Should the royal family go

[KvHagedorn]

Has anyone here seen Snatch? Really funny black comedy that came out last year about jewel theft and Brits with guns.. (certainly a lot of firepower in the hands of criminals in this supposedly gun-controlled nation) I especially enjoyed Bullet-Tooth Tony and his friend, Desert Eagle .50.

I think you guys probably keep some guns out of the hands of a few two-bit hooligans, but the serious bad guys are still armed to the teeth.

I think Tony Andrews is spot on (see, I'm bilingual ) in his analysis there. The Queen and her family are a very important symbol, and they really pay for themselves. One reason we Americans are fascinated by British culture is that it really is our culture too, and that of Canadians, Australians, South Africans, New Zealanders, and all those other places that got their start as British colonies. To say that American "culture" consists of McDonald's and Coca-Cola, muscle cars and other populist materialistic crap is sadly not too far off.. Jazz isn't really part our culture, either ("our" being the European-American majority here.) The most tangible link to our past is in European institutions and traditions such as the Royal Family, which may be why many of us seem to cherish them more than many Britons do. They are something we lost along the way.. something of a tradition we might have called our own under other circumstances. Look at how the Russians are desperately trying to salvage their culture now after decades of Soviet dehumanization. Don't make the same mistake others have. You have something there worth keeping. Trust me, you'd miss them if they were gone!

[mdhome]

KV
Your last post put into words much of what I was going to say. Not only that but you said it better.


Regards MD

[Novdid]

I think you guys probably keep some guns out of the hands of a few two-bit hooligans, but the serious bad guys are still armed to the teeth.

The serious bad guys aren't the ones breaking in to your house in the middle of the night.

[RedRed]

my point Novdid!


Snatch is great (though I dont know ANY british crim has been caught with a loaded BREN gun!) Honestly, there is NOT much gun crime, relatively speaking, in the UK, as a whole. The gun crime in N Ireland is a different matter, however, but its a different cas too! Even here, it is really quite are to see guns, even on the news.... I have never personally seen ANY gun (bar a 12 guage and an air pistol) that was not in the hands of the Police or the Army (both are armed in N Ireland, unlike the UK mainland!).

I think you have it right about the Royals though KV....

RedRed

[RichL]

Originally posted by RedRed

Snatch is great (though I dont know ANY british crim has been caught with a loaded BREN gun!)
RedRed

You're thinking of Lock Stock & Two Smoking Barrels for the Bren gun scene
Personally I preferred that one to Snatch. Vinnie Jones was excellent as Big Chris.

[RedRed]

You are right....

[cjolley]

Originally posted by Wombat
...Yugoslavia, or the Czech Republic...

Not a good argument, those countries were Communist and had the death penalty for a long time.

I would not be against the death penalty if the justice system were more accurate.
Here, we have a police lab chief chemist who apparently spent 20 years getting on the stand and saying just about any old thing to support the prosecution. Including simply making up conclusions on DNA tests.
Several of the people she testified against in this way were either executed or are on death row.
It will be years before they get all the evidence sorted out.
This is not to say they were all innocent, it's just that now we don't know and there may have to be hundreds of retrials.
She had been sanctioned several times by pear review groups, but because she got convictions, she was given several awards by the district attorney and police offices.
They had to have had at least an inkling of what she was doing.
Chuck

[KvHagedorn]

I would not be against the death penalty if the justice system were more accurate. Here, we have a police lab chief chemist who apparently spent 20 years getting on the stand and saying just about any old thing to support the prosecution. Including simply making up conclusions on DNA tests.

I say give her the chair.

..Oh, and everyone should stop saying that being retarded or just really stupid should get you out of the death penalty. We need FEWER really stupid people, not more. We really should just off ALL the hardcore criminals whose lives and psyches have been ruined by living in prison for 5 or more years, and use the money saved to pay teachers more, and to set a high moral and intellectual bar for them to clear before being hired. The message social liberals send to kids is that crime pays and good grades don't.

Social liberalism is defined in my book as terminal naivete leading to reverse evolution and utter cultural demoralization and decay. I see the evidence every day. It's very depressing. If only I were as airheaded as the social liberals so that I wouldn't notice or care about what's happening.

[The PIT]

Originally posted by KvHagedorn


I say give her the chair.

..Oh, and everyone should stop saying that being retarded or just really stupid should get you out of the death penalty. We need FEWER really stupid people, not more.

I can't agree with that. it sounds like something Hitler would have said. What you need is proper care for these poeple so there not thrown out onto the street.

[KvHagedorn]

I can't agree with that. it sounds like something Hitler would have said. What you need is proper care for these poeple so there not thrown out onto the street.

Are you taking the typical social liberal tack of counterattacking by comparing people to Hitler or the Nazis? Typical cheap shots like that are good for such people with weak arguments, but I might have expected more from you. I have a genius IQ, but couldn't scrape up the funds to finish college. Same story with others here I could name. What social liberals advocate is wasting public money on criminals and others who would never be productive, who are at best parasites upon the rest of us, while people like me make less money than it costs the public to house this scum. Social liberals promote evil and coddle criminals while letting normal hardworking people foot the bill. I'm sick and tired of it. This "proper care" costs money. Money which is absolutely WASTED. There are bright children who have no chance for a bright future because of the misplaced charity of social liberals, and they aren't all BLACK children, either (which are the only people who seem to rate any attention from these social liberals.) If you would stop and think about such things, the practical implications would become clear. You believe some sort of ideal world exists where we are all so rich that we can afford to take care of all the defects of society, but the reality is that this childish sentiment causes REAL damage to society. I know lots of very bright people who have lost hope because they had no money to go to college and become properly productive. People without hope become negative and some turn to crime. Yours is the same logic used by health insurance companies who would rather spend $1000 on a cure than $10 on prevention. It is absolute stupidity and the primary reason this world is so screwed up.

If you are retarded and kill someone why should you receive preferential treatment? I want a reasonable argument here and now. Something worthy of my time to refute.

[cjolley]

Jeeze KvH,
Look up the word innocent in a good dictionary.
It doesn't just mean "didn't do it".
chuck

[KvHagedorn]

You are saying that being stupid makes someone innocent. Try again. I have known retarded people and they are like PEOPLE. Some have morals and some don't. If they are incapable of knowing right from wrong they don't belong in society, period, and I have no desire to pay their upkeep, especially when deserving people have nothing.

Please make a reasoned argument and stop trying to be coy. That's the problem with so many liberals who came of age in the 60s.. no one really challenged their flawed views so they assume they are right without needing to defend their position.

[Novdid]

Are you taking the typical social liberal tack of counterattacking by comparing people to Hitler or the Nazis?

Hitler said excactly those things.

Here in Sweden the majority of the people are "retarded liberal socialists" as you almost call them. In this land of "socialists liberals" you don't have to pay to study at a university. The only things you have to pay for is your living. If you pay tax, a little bit of that money goes to these things, amongs others: Free healthcare etc, etc.

Social liberals promote evil and coddle criminals while letting normal hardworking people foot the bill.

Pffft!!!

[KRSESQ]

This may seem a little off-topic (this whole thread is off topic!) but bear with me.

Some time back I attended a local street fair. Lots of families there, having a good time. There were two "gentlemen" wandering around, a scuzzy looking bum and a severely retarded (Down's Syndrome) fellow I assumed was his brother. They were getting a great laugh: the "normal" fellow was encouraging the retarded one to go up to people at random and flip them off with both hands. The retarded one was obviously functioning at the level of a trained chimp, with no real awareness of the meaning of what he was doing. Eventually a police officer ran them off.

My question is, which one should have had the crap kicked out of him? The retarded one was being obnoxious, but only at the prompting of the "normal" one. Should they both have been taught a lesson?

Likewise, if a retarded or brain-damaged individual commits a heinous crime with no real awareness of the consequences, should that person be executed (I prefer "euthanized") for the good of society or simply warehoused forever?

Kevin

[cjolley]

Originally posted by KvHagedorn
You are saying that being stupid makes someone innocent.

I'm pretty sure I didn't say that.
But then, I guess it's easier to argue with a straw man.
Pehaps you could just set up my side the way you like it
and save time.

chuck