Friends in Las Vegas, please check in.

Stavros, comrade. As one would expect, you are jumping to conclusions and twisting my words. The state is and should be there to protect its people, who support it, from other states' barbaric acts of vionence against its people - e.g. barbaric attack of communist Germany on Polish civilians on 11th August 1939. The state is not there to restrict its peoples' freedom.

If I wanted to move to the UK without the EU I would have done it anyway. The EU may have made it easier for me but that is not the reason why I should support all of its evil ideas, like further intervention of the state into marriage.

As for buying a house, I cannot really say much - I haven't really tried that yet.

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Originally Posted by Ts RedVeX

Stavros, comrade. As one would expect, you are jumping to conclusions and twisting my words. The state is and should be there to protect its people, who support it, from other states' barbaric acts of vionence against its people - e.g. barbaric attack of communist Germany on Polish civilians on 11th August 1939. The state is not there to restrict its peoples' freedom.

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Your post is confusing. The State is not there to restrict its peoples' freedom but according to you cannot defend it either, which is why you justify gun ownership, but you cannot justify gun ownership as a means of self-defence when it is the job of the State to defend you within the boundaries of the State, and not just from external enemies. Or are you saying the State exists to defend you from external aggression, but any internal aggression you must deal with as an individual, because the State cannot or will not -or is simply incompetent in its attempts to - defend you? I think the citizens who went to the concert in Las Vegas, had they been asked, would have believed the State, at Federal and local level, had both the right and the means to defend them against attack. If a critical component of the legitimacy of the State is that it alone has a monopoly on the use of violence, I don't see how the State can relinquish this monopoly to individual citizens while claiming to be their legitimate representative, indeed, the very issue that is at the heart of the 'Sovereign Citizen Movement' in the USA.

My post is confusing for you because you think that the state must have monopoly for using violence. Never have I stated that.

- The state needs to protect its citizens - yes - but on top of that, citizens should be free to protect themselves.

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Originally Posted by MrFanti

But I have learned one thing.....it's definitely ludicrous to debate with hypocrisy so I'll leave you folks to continue now without me....

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This is why I pointed to the tu quoque fallacy which is basically an argumentative technique where you claim to demonstrate the merits of your argument by showing your opponent is a hypocrite. The literal application in this case would be to say your opponent is arguing against assault weapons but has a stockpile of them, which would not make his argument invalid, but would challenge his character.

You seem to concede that both guns and alcohol are dangerous but insist everyone is a hypocrite for not taking the same attitude towards both. In order to do this, it seems necessary for you to mischaracterize everyone's argument by saying they seek a ban of guns and not regulation. The only one who has talked about a blanket ban on gun ownership is you. You now leave because you were dishonest and called out on it. I still want you to post that marijuana article you had started with:).

Redvex seems to think the Nazis were Communists which is unbelievably offensive. The Nazi society was highly bureaucratic and stratified and they had no plans to create a society where people collectively owned the means of production. Besides, who were they fighting on the eastern front in that war?

One of the defining features of the Nazis was their delusional anti-Communist rhetoric, in which they would cast every global enemy of theirs as Communists or agents of Communism.

I am also happy that our society has moved past the social darwinism and eugenics arguments she is making and that we don't allow kids to own guns which I swear I saw someone recommend. Now if only we could do something about felons and the severely mentally ill and military style weaponry.

Mr Fanti has not made any fallacies. If you are so concerned with people losing lives because of guns then if you want to ban or regulate guns for that reason you should also regulate other things causing death.

Nazis, Fascists, Communists.. - Not far away of an apple-tree does an apple fall.

What would you suggest doing about the mentally ill?

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Originally Posted by Ts RedVeX

Mr Fanti has not made any fallacies. If you are so concerned with people losing lives because of guns then if you want to ban or regulate guns for that reason you should also regulate other things causing death.

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He made at least two that I've counted. First, he insisted people want to ban guns when they don't. Mischaracterizing someone's argument is still a fallacy. Second, he brought up alcohol without any interest in how people felt about its regulation. His assumption was that people are hypocrites for not wanting to ban alcohol when nobody suggested banning guns. And the third one if you want to get technical is assuming that if you demonstrate your opponent does not treat all similar things the same way you have proven your point with respect to the issue in question. In fact, you've only showed that your opponent has not been consistent. One could just as easily suggest you achieve consistency by regulating both guns and alcohol.

And no Nazis are not like Communists. They have different ideological principles, want to organize society in different ways, and were mortal adversaries. I don't see what use it is to call everyone who you disagree with a Communist, any more than it's useful to use any other word you think is pejorative.

What to do about mentally ill? Help them get treatment. But I do not think someone with schizophrenia should own a gun. I'm sorry if that seems medieval or cruel. At least I'm not suggesting that we should create a better society by allowing people to kill each other leaving behind only the strong and the armed...

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Originally Posted by broncofan

What to do about mentally ill? Help them get treatment. But I do not think someone with schizophrenia should own a gun. ..

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I also don't think someone with dementia or alzheimer's should own a gun. Nor should someone who doesn't have the capacity to form a contract.

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Originally Posted by Ts RedVeX

If an idiot shoots themself accidently, then he is making a favour to all the other people as he decreases the overall number of idiots. If an idiot commits murder, then death is the correct penalty for them. That is how natural selection works. If you try to change those basic laws of nature, sooner or later you end up in a situation where nature is going to have to purge all the idiots who had not been able to follow its basic laws. We have seen that in Mandalay Bay the other day: the idiot died, but not before taking dozens of lives of people who were most likely not other idiots. - That is the cost people who believe they are protected by the police or state or whatever other institution had to pay. And by idiot here, I mean anyone who thinks they can control another's life as much as they like - in this case by taking it.

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So by the same logic the high rate of gun deaths in the US must be nature's way of trying to eliminate a nation of idiots with a dangerous fixation? (Pity about the collateral damage of people who are not gun nuts.)

Your posts are perversely entertaining, but you really are a complete fruit loop. The disturbing thing is that you seem to have put a lot of thought into your bizarre philosophy - unlike Mr Fanti who is probably just recycling arguments he read somewhere.

One thing this thread has established is the futility of trying to reason with people with a monomaniacal fixation on one idea.

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Originally Posted by broncofan

I don't see what use it is to call everyone who you disagree with a Communist, any more than it's useful to use any other word you think is pejorative.

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“When I use a word,” RedVex said, in rather a scornful tone, “it means just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less.” “The question is,” said Stavros, “whether you can make words mean so many different things.” “The question is,” said RedVex, “which is to be master—that’s all.”

Through the Looking Glass (with apologies to Lewis Carroll)

"Curiouser and curiouser", said Alice.

I am sure that Mr Fanti by wrote about banning guns where he actually meant regulating it - just like when referring to alcohol which is actually not banned but regulated. It does not matter whether you limit one's freedom completely by banning or only to some extent by regulating. Both are bad and no state should intervene here at all. It is your reasoning that is illogical as you oppose to treating deaths caused by regulating or banning alcohol otherwise than deaths caused by regulating or banning guns. Both are caused by misuse and should be treated the same. You don't see that our arguments are on a totally different level than yours. You think that state should regulate things while we, or at least I do, say that id should regulate as few things as possible. Following your concept, why would you not ban people with Alzheimer's from possessing matches in case they try to build a bonfire in the middle of their room when they feel cold? If you have a family member who requires constant supervision then is your own and your family's responsibility to keep them safe. Who cares more about those people family or some minister?

Also my words obviously do not mean what I choose them to mean - at least to some people here - the words mean to them what they chose understand.

I never said anything about destroying the whole nation but only the idiots within it. - That natural selection will take place one way or another. The sad part is that if you do not allow this process to happen naturally, it will probably influence many more people, who would have naturally prevail in normal conditions.

- Yes - around the idea of freedom - in my case.