Firestarter

Given that cracking down on religious expression is a historically recognised step towards tyranny, subjugation, persecution, and sometimes genocide, well, yeah.

Maybe I should be mocking you for not having the freedom to own 12 (or more) guns, for not having the ability to make that choice for yourself, but that would be unkind. I just feel a little pity. Glad to hear it. I'm sure your kids are glad to hear it, too, when they're raped or murdered.

I love this. Crime rates won't go up because criminals will be afraid that they might be attacking other criminals. Like y'know the Grandmothers Gang, or the Ladies in Business Suits Bloods. Or maybe the Accountants' Yakuza. Fucking brilliant, I'm laughing so hard I can't see. Seriously, are you trying to make a serious argument for your side or is this a comedy routine?

Are you already reduced to comparing people's religions to their tastes in music?

Happy birthday, Tom. See you in a couple of weeks. xoxoxo

That's because you aren't an American. I think that sums it up perfectly right there. God bless America... land of the free, because she's the home of the brave.

If it was any other nation or religion or race in their place, it would be considered prejudiced. IMHO, thats racism.

So would hiding underground. Let's make all those damn religious people do that, then we won't have to see them. Well, if you prefer forcing religious people to hide symbols of their religion in certain environments to vigorously prosecuting violence against religious people (which the French have been notoriously lax about), you are by default on the side of the bigots. Religious people can already choose not to wear symbols of their religion. The French have decided to force people to hide them. In effect, the French have surrendered to the criminals and the bigots. Honestly, is anyone surprised? That's pretty much all they know how to do.

What would happen if all guns were taken away from everyone tomorrow? My answer was perfectly straightforward and direct. They won't be. Which part do you not understand? It was a stupid question based on an inane hypothetical and my reply was more than sufficient. I might as well ask you "What if tomorrow we invented technology that could raise people from the dead? Then we could correct any possible errors we might make in executing people; would you be in favour of the death penalty in that case?" You want to give me a straight answer to that one? What's the point? I like to keep debates grounded in, y'know, reality. I dunno, maybe that's just an American thing.

Awww, poor little widdums is taking his ballsy-wallsy and going home...

It's a bit too simple for Europeans, it seems. They can't quite make themselves accept that evil per se actually exists.

There is no need to quote my posts in their entirety when yours immediately follow mine. Stop. Then you are misreading them. What the hell kind of asinine question is that? Of course not. But the Jews were imprisoned for no reason other than the fact that they were Jews, and they were imprisoned unjustly AFTER their guns were taken away. Thus there could be no resistance. It absolutely was. What the fuck? Seriously, are you smoking something right now? Because if not you're even more of an idiot than I thought you were. Are you seriously equating the Jews, victims of genocide, with Saddam Hussein, a perpetrator of it? That's so obscene it doesn't even deserve a response. Yes. They won't be. True, but I never denied that. They didn't resist them in an organised and consistent way - most thought that things would just get better if they cooperated. That there would be progress if they showed signs of trust. Signs of peace. Sound familiar? They're your words.

Aha! So the solution to criminal bigots victimising people of faith is to make sure that the people of faith keep their faith hidden. Brilliant! After all, we wouldn't want to go after the actual murderers, right?

Imposing secularism by diktat is as bad as imposing religion. Of course, I live in the United States, a country which delights in such barbaric "rights" as bearing arms, executing criminals, and even (gasp!) freedom of worship, so maybe I'm just not advanced enough in a progressive sort of way to grasp your enlightened European viewpoint. Please explain to me how wearing a crucifix around your neck or a scarf or a yarmulke over your hair harms anybody. Anybody at all.

No, it was a necessary step towards killing them. A sign of lunacy. Yes. Because they gave up their guns. They didn't resist the Nazis then, and thus lost the means to resist them later.

France backs school head scarf ban - CNN story 494-36, an overwhelming victory for the ban. Once again the French prove that they can only win a fight when they're on the wrong side.

No one is advocating the overthrow of the United States government, least of all me. I'm talking about basic liberties essential to the survival of a free people.

First of all, intelligence and warfare capabilities would be tremendously decreased in the event of a de facto civil war. Second, it doesn't matter whether or not a citizens' resistance would succeed in the face of oppression. The very fact of its possibility is sufficient to deter most attempts to oppress the people. Take away the possibility, and you make it a thousand times easier for a tyrant to assume power.

I'm saying that free people with the ability to defend themselves are not shipped off to die in gas chambers. Only slaves. The Nazis didn't take a bunch of free, well-armed, organised human beings and dump them on the railway to Auschwitz. First they dehumanised them. Then they took away their guns. Then they segregated them. Then they imprisoned them. And finally, they killed them. Taking guns away from law-abiding citizens is a necessary step for any dictator. We have the absolute constitutional right to bear arms in this country, and free American citizens are not going to give up that right and thereby remove one great step from the path of a possible future tyrant.

A lack thereof would be even more of an assurance that such oppression could not be stopped. Incidentally, I think your statement about the relative weakness of American citizens was first made in reference to the colonists and the armies of the British Empire. I've said that the chances of it happening are lower under our system of government, with its checks and balances, accountability, transparency, independent review, freedom of speech, and freedom of the press, than under any other system of government known in history. But only fools bet on perfection.

Does that really apply in this day and age now? It's not like the Redcoats are going to come and drag you from your home. And it's not like Josef Stalin, Mao tse-Tung, Adolf Hitler, or Pol Pot committed some of the worst genocides in modern history after the citizens of their countries had been disarmed by law. Oh, wait. They did. Never again.

Yeah, by being tolerant and moderate in the measures it takes. Wait...

My favourite line of the day so far. Agreed 100%

"A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed." What part of "shall not be infringed" do you not understand? Bullshit.