Re: Politics and Current Events

[Robjection]

This bit stood out to me:

Whether we like it or not, the current legal interpretation of the Second Amendment is that private citizens have the right to own firearms.

What do you reckon it would take for the Second Amendment to receive a different legal interpretation?

[Wondering]

Different Supreme Court justices.

I actually don't have a problem with private citizens having firearms. It's the kinds we're allowed to have and the ease with which we can get them that terrify me. And stomping on the encoded rights of people in the name of instituting reform is a terrifying prospect.

[ElizaJane]

Ordinarily, I'd say "A Supreme Court shift" but in this case it's not the Supreme Court blocking gun control laws, it's lawmakers refusing to pass them because they violate the Second Amendment.

Here's the problem: it's easier to be passionately opposed to something than passionately in favor of it.

There is a small but vocal minority of people who believe immigrants are ruining our country.  Now, I like immigration.  And I don't like racism at all.  But when I go to vote, I don't vote for the pro-immigrant candidate, I vote for the candidate whose platform on immigration and women's health and education and gun control and foreign policy and the space program and health care and police violence I like best.

The person who really hates immigrants votes for the person who wants to keep immigrants out.  

The same thing happens with guns.  The super-anti-gun-control crowd will turn on any politician who shows any willingness at all to pass gun-control legislation.  The rest of us shout a lot about gun control when something dramatic happens, but then we get distracted by other things -- things which, I want to stress, are NO LESS IMPORTANT.  Want to know what I'm angrier about than gun control?  The appalling 5-3 Supreme Court decision saying that the results of illegal searches are admissible as long as they theoretically could have been legal searches.  But I can't do anything about that now, so I'm still yelling about guns.

If the Supreme Court comes back 4-4 in Whole Woman’s Health v. Hellerstedt, I suspect the gun control debate will all but vanish.  For Democrats who want gun control.  For the people who hate gun control, it will continue to be the most important issue.  And because our elected officials know that pro-gun control people will still vote for them if they oppose gun control, and anti-gun control people will never vote for them if they support gun control, they make the smart choice.

[Wondering]

Here's the problem: it's easier to be passionately opposed to something than passionately in favor of it.

This is so true.

The person who really hates immigrants votes for the person who wants to keep immigrants out.

Or votes for the EU referendum they think will keep immigrants out.

The appalling 5-3 Supreme Court decision saying that the results of illegal searches are admissible as long as they theoretically could have been legal searches.

Yeah, that one is really scary.

Your points about the Supreme Court are good. I still think that would help, but I'll also add, in addition to what you say about elected officials that I think getting rid of the NRA would significantly shift attitudes, too.

[Werel]

Anybody else just been thinking about that Brexit ad from Children of Men all day?

[Wondering]

This is what Brexit has wrought. And if Jo Cox can be murdered in the street, things are going to get very dangerous for people of color and anyone considered not English enough.

http://metro.co.uk/2016/06/25/is-this-what-bame-people-have-to-look-forward-to-post-brexit-5965720/

[BasedBuzzed]

>MAGA in ironic parentheses
>CuckStopsHere
>1oftheGoodGoys
Wut, are these even people from the UK? Not to say the alt-right Twitter contigent isn't bizarrely cosmopolitan, but these sound like American-flavour fascists.

[Wondering]

So, those parentheses mean he's saying he's not Jewish. A bunch of anti-Semites on the internet have decided to label Jewish people by putting their names in triple parentheses when they refer to them. To show you're not Jewish, you do other things with the triple parentheses. A lot of people, Jewish or not, have started labeling themselves with the parentheses in solidarity with the Jewish people being targeted.

Thinking that such people are only American is a mistake.

[BasedBuzzed]

I browse some antifa sites and I remember the triple parentheses came from The Right Stuff, a primarily American site, guessed it went really viral after their Chrome plug-in got shutdown: https://mic.com/articles/145105/coincidence-detector-the-google-extension-white-supremacists-use-to-track-jews . Looked again, turns out they also have a British podcast. My bad.

[eselle28]

So, those parentheses mean he's saying he's not Jewish. A bunch of anti-Semites on the internet have decided to label Jewish people by putting their names in triple parentheses when they refer to them. To show you're not Jewish, you do other things with the triple parentheses. A lot of people, Jewish or not, have started labeling themselves with the parentheses in solidarity with the Jewish people being targeted.

Thinking that such people are only American is a mistake.

I hadn't heard of any of this, but what the... How much has the world regressed since I was in college and I was told we were all converging toward a prosperous, increasingly integrated and peaceful world?

[Wondering]

Pretty far. A lot lately, I've been thinking that I don't want to be in this world any more. And I don't mean that in a suicidal way. I mean that as in, get me and my family the hell off this planet.

I learned about the ((( thing from We Hunted the Mammoth:
http://www.wehuntedthemammoth.com/2016/06/08/creepy-white-supremacist-tweet-of-the-day-dylann-roof-edition/#more-23946

[Wondering]

LoL. Apparently, I'm not the only one thinking about moving to a new planet. Today, Ars Technica suggested:
1) Mars
2) the Moon
3) Venus
4) Titan
5) Callisto

http://arstechnica.com/science/2016/06/world-going-to-hell-here-are-the-solar-systems-five-most-livable-places/

[BasedBuzzed]

Nevar forget: http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2015/12/good-news-in-2015/421200/
Also, a bunch of African countries have had elections that worked out pretty well the recent months with presidents that banned plastic bags and installed mandatory schooling for all genders (can't find the Tumblr post anymore though).
Dunno, maybe it helps.

[Wondering]

Good news! The Supreme Court strikes down Texas's abortion clinic laws, 5-3. Yay! Hopefully, that will mean other such laws that followed in its wake in other states will also be struck down.

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/28/us/supreme-court-texas-abortion.html?smid=fb-nytimes&smtyp=cur&_r=0

[jcorozza]

Wondering, I'm with you on that whole "move me off this planet" feeling. Lately, I have the "is this the same place I grew up?" feeling, because it feels like we're moving backward in a looooooot of ways.

[WJMorris3]

Just a thought: you don't suppose the reason Trump calls Elizabeth Warren "Pocahontas" is because he's jealous that Native Americans know how to run casinos better than he does, do you?

[Werel]

Just a thought: you don't suppose the reason Trump calls Elizabeth Warren "Pocahontas" is because he's jealous that Native Americans know how to run casinos better than he does, do you?

I'd say it's 1% that, 99% he's a racist piece of shit.

[Wondering]

Trump's campaign sent out emails asking for campaign donations. Pretty normal, right?

Except a lot of them went to government officials in other countries! Which is a) illegal, b) offering to sell yourself, potential president of the United States, to a foreign power, c) not really in line with American independence such as what Trump lauded regarding Brexit.

[Guest]

Trump's campaign sent out emails asking for campaign donations. Pretty normal, right?

Except a lot of them went to government officials in other countries! Which is a) illegal, b) offering to sell yourself, potential president of the United States, to a foreign power, c) not really in line with American independence such as what Trump lauded regarding Brexit.

Isn't that bordering on treason...?

[BasedBuzzed]

To be fair, plenty of foreign money is already funneled into the U.S. elections by international corps, NGOs and foundations, I'd wager. Plus, lobbying: https://www.thenation.com/article/saudi-lobbying-complex-adds-new-member-gop-super-pac-chair-norm-coleman/

Also this type of connection probably has a lot more influence than individual donations: http://www.politifact.com/global-news/article/2016/may/02/paul-manafort-donald-trumps-top-adviser-and-his-ti/

The good part is that Trump is so clumsy he does this out in the open. The bad part is that his most ardent supporters won't care and the rest of the folks doing the same in sneakier manners will use him as a distraction from themselves.

[eselle28]

[WolfBlitzer]

Right now I'm wondering if donating any of the money I earned while working in the UK is a campaign finance violation. Guess that's a reason not to donate! That, and being still unemployed and, um, needing that money

[Wondering]

Two more black men shot by cops in the past two days. One at a routine traffic stop for a broken taillight. And I just watched Fruitvale Station recently so the other one is reminiscent of that. It was caught on video.

Something to be aware of -- a lot of this law enforcement shooting of black men (that's honestly been going on for decades (centuries?)) has been in the news so much the past couple years since we've been catching it on camera phones -- is that Apple is patenting a technology that allows an infrared signal to disable the cameras of phones in a large group of people at once. They say they made it to stop filming at concerts. Let's see what the police, so many of whom still strenuously object to body cams, do with this technology, shall we? And the TSA. And fascist regimes.
http://money.cnn.com/2016/06/30/technology/apple-patent-stop-phone-recording/

[Enail]

Yikes, that's troubling.

[BasedBuzzed]

At least one of these cases they had bodycams. They can dick around with the devices at their leisure, so it still isn't a solution unless it goes paired with mandatory use or something: http://fusion.net/story/322124/alton-sterling-body-cameras-killing/

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