Students taught to fight back

[az]

a) This is a completely different topic.

b) I don't think so. And I don't think you will see war arising from within the EU for a long time. Don't tell me Bosnia and Austria are essentially the same, as they're both "european".

[MultimediaMan]

I hardly think that teaching the unarmed/defenseless to make a stand against one who would do violence will beget more violence: At that point, what have you got to lose, Brian?

Some nutjob or a terrorist may not know how to deal with someone confronting them; There have been several instances of crooks actually laying down arms/surrendering simply because they were told to by cashiers, tellers and gas station attendants. Even giving a perp pause to think can be a huge break for someone otherwise unarmed.

In one incredible case, a cashier actually offered to purchase the gun from the crook pointing it at her head: the perp agreed and handed the pistol over, as he took the cash he was ordered to the floor by the new owner of the pistol.

It's sort of like Flight 93: you may be going down, but how you choose to go down is up to you. Your actions may not be enough save yourself, but they just might save the lives of others. If everybody acted in such a manner more often, not only would our society be much safer (barring the odd Darwin Award Winner who attempts such an action), but people would tend to not consider such a course of action viable.

[Dr Mordrid]

a) This is a completely different topic.

Not at all. US and European violence come from different root sources, but it's still violence. It just manifests in different ways; ours in criminality and yours in cultural conflagrations. One harms people in dribbles and the other in bloodbaths.

b) I don't think so. And I don't think you will see war arising from within the EU for a long time. Don't tell me Bosnia and Austria are essentially the same, as they're both "european".

Yes; while Austria and Bosnia both arose from the Ottoman Empire they're totally different culturally. That said Europe does have a tendency to conflagrations, and to those of us viewing current events from the outside history is repeating.

Internal destabilation can come from many sources, but the current trend is your growing, and often radicalized, Islamic population. Your falling native birthrate and political decisionmaking so far leads in only one direction; civil conflict akin to our 60's but most likely more violent.

Now; what if Russia decides to come in on the Muslim side when things go from push to shove by cutting energy supplies? They're already using this tactic in Georgia over the arrest of Russian spies.

Oops.

[TransformX]

One can never guard against madmen, but one can reduce the possibility of such events happening, but the surest way of propagating this risk from one generation to the next is to teach children violence and provide them with the means of wreaking it.

IMHO

One can increase security. One can have more policemen and policewomen that do their friggin jobs to SERVE & PROTECT instead of constantly doing whatever is in their own interests. If needed (as it usually seems so) pay them more so to get better personel. The Police has to be well staffed, reliable and quick to act. The more well trained security related people you have, the less force you need to use. In a way, it's much like an audio system, the more and better loudspeakers you have, the less you need to 'pump-up' the volume and irritate everybody else.

[Brian Ellis]

It's not that Europe and other regions don't have deadly violence on at least a par with the US, it's that their deadly violence is on a different schedule.

Yes, we have a 'steady state' of violence that is widely distributed and usually tied to criminality, drug use or mental illness. On the other hand history shows that in at least the case of Europe violence occurs in cultural paroxysms; the wars of the 17th & 18th centuries, WW-I, WW-II, Bosnia, Kosovo and other widespread upheavals.

Yes; we often get dragged in to these conflicts, lose many lives and participate in their concluding acts, but only after the more than preventable initiating events. I say preventable because in many/most cases they were, it's just that this was ignored by most all of the leadership class.

ex: the punitive steps taken against Germany after WW-I combined with a dedication to political process over effective action vs. he NAZI's lead directly to WW-II.

Over time these events are far more destructive, kill more people and more often than not set the stage for the next round of killing. Even during our participation in these foreign adventures our level of overall fatalities due to violence pales next to the many millions that die every time Europe implodes.

Given what we see as those 'outside the forest' events are already aligning for the next round; the internal (for now) conflict with Islamist immigrants and their progeny, the dependence on Russia for gas supplies and that eternal reliance politicical process over preventative action make me think that Europe is on another countdown.

This is a total non sequitur. We were talking about individuals committing heinous crimes, not nations going to war. In any case, I don't think that the USA has exactly a good record on this score, either, not even in recent history. There is a world of difference between the two.

[Dr Mordrid]

And that thought process is exactly why European history repeats itself every 50-75 years.

Violence is violence, it's only how it manifests that changes. Each culture has its own way. In some cultures citizens turn on each other while in others it's the State vs. the citizenry or other States. Different colors of paint on the same human condition.

When the US gets involved in foreign events there is almost always a precipitating act by an outside party;

Lucitania & Germany's attacks on US merchant ships


Pearl Harbor & NAZI Germany's declaration of war on the US shortly after


Berlin blockade




9/11

[az]

Aren't you forgetting a few wars there? Though if we follow this discussion, we'll drag this thread off-topic, won't we?

[Dr Mordrid]

The War for Independence was justified. Period.

The War of 1812 was an English invasion.

Several territorial & border skirmishes, often with the Spanish or their Mexican minions or the French.

The Indian Wars were due to stupidity by both parties.

Korea was a war started by China and declared by the UN. We just did our part.

Vietnam was another issue. I don't thinl we would have remained there if Kennedy had not been assasinated. Johnson always was an aggressive, insecure, tempermental political hack. His short portrayal in "The Right Stuff" was pretty much spot on.

[Brian Ellis]

Not to forget the Afghanistan and Iraq catastrophes due to trigger-happy reactions, both of which have been "mission unaccomplished". And the US invasion of British territory in Grenada in 1983; if Maggie hadn't been at the helm, copain-copain with Reagan, there would have been hell to pay at the invasion of a sovereign territory without an official invitation. As it is, she persuaded the GG to say, a posteriori, that he had asked for it, to get herself off the hook, even though he had no authority to do so.

However, this is still off-topic.

[TransformX]

I suppose Europe was also quite 'trigger happy' in Bosnia and other places..?

[ZokesPro]

Non sequitur. In any case, what about Mexicans?

What does sequitar mean?

[Dr Mordrid]

"Non sequitur" = a logical fallacy.

Brian hadn'd had his brain food yet not to see the logic in that post

[Brian Ellis]

It literally means 'it does not follow'.

[az]

Look up non Sequitur in Wikipedia, they can explain it better than me

It basically means "you're drawing conclusions that cannot be drawn from the basis". For example: Basis: Berlin is in Germany. I am not in Berlin. Conclusion: I am not in Germany. Non sequitur: I can't draw this conclusion from this basis.

[Brian Ellis]

Brian hadn'd had his brain food yet not to see the logic in that post

He sees your fallacious logic, but this is called thread hijacking, changing the subject because there is no other way to get round it.