What did this girl have that she needed?

[JimC]

Nothing wrong with an argumentum ad populum when the issue is a political one in which the opinion of the majority is of prime importance.

Except, of course, that opinion is NEVER of ANY importance, let alone of prime importance. Failure to think properly is failure to think properly.

I have to disagree. It is of no importance in deciding a scientific question, for example, but decisions about what citizens are allowed or not allowed to own or do are essentially political. Hopefully they will be informed by statistical information and logical argument, but in the end, it is a collective decision, within the bounds of the legal or constitutional set up of a given polity. Otherwise, one strays into the realm of an intellectual elite telling the mass of the people what is good for them, which never ends well...

[Seth]

Seth still fails to understand basic maths. A tiny, tiny number of people with RTC in 1987 does not change crime rates. It cannot. But a massive sociological cahnge over numerous nations does. Duh!!!

Which is exactly what happened between 1987 and 2000. People started carrying guns legally, by the millions, and criminals decided it wasn't worth the risk anymore.

Nor does he understand the simple words "aggravated assaults rise as more RTC licences are issued." Again, Duh!!!

Cherry picking as usual. We need a cherry-picking smiliy. Anyone? Anyone?

What's interesting is how your claims have morphed as you are consistently proven to be wrong. Used to be "handgun murder" then "murder" and now we're down to "aggravated assault."

Give it up, you're just wrong.

[Seth]

Even the Pakis are smart enough to figure it out:

World
After Horrific Taliban Massacre, Pakistani Teachers Are Bringing Concealed Weapons to School
Feb. 3, 2015 1:23pm Sharona Schwartz
81
Shares

Some Pakistani teachers are now bringing concealed weapons to school with local government approval after Pakistani Taliban gunmen massacred nearly 150 students and teachers in December.

The Associated Press reported that government officials in Pakistan’s northwest frontier are now allowing teachers to bring concealed firearms to school, a decision that is not being met with universal enthusiasm.

Shabnam Tabinda and 10 female colleagues who teach at the Frontier College for Women have enrolled in firearms training and say they plan to bring guns to work to protect their students in the event of an attack.

“Yes. Whoever kills innocents, God willing I will shoot them,” Tabinda, 37, told the AP.
Pakistani teachers handle a pistol during a weapons training session for school, college and university teachers at a police training center in Peshawar on January 27, 2015. Authorities in northwest Pakistan have allowed teachers to carry firearms to schools and have begun weapons training for them, officials said. The decision was taken in the wake of a December 16, 2014 attack on an army-run school that killed 150 people, 134 of them children in Peshawar, the main town in the country’s northwest. (A. Majeed/AFP/Getty Images)

Pakistani teachers handle a pistol during a weapons training session for school, college and university teachers at a police training center in Peshawar on Jan. 27, 2015. Authorities in northwest Pakistan have allowed teachers to carry firearms to schools and have begun weapons training for them, officials said. The decision was taken in the wake of the December 2014 attack on an army-run school that killed 150 people, 134 of them children, in Peshawar, the main town in the country’s northwest. (A. Majeed/AFP/Getty Images)

That sentiment was echoed by principal Abdul Saeed at Peshawar’s Government High School for Boys. Saeed keeps a loaded pistol in one of his desk drawers.

Saeed told CNN how shaken his students have been since the Taliban attack on the Army Public School in Peshawar.

“They would look to the door every time they heard a sound. Now when they see me wearing a gun, they need not worry and can focus on the task at hand, which is to educate themselves,” he said.
In this Tuesday, Jan. 27, 2015 photo, a Pakistani police commando gives weapons training to teachers in Peshawar Pakistan. When Pakistani Taliban militants stormed a Peshawar school on Dec. 16, 2014 and massacred 150 children and teachers, nobody could fight back. Some teachers want to change that. Government authorities in Pakistan’s northwest frontier have given permission for teachers to carry concealed firearms in response to the attack. But other provinces have not allowed teachers to be armed, and most education organizations say that’s the right call. (AP Photo/Mohammad Sajjad)

In this Tuesday, Jan. 27, 2015 photo, a Pakistani police commando gives weapons training to teachers in Peshawar Pakistan. (AP Photo/Mohammad Sajjad)

Mushtuq Ghani, the higher education minister in the Khyber Paktunkhwa provincial government, based in Peshawar, said the local government supports arming teachers because police are stretched too thin to protect against the kind of attack launched in December.

Ghani told the AP that terrorists could be deterred just by knowing that teachers might be armed.

“We’re at war,” Ghani said.

Meenadar Khan, a teacher at Government High School in Peshawar, said he carries his weapon to work but makes sure it stays hidden in a holster under his shirt.

Khan said that the staff at his school believes armed teachers could if necessary “defend our school and kids.”

Not all educators support the idea of guns in classrooms.

Muzammal Khan, provincial president of the All Teachers Association in Peshawar, told the AP he believes students will be alarmed by seeing their teachers with guns and that the government has ultimate responsibility for school safety.

“Pens belong in our hands, not guns,” Muzammal Khan said.

“Why would you glorify guns?” asked Umar Daraz, a member of the Executive Council of Peshawar’s Primary Teacher Association.

“If teachers take guns into classroom it glorifies this deadly weapon in the eyes of children, and in the future it could inspire them to seek out guns, misuse them and cause more tragedies to take place,” Daraz told CNN. “Teachers are meant to teach.”

CNN reported that some 20 female teachers have received gun training following the Dec. 16 school attack.

“Most of them were mothers and they were helpless then. They will be never helpless again,” said Inspector Rozia Altaf who is training them.

[Blind groper]

Great!!!

Seth is now holding up Pakistan as the role model for the USA to follow.

Another form of unbelievable illogic that Seth keeps committing is to ignore anything international. It is as though he has a tumour on that part of his brain that deals with international comparisons. The result is that Seth only takes heed of such stuff as is found only in the USA..

Classic example is when I point out that the drop in murder rates dating from the early 1990's was consistent over 24 nations - all the nations with a baby boomer generation. And Seth says : "So what?"

The "what" is that this trend cannot be caused by a local American event, like more right to carry licences. If that was all it was, then the event would have occurred only in the USA. But it was consistent over 24 nations. However, it appears as though Seth's tumour will prevent him understanding simple logic.

[hackenslash]

I have to disagree.

Feel free.

It is of no importance in deciding a scientific question, for example, but decisions about what citizens are allowed or not allowed to own or do are essentially political.

That doesn't mean that opinion has any value or utility. The simple fact is that I wouldn't trust the vast majority of humans to make even the most trivial of decisions, let alone the sort that shape the society in which I and my children live, because most of them are far too stupid, and that's without fucking morons like Seth dragging the general level down.

Hopefully they will be informed by statistical information and logical argument, but in the end, it is a collective decision, within the bounds of the legal or constitutional set up of a given polity. Otherwise, one strays into the realm of an intellectual elite telling the mass of the people what is good for them, which never ends well...

That's why democracy is a really bad idea. Seriously, people simply don't have the intelligence, generally speaking, to even choose between tea and coffee, let alone trusting the general polity with critical policy decisions. The old adage from politics is that, if anybody wants the job, on no account should he be allowed to do it. This is doubly so of the voting public, or even the illusion of democracy, such as we have now, which amounts to little more than idiot middle-management being given a mandate by those who can barely tie their own shoelaces.

Society is stupid and provincial, and nowhere is it more obvious than private gun ownership.

The really interesting thing is that there is a very strong argument for private gun ownership and, in my opinion (worthless as that is), only one. Never met an advocate for private gun ownership who wasn't too stupid to fail to come up with it. Seth, being among the most fucking stupid people I ever encountered, doesn't even recognise that his cherished constitution doesn't grant him the rights he thinks it does (it doesn't even say what he thinks it does, setting aside the fact that rights can't be granted), let alone being able to come up with anything cogent.

[pErvinalia]

and secondly, you wouldn't know logic if it shot you in the fucking face, as demonstrated by your asinine argumentum ad populum below.

It seems that a very large number of my fellow citizens feel the same way, so I really don't give a flying fuck what you think, Hack.

You don't really give a flying fuck that that argument commits a schoolboy error either, moron.

Nothing wrong with an argumentum ad populum when the issue is a political one in which the opinion of the majority is of prime importance.

"Tyranny of the majority", you say?

[hackenslash]

Can't believe I failed to pick up on that. I must be nearly as stupid as him:

Right, and who in their right minds thinks that Direct Democracy (otherwise known as the Tyranny of the Majority) is a good thing?

[pErvinalia]

It's alright, I know his schtick off by heart now. It reflects better on you that you aren't that sad to be so au fait with Seth's bollocks.

[hackenslash]

Oh, but he knows when to employ the fallacy so that it magically becomes valid.

Fucking idiot. Doesn't get any more stupid than that. I hope they bring Byers back for a bit of intellectual relief from this dunderhead.

[JimC]

Well, it seems that both Seth and hack are pushing the "democracy is a bad idea because the populace is stupid" barrow.

Just shows that strange bedfellow can exist in politics.

The position itself is dangerous, elitist and conducive to totalitarian regimes. The answer is better education and more genuine, widespread political conversations, not the arrogant dismissal of the "common people", more worthy of aristocrats in bygone days than any modern commentator.

[Seth]

Great!!!

Seth is now holding up Pakistan as the role model for the USA to follow.

Strawman. I merely point out that Pakis understand that arming teachers provides added security for students against terrorist attacks.

Another form of unbelievable illogic that Seth keeps committing is to ignore anything international. It is as though he has a tumour on that part of his brain that deals with international comparisons. The result is that Seth only takes heed of such stuff as is found only in the USA..

Classic example is when I point out that the drop in murder rates dating from the early 1990's was consistent over 24 nations - all the nations with a baby boomer generation. And Seth says : "So what?"

it's irrelevant information. As I've said many times the only important information is the fact that with an increase in guns in America, crime rates have continued to go down, which destroys your claim that more guns = more crime. It doesn't matter at all WHY crime went down, only that it did while at the same time the number of guns in society, and being carried in public, increased. That debunks your claim completely.

The "what" is that this trend cannot be caused by a local American event, like more right to carry licences. If that was all it was, then the event would have occurred only in the USA. But it was consistent over 24 nations. However, it appears as though Seth's tumour will prevent him understanding simple logic.

You're the logic-impaired one. Simple, undeniable fact: More guns, less crime. End of story.

[Seth]

I have to disagree.

Feel free.

It is of no importance in deciding a scientific question, for example, but decisions about what citizens are allowed or not allowed to own or do are essentially political.

That doesn't mean that opinion has any value or utility.

Which explains why political wonks spend billions of dollars every election cycle trying to mould public opinion how, exactly?

The simple fact is that I wouldn't trust the vast majority of humans to make even the most trivial of decisions, let alone the sort that shape the society in which I and my children live, because most of them are far too stupid, and that's without fucking morons like Seth dragging the general level down.

The thing is, fuckwit, what you want or who you trust is of only minimal importance in the political arena, where people are free to largely ignore your paranoia.

Hopefully they will be informed by statistical information and logical argument, but in the end, it is a collective decision, within the bounds of the legal or constitutional set up of a given polity. Otherwise, one strays into the realm of an intellectual elite telling the mass of the people what is good for them, which never ends well...

That's why democracy is a really bad idea.

In this we heartily agree.

Seriously, people simply don't have the intelligence, generally speaking, to even choose between tea and coffee, let alone trusting the general polity with critical policy decisions.

Also true.

The old adage from politics is that, if anybody wants the job, on no account should he be allowed to do it. This is doubly so of the voting public, or even the illusion of democracy, such as we have now, which amounts to little more than idiot middle-management being given a mandate by those who can barely tie their own shoelaces.

No argument there.

Society is stupid and provincial, and nowhere is it more obvious than private gun ownership.

Here we disagree, rather pointedly.

The really interesting thing is that there is a very strong argument for private gun ownership and, in my opinion (worthless as that is), only one. Never met an advocate for private gun ownership who wasn't too stupid to fail to come up with it. Seth, being among the most fucking stupid people I ever encountered, doesn't even recognise that his cherished constitution doesn't grant him the rights he thinks it does (it doesn't even say what he thinks it does, setting aside the fact that rights can't be granted), let alone being able to come up with anything cogent.

Um, you're quite right in one respect, the Constitution does not grant me any rights at all. The Constitution is a charter of negative liberties that constrains the government, and only the government from doing certain things or interfering with the liberties of the People in certain areas of concern, like the right to keep and bear arms, which is not granted by the Constitution, but pre-exists and exists independent of the Constitution and even independent of government itself. All the 2nd Amendment does is prohibit government from interfering with my pre-existing rights.

Which evidently you are to fucking stupid to comprehend.

[Seth]

[quote="hackenslash"]Can't believe I failed to pick up on that. I must be nearly as stupid as him:

Much more stupid in fact. Orders of magnitude more stupid. You're so fucking stupid that your stupidity doesn't even exist in the same universe as everyone else, it's an infinite universe of stupidity all your own. The gravity of your universe of stupidity is so strong that it affects the time-space continuum in nearby universes. Your stupidity is the largest black hole of stupidity in all the universes. You are so stupid that other people's stupidity disappears beyond the event horizon of your stupidity.

[Seth]

Oh, but he knows when to employ the fallacy so that it magically becomes valid.

I didn't say the fallacy was valid, nitwit. I said I used it to make a point. Which I did, which you are evidently too abysmally, universally and singularly to stupid to comprehend.

[pErvinalia]

Well, it seems that both Seth and hack are pushing the "democracy is a bad idea because the populace is stupid" barrow.

Just shows that strange bedfellow can exist in politics.

The position itself is dangerous, elitist and conducive to totalitarian regimes. The answer is better education and more genuine, widespread political conversations, not the arrogant dismissal of the "common people", more worthy of aristocrats in bygone days than any modern commentator.

I pretty much hold the position that the majority of the population is too stupid in the concepts of civics and political philosophy, not to mention economics, and therefore this is a BIG problem for our "democracies". The difference between the right wing and the left wing is that lefties like you and us usually see the solution being to educate the masses to bring them up to a level on these issues. The neoliberals are THE elitists in society and they want it to stay that way, which is why they are always chipping away at universal education (not to mention health and welfare etc).