| From: | IronRaven cyberraven@********.net |
|---|---|
| Subject: | Value and so on.... |
| Date: | Sat, 17 Jul 1999 15:27:39 -0400 |
>OK, I'll stop here. That's I think the whole problem. People (and also
>small criminals) in America are som much different than here in Europe. Of
Your culture is noticably different that America's, just like the American
culture is very different than those in the rest of the world. I've never
denied that. I'm not, not have I ever, encouraging other countries to be
more like America. (I gripe about things that other countries do, but if I
lived overseas, I'd propably gripe about blue jeans, McDonalds and rock and
roll.) But I'm also not encouraging America to be like other countries.
What I am willing to do on occation is debatr a point from an American
cultural perspective verses another cultural perspective.
>throughout the country, _because hardly anyone would follow it_. Most
No, many would follow it. The law abidding. However, few societies have
voluntarily (and I would not count legal restrictions by the governments to
be "voluntary") disarmed, simply because they know that it isn't a valid
survival mechanism.
Part of the cultural context that I've observed working with and studying
with people from overseas and on the internet is that countries that were
formed by popular uprising are (in general) more based on the individual
freedoms, rather than those countries where a monarch deigned to give some
degree of legislative control to the polis are where the whole is the
focus. Neither one is perfect, but but for the most part, so long as you
aren't harming anyone else (you want to beat the crap out of yourself, go
for it), by which I would include enviromental damage, I say, do it.
Another part of it is the homogenousness of cultures. For the most part,
people from the far eastern portion of a country are more like thier
country men from the far western protion ofthier country, than say someone
from Boston and someone from LA, correct? As a result, a blanket solution
from the national government has been able to work more effectively,
because there are fewer difference.
>(even if people defend themselves and get hit, most times it's not by a gun
>but by a hand, sap, in extreme cases a knife or metal pipe, whatever, and
Sounds like the States, 30 years ago. However, bloodthirstyness is an
image propigated by the media of what a criminal should be. In that
society, reguardless of culture, status is in large part based off of image
and one-upmanship. (Perhaps is something in the brain stem, who knows.
This is also my theory, but it not a full one.)
Again, there is the cultural context. Who has been responsable for your
own security? I'm willing to bet that it has always been the government,
usually in the form of a noble until about a hundred years ago. Here in
America, it has largely been what you can provide for yourself, backed up
by the LOCAL government.
>they survive).
Sounds like you've never had a serious and immediate threat possed to the
lives of the people you care about. It doesn't really matter if you
survive. Trudging through the country side eating whatever you can just so
that your heart keeps beating is survival. That isn't quite living. (And
if people what to say that I'm splitting hairs, fine. But most languages
have several words that mean the same thing for reasons that have nothing
to do with linguistic polution. Each one of them means a specific thing.
That's why lawyers can run rings around most people. It is interesting to
note that as societies become more caste based, the average persons
vocabulary seems to drop in size and complexity.)
> And also statistically less deaths under the people who do
>_not_ defend their home but just let the crooks go their way. OK, maybe
Well, there is something to be said for this. Up until a few decades ago,
this is the way it was in the States, although few criminals were brazen
enough to break into a house that was currently occupied. However, for
reasons that no one has ever been able to fully and satisfactorally
explain, American criminals became more violent.
The concept of criminals who kill for fun or as standard operating
procedure is very hard to understand, and even harder to explain to people
who have never really had such behavior in thier countries within thier own
memory (That situation does however raise some potentially interesting
argueements both for and against the death penalty.) I've talked to people
who think that we are exaggerating when Americans say that are those that
will knife thier own mothers for ten bucks, but we aren't. (A lot of this
is drug-related, and even though I'd rather get kicked in the jimmies by a
mule than admit this, maybe it time for us to look at legalization.) There
are people like that in America. Guns have nothing to do with that, nor do
poverty (I have a number of friends who've known 18 welfare christmases who
are upstanding citizens), education levels, or any of that. Abuse and
neglect pay a large part, but some people are just born screwed up.
Beacuse of the way our courts are set up, they might think you are going
to do something, the cops still can't bring you in until you have actually
done it or they have sufficent evidence that you actually were planning or
had tried to do it. "Innocent until proven guilty" and a jury of 12 seems
to be alien concepts to much of the world. Maybe it works for others, but
it isn't an idea that would work in America without a major revision of our
system of government. I'd love to get the folks who are just sick in the
head and heart off the streets. But it can't be done here, not without
difficulty.
Maybe your systems work better, but I doubt it. Particularly when it
comes to protect the innocent. Our system was designed with the premise
that it is better to let ten murderers go free than it is to have one
innocent man in prison.
>(MAYBE - maybe not, as they cannot defend _themselves_ better because they
>have no gun either) the crooks get away a few more times, but in my view,
Let me first point something out- the courts take a very dim view of
shooting, or even striking with your hand, someone unless you had a clear
concern for your safety or the safety of your family. That usually has to
be proven to a dozen morons that can pour sand out of a boot if the
instructions were printed on the heal. Shooting someone becuase he was
stealing your TV usually results in 2-5 years in meidum or maximum security.
I would stand a chance (although my money is not going to be on me if he
looks like has any idea of what he is doing or is seriously intoxicated)
unarmed verses an individual armed with a working-sized knife (bigger than
a steak knife), but I've also studied and practiced unarmed self defense
most of my life and am not a small person. That right there is actually
decent protection. However, expecting the same from some one is a wheel
chair, or the protypical 98 pound weakling to go a round with someone who
has thighs the size of small trees and is on angel dust, is more than just
a little unfair. Even against more than four guys, most anyone who isn't
the equivelent of a black belt (and I am not including sports and exercise
forms in here) is going to be toast, and quit possibly will have some long
term injuries. Maybe these aren't realities in your country, but they are
in mine.
CyberRaven
http://members.xoom.com/iron_raven/
"Once again, we have spat int he face of Death and his second cousin,
Dismemberment."
"'Impossible' is a term used by those little imagination or intelligence to
describe that which they can not understand."
