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The day after the shooting, a banner was hung in the West Point cafeteria stating, "Us: 4, Them: 0". America has a non-negligible percent of population who I c

The day after the shooting, a banner was hung in the West Point cafeteria stating, "Us: 4, Them: 0". America has a non-negligible percent of population who I can only describe as "bloodthirsty for no good reason". They've been here a long time, and remain here today. When we try to discuss the problem, the noise from political side-taking usually overtakes the conversation.

adamcstephens 6y ago
As long as we ignore the violent things done by our country for the past few hundred years, it will continue to poison our society. Reparations for slavery could be one approach, but it doesn’t account for enough of the pain we’ve caused. Genocide, slavery, civil war, imperial conquest, overthrowing democracies in favor of repressive regimes, to today’s bombing of people in other countries with drones. We don’t discuss these things because they’re painful, conflict with the narrative of ourselves we’ve been told, and are drowned out in modern media because both “sides” agree with the policies. America is bloodthirsty because we always have been, and have taken no meaningful steps to change it.
- throwaway1090 6y ago
  Many of these are addressed in the book 'Understanding Power' by Noam Chomsky. It's very readable. It's got hefty footnotes that are available as pdf [1]. Another book is 'How to Hide an Empire' by Daniel Immerwahr. [1] http://understandingpower.org/ http://understandingpower.org/
- PostOnce 6y ago
  But we do discuss those things... constantly. It seems to be all we talk about. America's wrongs. To play the other half of this argument: America engaged in slavery, but also fought its bloodiest war to end it, played a major role in ending the Holocaust and freeing Europe from the Nazis, ended Japan's conquest of Asia, freed South Korea, and brought about through hyperpower probably the longest peace between major powers in millennia, among other notable counterpoints. It's almost as if the world isn't black and white. America and everyone else will continue doing both wonderful and terrible things, but we'll keep discussing only the half of those things we disapprove of, especially if it feels like it's helping us win an argument. Hand-wringing over the past doesn't make tomorrow better, it's a distraction from doing things that will. To be clear, basically the whole of human history is misery and privation, and only in this era of long peace under the aegis of American hyperpower have we witnessed a glimpse of lasting peace and prosperity. So, no one will disagree that great wrongs have been wrought, but it seems intellectually dishonest to overlook the staggering good.
  - dragonwriter 6y ago
    > To play the other half of this argument: America engaged in slavery, but also fought its bloodiest war to end it It was only “its bloodiest war” because a sizable fraction of the country was fighting to protect slavery. Much of the rest of the world that had chattel slavery ended it without similarly bloody wars—and generally sooner. The fierce defense of chattel slavery in the US that produced its bloodiest war isn’t a positive.
    - PostOnce 6y ago
      It would have been bloodless had the Union just said "okay let's have slavery." But they didn't do that. They laid down their lives instead. Like I said before, picking out only the things we dislike and overlooking positives isn't productive or honest to ourselves.
      - dragonwriter 6y ago
        > It would have been bloodless had the Union just said "okay let's have slavery." No, because that’s what the Union said—that preserving the Union was more important than abolition. The South declared secession and attacked federal facilities anyway. The South’s overweaning fear of the distant future possibility of abolition backfired and accelerated it.
      - adamcstephens 6y ago
        The Republicans were only trying to avoid expansion of slavery, not elimination of it. They fought to maintain the Union, not abolition. Only later did they free the slaves, and as an act of war more than freedom.
        PostOnce 6y ago
        How about these 178,000 men, of whom about 35,000 died: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Colored_Troops https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Colored_Troops I don't think their primary motivation was preservation of the Union, I think it was abolition. Let's not pretend preservation of the Union was the only major factor, or that abolition was entirely a back-burner concept, it had been building steam and popular support for decades. Sure, preserving the Union may have been the main concern on a realpolitik level early on, but that doesn't change the fact that abolition was the writing on the wall and had been for decades.
BobbyJo 6y ago
I think things like that are more a result of how information gets disseminated, and how it's framed, than bloodthirst. I'm sure if you took the people that hung that banner and made them hold hand with one of the students as they died, their enthusiasm would quickly fade. The word 'death' is just an abstraction that feels small when you're young, healthy, and haven't had to watch it happen. It's only easy to look at it like a point on a scoreboard when you don't know anything about it. I think a lot of the divisiveness is a result of the same effect. It's easy to dismiss other people's perspective and think they are 'just stupid or malicious' when you don't know them. We need to get back to assuming the people that disagree with us are potentially as smart as we are, but with different values or information.
- a4isms 6y ago
  I applaud your optimism and boundless faith in humanity. But as a POC, I point out that America has a long tradition of taking children to witness lynchings, and the children would cheer. Or to beat foxes to death with sticks. I don't think it’s as simple as “people don’t have emppathy when death is abstract and indirect.” Lots of people don’t have empathy when they’re socially conditioned to believe a certain type of person is a subhuman. Today, we have police suffocating citizens and murdering adolescents, and there’s a certain type of person who cheers this, provided the victims are member sof a class deemed “subhuman." I do not believe for a moment that witnessing the murders would change their minds, because even as video circulates showing the murder happening, they continue to cheer. --- I also don’t think we can conflate this with arguments about “people you disagree with.” We’re not talking about people sitting down and debating free love or long hair. We’re talking about people who believe that other people are literally a disease infecting society that should be exterminated as quickly as possible, preferably in such a way that it sends a message to others.
  - losvedir 6y ago
    Yeah, savagery can certainly be a natural state for people. Executions used to be public and people would cheer. The Scarlet Letter had a woman put in shackles in public to be abused for the audacity of having sex. People used to torture cats for a bit of fun downtown. I'd like to think as a culture we're not so much like that anymore, but it certainly persists in certain ways and places.
cochne 6y ago
Is there any source for that? I tried searching but the first result is this comment!
- gostsamo 6y ago
  Search for "victim blaming" or "she was looking for trouble dressing like that and walking late at night on the streets".
sigzero 6y ago
Some people just want to watch the world burn.
throw0101a 6y ago
Or they view justice differently: > Justice: The world may be a difficult place to live, but it is basically just; people usually get what they deserve. The difficulties in one's life serve as a test to sort the deserving from the undeserving. * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_Politics_(book) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_Politics_(book)
- spoonjim 6y ago
  Anyone who views the Kent State killings as “justice” is deeply dangerous to the health and well-being of those around them.
  - redler 6y ago
    There are state laws now being passed that make “blocking roads in protest” a felony, while legalizing running over protestors with your car.
    - throw0101a 6y ago
      > while legalizing running over protestors with your car. Oklahoma: A motor vehicle operator who unintentionally causes injury or death to an individual shall not be criminally or civilly liable for the injury or death, if: 1. The injury or death of the individual occurred while the motor vehicle operator was fleeing from a riot, as defined in Section 1311 of Title 21 of the Oklahoma Statutes, under a reasonable belief that fleeing was necessary to protect the motor vehicle operator from serious injury or death; and 2. The motor vehicle operator exercised due care at the time of the death or injury. * http://webserver1.lsb.state.ok.us/cf_pdf/2021-22%20ENR/hB/HB1674%20ENR.PDF http://webserver1.lsb.state.ok.us/cf_pdf/2021-22%20ENR/hB/HB... Florida: 870.07 Affirmative defense in civil action; party convicted of riot. (1) In a civil action for damages for personal injury, wrongful death, or property damage, it is an affirmative defense that such action arose from an injury or damage sustained by a participant acting in furtherance of a riot. The affirmative defense authorized by this section shall be established by evidence that the participant has been convicted of a riot or an aggravated riot prohibited under s. 870.01, or by proof of the commission of such crime by a preponderance of the evidence. * https://www.flsenate.gov/Session/Bill/2021/1/BillText/er/PDF https://www.flsenate.gov/Session/Bill/2021/1/BillText/er/PDF If you are trying to flee for your (perceived?) safety during a "riot", then it seems to be treated as a form of self defence (?). From: * https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26931096 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26931096
fit2rule 6y ago
When you try to discuss the problem you either a) get booted off the site for being 'disturbing', or b) get called a Russian shill, or c) both. The Russia-hate these days is a classic example.
pmarreck 6y ago
> America has a non-negligible percent of population who I can only describe as "bloodthirsty for no good reason". They've been here a long time, and remain here today. There's more to unpack here (such as anonymity being somehow an enabler of aggression) but hey... Let's arm everyone and see what happens!

adamcstephens 6y ago

As long as we ignore the violent things done by our country for the past few hundred years, it will continue to poison our society. Reparations for slavery could be one approach, but it doesn’t account for enough of the pain we’ve caused. Genocide, slavery, civil war, imperial conquest, overthrowing democracies in favor of repressive regimes, to today’s bombing of people in other countries with drones. We don’t discuss these things because they’re painful, conflict with the narrative of ourselves we’ve been told, and are drowned out in modern media because both “sides” agree with the policies. America is bloodthirsty because we always have been, and have taken no meaningful steps to change it.

throwaway1090 6y ago
Many of these are addressed in the book 'Understanding Power' by Noam Chomsky. It's very readable. It's got hefty footnotes that are available as pdf [1]. Another book is 'How to Hide an Empire' by Daniel Immerwahr. [1] http://understandingpower.org/ http://understandingpower.org/
PostOnce 6y ago
But we do discuss those things... constantly. It seems to be all we talk about. America's wrongs. To play the other half of this argument: America engaged in slavery, but also fought its bloodiest war to end it, played a major role in ending the Holocaust and freeing Europe from the Nazis, ended Japan's conquest of Asia, freed South Korea, and brought about through hyperpower probably the longest peace between major powers in millennia, among other notable counterpoints. It's almost as if the world isn't black and white. America and everyone else will continue doing both wonderful and terrible things, but we'll keep discussing only the half of those things we disapprove of, especially if it feels like it's helping us win an argument. Hand-wringing over the past doesn't make tomorrow better, it's a distraction from doing things that will. To be clear, basically the whole of human history is misery and privation, and only in this era of long peace under the aegis of American hyperpower have we witnessed a glimpse of lasting peace and prosperity. So, no one will disagree that great wrongs have been wrought, but it seems intellectually dishonest to overlook the staggering good.
- dragonwriter 6y ago
  > To play the other half of this argument: America engaged in slavery, but also fought its bloodiest war to end it It was only “its bloodiest war” because a sizable fraction of the country was fighting to protect slavery. Much of the rest of the world that had chattel slavery ended it without similarly bloody wars—and generally sooner. The fierce defense of chattel slavery in the US that produced its bloodiest war isn’t a positive.
  - PostOnce 6y ago
    It would have been bloodless had the Union just said "okay let's have slavery." But they didn't do that. They laid down their lives instead. Like I said before, picking out only the things we dislike and overlooking positives isn't productive or honest to ourselves.
    - dragonwriter 6y ago
      > It would have been bloodless had the Union just said "okay let's have slavery." No, because that’s what the Union said—that preserving the Union was more important than abolition. The South declared secession and attacked federal facilities anyway. The South’s overweaning fear of the distant future possibility of abolition backfired and accelerated it.
    - adamcstephens 6y ago
      The Republicans were only trying to avoid expansion of slavery, not elimination of it. They fought to maintain the Union, not abolition. Only later did they free the slaves, and as an act of war more than freedom.
      - PostOnce 6y ago
        How about these 178,000 men, of whom about 35,000 died: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Colored_Troops https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Colored_Troops I don't think their primary motivation was preservation of the Union, I think it was abolition. Let's not pretend preservation of the Union was the only major factor, or that abolition was entirely a back-burner concept, it had been building steam and popular support for decades. Sure, preserving the Union may have been the main concern on a realpolitik level early on, but that doesn't change the fact that abolition was the writing on the wall and had been for decades.

BobbyJo 6y ago

I think things like that are more a result of how information gets disseminated, and how it's framed, than bloodthirst. I'm sure if you took the people that hung that banner and made them hold hand with one of the students as they died, their enthusiasm would quickly fade. The word 'death' is just an abstraction that feels small when you're young, healthy, and haven't had to watch it happen. It's only easy to look at it like a point on a scoreboard when you don't know anything about it. I think a lot of the divisiveness is a result of the same effect. It's easy to dismiss other people's perspective and think they are 'just stupid or malicious' when you don't know them. We need to get back to assuming the people that disagree with us are potentially as smart as we are, but with different values or information.

a4isms 6y ago
I applaud your optimism and boundless faith in humanity. But as a POC, I point out that America has a long tradition of taking children to witness lynchings, and the children would cheer. Or to beat foxes to death with sticks. I don't think it’s as simple as “people don’t have emppathy when death is abstract and indirect.” Lots of people don’t have empathy when they’re socially conditioned to believe a certain type of person is a subhuman. Today, we have police suffocating citizens and murdering adolescents, and there’s a certain type of person who cheers this, provided the victims are member sof a class deemed “subhuman." I do not believe for a moment that witnessing the murders would change their minds, because even as video circulates showing the murder happening, they continue to cheer. --- I also don’t think we can conflate this with arguments about “people you disagree with.” We’re not talking about people sitting down and debating free love or long hair. We’re talking about people who believe that other people are literally a disease infecting society that should be exterminated as quickly as possible, preferably in such a way that it sends a message to others.
- losvedir 6y ago
  Yeah, savagery can certainly be a natural state for people. Executions used to be public and people would cheer. The Scarlet Letter had a woman put in shackles in public to be abused for the audacity of having sex. People used to torture cats for a bit of fun downtown. I'd like to think as a culture we're not so much like that anymore, but it certainly persists in certain ways and places.

cochne 6y ago

Is there any source for that? I tried searching but the first result is this comment!

gostsamo 6y ago
Search for "victim blaming" or "she was looking for trouble dressing like that and walking late at night on the streets".

sigzero 6y ago

Some people just want to watch the world burn.

throw0101a 6y ago

Or they view justice differently: > Justice: The world may be a difficult place to live, but it is basically just; people usually get what they deserve. The difficulties in one's life serve as a test to sort the deserving from the undeserving. * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_Politics_(book) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_Politics_(book)

spoonjim 6y ago
Anyone who views the Kent State killings as “justice” is deeply dangerous to the health and well-being of those around them.
- redler 6y ago
  There are state laws now being passed that make “blocking roads in protest” a felony, while legalizing running over protestors with your car.
  - throw0101a 6y ago
    > while legalizing running over protestors with your car. Oklahoma: A motor vehicle operator who unintentionally causes injury or death to an individual shall not be criminally or civilly liable for the injury or death, if: 1. The injury or death of the individual occurred while the motor vehicle operator was fleeing from a riot, as defined in Section 1311 of Title 21 of the Oklahoma Statutes, under a reasonable belief that fleeing was necessary to protect the motor vehicle operator from serious injury or death; and 2. The motor vehicle operator exercised due care at the time of the death or injury. * http://webserver1.lsb.state.ok.us/cf_pdf/2021-22%20ENR/hB/HB1674%20ENR.PDF http://webserver1.lsb.state.ok.us/cf_pdf/2021-22%20ENR/hB/HB... Florida: 870.07 Affirmative defense in civil action; party convicted of riot. (1) In a civil action for damages for personal injury, wrongful death, or property damage, it is an affirmative defense that such action arose from an injury or damage sustained by a participant acting in furtherance of a riot. The affirmative defense authorized by this section shall be established by evidence that the participant has been convicted of a riot or an aggravated riot prohibited under s. 870.01, or by proof of the commission of such crime by a preponderance of the evidence. * https://www.flsenate.gov/Session/Bill/2021/1/BillText/er/PDF https://www.flsenate.gov/Session/Bill/2021/1/BillText/er/PDF If you are trying to flee for your (perceived?) safety during a "riot", then it seems to be treated as a form of self defence (?). From: * https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26931096 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26931096

fit2rule 6y ago

When you try to discuss the problem you either a) get booted off the site for being 'disturbing', or b) get called a Russian shill, or c) both. The Russia-hate these days is a classic example.

pmarreck 6y ago

> America has a non-negligible percent of population who I can only describe as "bloodthirsty for no good reason". They've been here a long time, and remain here today. There's more to unpack here (such as anonymity being somehow an enabler of aggression) but hey... Let's arm everyone and see what happens!