Courage not cowardice; balls not bluster

Discussion in 'Politics' started by Xelor, Apr 23, 2018.

  1. Michael 345 New year. PRESENT is 72 years oldl Valued Senior Member

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    Any punk who comes into my house and threatens or tries to rob me had better know how to hold his breath for a loooong time when confronted with the H2OANATOR

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  3. DaveC426913 Valued Senior Member

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    Never have I heard such a tortured attempt to rationalize.

    Cars don't kill people; gasoline kills people.
    Knives don't kill people; blades kill people.
    Bullets don't kill people; exsanguination kills people.

    No. Gun and bullets are a system. One is useless without the other. Thus, together, they are a lethal weapon.
     
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  5. Tiassa Let us not launch the boat ... Valued Senior Member

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    Because hunters shoot to scare. (Duh.)

    I mean, you do know the police aren't trying to hit anyone; it's not like they shoot center-mass, or anything, right? Rather, the pesky, evil black men, with that extra bone in their foot that makes them so fast, sneak in front of the bullets to frame innocent white men for murder.

    And, y'know, besides—

    —guns are designed to deliver projectiles for no purpose whatsoever. I mean, jeez, dintja know? That's how it works.
     
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  7. DaveC426913 Valued Senior Member

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    (That's Micheal "Kramer" Richards, in UHF Great 80's film.)
     
  8. Michael 345 New year. PRESENT is 72 years oldl Valued Senior Member

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    Why are bullets made out of lead?

    Obviously it's the lead that is dangerous

    Why don't we just give everyone a gun at birth and a stock of rubber bullets

    If they make it to adult consider upgrading them to lead

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  9. Quantum Quack Life's a tease... Valued Senior Member

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    .... and the deliberate use of guns leading to death can be compared with automobile accidents leading to death?.....

    No wonder you guys have a problem...
     
  10. Bells Staff Member

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    Well, you could always go with a slingshot..

    Oh wait, they are illegal in many parts of the US..

    Best prime that throwing arm then!

    Just make sure they don't end up in the rubbish bin though. As throwing bullets in the rubbish bin is also illegal in some parts of the US...

    So best just shoot the things. That's more legal...
     
  11. Dr_Toad It's green! Valued Senior Member

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    The thing is, legality has very little to do with the issue. It's obvious that people shouldn't sneak into a petting zoo at midnight and shoot the deer with a bow, but that sort of crap happened in Massachusetts when I was living there.

    Behavior is the issue, not the instrument.
     
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  12. iceaura Valued Senior Member

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    30,994
    An object that kills rampantly by accident under normal and heavily regulated use is more, not less, dangerous than one that kills for the most part by intention only.
    You simply cannot respond to my posts honestly and in good faith. You can't do it.
    And then they wonder how a solid majority and general political agreement on gun control somehow turns into split voting and muddle and loses at the polls. Who could possibly be voting against such benevolence and good intentions?
    Last I ran across data, in places with first world levels of car usage that count carefully and estimate honestly somewhere between 5 and 15 % of single car accidents with fatalities are suicides. Multiple car, and non-fatal accidents, nobody has even estimated afaik. Of course in the US it's possible that these kinds of suicide and suicide/homicide are more often accomplished by firearm, but there's no way to tell. http://www.columbian.com/news/2018/...ly-suv-cliff-crash-may-have-been-intentional/
     
  13. Gawdzilla Sama Valued Senior Member

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    With a large "magazine"? (Cooler.)
     
  14. Michael 345 New year. PRESENT is 72 years oldl Valued Senior Member

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    In the spa magazines some of the girls have big bazookas

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  15. Xelor Registered Senior Member

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    Message from the OP:
    The thread title is "courage not cowardice; balls not bluster" and there's nothing courageous about suicide, so stop talking suicide.​
     
  16. Gawdzilla Sama Valued Senior Member

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    Never been a member of a kamikaze attack, I see.
     
  17. Xelor Registered Senior Member

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    But in the end one needs more courage to live than to kill himself.
    -- Albert Camus​


    That, like every other suicide, is an act of desperation borne of an inability or refusal to see either the forest or the threes. It matters not which one fails to see for either is at most but half the picture.

    The courageous thing to do would have been to acknowledge that the war was at that point lost and simply surrender, or in the case of pilots, simply refuse to undertake a desperate and futile act -- the kamikaze attacks began in late Oct. 1944 when Japan's navy was effectively done. By that point, Japan had boats, but substantively nothing to sink U.S. boats, which is why they had to resort to kamikazes. What would that have produced?
    • Recognition among Japan's military and political leadership that they'd lost the support of the rank and file military.
    • An earlier end to the war and fewer lives lost on both sides of the conflict.
      • Height of kamikaze attacks were in the spring of 1945, mostly during the Battle of Okinawa in which kamikazes sank not one cruiser, battleship or aircraft carrier.
      • The U.S. March attacks on Japanese cities proved to everyone -- Japan and the U.S. commanders -- that Japan had no ability to defend its airspace. Given the lessons of the European Theater, that alone should have been enough for the Emperor, the political leaders, generals the and people to know that surrender was their best option.
    • Conceivably no nuclear weapons exploded in anger.
      • Remember, by the time we dropped our nukes on Hiro. and Naga., Japan had only one or two pop. 100K+ cities remaining, so devastating had been the U.S. military tidal wave -- quite literally, U.S. forces worked their way across the Pacific until they decimated Japan's navy, whereafter our forces flooded over Japan's cities, bombing the bejesus out of them.

        Japan's Major Cities Bombed in Spring 1945.

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    • Most likely, better or the same surrender terms -- unconditional -- with the U.S effectively rebuilding Japan's economy either way.


    It is not worth the bother of killing yourself, since you always kill yourself too late.
    -- Emil M. Cioran, The Trouble with Being Born
     
  18. Gawdzilla Sama Valued Senior Member

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    But suicide wasn't a "sin" in Japan at the time. Gen. Anami, War Minister in 1945, had declared "100,000,000 dead in defense of the Homeland." Give that the Japanese only had seventy million people I think he expected the Allies to make up the slack. The Japanese military had over 10,000 suicide craft of all types waiting for the invasion fleets.
     
  19. Bells Staff Member

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    24,270
    Irony coming from you, iceaura.

    You are so blind to the reality of what you support that this is all you can come back with in response.

    Well, they have people like you to thank for that. Good job!
     
  20. Tiassa Let us not launch the boat ... Valued Senior Member

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    As long as we're on the thread title, what's with the sexism?

    Both toxic masculinity or the exclusion of women are evident.

    And there are, of course, the obvious jokes: Courage, not cowardice? Call a woman. Balls, not bluster? They go together like fish and water; an environment can certainly get too salty for the boys.
     
  21. sculptor Valued Senior Member

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    8,466
    This was your response to the use of the word "balls" ?
     
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  22. sculptor Valued Senior Member

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    anecdote:
    Long ago(circa 1977) I chanced to encounter what seemed to be a radical feminist. I was sitting in a subway car trying to make sense of Beowulf ,it only made sense to me if I read it out loud---so there I was, sitting and mumbling to myself and lost in thought, while on my way to university when a tall well muscled woman got on carrying 2 large packages. Being well trained by my mother to hold doors for and offer seats to women, I began to get up as I invited her to take my seat............
    Holy mother shock when instead of a "Thank you" she began to berate me. Standing over me, in a very threatening posture, she started with something like "WHAT, DO I LOOK CRIPPLED TO YOU.... and unleashed a tirade about what a chauvinist pig and asshole I was...etc...etc...
    wow
    (it really took me awhile to change from Beowulf and concentrate on her)
    Fortunately, at the next stop, an old man got on and I offered him my seat and got up. He said "thank you" as he sat down.
    And, now for my escape: I headed toward the other end of the car.
    Unfortunately, she followed me, like a lioness harassing her prey.
    Fortunately, the train pulled into the next station and I got off----it wasn't my destination---but that didn't matter as much as my desire to not be eaten.
    Fortunately, the tall well muscled woman stayed on board and disappeared down the tunnel.
    Another train came along a few minutes later and I got on-------I found it difficult to re-concentrate on Beowulf---(sigh)
     
  23. iceaura Valued Senior Member

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    A lost point from posts #3 and #5 on.

    The "side" is coincidence, probably. It's a bothsides problem. Suicide does come up rationally, in a discussion about the cowardice factor in American gun obsessions - but nothing stays rational for long if it involves gun control.

    For example:
    People don't carry the things around all the time.
    They are heavy, they are a hassle, they are a risk, they are of little use in ordinary life, people are not that crazy.

    That's not their role, if any, in self defense. Either pro or con. Both sides of the "bullets flying in the other direction" argument are dealing in fantasy.
     
    Last edited: Apr 28, 2018

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