Hey it's my old friend "Shannon Love" (in scarequotes because I simply don't believe that's a real name) making definite statements that someone else is lying on the flimsiest of evidence!!!
I also think that in Perry de Havilland's original post, the suggestion that it would have been better if the pedestrians had been able to engage in a pitched battle with the cops is suboptimal. Or anyway, if they had, I think we'd be seeing Samizdata posts about the looters.
I've crossed paths with PdH before--a rare occasion when someone I'm flaming actually reads it--and I just want to say: Is that not a totally poncey French name? My name is Matt Weiner, and I approve this message.
When I got to the part of the article where he says that it was a really good example of why gun use should be widespread, I thought that the example of people who think like Perry (he really think things would have worked out better if they shot the cops!) is why I get squeamish about gun rights.
The crazy thing is he really does seem to be saying gun use should be widespread, not gun ownership.
Well, why have them if you aren't going to shoot people with them? That would be wasteful.
I often wonder what libertarians make of the theory that to this day Canada is far less violent than the U.S. because government forces opened their wilderness, while we had the Wild West. That government is the ingredient in civilization that curbs the culture of honor.
re: 6
I don't know what Libertarians think, but I'm a little skeptical myself. Didn't the US government also open our wilderness (Homestead Act, Indian Wars, etc.)? I don't know much about Canadian history, so maybe there's some obvious difference in gov't policy I'm missing, but I don't really see the Wild West (an inaccurate and overblown term) as the result of laissez-faire or whatever.
Of course, Canada is a lot less violent, so maybe there's something to it after all. I dunno.
Jesus Christ. Those people are insane.
the murder rate there is higher. See, e.g., some other unfogged thread where we talked about this.
At least the pro-gun folk came out in favor of the civilians.
I just did a quick and dirty search, text. I think you might be thinking of violent crimes, which John Lott (yes, the guy who got in so much trouble for fudging data(IIRC)) claims is twice as high in Canada as in the US. The homicide rate is much lower up north. It was 1.85/100K in 2002, as compared with 6.8 (which was a low #)/100K in the US in 1999. All figures are google, so worth every bit as much effort as it took to find.
I enjoyed this line from one Shannon Love: "Middle-class white American simple are not intimidated by the police in the same way that poor African-Americans are."
I've lived in heavily tanned neighborhoods, and I've noticed rather a general lack of intimidation, myself.
I'm an odd fellow: no? yes? discuss.
only a little tipsy.
intimidation perhaps is the wrong word, but there is a different attitude in the bronx than on the upper east side, yes?
ok then, wrong on the murder rate. But I am right that we talked about this before.
And I still prefer the maple-swilling territories, either way.
"Well, why have them if you aren't going to shoot people with them? That would be wasteful."
You've now sent untold number of beer and soda cans into a spiral of crippling depression, as they no longer believe they have a purpose for which to go on living. After emptiness, only emptiness.
Shame.
well then, perhaps I made that up. Could have sworn on such and such ancestral text's grave I read it on this blog, which is where I collect all such topical sayings, and the lingo, and such.
Not going to find the link though. That's time I could spend categorizing my porn inappropriately.
That's just the Unfogged memory hole.
Just like the post where w-lfs-n explained why he was such a little bitch.
Canada is far less violent than the U.S. because government forces opened their wilderness, while we had the Wild West. That government is the ingredient in civilization that curbs the culture of honor.
This is a thesis often bruited by historians of comparative frontiers. I associate it with Robin Fisher, but like text I don't feel like looking it up at the moment. But unlike text I'm going to read the New Yorker. Which has yet another fine Anthony Lane essay in it, so nyah to all you Lane-haters. You know who you are, so I guess I don't have to google that either.
Also, our Wild West included a number of towns that enforced gun control.
"Middle-class white American simple are not intimidated by the police in the same way that poor African-Americans are."
I'm not going to read the thread linked to in the post, but if this is referencing the tension between some black people in New Orleans and the police, then "intimidated by" is wholly off target. Violently hate is the appropriate characterization of quite a few denizens of the 9th ward's attitude toward the police. And not without some justification.
19: I read the New Yorker, and even have a subscription. A gift from a quite recent ex.