You obviously didn’t read or understand a thing I wrote. If you did, you wouldn’t have simply doubledowned on the same fallacies and false assumptions.

But let’s be real - this isn’t about assessing what’s true and what’s not. Its about individual psychology and our desperate need for self-affirmation to build confidence. It’s part of the reason why you’ll just keep repeating the same thing over and over and over, regardless of evidence, regardless of substance, regardless of logic, ultimately abondoning any notion of intellectual honesty.

Once you adopt that whole mentality, you cannot be reasoned with on the rational level, which is why some compare it to a mild psychiatric disorder. And looking around what’s been happening with communities around the world vis-a-vis the media they consume, it’s easy to understand why. This usually occurs after about 5 to 10 years of consuming a certain type of content. I honestly hope you’re not at that point. I always like giving people the benefit of the doubt. In this case, I basically kinda assume you’re relatively young. Which is good, if that’s the case.

Best of luck to you on your journey. Don’t stop resisting the ego. Never stop resisting the ego. The most important fight is the one inside our head.

Edit: You’re next message is going to completely ignore (and thus reject) any of what I said and probably contain quite a bit of ad hominem and doubling down.

There is nothing to be baffled by. You’re just misrepresenting the argument.

It baffles me how you don’t see the hypocrisy of both complaining about the US not joining WWII until they were directly attacked and also complaining about American hegemony today.

It’s only baffling if you assume ab initio that the only possible kind of intervention is the imperialist, hegemonic one, and that that is the only way of describing the country’s (or any other Allied country for that matter) entry into WW2. More generally, its only baffling if you assume that involvement naturally equates to “hegemony”, and the behavior that implies, in the long-term. This viewpoint totally negates the normative side of the exercise of power which is why it has been all but abondoned by contemporary IR scholars, political scientists, sociologists, etc.

In short, you misrepresent (deliberately or otherwise) your opponent’s argument by assuming that all exercise of power is “hegemonic”, an assertion that is not grounded in reality. At this point, you should also be able to see the moral issues with some of what you said and the overall image you presented of the human condition. Classical geopolitical thinking is simply not valid and tends to reproduce highly unstable and dangerous systems by ignorant human who reify it into reality.

Can you articulate why, with what they knew in 1939, the US should have declared war

Sure (and you too should be able to - its real simple). It starts with an f and ends with a ascism. Though I’ll give you that policy analysts at the USDOS at the time didn’t see it in those terms. I’m also willing to bet they knew a lot more than you think you know but do let me know if you think I’m wrong.

That articulate enough for you?

Brought to you by a president who f****d a pornstar and paid her off by falsifying business records.

Clown world for a clown species.

This is not a battle between good and evil.

This a battle between stupid and evil. And stupid is scoring home run after home run!

Is this true?

Oh yeah. There are tens of thousands of gun ranges throughout Europe. Hell, you can do crazy things at ranges owned by companies that provide shooting and combat training, like firing from a helicopter or learning to use an APC machine gun. These sorta services are available to any adult citizen that wants to use them (and can pay).

A very common type of visitor to USA gun ranges are tourists from other developed countries. I wouldn’t expect this if these were equally accessible in other countries.

I mean, specific regulations and accessability will vary from one country to another, and I assume the same applies to US states. But in general - yes, shooting ranges are available at most any major town and city. Hunting is of course a different set of regulations but yeah absolutely you can hunt, assuming ofcourse you follow basic hunting laws.

I think the main difference comes down to culture. While gun ranges are readily available throughout Europe, I’m guessing the demand for them is significantly lower compared to the US, as is the demand for gun owning and using overall. And I believe the reason why is at the crux of the issue.

My guess is that a lot of tourists use gun ranges in the US because its “part of the experience”, not because they don’t have gun ranges back home. From a European perspective, and looking at google maps, seems like most Europeans have a gun range less than an hour drive away.

Edit: just to stress the point about how widely different things are compared to some US states. In Europe, you can shoot an AR-15 at a gun range (with proper training first) but you can’t buy one, keep it in your car and go grocery shopping with it. I mean, I’m sure people and the police in the US won’t be happy about you wandering around with an AR-15 but the fact that you can even do it is striking from a European perspective. And the fact that this activity is protected under the guise of “democracy” and “self-defence” makes it that much worse. Sure, the AR-15 might be an exxagerated examples (but only slightly) but the same applies for hand guns - it would be seen nearly the same way.

Seems to me like the only logical reason to own a gun in the US (unless, say, you use it professionally) is to defend against all the other people who own guns and might decide to use them for all sorts of reasons, including highly irrational ones. So we’re back to the highly insidious cycle I mentioned before. There is only one way to stop the cycle and I don’t see a logical reason why tougher gun laws haven’t been enacted.

I think answer you’re begging for here is “crime” or “violence against other humans”

Truthfully, I was thinking more along the lines of “identity”, “entertainment” and “machoism”. And while these often unfortunately do interesect with “crime” and “violence”, I wouldn’t think they were the primary reasons because I don’t think that would be reflective of most people’s actual attitudes and behaviours (regardless of nationality). I did not mean to imply that the dominant reason is “crime”, lean on the stereotype of gun violence in the US or paint every gun owner as a psychopath. I can see how that might have been construed based on the way I wrote it. But I don’t actually believe in any that.

My main point was that the actual reasons for both owning and using guns are not related to the reasoning of the 2nd amendment eventhough it is the law that makes all of this possible. And how could they be related - that reasoning is centuries old and simply nomlonger valid due to the way power is exercised in the 21st century.

The discussion of whether the reasons have more to do with crime or entertainment is an interesting one that I didn’t really actually mean to touch on in my first comment because its kind of a side point to the main point I was making (though still obviously important). As you point out, and this seems to be corraborated by Pewpew, most Americans use their guns for the stated reasons of “go shooting” or “go hunting”. Interestingly, you can hunt or go to a shooting range in most other developed countries and the fact they don’t have an extensive right to bear arms enshrined in their constitution doesn’t seem to be limiting that entertainment value. Nor has it impacted the ability of people in those countries to fight against tyranny. What it has done, however, is significantly limit gun violence, to the point where there are several hundred times more gun-related deaths in the US compared to Western European countries. Not even gonna mention countries with even tougher gun laws like Japan - the difference is staggering - in the thousands of times, at least according to the University of Washington.

Culture and ideology are the primary words here, I think. As the epistemological crisis deepens, I fear ideological violence will continue to rise, and guns will be a very combustible ingredient in that dynamic.

Again, did not mean to paint all gun owners as looney criminals. But the relationship to the culture of power is most definayely there and we should very much be afriad of those who use the notions of self-defence and democracy as a guise to enact their power fantasies, or even worse - as a tool of ideology and politics.

It’s really weird to see people in the US from both the left and the right protect the 2nd amendment and see it as some sort of mechanism to protect against authoritarianism. In fact, weird is putting it lightly - it’s actually kinda insane.

I’ll spare you the whole debate format because I don’t think there is any real arguing with the science and statistics behind the mass spread and use of guns in the US. I also don’t think there is any stopping the gun culture in the current paradigm because the dogma behind it has been parrotted and regurgated so much that it’s basically part of the nation’s psyche.

Guns only matter as much as the ideas of the people carrying them. Most guns in the US are not used for self-defence or to protect against government overreach, are they? When it comes down to it those are not the real reasonS why most people buy and use guns, are they? They sure make it easy though, not just to buy and use but also to rationalize and justify violence and killings.

Fighting fire with fire creates an inferno. You’re not going to put out the fire with more fire. You’re just gonna make it worse and feel self-righteous while doing it, creating an insidious cycle of violence.

It’s the 21st century. The name of the game is cognitive warfare and liberty-loving people are losing badly. Guns won’t change that.

Hey, whatever works for you bud

Lol

“Slaves”

Of course you pay it - just not directly - because there is basically no good from “within the country” whose inputs are not affected by the tarrifs.

The idea that the US is suddenly gonna massively ramp up its production of coffee, electric machinery, shoes and other products that are produced by countries with a massive competetive advantage is just ridiculous.

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External self-determination cares little about national laws. That’s kinda the whole point. The real question is what type of conditions need to be met before a right to external self-determination arises and is recognized by other countries. In general, most countries don’t recognize a right to unilateral seccession under any condition. At the same time, it is also agreed that if a state were to make the practice of internal self-determination virtually impossible or meaningless, then a right to external self-determination should arise. In which case any “no backsies” rule under US national law (even the constitution) may be seen as a breach of fundamental rights.

With independence, it usually comes down to who has the bigger stick (in both material and ideational terms). The are definitely scenarios in which US states can make a valid legal case for independence but the conditions for that still haven’t been met as most international lawyers will agree that Americans in all states are afforded the right to internally self-determine. For now. Things are changing quickly.

Ignorance is not bliss. And neither is being a useless coward.

You seem to have forgotten to multiply by 100 after you divided 209 by 1,548.

209 is 13.5% of 1,548, not 0.13%.

Edit: It is a bit disturbing how many people upvote things without making even the most basic sanity check.

So was Hitler. Thing is, natural law and positive law can diverge significantly, meaning ctitizens will sometimes have to organize against the products of positive law to preserve their decency and freedom.

Great read, thank you for sharing.

You need to drink your meds, grandpa.

At least prove a point.

Oh, I think you’re doing just fine on that front. (And let’s not pretend like “proof” or “evidence” have any relevance when making claims that not only have no basis in reality, like “conservatives don’t talk about crypto”, but obviously seek to supplant it).

But again, you’d be much more effective if you dress up facts rather than fiction. You also need to build up to the absurd, not start with it. You can’t just convince people that reality is actually the opposite of what is perceived. You first need to shake up trust in consensus based reality and basic scientific knowledge, and only then start to gradually inteoduce the spectacle in a piecemeal fashion.

I mean, if you’re gonna engage in disinformation then at least read the wikipedia page on whatever topic you are targetting so you can come up with something that’s more believable. Disinfo is most effective when it is based on some true information taken out of context.