Statistics...

[miko2d]

 Many non-americans and quite a few americans may not know that fact.

 US is a big country and population here is very mobile. Whenever someone's family social status changes even slightly, the family usually moves into a place where people with similar social status live.

 That is why we have neighbourhoods/towns that differ enourmously - more then any two european countries fiffer from each other. I am not talking France from Italy here. I am talking France and Albania or Kosovo.

 Inhabitants of well-to do neighbourhoods may have no idea what the living condition in bad neighbourhoods are and most people never visit them in their lifetime.

 We know that unfortunately in our country the aftican-americans are disproportionately represented in the underprivileged social group. So those neighbourhoods are different from other neighbourhoods not onlt by their living standards but by their natonal origin as well.
 The tragedy of african-american neighbourhoods is perpetuated by the fact that once a family manages to achieve a higher income level it immediately moves into a better neighbourhood. Kind of natural selection in reverse - all positive example and influence is removed.

 We may assume that there are many countries with quite different ways of life and national/racial content all bundled under one label USA. That can screw up statistics quite a bit.

 In US with our gun ownership the rate of murder, especially gun-related is much higher then in european countries. That seems to indicate that guns are the root of the evil.

 Consider that according to the more detailed statistics one of the three african-american males ages 16 to 30 (?) is either in prison or on parole. Violence is the leading cause of death of the black males in the same age group. Drug-related violence (turf wars) is something that european countries do not have  and it is also localised in the same neighbourhoods.

 My point is. If we consider gun-related and general murder rates among the white americans (not for racial, but for territorial reasons), they will not be higher then european countries or Israel (where most people are armed).

 People that leave in regular neighbourhoods - white, black and asians are no more prone to violence then any european people.
 Situation in unfortunate neighbourhoods - so called "inner cities"(mostly black) is so dire, that statistics for the whole country shoots straight to the top.

 What would the politicians do? Instead of going where the crime is actually takes place , they go after the law-abiding citizens.

 Why? I venture to guess the following reasons:
 1. It is easier to make law-abiding citizens to do something then to help unfortunates against real criminals. So a policy may be successfull when reporting how many guns were removed from the hands of the population, no matter that the murder rate did not drop at all.
 If the drug gangs can bring into the country  thousands of tonnes of drugs, it will be much easier for them to bring or manufacture the illegal firearms - they are much more compact, the dogs cannot smell them and they require iron for manufacture - not fancy substance.

 2. Using the ever persisting threat of gun-violence happening elsewhere, they can disarm the population. It is not in their interest to actually solve the problem. It provides the needed statistics and news without actually affecting 99% of american soil.
 Once a dictator takes power in the unarmed nation, that problem can be solved by gassing pesky neighbourhoods - after all nobody will have the power to protect the rights of innocents.

 There is no other way to exert somebody's will on unwilling people then violence (all forms of legal punishment included). The only way to resist is with a threat of opposing violence. A man who gives up his right to own a weapon is surrendering himself to the will of anyone who would resort to using violence. That man is a slave already - nobody just bothered to claim him yet.

 A man with a gun can defend his freedom or die as a free man. A man without a gun can choose to live as a slave or die as a slave.

 Of course anyone really intersted in helping bad neighbourhoods would send more police there, make them pay more attenton, catch criminals and remove guns from their hands. Unfortunately it is illegal because it is caused raciall profiling by other people - white and black politicians leaving in good neighbourhoods.
 If there are 12% of blacks in the country, 88% of all criminals caught must be white/asians despite all the statistics above.

 I live in a neighbourhood with many people of russian origin and deal with them a lot. If I heard that police concentrated their efforts on catching russian-american criminals to the detriment of other groups, I would be happy. The less criminals where I live - the better. Even if my car is stopped more often them average american's - as long as they are polite, of course.

miko

[This message has been edited by miko2d (edited 10-10-2000).]

[Igloo]

"A man with a gun can defend his freedom or die as a free man. A man without a gun can choose to live as a slave or die as a slave."


Wow! Can you say, "Brainwashed"?

------------------
Squadron Leader, Igloo.
C/O RCAF 411 Squadron - County of York

"Problems cannot be solved with the same awareness that created them" - Albert Einstein[/i]

[AKDejaVu]

Miko.. I can't quite put a finger on it.. but there is something about your posts that simply rub me the wrong way.  I believe it is your use of the "lower class" citizens in the argument.

This is the second time you've done it.  Though, this one is not as bad as using the lower class citizens to justify the need for abortion in order to better society.  It is, however, a close second.

AKDejaVu

[miko2d]

Igloo,
 I lived 25 years in a communist country as a member of a suppressed minority and access to the information from abroad.
 I lived and fought in different countries - with drastically different customs - not as a tourist.
 I left Russia with $90, arrived to US with less and received welfare. Now I am in top $5 of the income. And I am not running my business or trading stocks - I am a technologist in a very competitive workplace. People who pay my salary are sure I am smart and educated.
 I have two high educations, friends from and  in many countries and with different believes.
 I served as a gunner through commander of a tank platoon.
 I was faced with violence and chose to give up money because did not think it worth the risk.
 On other occasions I was faced with violence which I could not decline and had to defend myself with deadly force. "You can decline a drink or a conversation but if a man offers you a fight, you have to oblige..." - who said that?
 I was exposed to the whole spectrum of real political and religious propaganda.
 I read Karl Marks, Lenin, Stalin, Hitler, Chirchill, Manstein, Zukov and plenty of other people first-hand (translated, of course).
 I do not hunt and I do not own a single gun yet - an air-gun and three bows.

 If I was any more open minded, the rain would pour into my neck.

 Read your history - the civilized population  of developed countries were brought under the heel of dictators on this century. You think it cannot happen to you? You think canadians would ever be as civilised and sophisticated as germans (who ended up with Hitler) were in the beginning of the past century? You think that any government in the worls would ever be as educated as the first communist government in Russia?

 Then you are ignorant.

 If a thug or three meet you in the dark place and proceed to rape your wife (or you) and you have no intention to resist, aren't you a slave from the moment you made that decision?

 If you lived in a place/time where you had to defend yourself every day, you would not argue about owning a gun.
 Of course now we do need to do that, so why have the guns?
 I do not need a fire extinguisher - I never needed to use it in the past...
 You would probably believe that there is a fireman always on hand wnen you need it.
 You live in a cosy quiet place and think what you see on TV would never happen to you?  Your children? Grandchildren? Good luck!

 You know the word "brainwashed" and ready to throw it on anyone without knowing their background or a single word to justify your classification.

 You did not care about the distorted statistics already forced on us by our government or whoever worms his way on top in the future, about many other lies coming from it, but you would continue to trust it to the extent of disarming us?
 You disagree with many policies of our government already - you think that abortions should be legal (but they were and may be banned), that abortion after 5 months is murder (see - I read your posts), that guns should not be allowed. There are many other things done by the government that you or other people don't agree. Do you think in the future we would not get anything worse? Capital punishment for drug-related crime? For abortion/murder? Forced abortions? Forced sterilisations? Taking children away from their parents for spanking them? For allowing them to overeat? For their better good in state-owned scientifically-based creches? Jailing people for harming their unborn children by the bad lifestyle? Making doctors violate their patient confidentiality oath and report such things to the state? All those things are quite legal in many countries (and the highlighted ones - in modern US).

 What planed do you live on?

miko

[This message has been edited by miko2d (edited 10-10-2000).]

[Maverick]

Miko,

Igloo is a product of PC thought and speech. He has not had any direct experiance in much of life (I am inferring this from his posts) and as such does not know a few things.

1. The world does not want to be saved.

2. The world will actively fight you to keep from being saved.

3. The world is not the nice suburban neighborhood you may see around you.

4. There are genuine truly evil people in the world who view others as prey.

5. Few people are willing to put thier lives on the line to serve society. Most are only interested in making bigger bucks and telling others how to live.

Mav

[Igloo]

What in the world does that have to do with:

"A man with a gun can defend his freedom or die as a free man. A man without a gun can choose to live as a slave or die as a slave."

Sorry, that's just wrong.

A man name Gandhi once proved it.

------------------
Squadron Leader, Igloo.
C/O RCAF 411 Squadron - County of York

"Problems cannot be solved with the same awareness that created them" - Albert Einstein[/i]

[miko2d]

 

Originally posted by AKDejaVu:
Miko.. I can't quite put a finger on it.. but there is something about your posts that simply rub me the wrong way.  I believe it is your use of the "lower class" citizens in the argument.

 I know, I do not like to read it myself. But that is a fact - in US the living conditions, achievements and opportunities many of the black people enjoy (I should say suffer) are terrible compared to the average.

 Instead of helping those people and applying the efforts where they would do most good, the politicians prefer to go after easier targets using those unfortunates as an excuse for their "more government control, more spending" propaganda.

 Most of the official anti-abortion and anti-violence propaganda is aimed at the average american but average american does not have those problems. That kind of propaganda is very inefficient among the really troubled neighbourhoods. But what would our Harward-educated politicians know about the conditions there?
 They use words in their slogans I have problem understanding - let alone 14-year old girl with a kid in the inner city who does know how to read.
 How about removing tests from school trailing schools (mostly in the black neighbourhoods - what a surprise) to remove "the pressure of competitivness" and personal achieving that is not good for the students? Let them find their fulfillment in cooperation, not results! Isn't that officially declaring them less cabable then white people? Much easier to get rid of grades then actually try to teach them something. Charter schools successfuly teaching the same black kids to the regular standards? Cannot promote them and have the vote of teachers unions at the same time.

 Their affirmative action prigrams in their current state help people who have the least need in that help and many self-made blacks are against them.
 A black person who managed to proster coming from those conditions should be the most desirable catch for any employer. Unfortunately many companies do not hire them for the following reasons: 1. They are afraid that they would get sued if they ever ned to hire that person. 2. They are afraid that they got into the college they graduated and stayed there because of the affirmative action quotas, not their merit.
 For that reason the companies I know fill the "affirmative action" quota with janitors and cafeteria workers and not black specialists or executives.
 Then an average dumb american seing all-white techical and executive staff and mostly black  janitorial/menial stuff subconciously gets the ideas about the place of blacks in the society.

 It is a common fact that such neighbourhoods are highly localised. Definitely in and arount New York. So we do have a predominantly black, low-income, high-crime neighbourhoods. I do not think that pretending they do not exist would help them any.

 Rest assured, AKDejaVu - I would call myself a racist if I considered myself one. Even though I do not believe that all the races are equal in all the respects (based on the data I saw), the disparity in the lifestyles goes much beyong any possible disparity in abilities even if there is one.

 I just prefer that real problems were solved by means that work - not unsubstantiated wishfull thinking and "feel good" solutions. "Hartless" welfare cuts with economical incentives proved a blessing, not a disaster for most affected families. And it took what, 30 years of ever-increasing spending and ever-worsening poverty to do that?

 If an innocent black person has a greater chance to be politely stopped by police and released few minutes later and that would significantly increase the chance to catch a criminal, I would not argue about that. Police are charged with catching criminals and they know who to stop to acieve that. As long as they are acting legally, fine with me. If they are not acting legally, they are not police anymore but criminals. Any occupation has those.
 If a black girl decides to have an abortion because she is not ready to raise a child - I would not vote to stop her. Her daughter will  have less need for an abortion if born to self-reliant grown women.
 If gun-crime is rampant in teh black neigbourhoods, do not tolerate it in order to score election points by attacking NRA and second amendment. Do something to protect them.
 If thousands of mostly of blacks are killed because of drugs in turf wars and robberies and die of poisoning and overdoses, make the damn things legal, cheap and clean.

 P.S. I admire the wording of your post! Most people would just blast the messenger if they do not like the message, rather then inquiring if what they perceive is what a person really means and why he does so.
 It's a pleasure to talk to you. <S>

miko

[Boroda]

"I live in a neighbourhood with many people of russian origin and deal with them a lot. If I heard that police concentrated their efforts on catching russian-american criminals to the detriment of other groups, I would be happy. The less criminals where I live - the better. Even if my car is stopped more often them average american's - as long as they are polite, of course."

Miko, now imagine that you are a Caucasian in Moscow, like the one Azerbaijanian surgeon who lives in an apartment next to mine.

------------------
With respect,
    Pavel Pavlov,
    Commissar 25th IAP WB VVS

[AKDejaVu]

Many racists do not consider themselves as such.  I believe you fall into that category.

Racism: If 40% of people in prison are black, then blacks commit 40% of the crime, even though they consist of only 18% of the population.  Therefor, keeping a closer eye on blacks will help reduce crime.

Substitute "lower class" for blacks in the above and you are just as guilty.  Singling out people because of race is racism... no matter how noble the cause.

My main problem is that you seem to use racial/social classifications to justify the need for unusual measures... or unusual statistics.  It is almost as if there is a "they are dragging us down" undertone.

This was greatly manifested in the "abortion for the good of society" argument.  It was more of an implication in this thread.  Guns in the hands of the wrong people is a problem.  Trying to forecast who the wrong people are based on race or social standing is even more of a problem.

AKDejaVu

[This message has been edited by AKDejaVu (edited 10-10-2000).]

[miko2d]

 

Originally posted by Igloo:
What in the world does that have to do with:

"A man with a gun can defend his freedom or die as a free man. A man without a gun can choose to live as a slave or die as a slave."

Sorry, that's just wrong.

A man name Gandhi once proved it.

 So one generation of hindi slaves were let go when Brits decided that owning them outright was not profitable anymore in the industrial/economic age.
 Even if you foolishly attribute their liberation to their inaction, what about ten generations of indians that died in their beds as slaves? What did their inacion won them? Life as slaves, that is what.

 Of course, in liberal talk one generation is greater then twenty, especially if that one produced Gandhi who can be fasionably quoted.

 When americans decided they do not want to willingly be subjects of British crown, they automatically became slaves. Since they did not want to be slaves, they won their freedom in less then one generation. Stupid americans - they did not read Gandhi! Didn't they know that in two hundred years Brits would have probably let their great-great-grand-children go after a few massacres?

 Oh, wait. I am using numbers talking to a liberal. How stupid of me. Just in case you are ready to convert - ten is ten times more then one and is ten times more significant as a proof.
 If you do not understand the importance of those numbers, I am not surprised that Bush seemed stupid to you with his bumbling schientific opposition to Gore's pipe dreams.

miko

[miko2d]

 

Originally posted by Maverick:
Miko,
5. Few people are willing to put thier lives on the line to serve society. Most are only interested in making bigger bucks and telling others how to live.
Mav

Clear, concise and to the point, Mav. But I have to correct you on your last statement.

 Nobody should serve the society (other then paid officials). The society should be arranged in such way that people pursuing their private goals benefitted society.
 That is how our capitalist society is mostly arranged in USA.
 Everybody for himself, the better off you are, the more taxes the society gets to right occasional wrongs and protect our borders, the more jobs are created, the further the thechnical progress advances. Everything else is taken care by the charity.

 Nothing wrong with making big bucks - only doing that and claming it wrong (for the others) and telling others how to live.

miko

[miko2d]

 

Originally posted by Boroda:
Miko, now imagine that you are a Caucasian in Moscow, like the one Azerbaijanian surgeon who lives in an apartment next to mine.

Yes, I would feel lousy. I would expect a pogrom any day. I would look for a way to own a weapon to protect myself in that case.

 But I live in Brooklyn, New York. My police is not corrupted! My mayor R. Juliani does not inflate national hatred among his constituents.

miko

[Maverick]

Miko,

The point I was making in that last statement was about the selfishness of many of the citizens of this country. It is based on seeing them obsessed with ME ME ME only instead of looking and seeing what they can do to make it a better place. Call me altruistic if you want but I agree with Robert Heinlien in that those who wish to enjoy the fruits of liberty must be prepared to defend them. He was FAR more articulate about it than I. I used the term society as it is different than the term government.

Jimmy Doolittle said it better than I. He said, "I believe we are here to make the world a better place." I used quotes but may have misquoted the exact words, not the meaning.

In a way, I think some of the statements in Starhip Troopers (*the book, not the movie) were pretty damn good. Veterans often have a much different view of things than do those who never risked anything to live in the society they enjoy.

Making big bucks is not wrong, unless you do nothing but selfish acts with them. If you are unwilling to give back, or serve the society that gave you the optioon of making those big bucks, that is bad. IMHO.

Did this make it clearer Miko?

Mav  

[miko2d]

 

Originally posted by AKDejaVu:
Many racists do not consider themselves as such.  I believe you fall into that category.
 Trying to forecast who the wrong people are based on race or social standing is even more of a problem.

 Sorry you feel that way.

 I saw many things that made other people rasists and I am proud that my background, experience and intelligence prevented me from becoming one (or any kind of -ist, -un, or -at). I value my open-mindedness and technical approach. I was proven wrong amy times by people who used math and logic and I changed my point of view.
 But despite all that, I may certainly be a subconcious racist for all I know. I hope I am not...

 I would never call for any measure for any race. I think that undeprivileged, among whom many are blacks, benefitted more from aborthion then whites. But I would never try to fight for abortion for blacks if I did not think it appropriate for whites.
 I think that underprivileged  blacks would benefit most from the ban on guns. But I do not think any law-abiding citizen should lose that right.
 I do think that if you combine Brooklyn with it's considerable black population and Washington, D.C., the resulting gun-related crime statistics will be enourmously worse then for Brooklyn alone. You think such statistical separation is wrong? Many people visit Paris much more often then they do Washington. Why would you bundle them togeter? They differ more. After all, military hospitals do not practice in Paris or Brooklyn.

 I did not say that we should forecast who is more likely to be a criminal based on race or social standing.
 I said that our police knows what they are doing and I do not know their methods. I trust them. If you don't - find out what reasoning and policies they use and see if any of that is illegal. Then punish the criminals working in the police. But do not automatically call police criminals because the blacks comprise more then %12 of all arrested.
 Recent case - police see a car with several blacks inside. As they drive by, the occupants of a car notice the police and run away. The policemen follow and catch a couple. They search a car and find a bag of drugs in the car. They make arrest.
 Instead of thanking them and saying "jail the criminals" the community leaders sue the police. They prove that the fact that people suddenly notice the police and start running away is not an indication of their possible criminal intent. So the subsequent search was illegal and the evidence is thrown out of court. Does that help community?

 Nobody in out society can suffer from the lawfull actions of police. If the actions are unlawfull they are not police but criminals. Otherwise it would mean that we have biased laws and that is not true.
 East Germany once made abortions legal because they did not want to have a law that made over 50,000 citisen criminals each year.
 Drugs are part of our life. You want few blacks to become criminals? Make drugs legal and stop arresting them for posession. Then they will not go to prison to be educated and influenced by real criminals. How many whites were killed in drugs turf wars recently? The victims and criminals are mostly blacks. Neither have to be if drugs become legal and regulated.
 You want more blacks in the police? Do not lower the exam standards untill they pass in the same proportion as the general population. This way many white trash net in. Better allocate money to give them twice or three time the police academy time to compensate for their abysmal public schools.

 You prefer to believe that blacks are not disproportionately represented among the underprivileged? It is a common knowlege and policy. Why do we have Affirmative Action then? I just thinh that their problems can be helped more efficiently.

 Let me consider your statement again:
 Trying to forecast who the wrong people are based on race or social standing is even more of a problem.
 If rather then walk/drive through certain (by no means all) black neighbourhoods I prefer to go around because I expect to meet the wrong people based on race or social standing, and I would never even consider that faced with chinese, indian, hasidic neighbourhood - does that make me a racist? Or a realist?

 What does it tell about my willingness to hire a black or be a friend with one? I would say nothing, but I may be wrong.

 I lived for 25 years in a country without races. I heard a lot about oppressed blacks elsewhere. I did saw only a few blacks first hand - buy they were children of african nobility / party elite studying in my city colleges. Educated, hardworking, proud, always well-behaved.  I could not become a racist then.
 I recaived a lot of sovied international propaganda.
 I also was on the receiving end of discrimination - national, if not racial. So I was not of a good opinion of racists or nationalists then.

 So If I became a racist, that could happen after I arrived here to New York. I never had to compete with blacks for a place in the college or in the workplace, like Irish in the beginning of the century. There are very few of them in programming  and related fields.
 So if I became a racist, that would mean some kind of natural unavoidable process associated with life in US? I hope it is not so with all my heart.
 I hope it is my wording that misleads you. I will examine my views carefully just in case. What about the facts and statistics (notice - I carefully make separation there). Is there no merit to them?

 Apparrently there are some taboos in our hippocritical society. Just mentioning some topics even from a purely mathematical standpoint is likely to bring the labels "brainwashed" of "racist" on a person.

 P.S. I was alwasys brainwashed against chinese - Chine being the USSR closest enemy then. Worst then capitalists - traitors. Many  derisive jokes all my life. Many chinese here competing with me right where I live, work and study.
 There is overpopuation in China and they have abortions there. What if I find the numbers and publish them? What if I mentin that there are chinese crime families and people-smuggling opperations? Does that make me anti-chinese racist? My many chinese friends would not agree.

 Dejavu - tell me what is wrong with a message. Leave the messenger alone. Even if I were a racist and my post were racist, would n't it make more sence to argue or make conclusions from the content then label me? We know there are plenty of racists in this country. What would improve if you label another person as such?
 
 miko

[AKDejaVu]

 

Dejavu - tell me what is wrong with a message.

It smacks of racism and social classification.

 

Leave the messenger alone.

You aren't the messenger.. you are the publisher.  You wrote it.. you didn't simply belay it.  There is a difference.

 

Even if I were a racist and my post were racist, would n't it make more sence to argue or make conclusions from the content then label me?

Unfortunately no.  I've read through your posts previously.. there doesn't seem to be a point.  You don't seem to want to discuss.  You present and you defend.  That is it.

 

We know there are plenty of racists in this country. What would improve if you label another person as such?

Nope.. just feel the need to clarify it.  When social elitism and racism are used to justify beliefs... I will point it out every time.  Its been done all too often in the past.. and its started inocently enough every time.

AKDejaVu