So, uh, yeah… mood is pretty much hopeless and angry, so it’s time for a song that’s kind of heavy, even for Muse. Fitting, though, yes?
UPDATE: Alright, I should try to be a bit less dismal. Firefly theme? Yeah, better.
Heh, you thought this would have something to do with the actual war. Hazel post, but it’s the conservatives who should probably be wary this time.
So, I was sick last week. Not terribly bed-ridden; just the usual, reliable semiannual cold I get 1/2 way through every single semester. Nonetheless, it was miserable enough for me to take a sick most-of-a-day after an early morning Psychology test.
After my test and a quick brunch of some various flavor of ramen, I went to the campus convenience store to pick up some decongestant. As expected, there was no pseudoephedrine–the only really working type of decongestant. I know, they probably had some behind the counter, but frankly, I was not feeling well enough to do battle with my social phobia and ask someone (yeah yeah). Therefore, I got the $1 version of whatever they’re trying to pass off as decongestant these days and took twice the recommended dose (that is, two pills) hoping for a placebo effect.
Why don’t they have a working medicine on the shelf, you ask? Good question, self! I’ll tell you: because some methamphetamine labs use it in the creation of their product. Thus, the government, being always reliable to meddle as much as possible whenever the opportunity arises, decided to regulate the buying of America’s best (and possibly only) working decongestant.
It all began in the early 1900’s, when a vocal minority decided that everyone else should stop smoking opium. Then marijuana, probably the safest drug imaginable, got banned by probably the same people. Lots of people still used it, though it was less than before due to the risk of whatever penalty it carried back then. The rest discovered LSD, which the government soon made illegal as well. Cocaine comes along; regulated. Crack cocaine is then invented, which is really worse. Heroin, meth, and so on and so forth, all come into common use. Finally, we reach a point where not only can we not buy some simple decongestant over the counter, but now doctors are prescribing Methadone–a narcotic that doesn’t get you high until you’ve almost overdosed. Thus, idiots take it to get high, and don’t. They take some more and fail again. More and more, until they just swallow a bunch, pass the threshold, and die. Why? Well, natural selection, but the point I’m trying to make with all this is: because some believe that people shouldn’t be allowed to use drugs for recreation if they so wish. And of course, strict regulation has always been proven to completely stop substance use and abuse. Right, prohibitionists?
Seriously, it’s ridiculous. Frankly, I can’t really think of any better way to put it than the above-mentioned approximate history. You ban something, then yeah, the law-abiding will probably stop use (though it’s about impossible these days to live completely within every government regulation–apparently, it’s completely impossible to fly a small plane without breaking at least one), but the criminal will both continue use and make something worse and far trippier.
And people still use marijuana a lot, too.
I really feel like I should say more, but this seems to be it.
So it’s not a liveblog or anything fancy like that; just my various thoughts about it all… for some reason told in present-tense, despite the fact that this is being written after the debate ended (eh, I got tired and lazy and fully realize that I switched to past by the end of the post).
Winner: Hard to say, but I’m leaning towards McCain. Obama seemed sure of himself as always, but McCain was somewhat super-confident and far more prepared and informed. He just seemed to be slamming down actual facts wherever possible, and did so rather articulately.
The Beginning:
I’ve boiled a boil-able bag of frozen shrimp and corn chowder (some great things at Harris Teeter; I believe they’re found near the seafood), and am just serving it up to my mom and me. Ready… FIGHT!
They seem to just be agreeing on everything at first. Then, the subject turns to spending, and a few interesting things are said. McCain–surprisingly–said that we should put a “spending freeze” on just about everything except defense and caring for veterans. It’s surprising, because I actually agree with it, more or less. Obama, on the other hand, says something along the lines of the following: Of course we should reduce spending, but (also?) make sure that everyone gets medical care, and (my personal “favorite”) make sure everyone can go to college… among other social programs, naturally.
Obama started off real well here, despite the fact that I disagree with every word coming out of his mouth, but starts to decline near the end of the portion.
The Middle:
Truth be told, I, personally, have no clue as to whether or not we “should” have gone into Iraq–I just don’t know enough about it. However, I’m fairly sure it doesn’t matter at this point. If faithful readers may remember, I once locked myself out of the office that I clean. What was done was done; I couldn’t possibly change the fact that I was locked outside in 90+-degree, rainy weather, in an area somehow both in the middle of nowhere and kind of shady without a phone, keys (including those to my car), money, handy-dandy pepper spray, water, or really anything at all. It was completely my fault that I got locked out, and it was a mistake, so I went ahead and ruminated on that for a few hours before starting the 40-50-something mile trek home along precarious highways, right? No, sir! I came up with a tactic for getting over the barbed-wire fence, and went to find someone nearby with a phone so I could get my parents to come help me out. Look, the point is, sh*t happens, and sometimes–perhaps a lot of the time, depending on the klutziness of the given person–it’s a mistake on your part that threw it at the fan. When such an event occurs, it can never be solved by repeating, “boy, I wish that hadn’t happened” and taking the most direct route home; you have to almost forget what the mistake was, analyze the situation in which you are currently placed and forced to resolve, and move forward with a rational solution. All I’m saying is, we’re in Iraq now–regardless of whether it was the right thing to do five years ago or not–and need to keep moving freaking forward, lest we die–or at least get injured–from the 40+-mile walk home through shady neighborhoods alongside dangerous highways.
Anyways, I also have a question: what’s the deal with Pakistan? I believe I heard at some point that they weren’t letting us search for Al Qaeda within their borders. Feel free to correct me if I’m mistaken; I’m not anywhere near certain about this.
I’d gotten up at some point to get some organic(?) Oreo-like cookies we had lying around, so that’s about all I got on that part. Really, Obama was really weakening, and McCain really came off pretty strong here, especially in the way of mentioning all his foreign policy experience, which I was rather happy to hear about due to all the mention lately of Palin not really having any.
The End:
Yeah, I started getting a little tired and bored and my mind began wandering with thoughts of what I might mention in this post, so I really didn’t catch most of it, and what I did didn’t stick. Thus, I can’t say what I thought of any particular topic or who prevailed more in this portion, but consensus seems to be that both candidates seemed relatively stable in terms of offense/defense from the middle portion on.
I did notice, however, that throughout the whole thing, neither candidate ever spoke directly to the other, despite the host(or whatever)’s urging. Now, I wasn’t very politically active during the Bush/Kerry debates–and especially not during the Bush/Gore ones–so I don’t know if that’s a common occurrence or if both candidates were simply somewhat afraid to speak to their opponent after the long campaigns where they both threw such offensive accusations at one another through commercials without ever really being together in person.
Alright, that’s all I’ve got for now. Good night, America!
There’s this quote from Stalin–of all people–that goes, “One death is a tragedy, a million deaths is a statistic.” I’ll admit that there’s an element of truth in it (seriously, those evil tyrants have some mad-interesting thoughts. Hitler was pretty genius when it came to controlling “the masses”, as would become readily apparent if you read some of the stuff he’s said), but not really for the seemingly implied reason. Or, perhaps, not for the implied result.
Truth is, it’s impossible to see the death of a million people as the death of individuals. First of all, no one could possibly even know a million individuals. I suppose, however, that one could (theoretically) say that it doesn’t matter whether you know a person or not–it’s a life, and each death that occurs still takes that away from someone. However, and this may seem cold, but why should you care if you don’t know the person? Death is just about the only certainty in life, so how is it any of your concern if someone you’ve never met has reached that point?
Well, the butterfly effect could be used as an argument for why you should care, but one would be hard-pressed to find a line going from every individual to every calamity.
The thing is, you shouldn’t care about every individual because you can’t. It’s simply impossible. Take 9/11 as an example; we all feel deeply sorry for all the people who died or lost a loved one in the terrorist attacks, but we’ll never be able to mourn all 3,000 the way we would a parent, sibling,, child, friend, or other relative. It simply can’t be done; it would take far too much energy out of someone if they were to try. The ability to not care is more of a defense mechanism than an evil of humankind, and it exists to protect our sanity.
We’re better adapted to live in bands of a few dozen people, and really don’t seem to have figured out how to cope with living in a community that consists of six billion people, much less how to handle the deaths of more than, I don’t know, maybe 50 or 100 of them at once.
The point I’m trying to make is that yes, humans tend to care more about the death of one individual than those of many, but it does not make us all heartless bastards or anything of the sort because of it. Perhaps it is indeed a flaw, but imperfection is far from synonymous with evil.
With the Sarah Palin VP pick and all, there’s been a lot of buzz around the internet about feminism. Particularly, how she’s far more of a feminist than Hillary and other liberal women.
Add to this the second day of my Abnormal Psychology class, and you have me writing a post. We were discussing the way that people handled those with mental disorders throughout history, and got around to the witch trials. Naturally, a fellow classmate brought up the question as to why women seemed to be the target of many attacks on the mentally ill… or something of the sort. She mentioned the witch trials (of which, actually, many men were victims as well) and the belief that “hysteria,” or, random pains somewhere in the body, was supposedly caused by a wandering uterus and thereby only occurred in women.
This set off a conversation amongst the class as to why men hated women and oppressed them all throughout history, as if there were actual proof of intent of entire social structures hundreds or thousands of years in the past. I was raising my hand to make an attempt at countering this idiocy, but unfortunately was never called on. One guy did manage to get a word in on men’s behalf, but he at least claimed to be playing devil’s advocate–and I really don’t blame him if he felt the need to pretend to do so, in that room full of hungry, rabid hyenas all with some bad PMS.
People who believe that women should have been able to work and do all the same things as men assume that people of these previous cultures had the same technology as we do today. Back in ancient times and the like, the average lifespan of people was far, far lower. Thus, there were far less people to begin with. Thus, there was far more incentive to have as many children as possible. Someone needed to take care of these children, not to mention cooking (over a hearth and needing to keep the fire going all damn day), sewing (so everyone could have clothes, if you couldn’t afford to pay someone else to do it), cleaning (again, if you didn’t have the means to pay someone else), and other such domestic work that was far more necessary than it is nowadays. That’s not even mentioning the hassle of having to deal with periods without the aid of sanitary products, Midol, chocolate, etc.
mmm… chocolate.
None of that work was easy, either. You look at it all, and personally, I’m amazed there was enough time in the day to do more than one. So, now the question arises as to why men didn’t ever stay home and do that while women went out and earned money. Truth be told, the best answer I can come up with–besides, of course, the uncomfortable period topic–is that the work required in those days almost always required a large amount of strength. As Mother Nature made the human race, she decided for some reason that women be physically weaker (she must be sexist!!!). You look at it, the jobs men had at the time were hunting, farming, blacksmithing, carpentry, fighting in wars, and so on and so forth. I don’t know about anyone else, but most women I know (myself somewhat excluded) would complain to no end if they had to do that kind of work while men stayed at home–in fact, they’d probably cry sexism.
Now, I’ll admit that there was oppression to a certain extent. Primarily, political power tended to remain in the hands of men. Surely not always; Hatshepsut, for example, dressed as a man and became pharaoh of Egypt when her husband died and her sorta step-son was too young to take over power. I believe the people did know of her gender, but she felt the need to wear the pharaoh’s beard and all that in order to gain the authority she needed.
I actually don’t like her very much. She never gave her power back, even after the heir came of age.
Even with men technically in charge, women wielded far more power than we now realize. Take Helen of Troy, for example. Few, if any, men could start such a legendary war without even raising a dagger. Cleopatra, also, ruled Egypt on her own for a while, albeit pretty badly (at least, I assume so, since the government of Egypt kind of collapsed during her rule) and through, er, questionable means.
A further example may be that of Boudica. However, she was from the Celtic culture, which has come to be used by feminazis as an example of an “enlightened” culture or something of the sort. Plus, her side lost the battle.
Maybe that’s why women rarely got power. Things got all screwed up every time one did.
Just kidding! I really do love Boudica, at least.
Yet even with some oppression, women were still often revered–even ones with power or typically man-like qualities–and far from hated. The Greeks, for example, had Athena and Artemis as incredibly important goddesses in their religion. Also, a point made by one guy in my Abnormal Psychology class was that women typically represented destructive forces. While I wouldn’t really blame the Greeks if that were, in fact, true (hell hath no fury), I disagree on the point itself. Aphrodite and Ares were thought of as sort of counterparts where Aphrodite represented a complete sort of togetherness, while Ares was complete destruction and separation. The two forces, of course, needed to be balanced at all times, lest nothing really be able to exist.
So you see, women were not complete victims to evil, evil men who hated them and just wanted to keep them from having any power. Sure, most societies were patriarchal, and I’ll have to go looking into cavemen to try to figure out why (which I may, actually, soon enough; it’s a primary focus in my Archaeology class), but it’s present in just about every culture. One has to think there’s a reason behind that fact. Granted, this social structure may have evolved into sexism throughout the years, but it’s been overthrown in a few cultures (greatly in the west, somewhat in the far east, and I don’t really know where–if anywhere–else).
However, now that we have the technology to have a more integrated and equal culture, I’m all for women being allowed to do the same things as men. Not that they should ever be affirmative action-ed into any position, but surely able to get it if qualified, which is (sort of) where we are now. However, it’s despicable that men have been demonized in mainstream thought to the point where any who dares deny that they detested women and forcibly kept them from power from the beginning is a horrible sexist (ooh, probably racist, too! That’s the way their minds work, right?). I’m just saying, the reason behind that whole social structure thing is probably more logical than emotional… of course, women generally tend to think more emotionally, so perhaps they assumed that’s how everyone always thought. Just a possibility.
Like many things, especially in history, it’s not a black-and-white issue. Never was, never will be. It’s extremely gray and shady, but sadly, our society will never treat it as such until pigs fly (sorry for the super-cliche, but I’m a tad hungry, and it’s affecting my thinking).
Enough? Yeah.
In North Carolina, people with CHLs are legally allowed to carry their weapons in restaurants, stores, office buildings, and many other places not strictly prohibited by law (Cooper and Aldridge). Although the percentage of people who carry concealed is rather low, most people have probably been in the same room as someone with a firearm and not known it on multiple occasions. Why should they be prohibited from doing so on a college campus, if they’re fully capable of behaving in a safe manner everywhere else? Some assert that guns would be a distraction from the learning environment in the university, but the point of allowing concealed carry is that no one will notice if someone happens to be carrying.
Another fear that propagates through society is that college campuses will gain a sort of a wild west atmosphere. If that were true to begin with, one would expect just about everywhere else in the country to already have acquired such a state. Yet it hasn’t. Those with CHLs remain as passive as—if not more than—the rest of society. Even if such a scenario were to happen, the infamous shooting at the O.K. Corral resulted in significantly fewer deaths than any school shooting within the past decade. Would it really be any worse than our current situation of helpless students facing a lone gunman?
Many people also argue that if school shooters are mentally unstable and exhibit symptoms of this for an extended period of time that getting them help earlier on would keep them from getting to the point where they feel the need to make such a dramatic exit from life. After all, if there are so many signs, why not go ahead and get the person treatment? This is a great idea, but not as practical in reality as it might seem. First of all, the person needs to either agree to or be forced by friends and family to get the needed therapy. Sometimes when a person has a mental disorder, they don’t know it or they don’t feel the need to be rid of it. If the person doesn’t go to anyone for treatment, then obviously, they can’t be treated. Even if they manage to receive therapy, especially drug therapy, they may not take the treatment. Unless they’re committed to an institution, no one has any way of making them take it. Another problem with this is that disorders are incredibly hard to diagnose, due to the difficulty of measuring anything in psychology. It’s impractical to institutionalize every college student who exhibits signs of depression or anxiety.
Few people think very much about allowing concealed carry on campuses, frankly because they have other things in their lives that have more immediate significance to them. One cannot fault them on that; it’s perfectly normal to care only about what’s around oneself. However, there are some who have been giving their own information throughout society for so long that the default opinion on guns is that they are dangerous objects that cannot possibly be used for any good purpose. Lately, more and more people believe that guns, while they can be extremely dangerous when handled irresponsibly, are simply tools which are often used to save lives rather than take them. If responsible adults have passed the government requirements to carry a concealed weapon in many other places and wish to protect themselves, students, and teachers where they spend a large majority of their time, why should they be restricted from doing so? After all, a university should be a place of learning, not bloodshed.
Works Cited
Criminal Victimization in the United States – Police – Response Time to Victim. Bureau of Justice Statistics. 23 Apr 2008 <http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/abstract/cvus/response_time_to_victim584.htm>
John Lott’s Website. 21 Apr 2008 < http://johnrlott.tripod.com/apla2.html>
Kleck, Gary, and Marc Gertz. “Armed Resistance to Crime: the Prevalence and Nature of Self-Defense with a Gun.” Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology 86, (1995) 150-187.
Lott, Jr. John R., Mustard, David B. “Crime, Deterrence, and Right-to-Carry Concealed Handguns.” Journal of Legal Studies 26 (1997): 1-68.
Miller, A.E.J., et al. “Gender Differences in Strength and Muscle Fiber Characteristics.” European Journal of Applied Physiology 66 (1993): 254-262.
U.S. Supreme Court. South v. Maryland, 59 U.S. 18 How. 396 396, 1855.
Virginia Tech Review Panel. Mass Shootings at Virginia Tech: Report of the Review Panel. VA, 2007
This very situation was demonstrated in 2002 at the Appalachian School of Law. The shooting could easily have escalated and most certainly would have resulted in more deaths, but at the first sound of gunfire, two students separately grabbed their personal firearms from where they each had them at the time, and, with two other students who tackled him, helped subdue the attacker without needing to cause anyone any harm.
The entire gun community is a highly diverse group of people. There are people of every race, religion, gender, socioeconomic background, and political philosophy within it. There is a stereotype of them all being either rural white men or inner-city gangsters. As with any stereotype, that’s not without basis. The large majority of gun owners do happen to be white men, though just about every gun owner would probably be insulted when compared to the very criminals against which they wish to protect themselves.
Naturally, many of the people who get a CHL are a part of this culture. Again, many happen to be white males simply due to the proportion within the community, but a wide variety of others also choose to go through the trouble to obtain one for a variety of reasons. There are women who realize how much weaker they are than men (Miller, A.E.J. et al.), parents who wish to protect their kids from kidnappers or pedophiles, good people who can’t afford to live in a great neighborhood, homosexuals who wish to avoid becoming a victim of a gay-bashing, the disabled and elderly who simply can’t fight back any other way, and many more.
More often than not, CHL holders often practice accuracy on paper targets, and many attend tactical shooting competitions by organizations such as the International Defensive Pistol Association (IDPA) and the International Practical Shooting Confederation (IPSC) in order to simulate possible real-life situations. Since they have made the decision to take their life into their own hands, they also realize how much they need to be able to do so efficiently. As a result, they are far from amateur, which is another unfounded assumption made by many without much experience amongst those within the firearm community.
Such training is necessary for scenarios such as home defense, a street ambush, or similar situations. While it remains useful on college campuses for the more likely attacks of robbery, rape, kidnapping, or murder, such practice is not even entirely necessary if a lone gunman were to open fire. In both the Virginia Tech and Northern Illinois shootings, there were reports of the attacker slowly or calmly reloading the firearms. It does not take incredibly quick reflexes to take the shooter down while his gun is empty and his attention is off of the students.
Another frequent misconception is that a person could “just snap” and that allowing regular people to carry in places that are currently prohibited is a risk for that reason. However, just about any psychologist will say that average people who fall within the boundaries of normal psychological makeup don’t decide to commit mass murder without signs for at least many months beforehand. It is true that there are crimes of passion, but there have been few, if any, incidents involving CHL holders, who submit to a mental and criminal background check in order to get their license. There have been no studies done on the subject, but many who do carry concealed weapons often notice themselves avoiding heated arguments and being more polite when they are carrying. One can only guess as to why it might be, but the usual conclusion is that they don’t want to get into a situation where they might have to defend their lives.
There are alternatives to guns, though none are successful as often as a firearm at stopping an attacker. Pepper spray is a very popular choice, especially with those who wish to avoid killing or causing extreme harm. However, there are instances when this wouldn’t be effective in fending off a criminal. For example, it’s possible to build up an immunity to the substance such that it can simply be shaken off like water. Even without the immunity, however, more determined assailants may not give up after being sprayed. Tasers are also commonly suggested, but they don’t work against multiple opponents, since they only have one shot. This also causes a large problem even with a lone attacker if one should miss.
Many people also carry flashlights, which are to be used to temporarily blind an opponent so that one can run away. While this is a clever idea that is perfect for those who are extremely unwilling to harm another, it’s not without its major fallback. It doesn’t take long to recover from a bright light, which doesn’t give the would-be victim a long time to get away from the danger. They’re also only effective at night and, while the majority of attacks do occur after dark, many encounters can still take place in broad daylight.
Lastly, there are many various martial arts that teach self-defense techniques for bringing down an opponent while causing minimal damage to oneself. While these are often very good techniques that could stop an attack entirely, one must be incredibly practiced in order to use them successfully. Not only that, but the attacker needs to be within arms reach for one to even be able to attempt a counter-attack. If the attacker is standing yards away with a gun, and all a person has is martial arts training, it’s highly unlikely that he or she will be able to reach the attacker before the trigger can be pulled. There are also many people who cannot learn martial arts due to age, disability, or time constraints. The elderly and those with disabilities also oftentimes can’t run away from the danger as fast as others, even if they were to use one of the previously-mentioned means of escape.
The current social and political dogma in the world is that guns should only be used by government-sanctioned individuals such as the police and military. Most people don’t question this logic, since they have never considered the possibility that it might not be entirely true. The majority of people wouldn’t actively think about this topic, yet it is usually in the back of their minds as an accepted ideal. Nevertheless, there are millions of regular citizens who believe that it is a complete fallacy that the majority of the population cannot be trusted with defending their own lives by the most effective means available. There are many facts that show that allowing the general populace to carry arms is not only safe, but also necessary in many instances.
College campuses, particularly, have been a very important battleground for this issue. As school shootings grow in both frequency and number of casualties, the voices on both sides of the issue have grown stronger. Advocates for allowing weapons-concealed handguns in particular-on campuses believe that far fewer people would have died in these massacres had a student or teacher been armed and able to stop the gunman early on. Those against it claim that allowing guns would only create more incidents of violence in what would otherwise be a safe environment. Yet, while violent crime and mass shootings continue to persist amongst gun-free universities, there haven’t been any incidents involving concealed handgun license (hereafter CHL) holders on any of the campuses in Utah, a state which requires its public universities to allow these people to carry.
A criminal, by definition, does not obey the laws put in place by government officials. Why would someone intent on something such as theft, murder, or rape be deterred by the fact that it’s a felony or against a company’s policy to carry a handgun into certain areas? History has proven that prohibiting an object or substance does little to hinder either its production or its consumption. It’s well known that alcohol was still rampant in America during prohibition. Marijuana has been regulated since the 1930’s, yet it is still a commonly used recreational drug today. Similarly, criminals in areas such as New York and Washington D.C. still manage to commit many crimes with guns, despite the outright bans in those cities.
There have been numerous studies that compare crime rates with gun control laws. A very popular study sometimes referenced by the pro-firearm community was performed by John Lott and David Mustard in 1997 (Lott and Mustard), and showed dramatic increases in crime in areas with stricter policies. Many efforts have been made to falsify the claims made in this article, and the results are now all but inconclusive. Due to this and other factors, much of the work done by Lott is not generally accepted within academia and is no longer the greatest source for this information.
Yet there have been other studies, one in particular, that have gained great credence amongst firearms supporters. Gary Kleck and Marc Gertz found, among many other things, that gun control had little or no effect on crime rates (Kleck and Gertz). While this doesn’t further the argument that criminals avoid areas with liberal firearms laws, it does show that allowing the general public to be armed will not cause the escalation in violence that many unfoundedly believe will come to pass.
Some may argue that gun control legislation makes it easier for police to identify criminals amongst regular citizens. However, one would expect a criminal to conceal his weapon for just this reason. The argument may turn then to a situation where police arrive on a scene where two people have firearms, and are unsure of which might be a criminal. In order to answer this, however, one must assume that law enforcement will show up in time to see this. Since the average police response time can be anywhere from five minutes to an hour (Bureau of Justice Statistics), and most violent confrontations only last a few seconds, it’s highly unlikely that this hypothetical situation would even occur in the first place. In the rare event that something like that may happen, the cop’s reaction would depend highly upon the situation, though one might guess that the demeanor of a concealed license holder and that of a criminal in the midst of his offense would be vastly different.
Law enforcement response time is itself a major factor in how necessary it is to allow citizens to carry concealed firearms. A popular expression in the gun community is, “when seconds count, the police are only minutes away.” There are simply not enough officers to be everywhere at once, or prevent virtually any instances of violence in society. In fact, there have been multiple court cases in the U.S. that have ruled that police have no duty to protect individual citizens (e.g., South v. Maryland, 1855). If it is not their responsibility, then whose is it? The average person can’t afford a personal bodyguard, yet no one can expect to live their whole life without having to walk home at night or be alone at any point. If the average person is barred from carrying a firearm in less than safe situations such as these, what would he or she be able to do if faced with a criminal who, due to the criminal’s characteristic disregard for the law, is carrying a weapon?
I watched Gangs of New York from the beginning yesterday, and it got me curious about the New York City Draft Riots (especially seeing as the movie itself is terribly inaccurate… still a good story, though). Thus, I turned to the glorious and incredibly accurate internet to find out more.
The draft riots took place in 1863, predominantly in response to the union drafting men into military service for the Civil War. The mob consisted mostly of Irish and German immigrants, who were rather low in society at the time. Naturally, there were other contributing factors. There was the option of paying a $300 fee to get out of service, but that was a helluva lot, which made the immigrants feel that they were being forced to go fight in a “rich man’s war.” There is also, of course, the fact that there was a growing number of freed blacks, who threatened the job security of the immigrants. Learning about all this made me think about a few topics. Primarily: drafting, social class, and the Civil War in general.
Drafting
I think everyone should know by now what drafting is: basically, forced military service. As somewhat of an extremely strong libertarian (small-l, of course), I pretty much believe that forcing anyone to do anything is completely wrong (unless, of course, said person in question committed a crime… er… a bad crime. The kind that hurts people, more or less.). Drafting is forcing people to leave their friends and family to go put their lives on the line for a cause that they may or may not agree with.
There is, of course, the viewpoint that men–at the very least–should have an obligation of some sort to defend their country when it is in danger of invasion, falling apart, or whatever cause the politicians come up with (up with which the politicians come? Alright, I give up). Now, I do feel that people should have a certain amount of pride in their country, but I draw the line at trying to make them do so. Plus, there’s always the fact that not everyone is cut out for military work. Granted, more soldiers is always better than less, but forced recruitment is probably only necessary in dire situations (I’m thinking Helms Deep, or maybe tribal warfare). If there are only a few citizens able to fight, then your chances of winning are very slim unless you use all of them, but when there’s an entire country-full to choose from, then an all-volunteer army is really far better overall.
It’s better because people don’t tend to like being forced to do something–especially by some far-away outside force. When they’re drafted, they resent having to leave their families for something that–to them–may seem completely pointless. Resentment towards the side for which they’re supposedly fighting can potentially make them far worse soldiers than a volunteer would be.
Social Class
This is just a quick little observation that I’ve made from reading about these riots. In the New York Draft Riots, members of the mob assaulted black people or symbols of the rising status of blacks in the society. Their primary concern was about being forcibly sent off to war, so why take their anger out on those of lower status than themselves?
As I said before, the number of free blacks was threatening their job security. Immigrants–the Irish in particular–were in the lower caste, working as maids and the like–just work that’s generally looked down upon. Then the slaves from the south were emancipated and were moving up into their areas. They were probably willing to work for less, seeing as they were used to working for nothing, and they were exempt from the draft due to the fact that they were not citizens until 1868.
I’m just seeing a bit of a parallel between that and more recent times. After all that, blacks took up those lines of work more than anyone, but now illegal immigrants seem to have taken over because–due to their non-citizenship status–they can be paid far less for the same work that the black people used to do (or… according to my mom they did. I don’t think I was born yet). I just found that interesting–take from it what you will.
The Civil War–In General
This tends to be a bit of a sensitive topic–especially here in the south–but here goes.
Look, dude, the south was not fighting for slavery. The war began over the issue of slavery, but it was not clear-cut “we want to keep slaves” vs. “we love black people!”. Naw, the south wanted the option of getting rid of slavery some way besides immediate abolition. They wanted state sovereignty as opposed to federal control… and apparently the federal government didn’t want that. Therefore, they seceded… but the federal government surely didn’t want that, and thus the Civil War began.
Ah… then the emancipation proclamation came, and while it’s near impossible to tell without extra interpretation what it’s really saying (you think run-on sentences are bad now? Sheesh!), the war was then officially “about” slavery. Reading through the interpretation, though, it seems to have been more of a political move than anything. It only freed slaves in the states that were still rebelling against the union by the time it was actually put in place, along with allowing them to sign up for military service (and the union needed soldiers at that point, hence the draft a few months later (yes, I know, it was intended to just get more volunteers) that ended up spurring this post). I’m just saying, history is not always the exact way the victors have written it.
I think I’ll go watch some Firefly or Serenity now. Feeling a bit browncoat-ish.
He’s also one of my favorite actors. I’ve seen him in quite a few different roles, including (among many others) old father; Mr. Sir; old, grumpy father; and crazy, snake-obsessed Spanish guy. The thing is, though, unlike the large majority of actors these days, he’s great in all of those parts instead of being confined to basically the same role. While he seemed pretty much perfect for his somewhat wimpy character in National Treasure, you watch Anaconda (all things considered, really not a great movie) and you can hardly see him as anything but that crazy, snake-obesessed Spanish guy. Heck, I didn’t even recognize him in Holes.
Maybe it’s just me. Oh well. Yay for stomping on liberals’ faces!
