The Central Scrutinizer
Penultimate Amazing
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- Dec 17, 2001
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Re: By the way
Thank you!
billydkid said:
Thank you!
Gun control from another perspective
- Thread starter billydkid
- Start date
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- control gun perspective
The Central Scrutinizer
Penultimate Amazing
- Joined
- Dec 17, 2001
- Messages
- 53,097
Yes I did.Tony said:
(In case you missed it)
merphie said:
The article alleges that there is a historical racial bias as well.
Yes, it is true that that *used* to be the case.
Yes the article writer does cite sources and does a good job of making the case. However the case made is that there was a racist element to gun laws *historically*.
I can likewise show that there was a racist element to drug laws *historically*.
What the article does not do is bridge the historical reality with modern/present reality.
Historians will be interested in the article, but those interested in present day debates on gun control will find the article irrelevant regardless of what one's position on modern day gun control legislation is.
username said:
I haven't had the time to read the whole article yet. It seems some people are dismissing any notion of racial bias when it was clearly the case. To what extent I don't know. I only know of a few towns who practiced it.
Now they discriminate against homosexuals with it. History repeats.
In general I would agree with you based on what I know of history. I guess I will have to sit down and read the article.
billydkid
Illuminator
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- Messages
- 4,917
Agreed
There are many of us who do believe that there certainly is a racist element, both historical and in the present day, to both drug laws and to enforcement policy. I believe, as do most libertarians, that drug prohibition is wrong (which is not an endorsement of recreational drug use), futile and has been a terrible thing for this country in every conceivable way - having cost billions and billions of dollars, having created an extremely dangerous and flourishing criminal subculture and having pointlessly ruined the lives of many thousands of people who never did anything to harm another person.
Way off topic, but in comment to username. I apologize for going on. Ignor if you wish.
Regarding my comments to username which follow (for anyone reading this): Please read completely what is written below, ignoring typos, before leaping to attack me. I am not defending or endorsing or apologizing for any sort of behavior. In fact, I try to make quite clear that I find any sort of molestation behaviour absolutely and completely disgusting and believe people who engage in it are evil and criminal. My comments below have nothing to do with defending any sort of that kind of behavior and if you read carefully you will understand why I think discussion of this sort is important in terms of supporting victims.
I might add, should anything remotely resembling molestation ever happen to my child, they had better put the perpetrator in protective custody because my next move would be to visit the local sporting goods store to purchase a deer rifle with a scope. It would be the last child that person ever molested. I would not hesitate to endorse anyone else's right to take care of business in the same way. Just like in that movie with Sam Jackson where his daughter was raped and beaten and left to die and he killed the guys who did it and was acquited for it. It is easy to be dispassionate in the abstract. I want to make the point that while I may be able to discuss most anything in the abstract, the actual reality of things is quite different.
By the way, I think that Varouche (however you spell his name) was being unfair with you and is unable to separate his indignation (which we all share) with the appalling act of molestation from any discussion about the actual consequences relative to the particular nature of the type of adult/child contact. As I alluded to in my post in that thread, for many people there are many things that can not even be discussed. I was able to recognize that noone in that thread was trying to defend molestation behavior or in any way trying to say it was okay. I recognized the question to be - Is our universal assumption that sexual contact of any sort between an adult and a child invariably very damaging to the child and NOT is it ever alright or ever defensible. I think that is a reasonable question to ask.
Noone in their right mind would ever endorse that sort of contact and noone in that thread did, still, several folks took great umbridge at even bringing up the question. I understand that instinct, but I also recognize that making blind assumptions based on emotions does not help us to better understand what the true consequences are of various kinds of contact or to distinguish between those who are most deeply damaged and most need intervention and for whom some kinds of intervention and stigmatization may in fact cause more damage than the original contact did. I mention this because I read a paper once which precisely addressed the point that in some cases, the stigmatizion of the experience can be more damaging than the contact was in the first place - where individuals developed a sense of stigma and shame they did not feel before the intervention.
As far as I could tell, everyone participating in that thread stated their agreement that any sort of sexual contact between a child and an adult is wrong so I do not fully understand the rage in the discussion. Noone was defending that kind of behaviour and noone was suggesting it should not be criminalized or was not completely wrong in all cases. The question was - are the consequences always equally traumatic for every child and under every sort of circumstance.
My emotional reaction, like Varouche's, was that this is the sort of thing that should not even be discussed, but I am willing to recognize that it is precisely those issues that I find most appalling and uncomfortable which are the ones that society most needs to address.
username said:
There are many of us who do believe that there certainly is a racist element, both historical and in the present day, to both drug laws and to enforcement policy. I believe, as do most libertarians, that drug prohibition is wrong (which is not an endorsement of recreational drug use), futile and has been a terrible thing for this country in every conceivable way - having cost billions and billions of dollars, having created an extremely dangerous and flourishing criminal subculture and having pointlessly ruined the lives of many thousands of people who never did anything to harm another person.
Way off topic, but in comment to username. I apologize for going on. Ignor if you wish.
Regarding my comments to username which follow (for anyone reading this): Please read completely what is written below, ignoring typos, before leaping to attack me. I am not defending or endorsing or apologizing for any sort of behavior. In fact, I try to make quite clear that I find any sort of molestation behaviour absolutely and completely disgusting and believe people who engage in it are evil and criminal. My comments below have nothing to do with defending any sort of that kind of behavior and if you read carefully you will understand why I think discussion of this sort is important in terms of supporting victims.
I might add, should anything remotely resembling molestation ever happen to my child, they had better put the perpetrator in protective custody because my next move would be to visit the local sporting goods store to purchase a deer rifle with a scope. It would be the last child that person ever molested. I would not hesitate to endorse anyone else's right to take care of business in the same way. Just like in that movie with Sam Jackson where his daughter was raped and beaten and left to die and he killed the guys who did it and was acquited for it. It is easy to be dispassionate in the abstract. I want to make the point that while I may be able to discuss most anything in the abstract, the actual reality of things is quite different.
By the way, I think that Varouche (however you spell his name) was being unfair with you and is unable to separate his indignation (which we all share) with the appalling act of molestation from any discussion about the actual consequences relative to the particular nature of the type of adult/child contact. As I alluded to in my post in that thread, for many people there are many things that can not even be discussed. I was able to recognize that noone in that thread was trying to defend molestation behavior or in any way trying to say it was okay. I recognized the question to be - Is our universal assumption that sexual contact of any sort between an adult and a child invariably very damaging to the child and NOT is it ever alright or ever defensible. I think that is a reasonable question to ask.
Noone in their right mind would ever endorse that sort of contact and noone in that thread did, still, several folks took great umbridge at even bringing up the question. I understand that instinct, but I also recognize that making blind assumptions based on emotions does not help us to better understand what the true consequences are of various kinds of contact or to distinguish between those who are most deeply damaged and most need intervention and for whom some kinds of intervention and stigmatization may in fact cause more damage than the original contact did. I mention this because I read a paper once which precisely addressed the point that in some cases, the stigmatizion of the experience can be more damaging than the contact was in the first place - where individuals developed a sense of stigma and shame they did not feel before the intervention.
As far as I could tell, everyone participating in that thread stated their agreement that any sort of sexual contact between a child and an adult is wrong so I do not fully understand the rage in the discussion. Noone was defending that kind of behaviour and noone was suggesting it should not be criminalized or was not completely wrong in all cases. The question was - are the consequences always equally traumatic for every child and under every sort of circumstance.
My emotional reaction, like Varouche's, was that this is the sort of thing that should not even be discussed, but I am willing to recognize that it is precisely those issues that I find most appalling and uncomfortable which are the ones that society most needs to address.