The FAST Approaching Gun Ban

[buttslinger]

If Joe Friday never pulled his gun in 30 years, why do cops carry guns? Intimidation? To be in control of the situation?

[martin48]

I was just wondering where I could make most progress in using rational argument to get people to think in an open way. Is it gun-control, abortion, religion or the Republican Party?

Suggestions please!

[trish]

I was just wondering where I could make most progress in using rational argument to get people to think in an open way. Is it gun-control, abortion, religion or the Republican Party?

Suggestions please!

You want to teach the greatest number of closed minded people to question their preconceptions and think rationally? You’re a fucking “wayist.”

Getting to your question: You could drop your engineering career, become a professor and attempt to teach classroom after classroom of young minds how to look at, think about and approach problems in different ways: how to invent solutions and how those proposed solutions are dependent upon the assumptions that one makes about the problem. Have them list their assumptions, question them, revise and work out new solutions incorporating the various sets of tweaked assumptions. Get them to see how the feedbacks between thought, action, belief, doubt, observation and conversation with others with different approaches empowers them, frees their creativity, hones their analytical and observational skills and opens them to the ideas of others. It may even increase their empathy toward others.

Naw! Just kidding. You probably stand a better chance selling a Republican, using reason alone, a compact hybrid vehicle.

[martin48]

Very comprehensive. I am a professor, professor of engineering. So there!!!

You want to teach the greatest number of closed minded people to question their preconceptions and think rationally? You’re a fucking “wayist.”

Getting to your question: You could drop your engineering career, become a professor and attempt to teach classroom after classroom of young minds how to look at, think about and approach problems in different ways: how to invent solutions and how those proposed solutions are dependent upon the assumptions that one makes about the problem. Have them list their assumptions, question them, revise and work out new solutions incorporating the various sets of tweaked assumptions. Get them to see how the feedbacks between thought, action, belief, doubt, observation and conversation with others with different approaches empowers them, frees their creativity, hones their analytical and observational skills and opens them to the ideas of others. It may even increase their empathy toward others.

Naw! Just kidding. You probably stand a better chance selling a Republican, using reason alone, a compact hybrid vehicle.

[fred41]

Just because something's insignificant doesn't mean it shouldn't be googled...

I had to know if Joe Friday ever shot anyone. Turns out he did : http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0565689/

On the way to get some cigarettes, Joe see's a man trying jimmy coins out of a machine in a laundermat. He identifies himself, the man shoots at him...and Sgt. Friday returns fire, apparently hitting the man. The man runs out bleeding and flees with his girlfriend. Joe has to go before a "Shooting Board" (which is the name of the episode) because they didn't find a spent bullet and the thief is found dead from the shooting - with the girlfriend claiming Joe murdered him.

[hippifried]

I stand corrected. Is that the only time?

[Fyusian]

You want to teach the greatest number of closed minded people to question their preconceptions and think rationally? You’re a fucking “wayist.”

Getting to your question: You could drop your engineering career, become a professor and attempt to teach classroom after classroom of young minds how to look at, think about and approach problems in different ways: how to invent solutions and how those proposed solutions are dependent upon the assumptions that one makes about the problem. Have them list their assumptions, question them, revise and work out new solutions incorporating the various sets of tweaked assumptions. Get them to see how the feedbacks between thought, action, belief, doubt, observation and conversation with others with different approaches empowers them, frees their creativity, hones their analytical and observational skills and opens them to the ideas of others. It may even increase their empathy toward others.

Naw! Just kidding. You probably stand a better chance selling a Republican, using reason alone, a compact hybrid vehicle.

Are you saying that only those the right side of the political spectrum are closed minded and that the left aren't closed minded too? Because I've found the left to be exactly the same if not worst.

(For the reference, I would put myself into the centre for politics, I find the right and left to be equally stupid in some of their ideas)

Thing is, America's fucked itself up. With all the gun trade (legal and illegal), even an utter ban on guns in America would not stop them from appearing on the streets and would just make it harder for law-abiding citizens to acquire one but they aren't the problem. It's keeping guns away from criminals and the insane that's the hard bit.

[trish]

Are you saying that only those the right side of the political spectrum are closed minded and that the left aren't closed minded too?

Gee, am I? Where in that post did you get that idea? I think the post said that you stand as good a chance at selling a Republican a hybrid car as you stand at teaching university students engineering. Anything negative you took from that about Republicrats or university students is on you.

(For the reference, I would put myself into the centre for politics, I find the right and left to be equally stupid in some of their ideas)

Over the past two decades in the U.S. the center has moved measurably to the right. Now the center is stupid.

It's keeping guns away from criminals and the insane that's the hard bit.

Keeping them away from children seems to be pretty difficult too. Glad you got it all under control over there. I really am. Kudos. Thumbs up. Good show. I mean it. Really.

[fred41]

I stand corrected. Is that the only time?

Yep...you can watch it on Hulu (kind of amusing actually)...he's held a weapon some rare occasions, but that's about it.

[buttslinger]

While England and Germany and China and Japan have cultures that go back thousands of years, America's goes back 15 minutes. Even Canada is basically England and France and some Indian. The USA is as mixed a bag as you can get. And Iran is not the most dangerous Nation on the Planet, nor North Korea. The USA is. Nobody tells us what to do. We're badass, and don't you forgit it.
Eventually that loser with a rap sheet who gets his buddy to buy him a roscoe with the three day check.....he'll end up in jail or stuck in some meaningless garbageman job. Justice prevails.
Cue the "Dragnet" theme music.