What is wrong with the nanny state?

[vern_humphrey]

You know, this particular branch of the thread might seem off-topic, but it really answers the question, “What is wrong with the nanny state?”

What’s wrong is that people become so reliant on the nanny that they are unable to deal with crises by themselves. And finally that extends to the international level – the nations of Europe now need the US as their nanny.

 

[Kaninchen]

In other words, you snookered us into solving your problems for you.

Hard to think how intervention could have happened otherwise (especially with Germans not being terribly happy about occupying anywhere and with horrific memories about the ruthlessness of the guerrilla war the Yugoslavs fought against them!). Even a usually pro-American like myself can be goaded to point out that, since 9/11, the traffic of assistance has been the other way.

So stop claiming – as a Prime Minister of Great Britain did a while back in regard to the crisis in the former Yugoslavia – that you can’t solve European problems without American involvement.

Since I never made that claim, your statement is completely irrelevant. I made my personal view about what should happen quite clear.

 

[vern_humphrey]

Hard to think how intervention could have happened otherwise (especially with Germans not being terribly happy about occupying anywhere and with horrific memories about the ruthlessness of the guerrilla war the Yugoslavs fought against them!). Even a usually pro-American like myself can be goaded to point out that, since 9/11, the traffic of assistance has been the other way.

So the famous picture of an American soldier with a stars and stripes patch, and the words “Doing the work of” followed by a dozen European flags is wrong?

Since I never made that claim, your statement is completely irrelevant. I made my personal view about what should happen quite clear.

The point is, the world doesn’t revolve around your personal views. The leaders of your nation – and other European nations – rely on the United States to sort out your problems for you.

 

[Kaninchen]

So the famous picture of an American soldier with a stars and stripes patch, and the words “Doing the work of” followed by a dozen European flags is wrong?

You’re rather good at the tangential, I have to admit.

The point is, the world doesn’t revolve around your personal views. The leaders of your nation – and other European nations – rely on the United States to sort out your problems for you.

Well, you’re conversing with me and you said “so stop claiming”, if you wanted a different answer, you should have framed what you said differently.

I don’t know what ‘nation’ you think I belong to but that’s irrelevant.

 

[Wolseley]

No, the lesson is that it should never happen again

“There shall be wars, and rumors of wars.”

I happen to be one of the people who believe that a Union of 500 million people ought to get around to looking after ourselves entirely.

I feel the same way about the United States, economy-wise. I think we need to ditch this "global economy/free trade balderdash that’s turning us into a third-world country, and start looking after America first…we’ll worry about the rest of the world later.

So stop claiming – as a Prime Minister of Great Britain did a while back in regard to the crisis in the former Yugoslavia – that you can’t solve European problems without American involvement.

Or as Patrick Robinson (an enlightened Englishman) once said: “With forty of America’s forty-two allies residing across various oceans from the U.S. mainland, it is as well that 85 percent of all the land on this planet lies within range of an American Carrier Battle Group, and 95 percent of the world’s people. Yet few of these hundreds of millions of citizens realize their lives are lived in comparitive peace and security because of the iron-fisted defense capabilty of the United States Navy. Most of them believe this security has been orchestrated by the United Nations, or NATO, or by some quasi-European defense project. But when push comes to shove, it is the U.S. Carrier Battle Group, the fortress at sea, that matters. This is the force that is apt to show up off the shores of the potential aggressors.”

 

[Kaninchen]

Or as Patrick Robinson (an enlightened Englishman) once said: “With forty of America’s forty-two allies residing across various oceans from the U.S. mainland, it is as well that 85 percent of all the land on this planet lies within range of an American Carrier Battle Group, and 95 percent of the world’s people. Yet few of these hundreds of millions of citizens realize their lives are lived in comparitive peace and security because of the iron-fisted defense capabilty of the United States Navy. Most of them believe this security has been orchestrated by the United Nations, or NATO, or by some quasi-European defense project. But when push comes to shove, it is the U.S. Carrier Battle Group, the fortress at sea, that matters. This is the force that is apt to show up off the shores of the potential aggressors.”

I know of few people who don’t know that the US has played the predominant role in protecting our freedom since 1941.

Currently, Europe (by which I mean the EU) is still expanding and dealing with the problems of the accession of states that are economically backward and in dire need of capitalization.

 

[Kaninchen]

I feel the same way about the United States, economy-wise. I think we need to ditch this "global economy/free trade balderdash that’s turning us into a third-world country, and start looking after America first…we’ll worry about the rest of the world later.

Eventually all ‘Empires’ (even non-declared ones ) face the problem of being over-extended!

 

[vern_humphrey]

Eventually all ‘Empires’ (even non-declared ones ) face the problem of being over-extended!

Which is why we think it’s time Europe grew up and started dealing with their own problems.

 

[Kaninchen]

Which is why we think it’s time Europe grew up and started dealing with their own problems.

I wonder why you’ve found this particular gloating approach necessary? I mean I’ve been quite clear (I started it!) that I think that we need to be responsible for ourselves and get the US out of European affairs so why keep telling me how pathetic it is that Europe is dependent on the US?

 

[vern_humphrey]

I wonder why you’ve found this particular gloating approach necessary?

I wonder why you find it necessary to come to an American forum and tell us how to run our affairs?

I mean I’ve been quite clear (I started it!) that I think that we need to be responsible for ourselves and get the US out of European affairs so why keep telling me how pathetic it is that Europe is dependent on the US?

Because all the telling in the world changes nothing – we still are the world’s nanny.

 

[Kaninchen]

I wonder why you find it necessary to come to an American forum and tell us how to run our affairs?

Your imagination is getting the better of you - just provide the example(s).

Because all the telling in the world changes nothing – we still are the world’s nanny.

If all the telling in the world changes nothing, then all those thousands and thousands of posts have been completely pointless. But you knew that.

 

[vern_humphrey]

Your imagination is getting the better of you - just provide the example(s).

It shouldn’t be forgotten that the demand for firearms control in the UK was from the public itself - particularly after the Dunblane school massacre, when the demand was for a ban.

Yes, a collection of bumper stickers is much more helpful.

So it seems that they’re saying that Americans are just plain more homicidal than Europeans. Perhaps we just prefer to do it on a mega-scale.

To which Al Masetti replied " I guess you didn’t actually look at the tables in the report."

Of course, having been somebody who was as an active anti-communist in a world where there were still real communists, I probably know a lot less about it than your average ultra-rightest American.

The only thing I can see that is relevant to my comment and you getting cross about it, Al, is a table: ‘International Homicide Rates & Gun Ownership’ which does seem to agree with my comment about Americans being just, well . . . more homicidal than Europeans.

To which VZ71 replied. " The prejudice existent in the comment itself would appear to cut into your integrity."

Eventually all ‘Empires’ (even non-declared ones ) face the problem of being over-extended!

If all the telling in the world changes nothing, then all those thousands and thousands of posts have been completely pointless. But you knew that.

Is that the best you can do?

 

[cynic]

A bit shameless, but I feel like throwing this out there again

All it took was a quick search in wikipedia.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_crime

% Firearm homicide rate per 100,000 popv

United States: 2.97
England & Wales : .12

% homicides with firearms

United States: 39
England & Wales: 8

and more interestingly…

Overall homicide rate per 100,000 pop

United States: 7.52
England & Wales: 1.57

 

[vern_humphrey]

Funny how Barbados, with all that British influence, has a homicide rate more than twice the US.

Funny how “England & Wales” have a homicide rate more than a third greater than Switzerland, where men are required to keep automatic weapons in their homes.

Funny how Scotland and Northern Ireland aren’t included in the “England & Wales” data.

 

[Kaninchen]

Is that the best you can do?

1. I had written:

It shouldn’t be forgotten that the demand for firearms control in the UK was from the public itself - particularly after the Dunblane school massacre, when the demand was for a ban.

You used it as an example of me telling Americans how to run America.

Actually, it was a response (not a reply, a response) to post #50 which described firearms and general homicide rates in the UK. Please explain how that is telling Americans how to run America? The people of the UK want gun control, the people of the US don’t - how is mentioning the former in a response to a post mentioning homicide rates in the UK telling Americans how to run America?

1. ‘Bumper stickers’ - merely a response to Al’s previous quip. And it was telling Americans how to run America, how?
2. I’d written:

So it seems that they’re saying that Americans are just plain more homicidal than Europeans. Perhaps we just prefer to do it on a mega-scale.

Which actually is what the table says. And this is telling Americans how to run America, how?

To which Al Masetti replied " I guess you didn’t actually look at the tables in the report."

And Al Masetti was wrong and it is, in fact, what the table in his sources showed. And this was telling Americans how to run America, how?

To which VZ71 replied. " The prejudice existent in the comment itself would appear to cut into your integrity."

So, saying what Al Masetti’s table showed is prejudiced? And it’s telling Americans how to run America, how?

I’d written:

Eventually all ‘Empires’ (even non-declared ones ) face the problem of being over-extended!

Is both historically true and a response to a criticism of American policy by an American. It was telling Americans how to run America, how?

If you have any (at least vaguely sensible) evidence of me telling Americans how to run America, please provide it, otherwise the conversation is at an end.

 

[vern_humphrey]

If you have any (at least vaguely sensible) evidence of me telling Americans how to run America, please provide it, otherwise the conversation is at an end.

Exercise caution upon departure, etc., etc.

I repeat, what is this fascination that Europeans have with coming on American forums and telling us what’s wrong with our country?

 

[cynic]

Funny how Barbados, with all that British influence, has a homicide rate more than twice the US.

Funny how “England & Wales” have a homicide rate more than a third greater than Switzerland, where men are required to keep automatic weapons in their homes.

Funny how Scotland and Northern Ireland aren’t included in the “England & Wales” data.

This is a wholesale dismissal of data, is it?
The replies are about the ridiculous assertion that gun availability makes people safer.
For eg: the Virginia Tech massacre: a mentally unsound individual is able to purchase two handguns with a background check that’s only for a criminal record.

It’s a simple as that, walk into a store, walk out with a handgun, people die. Any potential psycho, any fired postal worker with a ‘clean record’ can do it. The price of this freedom. But of course you’ll say that if the other students were armed they could have stopped him… again ridiculous, normal people don’t carry guns around with them in their day to day lives.

And this is not an american forum

 

[vz71]

It’s a simple as that, walk into a store, walk out with a handgun, people die.

No, it is never that simple.
Your attempt to reduce the tragic events to “simple as that” is rather insulting.

No system is perfect, but a system that insures that the criminal element would be assured that there would be armed opposition would seem to me to be the surest means of reducing crime.

I know of at least two locations in America where this is the case. In both instances, a law was inacted requiring the public to keep and maintain a gun. In both instances, crime dropped dramatically.

You may be able to ignore common sense and the facts that prove it out, but I will not.

 

[cynic]

I’m quite happy to ignore that ‘common sense’. There is a difference between having a gun in your home and being able to carry one around. The situations where you’d be justified in pulling it out are the ones where you’d most likely already be a) unconcious, b) dead. And are you justified in shooting someone who was trying to take your wallet? So many problems with it.

 

[beckycmarie]

What is wrong with the welfare, nanny, managerial state? I thought those were examples of social justice because they adequately care for the vulnerable in society.

A source that answers that question well - a psychiatrist who has concluded that this mentality is a mental disorder:

Top psychiatrist concludes liberals clinically nuts
Eminent psychiatrist makes case ideology is mental disorder

WASHINGTON – Just when liberals thought it was safe to start identifying themselves as such, an acclaimed, veteran psychiatrist is making the case that the ideology motivating them is actually a mental disorder.

"Based on strikingly irrational beliefs and emotions, modern liberals relentlessly undermine the most important principles on which our freedoms were founded," says Dr. Lyle Rossiter, author of the new book, “The Liberal Mind: The Psychological Causes of Political Madness.” "Like spoiled, angry children, they rebel against the normal responsibilities of adulthood and demand that a parental government meet their needs from cradle to grave."

Dr. Rossiter says the liberal agenda preys on weakness and feelings of inferiority in the population by:

* creating and reinforcing perceptions of victimization;
* satisfying infantile claims to entitlement, indulgence and compensation;
* augmenting primitive feelings of envy;
* rejecting the sovereignty of the individual, subordinating him to the will of the government.

“The roots of liberalism – and its associated madness – can be clearly identified by understanding how children develop from infancy to adulthood and how distorted development produces the irrational beliefs of the liberal mind,” he says. “When the modern liberal mind whines about imaginary victims, rages against imaginary villains and seeks above all else to run the lives of persons competent to run their own lives, the neurosis of the liberal mind becomes painfully obvious.”

>>Read full story here.