American hedonism closes its eyes to death, and has been
incapable of exorcising the destructive power of the moment
with a wisdom like that of the Epicureans of antiquity.
- Octavio Paz
Death is un-American, and an affront to every citizen's inalienable
right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
- Arnold Toynbee
the_band_huge
the_band_huge
"As long as such self-serving hypocrisy
motivates America's response, Ukraine will
only sink further into needless bloodshed,
and that blood will be on America's head."
JOIN THE DISCUSSION
the_band_huge
In America everybody is of the opinion that he has no social superiors,
since all men are equal, but he does not admit that he has no social inferiors,
for, from the time of Jefferson onward, the doctrine that all men are equal
applies only upwards, not downwards.
― Bertrand Russell
Global Coke
Global Coke
"What those 'racists' are reflexively and rightly reacting
to is the soulless chill as the fire goes out beneath the
melting pot. Those who think America can thrive as a
'cultural mosaic' are worse than fools; they're Canadians."
JOIN THE DISCUSSION
Global Coke
Two centuries ago, a former European colony decided to catch up with Europe.
It succeeded so well that the United States of America became a monster,
in which the taints, the sickness and the inhumanity of Europe
have grown to appalling dimensions.
― Frantz Fanon
What the United States does best is understand itself.
What it does worst is understand others.
- Carlos Fuentes
Poor Mexico, so far from God
and so close to the United States.
- Porfirio Diaz
the_band_huge
the_band_huge
"Indeed, everything about the American southland was magical
and exotic to the young Canadian musicians, from the sights
and smells to the drawling manner of speech to, especially, the
central role that music played in people’s everyday lives."
JOIN THE DISCUSSION
the_band_huge
America is a mistake, a giant mistake.
- Sigmund Freud
America is an adorable woman chewing tobacco.
- Auguste Bartholdi
chimerica
chimerica
"This is the tone of the China Century, a subtle
mix of Nazi/Soviet bravado and 'oriental'
cunning -- easily misunderstood, and never
heard before, in a real enemy, by the West."
JOIN THE DISCUSSION
chimerica
Coke and 'America the Beautiful'
Coke and 'America the Beautiful'
"And for the others who argued for English-only
patriotism, I note that there are more than
57 million Americans (about 20% of the nation)
whose first-language is not English...."
JOIN THE DISCUSSION
Coke and 'America the Beautiful'
predator-firing-missile4
predator-firing-missile4
"This is the behavior, and the fate, of paranoid
old-world tyrants like Hitler or Saddam, not liberal new-world democracies like America pretends to be."
JOIN THE DISCUSSION
predator-firing-missile4
America is the only nation in history which
miraculously has gone directly from barbarism to
degeneration without the usual interval of civilization.
- Georges Clemenceau
I found there a country with thirty-two religions and only one sauce.
- Charles–Maurice Talleyrand
A people who are still, as it were, but in the gristle,
and not yet hardened into the bone of manhood.
- Edmund Burke
America is the only country ever founded on the printed word.
- Marshall McLuhan
"The removal of racist sports nicknames (and mascots) seems outrageously belated
-- why, exactly, has this civil rights cause
taken so long to gain momentum?"
JOIN THE DISCUSSION
The atom bomb is a paper tiger which the
United States reactionaries use to scare people.
It looks terrible, but in fact it isn't.
- Mao Tse-tung
They made us many promises, more than I can remember, but
they kept only one; they promised to take our land, and they did.
- Red Cloud
In America sex is an obsession,
in other parts of the world it is a fact.
- Marlene Dietrich
I would rather have a nod from an American,
than a snuff-box from an emperor.
- Lord Byron
One day the United States discovered it was an empire.
But it didn’t know what an empire was.
It thought that an empire was merely the biggest of all corporations.
- Roberto Calasso
Americans are so enamored of equality, they would rather
be equal in slavery than unequal in freedom.
- Alexis de Tocqueville
newtown
newtown
"No one, I thought, could watch those scenes, of young children slaughtered en masse, and so many parents grieving, without thinking that this, finally, would tip some kind of balance in the country."
JOIN THE DISCUSSION
newtown
If you are prepared to accept the consequences of your dreams
then you must still regard America today with the same naive
enthusiasm as the generations that discovered the New World.
- Jean Baudrillard
I am willing to love all mankind, except an American.
- Samuel Johnson
America, thou half brother of the world;
With something good and bad of every land.
- Philip Bailey
"What can be more powerful than disinformation in the Information Age?"
JOIN THE DISCUSSION
England and America are two countries separated by the same language.
- Sir Walter Besant
Christopher Columbus, as everyone knows, is honored by
posterity because he was the last to discover America.
- James Joyce
Now, from America, empty indifferent things
are pouring across, sham things, dummy life.
- Rainer Maria Rilke
If the United States is to recover fortitude and lucidity,
it must recover itself, and to recover itself it must
recover the "others"- the outcasts of the Western world.
- Octavio Paz
The youth of America is their oldest tradition.
It has been going on now for three hundred years.
- Oscar Wilde
"America really is, for most Americans, all things considered, a good place to be, and all they really want is for everyone to enjoy the same privilege and pleasure."
JOIN THE DISCUSSION
When good Americans die they go to Paris;
when bad Americans die they go to America.
- Oscar Wilde
jobs drug dealer
jobs drug dealer
They're nothing more than traffickers; and as the smart traffickers'll tell you, you don't use the merchandise. They are just inoculating their kids with a tech-drug serum, to immunize them against the very merchandise that put the **** bowling alley in their basement.
jobs drug dealer
America is therefore the land of the future, where, in the ages that
lie before us, the burden of the World's History shall reveal itself.
- Georg Friedrich Hegel
America is a large, friendly dog in a very small room.
Every time it wags its tail, it knocks over a chair.
- Arnold Toynbee
Americans always try to do the right thing after they've tried everything else.
- Winston Churchill
The thing that impresses me most about Americans
is the way parents obey their children.
- Edward, Duke of Windsor
Americans are apt to be unduly interested in discovering
what average opinion believes average opinion to be.
- John Maynard Keynes
Europe was created by history.
America was created by philosophy.
- Margaret Thatcher
America is God's crucible, the great Melting-Pot where all the races of
Europe are melting and reforming!... The real American has not yet arrived.
He is only in the crucible, I tell you - he will be the fusion of all races.
- Israel Zangwill
American dreams are strongest in the hearts of those
who have seen America only in their dreams.
- Pico Iyer
America: It's like Britain, only with buttons.
- Ringo Starr
The essential American soul is hard, isolate, stoic, and a killer.
It has never yet melted.
― D.H. Lawrence
I have two conflicting visions of America.
One is a kind of dream landscape and the other is a kind of black comedy.
― Bono
The American mirror, said the voice, the sad American mirror
of wealth and poverty and constant useless metamorphosis,
the mirror that sails and whose sails are pain.
― Roberto Bolaño

April 20, 2024

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Author Topic: Gun Control in America


Courtney S
New Member
Posts: 2
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Re: Gun Control in America
on: February 15, 2018, 09:47

Moving article today on CNN -- "Do we love our guns more than our children?" --
https://www.cnn.com/2017/11/18/opinions/guns-children-taylor-opinion/index.html
The answer, I'm afraid, is yes -- guns matter more, sadly...


tajoda
New Member
Posts: 3
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Re: Gun Control in America
on: February 23, 2018, 11:32

In regard to the recent tragedy of a mass shooting in the US, the laws around gun control baffle me. Right now, those students and others that have survived mass shootings, such as those from the Pulse nightclub, are all rallying now to change the laws concerning gun control. As we all know, the most recent one happened in a high school, and it is students now that are standing up to try and make a change. I think this is so important and needed right now because it shows the rest of world the ongoing issues with gun control. Why does Donald Trump think that arming teachers in the future would be a better idea than maybe having more restricting gun laws? Ideas that have been brought up by others are more thorough background checks, raising the age to a buy a gun, and maybe banning guns altogether. However, their president seems to think that handing out more guns, to teachers nonetheless, seems to be the best idea possible. It's the idea that he keeps reiterating amid all the protests. What I don't understand is why he thinks that's the best idea? At the age of 18, one can possess a gun in America. That person isn't even legal to drink. Furthermore, the NRA believes that the democrats are using this recent push for stricter gun laws to further their politics on gun control. Even so, after every mass shooting, there is a push for stronger gun laws and we haven't seen any changes yet.



Aminah-
Hayek
Experienced Their American
Posts: 17
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Re: Gun Control in America
on: February 27, 2018, 12:25

Every time this issue comes up, I always think of a theory of mine, which seems to be gaining strength with every passing year. America, I suggest, is the first civilization in recorded history to have avoided the typical cycle of rise and fall that we see in all previous civilizations, where a mix of strong, savage culture and sophisticated but decadent culture acts as a kind of starter culture for a new civilization (as in ancient Greek and Roman culture, and in the Italian Renaissance). America has found a way to break that cycle by incorporating the savage and barbaric element within itself.
Moreover, I'd say that it’s not so much that Americans love their guns more than their children, but that Americans love their supremacy more than their children (which has been the mark of all strong cultures in the past). They will send their children into all manner of hazard and danger and conflict, in order to assert, maintain and secure their supremacy in the world.



yuliiya
Novice Their American
Posts: 5
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Re: Gun Control in America
on: March 13, 2018, 11:47

I have to agree with what has been said here recently. The States seem to be absorbed in gun culture and even with the attempts to change state gun control laws, there has been pushback to protect it (which is truly astonishing in my opinion). The argument that guns are needed in today's society for protection is ridiculous and these delusional gun owners keep referring to their "right to keep and bear arms" stated in the US Second Amendment. Yes, it makes sense to have given the American people this right in 1791, when the Amendment was adopted to the Bill of Rights, because 18th century America was a dangerous place, therefore, the law was logical. Even popular authors a century later, like Mark Twain, were advocates for gun culture as seen depicted through scenes of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn where Tom's wearing of the bullet around his neck suggests the American allure for gun culture. And so, since the amendment's establishment, the obsession with firearms persists. However, to keep this mentality 227 years later with the same reasoning is absurd considering how much America has changed.

Now, I'm not saying that all gun owners are bad - I personally have relatives in the states who own rifles strictly for hunting purposes. However, I believe, as a Canadian looking at the US from the outside, that something has to be done about gun control. Since the Parkland shooting, there have been 2 (albeit less severe) school-related shootings and the discourse regarding gun control has not changed. It's truly unfortunate that we have to watch so many people die before the US government, whether it be the Trump administration or otherwise, acts upon its out-dated views regarding gun culture.


stephanie
New Member
Posts: 4
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Re: Gun Control in America
on: April 2, 2018, 00:05

Quote from Reza on February 7, 2018, 13:41

When it comes to gun control in the United States, the one thing that continuously perturbs me is gun ownership. Anybody has the right to own a gun, there are no strict rules put in place to ensure that guns are safe in the hands of all individuals. Mass shootings in schools, churches, offices, cafes have been the result of the lack in gun control and yet, no measures have been taken to prevent these horrific and inhumane acts. There is no longer a sense of security amongst American citizens who all have easy access to guns. To own a gun is to have power and this thread puts emphasis on the number of deadly events caused by the poor distribution of power. Emily Dickenson’s poem “MY LIFE HAD STOOD – A LOADED GUN” addresses this issue in the following manner. Dickenson states that power is influence. A guy with a gun has a lot of power, or at least thinks he does. And the scary thing about being in power is that it can be taken away at any point, however if everyone has power, the result of this is chaos.

I think you make an excellent point, especially with the relationship between gun issues and Dickenson's poetry. When you say that power is influence, and then say that a guy with a gun assumes he has power, do you think it's the gun that gave him the power? Is the gun itself powerful?

I always hear the argument that "the problem isn't guns, the problem is people," but how could the people inflict such pain if they didn't have the means to do so? What is the allure of a gun? What is the power in it?

I guess my contribution to your post is just me unloading all of my frustrations, but I can't seem to understand why the gun itself can hold so much power, that it required an entire amendment, which people would die for. Power being taken away is scary, like you pointed out, but how can a gun protect you enough for you to keep all your supposed power? How will that gun help to protect against all of the evils of the world?

How do we educate people that the gun isn't what will make you powerful, it's your brain that will?
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