don’t forget the only reason that guy won the seat is because the gop split the district.
oh, and he lied about his education and career
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I otherwise agree with the rest of your comment. But undermining faith in the government is the republicans’ job.
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If people are sent to war – whether they have a personal stake in that war or not – it’s considered normal that they kill whoever they’re supposed to and shrug it off afterwards. The military doesn’t have to trawl high-security psych wards to find soldiers. They take basically anyone, and put them in a cultural context that makes them a killer within weeks.
So I don’t need to diagnose anyone to know that, yes, it is 100% possible to set up a culture where mass murder is routine. Humans have known for thousands of years how to turn that on and off like a switch. Anyone pretending it’s a mystery is really just saying they’re fine with it.
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It would be better if the country was smaller, safer, and respected the rights and wellbeing of people than continue to live like this. We don’t have to do this anymore. This country as a whole isn’t worth it anymore.
You’re entitled to your feelings but i don’t agree with that statement at all.
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Assuming a peaceful coexistence of these ideologically separate bordering states is possible, there’s a step in between “now” and “when it’s all settled and the borders are drawn up” that’s missing in this story.
Have a look at any partition of a country in history, particularly ones with ideological splits, and point to one that looks like something you’d like to live through. It’s usually a bloody and grim affair.
There’s also the step that happens after the split, to people living on the wrong side of a line. Genocide is often what happens.
I understand you might not want to be advocating for bloodshed and genocide. But it’s a pretty-much-guaranteed by-product of what you’re proposing, and I think it’s worth finding another way, no matter how tiring.
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I have to respectfully disagree with you. The country is absolutely worth fighting for and making better. I have lived in liberal democracies with better aspects than the United States, and I have lived in cruel dictatorships and in failed states. The US has plenty of problems, and it has a long way to go to become a kinder, more inclusive society, but there are places far worse.
It may be bad now, but that is in no small part because the old power structure is ending, and those who benefit from that power structure don’t want to let go, and they know violence is just about their only option left. If we keep fighting we can and will win, but if we give in to despair and give up then we will definitely lose.
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Again, i am not going anywhere. This is my goddam country, this is my home. I will not cede it to snivling asshole wannabe brownshirts like this. Bring it on.
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… gee Marge, why would anyone “blame guns” 
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Trying to disentangle the US into separate countries would be utterly disastrous; as @anon65652885 already stated, bloodshed death and eventual genocide are the usual results without much exception.
Think you’re tired now?
Then just imagine how everyone else without privilege must feel; and how much worse it would be if your proposal ever came to fruition.
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It isn’t guns. There are lots of countries with high rates of gun ownership. The ones which have a sensible licensing regime don’t have these constant shootings. The problem in the US is the toxic culture around guns. The idea that requiring a would be gun owner to attend a certified safety course is a gateway drug to total abolition.
So, just curious, as a minority in a potentially iffy state, why should I have to upend my life to live as my authentic self and move to a “safe state”, in 2023, just to live my life?
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sure. just nothing that compares to the good old us of a:
the United States, with less than 5 percent of the world’s population, has 46 percent of the world’s civilian-owned guns… It ranks number one in firearms per capita
the toxic cultural problem - hold on to your hat - is the belief that guns aren’t the problem.
get rid of the guns, especially assult style weapons - but id also argue handguns, and pretty much anything else that isn’t either kept at the range or explicitly used for hunting - and there will be vanishingly few incidents of gun violence
americans aren’t uniquely awful. they’re uniquely enabled. remove the tool, and you remove the problem. it really is as simple as that
[edit] and what does it really matter? either we can’t be trusted with guns because of our toxic culture, or guns can’t be trusted because they suck. the solution is the same. ban the @#$! guns already
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I like both, but if I had to pick one, I’d pick handguns first. That could more than halve the gun murders in one step. People could argue that something else would fill the gap, but there really isn’t anything to match a handgun for something lethal that you can hide under your shirt.
In 2020, handguns were involved in 59% of the 13,620 U.S. gun murders and non-negligent manslaughters for which data is available, according to the FBI. Rifles – the category that includes guns sometimes referred to as “assault weapons” – were involved in 3% of firearm murders.
This may be why in other rich countries, handguns tend to be very tightly controlled [1]
I also can’t think of a good reason for a civilian owning an assault rifle, so I’m ok if those go too.
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Yeah shifting the conversation to a semantic argument about whether it’s “really the guns” is just a tactic to muddy the waters and prevent people from reacting like normal humans to their terrible terrible situation and doing something to stop it.
Texas Poetry: My father loved guns. When he was angry enough he’d grab my mother and shove her against a wall. Sometimes he’d grab a gun. “This b*** wants me to kill her” he’d scream. Guns never protected me. He got better. He got worse. Good times bad times. The guns stayed where people couldn’t. Everyone is scared to call the cops when he threatens to kill himself again because then who the hell knows who all gets shot? Still, he had an arrest for assault with a deadly weapon. Saw it as a real insult to his good character. Privately he admitted he pulled a gun on her but he claimed he had the same lawyers who take care of the cops and he managed never to go to trial. He was most worried about being mistaken for the wrong kind of gun guy. I’d call him in the morning when he was sober and he’d tell me how worried he was about his guns and his gun rights. Guns didn’t get him the help he needed. Guns kept all of us from getting the help we needed. When he died I gave his guns away.
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Talk about letting the fascist win. Fuck that. Others should not have to pay the price for your laziness.
This is what Black Americans were told - “well just leave your home, your family, etc, and go somewhere “safe”” But no where was safe to be Black in America. And it’s not like transphobes are somehow confined to certain geographies. People who say that we should get a “national divorce” are just giving in to the far right. It would tear the whole country apart and make the first American civil war look like a lovely picnic… We’re already slipping into the kind of violence we saw during the Troubles and that could easily widen into something like Yugoslavia. The fact that ANYONE believes that’s acceptable ever just boggles my mind and speaks to how some people believe that their comfort and desire to tune out of the suffering of others trumps the well-fare of the rest of us.
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If that is how you feel then there is no other option but to fight and take it all. There will be no peaceful co-existence. We either crush our enemies or separate. There is no other option. You can’t co-exist with a fascist.
I’m sorry, how does shooting 9 year olds help?!?
Are you saying you don’t feel like there is any middle ground between these kinds of acts of violence, and giving in to fascism? Because that certainly seems to be your point here?
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This is true. You can’t appease one either. That experiment was done and failed. So long as a “free” area exists, they will come for it. So, yes. Once again
In 13, the beast is rising
The Frenchman did surmise
Through earthquakes and starvation
The warlord will arise
Terror, death, destruction
Pour from the eastern sands
But the truth of all predictions
Is always in your hands
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If you want to experience a civil war like that, go to Syria. Leave us out of it.
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