Republicans & Conservatives Archives

Which country is number 1 in violent deaths?

The U.S. averages 50,000 violent deaths per year. No country is more blessed than America. So, if Hugo and his poorly run government is to blame in Venezuela, who do we blame?

Obama, of course!

Just thought I’d get it in before someone else beat me to it. You know it will happen……….

This is an eight minute video of David Burton’s tour of the Capitol Building in Washington, D.C.

For those of you who refuse to listen or see David Burton, and criticize him in absencia, listen to the people taking the tour.

One guy said he has never taken a tour of the capitol building. He was awakened to the history of that building during David Burton’s tour. He felt, and said, he was lied to, and a victim of re-education!

Watch this video. Take David Burton’s tour, and verify this adventure. Does it meet expectations? You tell me!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dlfEdJNn15E

Only 50,000 a year in America in a population of some 330 million people. That is truly an amazingly peaceful society by historical standards, considering the ebb and flow of prejudice, hate, and ignorance throughout our history. The media and others, of course, make gobs of money off painting a very different picture entirely out context.

Ahh, but, then, this is also a picture out of context as that 50,000 figure doesn’t include the violence Americans commit upon foreign peoples in any given year. And it doesn’t include the foreign aid to rescue 10’s and even 100’s of thousands of poor, injured and sick, and dispossessed foreign people.

Human nature hasn’t changed much since history began. Law and society however, have changed dramatically in the world of humans in the last 200 or so, years. Whether for better or ill remains to be writ by historians a thousand years from now.

Law and society however, have changed dramatically in the world of humans in the last 200 or so, years.

Or so? David R. Remer? 200 years or so? Does that include the last 100 years?

Say this…

Law and society have changed dramatically in the world of humans in the last 100 or so, years.

What difference does it make? 200 years or 100 years, who cares, Right?
It remains to be writ, David R. Remer.

It will be writ in November.

Maybe, someone with “standing” will get into this building David Burton is talking about.

Weary Willie, tsk, tsk, tsk. Did you sleep through history class?

French American Revolutions and the governments they spawned as models for the rest of the world, ring any bells?

LAW and Society have changed dramatically over the last 200 years or so. The ‘or so”, includes the American Revolution and ratification of the U.S. Constitution. Yes, 200 years or so.

As for November, it is just one more corrupt election run by corrupt political parties replete with gerrymandering, legal bribery, false campaign rhetoric, and puppets and puppeteers. History takes a longer more contextual view than just one election in one month of nation’s history.

Thus endeth your 8th grade history lesson for the day.

An excellent lesson on wisdom from P.J.O’Rourke.

It starts as a funny piece on 72 hour news reporters acting as experts.

I was reading a bit on Kholberg’s stages of Moral Development at about the same time I came across this article.

I had a conversation with my sister some time ago about a female professor who had offered Kohlberg as a reason to believe woman were less morally advanced than men when I was in college in the 70’s. I found it a sexist idea back then, and while it probably still is, I now have some appreciation as to why she said what she said.

Kohlberg proffered that moral decisions are reasoned while others believe that moral reasons are rationalizations post hoc.

The confluence of instant experts, moral equivalence, and rationalization struck me as good description of the thinking of many people with regard to many issues.

There was wisdom in Jefferson’s avoidance of foreign entanglements and a great lesson from the article about politics and wisdom:

There was one other point that people in Kabul agreed on. Whatever it is that America does in Afghanistan, America should proceed with wisdom. The governor told a story about wisdom.

There was a student who had been studying for many years at a madrassa. He had memorized the Koran and learned all the lessons his teacher taught. One day he went to his teacher and said, “I am ready to leave and go be a mullah.”

His teacher said, “I think you should stay here for a few more years.”

“Why?” asked the student. “Is there some additional degree or higher certificate that I will get?”

“No,” said the teacher, “all you will get is wisdom.”

“But I’m ready to be a mullah now,” said the student. And he left the madrassa and wandered from village to village looking for a mosque where he could be the prayer-leader.

Finally the student came to a village where a corrupt old mullah was using the mosque as a stall for his cow. The student was outraged. He gathered the villagers together and told them, “I have studied at a madrassa. I have memorized the Koran. It is a great sacrilege for your mullah to use the mosque as a stall for his cow.”

The villagers beat him up.

The student limped back to the madrassa and told his teacher what had happened. The teacher said, “Follow me.” They went back to the village where the mullah was using the mosque as a stall.

The teacher gathered the villagers together and told them, “I see you have a beautiful cow being kept in your mosque. It must be a very blessed animal. And I hear the cow belongs to your mullah. He must be a very holy man. In fact, I think that this cow is so blessed and your mullah is so holy that if you were to take one hair from the cow’s hide and one hair from the mullah’s beard and rub them together, you would be assured of paradise.”

The villagers ran into the mosque and began plucking hairs from the cow’s hide. The cow started to buck and kick and it bolted from the mosque and disappeared. Then the villagers ran to the mullah’s house and began plucking hairs from the corrupt old mullah’s beard. And they tugged and they yanked so hard at the mullah’s beard that he had a heart attack and died.

“You see,” said the teacher to the student, “no cow in the mosque and a need for a new mullah—that is wisdom.”

I was watching the news last night. The tease they did for a piece on the murder rates in Houston was introduced as, “Let’s see how Houston Police did compared to the rest of the nation on murder.”

I was astonished. I didn’t know that the police were causing all the murders in Houston.

Drug habits in the United States cause more violent deaths in a smaller region of the world (within twenty miles of the Mexican border) than anyplace else in the world…does that count?

jlw

Our violence rate is very low compared to theirs and our murder rate has been falling for around 20 years. We don’t always have to pretend to be the worst. Sometimes we can be accurate.

C&J - are we comparing our crime rates to Venezuela now? That sets the bar pretty darn low. We rank higher than all of the European countries except the countries from the former Soviet Union by a long shot. Granted, a lot of countries that rank lower than the US, I’m sure, is because this is a murder rate not a violent death rate and excludes state sponsored killing (which this country also engages in). We rank 5th in the world in state sanction killing.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_homicide_rate

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital_punishment

There is an interesting American obsession, more common on the left than the right but common all over, to blame the U.S. It seems almost a point of pride among some people that we can be the worst. So you can be sure that no matter what bad thing you point to somewhere else, among the first responses will be someone pointing out how the U.S. is worse and by the time you have a dozen responses, someone will have shown why whatever happened in the fault of the U.S.

I used to think it was a sort of self-hating American thing, but I know understand that it is much more complex. It is, rather, a type of extreme hubris and self-centeredness. It bring everything back to us. Many of us cannot talk about the problems of Venezuela because we want to only talk about ourselves. We want to settle scores with each other, so everybody else becomes a mere projection. No matter how much we claim to “respect” other cultures, many of us seem to believe that they have no free will of their own. We do things for them or to them. We do things that hurt them or help them. But WE are the deciders.

I think this hubris – this knowing the answers before asking the questions – is what really lies behind many of our problems with public opinion in the world. Sometimes we are being aggressive in the original sense; more often we are being aggressive in the passive way that we treat others as a an object or even victim, someone who needs our help, rather than as a partner from which we intend to both give AND get.

We hear that the solution might be to try to be more understanding and that is right. But we need to pick up both ends of that understanding stick. The more you learn about someone or some culture, the more you will probably find that you think is good and the more you will find that you think is bad. You do have a choice. It is not racist, xenophobic or bigoted to make a choice.

gergle, thank you for link to the Weekly Standard article.

C&J,

It’s the pretense. You write a post like this one, as though the USA wears a white hat, and then find fault with those who see a black hat mixed in there. None of us would leave this country for any of those you mentioned, or any other for that matter, but can’t we wish we’d live up to at least 10% of our brag?

We just found out that the rest of the world thinks we have civil and human rights issues this long after our revolution? Nope, the world has known for long, it is WE who stick our head in the sand on this issue.