Wiktor
Member
Well...I don't live in USA, so I only know what I've read on the net, but can you blame sensible converatives not wanting to be associeated with Republican these days?
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Those awful right-wing Facebook pics your friends/family share
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ShadowSoldier89
Member
I'm generally not political. I have certain views on issues I know are hot button, however I don't feel on many of them I know enough to make an informed decision on whether my current preconceived notion is the correct one.
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I lol'd
RawkHawk2010
Member
Well you don't look at saved lives via guns by how many people were shot or shot at to defend someone, you look at how often their ubiquity is a transparent deterrent. AKA when someone who would think about robbing a house doesn't because he knows there might be a gun waiting for him on the other side.
For a lot of people a gun's influence is only weighed when it's used and that's completely wrong. You don't view nuclear arms through that lens, do you?
Aquamarine
Member
I've seen a family get $800+ in food stamps and welfare support every month while the father drives a brand new Mercedes-Benz everywhere.
It's almost institutionalised in some places. If you just dig a little bit under the surface you expose lots of abuses.
I'm not really a Democrat politically...I have some Democrat leanings, but there are plenty of things that I agree with on the Republican-side as well.
But these images take things way to the extreme and are filled with false equivalences. They're utterly ridiculous.
And that's the issue. I'm very hesitant to call myself a Republican anywhere public, especially on places like GAF, because there's just such a stigma around the party that's propagated by the crazies.
As if Tim Hudak needed any help ruining his image and snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.
Anyway, here's our Minister of Justice, wearing a T-Shirt from this classy group. https://www.facebook.com/NFACANADA
samus i am
Member
I have zero friends who share things like that.
joseph1594
Member
The problem is that the vast majority of these people are not making legitimate points. The point that these images are getting across is either disparaging religious and ethnic minorities or "lol liberals". They are just setting up caricatures of their opponents. Not to mention for an instance as someone that lives in a conservative state, I barely see any liberal pictures on my Facebook wall. And if you try to criticize the image or whatever stupid post that person wrote, they will get mad at you. This is especially bad when these people are my family members and it turns into "WHY ARE YOU FIGHTING WITH GRANDMA/YOUR COUSIN/WHOEVER!" I become the bad guy for stating my own opinion.
I wouldn't have a problem with those dumb images if I was allowed to critique them without the ridiculous, overblown backlash.
Aquamarine
Member
A lot of it is from the older-crowd.
The family members that were sharing the images I showed above...tend to be either upper-middle class or flat-out rich...cynical...in their mid-50s...things like that.
As if Tim Hudak needed any help ruining his image and snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.
Anyway, here's out Minister of Justice.
Why is the gun pointed at his head
LaserBuddha
Member
I don't know what you are talking about because as an adult of average intelligence, I realize that there is an effect which is felt beyond when guns are actually used. Surveys of gun owners said they use their guns 2.5 million times a year to defend their homes. If they did, then there are tens or hundreds of thousands of unreported and unnoticed homicides and gunshot wounds each year and hidden mass graves of home invaders, not to mention home invaders who get shot but survive and are not going to the hospital (despite studies that prove they would have). My point is that the so-called statistics out there for it are impossible to trust. Statistics which track what happen to gun owners say that owning a gun makes you more likely to be shot.
Because of rhetoric like what has been shown in this thread, a lot of the 'proud' types of gun-owners suffer from delusions of grandeur.
This is obviously not the place for this discussion though.
ZackieChan
Member
So, believing that these two viewpoints are somehow dissonant is equivalent to racism, believing Obama is a Muslim, etc.?
I'd like to see the receipts.
lorebringer
Member
I don't know about the safe thing but it does not seem to be true that carrying is illegal. You need a permit to carry a loaded weapon. But there are plenty of sources indicating that carrying weapons around is totally fine.
I don't get why people are laughing at the Switzerland picture, it's mostly true. They don't have the lowest rate of gun crime itself in the world but they do have one of the lowest rates of violent crime in the world. Switzerland really is perfect proof that the presence of guns per se is not actually the root of the problem.
CitizenCope
Member
We exist.
Link
The Autumn Wind
I can't be the only one that immediately thought of Rick Perry here.
Mr_Antimatter
Member
Welfare queens are basically a myth. It's pretty much impossible to get rich while on welfare, and the presence of a few luxuries doesn't mean they earned those on the government dime. I'd suspect many were purchased before the family had to go on food stamps, and well, selling your vehicle to trade down isn't really practical if the vehicle is paid off.
As someone who grew up poor, I find it pretty insulting that the conservatives seem to demand that anyone poor 'act poor' by not having anything nice, to fit their stereotypes of what the poor are. Incomes can change pretty rapidly in this country, and folks aren't going to sell everything that they own or find comfort in just to fit image. Do you get rid of some things? Yes, if you are looking at a lengthy time without work or such. But you don't get rid of everything.
A Serious Man
Member
Do I even want to know what Agenda 21 is?
ShadowSoldier89
Member
saying "The sanctity of life only exists when you're an unborn fetus." is as bad as saying obama is a muslim, yes. Its just an equally foolish statement
The one lady generally posts links to think tank studies and other news sources with an obvious liberal bias (Think Progress, Daily KOS), or links to news stories that support her two issue universe. The only real image macros I see that I can recall relate specifically to GMO related stuff. I keep seeing people talking about GMOs being an across the political spectrum issue, but I've only ever seen people that identify as liberal talking about it.
David Incorporated Esq.
Member
Jesus christ dude, those instances of abuse are anecdotes. They unfairly taint the image of people receiving government assistance and are completely ignorant of the statistics. I am so damned tired of people bringing this up as some sort of valid argument against welfare policy.
Abuse will always be there but it's a very minor facet of the larger program.
LaserBuddha
Member
The oppressive hand of evil environmentalism and making sure everyone has food, for the most part: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agenda_21
"War on Christmas" is the funny part. It's probably the most demonstrably imaginary of all the imaginary conspiracies of the right.
fastford58
Member
Why are you assuming that every time a gun is used in self defense that someone is shot?
Anyway, there a re fucking crazies on both sides of the political spectrum, but neither side seems to be able to recognize their own craziness. I frequent both very liberal and conservative message boards and quite enjoy the very polarized rhetoric from both sides.
At the end of the day, none of it matters.
This is the absolute worst. Oh, he was tall? Why didn't you say so? Shoot on sight.
Unbelievable.
FortuneFaded
Member
Logic doesn't factor in these pictures. You're also forgetting that it is not actually true. Switzerland's firearm homicide rate is higher than most of Europe.
Vincent Alexander
Member
This. I mean, come on, people! At least google some shit, tell us it was on your Facebook wall, and pretend the liberals you're friends with are just as crazy.
Hooooly shit. Is it bad this made me laugh? Mostly in how crazy and over-the-top it is. I really want to be in the head of the person who made this. "I'll show Obama! I'll put some extra big lips...and some chicken...and then all my friends will think I'm awesome!"
Arkos
Nose how to spell and rede to
You already do. You just don't know it yet.
You Are Viewtiful
Member
I know. It was just the best example of left-wing crazy I could find that wasn't environmentalist. Most my friends are apolitial and normal >_>
A maple leaf and a gun, what a combo. Someone should make one where the beaver holds a gun, I'd buy it.
Aquamarine
Member
A minority woman I know is registered as a "struggling single mother with two young children" so she gets $800+ in food stamps every month plus other welfare support.
Officially, the father of the children is reported to be "nowhere to be found" but in reality he's living with her most of the time and has enough cash to buy a $40,000+ car on a whim.
I asked them why they continue to do it and they told me "Because we can, and the government has enough money anyway."
I've also known another woman who bribed a doctor to give her a fake note so she can register as "Disabled" and gets a reduced-fare Metrocard among other government support.
You really can't deny that there is a good amount of abuse in the welfare system. The question is how we're supposed to deal with these abuses.
That other picture isn't even Trayovn Martin, it's just some random black kid giving the finger.
"oh man, look at his abs. he looks like a black superpredator. he looks like he could cuckold me with my wife! death to the tall black man!"
Orbis Tabula
Member
It's worse than Agenda 20.
Not as bad as Agenda 22 though. >_>
Agenda 22 has a catch, though.
LaserBuddha
Member
I'm not assumign anything. Why are you focusing your response about something you inferred instead of something I said? If you really read my post you'd see that I expressly stated the opposite.
We have to track the data that is trackable and work from there. Obviously there is no hard data for deterrence, or encounters without incident or a police report. Fantasies of a bunch of black men in ski-masks holding knives and waiting to gut whitey are what we get when we ask politically-motivated gun owners to describe just how much of a hero their guns have enabled them to be over the years.
I am originally responding to a false equivalence about the lack of data from both sides of the gun debate.
ShadowSoldier89
Member
He said brand new mercedes benz, if hes not actually lying, then any decent person would sell that in order to buy necessities for the family if they hit a bad downturn. Same with the person that stated a 4k TV, neither of those can be that old.
I grew up poor and on feed stamps with 3 siblings, We got by on necessities while my mom worked to get us back off of them. It worked out for us.
Food stamps arent inherently bad, and many people do need and use them properly, but to turn a blind eye to the abuses of the system is just ignorant.
SteveWinwood
Member
and what percent would you say abuse it and what amount do you believe is wasted due to the abuse you see
lorebringer
Member
Like I said above, this is sort of misleading, UN figures have them at 11th lowest in the world for homicides and 4th lowest in Europe. People have access to guns which no doubt makes the choice of what weapon to use to carry out a homicide easier, but the actual rate of killings is very low and I don't see any reason to believe it would be lower without guns.
How do you know all this? I'm not sure I could tell you the names of all my neighbors.
Even if true, fraud does not mean you stop doing things. Should a business close down just because there is some is shoplifting?
My father in law sent my wife an email that showed a picture of the rapper The Game (who is quite muscular and has tons of tattoos, including on his face) and claimed that it was Trayvon Martin.
Sigh.
David Incorporated Esq.
Member
Anecdotes might be personally powerful but they don't reflect the status of the larger policy. The statistics play out in favor of welfare and in the last report I saw don't show significant abuse.
SteveWinwood
Member
I wasn't baiting or anything, I'm genuinely curious what some of the macros are. I run in a pretty liberal crowd and don't see any. I also work in food genetics so it's fun to see sometimes.
I do quality control work on public assistance programs and I can attest to the overall error rates and fraud rates, both at our state level, other state levels, and the federal level. However, if you know of actual instances of fraud, you need to report it. Quality control workers exist for a reason. Many states have implemented fraud reporting lines and a part of most QC workers job is to investigate these incidents.
Believe me, although you anecdotally cite this single instance and claim it's widespread, it really isn't and statistics back this up.
I'm kind of biased since I'm on the left spectrum. I don't notice it as much as I do for the right related issues. A lot of it is falsified gun data or cherry picked crime statistics to back up their claim that all guns should be banned. There's the typical oil companies subsidies and corporate welfare screeds. They usually post this stuff in an inflammatory manner that is sure to shut down any argument and just get them blocked by their friends on the right.
Well, yeah - you need a permit. Same thing in other European countries. But getting one isn't that easy, if not downright impossible. Like, you have to prove that you need a gun.
And I agree with you, I absolutely believe everybody who isn't a criminal, mentally challenged or outright insane should have the right to buy a gun. But leave it at home, store it in a safe (ideally with the ammunition stored in a second safe with a different key somewhere else in your house), and only take it out if you're on your way to a shooting range. Carrying a gun for shits and giggles - or self-defense, actually - should be illegal. It's simply not necessary and does more harm than good. Yes, knifes and baseball bats are just as deadly in theory, but you need to put a lot more effort into killing somebody with one of those. Also, a gun stored in a safe is never going to accidentally kill anybody.
Right.
CharminUltra
Member
I have quite a few conservative friends on FB, but they tend to avoid political and religious conversations for the most part, so I keep them around. I removed the worst ones long ago.
One of them however will often like or comment one (but never share) stuff posted by hardcore republican FB groups he follows, and it will show up on my feed. These amuse me slightly, so I don't mind them.
One of them however will often like or comment one (but never share) stuff posted by hardcore republican FB groups he follows, and it will show up on my feed. These amuse me slightly, so I don't mind them.
DavionStriker
Member
This
ShadowSoldier89
Member
this is good information to know
as someone who doesnt know much about statistics, isn't one of the keys to abusing a system that the abuse is unknown?
So any statistics would have to be estimates I would assume, which could be much lower or much higher than reality
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