Must you blame a whole nation for what a single idiot or small team of idiots head decided to do to suck up to you-know-who?
I don't see people clamoring for this.
It’s not just in the USA. In the United Kingdom and elsewhere, the right-wing authoritarian loons are gaining popularity and influence through a combination of half-truths and punching down.
By no means all Americans, of course, but the revelling of so many people in violent death and the cherished entitlement of the people to possess the means of bringing it can be hard to take.
Oh really? Do tell. Explain to us just how hard it is to deal with so many horrific things, just one of which would have brought down any other president. We don't understand it at all.
Hegseth appears to be trying to push his part of the MAGA cult towards somewhere different than the others. It would not surprise me if he set up a part of the military charged with seeking out the Templars and the holy grail.
There seems to be still a fairly large number of Americans who have wagered that they will benefit from these crimes, albeit a lot who stand against them.
A huge number of people online in the Wild West days of the internet in the early 00s - mostly younger Gen Xers and Millennials - will have seen videos of executions from Afghanistan and Iraq. Often these were hidden within other videos or snuck into files for downloading from filesharing sites, simply for the purpose of shocking the recipient. There was a lot of "edgy humour" around at the time online regardless of your country of origin (UK teenagers were very much Not exempt from that), and the idea of livestreaming an execution really reminds me much more of very early YouTube (from before Google bought it) and Black Mirror than it does anything specifically American.
I'm always reminded of the fact that the Saw movie franchise was created in response to the 2003 US invasion of Iraq (yes, really) and it makes me really wonder what art is going to be created as a response to these times.
I understand that Ms Pike is conscious, but 'angry and confused', as well she might be. Apparently, she's able to walk about a bit, but is shackled to her bed.
One report said she has pneumonia and a blood clot...
What next, I wonder?
If she doesn't die, but makes a reasonable recovery, might it be possible for her sentence to be changed to life imprisonment?
Her lawyers want her sentence commuted to life without parole (the other day I heard one of them point out that this would still be a more severe sentence than the one her accomplice received).
By no means all Americans, of course, but the revelling of so many people in violent death and the cherished entitlement of the people to possess the means of bringing it can be hard to take.
Oh really? Do tell. Explain to us just how hard it is to deal with so many horrific things, just one of which would have brought down any other president. We don't understand it at all.
Didn't I say "By no means all Americans"? Our extended family is well over half American and mostly peaceful, liberal Democrats. The savagery that is going on now is something we all have to deal with, and can't. And the fact remains that the Second Amendment continues to exist and has wide support.
Her lawyers want her sentence commuted to life without parole (the other day I heard one of them point out that this would still be a more severe sentence than the one her accomplice received).
This is what I had in mind, although Ms Pike has, IIRC, expressed a wish to die...
Poor woman. OK, she killed someone, but surely she doesn't deserve the agony she must be going through, no matter how much hatred her victim's family bears towards her. I feel some sympathy for them, too, as there is as yet no closure.
I don't think "deserving" is a good place to go right now, especially on this particular crime. I'm not at all convinced that punishment somehow cancels out a crime--surely you just wind up with more people in agony?
By no means all Americans, of course, but the revelling of so many people in violent death and the cherished entitlement of the people to possess the means of bringing it can be hard to take.
Oh really? Do tell. Explain to us just how hard it is to deal with so many horrific things, just one of which would have brought down any other president. We don't understand it at all.
Didn't I say "By no means all Americans"? Our extended family is well over half American and mostly peaceful, liberal Democrats. The savagery that is going on now is something we all have to deal with, and can't. And the fact remains that the Second Amendment continues to exist and has wide support.
The Second Amendment has nothing to do with the death penalty. Also, many progressives in the US own and use guns, and want to keep using them while also advocating for better gun laws - Tim Walz is a prominent example. Many Americans only use guns for responsible hunting, and self-defence when in remote/wilderness areas (including self-defence from wildlife - you can't call the cops on a mountain lion). Increasingly, many minority groups including progressive/leftwing ones are arming themselves given threats from the far-right. Personally as a British person, I think that the UK is too restrictive on self-defence items in general and that doesn't make me less progressive.
The UK public are widely in favour of the death penalty, but not in favour of US-style gun laws. They are entirely different issues.
As an example - I have a friend from Maine, which is a largely rural part of New England. Lots of true wilderness in a way that the UK just doesn't have. She really enjoys (humanely) hunting with her dad, and was excited to get her gun license, but she in no way "revels in violent death". She and her family always hunt for food and don't waste any of the deer they hunt, and the deer population is very healthy. Her guns and her family's guns are always kept in a secure gun safe and they are very strict about gun safety and responsible usage. She would never use a gun on a human unless it was a literal life or death situation - people who take guns seriously use them as tools when needed rather than as ammosexual posturing accessories.
I'm sure you're right, and North Americans have much more interface with wildlife - both prey and predators - than we do. What haunts me is the woman shot by her toddler who found the gun in her handbag (both were in the shopping trolley). Who takes a gun to the supermarket?
I wasn't suggesting the 2nd Amendment was a factor in the death penalty - it clearly isn't. The point is that the individual is entitled to possess the means of violent death and that this is also acceptable to many (not all).
I'm sure you're right, and North Americans have much more interface with wildlife - both prey and predators - than we do. What haunts me is the woman shot by her toddler who found the gun in her handbag (both were in the shopping trolley). Who takes a gun to the supermarket?
I definitely agree that gun safety is a huge issue, and many people campaigning for better gun regulations/safety in the US are gun owners themselves.
I wasn't suggesting the 2nd Amendment was a factor in the death penalty - it clearly isn't. The point is that the individual is entitled to possess the means of violent death and that this is also acceptable to many (not all).
Pretty much anything can be the means of violent death, including our (general our) own hands. People are murdered with all kinds of normal household objects, it doesn't mean that owning those things is somehow indicative of violent tendencies. Owning a gun does not mean that someone "revels in violent death" any more than someone who owns a kitchen knife. Nor does it say anything about their political views.
I find this whole topic very distressing, and I'm not going to get into a pissing contest over it. Our generation (mine, anyway) and its leaders had the opportunity and means to leave this world a more civilised place than the one we were born into shortly after the second world war, and we've failed damnably.
I find this whole topic very distressing, and I'm not going to get into a pissing contest over it. Our generation (mine, anyway) and its leaders had the opportunity and means to leave this world a more civilised place than the one we were born into shortly after the second world war, and we've failed damnably.
This.
I don't have children, but I do have relations in their 20s, and I fear for their future...
I find this whole topic very distressing, and I'm not going to get into a pissing contest over it. Our generation (mine, anyway) and its leaders had the opportunity and means to leave this world a more civilised place than the one we were born into shortly after the second world war, and we've failed damnably.
As I don't share the views of those I didn't vote for, and as it is their actions that have brought about our present dreadful situations, I feel I have zero responsibility. I utterly despise them and their supporters but can do nothing about it apart from vote and wave a banner.
Historically public executions could be morbid festivals. France retained the practice of guillotining in public (though at ground lrvel) until 1939 due to an execution being photographed. Photos also exist of a hanging in Quebec talen over the prison walls With hanging used universally in the UK. Canada and Australia, the risk of a botched hanging leading to decapitation was significant.
An American friend of ours reckons you could cut gun crime By taxing bullets rather than texting guns.
We were horrified when the mother of a young friend said how she carried a gun in her handbag. Lord P Nearly got into trouble when he visited America and saw a policeman wearing a gun openly. He stared at the policeman because he wasn’t used to seeing guns Worn openly.
An American friend of ours reckons you could cut gun crime By taxing bullets rather than texting guns.
We were horrified when the mother of a young friend said how she carried a gun in her handbag. Lord P Nearly got into trouble when he visited America and saw a policeman wearing a gun openly. He stared at the policeman because he wasn’t used to seeing guns Worn openly.
When Obama was elected president there was a rumor he was going to tax the ammunition. All of the sudden you could not find small caliber ammo. When Trump was elected, boom, no shortages.
He stared at the policeman because he wasn’t used to seeing guns Worn openly.
Good thing he didn't go shopping, say to the supermarket. I've seen customers wear guns openly there. (I don't shop at that supermarket anymore.)
Not just people carrying them. We went to Supermarket in Orlando and there were guns and ammunition for sale in cabinets. I found it quite unsettling.
I mean, you can easily buy things in UK supermarkets which leave people just as dead.
There is a legitimate purpose for those items, such as kitchen knives. Firearms are deliberately difficult to obtain in the United Kingdom, legally at any rate.
The US as a whole, unlike that UK, as I understand it has quite a few wild and dangerous animals. For many people, particularly in rural and even suburban areas, having a gun to deal with those animals if need be isn’t at all unreasonable.
And hunting is a legitimate reason for selling and buying firearms.
Not that all firearms offered for sale are designed for hunting.
I would love to see much tougher gun laws in the US. But I also recognize there are valid reasons to own a gun that have nothing to do with killing other people.
He stared at the policeman because he wasn’t used to seeing guns Worn openly.
Good thing he didn't go shopping, say to the supermarket. I've seen customers wear guns openly there. (I don't shop at that supermarket anymore.)
Not just people carrying them. We went to Supermarket in Orlando and there were guns and ammunition for sale in cabinets. I found it quite unsettling.
I mean, you can easily buy things in UK supermarkets which leave people just as dead.
There is a legitimate purpose for those items, such as kitchen knives. Firearms are deliberately difficult to obtain in the United Kingdom, legally at any rate.
But there are legitimate purposes for firearms in both the US and UK. Firearms are also not *that* hard to get legally in the UK - any farmer will have one, and depending on where you live you may well have a lot of farmers in the area.
The UK doesn't have a food-hunting culture because of the Enclosure Act, not because hunting for food is bad and Americans aren't sophisticated enough to see that. Which is more ethical to eat, a battery chicken or a wild wood pigeon?
He stared at the policeman because he wasn’t used to seeing guns Worn openly.
Good thing he didn't go shopping, say to the supermarket. I've seen customers wear guns openly there. (I don't shop at that supermarket anymore.)
Not just people carrying them. We went to Supermarket in Orlando and there were guns and ammunition for sale in cabinets. I found it quite unsettling.
I mean, you can easily buy things in UK supermarkets which leave people just as dead.
Oh FFS...what a jejune remark.
What function do guns have, other than to kill?
It's a perfectly serious remark.
Do you think that a farmer in Dorset who owns a shotgun uses it to kill people? Of course not, so why assume that someone in Florida would just because it's Florida? I know plenty of US gun owners and none have ever shot at a person, much less killed one.
Hunting for food is a perfectly normal way to obtain food, and much more ethically sound than factory farmed meat.
The US as a whole, unlike that UK, as I understand it has quite a few wild and dangerous animals. For many people, particularly in rural and even suburban areas, having a gun to deal with those animals if need be isn’t at all unreasonable.
And hunting is a legitimate reason for selling and buying firearms.
Not that all firearms offered for sale are designed for hunting.
I would love to see much tougher gun laws in the US. But I also recognize there are valid reasons to own a gun that have nothing to do with killing other people.
Most land in the UK is privately-owned - even if there's public access, it's not usually publicly-owned. You have to have the landowner's permission to hunt on their land, and the UK history of feudal land ownership + the Enclosure Act means that we just don't have the same hunting culture despite the fact that for some species hunting would be environmentally beneficial.
You're right that we don't have any large dangerous animals (aside from other humans) - the European badger is our largest land predator, which is not at all a threat to humans - but I think it's the lack of wilderness that makes people in the UK more unable to grasp how truly wild and empty of people some parts of the US are. Like I said before, you can't call the cops on a mountain lion.
Being fair about this, Florida has alligators. It's not quite the same thing as finding a similar shopping set-up in New York City.
Even NYC has invasive wildlife! In Florida you'd be better off going for an iguana, which I hear are pretty delicious as well as being an invasive species that the local native wildlife will thank you for shooting.
Comments
It’s not just in the USA. In the United Kingdom and elsewhere, the right-wing authoritarian loons are gaining popularity and influence through a combination of half-truths and punching down.
Ridicule is not enough.
Oh really? Do tell. Explain to us just how hard it is to deal with so many horrific things, just one of which would have brought down any other president. We don't understand it at all.
There seems to be still a fairly large number of Americans who have wagered that they will benefit from these crimes, albeit a lot who stand against them.
I hope anyone who does that loudly announces it and is too stupid to think about the inevitable consequences.
Dafyd Hell Host
I'm always reminded of the fact that the Saw movie franchise was created in response to the 2003 US invasion of Iraq (yes, really) and it makes me really wonder what art is going to be created as a response to these times.
I really hope not. It's medieval. 😢
I think this is like a level of Poe's Law that our brains aren't meant to cope with.
One report said she has pneumonia and a blood clot...
What next, I wonder?
If she doesn't die, but makes a reasonable recovery, might it be possible for her sentence to be changed to life imprisonment?
Didn't I say "By no means all Americans"? Our extended family is well over half American and mostly peaceful, liberal Democrats. The savagery that is going on now is something we all have to deal with, and can't. And the fact remains that the Second Amendment continues to exist and has wide support.
This is what I had in mind, although Ms Pike has, IIRC, expressed a wish to die...
Poor woman. OK, she killed someone, but surely she doesn't deserve the agony she must be going through, no matter how much hatred her victim's family bears towards her. I feel some sympathy for them, too, as there is as yet no closure.
The Second Amendment has nothing to do with the death penalty. Also, many progressives in the US own and use guns, and want to keep using them while also advocating for better gun laws - Tim Walz is a prominent example. Many Americans only use guns for responsible hunting, and self-defence when in remote/wilderness areas (including self-defence from wildlife - you can't call the cops on a mountain lion). Increasingly, many minority groups including progressive/leftwing ones are arming themselves given threats from the far-right. Personally as a British person, I think that the UK is too restrictive on self-defence items in general and that doesn't make me less progressive.
The UK public are widely in favour of the death penalty, but not in favour of US-style gun laws. They are entirely different issues.
I definitely agree that gun safety is a huge issue, and many people campaigning for better gun regulations/safety in the US are gun owners themselves.
Pretty much anything can be the means of violent death, including our (general our) own hands. People are murdered with all kinds of normal household objects, it doesn't mean that owning those things is somehow indicative of violent tendencies. Owning a gun does not mean that someone "revels in violent death" any more than someone who owns a kitchen knife. Nor does it say anything about their political views.
This.
I don't have children, but I do have relations in their 20s, and I fear for their future...
As I don't share the views of those I didn't vote for, and as it is their actions that have brought about our present dreadful situations, I feel I have zero responsibility. I utterly despise them and their supporters but can do nothing about it apart from vote and wave a banner.
Thank you, Ruth. Not really an over-reaction - I think we are all having a difficult time with this.
https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/countries-with-death-penalty
We were horrified when the mother of a young friend said how she carried a gun in her handbag. Lord P Nearly got into trouble when he visited America and saw a policeman wearing a gun openly. He stared at the policeman because he wasn’t used to seeing guns Worn openly.
When Obama was elected president there was a rumor he was going to tax the ammunition. All of the sudden you could not find small caliber ammo. When Trump was elected, boom, no shortages.
"Today I will go shopping and buy some carrots, some cheese, and a semi-automatic 9mm"
I live in Florida myself, and I find it unsettling…
I mean, you can easily buy things in UK supermarkets which leave people just as dead.
But are they designed to kill people?
There is a legitimate purpose for those items, such as kitchen knives. Firearms are deliberately difficult to obtain in the United Kingdom, legally at any rate.
Oh FFS...what a jejune remark.
What function do guns have, other than to kill?
The US as a whole, unlike that UK, as I understand it has quite a few wild and dangerous animals. For many people, particularly in rural and even suburban areas, having a gun to deal with those animals if need be isn’t at all unreasonable.
And hunting is a legitimate reason for selling and buying firearms.
Not that all firearms offered for sale are designed for hunting.
I would love to see much tougher gun laws in the US. But I also recognize there are valid reasons to own a gun that have nothing to do with killing other people.
But there are legitimate purposes for firearms in both the US and UK. Firearms are also not *that* hard to get legally in the UK - any farmer will have one, and depending on where you live you may well have a lot of farmers in the area.
The UK doesn't have a food-hunting culture because of the Enclosure Act, not because hunting for food is bad and Americans aren't sophisticated enough to see that. Which is more ethical to eat, a battery chicken or a wild wood pigeon?
It's a perfectly serious remark.
Do you think that a farmer in Dorset who owns a shotgun uses it to kill people? Of course not, so why assume that someone in Florida would just because it's Florida? I know plenty of US gun owners and none have ever shot at a person, much less killed one.
Hunting for food is a perfectly normal way to obtain food, and much more ethically sound than factory farmed meat.
Most land in the UK is privately-owned - even if there's public access, it's not usually publicly-owned. You have to have the landowner's permission to hunt on their land, and the UK history of feudal land ownership + the Enclosure Act means that we just don't have the same hunting culture despite the fact that for some species hunting would be environmentally beneficial.
You're right that we don't have any large dangerous animals (aside from other humans) - the European badger is our largest land predator, which is not at all a threat to humans - but I think it's the lack of wilderness that makes people in the UK more unable to grasp how truly wild and empty of people some parts of the US are. Like I said before, you can't call the cops on a mountain lion.
Even NYC has invasive wildlife! In Florida you'd be better off going for an iguana, which I hear are pretty delicious as well as being an invasive species that the local native wildlife will thank you for shooting.