[GundamFan0083]

Originally Posted by Anh_Minh

And yet you said - your words - that in practice, they're nearly identical.

(which rather baffles me. We've had socialist governments. I don't remember any Stalinian purge happening.)

Then you'll find this book very interesting.
Show trials: Stalinist purges in Eastern Europe, 1948-1954 (Google eBook)

Originally Posted by Mentar

This isn't the point. In Europe people generally don't own any firearms, and there is no easy way to gain access to firearms like a black market or whatnot. And when people aren't armed, usually the worst that can happen when tempers flare are injuries. I have seen more guns on my vacations in the US than in my entire life in Europe combined (excluding my army time).

Which only proves one thing.
It isn't the guns that are the problem.
It's the conditions the people are living under that lead to crime and thus increased potential for violence and murder.

I prefer it that way. If only select people who apply for licences for valid reasons have firearms, people can't get killed with them (be it intentional or with accidents). There's a vast consensus about this, by the way. One of the main reasons? The situation in places without strict gun control.

Just because YOU prefer it, doesn't make it right.
Nor does it make you any safer.

I'm not sure how I would feel if I lived in the US though. The situation is so screwed due to the easy availability of firearms that I could actually see me purchase a gun to be kept at home for my own protection. But this is merely the lesser of two evils. I'd take my chances to be "raped and pillaged by madmen" everyday.

You clearly have never lived in the US for very long.

"Clash of culture" doesn't convince me either. Germany is also extremely diverse ethnically by today, and our homicide rate is only minimally higher than Norway.

It's been over a decade since I've been to Germany, and I can't say I saw much of a diffenence in culture there.
But then again I was stationed at Bitburg airbase (USAF) for a few months during "Operation Desert Shield" and came back to Barksdale AFB in the states.

An almost hilarious claim, but I don't feel like investing the time to disprove you. I can assure you that "rape, pillage and murder" is the total exception rather than the rule here. And I'd still prefer to put my trust into the police rather than armed vigilantes.

Oh please, by all means laugh yourself silly.
The reasons for the riots are the same as they were in the 1960s.
The roll back of entitlement programs.
I didn't say it happens on a regular basis, I said it happens due to the entitlement society and the mindset that comes with it.
Putting trust in the police that are ordered to "stand and observe" isn't something I'm willing to put my faith in.

I feel tempted to just give up on you as one more propaganda victim, but I'm too curious. Where's your source for this "Fabian Socialism" for your claim that Europe is like this (which part of Europe, by the way?)

If you don't know what Fabian Socialism is, or their influence on Europe then I question your knowledge of world politics as a whole.

Here is a good example of Fabian influence, by the Fabians themselves.
I fail to see how this is proganda since it's simply a fact that many persons of high postion in the EU are members of the Fabian Society.
The Fabians have a great deal of influence on other socalist groups and are thus the model for European Socialism.
What is so hard to understand about this?

Not a single EU government is communist. The only country I know of that has an extremely weak connection to Fabian socialism would be the UK via little parts of the Labour party. I wonder what you think our government types are...

Communist?
See that tells me you don't even know what Fabianism is.
Beatrice and Sidney Webb, and George Bernard Shaw created Fabian Socialism as a viable alternative to Marx and Engles "Scientific-Socialism."
They didn't like each other, but both wanted to create planned societies.
Marx was off in his la-la-land of a command economy while the Fabians were looking at how to create an actual working socialist model.
I hate to have to defend the Fabians, but compared to Marx they are vastly more desirable.

Strange that those countries with the biggest entitlement programs - as you call them - seem to be the most successful ones. Look at Germany, Holland, Switzerland, or especially the scandinavian countries. All of them have balanced budgets and a social net that America could only dream of. How can that be?

It's called NATO.
The US supplied most of the military might for Europe for much of the Cold War, and we're still doing it today.
Which is essentially military welfare to Europe, but hey...we'll just print more money to pay for it...our people are fat enough, they can starve a little bit to defend Europe for few more years.

How exactly does the government "clamp down on society"? It's not us who feel like telling partners that they must not marry if they happen to be of the same gender. It's not us who want to tell people what to do and not to do in our bedrooms. We don't need to incarcerate 1% of our population. I can positively assure you that personal freedoms are actually much _bigger_ over here, since people can actually do what they want WITHOUT having economic coercion fence them in.

Seriously, have you ever even BEEN here before, or are you just regurgitating what you read somewhere?

I already answered that.
And as I've said before.
Collectivism comes in many forms, and I despise them all.
To me there is no difference between banning gay marriage and banning guns.
It's none of the government's damn business in either case and NO ONE has the right to tell another human being who they can marry or what property they can own.
I'm sure it will shock you to know that I view abortion the same way.
It is not the right of any one group to demand that a woman have a child if she doesn't want it.
You appear to be erroneously working off the assumption that I'm of the right-wing.
That shows me you have no idea just how far right the American right-wing is, since I'm considered a "lefty" by most people I know that are right-wingers.

Originally Posted by GDB

32 deaths and 25 wounded, while not the exact same level, is still pretty damned high. Was in Virginia, with loose enough gun-control laws to allow a person, legally declared by a judge to be mentally unstable, to purchase a gun. He killed himself, he was not stopped by someone else.

It is also known that he avoided the ROTC US Marine building on the VA Tech campus.
You wanna know why?
Because THEY WERE ARMED!!
We have "gun free school zones" in the US, and thats why he chose a classroom he knew would be easy picking.

Originally Posted by Zakoo

Why do you even try argue? He is free to think what he wants -even if it is wrong-.

Sorry to put it like that GundamFan, but that's nearly a slap that you gave me, when I read Synaesthetic posts, the only thing I want to say is "come here", because it's unbearable for me to read this and simply think "well each person has its own shit, if he is poor, he has to deal with it."

Don't be sorry.
I feel the same way about you.
You're wrong, about a great many things.
I only hope that people will learn what Socialism is before we see it's darker side as the economies collapse.
Marx was right about that in Das Kapital.

You are ready to sacrifice 90% of the population for ten percents by refusing healthcare -that is a choice- I won't tell you it's wrong or anything, US and Europe -especially the country where I live- have a little ... variance on this but I will only say this :

Child PLEASE! GTFO of my face with that Bullshit!
90% are going to just Die!
Really?
What are they doing now?
Hmmm?
The Health Care law hasn't taken effect yet.
Are they dropping like flies?
No, and they won't after the Health Care Law is declared unconstitutional.
Get a grip.

Socialism is at the very core of this, we have to try each others, ofc, the same way for religions there is "extremum"... I will agree only on one thing with you: communism as we know it, as history showed it, is not a good thing.

Yes, socialism is at the very core of this problem.
It is a system that requires considerable overhaul to be viable.
And Kudos to the Fabians for trying, but it's still not working because it doesn't take into consideration Human Action.