This is a diary response to this diary here.
What is truly stunning, is the misdirection and failure to address the actual problems we all face instead, the issue is framed and presented to us as though we're 3rd graders. They must tell us what to think and how to feel. If you dare point out the shallow nature of their position, their incredulity kicks in and the insults start flying. Truly denying us, as a community and a Nation as a whole, to honest public discourse. The "common denominator" is the gun, period. No discussion unless you agree with me and support the only solution I'll allow, after all, the solution is so obvious even a 3rd Grader knows the answer!
The argument(s) are presented in ways that denies an independent critical analysis that very few want to even understand. The argument is reduced to a binary set, zero's and ones. We are better than that.
Warning, it is a bit link heavy, I've been composing this for over a week now.
:)
Disclaimer- I am not a gun owner, never have been and most likely never will be. I am a Progressive democrat (small d) that supports the entire BoR's.
*******************************************************************
I could make an argument and frame it like so: The one goal of every species on this planet is to die. It is revealed in the fossil records and scientists sadly agree, "Life causes death."
Everywhere we've looked, everything dies. 99.9% of all life that once existed not only dies, it becomes extinct. Clearly the goal of life must be death. Its happens on such a universal level to everything living, everywhere that there can be no denying it!
Since we know that everything on this planet is going to die. How do we stop "life" from bringing so much destruction? How do we stop life from killing us all?
The answer IS so obvious even a 3rd grader understands it. Stop life from happening!
Wow, why didn't we think of this before? Those damn scientists, they knew, they all knew and didn't tell us! The statisticians knew as well and they were silent, those cowards! The doctors knew and they got rich feeding off our delusions, those selfish greedy bastards!
Life did it! It's so deceptive, so coddling. It colors everything in such a wonderful rainbow of Black and White! It gives false hope for tomorrow. Hope that denies one the ability to think, see and reason critically. Life lies to you, makes you believe all will be well even to the very end, when it kills you!
Life has caused so much bigotry, so much hatred and so much killing! One species vying for supremacy over another just to have life get them all in the end! It's ridiculous!
We must ban life itself! After all, who can argue against this? Are those that support life that sadistic? Can they really tell us that they want children to suffer needlessly when we could have stopped this plague from ever happening???
We don't need to know anything else, right?!
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
See how simple that was?
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
What my brethren on the other side of this issue fails to let you see and understand is this: The gun may have been the tool used by many but it is not the cause. What prompts them to use it against themselves or others?
Nothing is ever "a rainbow of Black and White."
How about we just scratch the surface of "Life in These United States"?
Despair
Did you know more Soldiers have killed themselves last year than combat deaths?
As NPR points out in this article:
While some of the deaths can be linked to the stresses of being deployed in a war zone, a third or more of those who killed themselves were never deployed, Tom says. They seem to have been made desperate by financial or personal problems.
Despair.
Did you know suicide in America is higher than automobile deaths?
As this US News & World Report tells:
THURSDAY, Sept. 20 (HealthDay News) -- More Americans now commit suicide than die in car crashes, making suicide the leading cause of injury deaths, according to a new study.
"Suicides are terribly under-counted; I think the problem is much worse than official data would lead us to believe," said study author Ian Rockett, a professor of epidemiology at West Virginia University.
There may be 20 percent or more unrecognized suicides, he said.
In 2009, more than 37,000 Americans took their own lives, and more than 500,000 were at risk of suicide
Despair.
Did you know that 61% of all gun deaths were Suicide?
And that since 1999, suicide rates have gone up 15.4%
What's even more surprising? We're told gun ownership since 1960 has plummeted almost 20%.
Despair.
As SAVE tells us:
There are an estimated 8 to 25 attempted suicides to 1 completion.
Read that last quote again please.
When will we discuss these problems?
When???
It's clear that with a 25 to 1 ratio, the gun is meaningless piece of metal, we do have over 300 million firearms. Think about it, that's 633,000 attempted suicides each and every year in this "great" Nation. The CDC tells us there were 38,364 suicides (in 2010), that's 6.06%, throw in the guns and that's 3.06%. (19,392).
What about the other 97%? What about the ones that don't use a gun and get maimed, left in a coma from drugs, suffocation etc? What about the other 16,093 suicides? They're meaningless chattel? They don't fit into the current meme so we must not talk about them?
We have bigger problems than the gun.
DESPAIR.
We now know that there are 49 million Americans at or below the poverty line.
We also know that poverty kills an estimated 133,000 American each and every year!
The gun did this???
The 800 pound guerrilla in the room:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/...
According to the army, in 2007 17% of combat troops in Afghanistan were taking prescription antidepressants or sleeping pills. Inside sources have given me an even bleaker picture: During Vietnam, a mere 1% our troops were taking prescribed psychiatric drugs. By contrast, in the past year one-third of marines in combat zones were taking psychiatric drugs.
http://www.armytimes.com/...
The number of military suicide victims who may have been taking antidepressants or anti-convulsants is unclear. The Army repeatedly has denied a Military Times Freedom of Information Act request for that data.
You read that right, a 16% increase in our troops taking prescription drugs AND didn't we already establish there was a 15.4% increase in suicides in our society right? Why won't the Military release that information again? Will it prove the point beyond a shadow of a doubt?
http://breggin.com/...
Buried in the FDA/GSK release is an astounding fact:
Depressed people are 6.4 times more likely to become suicidal while taking an antidepressant than while taking a sugar pill (2).
What??? You're 6 TIMES MORE LIKELY to become suicidal while taking an antidepressant? Isn't that counter-intuitive????
Now there is a Government Accounting Office (GAO) report confirmingthat foster children in five states -- Florida, Massachusetts, Michigan, Oregon and Texas -- are receiving shocking amounts of psychiatric drugs. In the words of ABC News, they are "being prescribed psychiatric medications at doses higher than the maximum levels approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in these five states alone. And hundreds of foster children received five or more psychiatric drugs at the same time despite absolutely no evidence supporting the simultaneous use or safety of this number of psychiatric drugs taken together." The ABC News report shows one 7-year-old holding a bag filled with 13 psychiatric medications that she had taken.
If we are doing this to foster children, then what's all these claims about "saving the children"??? Who's children do we care about??? Surely, not them!
IS this why the Russian Government banned us from adopting their children two years ago???
According to National Children’s Alliance estimates, five children die in the U.S, every day as a result of abuse or neglect.
The gun isn't killing these children is it? That's 1825 children a year. Nothing has changed since
I wrote on it almost 3 yrs ago!
http://www.spiegel.de/...
SPIEGEL: Experts speak of 5.4 million American children who display the symptoms typical of ADHD. Are you saying that this mental disorder is just an invention?
Kagan: That's correct; it is an invention. Every child who's not doing well in school is sent to see a pediatrician, and the pediatrician says: "It's ADHD; here's Ritalin." In fact, 90 percent of these 5.4 million kids don't have an abnormal dopamine metabolism. The problem is, if a drug is available to doctors, they'll make the corresponding diagnosis.
-cut-
SPIEGEL: In addition to ADHD, a second epidemic is rampant among children: depression. In 1987, one in 400 American adolescents was treated with anti-depressants; by 2002, it was already one on 40. Starting at what age is it possible to speak of depression in children?
It does look like the masses are waking up to these crimes, finally. We can hold them accountable despite the false claims that I don't know the law, criminal malfeasance or my ass from a hole in the ground.
Widow of former Henninger High coach Joe Mazella wins $1.5M in lawsuit over his suicide
If he hadn’t been over-medicated and his doctors had paid attention to his condition, Mazella never would’ve taken his life, said his widow, Janice Mazella.
“There’s no way he would’ve wanted to do it” if he weren’t on such a large amount of antidepressants, Janice Mazella said. “It was done to him. It was done because of the improper care he received.”
Fiscal Footnote: Big Senate Gift to Drug Maker
WASHINGTON — Just two weeks after pleading guilty in a major federal fraud case, Amgen, the world’s largest biotechnology firm, scored a largely unnoticed coup on Capitol Hill:
-cut-
The provision gives Amgen an additional two years to sell Sensipar without government controls.
But it is projected to cost Medicare up to $500 million over that period.
Amgen has deep financial and political ties to lawmakers like Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, Republican of Kentucky, and Senators Max Baucus, Democrat of Montana, and Orrin G. Hatch, Republican of Utah, who hold heavy sway over Medicare payment policy as the leaders of the Finance Committee.
Wait, backup, what was that? Senator Max Baucus? The same
Senator Max Baucus that wouldn't allow Single-Payer to be on the table?
Sanders, who advocates a single-payer system, said Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.), the Chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, would never consider it.
C-SPAN: Is Senator Baucus open to your ideas?
Sen. Sanders: No.
C-SPAN: He's not?
Sen. Sanders: To a single-payer idea? No. Not in a milllion years.
Anyone serious about ending violence in our society better take a good look in the mirror, it ain't the gun doing it!
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Moving on:
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Urge to End It All
Reading the linked article, I was surprised to learn how its entire premise sounded logical, reasonable and truly elucidating, until I got to this:
But part of this sense of futility may stem from a peculiar element of myopia in the way we as a society have traditionally viewed and attempted to combat suicide.
-cut-
The bigger problem with this mental-illness rubric is that it puts emphasis on the less-knowable aspect of the act, the psychological “why,” and tends to obscure any examination of the more pedestrian “how,” the basic mechanics involved.
Why "combat" and not cure? Why are we being misdirected to a
"pedestrian" point of view again? Are we that shallow? This is the framing I spoke of in the beginning, the binary set of
"zero's and ones".
The author points to the UK's attempts to fight suicide and their "Coal-Gas Story" and conversion to natural gas for heating homes. It sounded amazing, 50% of all suicides before the conversion were people putting their heads into an oven and dying. After the conversion it dropped 30%. That means there were 20% that still found other means. Does this mean the job is done? The author tells us this was a great success? Really? Not if you were the remaining 20%, ah but it's all about numbers, right?
The author talks about "suicide barriers" on bridges too, but we know suicides in the US have still gone up, right?
Something is amiss with this framing.
The British have a higher violent crime rate than we do, highest in the "Western World", as reported here:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/...
The UK violent rate of 2034 per 100,000.
Australia 1677 per 100,00.
South Africa 1,609 per 100,000
Canada 935 per 100,000
The U.S. has a violence rate of 466 crimes per 100,000 residents.
-cut-
Shadow Home Secretary Chris Grayling said: 'This is a damning indictment of this government's comprehensive failure over more than a decade to tackle the deep rooted social problems in our society, and the knock on effect on crime and anti-social behaviour.
How's this possible? If you see the world in only Black and White, there
are no rainbows and
no legitimate discussion.
It seems the British are finally realizing this too. You can ban the object used but will you stop the crimes? You can ban the object used but will you stop the violence? You can ban the object used but will you stop the despair?
Clearly the answer is NO.
Suicide Rates throughout the World:
Japan has a higher rate of suicide (21.9 per 100,00) than we do (12.0 per 100,000). So does France, Sweden, Belgium and 30+ other countries. Surprisingly, The UK is just below us at 11.8 per 100,000.
The gun didn't kill all those people, did it?
Can we not learn from their mistakes? Aren't we capable of critical analysis anymore?
When will we start doing something about the cause of all our problems and not be lead by this empty binary framing to a solution that really isn't one? Are we that lost in the propaganda that we will not stand up for equity under law and economic justice for all?
Since when have we been this one dimensional? Why are we being forced to be?
Will we ever admit that it was the sycophants in Washington DC that engineered policies, trade agreements and deals that have destroyed all that we once stood for?
The policies out of DC have killed millions in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan and around the world. While it's claimed those wars ended in 2011, it cost us over $4 TRILLION. In the last 50 yrs US "Policy" has killed over 8 million worldwide.
I find the binary arguments being made here morally repugnant.
Are we that powerless mentally, spiritually and politically to face these things? It would seem so. The Prison Industrial Complex doesn't want us to:
Prison Industries: "Don't Let Society Improve or We Lose Business"
This is an industry that needs misery, long sentences, rounded-up undocumented immigrants and increasing crime to flourish. In order to keep the prison beds filled, The GEO Group and others have paid out millions of dollars to lobbyists, federal and state legislators, and governors to allow our immigration problem to go unsolved, to make sure that no drugs are decriminalized and that an ineffective War on Drugs continues, and to make certain that long term prison sentences, like California's three-strikes-and-you're-imprisoned-for-life laws, keep a steady flow of revenue and profits flowing to their shareholders. They are also hoping that our national drop in crime is just a temporary trend.
Screw the goddam gun, it didn't create these conditions and banning or restricting it won't fix these problems that are effecting every single American! Anyone that says I'm trying to change the subject away from guns is enabling the status quo to continue! Demand your pound of flesh from gun owners if you must! Call me
a "baby killer" who shits on their graves, go ahead. Who's zooming whom here?
But please don't pee on my back and tell me it's raining, I don't believe you anymore. And from where I'm sitting the poverty, the crimes, the killings and the despair will continue! Then who ya gonna blame next? Me, for telling you? Me, for trying to save people's lives???
You know what I want?
I want to wake up in a society where my fellow Americans don't feel the need to own a goddamn gun! A society that teaches it children peaceful resolution of conflicts. Not how to be "the mindless worker of tomorrow'. A society that is respectful once again. A society that holds the criminal element accountable for their crimes, not rewards it through the levers of our government!
I want a government that will create the conditions of prosperity for all, not just the damn 1%! Where Americans die from old age, not from the polices created by our government that kills them for private profits and then blames an inanimate object!
I want a Democratic Party that will stop tilting at windmills to distract us from their betrayal of what we once stood for. Equity under law, economic justice, the rule of law AND our constitution. A damn piece of paper we once believed was written to protect and expand our rights, not take them away through some Orwellian double-speak.
** Special Note--I'm going to have this auto-publish this coming morning, Sunday 1-27-13 giving people time to read and research the various data points and articles I've presented here and THEN bring constructive ideas to the table. I'll be at work most of the day and when I get the chance I'll pop in and out to address questions and issues, as long as they are respectful.
With that, I present the customary Poll!