American Politics

[QUOTE=Tiny12;2787723]Chris was simply noting that Switzerland, which is more prosperous and by some measures better developed than any of the G7, has a high level of gun ownership and a low homicide rate. Among the G7, only Japan's homicide rate is lower.[/QUOTE]Indeed.

Frankly, even if Japan had high gun ownership like Switzerland, they would have very low gun crime because like Switzerland they do not suffer from the demographics of gun violence.

The same is true of all civilized, homogeneous wealthy countries.

[QUOTE=Tiny12;2787723]Here are the countries with the highest homicide rates, and their ownership of firearms per 100 people. For comparison, there are 120 guns in the USA for every 100 people.

1. USA Virgin Islands Unknown

2. Jamaica 9

3. Lesotho 5

4. Trinidad and Tobago 3

5. El Salvador 12

6. Venezuela 19

7. Honduras 14

8. South Africa 10

9. Mexico 13

10. Anguilla Unknown

11. Saint Lucia 3

12. Saint Martin 9

So say you go out and try to take the guns away from Americans. By some miracle, you get the number down from 120 per hundred people to 20. How much good will that do? Well, probably some. But not as much as you think. Trinidad has 1/40th the number of guns per person we do, and a homicide rate 6 X higher.[/QUOTE]Excellent point.

But they don't care about reducing the homicide rate. They care about disarming rural and suburban Americans in order to better implement the growing campaign of hate, disenfranchisement and violence toward us. We are the new kulaks.

[URL]https://www.foxnews.com/politics/biden-judicial-nominee-under-fire-lack-legal-knowledge-experience[/URL]

A "woman of color" Biden federal judge nominee didn't know what Articles 2 or 5 of the Constitution are.

I'm not a lawyer. Judge or professor, but I've known that since middle school.

She was asked two other questions as well and blanked both. You can actually see her tearing up after the 4th one: pretty funny, in a "laugh at the end of civilization" way.

Of course, she may not know any of the Articles of the Constitution she is supposed to uphold, but you can bet she knows that whitey be keepin her down and she is a strong, independent woman who don't need no man.

[QUOTE=PVMonger;2787650]There you go again. Putting words in my mouth.

My post was talking about [B]handguns only[/B] not shotguns and long guns. I even said so.[/QUOTE]I was referring to your earlier post, that I was replying to:

[QUOTE=PVMonger;2787006]There are no data (at least that I could find) that broke out the number of handguns from the number of "firearms" per capita in the US. Only some vague assertions that there were more handguns than long guns. One source says that 60% of murders were by handgun, 3% by rifle and 1% by shotgun. But then there's the pesky "remainder" of 36%. Is it the same percentage? Larger? Smaller? But if the percentage is 51%-49% or 80%-20% is unknown and probably unknowable.[/QUOTE]If you assume the remainder is 49%, or even 20% long guns, you're going to overestimate the number of deaths from rifles and shotguns.

[QUOTE=PVMonger;2787650]What I also said was that any time the talk of control of any type of weapon comes up, the gun nuts say "2nd Amendment" and shut down. Any type of weapon.

SCOTUS has virtually ruled that no type of firearm can be restricted anywhere. They just ruled that crazy people have just as much right to own a firearm as anybody else does which makes absolutely no sense whatsoever.[/QUOTE]I'm not familiar with the Supreme Court ruling. But yes, I see your points.

[QUOTE=PVMonger;2787650]Your argument re: the Caribbean Islands is rather spurious. As is DC. It is, frankly, a code for "Black people commit most crime so let's restrict their access to handguns". [/QUOTE]Not at all. The reason I bring up islands, including Puerto Rico, is because it shouldn't be easy getting an unregistered gun onto one, like it might be easy transporting a weapon from a city with lax gun laws to a city with restrictive gun laws. If you have tough gun laws on an island, why do you still have a high homicide rate?

If you look at my earlier posts, you'll see I believe there's a correlation between historical oppression and repression of the populace and homicide rate. Both slavery, like what did occur in the American south, the Caribbean and Brazil. And treating the local population as badly as slaves, as the Spanish did in Latin America. The countries with the highest homicide rates in the world are mostly in the Caribbean and Latin America. Like I already said, there are many countries in sub Saharan Africa with homicide rates lower than ours.

You don't have to take my word for it. This is a conventional belief, it's not specific to me or to people who are right of center. See for example.

[URL]https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2358389[/URL]

[QUOTE=PVMonger;2787650]As well, your contention that the Waco mess was caused because the Feds wanted to seize the Branch Davidian's guns is incorrect. The Feds suspected that the Branch Davidians were modifying AR-15's with M-16 lower assemblies in order to make the AR-15's fully automatic. They obtained a search warrant based upon those suspicions. [URL]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waco_siege[/URL].[/QUOTE]My larger point was all hell is going to break lose if the Feds at some point decide they're going to disarm the wrong people.

[QUOTE=PVMonger;2787650]It is, frankly, a code for "Black people commit most crime [/QUOTE]Why do we need a "code" for that? It is openly acknowledged fact.

[QUOTE=PVMonger;2787650]
SCOTUS has virtually ruled that no type of firearm can be restricted anywhere. They just ruled that crazy people have just as much right to own a firearm as anybody else [/QUOTE]And therein lies the rub. The Washington alphabet agencies, democrats and media will, as always, abuse this loophole and find a reason to define anyone who disagrees with their agenda as "crazy".

Your fellow travellers in the Soviet Union had form for this. Many a dissident was locked up on "mental health" grounds, because who but a crazy person could not love communism?

We have seen massive abuse of the so-called "red flag" laws, with bitter ex-girlfriends or people with a grudge making an anonymous call that resulted in restriction of an American's Second Amendment rights with no due process.

SCOTUS is right to push back against such typical leftist trickery. This is what the left always does. They can't come out and state their actual agenda (disarming the population, flooding the country with third world illegals, chopping kids' dicks off, etc) because it is so horrific. So they pretend it isn't happening and make meaningless, vague statements about "safety", "love", "freedom".

That's what they want to do here. "No, no, silly goyim, the Second Amendment still exists. It's just restricted for your safety". And then you can't own a gun because you once had a fight in high school, or saw a therapist in 1997, or your ex-wife said some crap about you, or you wrote meanwords on the internet.

[QUOTE=Tiny12;2787716]Sigh.

I've read 47% of Saez and Zucman's "The Triumph of Injustice" according to my Kindle, which is what your Forbes link is all about. Saez and Zucman are French and like their colleague Thomas Piketty want to convert the USA into France. Maybe Saez and Zucman, who indoctrinate young minds at Berkeley, are French plants, part of a scheme to bring USA Standards of living down to the French level, which is about 25% to 30% lower based on GDP per capita adjusted for purchasing power.

Actually Francois Hollande tried to implement the Piketty / Saez / Zucman playbook, and had to back off because measures like their 75% supertax and wealth tax actually resulted in less government revenues, as the high income earners left France or just stopped realizing high income. Anyway, from what I've read so far in their book, the mother fuckers are full of shit.

I don't recall the particular passage from the book in question, or haven't gotten to it yet, but it most likely assumes income is really "increase in net worth." Thus, for example, Elon Musk back when Tesla stock was on the rise paid very little income tax compared to his increase in net worth. Saez and Zucman are advisors to Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders. Their solution to this great mass of alleged untaxed "income" is to impose a tax on wealth. Sanders would tax someone like Musk at a rate of close to 8% of his net worth. So Musk, and other extremely successful entrepreneurs, would constantly have to sell off parts of their businesses to pay their tax. So I guess that, indeed, America, which historically has created such great and innovative companies as Microsoft, Oracle, Google, Facebook, Walmart, could become just like France.

And to what avail? The government's going to get 40% of everything these people have when they die anyway, that they don't leave to charity, through the death tax. Apparently that's not enough for thieves like Saez, Zucman, Warren and Sanders.

These stupid shits also apparently believe that money paid to the Federal Government would do more good than the charities people like Warren Buffet, Bill Gates and Charles Koch leave their money too. The federal government flushes a huge part of what it spends down the toilet. Gates and Buffet, for example, do a lot of good with their giving.

Back to reality. Our tax system, including sales taxes, state taxes, property taxes, and the employees' share of payroll contributions, is highly progressive compared to other countries until you get to the top .01% of income earners. And the top .01% still pay at a higher rate than the middle class and upper middle class. Why? Well, the actual people in the top .01% of taxpayers must change a lot from year to year. I'd suspect a high percentage are people who sold very successful businesses, that they may have spent lifetimes building, and so pay at the 23.8% capital gains tax rate. If you indexed capital gains for inflation, their income would be considerably lower, so the 23.8% is misleading.

As to your second link, as you've said, the tax cuts for individuals were piddly. The federal corporate rate cut, from 35% to 21%, was not. With state income taxes, the average rate was around 40%. This was much higher than every other country in the developed world. The corporate rate needed to come down, and was accomplished with other tax reform measures like the GILTI tax that closed loopholes and made it more attractive, from a tax perspective, to do business and add jobs in the USA instead of foreign countries. I'd attribute part of the booming economy in 2019, with low unemployment and higher middle class wages, to improvement in business conditions that resulted from the corporate tax cut, which took effect at the first of 2018. During the Biden administration we're still benefitting from this, and even Biden's smart enough not to entirely kill the goose that laid the golden egg. His proposals would only bring the rate back up to 28%.

Your favorite politicians and media sources are pulling the wool over your eyes. You should learn to research and think for yourself.[/QUOTE]Even you must realize as the rest of us do that none of that drivel refuted the inarguable fact that none of your favorite Repub tax cuts produced or precipitated a meaningful economic boom or expansion, certainly none as significant as the Dem alternatives and more often than not produce and precipitate the worst economic downturns and massive jobs destruction of the past 100 years.

Not being able to think for yourself or accurately assess easily observable reality, you obviously spend too much time reading fanciful theoretical nonsense and too little time watching what actually and factually happens in the real world.

[QUOTE=PVMonger;2787650]As well, your contention that the Waco mess was caused because the Feds wanted to seize the Branch Davidian's guns is incorrect. The Feds suspected that the Branch Davidians were modifying AR-15's with M-16 lower assemblies in order to make the AR-15's fully automatic. They obtained a search warrant based upon those suspicions.[/QUOTE]LOL. Oh yeah, Waco was a great operation run by the government. It was a fuck up on a monumental scale and unlike so many other government fuck ups that are buried, this one was open for everyone to see.

I think we need to start saying that the DEA, CIA, FBI, and ATF are de facto wings of the Democratic party given Dems never criticize any of the bone headed things they do.

[QUOTE=EihTooms;2787829]Even you must realize as the rest of us do that none of that drivel refuted the inarguable fact that none of your favorite Repub tax cuts produced or precipitated a meaningful economic boom or expansion, certainly none as significant as the Dem alternatives and more often than not produce and precipitate the worst economic downturns and massive jobs destruction of the past 100 years.

Not being able to think for yourself or accurately assess easily observable reality, you obviously spend too much time reading fanciful theoretical nonsense and too little time watching what actually and factually happens in the real world.[/QUOTE]So basically you are against people keeping more of their own money? And there is absolute no way the federal government can do with less, I. E. There is absolutely no waste there?

Matt Taibbi wrote that Congress could not even get its act together to do one adequate audit of the defense department. Not one.

Funny thing is I had a friend who got a government grant. Her biggest problem was figuring out how to spend all the money. She said, "If I do not spend it, they will not give it to me again next year."

But I am sure that is the only waste there is.

Effect of mask wearing is vainishingly small, according to RCTs. Gold standard in evidence.

[URL]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iEdWsE0gZdw[/URL]

[QUOTE=EihTooms;2787829]Not being able to think for yourself or accurately assess easily observable reality, you obviously spend too much time reading fanciful theoretical nonsense and too little time watching what actually and factually happens in the real world, [b]as presented by the politicians and pundits on MSNBC, CNN, the Thom Hartmann Show, and the Killing Capitalism Podcast[/b].[/QUOTE]FTFY. Finished that for you.

[QUOTE=Elvis2008;2787957]Funny thing is I had a friend who got a government grant. Her biggest problem was figuring out how to spend all the money. She said, "If I do not spend it, they will not give it to me again next year."

But I am sure that is the only waste there is.[/QUOTE]The same thing happens in my city. We got a grant for big buses, as the politicians in Washington figured that would reduce carbon emissions. You use it or you lose it. So now we have big buses tooling around town emitting carbon, with few if any passengers.

[QUOTE=Elvis2008;2787955]LOL. Oh yeah, Waco was a great operation run by the government. It was a fuck up on a monumental scale and unlike so many other government fuck ups that are buried, this one was open for everyone to see.[/QUOTE]Ruby Ridge is another example, with fewer fatalities. Unfortunately many learned nothing from these incidents.

[QUOTE=JustTK;2787987]Effect of mask wearing is vainishingly small, according to RCTs. Gold standard in evidence.

[URL]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iEdWsE0gZdw[/URL][/QUOTE]Elvis brought this paper to our attention and we've discussed it. Here's one of their plain language conclusions:

"We are uncertain whether wearing masks or N95/ P2 respirators helps to slow the spread of respiratory viruses based on the studies we assessed. ".

I shall continue to wear my KN95 mask when in crowded indoor settings where nobody knows me. And my self contained breathing apparatus and hazmat suit at indoor sporting events.

[URL]https://www.cochranelibrary.com/cdsr/doi/10.1002/14651858.CD006207.pub6/full[/URL]

[QUOTE=Elvis2008;2787955]LOL. Oh yeah, Waco was a great operation run by the government. It was a fuck up on a monumental scale and unlike so many other government fuck ups that are buried, this one was open for everyone to see.

I think we need to start saying that the DEA, CIA, FBI, and ATF are de facto wings of the Democratic party given Dems never criticize any of the bone headed things they do.[/QUOTE]Excellent post. The CIA, FBI, DEA, ATF, NSA and a few more are widely known as the alphabet agencies.

They are a cornerstone of the deep state alongside the democrats, RINOs, fake news media, hollyweird, Big Tech (slightly less so since Elon Musk took over Twitter and restored a degree of free speech), the military-industrial complex and Wall Street, all pushing The Agenda (wokery, feminism, homosexuality, trannies, anti-white, anti-male, affirmative action, open borders, trillions in debt, foreign wars, kiddie-fiddling: you know the drill by now).

[QUOTE=Tiny12;2788003]Elvis brought this paper to our attention and we've discussed it. [/QUOTE]I brought it up to reflect once again on how the minority was smeered by the majority brainwashed as being immoral and anti-science. When it was the majority that had swallowed lies as science.

[QUOTE=Tiny12;2787997]FTFY. Finished that for you.[/QUOTE]Nope. You're wrong again. [B]As shown by the actual historical record at the USA Bureau of Labor Statistics, National Bureau of Economic Research, Any Accurate Timeline and Chart of Recessions, Expansions, Jobs Creation and Jobs Losses ya' got, etc etc etc.[/B].

Sorry, you can't change the actual data and historical record of results in the Real World in a vain attempt to validate and "fix" your little fanciful, theoretical, academic math exercises and get away with it.