Dianne Feinstein

stratoaxe wrote: My problem with the far left style of politics is that it assumes the government's responsibility is not only to protect the people, but to think for them.

that fairly well sums it up.

The only silver lining to Dianne Feinstein is that she is old and likely to die soon.

pntbl freak wrote: "National Rifle Association CEO and executive vice president Wayne LaPierre was also quick to blame violent video games for the events at the Sandy Hook, after it was found that shooter Adam Lanza may have played video games like "Call of Duty" and "Starcraft."" Really? Starcraft?

My reaction entirely.

Also, while I don't look at the NRA as an ambassador for right wing politics, I find it disturbing that both the right and left are exercising this "we'll solve your problems for you" way of thought. It used to be you could look to one side or the other to offset the extremes of their opponents but now it seems both parties are deeply interested in expanding the involvement of the government in everyday life.

To be clear, I don't see vidya games and the AWB is isolated missteps on the part of our representatives, I see them as examples of a more disturbing mindset.

pntbl freak wrote: Maybe I just do not see it as much, but why is it always video game violence? Why not movie or TV violence? Recent movies like Django Unchained (which I loved by the way) are just as violent if not more then video games. In the movie, Jamie Foxx, a real life, air breathing human blows away hundreds of other people without a single care in the world. Hell, Christoph Waltz pulls a concealed weapon out of his jacket when he was about to shake someone's hand and puts a bullet into the man's chest.

Because they're attacking things that the mass public does not understand to make it look like they're working on our problems.

The AWB for example. I think that politicians want to appear to be far more proactive than they really are, so they take some niche hobby like AR's, paint an evil picture on them, and voila! They've now accomplished some great act.

Same with video games. The demographic that votes and pays the most is going to be less likely to care about or understand video games, so they can attach a negative stigma to them to make it look like they're effecting change in an issue that they, in reality, can't do anything about.

Like I said earlier, they've tried this before with cars. The far left tried to classify SUV's and sports cars as the anti-Christ to the environment when in reality even the worst SUV is lightyears improved upon even the better gas mileage attained by cars just two decades earlier.

With SUV's and trucks, however, they found that the people bit back and they lowered their rhetoric.

I think most politicians have never heard of Occam's Razor.

Edited by stratoaxe - 07 April 2013 at 2:45pm

I think the NRA tried to deflect the "blame" to violent video games just so they wouldn't have to take on the liberal offensive by themselves. I highly doubt LaPierre honestly thinks video games are responsible, but if he can put some of the spotlight on something other than guns for a brief moment he will.
I don't agree with the tactic, but when the people doing the blaming have no common sense you sometimes have to play dirty.

I think LaPierre is a piss-poor speaker personally, and I think what the NRA was attempting to do was bring into question the broader societal issue with violence appearing in all types of media, not just games, and how the mere presence of a gun does't make someone homicidal or prone to fantasies of violence, but rather that the blame lays squarely on the shoulders of our society and our glorification (really deification) of guns and violence in all aspects of our culture.

You cannot watch 45 minutes of TV these days without seeing or hearing at least one reference to violence and guns. Whether it's in the show, in a commercial, or a breaking news segment, you're bound to see and or hear about it. The worst part is, we aren't actually all that violent of a society, we're just made out to be because violence is primal and it sells.

On that note, the appeals court that overturned the the lower court Woollard decisions made me laugh. There is a quote where they say that allowing citizens to carry in MD at will would turn it into the "wild west." I find it particularly amusing because the "wild west" was a fiction made up by dime-novel authors. The American west actually had few in-the-streets gun battles because EVERYONE was armed.

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Edited by impulse418 - 10 April 2013 at 9:13pm

stratoaxe wrote: but seriously, who votes for these people?

I live in the glorious state of California... There are plenty of idiots here... Who believe in anything...