because I am a parent, this whole gun thing alone is enough to make me want to leave altogether. It was always absurd but it has just been getting worse and worse. Now we have legal precedent that you can gun down people who are trying to defend themselves against you and your big assault rifle because you are defending yourself while instigating violence. I’m done. Get me out of this shithole. 
Btw… This story from this summer gutted me and we are just descending further into madness. 

2 people have been arrested in the suspected road rage shooting death of a 6-year-old boy in California
https://www.cnn.com/2021/06/07/us/california-road-rage-arrests/index.html

"There was road rage on the freeway and someone pulled out a gun and shot my little brother in the stomach," she told reporters. "He said, 'Mommy my tummy hurts,' so she went and she picked him up and he was bleeding on her. She had blood on her clothes."

This shit should never happen. Period. 

Well, that's fulfills my daily awful story quota, and by 8am too. 

Unfortunately, I suspect that there will be a lot more of that sort of thing in the next few months/years. I sincerely wonder what it will take for there to be major systemic reform. Perhaps it will never happen. Incidentally, there was a good interview with Ryan Busse, a former gun industry insider, on Fresh Air yesterday. https://www.npr.org/2021/11/22/1056871881/gunfight-author-ryan-busse

He opens the book with a story about his twelve year old son getting physically harassed by an AR15-toting MAGA-hat wearing right-winger. As you said, now that there's this bizarre legal precedent, I am bracing myself for even more emboldened asinine shenanigans in my part of the country ('flyover' and cornfield land). 

not guilty verdict = buy more guns! USA! USA!

https://www.ibtimes.com/texas-gun-store-shooting-range-promotes-not-guilty-sale-after-kyle-rittenhouse-3343398

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The verdict from Kyle Rittenhouse’s trial was used as a marketing gimmick by a gun store and shooting range in Conroe, Texas. The Saddle River Range sent out text messages to customers and announced they were having a “Not Guilty Sale” after Rittenhouse was acquitted of all charges Friday for the Kenosha protest shootings. The large sale started Saturday and is set to go on till Thanksgiving. 

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  On 11/23/2021 at 7:12 AM, J3FF3R00 said:

Lots of problems with the US (obviously) but, now especially because I am a parent, this whole gun thing alone is enough to make me want to leave altogether. It was always absurd but it has just been getting worse and worse. Now we have legal precedent that you can gun down people who are trying to defend themselves against you and your big assault rifle because you are defending yourself while instigating violence. I’m done. Get me out of this shithole. 
Btw… This story from this summer gutted me and we are just descending further into madness. 

2 people have been arrested in the suspected road rage shooting death of a 6-year-old boy in California
https://www.cnn.com/2021/06/07/us/california-road-rage-arrests/index.html

"There was road rage on the freeway and someone pulled out a gun and shot my little brother in the stomach," she told reporters. "He said, 'Mommy my tummy hurts,' so she went and she picked him up and he was bleeding on her. She had blood on her clothes."

This shit should never happen. Period. 

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we should ban cars in cities. public transit in place of fucking highways... the way it used to be before cars. everyone gets on the damn light rail and goes where they go. cars are a bubble where americans don't have to care about other people and can justify all kinds of shitty behavior. 

The GOP are basically the Yee-Yee Taliban now, thanks to Trump.

The damage is already done. Time will tell if this nation survives this ever-widening political divide in the long term, like a fissure in a large magnitude earthquake.

  On 11/23/2021 at 5:07 AM, usagi said:

things I'm not glad my country does go in for: creating a culture where it's more offensive to call someone out for being racist than actually being racist, acting like a leading western light whilst mostly free-riding on those values, laziness and self-entitlement from decades of being "the lucky country", the hypocrisy of being crucially dependent on migration as an economic platform whilst fearing it as a social ill and using it whenever convenient to score political points, the appalling media landscape with its high concentration of power in a few aging hands and brutally shit content, climate inaction and an abandonment of basic custodianship of the land (RIP the Great Barrier Reef, one of our greatest national treasures), cultural and ethnic segregation from decades of white flight cos people simply don't like living around darkies, the incestuous relationship between private industry and politicians which ends up determining public policy, a parasitic leadership class that deadlocks us at every turn from moving forward on the most important issues of the century, etc etc.

what's become very apparent in the last 5-6 years is how much Australians enjoy pointing and laughing at yanks and their problems whilst remaining blissfully unaware of their own, quite a few of which are in the same vein. I heard some dickhead gloating the other day about how Australia "doesn't have a cultural history of slavery" like America does. very cool to know.

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You’re a bit off topic though, I hope you’re not implying I’m one of your ‘blissfully unaware’, American-jeering Australians, bit of an ignorant reach to make if so.

I don't think it's off-topic at all. this thread covers wide ground and talking about perceptions of the US by outside observers in the context of those observers' own perceptive blind spots is relevant. I wasn't talking about you directly, take it how you will.

  On 11/23/2021 at 11:49 PM, usagi said:

I don't think it's off-topic at all. this thread covers wide ground and talking about perceptions of the US by outside observers in the context of those observers' own perceptive blind spots is relevant. I wasn't talking about you directly, take it how you will.

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Yeah that's cool, and your post content was entirely valid, Australia has plenty issues (you also refer to some pot kettle black overlap which I was mostly careful to navigate). I think there is already a comparable thread about Australia, and there is room for both the serious and in jest. But in quoting mine specifically it did give the impression of being aggressively contrary, direct and presumptive, as if I was one of your maligned numpties, or less woke on the 'perceptive blind spots'. But I'm reading a bit too much into it clearly. Sorry, carry on

my bad. I get angry about this stuff. I've been frustrated for a long time now at the state of things here and that there is no avenue for moving forward on those issues.

maybe crude to look at it like this, but perhaps this is a bit of a balance to the Rittenhouse shit:

https://www.vox.com/2021/11/24/22798878/ahmaud-arbery-guilty-verdict-trial-mcmichaels-bryan

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Arbery, a 25-year-old Black man, was out for a run on the outskirts of Brunswick, Georgia, when the three white men cornered him with their vehicles and shot him dead. Video footage of the murder was viewed by millions of people in May 2020, sparking a widespread outcry about America’s disregard for Black life. The men pursued and shot Arbery in February 2020; the guilty verdict was nearly two years in the making.

Though the widely circulated video of the encounter shows most of what transpired when the men chased Arbery, the outcome of the trial was far from clear at the start.

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legally this one was likely more clear cut, but nonetheless both have been sorta hovering in a similar collective brainspace for the last year+ so it's good to see a pretty decisive outcome here.

Trump is no longer president, right? Right?

That is one of the most disgusting things I’ve ever seen. 

  On 11/25/2021 at 12:43 AM, Nebraska said:

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the photo above shittenhouse's head is a pic of trump w/kim j of north korea. of all the presidential photos available to him his moment to put in his office in a frame is w/a dictator.. 

  On 11/23/2021 at 5:19 PM, ambermonke said:

The GOP are basically the Yee-Yee Taliban now, thanks to Trump.

The damage is already done. Time will tell if this nation survives this ever-widening political divide in the long term, like a fissure in a large magnitude earthquake.

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that's what frightens me about historical precedent; when a civil division has occurred in the past, especially in the US, the paradigm was only changed by either an attack from outside (like Pearl Harbor or 9/11), or an all out civil conflict (like 1860). I'm not saying a national civil war could occur again, the Federal Government is too strong to let that happen, and military bases are in almost every state now, but localized skirmishes might be the end result, more likely in Southern states like Texas.

  On 11/26/2021 at 2:34 PM, Rubin Farr said:

that's what frightens me about historical precedent; when a civil division has occurred in the past, especially in the US, the paradigm was only changed by either an attack from outside (like Pearl Harbor or 9/11), or an all out civil conflict (like 1860). I'm not saying a national civil war could occur again, the Federal Government is too strong to let that happen, and military bases are in almost every state now, but localized skirmishes might be the end result, more likely in Southern states like Texas.

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I reckon it depends on how ambitious far-right vigilantes get, and how much support they have. But at the end of the day I think most, or at least the vast majority of us prefer to maintain peace and order.

Something tells me that scattered flare-ups are more likely than a full second civil war though. Again, reactionary militias (i.e. Proud Boys, Oath Keepers, etc) will likely try to push for it harder than anybody, out of their ideology based on conspiracy theories and deep-seeded racism.

  On 11/26/2021 at 3:50 PM, ambermonke said:

I reckon it depends on how ambitious far-right vigilantes get, and how much support they have. But at the end of the day I think most, or at least the vast majority of us prefer to maintain peace and order.

Something tells me that scattered flare-ups are more likely than a full second civil war though. Again, reactionary militias (i.e. Proud Boys, Oath Keepers, etc) will likely try to push for it harder than anybody, out of their ideology based on conspiracy theories and deep-seeded racism.

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Any flare up that grew past the local law enforcement’s ability to control, would be met with National Guard, or even Homeland Security. If you’ve ever witnessed DHS rolling into an area on the ground, they mean business.

  On 11/26/2021 at 4:02 PM, Rubin Farr said:

Any flare up that grew past the local law enforcement’s ability to control, would be met with National Guard, or even Homeland Security. If you’ve ever witnessed DHS rolling into an area on the ground, they mean business.

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Thankfully that's never been an issue in the region I'm from. Then again we already have a significant military presence here.

such a fucking loser surrounded by losers. elected to 'own the libs' and gossip/TMZ in the capitol. 

So much brain worms and unspent horniness in that room.

One Sarah Palin was enough.