Stop pretending you care.

[afleitch]

Can at least one half of America stop pretending it cares?

If your response to each and every tragedy like this is nothing, which it is, why even bother to report these shootings? Why not leave them for the ‘and finally’ columns in newspapers? If Sandy Hook didn’t change anything, then I doubt the deaths of a bunch of Hispanic gays is going to change anything.

After Sandy Hook, a background check bill was filibustered in the Senate. An attempt to renew the federal assault weapons ban failed. A bill to allow the CDC to study the cause of and solutions to gun violence went nowhere. After Charleston, a bill to reform background checks went nowhere. After Roseburg and the President’s plea, no response was taken. After San Bernardino bills went nowhere. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing.

Stop pretending you care. Care is not thought, not consolation but action.

Your prayers are pointless. I will be a sh**tty atheist on this one; prayer absolves you actually doing anything while still making you feel good. If it's all politicians have got then they have absolutely nothing to give. It’s especially insensitive given that many of the victims will have already had ‘prayer’ thrown at them in their name for very different reasons. It didn’t work then and it won’t work now.

‘Oh but wait, but this was Islamic terror.’

No. This wasn’t the Bataclan. This wasn’t a mass planned, defying the odds series of co-ordinated attacks. It was an act of domestic terror. It does not matter what ideology someone taps into, or tries to self-justify.

I’m going to repeat this; IT DOES NOT MATTER WHAT IDEOLOGY SOMEONE TAPS INTO.

It doesn’t matter whether it was Islamist, or white-supremacist, or dominionist. The shooter was not a foreigner, he wasn’t a weird basement dwelling kid. He was 29. He was middle class, married. He was a security guard and he was able, last week to buy weapons and walk out the f-cking store with them.

And he bought an AR-15. The weapon of choice for mass shooters. They should put it on the box. They should advertise it; why buy anything else? Why else would you need an AR-15? Is it a choice weapon for farmers, for hunters? Is it the number one weapon for law enforcement? Is there an Olympic shooting event that requires expert training with an AR-15?

And like every other issue that directly affects LGBT Americans, this whole event get's turned around by right wing reactionaries to make it about them and their rights and their guns and their freedoms. The right of gays to marry became more about their right to not marry them, the right of gays to not be discriminated against became about their right to religious freedom or what ever cognitive bullsh**t they washed in public, the rights of trans people to use a bathroom becomes about 'rapists and mothers and daughters' and every mans stupid scatological fetish.

So don't pretend you care about them for who they are and who they love and why they were there together in a 'safe space' an actual safe space to celebrate who they are and for their friends to celebrate with them. Don't offer hollow solidarity if you've never once showed it for a single LGBT person. You don't get to claim them now if you never claimed them before.

[MK]

Can at least one half of America stop pretending it cares?

If your response to each and every tragedy like this is nothing, which it is, why even bother to report these shootings? Why not leave them for the ‘and finally’ columns in newspapers? If Sandy Hook didn’t change anything, then I doubt the deaths of a bunch of Hispanic gays is going to change anything.

After Sandy Hook, a background check bill was filibustered in the Senate. An attempt to renew the federal assault weapons ban failed. A bill to allow the CDC to study the cause of and solutions to gun violence went nowhere. After Charleston, a bill to reform background checks went nowhere. After Roseburg and the President’s plea, no response was taken. After San Bernardino bills went nowhere. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing.

Stop pretending you care. Care is not thought, not consolation but action.

Your prayers are pointless. I will be a sh**tty atheist on this one; prayer absolves you actually doing anything while still making you feel good. If it's all politicians have got then they have absolutely nothing to give. It’s especially insensitive given that many of the victims will have already had ‘prayer’ thrown at them in their name for very different reasons. It didn’t work then and it won’t work now.

‘Oh but wait, but this was Islamic terror.’

No. This wasn’t the Bataclan. This wasn’t a mass planned, defying the odds series of co-ordinated attacks. It was an act of domestic terror. It does not matter what ideology someone taps into, or tries to self-justify.

I’m going to repeat this; IT DOES NOT MATTER WHAT IDEOLOGY SOMEONE TAPS INTO.

It doesn’t matter whether it was Islamist, or white-supremacist, or dominionist. The shooter was not a foreigner, he wasn’t a weird basement dwelling kid. He was 29. He was middle class, married. He was a security guard and he was able, last week to buy weapons and walk out the f-cking store with them.

And he bought an AR-15. The weapon of choice for mass shooters. They should put it on the box. They should advertise it; why buy anything else? Why else would you need an AR-15? Is it a choice weapon for farmers, for hunters? Is it the number one weapon for law enforcement? Is there an Olympic shooting event that requires expert training with an AR-15?

And like every other issue that directly affects LGBT Americans, this whole event get's turned around by right wing reactionaries to make it about them and their rights and their guns and their freedoms. The right of gays to marry became more about their right to not marry them, the right of gays to not be discriminated against became about their right to religious freedom or what ever cognitive bullsh**t they washed in public, the rights of trans people to use a bathroom becomes about 'rapists and mothers and daughters' and every mans stupid scatological fetish.

So don't pretend you care about them for who they are and who they love and why they were there together in a 'safe space' an actual safe space to celebrate who they are and for their friends to celebrate with them. Don't offer hollow solidarity if you've never once showed it for a single LGBT person. You don't get to claim them now if you never claimed them before.

\


Give me a break.   People like you and the left made it about "guns" . The issue is radical muslim terrorist.   Did you not wacth your President yesterday?

[Fmr President & Senator Polnut]

He was an inherently violent lunatic... was acknowledged as such, then chose to deliberately target an LGBT venue during the busiest time of the day and one of the busiest periods of the year. The issue isn't JUST extremism, it's also a hideously weak and broken system of checks and his hatred and repulsion of gay people, something that seems to have disappeared from statements of those Conservatives and gun nuts who think this enables them to take the easy way out and just whack Muslims.

As I said before, if this guy wasn't Muslim, it would be the talking heads of the right complaining about mental health. The guy was enough of a threat to be on the watch list ... f*** his rights, what about the rights of EVERYONE else?

[The Last Northerner]

Tbf, many people don't care about other people as much as they do their favorite issue(s). Lots of people cried over a single drowning migrant kid but didn't really give two sh!ts about all those kids that were droned in the Middle East.

The recent shooting just happens to be the intersection of all those issues.

[🦀🎂🦀🎂]

It's odd, because I have personal opinions on the issue of religious extremism that most conservatives would screech at  because of "teh govment regulation on religion", but merely because I don't think Obama saying "we are at war with radical Islam" is a very useful notion, I'm treated as naive and dopey.

[dead0man]

Yeah, if you're not going to let us politicize tragedy get out of the way!



(and stop doing the never helpful "This is how threads on <insert message board of your choice> always reacts", we get it, you think you're better than everybody else...you don't need to advertise it so much)

[Slander and/or Libel]

A call to "not politicize the tragedy" is itself a deeply political statement, offering a defense of the status quo while trying to look above the fray.

Problems like this demand political solutions. Calls to "not politicize" something that is inherently political are cowardly.

[Phony Moderate]

afleitch's point is being proven in this thread then...

[Sir Mohamed]

In the case of Orlando, it’s both. There is a serious problem with radical islamists, but there is also a tremendous problem with easy access to guns. Especially machine guns. They belong into the hands of the police, national guard and military. And no one else. That has nothing to do with self-protection or hunting.

[All Along The Watchtower]

A call to "not politicize the tragedy" is itself a deeply political statement, offering a defense of the status quo while trying to look above the fray.

Problems like this demand political solutions. Calls to "not politicize" something that is inherently political are cowardly.

I would strongly suggest not bothering with posters such as the one above you who think that Muslims are a greater threat to Americans than the tens of thousands of people killed every year due to domestic gun violence.

[Taco Truck 🚚]

The guy was enough of a threat to be on the watch list ... f*** his rights, what about the rights of EVERYONE else?

That's what we are worried about.  Once we are done taking away the Muslims' rights without due process we all know the Mexicans, Blacks, Gays, etc are next.

The solution is to change the laws or at least change the Supreme Court so we can have justices that tell right wingers, no George Washington did not intend for there to be an AR-15 in every pot.

[The world will shine with light in our nightmare]

If an entire faith can be politicized, I don't see why guns can't be.  Muslims are frequently blamed, collectively, for these incidences.  Migrants got the blame for the Paris attacks (even though the perpetrators were not migrants).  All by the same people who fart out the same old excuses every two weeks when we hear about another maniac with a gun.  Every tragic event of this scale is "politicized."  So the problem isn't that something is being politicized.  It's that some don't want to address the elephant in the room which becomes more and more apparent with each shooting tragedy.

[LashedByLeip'sLackeys]

? Why else would you need an AR-15? Is it a choice weapon for farmers, for hunters? Is it the number one weapon for law enforcement? Is there an Olympic shooting event that requires expert training with an AR-15?

The 2nd Amendment is not defined by farming or hunting, rather it exists to arm the populace against government tyranny in order to protect the rights enumerated in the 1st Amendment:

Amendment I
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

Amendment II
A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.

[°Leprechaun]

"Your prayers are pointless. I will be a sh**tty atheist on this one; prayer absolves you actually doing anything while still making you feel good. If it's all politicians have got then they have absolutely nothing to give. It’s especially insensitive given that many of the victims will have already had ‘prayer’ thrown at them in their name for very different reasons. It didn’t work then and it won’t work now."

I agree with this. If you want to pray for someone who's stopping you? What bothers me is when someone say "I'll pray for you" and that's all they are willing to do. Why do I have to know that. I had an experience where someone said "Can I pray with you?" The question made me uncomfortable, so I said "no", and saying that made me uncomfortable as well. Before praying asking someone if they can pray for you or say "I'll pray for you" you should listen to what that person wants, maybe they just want to be listened to "seek first to understand". But yes I agree with the above statement, and I don't see how prayers help, except as a way to make the person praying feel better. But actions speek louder than words.

[Joe Republic]

The OP is another reminder of why this forum desperately needs a 'like'/upvote button.

Anyway, how dare you politicize this tragedy???!?  We need to wait until at least a week has passed, out of respect for the dead, and only then can we discuss doing nothing.

[°Leprechaun]

The OP is another reminder of why this forum desperately needs a 'like'/upvote button.

Anyway, how dare you politicize this tragedy???!?  We need to wait until at least a week has passed, out of respect for the dead, and only then can we discuss doing nothing.

That's up to the moderators, although there is always the "report to moderator" button.

[Tartarus Sauce]

? Why else would you need an AR-15? Is it a choice weapon for farmers, for hunters? Is it the number one weapon for law enforcement? Is there an Olympic shooting event that requires expert training with an AR-15?

The 2nd Amendment is not defined by farming or hunting, rather it exists to arm the populace against government tyranny in order to protect the rights enumerated in the 1st Amendment:

Amendment I
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

Amendment II
A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.

While I'm not quite as on board with this snatching assault weapons as some others are, that well regulated militia clause was more expected to keep the state secure from external threats rather than internal despotism. While the English Bill of Rights of 1689 of which the Second Amendment drew its influence from, did explicitly secure the right to be free from forceful disarmament by the state, the Founding Father's intended the checks and balances of the Federal Republic to keep domestic tyranny at bay, not the arming of its citizens. Mob rule scared the sh**t out of them, they didn't want the masses deciding to burn the system down willy-nilly because of some perceived repression.

Once we attained an organized military, there was no longer a need for a well-regulated militia. I'm all in favor of people wanting to arm themselves, and I'm even willing to grant them their right to be paranoid of government repression. But this whole self-aggrandizing narrative of patriotic duty by excessive self-armament is bogus.

[Joe Republic]

The OP is another reminder of why this forum desperately needs a 'like'/upvote button.

Anyway, how dare you politicize this tragedy???!?  We need to wait until at least a week has passed, out of respect for the dead, and only then can we discuss doing nothing.

That's up to the moderators, although there is always the "report to moderator" button.

What?

[°Leprechaun]

The OP is another reminder of why this forum desperately needs a 'like'/upvote button.

Anyway, how dare you politicize this tragedy???!?  We need to wait until at least a week has passed, out of respect for the dead, and only then can we discuss doing nothing.

That's up to the moderators, although there is always the "report to moderator" button.

What?

Were you being sarcastic when you said "how dare you politicize this tragedy"? If so I missed that.

[LashedByLeip'sLackeys]

So many strawmen, so little time...

a)  "And like every other issue that directly affects LGBT Americans"

Just because guns were used to mass-murder gays (just like guns were used in mass murders of non-gays), doesn't make gun control a gay issue.

b) "Stop pretending you care. Care is not thought, not consolation but action."

Sometimes the only "action" one can take is to attempt to reason with someone and talk them out of doing something wrong.

c) "Your prayers are pointless. I will be a sh**tty atheist on this one; prayer absolves you actually doing anything while still making you feel good."

Is there somewhere in the bible where God instructs believers to make sure no one in a given society can be armed?  If not, then why do you believe it is the Christian's moral prerogative to ban weapons?

Finally, if in response to this incident you hadn't placed gun control and gay rights at the very top of your list of items to rant about, I would be more respectful of your opinion, but the #1 issue/cause/catalyst in this particular incident is radical Islam.  

Radical Islam is the source of the intolerance and lack of respect of the right to life in the Orlando murders.  If you want to place gun-control and gay rights as #2 and #3 on your list of "problems" contributing to this incident, then fine.  But at least legitimize your point of view by stating the #1 obvious cause of the problem of this incident.

[LashedByLeip'sLackeys]

While I'm not quite as on board with this snatching assault weapons as some others are, that well regulated militia clause was more expected to keep the state secure from external threats rather than internal despotism. While the English Bill of Rights of 1689 of which the Second Amendment drew its influence from, did explicitly secure the right to be free from forceful disarmament by the state, the Founding Father's intended the checks and balances of the Federal Republic to keep domestic tyranny at bay, not the arming of its citizens. Mob rule scared the sh**t out of them, they didn't want the masses deciding to burn the system down willy-nilly because of some perceived repression.

Once we attained an organized military, there was no longer a need for a well-regulated militia. I'm all in favor of people wanting to arm themselves, and I'm even willing to grant them their right to be paranoid of government repression. But this whole self-aggrandizing narrative of patriotic duty by excessive self-armament is bogus.

Consider for a moment the fact the Brits had a organized military, yet the Founding Fathers took up arms against it.  So, to say the 2nd Amendment only grants gun rights until the forming of a organized military would make the whole American Revolution hypocritical, would it not?

[Taco Truck 🚚]

While I'm not quite as on board with this snatching assault weapons as some others are, that well regulated militia clause was more expected to keep the state secure from external threats rather than internal despotism. While the English Bill of Rights of 1689 of which the Second Amendment drew its influence from, did explicitly secure the right to be free from forceful disarmament by the state, the Founding Father's intended the checks and balances of the Federal Republic to keep domestic tyranny at bay, not the arming of its citizens. Mob rule scared the sh**t out of them, they didn't want the masses deciding to burn the system down willy-nilly because of some perceived repression.

Once we attained an organized military, there was no longer a need for a well-regulated militia. I'm all in favor of people wanting to arm themselves, and I'm even willing to grant them their right to be paranoid of government repression. But this whole self-aggrandizing narrative of patriotic duty by excessive self-armament is bogus.

Consider for a moment the fact the Brits had a organized military, yet the Founding Fathers took up arms against it.  So, to say the 2nd Amendment only grants gun rights until the forming of a organized military would make the whole American Revolution hypocritical, would it not?

Thomas Jefferson owned slaves so...

[Tartarus Sauce]

While I'm not quite as on board with this snatching assault weapons as some others are, that well regulated militia clause was more expected to keep the state secure from external threats rather than internal despotism. While the English Bill of Rights of 1689 of which the Second Amendment drew its influence from, did explicitly secure the right to be free from forceful disarmament by the state, the Founding Father's intended the checks and balances of the Federal Republic to keep domestic tyranny at bay, not the arming of its citizens. Mob rule scared the sh**t out of them, they didn't want the masses deciding to burn the system down willy-nilly because of some perceived repression.

Once we attained an organized military, there was no longer a need for a well-regulated militia. I'm all in favor of people wanting to arm themselves, and I'm even willing to grant them their right to be paranoid of government repression. But this whole self-aggrandizing narrative of patriotic duty by excessive self-armament is bogus.

Consider for a moment the fact the Brits had a organized military, yet the Founding Fathers took up arms against it.  So, to say the 2nd Amendment only grants gun rights until the forming of a organized military would make the whole American Revolution hypocritical, would it not?

Except that wasn't what I was implying. People should be allowed to own guns, but the original intention was rather different than the "pro-gun patriots" make it out to be. They've turned gun ownership into a patriotic duty as some kind of safeguard of government tyranny. Other than the fact that the system, in theory, isn't supposed to lead to or sustain despotism, if the government really did want to f**k you over and f**k you over good, armed citizens are no match against trained soldiers and their armaments and vehicles.

If that's they way people want to think, more power to them. I have my own concerns with the government and skepticism of our politicians' ability to govern effectively is rather fashionable, but I find the rhetoric of gun fetishists rather paranoid and silly.

[Mr. Reactionary]

While I'm not quite as on board with this snatching assault weapons as some others are, that well regulated militia clause was more expected to keep the state secure from external threats rather than internal despotism. While the English Bill of Rights of 1689 of which the Second Amendment drew its influence from, did explicitly secure the right to be free from forceful disarmament by the state, the Founding Father's intended the checks and balances of the Federal Republic to keep domestic tyranny at bay, not the arming of its citizens. Mob rule scared the sh**t out of them, they didn't want the masses deciding to burn the system down willy-nilly because of some perceived repression.

Once we attained an organized military, there was no longer a need for a well-regulated militia. I'm all in favor of people wanting to arm themselves, and I'm even willing to grant them their right to be paranoid of government repression. But this whole self-aggrandizing narrative of patriotic duty by excessive self-armament is bogus.

This is pretty accurate, except for the last part. There was a lot of concern during the founding about a standing army. You can read plenty of skeptical quotes in the recorded debates on ratifying the Constitution. That's why the constitution limits military appropriations to 2 years, and its why Congress's power to create an army is optional rather than mandatory. Although we know Congress realistically won't stop having a military, it is possible. In a future where we no longer had an army, the concept of militia would be useful again.

[LashedByLeip'sLackeys]

...if the government really did want to f**k you over and f**k you over good, armed citizens are no match against trained soldiers and their armaments and vehicles.

But you're not understanding the nature of such a battle - it would not be a conflict on a open plain, rather it would be slow grind urban warfare involving the sniping of any occupying force.  In such a scenario, there are enough guns among the US populous to make occupation untenable.