US needs to take lessons from Europe regarding drastically lowering homicide rate

[BackInTheGame78]

"Think of the children who'll be pulverized into chitterlings, unless we get assault rifles out of civilian hands!!!" is the go-to argument of every Daily Show watching gun control nut in America

Such an argument rests upon the uninterrogated assumption that every child's life is worth preserving, even when they're exhibiting more red flags than an Alonzo J White convention https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_flag_(American_slavery)

So the option is to let kids get killed?

WTF kind of idiotic idea is this? You are a special kind of Piece of Sh!t.

 

[Scaramouche]

Hi Baron of hair,
" You are a special kind of Piece of Sh!t."...And here's me thinking charm died with Charles Boyer LOL.

 

[FlirtLife]

Oh, I'm not blaming the US, but the interbellum years leading up to Hitler's rise to power were influenced by many international events. Among those events was the Crash which send shockwaves through economies worldwide and Germany was already on the brink of a bankrupt economy, so the shockwave hit hard in their fragile economy.

I'm not saying it was a crucial event like the assassination of Franz Ferdinand by Gavrilo Princip that kickstarted The Great War (WW1), because Hitler's rise to power was well on its way, but it played the Nazis right in the cards to accelerate the growing resentment against the German government.

And in the Netherlands, Wilders, leader of the populist PVV party, won the election but nobody wanted him to be prime minister, so he had to agree to appoint Schoof to the post of prime minister.

If we're drawing parallels to the present, is worth mentioning 20% tariffs created by the Smoot-Harley act. I guess war-torn countries had cheap labor, which hurt U.S. industries. To protect jobs, Congress charged 20% more on imported goods - and then other countries imposed their own tariffs in turn. Those tariffs (which slowed growth) were a factor in the stock market crash.

One candidate has proposed 10% tariffs across the board... half the tariffs that crashed the U.S. stock market a hundred years ago. And in the world's largest trade relationship, U.S. and China, those tariffs would be 60-100%. Seems close to what caused a crash before.

I believe Wilders has also visited Sweden, trying to stir up Muslim anger by burning a Koran there. In Sweden, opposing parties will form temporary coalitions to pass a budget, in order to avoid far-right parties being part of government.

 

[FlirtLife]

That is a tragedy. Wilders missed his chance to save Holland from Islamization, at the menacing hands of that 6% of The Dutch population who identify as Muslim

This is more nightmarish than learning that The Feminists stopped The Men's Rights Movement dead in it's tracks, by breaking into the homes of every card-carrying MRA on Earth, then wiring each entrance and exit of said homes with claymore mines. Otherwise the born malcontents who make up AVFM, and the failed artists over at HBR wouldn't have been forced to confine themselves to sh-tposting on social media then confusing that for activism

Rather than getting out from behind their keyboards, knocking on doors out in reality, and serving as effective salesmen for policy changes like ending The Drug War and increasing access to vocational training

Yeah, those of us who maintain that school shootings are overall a net benefit for society (The planet is being cleansed of both future Gender Studies grads AND True Believers in Red Pill Theolgy)are rarely given any airtime, when the subject of gun control is broached

Your anti-trolling medication ran out.

 

[FlirtLife]

Half of Europe was ruled by the Soviets for 50 years after ww2. Interventionism is a failed ideology. Expansion of war just leads to more death and destruction. See both world wars, Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, the cold war. Goes against the founding principles of the US but that ship has sailed. Free and open trade are the best ways toward peace, not more warfare.

Are you claiming without U.S. intervention, WWI and WWII would have far less death and destruction? Remind me again how the U.S. started WWII, caused the holocaust, and caused the slaughter of civilians by the Japanese army?

Trade neither stopped WWI, nor stopped Russia from invading Ukraine. In contrast, interventionism is at the heart of NATO, where attacking one member become a war with all members. If you think trade worked and NATO didn't, why did Russia invade Ukraine instead of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania?

 

[BaronOfHair]

So the option is to let kids get killed?

We've been indulging in Polarized Thinking https://acognitiveconnection.com/everything-you-need-to-know-about-polarized-thinking/#:~:text=What is Polarized Thinking?,nuances of situations or issues on this subject, ever since Columbine.... Rarely, if ever, does anyone discuss the blessings such mishaps bestow upon our society

Unpleasant as the aftermath of your typical shooting may be to look at, let's not ignore that we've also likely been relieved of future teen moms, dope fiends, and successors to Lindy West and Carl Benjamin alike


"You are a special kind of Piece of Sh!t"

One stuffed with plenty of corn and peanuts alike, to be sure

 

[BaronOfHair]

And here's me thinking charm died with Charles Boyer LOL.

That died when Mike C. Boyer won his game of Russian Roulette https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Boyer

 

[BaronOfHair]

Your anti-trolling medication ran out.

The absurdity of certain things (Such as persisting in this fruitless crusade to restrict gun ownership even further)can only be illuminated via comedy and satire

 

[BackInTheGame78]

That's the thing. America World Police is not interested in keeping world peace, but in protecting greedy capitalists. Nobody wanted to buy cheap Chinese crap. The biggest purveyor of cheap Chinese crap is the US, where the 'open market' was thoroughly exploited by Japanese and Chinese producers of crap. Who used unfair advantages and longterm goals flooding the US market with their inferior but cheaper products to destroy American companies.
This happened to a lesser degree in Europe, where the market wasn't as wide open and countries protected their producers by not allowing the Japanese and Chinese flooding their market with inferior crap made in sweatshops by cheap labour.
If you look at the American economy of the late fifties / early sixties, you can see how China and Japan flooding the American market with underprices televisions forced American companies like Zenith to fold their television business under the thoroughly unfair competition while similar Dutch companies like Philips didn't go bankrupt.
And, of course, the greedy American producers moved their factories abroad and had their products made in the same cheap labour sweatshops China used, so the sole selling point (American quality) was lost.

The way we all got 'hooked on consumer products' can also be put at the feet of the greedy American producers of consumer goods. Compare for instance the build quality of consumer electronics in the 1950s with the current crap that falls apart after a few years. Everything has a built-in expiration date that gets shorter and shorter and the mountain of discarded crappy consumer goods gets higher and higher until we choke on our own garbage.

And the reason you also aren't still operating concentration camps at Westerbrok, Vught and Amersfoort with the infamous "Arbeit Macht Frei" slogans atop them and under the Third Reich is also because of the US.

So while you are trashing us, at least do so with a modicum of respect.

You can hate us all you want, but the reason you can even say that today is because of us.

 

[BackInTheGame78]

Apart from quoting my post about POST WW2 AMERICA, with your 'history buff' knowledge, you still fail to see the real reason why America got involved in WW2, and it had NOTHING to do 'saving Europe'. If America had had ANY interest in saving Europe, they would've gotten involved in 1940 at the latest. No, they saw countries being oppressed and millions of people being slaughtered from their comfy chairs. By the time they got involved, the German war machine was pretty much destroyed by the Allied forces and the USSR. Then the Japanese were stupid enough to attack Pearl Harbour and now America got involved. Not to save Europe, but they could see how the Allied forces and the Russians were about to win and they would divide Europe. America then joined the Allied war efforts to make sure they would have their seat in Jakarta to divide the European Pie.



Post-WW2 'team America world police' is not only unable to actually police the world, they are only protecting American interests and resources (like oil) under the pretence that the whole world profits from their 'sacrifices'. Should I respect your ill informed opinion and soften the blow? Yes, you read a lot of books, but you fail to interpret what you're reading. And you keep harping back to the first and only time that America won a war. Which was already mostly over when they came involved.

Your rhetoric "without the US Europe would still be under the yoke of the Nazis' is extremely ignorant, but contagious to American minds because it would be hard to swallow that America twiddled its thumbs for four years and allows four million people to die before they came in like vultures to not miss their chance at the carcass of a war-torn Europe.

Back to your regular programming.

Or perhaps the US thought you could handle it yourselves. I mean you demilitarized them, took key territories crucial for iron and coal production that lessened their capabilities by almost half, forced them to pay outrageous reparations sending them into economic ruin, then did nothing when you saw them building up their armies for years and years and then acted surprised when they attacked again. Did you really think they were doing it for show?


You caused it on your own by the harshness with which you treated them after the first WW, making the population hell bent on revenge, then your continued turning of the blind eye as they violated the terms of the treaty for at least half a decade. In some ways, you got what you asked for.

Big mistake as it turned out.

Stop blaming the US for problems you created, violations you ignored and own your failures over many years leading up to that point, which at ANY point you could have stepped in and held them to the terms of the treaty, which would have demilitarized them again and prevented what happened.

Essentially you are no different than the women who play the victim instead of taking responsibility and owning their own sh!t that caused many of the issues.

You expect the US to spoon-feed you everything while you sit around crying like a newborn baby asking for a bottle and only crapping your diapers as repayment then expecting us to wipe your ass.

 

[Bible_Belt]

Post-WW2 'team America world police' is not only unable to actually police the world, they are only protecting American interests and resources (like oil)

The world runs on energy, and it would be several times more expensive without globalism. The world police protect oil shipments from places like Iran, because that oil is a globally traded commodity with a largely static demand. Take any supply off the market, and the price goes up for everyone. Americans buy a lot of gasoline, and if the price were to double or triple suddenly, we'd want to riot.

 

[9-3enthusiast]

You picked an awful day to gush over Europe's homicide rate https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.cnn.com/cnn/2024/07/30/uk/southport-stabbing-attack-explainer

Multiple killings here in UK are very rare - That's why they're such big news when it happens.

Meanwhile, in USA:
Up to July 31st 2024: 372 shootings (average 2 PER DAY)
473 dead 1,528 wounded
And so far in August, another 24dead and 131 hurt.
And that's only shooting incidents... how many more by other methods?

List of mass shootings in the United States in 2024 - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[BackInTheGame78]

The world runs on energy, and it would be several times more expensive without globalism. The world police protect oil shipments from places like Iran, because that oil is a globally traded commodity with a largely static demand. Take any supply off the market, and the price goes up for everyone. Americans buy a lot of gasoline, and if the price were to double or triple suddenly, we'd want to riot.

Ironically the US is the biggest producer of oil in the world as well.

 

[BackInTheGame78]

And you can see the difference in fuel prices between the US and Europe. You say it's the same supply, but our prices are pretty much double/triple about what Americans pay for the same thing. Any US candidate running for office who would even mention increasing fuel prices just won't get elected.

The thing is, I don't mind that America uses their military for protecting their trade and resources. I understand it perfectly, but the issue is with the arrogant notion of 'policing the world'. America only polices something when it's to their benefit. If they were fighting global injustice, where is their protection of Tibet against the Chinese occupation? Because Tibet doesn't have any resources that America can use, and America is on the side of China, who is a trade partner to the US (among other things).

So, America should get off its high horse of moral superiority about how necessary they are policing the world. The world knows that Americans don't lift a finger unless it's profitable to Americans. You think they fought in Afghanistan because they want to help the Afghan people? No, it's because they didn't want the poppy fields to fall into the hands of the Soviets. So now Afghanistan is back to being ruled by the Taliban.


And... if that were true, why the hell do they need foreign oil? They produce the most gasoline. They ran out of oil. And they have to get it in Iran and other oil producing countries. You cannot pretend they are doing this for non-Americans. Every thing America does under the guise of policing the world benefits solely the Americans.
America's 'world policing' didn't help the Koreans, or the Vietnamese, or the Iraqis or the Afghans or anyone in the other conflicts they meddled in. America helps Saddam Hussein into power to keep Iraqi oil prices low, then, when Iraq doesn't want to sell oil for the prices America wanted to pay for it, America fabricated a reason (the never found Weapons of Mass Destruction) in order to wage war to protect their oil fields.

I'm sorry, but both your views are myopically American. If you look at American foreign and domestic behaviour from a global perspective, you would see quite another picture. And you would see why America is not that popular anymore as they were right after WW2. American popularity has been on the decline since Vietnam.

And the moment America started bragging about policing the world, what was left of that respect is dwindling fast. Like you said, "You can hate us all you want, but you need us." If you do so much good in the world and you receive that much hate, you might start to wonder why they don't love you for what you're doing.

Because they export the most oil as well for profit and also use the most oil in the world as well.

Why do you want to keep arguing basic facts?

They are #1 in oil producing by almost double the next closest country.

"In 2023, the United States was the world's largest oil producer, producing an average of 19.4 million barrels of oil per day. This was almost 12 million barrels more than in 2010, largely due to advances in unconventional tight oil production. Saudi Arabia and Russia were the second and third largest producers, respectively, producing around 11.4 and 11.1 million barrels per day. "

"In 2023, the United States and China were the world's largest oil consumers, consuming 19 million and 16.6 million barrels per day, respectively. The U.S. consumed 20.3% of the world's oil, while China consumed 13.2%. Together, the U.S. and China accounted for almost half of the world's fossil fuel consumption."

Again...maybe you should stop bashing the US since YOUR country is the largest importer of US oil by a mile. Guess all those windmills aren't doing as good a job producing power as they once did.

 

[BaronOfHair]

Meanwhile, in USA:
Up to July 31st 2024: 372 shootings (average 2 PER DAY)
473 dead 1,528 wounded
And so far in August, another 24dead and 131 hurt.
And that's only shooting incidents... how many more by other methods?

List of mass shootings in the United States in 2024 - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

We're a nation that's never short on excitement, this is true

 

[FlirtLife]

U.S. shale oil (aka hydraulic fracturing) started ramping up about a decade ago, and now accounts for about half of U.S. oil production. I wouldn't blame someone for not knowing a relatively recent development in the mix of U.S. oil production. I'm sure many Americans don't know about it - President Biden avoids talking about it.

https://www.stlouisfed.org/-/media/project/frbstl/stlouisfed/blog/2018/may/blogimage_oilproductionprices_051418.png

 

[Bible_Belt]

Any oil taken off the world market raises the price for everyone everywhere. It doesn't matter if one particular country imports or exports, the price still goes up. Even though the US makes plenty now, if we took Iran offline, the price would go up globally, and the US oil would go to whoever pays the most. Energy use isn't a choice. Everyone consumes it, and it has to come from somewhere. When the cost goes up, everyone gets poorer. Global policing is the only thing keeping prices as low as they are now.

And if you're participating in this discussion on a smart phone or other modern device, that wouldn't be possible without global trade.

 

[BackInTheGame78]

Any oil taken off the world market raises the price for everyone everywhere. It doesn't matter if one particular country imports or exports, the price still goes up. Even though the US makes plenty now, if we took Iran offline, the price would go up globally, and the US oil would go to whoever pays the most. Energy use isn't a choice. Everyone consumes it, and it has to come from somewhere. When the cost goes up, everyone gets poorer. Global policing is the only thing keeping prices as low as they are now.

And if you're participating in this discussion on a smart phone or other modern device, that wouldn't be possible without global trade.

The US is the world's largest producer of oil by nearly double the next closest country, but also the top consumer and one of the top exporters.

So effectively we need to import a lot just to keep up with the demand at home.

 

[Bible_Belt]

The US is the world's largest producer of oil by nearly double the next closest country, but also the top consumer and one of the top exporters.

So effectively we need to import a lot just to keep up with the demand at home.

And all that plastic crap from China is made from imported petrochemicals. China imports almost all of the raw materials they use for their exported goods.

 

[Vanderdonck]

Are you claiming without U.S. intervention, WWI and WWII would have far less death and destruction? Remind me again how the U.S. started WWII, caused the holocaust, and caused the slaughter of civilians by the Japanese army?

Trade neither stopped WWI, nor stopped Russia from invading Ukraine. In contrast, interventionism is at the heart of NATO, where attacking one member become a war with all members. If you think trade worked and NATO didn't, why did Russia invade Ukraine instead of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania?

Unless directly attacked, there is no reason to get entangled in foreign conflicts. The U.S. was attacked by Japan so its response in the Pacific theater was justified. Maybe Germany would have attacked the east coast; it's possible as there were U boats off the coast of New Jersey. Entering the war in Europe did not prevent it from continuing and expanding.

The conflicts you mention started because of bloodthirsty and greedy governments, not free and open trade. Military intervention, "aid," and sanctions do nothing to alleviate the damage of warfare and it is a fool's errand to try to divide the world between angels and devils.
Otherwise the US should intervene against every bad actor, and plenty of nations would have been justified in bombing the US for its unprovoked foreign invasions, of which there are many.