Wicked Problems: Gun Violence

Media
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I wanted you to think about the why and to also preempt the constant drum beat that “those MAGA people are all Racist, Misogynist, Xenophobic, White Nationalist, White Supremacists, QAnoners”.

But wouldn’t want you to think I’m avoiding your questions.
Is it genetics? No.
Is it cultural inferiority of black people in general? The individuals, no. The Black culture here in the US, yes. And this is not unique to the Black experience. Some of the Native American cultures have somewhat similar issues. As well as some of the poor White sub cultures.

Thomas Sowell, Economist, (ex-Communist) answers most of your questions here (previously posted by the way).

Frank Furedi, Psychologist, (ex-Communist) answers many more. Great discussion on Socialization - transmitting to young people morality, values to in order to create strong people.

Directly (surface level) No, No, No, and No. Indirectly or the Zone’s lens Yes, Yes, No, No.

Watch the Sowell and Furedi videos for much more articulate answers.

For myself it seems more a nuanced break from the mainstream culture (slightly divergent sub-culture if you will) that we were fully integrated into - had real jobs and careers, house payments, car payments, home work, girl friends, boy friends, fights with friends, education, college, Christmas carols, etc… But there was an undercurrent of “fuck it, it doesn’t matter” in both myself and some of my family. Perhaps we were all Nihilists and didn’t know it. LOL

One issue we see is the very low resolution view that “race” provides. .
My ancestors were displaced, starved, killed back in the 17 and 1800’s, then forced to assimilate (or not). One example is my great grandfather was one of eight kids that were orphaned during the diaspora. Each of the kids was parceled out to families in the tribe. Net result is the extended family itself was essentially fragmented.

Meanwhile the easy to observe Indians in the West had their run-in in the late 1800’s or early 1900’s and were forced en mass onto Reservations. This enabled them to remain somewhat separate and sustain a version of their cultures - for both good and bad. These cultures then interacting with the mainstream culture can then be both good and bad. The Reservation system can devolve into a horrible instance of Socialism/Communism that traps the tribes and individuals in a self perpetuating funk.

You can drive through the Pima Nation essentially in Scottsdale, and you ask yourself “why don’t they spend an hour and haul the trash to the curb?”. But that’s the external manifestation.
What I also see and work with are all the Indians in IT, engineering, tech, management, doctors, lawyers, small business owners that are living their lives. When you do business with the Indian properties, stay at the Indian Casinos (great hotels at great prices), and eat at the excellent tribe-to-table restaurants perhaps it demystifies the noble savages concept.

We vacationed at Grand Canyon West which is a development on the canyon edge by the Hualapai Nation. It was just pre-Covid and a great experience. At the small airport on site while we waited for our helicopter tour, one thing that was striking were that likely 80% of the tour companies with offices were Chinese - as in direct from China Chinese. Seems tours were booked in China, would change through SFO, SEA, PHX or LAS then take small planes directly into the Hualapai Nation.
I remember seeing posts here regarding how the US government somehow was implicit or actively causing much higher mortality in our northern Arizona Indian communities while also listening to the outcries of xenophobia when travel from China was shut down. Maybe it really was as simple Charters booked directly from Wuhan into the Hualapai Nation, just maybe.

On your government programs, I’m in alignment with Furedi’s and Sowell’s views.

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Thank you for your genuine replies.

I’m listening to Sowell. Right about 14 min. He himself says that he does not favor either of the views he presents, so therefore where are we then? He described two ways to slice a pie and says he doesn’t make a judgement about which is better, but nudge nudge - we find out immediately later he does, lol.
He the goes into socialism and makes some absolutists statements that show he does very much prefer one way of thinking over the other. He brings up Venezuela as absolute proof that Socialism is terrible, but this is using only selective data and ignoring other data that may cast a shadow on his idea. For example, Socialist Democracies as opposed to Socialist Totalitarianism. People who are 100% against any shades of socialism look only at Socialist Totalitarian regimes and conveniently ignore the successes of Democratic Socialist Countries such as in Northern Europe.

Ok, this is Freshmen Polisci 101 for me and I went through this 30 years ago. 25% into the Discussion and I see it’s geared towards an intellectually unsophisticated and uncritical audience.

OK, I’ll rebut just one more quote before I bail on Sowell. He introduces the Straw Man that the Civil Rights movement did not accelerate the economic progress of Blacks.
The reason why this is a straw man is because the economic prosperity of the 1940’s that he quotes were better for blacks … was a direct result of the Socialist programs from 12 years of the Roosevelt Administration. So what if the 1960’s were not the biggest economic growth period for blacks? The post war socialist boom of the 1940’s was, lol.
He says that the 1960’s was just a continuation of an economic trend, and I agree - it was a completely socialist trend that was created by massive government infrastructure projects, welfare, social security, and was also combined with the fight for higher wages won by Unions fighting in the streets with baseball bats against corporate thugs and strikebreakers and all that mess of the 1930’s where the only way out of an economic nose dive was severe socialist programs - which we now feel are entitlements to to this day - even Republicans feel entitled to Socials Security (hint - it has the root “Social” in it, in other words, Socialism Security).
I was never taught his straw man argument in schools. In the History book I was taught from, the 60’s was all about civil rights and many authors have addressed very well that the boomer generation is the spoiled rich entitled “me, me, me” generation that grew up in the economic postwar prosperity.

He then starts talking about violence and skips to the 2011 UK riots and Furgerson. Wait … he was talking about the 1960’s then used events 50 years later in 2011 as evidence to support his claims about the 1960’s. lol

It’s really hard for me to stick with so-called heavyweight intellectuals like this. Especially not every time someone links to them and says I should listen to it. They are only “heavyweight” to a select group, who I judge have a cognitive bias and are unable to see past that. When I go point by point it’s clear he either isn’t an intellectual heavyweight and is unaware of what he is doing, or he is deliberately using disingenuous tactics.
Paradoxically I agree with conservatives that this is the price we pay for affirmative action and both he and Justice Clarence Thomas among others would never have achieved their credentials as white men. Their freshmen professors would have shredded their papers with red marks quite legitimately.

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Of course. Thanks also for giving Sowell a spin.

He’s a smartass. Personally I find his humor funny and engaging. Maybe we should all try it some. :wink:

:slight_smile:

Of course Ray - I too have the same issues when I identify the “same BS that the last guru spouted”. I slogged through some Allan Watts that I think you recommended. I would have likely lapped up that stuff with excitement in college. So did I really hear what he was saying? You could argue I was biased.

While I love playing the “What if, If only” game when it comes to real legislation with real mandates impacting real people with real families I think we deserve a little more than “Hold my beer while we try this”.

Thanks for giving Sowell a spin.

What intellectuals (beyond Ken and Corey) would you recommend?

Could be they both got boosts from the Civil Rights movement. Sowell was the first Fellow named at arguably one of the top think tanks globally. Coincidentally same conservative think tank is currently led by a Black Lesbian woman.
Personally I don’t have the back ground to determine intellectual eliteness at these levels.

But to bring back to Wicked Gun OP.

Legislation for some level of increased background checks is likely to pass. My understanding is it will create more stringent background checks and raise semi-auto rifle min age to 21 among other things.
SCOTUS just shot down the Cali 21 min age. I heard a good argument that to get around 2nd Amendment we would need raise age of Majority (legal adulthood) to 21.

But not sure any of these changes will make the intended difference given that almost all gun violence currently is already committed with illegally obtained firearms by known criminals.

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Well, there have been several mass shootings where the person was not a criminal yet, but was demonstrably mentally and emotionally unstable.

Then additionally - how many lives would you say would equal to the inconvenience of just adding a few more “common sense” restrictions, which we agreed on above, I think. Is waiting 7 days worth a life? How about 100 lives?

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Good points and questions. If the changes will actually stop those committing the crimes, I think they should all be considered.
If they’re virtue signaling laws that won’t be enforced any more than the current laws, then I would say we reconsider why we don’t fix the underlying problems for the most number of people.

Would you be against enforcing the current firearms, violence and mental health “red flag” laws already in place?

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Just 400 million more to go…:slightly_smiling_face:

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Lest we forget, a potent reminder.