USA social commentary - a visiting European view
POSTED BY: kpo
UPDATED: Wednesday, December 9, 2009 23:23
VIEWED: 4974
PAGE 7 of 8
Hehehehh... My old neighborhood, Rue, I actually got pulled over one night on the way home, because the cop wanted know what I was doing in that area. He apparently figured a white guy in that area at night was there for only one thing: drugs. I told him I lived just down the block, showed him the address on my license, and he looked a bit nonplussed. I explained to him that I moved there for the cheap rent, and the dogs and guns helped me feel unthreatened, which he kind of understood. :)
I walked the neighborhood at night, but I always kept my wits about me as far as situational awareness goes, and was never hassled. Had one car stolen, and two broken into, but I'm told that happens in every part of town...
Now, there ARE some alleyways and dead-end streets in that area where I won't go even in broad daylight, with a gun in my hand.
Mike
Work is the curse of the Drinking Class.
- Oscar Wilde
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Magons'
I think this had more to do with banking than with diplomacy.
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I was talking about the game...
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Rue, Mikey ?
I could hardly be called upon for an opinion of that mess, since I grew up in a neighborhood where you had to be careful even buyin groceries, cause if you didn't leave one hand free for your pistol you were buying trouble right from the start.
When I was workin for Eagle-A1, the owner let me use one of the security cars (bulletproof) we used to escort limos since we didn't get much call to use them and it's bad to leave a car sit unused, maintainence wise - and it had sufficient anti-theft measures that it'd actually BE there in the morning, with all four wheels still on it.
My place was on the top floor of a lot of narrow steps with no landing, and the steps were both sensor rigged and boobytrapped - if I thought something foul was up a pullstring would yank the pin of a CS gas grenade in the light fixture and fill that hallway quick, and STILL I got shot at twice for no particular reason in between the front door and the car.
Funny thing about that, was that one of the local midlevel drug yahoos wanted to rush my place*, and used the damned cops as a freakin recon team by levelling a weapons accusation, causing them to come and search the place - they did it correctly, for the most part, came during the day and knocked politely, sliding a copy of the warrant under the door.
I let em in and sat in my kitchen drinking cocoa while they looked around, and one of em got pissed at not finding anything and kinda trashed the place, which resulted in the landlord sending them a bill, which they surprisingly *did* pay through their community relations division.
His goons, now having the idea that their buddies in blue had rendered me defenseless did try some funny business a couple days later, and I had to bring home another CS grenade...
Livin that way drives people insane, and the fact that the Baltimore PD was so rabidly and aggressively anti self-defense that the druglords used em to strip others of the capacity for it didn't leave me warm fuzzies for the force, especially as it was notoriously corrupt.
I drove through there some few years ago (I do this because otherwise the people with me will not believe it was that bad) and the place looked like Beirut after the war, a bombed out shell almost desolate of life - looks like everyone who coulda left did and those remaining killed each other - damn glad I got the hell out of there, many weren't so lucky, or ruthless enough, especially the old folk livin on pensions and whatnot...
They talk about the american dream, but I tellya, it sure as hell isn't visible from the corner of 10th and Stohl, and that's a fekkin fact.
*Said dopelord was a little pissed about me bouncing one of his little hoodlums off my fender, since my ignoring his attempt to sell me drugs encouraged him to try a carjacking - bastard even shot at me as I drove off, but he didn't hit a bloody thing and it wouldn't have mattered if he did.
FYI, I hated that goddamn stop sign there - if you stop, you risk robbery or carjacking, and if you DON'T stop, the goddamn police cruiser (who conveniently managed NOT to see any of the drug dealing) sittin at the end of the street would be all up in your ass with a ticket, lickety split, fekkin bastards... people wonder why I hate police, *hissss*
-Frem
There always has to be a price.
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Quote:
Originally posted by Magonsdaughter:
I'm sure all European countries would have preferred to remain neutral - they just didn't get a say in it. Germany invaded them and bombed the shit out of them.
ever played Diplomacy? Even though it's WW1, it gives a great insight into how countries like Switzerland, Sweden and Ireland were able to stay neutral, but poor old Belgium - not a chance.
Sometimes neutrality is immoral, especially if you also reap the rewards of those who suffer around you.
It still feels to me like someone's raping your next door neighbour and you are the one that says...I'm not calling the police, nothing to do with me!!
Oh I take your point, I was just bringing to light the question of who has to risk their neck for it - I am ok with folk volunteering to do so, not so ok with someone else forcing them to under threat of violence/incarceration/etc.
Like I said, there were americans who went to fight Franco even in defiance of their own country supporting him cause the guy was a freakin monster.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abraham_Lincoln_Brigade
The mess in Catalonia is where the final break between the Socialists, Communists and Anarchists occured, since the former two went and threw in with Fascists against us, and we've never ever forgotten it - that they sided with everything they claimed to hate against their "friends" because their "friends" didn't want to grab the leash for themselves, but rather cut it into pieces and set it on fire.
The very IDEA of Anarchist Catalonia was a threat to every single government of any kind on the planet, and they knew it and reacted accordingly.
And yes, all too often nations don't get much of a say in it, or are dependant on some resource that the lack of will be crippling - which is why us attacking Iran would be suicide, cause the Russians are gonna scream "THAT'S OUR OIL SUPPLY" and come running, enraged, to defend it, whether they actually LIKE the Iranians or not.
As for historically, if we *HAD* taken the moral course, and not dropped Afghanistan like a hot brick when the Soviets pulled out cause it was no more use to us, if we had kept our promises...
We wouldn't be in this fuckin mess, would we ?
I doubt they expect us to keep any promises even now, many as we've broken to them - and we keep halfassing the job with puppets like Osama, Saddam, The Shah, etc - which always, ALWAYS bites us on the ass a while later, and Kharazi will be no different, I figure he goes the way of that shitheel Chalabi, who's prolly living high on the hog somewhere on however much he scammed out of us and laughing up his sleeve besides.
Anyhows, I think it should be up to the individual whether or not to risk their neck outside of their own country out of moral obligation.
-F
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Quote:
Originally posted by Magonsdaughter:
And to sum up some of the attitudes here
That seems to be a dead hotlink now, Magons. I found a fresh one, (1) because I think that map is hilarious and scathing at the same time, and (2) because I think it adds to the context of this thread.
Here 'tis:
Feel free to copy and paste it.
Mike
Work is the curse of the Drinking Class.
- Oscar Wilde
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Oh, gawd, that one's HYSTERICAL...mostly because it's so right on!
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Yeah, MagonsDaughter found that one and posted it, but her link went dead. I thought it was perfect enough (especially for this thread) that I went searching for another hosted link and popped it back up because it's so awesome.
Thanks and all credit go to Magons for finding it in the first place!
Mike
Work is the curse of the Drinking Class.
- Oscar Wilde
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Quote:
Originally posted by Wulfenstar:
I was referring to the ideology behind the British people.
Britain has a long history of bowing to their monarchy. Its ingrained. No matter that they might now have a different form of government. (Laughable at best)
I suggest that you do a quick search on Charles I and see how Parliament (the English one, not the Firefly one) expressed their displeasure with him. 400 years ago.
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Re: Baltimore.
I see not much has changed - some of the Conventions I used to attend have blacklisted the city and/or some of it's hotels because they are so gawdawful dangerous, and I was just pondering that when I tripped over this story...
http://news.aol.com/article/baltimore-hotel-shooting/803524
What a bloody awful place.
Although convention-wise, there was one bit of hilarity many years ago, before folk would shit a brick and scream for homeland security at the sight of a pair of pointy scissors...
Was a renfaire group that decided to talk a walk down the street from the hotel to the coffee shop, and a local street gang decided to start hassling them, to which they took in good enough humor till the gang pulled out the usual knives, chains, bats, etc...
(shooting wasn't *quite* as common then cause the police would ignore anything less, you see ?)
The renfaire group looked at each other in amazed disbelief, and then said gangbangers found themselves facing enough razor edged steel to clearcut a small forest, those were NOT prop weapons, oh no...
The bangers bolted, with the renfaire group in hot pursuit, a couple blocks down and tried to hide behind one of the police cruisers parked in front of the station there - which the boys in blue watched with amused contempt, without intervening, I mean, this was the BCPD, remember.
As the mighty heros spread out to flank them the bangers resorted to outright begging for assistance, to which the cops arrested em (again, BCPD, tossed the charges later and just kicked em out, sans chains, bats and knifes) and advised the renfaire people to get the hell out of sight before they suffered a similar fate.
Twice as funny was that some local reporter actually SAW that happen, and lingered lovingly over the image of a bunch of gangbangers being chased down the street by a squad of sword waving folk in period costume.
(For the record, it was the ban on live steel that caused this particular group to stop attending the Baltimore convention, can you blame them ?)
Anyhows, that's one reason that for the time being disarmament isn't an answer here in america, because the criminals are already emboldened by it, and utterly dependent on the non-resistance suggested by folks who do not mean well, they EXPECT meek compliance - for without it there would be a different risk assessment.
And so until the underlying causes and creation of such predators is addressed, which it hasn't been yet, not in any significant way, to ask americans to ground arms is to hand them over, defenseless, to the very predators their society creates.
Each country, each culture, is very different, in many ways, and it's never as bloody simple as folks try to make it, has less to do with weapons than it does people, and the nature of the law and society one is discussing.
That said, you couldn't pay me ENOUGH to try mugging a Glaswegian, crazy I might be, but I ain't THAT nuts.
-F
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