Tuesday, October 6, 2015

Violence: a human trait or a disease?

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Carl Jarvis <carjar82@gmail.com>
Date: Tue, 6 Oct 2015 07:11:30 -0700
Subject: Re: [blind-democracy] Re: The Second Amendment Is a
Gun-Control Amendment
To: blind-democracy@freelists.org

I was a bit baffled by Dick's analogy, too. I hope he was not
suggesting, as some actually are, that we just let things go their
natural way, and they will work themselves out. If we try developing
a cure for some disease, eventually the very drugs we are using to
produce a cure will become ineffective by the adaptation of the
disease. Therefor we have only delayed the eventual outcome. But of
course this did not work in the case of Small Pox, a deadly disease
that is no longer taking lives. Using Small Pox as my guide, it seems
that we need to become clever enough to develop a cure for each
disease that is tailored to that specific disease.
So, taking the disease we call Violence, which manifests itself
through the use of physical force, in particular the use of guns to
dominate and control others, rather than allowing it to run its
natural course, which would cause great suffering and death, we look
for ways to destroy Violence at its root. During our Human existence,
thousands of years, we've tried controlling Violence through various
methods, none of which have been effective. In fact, Violence appears
to be alive and well and even growing. Far too often our efforts to
end this disease, Violence, is through the use of Force, often another
form of Violence.
We've tried changing Human nature through the development of religion,
but again, we've turned to Violence to attempt to alter our Nature and
end the disease through the use of that very disease.
It's possible that Violence is actually an integral part of our very
make-up and cannot be easily isolated. But if we are to survive as a
species, and prevent the destruction of the Flora and Fauna around us,
we must find a solution. Simply taking limited actions will not be
effective. As infected by Violence as the NRA is, putting the blame
on it will not reduce Violence.
We Humans think we are so clever? Then we'd better put our minds
toward solving this problem. Our future depends on it.

Carl Jarvis
On 10/6/15, Alice Dampman Humel <alicedh@verizon.net> wrote:
> I think that has already happened…when all we hear are the formulaic
> responses about hearts going out, thoughts and prayers, blah, blah, blah,
> the balloons and teddy bears making death almost a cartoon, when thousands
> dead in this senseless obsession with guns are dismissed with "stuff
> happens," I think immunity has already set in...
> On Oct 5, 2015, at 7:16 PM, R. E. Driscoll Sr <llocsirdsr@att.net> wrote:
>
>> Alice:
>> I intended to imply that society will become immune to the dead bodies. A
>> Pavlov Reaction - sort of - maybe.
>> R. E. (Dick) Driscoll, Sr.
>>
>> On 10/5/2015 5:00 PM, Alice Dampman Humel wrote:
>>> who can become immune to a bullet?
>>> On Oct 5, 2015, at 2:12 PM, R. E. Driscoll Sr <llocsirdsr@att.net>
>>> wrote:
>>>
>>>> Miriam:
>>>> I am trying to say that if we kill a sufficiently large number of people
>>>> those remaining will become immune to the effect of killing.
>>>> R. E. (Dick) Driscoll, Sr.
>>>>
>>>> On 10/5/2015 10:23 AM, Miriam Vieni wrote:
>>>>> I don't understand the analogy. Are you saying that if people keep
>>>>> shooting
>>>>> other people, eventually, the other people will stop dying?
>>>>>
>>>>> Miriam
>>>>>
>>>>> ________________________________
>>>>>
>>>>> From: blind-democracy-bounce@freelists.org
>>>>> [mailto:blind-democracy-bounce@freelists.org] On Behalf Of R. E.
>>>>> Driscoll Sr
>>>>> Sent: Monday, October 05, 2015 10:32 AM
>>>>> To: blind-democracy@freelists.org
>>>>> Subject: [blind-democracy] Re: The Second Amendment Is a Gun-Control
>>>>> Amendment
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> Miriam:
>>>>> Medically speaking the continued use of powerful antibiotics will
>>>>> slowly
>>>>> produce organisms which are resistant to the antibiotic being used.
>>>>> R. E. (Dick) Driscoll, Sr.
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> On 10/4/2015 8:22 PM, Miriam Vieni wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> Gopnik writes: "Gun control ends gun violence as surely as
>>>>> antibiotics end
>>>>> bacterial infections, as surely as vaccines end childhood
>>>>> measles-not
>>>>> perfectly and in every case, but overwhelmingly and everywhere that
>>>>> it's
>>>>> been taken seriously and tried at length. "
>>>>>
>>>>> Participants consoling each other during a candlelight vigil for the
>>>>> nine
>>>>> people who were killed in a shooting at Umpqua Community College, in
>>>>> Roseburg, Oregon, on Thursday. The gunman also was killed. (photo:
>>>>> Rich
>>>>> Pedroncelli/AP)
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> The Second Amendment Is a Gun-Control Amendment
>>>>> By Adam Gopnik, The New Yorker
>>>>> 04 October 15
>>>>>
>>>>> The tragedy happens-yesterday at a school in Oregon, and then as it
>>>>> will
>>>>> again-exactly as predicted, and uniquely here. It hardly seems worth
>>>>> the
>>>>> energy to once again make the same essential point that the
>>>>> President-his
>>>>> growing exasperation and disbelief moving, if not effective, as he
>>>>> serves as
>>>>> national mourner-has now made again: we know how to fix this. Gun
>>>>> control
>>>>> ends gun violence as surely an antibiotics end bacterial infections,
>>>>> as
>>>>> surely as vaccines end childhood measles-not perfectly and in every
>>>>> case,
>>>>> but overwhelmingly and everywhere that it's been taken seriously and
>>>>> tried
>>>>> at length. These lives can be saved. Kids continue to die en masse
>>>>> because
>>>>> one political party won't allow that to change, and the party won't
>>>>> allow it
>>>>> to change because of the irrational and often paranoid fixations
>>>>> that make
>>>>> the massacre of students and children an acceptable cost of
>>>>> fetishizing
>>>>> guns.
>>>>> In the course of today's conversation, two issues may come up,
>>>>> treated in
>>>>> what is now called a trolling tone-pretending to show concern but
>>>>> actually
>>>>> standing in the way of real argument. One is the issue of mental
>>>>> health and
>>>>> this particular killer's apparent religious bigotry. Everyone crazy
>>>>> enough
>>>>> to pick up a gun and kill many people is crazy enough to have an
>>>>> ideology to
>>>>> attach to the act. The point-the only point-is that, everywhere
>>>>> else, that
>>>>> person rants in isolation or on his keyboard; only in America do we
>>>>> cheerfully supply him with military-style weapons to express his
>>>>> rage. As
>>>>> the otherwise reliably Republican (but still Canadian-raised) David
>>>>> Frum
>>>>> wisely writes: "Every mass shooter has his own hateful motive. They
>>>>> all use
>>>>> the same tool."
>>>>> More standard, and seemingly more significant, is the claim-often
>>>>> made by
>>>>> those who say they recognize the tragedy of mass shootings and
>>>>> pretend, at
>>>>> least, that they would like to see gun sanity reign in America-that
>>>>> the
>>>>> Second Amendment acts as a barrier to anything like the gun laws,
>>>>> passed
>>>>> after mass shootings, that have saved so many lives in Canada and
>>>>> Australia.
>>>>> Like it or not, according to this argument, the Constitution limits
>>>>> our
>>>>> ability to control the number and kinds of guns in private hands.
>>>>> Even the
>>>>> great Jim Jeffries, in his memorable standup on American madness,
>>>>> says, "Why
>>>>> can't you change the Second Amendment? It's an amendment!"-as though
>>>>> further
>>>>> amending it were necessary to escape it.
>>>>> In point of historical and constitutional fact, nothing could be
>>>>> further
>>>>> from the truth: the only amendment necessary for gun legislation, on
>>>>> the
>>>>> local or national level, is the Second Amendment itself, properly
>>>>> understood, as it was for two hundred years in its plain original
>>>>> sense.
>>>>> This sense can be summed up in a sentence: if the Founders hadn't
>>>>> wanted
>>>>> guns to be regulated, and thoroughly, they would not have put the
>>>>> phrase
>>>>> "well regulated" in the amendment. (A quick thought experiment: What
>>>>> if
>>>>> those words were not in the preamble to the amendment and a
>>>>> gun-sanity group
>>>>> wanted to insert them? Would the National Rifle Association be for
>>>>> or
>>>>> against this change? It's obvious, isn't it?)
>>>>> The confusion is contemporary. (And, let us hope, temporary.) It
>>>>> rises from
>>>>> the younger-than-springtime decision D.C. v. Heller, from 2008, when
>>>>> Justice
>>>>> Antonin Scalia, writing for a 5-4 majority, insisted that, whether
>>>>> he wanted
>>>>> it to or not, the Second Amendment protected an individual right to
>>>>> own a
>>>>> weapon. (A certain disingenuous show of disinterestedness is typical
>>>>> of his
>>>>> opinions.)
>>>>> This was an astounding constitutional reading, or misreading, as
>>>>> original as
>>>>> Citizens United, and as idiosyncratic as the reasoning in Bush v.
>>>>> Gore,
>>>>> which found a conclusive principle designed to be instantly
>>>>> discarded-or,
>>>>> for that matter, as the readiness among the court's right wing to
>>>>> overturn a
>>>>> health-care law passed by a supermajority of the legislature over a
>>>>> typo.
>>>>> Anyone who wants to both grasp that decision's radicalism and get a
>>>>> calm,
>>>>> instructive view of what the Second Amendment does say, and was
>>>>> intended to
>>>>> say, and was always before been understood to say, should read
>>>>> Justice John
>>>>> Paul Stevens's brilliant, persuasive dissent in that case. Every
>>>>> person who
>>>>> despairs of the sanity of the country should read it, at least once,
>>>>> not
>>>>> just for its calm and irrefutable case-making but as a reminder of
>>>>> what
>>>>> sanity sounds like.
>>>>> Stevens, a Republican judge appointed by a Republican President,
>>>>> brilliantly
>>>>> analyzes the history of the amendment, making it plain that for
>>>>> Scalia, et
>>>>> al., to arrive at their view, they have to reference not the
>>>>> deliberations
>>>>> that produced the amendment but, rather, bring in British common law
>>>>> and
>>>>> lean on interpretations that arose long after the amendment was
>>>>> passed. Both
>>>>> "keep arms" and "bear arms," he demonstrates, were, in the writers'
>>>>> day,
>>>>> military terms used in military contexts. (Gary Wills has usefully
>>>>> illuminated this truth in the New York Review of Books.) The intent
>>>>> of the
>>>>> Second Amendment, Stevens explains, was obviously to secure "to the
>>>>> people a
>>>>> right to use and possess arms in conjunction with service in a
>>>>> well-regulated militia." The one seemingly sound argument in the
>>>>> Scalia
>>>>> decision-that "the people" in the Second Amendment ought to be the
>>>>> same
>>>>> "people" referenced in the other amendments, that is, everybody-is
>>>>> exactly
>>>>> the interpretation that the preamble was meant to guard against.
>>>>> Stevens's dissent should be read in full, but his conclusion in
>>>>> particular
>>>>> is clear and ringing:
>>>>> The right the Court announces [in Heller] was not "enshrined" in the
>>>>> Second
>>>>> Amendment by the Framers; it is the product of today's law-changing
>>>>> decision. . . . Until today, it has been understood that
>>>>> legislatures may
>>>>> regulate the civilian use and misuse of firearms so long as they do
>>>>> not
>>>>> interfere with the preservation of a well-regulated militia. The
>>>>> Court's
>>>>> announcement of a new constitutional right to own and use firearms
>>>>> for
>>>>> private purposes upsets that settled understanding . . .
>>>>> Justice Stevens and his colleagues were not saying, a mere seven
>>>>> years ago,
>>>>> that the gun-control legislation in dispute in Heller alone was
>>>>> constitutional within the confines of the Second Amendment. They
>>>>> were
>>>>> asserting that essentially every kind of legislation concerning guns
>>>>> in the
>>>>> hands of individuals was compatible with the Second
>>>>> Amendment-indeed, that
>>>>> regulating guns in individual hands was one of the purposes for
>>>>> which the
>>>>> amendment was offered.
>>>>> So there is no need to amend the Constitution, or to alter the
>>>>> historical
>>>>> understanding of what the Second Amendment meant. No new reasoning
>>>>> or
>>>>> tortured rereading is needed to reconcile the Constitution with
>>>>> common
>>>>> sense. All that is necessary for sanity to rule again, on the
>>>>> question of
>>>>> guns, is to restore the amendment to its commonly understood meaning
>>>>> as it
>>>>> was articulated by this wise Republican judge a scant few years ago.
>>>>> And all
>>>>> you need for that is one saner and, in the true sense, conservative
>>>>> Supreme
>>>>> Court vote. One Presidential election could make that happen.
>>>>>
>>>>> Error! Hyperlink reference not valid. Error! Hyperlink reference
>>>>> not valid.
>>>>>
>>>>> Participants consoling each other during a candlelight vigil for the
>>>>> nine
>>>>> people who were killed in a shooting at Umpqua Community College, in
>>>>> Roseburg, Oregon, on Thursday. The gunman also was killed. (photo:
>>>>> Rich
>>>>> Pedroncelli/AP)
>>>>>
>>>>> http://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/the-second-amendment-is-a-gun-contro
>>>>>
>>>>> l-amendmenthttp://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/the-second-amendment-is-a
>>>>> -gun-control-amendment
>>>>> The Second Amendment Is a Gun-Control Amendment
>>>>> By Adam Gopnik, The New Yorker
>>>>> 04 October 15
>>>>> he tragedy happens-yesterday at a school in Oregon, and then as it
>>>>> will
>>>>> again-exactly as predicted, and uniquely here. It hardly seems worth
>>>>> the
>>>>> energy to once again make the same essential point that the
>>>>> President-his
>>>>> growing exasperation and disbelief moving, if not effective, as he
>>>>> serves as
>>>>> national mourner-has now made again: we know how to fix this. Gun
>>>>> control
>>>>> ends gun violence as surely an antibiotics end bacterial infections,
>>>>> as
>>>>> surely as vaccines end childhood measles-not perfectly and in every
>>>>> case,
>>>>> but overwhelmingly and everywhere that it's been taken seriously and
>>>>> tried
>>>>> at length. These lives can be saved. Kids continue to die en masse
>>>>> because
>>>>> one political party won't allow that to change, and the party won't
>>>>> allow it
>>>>> to change because of the irrational and often paranoid fixations
>>>>> that make
>>>>> the massacre of students and children an acceptable cost of
>>>>> fetishizing
>>>>> guns.
>>>>> In the course of today's conversation, two issues may come up,
>>>>> treated in
>>>>> what is now called a trolling tone-pretending to show concern but
>>>>> actually
>>>>> standing in the way of real argument. One is the issue of mental
>>>>> health and
>>>>> this particular killer's apparent religious bigotry. Everyone crazy
>>>>> enough
>>>>> to pick up a gun and kill many people is crazy enough to have an
>>>>> ideology to
>>>>> attach to the act. The point-the only point-is that, everywhere
>>>>> else, that
>>>>> person rants in isolation or on his keyboard; only in America do we
>>>>> cheerfully supply him with military-style weapons to express his
>>>>> rage. As
>>>>> the otherwise reliably Republican (but still Canadian-raised) David
>>>>> Frum
>>>>> wisely writes: "Every mass shooter has his own hateful motive. They
>>>>> all use
>>>>> the same tool."
>>>>> More standard, and seemingly more significant, is the claim-often
>>>>> made by
>>>>> those who say they recognize the tragedy of mass shootings and
>>>>> pretend, at
>>>>> least, that they would like to see gun sanity reign in America-that
>>>>> the
>>>>> Second Amendment acts as a barrier to anything like the gun laws,
>>>>> passed
>>>>> after mass shootings, that have saved so many lives in Canada and
>>>>> Australia.
>>>>> Like it or not, according to this argument, the Constitution limits
>>>>> our
>>>>> ability to control the number and kinds of guns in private hands.
>>>>> Even the
>>>>> great Jim Jeffries, in his memorable standup on American madness,
>>>>> says, "Why
>>>>> can't you change the Second Amendment? It's an amendment!"-as though
>>>>> further
>>>>> amending it were necessary to escape it.
>>>>> In point of historical and constitutional fact, nothing could be
>>>>> further
>>>>> from the truth: the only amendment necessary for gun legislation, on
>>>>> the
>>>>> local or national level, is the Second Amendment itself, properly
>>>>> understood, as it was for two hundred years in its plain original
>>>>> sense.
>>>>> This sense can be summed up in a sentence: if the Founders hadn't
>>>>> wanted
>>>>> guns to be regulated, and thoroughly, they would not have put the
>>>>> phrase
>>>>> "well regulated" in the amendment. (A quick thought experiment: What
>>>>> if
>>>>> those words were not in the preamble to the amendment and a
>>>>> gun-sanity group
>>>>> wanted to insert them? Would the National Rifle Association be for
>>>>> or
>>>>> against this change? It's obvious, isn't it?)
>>>>> The confusion is contemporary. (And, let us hope, temporary.) It
>>>>> rises from
>>>>> the younger-than-springtime decision D.C. v. Heller, from 2008, when
>>>>> Justice
>>>>> Antonin Scalia, writing for a 5-4 majority, insisted that, whether
>>>>> he wanted
>>>>> it to or not, the Second Amendment protected an individual right to
>>>>> own a
>>>>> weapon. (A certain disingenuous show of disinterestedness is typical
>>>>> of his
>>>>> opinions.)
>>>>> This was an astounding constitutional reading, or misreading, as
>>>>> original as
>>>>> Citizens United, and as idiosyncratic as the reasoning in Bush v.
>>>>> Gore,
>>>>> which found a conclusive principle designed to be instantly
>>>>> discarded-or,
>>>>> for that matter, as the readiness among the court's right wing to
>>>>> overturn a
>>>>> health-care law passed by a supermajority of the legislature over a
>>>>> typo.
>>>>> Anyone who wants to both grasp that decision's radicalism and get a
>>>>> calm,
>>>>> instructive view of what the Second Amendment does say, and was
>>>>> intended to
>>>>> say, and was always before been understood to say, should read
>>>>> Justice John
>>>>> Paul Stevens's brilliant, persuasive dissent in that case. Every
>>>>> person who
>>>>> despairs of the sanity of the country should read it, at least once,
>>>>> not
>>>>> just for its calm and irrefutable case-making but as a reminder of
>>>>> what
>>>>> sanity sounds like.
>>>>> Stevens, a Republican judge appointed by a Republican President,
>>>>> brilliantly
>>>>> analyzes the history of the amendment, making it plain that for
>>>>> Scalia, et
>>>>> al., to arrive at their view, they have to reference not the
>>>>> deliberations
>>>>> that produced the amendment but, rather, bring in British common law
>>>>> and
>>>>> lean on interpretations that arose long after the amendment was
>>>>> passed. Both
>>>>> "keep arms" and "bear arms," he demonstrates, were, in the writers'
>>>>> day,
>>>>> military terms used in military contexts. (Gary Wills has usefully
>>>>> illuminated this truth in the New York Review of Books.) The intent
>>>>> of the
>>>>> Second Amendment, Stevens explains, was obviously to secure "to the
>>>>> people a
>>>>> right to use and possess arms in conjunction with service in a
>>>>> well-regulated militia." The one seemingly sound argument in the
>>>>> Scalia
>>>>> decision-that "the people" in the Second Amendment ought to be the
>>>>> same
>>>>> "people" referenced in the other amendments, that is, everybody-is
>>>>> exactly
>>>>> the interpretation that the preamble was meant to guard against.
>>>>> Stevens's dissent should be read in full, but his conclusion in
>>>>> particular
>>>>> is clear and ringing:
>>>>> The right the Court announces [in Heller] was not "enshrined" in the
>>>>> Second
>>>>> Amendment by the Framers; it is the product of today's law-changing
>>>>> decision. . . . Until today, it has been understood that
>>>>> legislatures may
>>>>> regulate the civilian use and misuse of firearms so long as they do
>>>>> not
>>>>> interfere with the preservation of a well-regulated militia. The
>>>>> Court's
>>>>> announcement of a new constitutional right to own and use firearms
>>>>> for
>>>>> private purposes upsets that settled understanding . . .
>>>>> Justice Stevens and his colleagues were not saying, a mere seven
>>>>> years ago,
>>>>> that the gun-control legislation in dispute in Heller alone was
>>>>> constitutional within the confines of the Second Amendment. They
>>>>> were
>>>>> asserting that essentially every kind of legislation concerning guns
>>>>> in the
>>>>> hands of individuals was compatible with the Second
>>>>> Amendment-indeed, that
>>>>> regulating guns in individual hands was one of the purposes for
>>>>> which the
>>>>> amendment was offered.
>>>>> So there is no need to amend the Constitution, or to alter the
>>>>> historical
>>>>> understanding of what the Second Amendment meant. No new reasoning
>>>>> or
>>>>> tortured rereading is needed to reconcile the Constitution with
>>>>> common
>>>>> sense. All that is necessary for sanity to rule again, on the
>>>>> question of
>>>>> guns, is to restore the amendment to its commonly understood meaning
>>>>> as it
>>>>> was articulated by this wise Republican judge a scant few years ago.
>>>>> And all
>>>>> you need for that is one saner and, in the true sense, conservative
>>>>> Supreme
>>>>> Court vote. One Presidential election could make that happen.
>>>>> http://e-max.it/posizionamento-siti-web/socialize
>>>>> http://e-max.it/posizionamento-siti-web/socialize
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> ________________________________
>>>>>
>>>>> Avast logo <http://www.avast.com/> This email has been checked for
>>>>> viruses by Avast antivirus software.
>>>>> www.avast.com <http://www.avast.com/>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> This email has been checked for viruses by Avast antivirus software.
>>>> www.avast.com
>>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> This email has been checked for viruses by Avast antivirus software.
>> www.avast.com
>>
>>
>
>

No comments:

Post a Comment