United States Politics Thread 46

[Travis B.]

The US is a violent country by European standards and a peaceful one by New World standards. Why apply the standards of the side of the Atlantic we aren't on?

I'm always amused by that sort of argument. Does gunpowder react differently in America?

Apparently Finland has a comparable household gun ownership rate.

Open carry is probably more of a factor (to say nothing of concealed carry) as is the relative lack of registration.
It's not like there are no problems with guns in Europe either. Parts of my family are what you Americans would call white trash, I suppose, and there were plenty of guns lying around: hunting guns and service weapons from the war. Accidents definitely happened, also one or two deaths I'm convinced were not accidental.

The thing that sticks out these days about the US in particular are the frequent mass shootings, which have become so common that people have largely stopped paying attention. (I remember how it was such a big deal when Columbine occurred - now people barely even care.)

While we're comparing culture, I don't agree gangs are inevitable. I don't think we have something that compares to a North American gang. (Also biker gangs: I remember reading a Québecois thriller and thinking, man, what's so scary about bikers?) I mean, there's organized crime, yeah, but it doesn't quite reach that level. Cultural differences are difficult to figure out, but it's hard to exclude different attitudes about guns as a factor.

There was the Quebec Biker War between the Quebec branch of the Hells Angels and the Rock Machine from 1994 to 2002 in which 162 people were killed, and which involved not just guns but also numerous bombings and whatnot.

[bradrn]

I’ve come to the conclusion that, short of remaking the whole of society, very little can be done about gangs. Until we do remake society, the best that can be done is to prevent them from getting ahold of tools which they can use to do harm.

What? Isn't the state supposed to be the one legitimate gang? Monopoly on legitimate force and all that? If they can't even do that, what's the point of having a state?

Sorry, I was imprecise. I meant that little can be done about the continued existence of gangs. Obviously a functioning government should be able to suppress their most violent activities.

It's said that a young woman could travel alone with a purse filled with gold across the entire length of the Mongol Empire and not have problems. If we can't do that, can we get Genghis Khan on the Ouija board and run him for president?

I dunno, I’d say a young woman should be able to do that across the entire length of Australia, too. (At least, the dangers I immediately think of relate to the climate rather than the people.) I’d expect the same in Europe, too. It’s the US which is an outlier here.

I should perhaps have emphasised the fact that guns are designed ‘in a way which other weapons aren’t’. There is a reason that mass murderers use guns and not swords: you can hurt more people, more harmfully, more quickly with a gun than with a sword.

If the Columbine shooters' bombs had worked, would school bombings have the cultural place school shootings do today? (Bombings were a live option in American culture then, but were primarily associated with political violence.)

Sadly, it is quite possible. This discussion applies to all sorts of murder-weapons, not just guns. But also: doesn’t the US place restrictions on making and using bombs? If so, I’d directly link the absence of bombs in modern-day violence to enforcement of ’bomb control’.

If you, a decent and law-abiding person who actually lives in the neighborhood, get a noise ordinance passed, and then it's noon on a Sunday and your kid's having a birthday party, what's to stop the pettiest person on the block from calling the cops on you?

Absolutely nothing! It should be the responsibility of the cops to see this for what it is and take appropriate and proportional action. But I fail to see how this is relevant.

What's the point of putting laws on the books if they aren't going to be enforced?

Well, this is why the law-enforcement system needs to work well in order to have a functioning society. If it doesn’t work well, the priority should be to get it working again.

Likewise, with gun ownership, the US today shows what happens when you have widespread gun ownership, and shows why gun control is needed by providing an example of what happens without it.

The US is a violent country by European standards and a peaceful one by New World standards. Why apply the standards of the side of the Atlantic we aren't on?

I’d say the relevant distinction here is between ‘developed’ and ‘developing’ countries. By developed-country standards, the US is right at the bottom. From developing-country standards… well, the US is right at the top, but if you’re still considering the US a developing country, something has gone very wrong.

While we're comparing culture, I don't agree gangs are inevitable. I don't think we have something that compares to a North American gang. (Also biker gangs: I remember reading a Québecois thriller and thinking, man, what's so scary about bikers?) I mean, there's organized crime, yeah, but it doesn't quite reach that level. Cultural differences are difficult to figure out, but it's hard to exclude different attitudes about guns as a factor.

Could you elaborate here? I assumed gangs were pretty much the same the world over.

[Nachtswalbe]

Spakhm notices himself
https://mobile.twitter.com/spakhm/statu ... 2439202819

[Ares Land]

It's said that a young woman could travel alone with a purse filled with gold across the entire length of the Mongol Empire and not have problems. If we can't do that, can we get Genghis Khan on the Ouija board and run him for president?

I dunno, I’d say a young woman should be able to do that across the entire length of Australia, too. (At least, the dangers I immediately think of relate to the climate rather than the people.) I’d expect the same in Europe, too. It’s the US which is an outlier here.

I'm pretty sure that bit's from Marco Polo. I think the statement is best read in contrast to the situation in Europe at the time, a place ravaged by rogue military companies and where theology students turned street thug when they got bored.

I don't think that claim is even true of the US. I'm pretty sure people can drive cross-country from East Coast to West Coast.
Contemporary society feel horribly violent but by historical standards they're incredibly peaceful.

Could you elaborate here? I assumed gangs were pretty much the same the world over.

Well, first off, Wikipedia states, from a FBI source, that there are 33,000 gangs active in the US. That sounds enormous, even accounting for population.
Second, I don't think we have anything comparable to the Crips, which if Wikipedia is to be trusted, have a color code, a dress code and a gang dance. Or the Bloods. Or Rock Machine.
As I mentioned, biker gangs are just completely unknown. There are actually chapters of the Bandidos or the Hell's Angels, but they seem to be more of a nuisance than anything.

I may have spoken a bit too quickly, since we do have gangs, but they don't quite reach the same numbers or the same level of sophistication.
Here and in the US gang violence seems to be mostly disaffected angry young men. They're dangerous everywhere, but I think it helps that it's harder for them to get guns.

Overall gangs in the US feel way scarier. I don't know, the Aryan Brotherhood feels like an actual threat. We have white supremacists here and there's a threat of a sort; but they're either nerds or clowns, and generally both.

[Raphael]

The US is a violent country by European standards and a peaceful one by New World standards. Why apply the standards of the side of the Atlantic we aren't on?

I'm always amused by that sort of argument. Does gunpowder react differently in America?

I can't believe I'm saying this, but Nort might have a point there. I recently saw some people post on Twitter that a lot of things about the USA - not just the high violent crime levels, also the big role religion plays in society - make more sense if you see them mainly as a Western Hemisphere country, rather than a Western country.

[Ares Land]

I couldn't say -- I don't know much about Latin America, for instance.
But that doesn't really explain why gun control wouldn't work. I think Canada has gun control, even at the federal level, and their homicide rate is close to the European average.

That being said, I'm probably beating a dead horse. I get that guns have a special place in the national mythology -- and it's not really much of my business anyway. But the attitude about guns does strike me as incredibly self-destructive.

[Nortaneous]

I dunno, I’d say a young woman should be able to do that across the entire length of Australia, too. (At least, the dangers I immediately think of relate to the climate rather than the people.) I’d expect the same in Europe, too. It’s the US which is an outlier here.

In parts of Europe, but maybe not Molenbeek.

Sadly, it is quite possible. This discussion applies to all sorts of murder-weapons, not just guns. But also: doesn’t the US place restrictions on making and using bombs? If so, I’d directly link the absence of bombs in modern-day violence to enforcement of ’bomb control’.

More likely massive secret police infiltration of radical groups and displacement by shootings. I don't know what the bomb restrictions were like in the days of FALN or the Unabomber, though. (Didn't Obama pardon the FALN guys? It's too bad Trump didn't let Kaczynski go back to his cabin, at that rate.)

Well, this is why the law-enforcement system needs to work well in order to have a functioning society. If it doesn’t work well, the priority should be to get it working again.

Do we want it to work well? Anyone else in this thread smoke weed?

Winning the War on Drugs is well within the reach of a competent state, and would be popular in the US if it were considered a live option. But, like, we don't want that. (Concerned Parents whipped up on Bill O'Reilly do, and they vote, but maybe they shouldn't.)

I’d say the relevant distinction here is between ‘developed’ and ‘developing’ countries. By developed-country standards, the US is right at the bottom.

Did I never complain about my parents' tap water here? It wasn't potable. Sometimes it was brown. I wouldn't call the US developed.

I don't think that claim is even true of the US. I'm pretty sure people can drive cross-country from East Coast to West Coast.

As long as you stay out of the cities and travel by car, the worst you'll run into is towns whose only revenue stream is loading the roads with cameras, making yellow lights last a millisecond, and lowering the speed limits on the thoroughfares to 20. But the feds should ban that. They use strings-attached highway funding for grotesque overreaches of power already, so whatever.

Overall gangs in the US feel way scarier. I don't know, the Aryan Brotherhood feels like an actual threat. We have white supremacists here and there's a threat of a sort; but they're either nerds or clowns, and generally both.

What? The Aryan Brotherhood is a curiosity of prison life. They don't matter. The Crips and Bloods might, but I think the worst violence is disorganized.

[zompist]

I can't believe I'm saying this, but Nort might have a point there. I recently saw some people post on Twitter that a lot of things about the USA - not just the high violent crime levels, also the big role religion plays in society - make more sense if you see them mainly as a Western Hemisphere country, rather than a Western country.

Um dude. I don't want to be rude or anything, but did you ever look at 20th century German history?

[Rounin Ryuuji]

Well, this is why the law-enforcement system needs to work well in order to have a functioning society. If it doesn’t work well, the priority should be to get it working again.

Do we want it to work well? Anyone else in this thread smoke weed?

This is two different questions. Do we want our law enforcement to work well? Yes, of course we do, otherwise the institution of laws is pointless. Do we want every law presently on the books to be on the books? Certainly not, whether we've engaged in recreational drug use or not. Conflating the two is unhelpful, and rather silly.

Winning the War on Drugs is well within the reach of a competent state, and would be popular in the US if it were considered a live option. But, like, we don't want that. (Concerned Parents whipped up on Bill O'Reilly do, and they vote, but maybe they shouldn't.)

Having had decades to "win" it, the United States has had an entirely pathetic result (and we perhaps ought to remember that Prohibition did not go very well, either; it just resulted in enormous and ultimately pointless social harm). I don't see why even you would make such an excessively fanciful assertion.

I’d say the relevant distinction here is between ‘developed’ and ‘developing’ countries. By developed-country standards, the US is right at the bottom.

Did I never complain about my parents' tap water here? It wasn't potable. Sometimes it was brown. I wouldn't call the US developed.

Is this the norm, or a weird outlier? From what the news and Google suggest, there are areas with water problems, but there are areas without (beyond environmental contamination by widespread contaminants which are nigh unescapable anywhere). I can provide a counter-anecdote of having never seen anything of the kind you describe in more than three decades of having lived in the United States, and it's equally valid.

I don't think that claim is even true of the US. I'm pretty sure people can drive cross-country from East Coast to West Coast.

As long as you stay out of the cities and travel by car, the worst you'll run into is towns whose only revenue stream is loading the roads with cameras, making yellow lights last a millisecond, and lowering the speed limits on the thoroughfares to 20. But the feds should ban that. They use strings-attached highway funding for grotesque overreaches of power already, so whatever.

If you're referring to forcing a legal drinking age, the variation was genuinely apparently once a problem when automobiles became involved. Should Congress have simply legislated one? Yes. Should Congress probably legislate all things which are considered to come with majority at a single age, probably eighteen? Also yes, because driving at sixteen, most other stuff at eighteen, but alcohol at twenty-one, is silly. Would it be a grotesque overreach for them to legislate on something of nationwide concern? This being the function of Congress, not really.

[Raphael]

I can't believe I'm saying this, but Nort might have a point there. I recently saw some people post on Twitter that a lot of things about the USA - not just the high violent crime levels, also the big role religion plays in society - make more sense if you see them mainly as a Western Hemisphere country, rather than a Western country.

Um dude. I don't want to be rude or anything, but did you ever look at 20th century German history?

Fair point as far as politically motivated crimes are concerned; less so for religion, which declined in influence throughout the century.

[MacAnDàil]

The police don't enforce noise violations either. What are you supposed to do about loud music at night? Talk civilly to the new neighbors? That you don't like it is part of the point - they're trying to mark their territory.

Loud music is annoying, especially late at night, but I have spoken to some of the people who do this including my girlfriend's sister and they seem to generally think about what they feel like doing and not marking any territory.

Also, from the citation in the Wikipedia link on gun control "The regulation of guns in Finland is categorised as restrictive".

[Linguoboy]

Well, first off, Wikipedia states, from a FBI source, that there are 33,000 gangs active in the US. That sounds enormous, even accounting for population.
Second, I don't think we have anything comparable to the Crips, which if Wikipedia is to be trusted, have a color code, a dress code and a gang dance.

I hear they also have a code of silence and violating it means death. Oh, wait, sorry, I was thinking of the Sicilian Mafia. Does anyone remember where they originated?

[Ares Land]

Well, first off, Wikipedia states, from a FBI source, that there are 33,000 gangs active in the US. That sounds enormous, even accounting for population.
Second, I don't think we have anything comparable to the Crips, which if Wikipedia is to be trusted, have a color code, a dress code and a gang dance.

I hear they also have a code of silence and violating it means death. Oh, wait, sorry, I was thinking of the Sicilian Mafia. Does anyone remember where they originated?

Good point. I was probably a bit too enthusiastic in my claims. It does seem like gangs and organized crime are altogether less active in Europe. At least the corners of Europe I'm familiar with.

(I'd love to find good figure to support that claim, but I can't locate anything. An article suggests between 300-400 gangs in France. This is so different from the American figure that I think they're not measuring the same thing. The Police Judiciaire apparently claims that there is no mafia in France. They were probably misquoted, because we definitely have mafias. We're not Sicily but a lot of old-school politicians were mobbed up.)

Do we want it to work well? Anyone else in this thread smoke weed?

Winning the War on Drugs is well within the reach of a competent state, and would be popular in the US if it were considered a live option. But, like, we don't want that. (Concerned Parents whipped up on Bill O'Reilly do, and they vote, but maybe they shouldn't.)

A lot would be achieved, not only in the US but in the rest of the world, if people just stopped thinking weed, heroin and crack somehow belong in the same category.
We have a serious problem here with crack addicts. One part of the problem is that crack addicts are dangerous people and that bothering weed users feels like you're doing something and is way cheaper.

Overall gangs in the US feel way scarier. I don't know, the Aryan Brotherhood feels like an actual threat. We have white supremacists here and there's a threat of a sort; but they're either nerds or clowns, and generally both.

What? The Aryan Brotherhood is a curiosity of prison life. They don't matter. The Crips and Bloods might, but I think the worst violence is disorganized.

Oh, OK. I was under the impression they were a minor but actual threat, so thanks for the info.

[Linguoboy]

Good point. I was probably a bit too enthusiastic in my claims. It does seem like gangs and organized crime are altogether less active in Europe. At least the corners of Europe I'm familiar with.

(I'd love to find good figure to support that claim, but I can't locate anything. An article suggests between 300-400 gangs in France. This is so different from the American figure that I think they're not measuring the same thing. The Police Judiciaire apparently claims that there is no mafia in France. They were probably misquoted, because we definitely have mafias. We're not Sicily but a lot of old-school politicians were mobbed up.)

Yeah, I couldn't really find anything I would call reliable figures. "Gangs" are such a hard thing to count anyway, and the term itself is almost meaningless if it can be used to designate anything from a low-level local street gang with a dozen members or less to an international crime syndicate.

Chicago has dozens of local street gangs, most of which don't rise above the level of minor nuisance--so many, in fact, that they are organised into two "nations", the "Folk" and the "People". As with the Bloods and the Crips, there's an elaborate array of symbols used to indicate gang allegiance, including not only colours and numbers but various insignia originally specific to particular gangs in each nation. These are somewhat intermediate between an ordinary gang and a true criminal syndicate (though arguably the Vice Lords at their height got close to achieving that with the People Nation).

After some especially egregious incidents in the 80s, the City decided to get serious about fighting these organisations and formed an anti-gang division of the police to infiltrate them and break them up. It accomplished that objective well--too well, as it turns out, because it led to the gangs splintering into smaller groups which fought over territory constantly. Some of the most violent crimes here have been committed not by members of "gangs" but by "crews" of 3-5 people who wantonly cross gang boundaries.

[Raphael]

Pedantic linguistic side note: while the words "gang" and "gangster" are clearly etymologically related, to me, they evoke quite different mental images: the word "gang" evokes a mental image of teenagers, while the word "gangster" evokes a mental image of an adult.

[Linguoboy]

Pedantic linguistic side note: while the words "gang" and "gangster" are clearly etymologically related, to me, they evoke quite different mental images: the word "gang" evokes a mental image of teenagers, while the word "gangster" evokes a mental image of an adult.

Hereabouts the usual term for an adolescent gang member is a "gangbanger" (though it also tends to get applied indiscriminately to young hoodlums in general or even just adolescents who wear a certain style of clothing).

[Ares Land]

I would have expected a very different meaning

[Linguoboy]

I would have expected a very different meaning

The word has that meaning, too, which is why context is important.

[Nortaneous]

This is two different questions. Do we want our law enforcement to work well? Yes, of course we do, otherwise the institution of laws is pointless. Do we want every law presently on the books to be on the books? Certainly not, whether we've engaged in recreational drug use or not. Conflating the two is unhelpful, and rather silly.

But given that the laws will never be entirely correct, selective enforcement is another avenue by which the experience of living under a government can be improved - and the subjects of a government can engage in collective action to render certain laws unenforceable. James C. Scott:

To see how tacit coordination and lawbreaking can mimic the effects of collective action without its inconveniences and
dangers, we might consider the enforcement of speed limits. Let's imagine that the speed limit for cars is 55 miles per hour. Chances are that the traffic police will not be much inclined to prosecute drivers going 56, 57, 58 ... even 60 mph, even though it is technically a violation. This "ceded space of disobedience" is, as it were, seized and becomes occupied territory, and soon much of the traffic is moving along at roughly 60 mph. What about 61, 62, 63 mph? Drivers going just a mile or two above the de facto limit are, they reason, fairly safe.
Soon the speeds from, say, 60 to 65mph bid fair to become conquered territory as well. All of the drivers, then, going about 65 mph come absolutely to depend for their relative immunity from prosecution on being surrounded by a veritable capsule of cars traveling at roughly the same speed. There is
something like a contagion effect that arises from observation and tacit coordination taking place here, although there is no "Central Committee of Drivers" meeting and plotting massive acts of civil disobedience. At some point, of course, the traffic police do intervene to issue fines and make arrests, and the pattern of their intervention sets terms of calculation that drivers must now consider when deciding how fast to drive. The pressure at the upper end of the tolerated speed, however, is always being tested by drivers in a hurry, and if, for whatever reason, enforcement lapses, the tolerated speed will expand to fill it. As with any analogy, this one must not be pushed too far. Exceeding the speed limit is largely a matter of convenience, not a matter of rights and grievances, and the dangers to speeders from the police are comparatively trivial. (If, on the contrary, we had a 55-mph speed limit and, say, only three traffic police for the whole nation, who summarily executed five or six speeders and strung them up along the interstate highways, the dynamic I have described would screech to a halt!)

Speeding is harmless, but tailgaters should be summarily executed. Not a day goes by when I don't have to take evasive action against a Hausfraupanzer trying to crawl up my ass.

Having had decades to "win" it, the United States has had an entirely pathetic result (and we perhaps ought to remember that Prohibition did not go very well, either; it just resulted in enormous and ultimately pointless social harm). I don't see why even you would make such an excessively fanciful assertion.

I'm told it's pretty hard to get weed in Singapore. Certainly harder than in the US.

Is this the norm, or a weird outlier? From what the news and Google suggest, there are areas with water problems, but there are areas without (beyond environmental contamination by widespread contaminants which are nigh unescapable anywhere). I can provide a counter-anecdote of having never seen anything of the kind you describe in more than three decades of having lived in the United States, and it's equally valid.

It varies by area. It's fine in some places and atrocious in others, including the entire greater DC area.

The last time I went to the Shake Shack in Union Station, the water from the fountain was more chlorinated than the local pool.

We have a serious problem here with crack addicts. One part of the problem is that crack addicts are dangerous people and that bothering weed users feels like you're doing something and is way cheaper.

The existence of crack seems like a civilizational failure that could've been avoided if we'd just normalized coca tea. But who knows, maybe people would do that with caffeine if it had a wider efficacy window.

It's also lame that there's one legal stimulant - if there were two with different mechanisms, you could rotate them to avoid becoming dependent, like the nootropics guys do with modafinil and amphetamines.

[Travis B.]

The existence of crack seems like a civilizational failure that could've been avoided if we'd just normalized coca tea. But who knows, maybe people would do that with caffeine if it had a wider efficacy window.

Maybe if coffee and tea were illegal we would have people taking hits of powder caffeine cut with random substances (as straight caffeine is horribly easy to overdose on).