President Trump: The NEW one and only politics thread

If we have to give in to them to reach some sort of reasonable compromise, fine, but rural people who live far from police response times are more likely to die from their own gun than they are any malfeasance on the part of others. When you bring a gun into the equation, you are not making yourself safer.

 

The idea that the 2nd amendment was ever about protection from government tyranny is one of those press release versions of history that so many of our population bought unquestioningly.

They had 650,000 human slaves who were kept under the ownership of white men solely by the administration of violence. That is why this country protected those white men's rights to own guns.

 

My understanding is that this country protected people's rights to own guns because in the late 18th century, the idea of a standing national army was anathema, and the framers wanted to codify somehow the existence of local militias, which were the preferred means of national defense.

Not exactly "protection from government tyranny," but kind of a second cousin.

 

You have this thing where you refuse to give these Stoneman students credit. You do understand that many of those students were ALREADY taking an AP Government class, and were well versed on the issues, before the shooting.
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-new...ents-about-nra-then-gunshots-rang-out-n856266

These kids are fucking sharp. I know there are many on this board who love to shit on younger people. I read it practically daily here. My wife and I were driving on Saturday, and we heard Stoneman student David Hogg's speech in D.C. I was dumfounded by how much poise this kid has. Shit, I couldn't stand in front of a class of thirty at that age without stammering and getting dry mouth. Now watch this kid give a speech (apologize for the 30 second commercial). His delivery is fucking fabulous. He has command - way beyond his years. To give a speech like that in front of thousands, hell in front of a nation, with that delivery is incredible.

Maybe - just maybe - these high school students are capable of more than you give them credit for.

 

I mean this respectfully: I really don’t think it was that. And that’s not to diminish the awfulness of slavery. But I don’t think it was that.

 

Stay gold, Alma. Stay gold.

 

I watched the speech as it happened. It's very effective. I think it's also meant to be effective, if that makes sense.

Nobody's talking about capability here. I'm talking about the ways in which specific policy ideas and talking points get synthesized into the speeches and op-eds. Again, read this:

The implication that Cruz’s mental health issues could have been solved if only he had been loved more by his fellow students is both a gross misunderstanding of how these diseases work and a dangerous suggestion that puts children on the front line.

It is not the obligation of children to befriend classmates who have demonstrated aggressive, unpredictable or violent tendencies. It is the responsibility of the school administration and guidance department to pinpoint those students and get them the help that they need, even if it is extremely specialized attention that cannot be provided at the same institution.

I'm not sure I exactly agree with the policy prescriptive laid out there - it basically says "create a vast system of mental health professionals to address kids who act out" - but that's a...significant policy conception from a HS senior, laid out in three just-so sentences that includes the phrases "gross misunderstanding" "puts children on the front line" and "extremely specialized attention that cannot be provided at the same institution."

The piece has no contractions, Poin. "I am horrified" "This is not to say" "It is not the obligation" "should not be expected" "could have been solved"

Then there's this line: "No amount of kindness or compassion alone would have changed the person that Nikolas Cruz is and was, or the horrendous actions he perpetrated."

That's a bold statement, don't you think?

I mean, I found the actual piece of writing cold, clinical and academic. I guess I could fault the kid herself for the some of the policy prescriptives and systemic criticisms in the piece...if I thought those ideas originated with her.

Which, maybe they did.

The brilliance of the Stoneman kids campaign is that it works both ways:

On the one hand, you can't criticize anything they say because they're kids, and how dare you, they're just kids. No matter how strident or cogent or demanding or curiously down-the-line liberal all of their policy prescriptives are, they're kids, speaking out of the all the innocence and pain that comes with their friends being murdered. They're untouchable.

And yet the arguments are so...exact, and pointed, and sophisticated, you're tempted to think, man, there's a lot of polish behind this. And indeed there is. Millions of dollars in fact. There's a Hollywood PR firm handling their press requests pro bono, even. But the minute you point out that maybe the discourse has become a little too polished, a little too sophisticated, that's the moment you're underestimating them.

So which is it? Because I think implicating a broken, faceless system of adults for Cruz's mass killing suggests a policy prescriptive for mentally ill people that's more draconian than we think. "extremely specialized" care is a euphemism for youth mental health facilities. Those don't always go as swimmingly as one expects.

The gun control issue is the gun control issue. And, over time, as the voting population changes, you'll see gun control laws become reality. And it will help reduce mass shootings. All of that is good.

I agree with the general purpose of what the Stoneman kids are doing, just as I agreed with the Newtown parents.

But, in the case of the Stoneman kids, I don't quite like how it's being brought to bear. And maybe it doesn't matter. Maybe the ends are good enough that the kind of adult shaping and manipulation going on is acceptable. Maybe kids having press packets at school walkouts - like the 11-year-old girl did - and these sophisticated, strident speeches aren't a good thing, though. Because it offers a playbook to people who have motives and policy prescriptives that maybe I don't agree with.

 

It is a bold statement.

 

Robert Mercer is an odd duck. And so is the sheriff of Lake Arthur, NM.

Robert Mercer’s Secret Adventure as a New Mexico Cop

 

I understand their frustration with the spin, though, which is the same spin that came out of Columbine.

I've stated this before on here, but we had a future school shooter type in junior high. He was clearly a screwed up kid, for whatever underlying reasons. (His sister seemed relatively normal, although it seemed they were pretty downtrodden. Lived on the wrong side of the tracks, so to speak.)

Indeed, I tried to be nice to him, and there were moments - damn near brings me to tears now to think back to it - where an earnest kid who wanted to fit in, socially, would come through. I remember specifically him calling me and asking if I was watching the White Sox-A's game on TV, just making small talk about it, because he knew I was a big Sox fan.

But inevitably, he'd revert to his anti-social tendencies, which predominated. And at age 12 or 13 (or 15 or 16), it gets to the point where you don't really want to volunteer to be the sacrificial lamb.

He ended up accidentally killing himself fucking around with his friend's dad's gun in high school. He had moved to another local school a couple years earlier.

 

We've been connecting our gun arguments in this country to the failure of our national mental health apparatus since the 1970s. I'm not sure at this late date it's bold to restate that.

And I think that kind of essayist's studied over-formality is exactly the kind of thing you get from a high school senior who's been writing lots of admissions essays.

 

Forget it, Jake, it's New Mexico.