4 ms·

I think the 9/11 attacks really left their mark on the public consciousness. Add to that the near-daily school shootings, miscellaneous other mass shootings, a

I think the 9/11 attacks really left their mark on the public consciousness. Add to that the near-daily school shootings, miscellaneous other mass shootings, and general sense of frustration & helplessness about ongoing Russian cyberwarfare and interference with our elections (I mean, for God's sake, it seems reasonable to suspect that our President could actually be a Russian intelligence asset), and the zeitgeist has become one of heightened paranoia.

magduf 8y ago
The only problem with the near-daily school shootings and other mass shootings is that those are a choice that we, as a society, have decided we want to tolerate and have in our lives. It's not an attack from outsiders, it's something that we've decided we want to put up with from our own people because we refuse to change our gun laws. Other developed nations simply do not have this problem, for the very simple reason that they don't have easy access to such weapons. As for the Pres, there again, that's a choice that we made as a society. We elected him after all, and we've continued to defend him no matter what. In short, these are problems of our own making.
- iamdave 8y ago
  The only problem with the near-daily school shootings and other mass shootings is that those are a choice that we, as a society, have decided we want to tolerate and have in our lives. I'm getting a little more than annoyed with the constant insinuation, in the face of challenging, difficult and emotionally painful issues in our society getting thrown into a discussion as something we've factually accepted and tolerated as something that just 'is', as if we've thrown our hands up and said "please keep slaughtering our school children". Especially in the form of throwaway comments from individuals who aren't actually putting forth a solution themselves. Please stop waxing post hoc ergo propter hoc like this-just because a solution hasn't made its way through the mechanisms of law and procedural solution making, and please stop projecting YOUR cynicism on the issue on to the rest of us.
  - magduf 8y ago
    >we've factually accepted and tolerated as something that just 'is', as if we've thrown our hands up and said "please keep slaughtering our school children". That's exactly what we've done. We're not making any solutions, because too many voters and politicians absolutely refuse to. To them, this slaughter is the price they're willing to pay for their "freedom" to have guns. >Especially in the form of throwaway comments from individuals who aren't actually putting forth a solution themselves. Solutions have been put forth, countless times over many years. The pro-gun side refuses to accept any of them, because it means they can't have all the guns they want. It's really quite simple. We're dealing with extremists, except that these extremists have the vote of about 1/2 the population.
atmosx 8y ago
> I mean, for God's sake, it seems reasonable to suspect that our President could actually be a Russian intelligence asset I don't think so. That is propaganda from the other party. Strongest I've seen in years, honestly.
- dhimes 8y ago
  I agree. I mean, in some vague sense he's an asset because he's been useful- and I imagine that happens from time to time to people with power when the other side has a strategy or a goal you haven't caught on to yet, but I don't think he's aware of it.
- mr_overalls 8y ago
  He has repeatedly sabotaged our relationship with traditional democratically-governed allies (i.e. NATO) - and avoided criticizing Russia to an extent that is simply bizarre. For example, despite the repeated statements by American intelligence agencies that Russian interfered in the 2016 election, Trump said in Helsinki that he believed Putin's denials over his own intelligence apparatus. This is just incomprehensible behavior by a President. https://www.businessinsider.com/trump-putin-press-conference-election-meddling-2018-7 https://www.businessinsider.com/trump-putin-press-conference...
  - vxNsr 8y ago
    > He has repeatedly sabotaged our relationship with traditional democratically-governed allies - and avoided criticizing Russia The same could be said for his predecessor. See Israel, Japan, hot mic with Medvedev. I think we see what we want to see and forgive "our guy" because we believe his intentions.
    - mr_overalls 8y ago
      Can you provide specifics on Obama's actions re: Israel and Japan that you find objectionable?
      - 8y ago
zerkten 8y ago
This predates 9/11. I'm not sure how to best to explain it because it can come off badly because US vs UK discussions aren't very healthy beyond a few jokes. Americans are just different from other english-speaking countries (the thing people tend to think of as the closest comparison.) It could be a strength or a weakness depending on how you think about it. There are definitely changes that you can attribute to 9/11 such as the Patriot Act, airport security, etc. However, I don't think Americans think much differently that might have done during the Cold War.
- komali2 8y ago
  Perhaps it would help to frame these discussions as not needing to consider whether aspects of our cultures are strengths or weaknesses, and simply talk about the differences frankly.
  - dvtrn 8y ago
    Speaking frankly, I can kind of speak to the oddness of the reactions-having once lived within an hour of a couple of air bases and an Army base with an aviation detachment in at least 3 of the four cardinal directions (this was Texas, plenty of military bases) two hours up the road (plus another one on the far side of the state). This was several years ago now, before 9/11. Now personally, I figured it would be normal seeing military birds flying over head en route to one of the three bases, like I said, we were within two hours drive to one of three installations, by air probably even less. Evidently the rest of the township at the municipal airport I was working at thought otherwise-and didn't find it so 'normal'. "Jade helm" (speaking of post 9/11 'events') went from a painfully reported news story for three straight weeks to a bit of a joke in our office, but before that nothing could stop people from phoning my desk at general aviation to ask if we were under attack or what business the military has flying over civilian airspace. "Sir", I would say (or ma'am if appropriate), "we're one hour from Lackland AFB in San Antonio, this is normal aviation activity, those boys are probably just finishing some training and heading back to base for some R&R". Would wager....15 calls a day, more on the weekends if the hornets were practicing for a flyover of DKR up in Austin for a Texas football game. Edit: I completely forgot, the calls got to the point where we had a dedicated phone line installed just so people could call in and get ATIS-ish type information from general aviation-and one of the pre-recorded bulletins, I think the very first thing callers hear was "General aviation does not intercept, record, or log the presence of military aircraft in the airspace immediately surrounding New Braunfels Regional Airport" They ended up disconnecting that line after a few years. People would figure out another number with a human respondent and badger them instead until one of our hangars started getting phone calls wanting to be transferred to the tower.
daodedickinson 8y ago
The zeitgeist has not recently become one of heightened paranoia, it's the Sword of Damocles that comes with being the biggest target. And you could make a better case that Nixon was an asset of China.

magduf 8y ago

The only problem with the near-daily school shootings and other mass shootings is that those are a choice that we, as a society, have decided we want to tolerate and have in our lives. It's not an attack from outsiders, it's something that we've decided we want to put up with from our own people because we refuse to change our gun laws. Other developed nations simply do not have this problem, for the very simple reason that they don't have easy access to such weapons. As for the Pres, there again, that's a choice that we made as a society. We elected him after all, and we've continued to defend him no matter what. In short, these are problems of our own making.

iamdave 8y ago
The only problem with the near-daily school shootings and other mass shootings is that those are a choice that we, as a society, have decided we want to tolerate and have in our lives. I'm getting a little more than annoyed with the constant insinuation, in the face of challenging, difficult and emotionally painful issues in our society getting thrown into a discussion as something we've factually accepted and tolerated as something that just 'is', as if we've thrown our hands up and said "please keep slaughtering our school children". Especially in the form of throwaway comments from individuals who aren't actually putting forth a solution themselves. Please stop waxing post hoc ergo propter hoc like this-just because a solution hasn't made its way through the mechanisms of law and procedural solution making, and please stop projecting YOUR cynicism on the issue on to the rest of us.
- magduf 8y ago
  >we've factually accepted and tolerated as something that just 'is', as if we've thrown our hands up and said "please keep slaughtering our school children". That's exactly what we've done. We're not making any solutions, because too many voters and politicians absolutely refuse to. To them, this slaughter is the price they're willing to pay for their "freedom" to have guns. >Especially in the form of throwaway comments from individuals who aren't actually putting forth a solution themselves. Solutions have been put forth, countless times over many years. The pro-gun side refuses to accept any of them, because it means they can't have all the guns they want. It's really quite simple. We're dealing with extremists, except that these extremists have the vote of about 1/2 the population.

atmosx 8y ago

> I mean, for God's sake, it seems reasonable to suspect that our President could actually be a Russian intelligence asset I don't think so. That is propaganda from the other party. Strongest I've seen in years, honestly.

dhimes 8y ago
I agree. I mean, in some vague sense he's an asset because he's been useful- and I imagine that happens from time to time to people with power when the other side has a strategy or a goal you haven't caught on to yet, but I don't think he's aware of it.
mr_overalls 8y ago
He has repeatedly sabotaged our relationship with traditional democratically-governed allies (i.e. NATO) - and avoided criticizing Russia to an extent that is simply bizarre. For example, despite the repeated statements by American intelligence agencies that Russian interfered in the 2016 election, Trump said in Helsinki that he believed Putin's denials over his own intelligence apparatus. This is just incomprehensible behavior by a President. https://www.businessinsider.com/trump-putin-press-conference-election-meddling-2018-7 https://www.businessinsider.com/trump-putin-press-conference...
- vxNsr 8y ago
  > He has repeatedly sabotaged our relationship with traditional democratically-governed allies - and avoided criticizing Russia The same could be said for his predecessor. See Israel, Japan, hot mic with Medvedev. I think we see what we want to see and forgive "our guy" because we believe his intentions.
  - mr_overalls 8y ago
    Can you provide specifics on Obama's actions re: Israel and Japan that you find objectionable?
    - 8y ago

zerkten 8y ago

This predates 9/11. I'm not sure how to best to explain it because it can come off badly because US vs UK discussions aren't very healthy beyond a few jokes. Americans are just different from other english-speaking countries (the thing people tend to think of as the closest comparison.) It could be a strength or a weakness depending on how you think about it. There are definitely changes that you can attribute to 9/11 such as the Patriot Act, airport security, etc. However, I don't think Americans think much differently that might have done during the Cold War.

komali2 8y ago
Perhaps it would help to frame these discussions as not needing to consider whether aspects of our cultures are strengths or weaknesses, and simply talk about the differences frankly.
- dvtrn 8y ago
  Speaking frankly, I can kind of speak to the oddness of the reactions-having once lived within an hour of a couple of air bases and an Army base with an aviation detachment in at least 3 of the four cardinal directions (this was Texas, plenty of military bases) two hours up the road (plus another one on the far side of the state). This was several years ago now, before 9/11. Now personally, I figured it would be normal seeing military birds flying over head en route to one of the three bases, like I said, we were within two hours drive to one of three installations, by air probably even less. Evidently the rest of the township at the municipal airport I was working at thought otherwise-and didn't find it so 'normal'. "Jade helm" (speaking of post 9/11 'events') went from a painfully reported news story for three straight weeks to a bit of a joke in our office, but before that nothing could stop people from phoning my desk at general aviation to ask if we were under attack or what business the military has flying over civilian airspace. "Sir", I would say (or ma'am if appropriate), "we're one hour from Lackland AFB in San Antonio, this is normal aviation activity, those boys are probably just finishing some training and heading back to base for some R&R". Would wager....15 calls a day, more on the weekends if the hornets were practicing for a flyover of DKR up in Austin for a Texas football game. Edit: I completely forgot, the calls got to the point where we had a dedicated phone line installed just so people could call in and get ATIS-ish type information from general aviation-and one of the pre-recorded bulletins, I think the very first thing callers hear was "General aviation does not intercept, record, or log the presence of military aircraft in the airspace immediately surrounding New Braunfels Regional Airport" They ended up disconnecting that line after a few years. People would figure out another number with a human respondent and badger them instead until one of our hangars started getting phone calls wanting to be transferred to the tower.

daodedickinson 8y ago

The zeitgeist has not recently become one of heightened paranoia, it's the Sword of Damocles that comes with being the biggest target. And you could make a better case that Nixon was an asset of China.