SSCReader
3mo ago
America was founded by Europeans (or perhaps the British presumably if we are being more specific. It can't have been founded by Americans as no Americans existed prior to its founding surely?
They became Americans with its founding certainly, but that isn't quite the same thing.
SSCReader
3mo ago
I still don't see much here to engage with here. I too can write an essay, about how even to most meek coward lashes out when you corner him, and that you'll be hard-pressed to find a more central example of being cornered, than a home invasion, but that too will just be an essay with no way to resolve the disagreement.
Go ahead! That is itself engagement! Not all arguments can be resolved by data. Some are just to explore the idea space and different points of view. Given we are both talking about internal subjective experiences, we almost certainly cannot prove anything with data here. I'm telling you my experiences and pov and you can tell me yours. We may never agree, and that is ok, arguing and discussion does not have to lead to someone winning.
I would say that very few people even think about the legal calculus at all, (though of course I am sure some do), merely that people react according to their experiences and when their experience with violence is extremely limited, that is the bigger factor in their actions or lack thereof.
I'd also say the same in other emergency situations, where say someone collapses on the street, most people don't freeze because they are making an evaluation of whether they may be sued for giving CPR incorrectly but rather because it is an unexpected event they do not have experience in or training for. Or where there is a fire, you can observe people freezing because they are unprepared for unexpected events. Even when there is no legal consideration for them to think about.
That people freeze and panic in stressful situations that have no legal consideration, is a good indication in my view that them freezing and panicking is the de facto response to crisis situations in general. That's why militaries and police and medical organizations drill and expose people to scenarios so that they can overcome those reactions and do something useful. And why fire drills are useful so that people don't have to think about where to go in an emergency.
SSCReader
3mo ago
Well my observation is that most people in a crisis situation are not making rational decisions, but acting out of instinct, (in)experience and fear.
Given the West for anyone in the middle class and above is much less violent than decades ago, most people are going to have much less experience with violence. They freeze, they plead, they try to de-escalate. They don't in my experience think a lot about the law.
If you and I have both had a rough and tumble start to life, then we have had more exposure directly to violence than many. I've been glassed, and I've been attacked with a barbed wire club, I've been threatened by a paramilitary leader. I grew up in a nation where we had bomb evacuation drills in school and had soldiers on the streets.
My observation is that many people without that, simply on some level do not believe that violence will be the outcome. This is a place where I think Hlynkacg was correct. They have internalized a world view where this is a rules based existence, because to them it has been.
That's why you often see people flipping their belief systems once they have been a victim of violence. Their worldview was upended.
In other words my feeling is you may be underestimating the aversion and unfamiliarity with violence by the average middle class Western person who may never have thrown a punch in anger in their life, let alone had a knife wielding maniac at their door. I think it is highly unlikely they are being concilitory and non confrontational because of the law, but simply because that is how the modern world has taught them to deal with violence. You don't punch your bully, you avoid them and tell the teacher.
Or to put it more simply, violence is scary to people who have not some experience with it. And many, many people in wealthy Western cultures nowadays grow up without any exposure to it. Which is generally good! But it has neutered their threat responses. (Obviously generalizing here, but overall i think my point is correct. Few people even know what their own nations self-defence laws are..because they very rarely have to know. )
SSCReader
3mo ago
Is that because of the legal framework or because most modern people are very unfamiliar with violence and hesitant to engage in it? I heavily suspect the victim there was not worrying about the law.
My experience having had a bit of a rough and tumble upbringing is that a lot of middle class people whether in the UK or US shy away from violence even in self-defence, not because of legal worries, but because they have never really had to engage in it.
SSCReader
3mo ago
Generally, most people do not keep firearms even though they most likely could have a shotgun or semi-auto .22 rifle, or larger caliber bolt-action rifle if they wanted to. This is mostly because of cultural attitudes to firearms in the UK and is not particularly a live political issue. Even back home in Northern Ireland, where you can get a firearms license for self-defence alone, and where you can get handguns legally, the vast majority of people do not do so, even during the Troubles. It is also not particularly difficult to get hold of an illegal Kalashnikov or similar automatic rifle in Northern Ireland, but very few people outside of the paramilitary organizations do so.
Restrictive firearms laws are generally supported by the majority of the population, because the cultural attitudes towards firearms are very different than in the US. Most people who have guns will likely be farmers or other rural folk, (most of my uncles have shotguns and rifles for example), and the average person (certainly in England) is likely to be somewhat uncomfortable around guns, and most police will not be be armed (again as almost always excepting Northern Ireland, where almost all officers are armed, and the population is exposed to people carrying firearms probably on a daily basis).
SSCReader
3mo ago
Again depends on locality, but in England I believe that's kind of accurate. You can have self-loading .22 rifles but nothing in a higher caliber. You can also have lever action rifles so you can cos-play as your favorite Wild West hero.
But given most people don't bother to apply for gun licenses, I wouldn't imagine being allowed AR-15's or whatever would make much of a difference in the populace's ability to fight the government. You would still only have a very small number of people.
Remember this is not the US, the culture is not the same.
Tony Martin did shoot one of the burglars in the back with a gun he did not have a license for. Even in the US shooting someone in the back as they run away may find you having trouble with a self-defense plea.
I've been in three violent altercations in my life, all in the UK, all where I was defending myself. In all three I called the cops, and in all three the cops did not arrest me, but either arrested or attempted to arrest the attacker. Now none of these involved guns or weapons (other than a pint glass in one case), but that doesn't stop them being self-defense.
Edit: and the duty to retreat was removed in 2008. Then in 2013 the standard for self-defence in one's home was improved from not being unreasonable to not being grossly disproportionate.
Yes indeed. Though largely you can't want a gun for those purposes. Again excepting Northern Ireland where you can get a firearms license for that reason alone.
Edit: Though this has nothing to do with the correction that the UK does not have a wholesale ban on guns. The rest of jeroboams post may or may not be true, but that particular statement is straightforwardly incorrect.
SSCReader
3mo ago
Just to point out the UK does not have a wholesale ban on guns. A shotgun license is pretty straightforward to get. Rifles slightly less so. Handguns are generally banned except perhaps ironically back home in Northern Ireland.
SSCReader
3mo ago
The insects, drought, and hail storms on the other hand... My poor wife is totally demotivated after the carnage this summer wrought on all her hard work.
Yeah, my wife's garden has likewise been decimated this year. The only thing that emerged unscathed somewhat surprisingly was her tomatoes, and the herbs in her garden window. But even that I had to rig up a cover for because it got so hot it was baking her seedlings.
SSCReader
3mo ago
Well sure, but to uno reverse it, upvoting a post likewise doesn't mean you agree with all of it. Especially if it is long and includes good bits and bad bits. Maybe you like one part bit would prefer it without references to biowaste.
But anyway the main point is that popular things can still be bad.
SSCReader
3mo ago
You may (given your pm to me) not believe this, but I do find many of your posts useful and interesting, I just think you let your emotions get the better of you a bit and have a little too much open boo outgroup in some of them and I think they would, and this space would, be better without those elements.
Having said that given you just said you don't like blocking people because it degrades the user experience, asking me in pm to block you is a little bit of a dick move. So its ok for my user experience to be degraded because you don't want to see my posts, but you're not willing to take one for the team, when you are the one with the problem? Not cool, man.
Suffice it say, if you don't want to see my posts, either bite the bullet and block me, or just ignore me. I won't take offense, I promise.
SSCReader
3mo ago
You may of course believe what you please. But upvotes are not the measure of that. Otherwise all the people who vote for thepoliticians who enact the policies about homeless people you dislike, would be proving those positions correct no? If popular voting is the arbiter.
But you yourself admitted to breaking the rules on prpose here because other people get away with it, so you do not have a leg to stand on here I am afraid.
Do better or don't, but if you post it is fair game for people to argue against you.
SSCReader
3mo ago
Even if your position was entirely true, aren't you now taking the same actions as the addicts you dislike? You are deliberately shitting up the metaphorical sidewalks here, because you feel some other people get away with it?
Even if true that isn't going to get you a less shitty sidewalk. Just means more shit to be shoveled.
You're not just defecting against other defectors, you're defecting against everyone else. If you see two people shitting on the sidewalk or breaking into your car, does it matter one is only doing it because the other gets away with it? I would suggest you are likely to be pissed off at both and both are making the place worse.
SSCReader
3mo ago
It's plausible that economic considerations held back anti-immigration measures, but if that were an essential part I'd expect more or less total gridlock on a large number of issues where, in reality, there don't seem to be any hesitations at all for the Western political class in comparison to immigration.
Well it depends on what the voters think the trade off is. If the voters buy that carbon taxes will get them less pollution, then that may be a trade off they are willing to accept, to an extent. Especially if they believe the bulk of it will fall on say corporations rather than themselves. Likewise if you say to voters we will tax you more in exchange for better services or more NHS hospitals then that may be a trade off they will accept. Or not (see below).
And I am not saying that there is no ideological commitments that override what voters might think, but that even these are often subject to practical considerations. In general Labour prefer higher taxes to pay for more or better services. That is one of their ideological cores. But Blairite style neo-liberalism still won out because voters were simply fed up of the more blatant tax and spend policies combined with union problems through the 60's and 70s. Whereas even though the Tories generally ideologically prefer to cut taxes, Liz Trusses budget tax cuts were very unpopular to the extent that it ended her leadership.
If the Tories as a whole were anti-immigration at their core, then they may have been willing to risk economic issues and loss of voters in return (though big business is a significant bloc for them), but they aren't really. They just aren't really pro-immigration either ideologically, except in the neo-liberal sense that free trade and cheap workers are positive economically.
There are some things the parties care a lot about they are willing to risk losing votes over to an extent (though the shift to the economic right under Blair and back again under Corbyn, and then back again again under Starmer) shows that even some of the pretty fundamental beliefs are up for grabs if they are unpopular enough. But they definitely are not going to risk votes/the economy for things they don't really care about.
SSCReader
3mo ago
I think there are mote people than you might think who are anti-immigration. But thats not to say they are anti-immigration as a priority.
Certainly working class populations in the North and Midlands are pretty anti-immigratiin. But they also know the Tories are not likely to help out their areas. And Reform numbers were probably depressed by the fact everyone knows they won't actually get into government this time around.
SSCReader
3mo ago
Yeah that is my point. There is certainly some overlap, in some places, but it is going to confuse you more than it is going to explain if you try and translate it across one to one.
SSCReader
3mo ago
It's annoyingly inconsistent I think. I've had great results with really working hard as you described. And then sometimes for no seeming discernable reason the same thing seems to take some of the finish off. I'm sure there was something I did wrong, as I am not an expert by any means.
Your work looks really, really good, so I think you can definitely be proud of that!
SSCReader
3mo ago
Great work and looks amazing! Getting your shellac to look perfectly even is super hard, so if that is the worst you have I think that is pretty damn good!
Thanks for the post and pictures!
SSCReader
3mo ago
We are talking about the UK here, while there is an urban/rural divide it isn't as significant politically. London/Home Counties vs North/Midlands is probably more salient, although that is also complicated by coastal malaise as well. Alongside Upper/middle/working class divisions of course.
I can assure you the English Tories I worked with 10-25 years ago did not fit the blue tribe stereotypes you are mentioning here.
SSCReader
3mo ago
I guess economists can still appeal to "but imagine how much worse it would be," but I can't imagine that's a winner either.
Well there is a reason that those supporting Brexit had to make sure to blast how it wouldn't impact the economy. Even though it probably has. Which just made politicians even more scared of cutting off immigration ironically.
SSCReader
3mo ago
I'm just telling you the internal situation. And they were getting the same results before me and after me, and even when we were reporting anti-immigration ministers, over literal decades with different questions polls and groups.
Whether they are right or wrong, that is what they believe, so that is the attack vector that has most chance of success in my view.
SSCReader
3mo ago
Well I am paraphrasing form a whole bunch of polls and focus groups and the like over near 20 years. It is true you could reduce how much people valued the economy over immigration by rewording the questions and because the Tory part has internal splits on immigration, we often had different polls with different skewed wordings. But on all of them even worded to try and side with immigration as much as possible, people always valued essentially "line go up" over reducing immigration.
Even in focus groups where you might run through various scenarios in detail, and in some cases where we trying to see under what circumstances people might give different answers, it was pretty much always "It's the economy, stupid".
Now part of that might be because the Conservatives are seen as the party of being good with the economy. Or were at least, so Labour might get a little more leeway with their supporters. But they also have a much smaller (though still existent!) anti-immigration faction, so they aren't even looking at the question as hard in the first place. And of course some of their supporters are very pro-immigration. So it will have to be the Conservative party if anyone I would suggest. Though some of their anti-immigration faction has boiled off into UKIP and then Reform nowadays, so the internal faction balances has likely shifted.
But essentially if Tory modelling indicated they would win more votes than they would lose from cracking down on immigration, then they are likely to flip. There are few pro-immigration idealogues within the party. Though the farming lobby comes close I suppose, for many of the same reasons as in the US. Low-paid Eastern European labor helps British farms be competitive.
SSCReader
3mo ago
Because they also want and vote for economic growth. And both parties internal projections show limiting immigration prevents economic growth and also that the economy is most people's driving issue.
It's a simple straight forward calculus. When we did (when I worked for the Tories) internal polls and asked people would they accept an overall lower standard of living in exchange for reduced immigration they said no. Overwhelmingly. Over and over and over again. Everywhere.
So the recourse is to start actually valuing lowering immigration over other factors. Just like the Tories flipped on lockdowns in record time they will do the same on immigration. They aren't attached to it for principled reasons. Simply practical.
Except they failed. The express goal of the IRA was a united Ireland. Indeed there is an argument their goal would have been further along without their intervention. They accepted a peace deal that had been offered to them in the 1970's in 1998. All the violence didn't actually get them any further forward than the government had been willing to accept beforehand.
With another 25 years of (mostly) peace we are now closer to a United Ireland (polling wise) than we ever were during the Troubles.
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