Posts Made By: James Brown

Originally Posted by Greg Shaffer

Seriously with the poor me posts?  If Rich isnt saying anything you guys start baiting him LOL

I'll admit that can be fun.  It's a character flaw I guess...  Still, even though you prop up Rich as best you can, it must be obvious to you that virtually all of the name calling either is posted by Rich, or is in reply to Rich.  It is what it is.

Originally Posted by Richard Davis

Greg, you didn't misundestand James Brown .  He went back and edited his posting, just today, less than 2 hours back to include everyone.  

Just look at the top above his words where it states "EDITED"

You didn't misunderstand what he wrote.  He changed it.

He initially called me out, but then edited it at 11:51 today, just minutes later.   

I edited my post above and it comes up "EDITED"    

And I agree that I give it with namecalling quite often, but then so do they including Jim Brown.  

He acts so innocent and so proper, but IMO he's just a fraud, along with all the rest. 

Their sanctimony knows no bounds.  

This is a pretty feeble gotcha.  I edited my post precisely two minutes after I posted it.  I often do when I have a typo.  Jim

Originally Posted by Rod Kaufman

Lots of reasons:
Lack of required training in the use of firearms
Freedom of access to mentally ill people
Concealed carry without permits
Open carry without permits
Accessibility of Ghost guns
Accessibility of assault rifles and or high capacity magazines
Perpetual resistance of elected Republicans to any meaningful gun safety legislation, including freedom of access of guns to mentally deranged people. 
Permeation of a gun culture in red states that have the highest gun related deaths in the country.

You forgot violent gun culture among the poor in our overwhelmingly blue cities.   I don't think you can effectively blame this exclusively on Republicans, Rod.     

Originally Posted by Darian Rachal

Russ, could it possibly be that these other countries have a more homogeneous population?

Hi Darian:

Interesting question, and the US is undoubtedly not very homogeneous.  I personally think that the US culture is and always has been aggressive, sometimes violent, ambitious, and defensive.  We have always attracted bold and ambitious immigrants.  

This is good and bad, but mostly good.  The USA has been the world's economic leader, science leader, industrial leader, and so on for a long time.  We win world wars, with our allies of course, but I think that neither WWI or WWII would have turned out well for the word without US involvement.  The attributes that have caused the US to carve a place in history are maybe the same attributes that cause our citizens to kill each other (and themselves) at a higher rate than the citizens of other nations.  Jim

(Edited to add Harvard comma, in case Rich is keeping track!)

Originally Posted by Richard Davis

He once again tells it like it is.

https://victorhanson.com/can-we-do-anything-about-americas-decline/

Victor Davis Hanson:  

"Twenty-first-century America was on a trajectory of gradual decline—until it began to implode.

Was the accelerant the COVID-19 pandemic and unhinged lockdowns? Or was the catalyst the woke revolution fueled by the 2020 summer of exempted rioting, looting, arson, and violence? Or was it perhaps the deranged fixation on removing Donald Trump from the presidency and destroying the rule of law in the process? Or all that and more?

Now with the election of Joe Biden, what had been a fast-tracked decline has accelerated at such an astonishing rate we can scarcely recognize our country.

Our largest cities are becoming uninhabitable—dilapidated, dangerous, and dysfunctional. The challenge is not just rampant crime, but the realization that if you, the citizen, are stabbed, shot, or beaten up on the street, the perpetrators may well be exempt from most punishments. And the victim either will be forgotten in his misery or, indeed, blamed for bringing such violence upon himself.

Urban schools are not places of instruction anymore. That fact is accepted by teachers’ unions, whose operative principle seems to be that the more hopeless the idea of educating urban youth is understood to be, the less burdensome the workload, and the greater their hazardous duty pay.


Urban chain stores are closing down on the principle that if police cannot or will not stop consumer violence and theft, then consumers there should not have any store to buy anything, anyway. If there is no store, how can it be looted or shop-lifted?

The only mystery remaining is how long these Democrat-controlled, racially charged, and corrupt municipalities can sustain their budgets and pension commitments with increasingly declining revenue. One can tax the well off, and perhaps even gouge them as California does. But one cannot insult and ridicule them in the process. Being highly taxed is one thing, being highly taxed while hated is quite another."

What does this have to do with Rapid Transit?   I read the whole article and Rapid Transit was not even mentioned.

Originally Posted by Rod Kaufman

In terms of doing anything about the various reasons listed in my prior post, it's essentially the GOP mantra of give 'em more guns that makes them more plentiful and that, coupled with their support of any appeals and or obstruction of common sense gun laws, background checks and the like, makes it exceedingly difficult to do anything anywhere.
That, and a SCOTUS judge by the name of Clarence Thomas, whose rulings are forcing lower courts to interpret current guns laws based upon gun practices back in 1791, causes any meaningful gun laws to be stymied in the courts...

FWIW, Scalia wrote the SC opinion that pretty much controls the scope of Constitutional v. Unconstitutional gun laws today.   

Guns and gun violence are part of the fabric of our nation.   Some level of violence is not going to change any time soon.   We have a ton of common sense gun regulations now.  Background checks and the like.   Over half the population owns guns legally and never commits a crime of any sort, So I personally do not think additional regulations are the answer.

If someone in the US wants to commit suicide with a gun, and they are not already a felon, it is pretty easy to get a gun and do the deed.  This is an unfortunate side effect of citizen gun ownership.  We also have a huge quantity of illegal guns in the US.  So if a criminal wants to skip the background check process, and acquire a gun illegally, I suppose that is easy too, for the criminal types.   Mass shootings in places like schools get all sorts of press.  No simple gun regulation is going to stop these sorts of shootings.  It is already illegal to shoot up a school of course.  Some regulations on the edges might be useful, but not much, in my opinion.  We need better mental health care maybe, and the schools, parents, kids and everyone else need to be vigilant.   The FBI spells it out here:  https://www.fbi.gov/file-repository/stats-services-publications-school-shooter-school-shooter

So why are gun laws so popular on the left and gun rights so sacred to the right, especially in the immediate aftermath of a shooting?   I think this is just another example of extreme polarization causing otherwise day-to-day rational people to take positions that are not particularly helpful when addressing a problem, but which are certainly calculated to piss off the "other side" the most.   I say "calculated" intentionally.   The left would ban all sorts of weapons not because it is going to save kids, but because it pisses off the right.  Any sort of regulation, no matter how rational is a non-starter on the right.  Does the right not care about school safety?  Of course they do, but a staunchly defended and entirely inflexible stance on any gun regulation whatsoever really does piss off the left.   I see it here between you and Rich or you and Greg anytime guns come up.   There is no middle ground, so no progress of any sort can ever be made.  J

Originally Posted by Richard Davis

I noted that in my response when I stated that you edited it "minutes after" you wrote it.

And there was no 'gotcha' on my part.  I'm really not interested in taking that route, as I leave that to those like yourself.

The point I was making is that you get on here regularly trying to call others out for the exact same way you act.

And you're free to point fingers and make your little pussy remarks, acting with all of your sanctimony as if you're not just as big an offender as pretty much all of the rest of us, Russ included.

I just find it funny that you want to leave yourself out of the mix.

You are just as bad as the rest of anyone here.  

I prefer the direct route in calling someone a dickhead when he's a dickhead.

I don't hide behind euphamisms and make snide remarks under my breath as you do, in an attempt to hide my disdain for someone.

If I want you to go f' yourself, I'll tell you directly to go f' yourself.   

Any sane observer would see that I name call at most once for every 100 times you name call.   But other than that you and I are pretty much the same, right?  

Originally Posted by Richard Davis

Greg, you didn't misundestand James Brown .  He went back and edited his posting, just today, less than 2 hours back to include everyone.  

Just look at the top above his words where it states "EDITED"

You didn't misunderstand what he wrote.  He changed it.

He initially called me out, but then edited it at 11:51 today, just minutes later.   

I edited my post above and it comes up "EDITED"    

And I agree that I give it with namecalling quite often, but then so do they including Jim Brown.  

He acts so innocent and so proper, but IMO he's just a fraud, along with all the rest. 

Their sanctimony knows no bounds.  

Nice try at revising history too.  You were trying to "gotcha" as everyone can see, but you failed.   

Originally Posted by James Lacey

I can't read VDH's opinion pieces. They are full of generalizations, false dilemmas, and other over-the-top nonsense whose only real purpose is to keep you outraged. If he has any decent points, they are lost in the partisan screed.

I used to like VDH.  Now, he seems more into defending Trump than anything else.  Also, the "end of all civilization" tone (left or right) is hard to take, given my core principles.   It seems that the rhetoric just keeps getting turned up until it becomes self-parody.  

Originally Posted by Richard Davis

Hey dickbreath,

Here I thought DB was "dumb bunny" in that thread a few weeks ago...

"Butthurt," "dickbreath"  You really seem to enjoy homosexual imagery.  Not that there is anything wrong with that...