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How about we "sensibly regulate" the internet to reduce the risk of child predators? Professionals, such as me, with background checks, can have internet access at home. Non-professionals can access the internet from libraries. It's not a violation of the First Amendment--we're not telling you what you can say or look at. We're just regulating where you look at it, and logging your browser history to help tackle crime.

Are you reasonable, or are you a free speech nut who supports pedophiles?

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I just saw this comment on a FB forum about Starbucks:

"Went to Starbucks this morning. No guns.  So peaceful."

Dear utter fucking retard:

Below is the list of shootings that have taken place at Starbucks:

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Now, there have been a few altercations, usually because retarded pussies like yourself insisted on threatening or attacking people who were obeying the law and happened to be armed.  This proves you really weren't afraid of them shooting you, or you'd have run screaming.  

So what you're saying is, "It was peaceful because I didn't throw a panty-shitting tantrum over my fellow citizens living their lives in a way I don't approve of."

How special for you.

Moving on--how do you KNOW there were no guns?  I keep mine concealed, and it's easy to confirm that I really know how to use it.  You'll never see it unless I actually need it.  But it's there.  And I was in my local Starbucks.  So there were, in fact guns in Starbucks.

I guess you think that little letter they sent out, that someone photographed, means something.  Let me explain the law to you:

A corporate policy letter has no legal weight on private citizens (and isn't your side the one that hates corporations telling people what to do?).

Unless there is a sign on the door, the policy doesn't exist, from a legal perspective.

Even IF there are signs on the door, that only matters in states that have such a law, which specify the size, wording, color, placement and height of said signage.

In most states, the sign STILL has no legal weight.  Unless and until the staff actually determine I'm armed, AND ask me to remove my weapon from the premises, I'm perfectly legal.

So there are going to be guns there EVERY DAY.

In fact, I'm going to make it a point to carry a gun into Starbuck's every day from now on.  Even if I just walk through and say hi and keep walking.

So there are guns in Starbuck's.

And you'll never know which customers have them. :*

Just as a final note--those signs and letters don't stop actual criminals.

So yes, it really comes down to, "I want to stop people from living a lifestyle I don't like."

Congratulations.  You and Fred Phelps are in good company with the Klan and the gay bashers. 

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These are so common they should be an FAQ.

"Nobody wants to take away your guns."

How you lie to yourselves:

This huge list of people http://thewriterinblack.blogspot.com/2014/09/nobody-wants-to-take-your-guns.html want to take away our guns.  You can't claim it's only rhetoric. You can't claim it doesn't matter.  You can't claim it's a fabrication or "out of context."  They have stated so, repeatedly, in public.  Anyone repeating "no one wants to take away your guns" is deluding themselves into a false moral high ground.

If you are one of these people, knowing this, you have a couple of choices:  Contact all the above people and express your objections, or admit that you're okay with people taking away our guns.  In which case, you're lying to us, too.

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"No right is absolute.  Nobody would claim the Second Amendment protects a right to own a nuclear bomb."

How you lie to us:

You aren't interested in nukes.  However, your next statement is going to be, "So of course we can reasonably draw the line at 'assault weapons'."  At which point you're conflating a common, self-loading rifle, which has been in existence for over a century, and fires bullets at people, with a nuclear device capable of destroying cities.  Sure, 1763 Joules is almost the same as  5,439,200,000,000,000,000 ( 5.4392X10^18 ) Joules.

No, not really.

If you are one of these people, you're lying.  We know you're lying.  You also have a ridiculous obsession with guns, if you can even pretend to compare them to nukes. (FYI, there's absolutely a valid claim that the Second Amendment protects the right to own nuclear bombs.)

~~~

"High capacity clips."

 By this, you mean any MAGAZINE, not clip, that holds "a lot."  You're counting on your toes and running out.

How you're lying to us:  

In fact, the AR15 and the military M16 started with 20 round magazines in 1959.  They moved to a 30 round magazine in 1967.  The AK-47 was first fielded in ...1947.  It has had a 30 round magazine as its standard all along.  That's 66 years.  So what makes it "high capacity" now?  That someone not in this field of expertise doesn't like it doesn't change the definitions.  You can't arrogate that authority to yourself.

You can't even decide what constitutes "high capacity."  It varies by jurisdiction from 30 to 20 to 15 to 12 to 10 to 7.

Based on what criteria?  And, if you get to define it as 10, then 7, as has happened, why not 5 (standard capacity in 1893)?  4 (standard in 1859)?  1 (standard back to the 1500s)?

This is very clearly an attempt to ban guns (oh, right--you don't actually want to ban guns. See above).  It's just a dishonest attempt.  But go ahead, tell me why X rounds is "enough," and what task it's enough for, and your credentials for making that statement.  You can't answer those questions, because you're lying.

What you mean is, "I want to find ways to make it tough for people to own guns."

And of course, the people it will be toughest for are poor, usually minorities. So you're hugely racist as well. It won't be rich, white, liberals of privilege in their gated communities and condos who can't get guns. It will be poor single mothers and families in the ghetto, who can't afford a license, a safe, excessively expensive "training," and sign-off by bureaucrats. Just the way you liked them in the post-bellum south.

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"At the time the Constititution was written, people only had muskets."

Why you're lying:

Actually, no.  There were repeating firearms even then.  But that's irrelevant.  In 1789, gays couldn't marry. Are you pushing for that?  "Free speech" meant wood type or standing in the city square.  What about that?  Things develop and improve over time.  Why don't you try being liberal, and embrace the 21st Century, rather than being stuck in 1789?

Wait, I know your response:  "Those don't kill people."

Why you're STILL lying:

Pedophiles make copious use of the internet to share files that exploit, hurt, and kill kids.  Please justify why you need internet in your home?  What's wrong with reasonable regulation?  Background checks?  Why can't you access the internet from a library, where your browser history can be monitored?

You're lying.  Stop wasting your time.

BTW, gay marriage aside, AIDS spread by gay men kills as many people as guns.  Are you pushing for mandatory blood tests and condom usage to save lives?

If not, you're lying. It's not about saving life.  It's about you having an irrational fear of guns.

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"I have guns, and all mine are properly registered."

How you're lying:

Almost no state or local jurisdiction in the US actually registers firearms.  So unless you happen to live in one of those, you're either fabricating entirely to try to don the cloak of credibility, or, you don't actually know anything about the law.  So perhaps you shouldn't be expressing an opinion on a subject you don't understand.  Either way, lies and ignorance are poor tactics for debate.

~~~ 

"We are advocates for safe gun use."

How you're lying:

Would you care what a "car safety advocate" said if he wasn't a car designer, engineer, builder, or even had a driver's license?  Guess what?  Since you know nothing technically about the subject, you're not an advocate for safety, you're an advocate for fear and ignorance.   There's no reason we should listen to you.

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"Guns are only made to do one thing:  Kill people."

 Why you're wrong:

A lot of Olympic target shooters will be surprised to hear that.  So will hunters.  So will 90,000,000 Americans who didn't kill anyone last year.  Statistically, guns are significantly less lethal than a great many other devices.

~~~ 

"We just want to save children's lives."

Why you're lying:

If it was about children's lives, booze and incidents involving booze kill more people than in incidents involving guns, A LOT more children than are killed in incidents involving guns, and there are zero non-medical reasons a person "needs" booze.  How many of you voice anything about further restrictions on booze?  You're quite likely part of the "booze culture" yourself.  So you have no credibility.

What you are refusing to admit is that the only purpose of alcohol is to hinder and impair your judgment and motor skills.  But you didn't INTEND to run anyone down, so negligence is okay.

No, it's not.

But try this to prove your position:  Go to the morgue, find the body of a child hit by a drunk, and tell the parents, "Be glad they weren't shot. That would be worse."

Really.  Do it.

If you won't, you know your position is dishonest.  So what it comes down to is, "My vices are okay, but yours aren't, and I'm willing to lie to get what I want."

You're not interested in saving children's lives. In fact, you'll gleefully dance on their graves if you think you'll gain political leverage, while you continue with acts that kill a lot more kids.

Oh, and there's a stated constitutional right to my "vice" and SCOTUS agrees.  So you're in the same "protect the children" crowd as the Klan protecting kids from blacks, the anti-gay crowd protecting kids from gays, and the anti-porn crusaders.

And that's exactly how we see you--a bunch of dishonest, loudmouthed, hypocritical bigots.  

Truth hurts, eh?

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About a year ago, John Scalzi wrote a post about how "being white is the easy setting in the game of life."

Right there we see that he's assuming middle class, Midwestern Americans, because there are quite a few places in the world where being white won't help you at all.  He's basing his assessment of humanity on his own upbringing in a very nice part of Ohio.  Subjective, and incomplete.

He got flak. You won't find a lot of it because it's the kind of discussion he feels has to be "carefully managed."

He plans to do a followup:

http://whatever.scalzi.com/2013/05/27/in-which-cracked-com-does-a-follow-up-on-straight-white-male/

"Hey, remember a year ago when I wrote a piece talking about how being a straight white male was like playing the game of life on the lowest difficulty setting? And then a bunch of straight white dudes lost their minds about it?"

TRANSLATION:  "I demeaned a group based on their race.  By objecting to this, they're racist, even if they're not of that race."

Actually, no, John. A bunch of people of various ethnic backgrounds, from Hispanic to non-American white to black to mixed Native American and black took issue with it, because it was at best shallow, and at worst a projection of white liberal guilt.  http://www.michaelzwilliamson.com/blog/item/thoughts-and-interviews-on-race-and-culture

Predictably, when invited to discuss the issue further with the above people, in a polite email, Scalzi completely ignored the issue.  I can't presume his motives, but someone did suggest that the purpose of his posts is more to promote his books in the guilt-ridden, white, racist, liberal sellout market than to actually accomplish debate.  To support this, they offered his tendency to "carefully manage" blog comments (newspeak for "censor dissenting opinions").

In fact, even a BLACK liberal writer made several critiques of his position, starting with Scalzi's own self-described "passive-aggressive" approach to never identifying characters' race, so people can "assume" whatever they want, which means, of course, the whites generally assume the characters are white, and in a white-dominated nation, those of other ethnicities do too, because that's the default setting in contemporary America that he mentioned.  In other words, he's not actually doing anything about the problem except whining. 

But for dissenting with him, he seems to presume I'm prejudiced, when I've written POV characters who are identified as female, black, Asian, Hispanic, gay, bisexual, transsexual and even white.  Projecting much?

But note:  His assumption is that dissenters MUST be white, and MUST be angry with the fact that they're privileged.  I do sense projection here, because this is the man who defines "being poor" as being ashamed of a free school lunch, or not paying utility bills on time.  Which sounds tragic to people who saved every penny to move nations, learned new languages, worked in the sex industry to pay bills, stole food from work or simply got no lunch at all, and I know plenty of such, and even fit a couple of those categories myself.  So as I've said before:  I have no doubt from his scribblings that Scalzi played life on the easy setting.  Now that he's gotten rich, he needs to properly excoriate his success to avoid being a bad liberal.

An actual racist (I've met a few) would say, "Well, yes, I've done well, because I'm genetically and intellectually better than those lesser races."  They would have no reason to get upset with his post, because it would tell them exactly what they wanted to hear:  That they're at the top of the heap, awesome.

Now, there is racism in America (why, I don't know.  I'm an immigrant, I don't get it, and as I've said before, you all look like Americans to me.  Most people accept that statement.  I've had a few people, always "liberal," tell me that I don't see any difference because I'm "white."  And 95 times out of 100, it's a white "liberal" who brings up race first.)  And the ways to defeat racism generally come down to treating individuals on their merits, and attempting to correct injustice when identified.

Writing all your characters as default setting whites, shouting "RACIST!" and culling blog posts is probably not an ideal way to accomplish either goal.  I had lengthy discussions with black writers and editors about Scalzi's post, and their concurrence seemed to be that it was shallow.  I'll go a step further:  It was an elitist white male passively-aggressively talking down to others about how awesome he is, but he feels guilty about it, so don't judge him too harshly. 

Sorry, John, if you assume that ONLY white males could disagree, that any dissenter MUST fit that demographic, that your subjective opinion is inerrant, you have the problem. 

Blog posts won't fix it.

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