A well regulated militia...

[Red_Rob]

Gx, please can you include "liberal media" or "progressive hellhole" in your next post? I nearly have a full house on my Right Wing Fucktard Quotes bingo card.

[Count Arioch the 28th]

Yeah, progressive hellholes are the worst. I was in Sweden for a week, and it was awful! Despite the stereotypes, Swedish women have almost no breasts at all considering how freakishly tall those people are.

A vote against progressive policy is a vote for boobs!

[Psychic Robot]

thats only because you hate freedom. go cry more libertard.

see when I say it, it makes sense. when you try to turn it against me, it makes none.

[RadiantPhoenix]

see when I say it, it makes sense. when you try to turn it against me, it makes none.

No, it's just that we know not to expect sense when you say it, so there is no contrast.

[Fuchs]

I don't get how offering people a way to committ suicide that works well is a point against gun ownership. If you want to kill yourself you should use an effective means that does not end up traumatizing others - no throwing yourself in front of trains, or jumping down from a bridge in front of a scholl.

[Koumei]

And painting the kitchen wall with your brains won't traumatise your housemates?

Ideally, people should be able to go to a doctor and get a suicide prescription, either in the form of a potassium cyanide tablet (which you have to take there, so that people don't use it for homicide), or a morphine overdose (again, taken there - possibly even administered by the doctor).

Yes, in this ideal situation, the doctor would face no criminal charges or anything, and indeed no civil charges if your family tried to sue for wrongful death. You decide you want to check out, you talk to a doctor, who first tries to provide alternatives (various therapists you could talk to or whatever) and then lets you end your life on your terms, as painlessly as possible.

[Username17]

I don't get how offering people a way to committ suicide that works well is a point against gun ownership. If you want to kill yourself you should use an effective means that does not end up traumatizing others - no throwing yourself in front of trains, or jumping down from a bridge in front of a scholl.

Suicide is a result of transient mental illness in most cases. About three quarters of people who attempt suicide felt like they wanted to die for less than a day before the attempt. Major depression is treatable, and allowing people who have it to end their lives willy nilly is both inhumane and unproductive.

We aren't talking about some dude dying of cancer and making the informed decision to end their lives because the amount of morphine required to allow them to function also prevents them from functioning. We're talking about people waking up feeling really sad and then offing themselves. That is the face of suicide in the vast majority of cases. Euthanasia is a thing, but in most cases, suicide is just a symptom of treatable disease.

-Username17

[Fuchs]

And painting the kitchen wall with your brains won't traumatise your housemates?

Ideally, people should be able to go to a doctor and get a suicide prescription, either in the form of a potassium cyanide tablet (which you have to take there, so that people don't use it for homicide), or a morphine overdose (again, taken there - possibly even administered by the doctor).

Yes, in this ideal situation, the doctor would face no criminal charges or anything, and indeed no civil charges if your family tried to sue for wrongful death. You decide you want to check out, you talk to a doctor, who first tries to provide alternatives (various therapists you could talk to or whatever) and then lets you end your life on your terms, as painlessly as possible.

That would be ideal, but guns are easier to get than such changes. As far as traumatazing goes - you can call 911 first, then shoot yourself and make sure you're not found by your family. And even so finding a body is not as traumatizing as feeling guilty because the train you were driving turned a jumper into paste.

As a matter of fact, over here in Switzerland, you can legally get assisted with your suicide by various organisations using medicaments. Usually meant for terminally ill patients, but there are also older people who take that option. My uncle used it when his cancer treatments failed.
There's a controvery whether or not mental illness qualifies for asssited suicide - some make a case that it's the same as permament pain if it makes your life unbearable, so such people should be able to receive help in suiciding too, if they ask for it.

[Fuchs]

I don't get how offering people a way to committ suicide that works well is a point against gun ownership. If you want to kill yourself you should use an effective means that does not end up traumatizing others - no throwing yourself in front of trains, or jumping down from a bridge in front of a scholl.

Suicide is a result of transient mental illness in most cases. About three quarters of people who attempt suicide felt like they wanted to die for less than a day before the attempt. Major depression is treatable, and allowing people who have it to end their lives willy nilly is both inhumane and unproductive.

We aren't talking about some dude dying of cancer and making the informed decision to end their lives because the amount of morphine required to allow them to function also prevents them from functioning. We're talking about people waking up feeling really sad and then offing themselves. That is the face of suicide in the vast majority of cases. Euthanasia is a thing, but in most cases, suicide is just a symptom of treatable disease.

-Username17

I still would rather have those guys who want to kill themselves do so without jumping in front of trains, or from buildings, ir setting their own house on fire/blowing it up as a result of suffocating themselves with their stove.

[DSMatticus]

I still would rather have those guys who want to kill themselves do so without jumping in front of trains, or from buildings, ir setting their own house on fire/blowing it up as a result of suffocating themselves with their stove.

Most suicides are not destructive to people nearby. If you'd rather people died due to a sudden onset of depression than a few people had to see a failed attempt at death while the person survived and went on to have a happier life, that's just sadistic. Priorities, man.

[Draco_Argentum]

@Frank Trollman

Traditional mainstream media is losing ground to the Internet, so they can't just do a "blockout". The information still goes through, despite what their Banksta masters want.

Does it? Most of the Wikileaks stuff doesn't hit a major newscycle. Despite what internet geeks think their favourite websites are irrelevant to the general populace in the same way anything I say in public is.

[Psychic Robot]

if your argument against guns is "PEOPLE MIGHT KILL THEMSELVES" then you have no argument

[Koumei]

Suicide is a result of transient mental illness in most cases. About three quarters of people who attempt suicide felt like they wanted to die for less than a day before the attempt.

Really? I'm sure I had read a source somewhere that said the majority was "ongoing depression, finally did something about it" (roughly half of these being cases where they get put on antidepressants, and they work just enough to provide motivation), with second place going to "less than a day", even including:
[*]Teenagers who just broke up with their partners, their life is over - and now it really is
[*]Teenagers who OD on paracetamol/acetominophen to get their parent's attention, not realising they actually ARE going to die, a month later
[*]People who just lost everything in one day - house, family, the lot - so administer 9mm painkillers orally

Given I don't actually have a memory, and you even have your own labcoat and stethoscope, I am more inclined to believe you than "what I think I recall reading somewhere", but do you have a source? That could make good reading, if nothing else, and perhaps make the world seem a bit less shitty.

Major depression is treatable, and allowing people who have it to end their lives willy nilly is both inhumane and unproductive.

For what it's worth, treatable (when you finally find the right medication, the only reliable one seeming to be opium), not curable (not including suicide). Even treated, people with depression are still miserable on a day to day basis, and have no motivation to even look after their own health in basic ways, let alone become actual functioning members of society. Maybe in Sweden it works out okay, as they even have disposable incomes on government allowances, but everywhere else, the depressed basically have to accept that they're unemployable and miserable, surviving but not living, and scraping by on almost enough money to make rent and eat.

Putting it in that perspective, letting people cure their depression in a quick, painless manner is about the kindest thing you can do. Unless they're Buddhist, in which case it's just a temporary solution to a permanent problem.

[Fuchs]

I am not sure how "transient" depressions are myself. I only had to deal with the cases where we had to judge admitting a person that was dangerous to themselves or to others against their will to clinics, and those were usually "repeat cases", meaning they were in and out of clinics all the time, so my "samples" are biased.

[K]

@Frank Trollman

Traditional mainstream media is losing ground to the Internet, so they can't just do a "blockout". The information still goes through, despite what their Banksta masters want.

Does it? Most of the Wikileaks stuff doesn't hit a major newscycle. Despite what internet geeks think their favourite websites are irrelevant to the general populace in the same way anything I say in public is.

As long as Stormfront can have a top-googled propaganda site that comes up in searches for "Martin Luther King", the internet will be considered mostly trash by all, and rightfully so (though an insane minority who will always believe what they find on the internet).

I mean, it takes deep searches to get actual scientific data on issues like abortion or defensive gun use because of the sheer weight of propaganda clouding important issues, and most people see the obvious misinformation and give up well before they find any hard facts or objective reporting or actual expert opinion.

[Fuchs]

You have to consider the fact though that even scientists release wrong or faked data.

Case in point how a university professor released a study claiming that the use of news sites on the net went down, and deducting a lot of "traditional newspapers are better" stuff while he miscalculated statistics - the use of the sites in question actually went up.

[K]

You have to consider the fact though that even scientists release wrong or faked data.

Case in point how a university professor released a study claiming that the use of news sites on the net went down, and deducting a lot of "traditional newspapers are better" stuff while he miscalculated statistics - the use of the sites in question actually went up.

That problem has more to do with the internet not being comprehensive enough. I mean, that one study linking autism with mercury in vaccines was debunked years ago, and still people bring it up like it was actual proof. Cell phone usage and cancer is another massively debunked idea.

In general, flawed science gets sucked up into the propaganda machine and repeated endlessly in order to drown out the good science. Flawed climate science that denies global warming is a good example.

That being said, the overwhelming majority of science is awesome and still the best way to make decisions. Honestly, we need a second internet for real information and leave the core internet for porn and propaganda and businesses.

[DSMatticus]

internet for porn

This is the only one that will last.

[Gx1080]

@K

"Blah blah the Internet will be considered trash because I say it so"

Keep telling yourself that.

[Lago PARANOIA]

Gx1080:

The Internet may (and probably will) become an alternative source of media up there with television/radio/magazines. It's not at that point yet. When an Internet-only news database can credibly and single-handedly host a Presidential debate we'll reach that point. But seriously, the vast majority of Internet news is recycled from traditional media.

I have a subscription to NYT and with some exceptions (like the OWS and ATPM) they're like a day ahead of Internet-only news sites. But like the OWS and ATPM have shown us, the old media stranglehold is crumbling. But don't hold your breath for about twenty or so years. Until websites like Politico and the Drudge Report can field their own team of reporters that ain't happening.

And of course this still has to overcome all of the other problems like a major credibility gap for Internet-original news and the fact that huge swathes of America do not have reliable Internet service for Web 2.0.

[Lago PARANOIA]

Some more about the credibility gap:

Even though the majority of Internet News is ganked from traditional media, a lot of Internet-Only news sites become immediately suspect if you use them as a primary source. Actually, I'd go as far as to say all. I couldn't even use Five Thirty Eight (before it was gobbled up by NYT) as a source in Internet debates even though you'd think that'd be the arena least hostile to Internet-only news. Even though FTE generates very little in the way of original content, the biggest one being Nate Silver's twee little tours, and is rightfully considered the most accurate poll interpreter on the net.

So even if an Internet-Only News Website was able to train and staff a team of reporters and was able to generate its own original content, do you seriously think that people would trust them more as a primary source? I can't even see a news agency (that does its own investigation and beats) run by the aforementioned Nate Silver being taken seriously among liberals, let alone conservatives.

It's not an impossible task but is not going to be one that's done in a couple of years. In order for this to happen an Internet News Agency needs to accomplish the following tasks:

1.) It needs to be able to pay a full-time staff of reporters without relying too much on one source.
2.) It needs to overcome any partisan identification gaps somehow without doing something silly like having a VHEM and a SF journalist.
3.) They need to cover an area that traditional media is not poking their heads into. This will be very very hard because of the 24/7 news cycle.
4.) They need an exclusive break that captures peoples' interests and gets people going 'man, if it wasn't for Internet Only News we would have never found that out'. Good luck with that. A $1.1 Trillion Dollar U.S. M-IC waste news story barely gets more than a yawn from the public. You'd be much better off with violence or sex, but again good luck beating the traditional media first. Even if traditional media is in the hands of corporations they'll willingly (and temporarily) turn on their masters for a quick influx of cash. Seriously, even NewsCorp is being put through a month-long wringer.

Because of all of the above, I seriously doubt that the birth of credible Internet-Only News is going to happen in the West. If and when it happens it'll probably take place in Saudi Arabia or China or Israel and will be a team of underground reporters taking a strike at their governments but then becomes mainstream after surviving reprisals.

[violence in the media]

Somewhat back to the gun debate thing, I'm kind of curious as to whether or not AMC is going to eventually put firearms into the hands of the child characters on The Walking Dead.

[Gx1080]

@Lago

While your points are valid, an unsaid thing is that neither the Mainstream Media or The Internet are monoliths. What does that mean? It means that people can get several news sites from different countries, which makes a full picture possible, instead of whatever is the official party line on X country.

There's also the communication between people, whatever is by blogs, Twitter, Facebook and all other social media. Is hard to mantain a lie if you can see the experiences of others that also experience the truth behind the lie. And example is that, well, if people were accepting the austerity on Greece, why all those videos of protests keep surging? And it makes history go so fast, as seen by the Arab Springs.

[sabs]

Honestly speaking, if I was in a Zombie Apocalypse, I would put a gun into the hands of every 10+ year old I thought could handle the recoil of a rifle. You don't have to give them an uzi, but a rifle they can handle to at least slow down the zombie, so they can run away is a good thing.

If the kid is old enough to get his first rifle and go out hunting with Dad. He's old enough to shoot zombies.

See, in a zombie apocalypse, everyone should have guns. When civilization falls apart, then guns become public safety. You can't run to a cop, or expect a zombie to not eat you because you're out in public. It's a completely different situation. I actually have nothing against gun ownership in the home. Up to and including Assault rifles. (Though I think that waiting periods and permits are good.) I have a problem with people thinking they can open carry and be a fucking hero in the middle of downtown fillintheblank city.

Same thing, if you live/work on a Ranch in Wyoming, you had better get taught how to hunt, and shoot.

We're debating the place of carrying guns in public in a civilized society. That's a completely different beast.

[tzor]

I don't understand why you think tyranny from people like Frank is wrong, but tyranny by people who have been dead for centuries by adhering to rules that old dead guys wrote. From my perspective, it's all the same thing, they're rules handed down that I have no power to alter but I must follow them anyway.

Well, for one, you just can't trust Frank with that power.

Now a tyrany by you might be completely different. I'll have to think about that.

A tyrany by a document is something different. A document can't shout at you; hell it can't even tell if you are ignoring it. So it becomes a "gentleman's agreement" to follow the rules as written.

To put it another way, a constitutional government is like a gaming group that agrees to follow the rules as written, only these rules actually has a process for agreeing to "house rules" that change the edition. The tyrany by a person is when the DM just does everything my MTP.

Absolute power corrupts absolutely. A constitutional government, when fully working (and ours is not) balances people against each other (in terms of powers) so that no one person has absolute power. It becomes a complex rock, paper, sizzors.