Spider-Man: Life Story #2

[boots]

I really think we need to be very careful with changes, the cure can be worse then the disease. For example: The first nations to enact gun control were the USSR and Nazi Germany. Venezuela also enacted strict gun control measures. Very few of us want the US to turn into those nations. Certain politicians want to enact a "Green New Deal" that will cost trillions, yet China and India do not have to go along ( it is not like the US is the only nation on earth who pollutes). If they really wanted to make changes they could simply ban products from.nations that do not meet our health, safety, environmental, wage and economic standards, to force needed changes. I will believe that the World Community is committed to ending poverty and the like when Dictatorships like Iran, Syria, Cuba, China and Venezuela have free and open elections. Until then I am for our Constitution that offers "Checks & Balances" on Government ( regardless of the left or right). ps. Wake me up when the World Community makes that happen.

gun control = totalitarian state is a loooooooong bow to draw, even when you decide to completely ignore context

but we all know that. especially in australia

in any case, an au title is the perfect place for marvel to explore this stuff and still preserve the “integrity” of the core of the franchise

[Tendrin]

I just want to point out that the 'Nazi Germany enacted gun control!' thing is also wildly inaccurate. And the USA had gun control laws going back to its founding.

[NC_Yankee]

I just want to point out that the 'Nazi Germany enacted gun control!' thing is also wildly inaccurate. And the USA had gun control laws going back to its founding.

A little history: The first gun control laws in the US were enacted in 1934. The USSR started theirs in 1918, and even banned knives in 1935. I just used gun control as an example of going down a "Slippery Slope" of good intentions and ending up with something far worse. Colleges creating "Safe Spaces" and tech companies censoring unpopular and ( or) controversial ideas and essentially gutting the First Amendmemt would be another. Taking this back to comics, I remember the Superhero registration arc" and did not care for it. Why? I do not want politics mixed with my entertainment ( I stopped watching The Blacklist and NCIS Los Angeles for that reason). After a long day at work, I want the opportunity to relax and escape from drama. That is why I bought MLB Extra Innings to watch the Yankees instead of watching CNN, Fox or MSNBC. Not to mention having a very large Dish Network bill just so I can watch sports instead of politics dressed up as entertainment.

[Tendrin]

A little history: The first gun control laws in the US were enacted in 1934. The USSR started theirs in 1918, and even banned knives in 1935. I just used gun control as an example of going down a "Slippery Slope" of good intentions and ending up with something far worse. Colleges creating "Safe Spaces" and tech companies censoring unpopular and ( or) controversial ideas and essentially gutting the First Amendmemt would be another. Taking this back to comics, I remember the Superhero registration arc" and did not care for it. Why? I do not want politics mixed with my entertainment ( I stopped watching The Blacklist and NCIS Los Angeles for that reason). After a long day at work, I want the opportunity to relax and escape from drama. That is why I bought MLB Extra Innings to watch the Yankees instead of watching CNN, Fox or MSNBC. Not to mention having a very large Dish Network bill just so I can watch sports instead of politics dressed up as entertainment.

20130125-dodge-guns.jpg

The view of the second amendment that you're promulgating does not match the actual fact or historical record. It's a history that begins and ends in the 20th century, ignoring huge sections of American gun laws through the eighteenth and ninteeth centuries because those histories and laws do not fit with the radical interpretation of the second amendment pushed by conservative interests and the gun lobby, who wants to sell more guns.

What the NRA doesn’t like to admit is that guns were regulated in early America. People deemed untrustworthy — such as British loyalists unwilling to swear an oath to the new nation — were disarmed. The sale of guns to Native Americans was outlawed. Boston made it illegal to store a loaded firearm in any home or warehouse. Some states conducted door-to-door registration surveys so the militia could “impress” those weapons if necessary. Men had to attend musters where their guns would be inspected by the government.

For decades, the Supreme Court read the Second Amendment only to apply to militias. It wasn’t until 2008 that the justices decided that the amendment guaranteed an individual right. Justice Antonin Scalia’s majority opinion in DC v. Heller claimed that the original meaning of the Second Amendment required this ruling, even as he dismissed the framers’ own words tying the right to keep and bear arms to the militia. As the legal scholar Reva Siegel has shown, the court’s decision was instead the quintessential example of the living Constitution: Scalia gave voice to “understandings of the Second Amendment that were forged in the late twentieth century”—largely by the NRA’s campaigning and lobbying efforts.

It's okay to believe that the ability and capacity to own a gun is important as a piece of personal liberty but it stands at odds with the actual history of America and is instead a radical reinvention of the second amendment fueled by a very wide array of forces.

Now, onto the reality of Nazi weapon laws:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazi_gun_control_argument

Short version: The Weimar republic banned some guns and created registries of firearms to try to keep them out of the hands of extremsist groups, as it had endured numerous threats from freikorps and other armed paramilitiaries. In fact, it was after discovering various Nazi plots that they introduced a gun control act in 1931 that registered weapons and so on. Hitler, in 1938, with his pogroms well under way (which would not have been impeded by an armed Jewish resistance significantly since most people don't understand that German Jews accounted for slightly less thanone percent of the population) liberalized Weimar era gun laws considerably. The 'nazi gun control argument' misunderstands history and envisions an unrealstic, AMericanized resistance fantasy as a defense of a lack of gun control here, with us facing the significantly different problem of tens of thousands of yearly completely unecessary firearm deaths, to say nothing of the mass shooting epidemic.

olleges creating "Safe Spaces" and tech companies censoring unpopular and ( or) controversial ideas and essentially gutting the First Amendmemt would be another.

Safe spaces are good. Deplatforming extremsists is good. Companies not wanting to endorse bad rhetoric with their ad dollars is good. No one is censoring them. They can stand on the street corner and shout as much as they want. The governemnt is not /arresting/ them. We don't need to make this country even MORE hostile in the name of 'free speech', because to build a truly tolerant society requires it to be intolerant of intolerance. Thus, the paradox Karl Popper spoke of when he wrote an Open Society and its Enemies. Also, companies don't really need guys like James Damore, who overestimate their value to the companies on account of their whiteness, creating hostile work environments for their non-white employees and women. None of this 'guts' the first amendment.

As for not wanting politics in your entertainment, prepare to be continually and sorely disappointed with having your preconceptions and viewpoints of the world challenged by artists.

It's what they do.

The reality is that people don't like to be challenged. When you say you don't want 'politics in your entertainment', it tells me that what you actually want is entertainment with politics and preconceptions that match your own.

Anyway, that's enough of a sidetrack for now.

[Tuck]

I just used gun control as an example of going down a "Slippery Slope" of good intentions and ending up with something far worse.

Slippery Slopes are logical fallacies. It's not that they're never relevant, but more often than not they're a poor argument.

Also, companies don't really need guys like James Damore, who overestimate their value to the companies on account of their whiteness, creating hostile work environments for their non-white employees and women. None of this 'guts' the first amendment.

While I agree with most of your post, the Damore thing gets into hairy situation. If I recall, the labor board found in Google's favor, but there's a long-open question about where political opinions fall in employment law, largely due to the question of what exactly "creed" means in civil rights law. What's more is that the opinion was solicited. Even if you take the solicitation out, do you want your employer to be able to dismiss you for your political beliefs? And if we are comfortable with that, where is the hard legal line between that acceptable point and the clearly illegal point where your employer "suggests" who you might vote for?

[boots]

It's okay to believe that the ability and capacity to own a gun is important as a piece of personal liberty but it stands at odds with the actual history of America and is instead a radical reinvention of the second amendment fueled by a very wide array of forces.

it's funny how our countries are so alike in so many ways, but two things that always mystify us on this side of the pond is the north american passion for guns and flags.

when our conservative government (yes, the government that are most pro gun) further enforced our gun laws here after our last mass shooting almost 30 years ago, the majority of citizens just... shrugged.

there's a good reason most superheroes aren't gun toting.

[Minerboh]

TheGwen Stacy twist was simply AWESOME!!!!

[NC_Yankee]

it's funny how our countries are so alike in so many ways, but two things that always mystify us on this side of the pond is the north american passion for guns and flags.

when our conservative government (yes, the government that are most pro gun) further enforced our gun laws here after our last mass shooting almost 30 years ago, the majority of citizens just... shrugged.

there's a good reason most superheroes aren't gun toting.

I happen to like Australia ( they have the most Pro-US voting record in the UN); but every nation has their differences. The flag issue is interesting. Most Americans love the flag. In the Olympics ( I believe 1908) American athletes ( most (like me) were of Irish heritage) and refused to dip the flag to the British King. The tradition.remains to this day.

[boots]

I happen to like Australia ( they have the most Pro-US voting record in the UN); but every nation has their differences. The flag issue is interesting. Most Americans love the flag. In the Olympics ( I believe 1908) American athletes ( most (like me) were of Irish heritage) and refused to dip the flag to the British King. The tradition.remains to this day.

i'm of irish heritage too. it just feels like aussies are less...bothered...with these things (its rare to see our flag in people's yards). though on that topic, we do have a strong monarchist contingent who push idiotic things like trying to reinstate knights and dames. which would be funny if it wasn't so embarrassing.

as for loving other countries because they vote in line with mine or whatever, can't say that's my criteria... but everyone has different priorities as you say.

buuut anyway. spider-man hey

[Kevinroc]

Life Story #3 is due on the 15th of this month. Just thought someone should mention that.

[boots]

Life Story #3 is due on the 15th of this month. Just thought someone should mention that.

awesome. pretty much the only book i'm picking up at the mo