While the North Carolina House of Representatives has finally killed the bill to allow the state to establish a state religion, a new study found that 34 percent of adults would favor establishing Christianity as the official state religion. While 47 percent opposed the establishment of state religion, it was less than a majority.
Another 11 percent thought that the Constitution allowed for the establishment of an official religion. Thus, they are entirely unaware of the workings of the first amendment or the prior rulings of the Supreme Court.
Republicans were the most likely to favor the establishment of a state religion with 55 percent favoring it in their own state and 46 percent favoring a national constitutional amendment.
While the poll reportedly included 1000 people (a sizable group), I still want to believe that it is skewed and that most people recognize the danger of religious-based government in a world torn apart of sectarian violence. Even if these people lack knowledge of the Constitution, they are given a daily lesson on the dangers of state-sponsored religion in their newspapers and news broadcasts. For those advocating such a change, they leave us with the chilling view that, for some, the problem with abusive theocratic regimes like Iran is simply the disagreement with the choice of the religion.
Source: HuffPost
Darren,
I not sure it’s much of a cognitive leap to find causation in the proposition that desperate times breed desperate people and ergo desperate acts. It would be useful to see such data broken down to a more granular level to see if the rises in violence corresponds with locality for rises in unemployment and whether or not those were proportionate.
And as if on cue . . .
Easy on the ad hominem there, G. Mason. That kind of stuff is discouraged strongly. Stick to attacking arguments, not people.
Elaine,
Since funding for studies has been restricted through legislation, that may be the only way to do it since the gun merchants have cut off the more reasonable approach which would be conducting the study first then writing the law.
Bob, when you assault one of the Bill of Rights you forfeit your right to any of the others. Quite frankly you can kiss my ass and leave the country if you do not like the Bill of Rights. Which is MY right to tell you.
Paranoid delusional and psychotic?
No Bob, I am just capable of rational trains of logical thought. I am capable of seeing past the end of my nose but that is because unlike you I do not have my head lodged firmly up the ass of either myself or anyone else.
To be quite frank, arrogant fascist tunnel visioned morons such as yourself, are the greatest threat to this country.
So on that note Mr Tory, I leave you with this
“They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.” … Benjamin Franklin
You sir, deserve neither and eventually… you shall have neither
There are other factors that can be looked at besides strictly speaking anti-gun laws. There is some evidence to suggest that economic factors influence crime which influences homicide rates in general.
If you look at the crime statistics the rate of crime is relative to the unemployment rate, but lags slightly behind. There is an upward trend in homicides that peaks around 1982, 1992, and a smaller trend that begins in 2001 and then tapers in the mid 2000s. The direct correlation is is controversial as to whether the two are directly tied, but the trends do coincide.
Bob,
It’s cute you think you’re the victor in a situation where there isn’t a winner, just two people using poor argumentation and propaganda techniques neither understands well enough to pull off and one of them chooses to throw a fit when their – here’s that word again – bullshit tactic is called on the carpet.
“Mmmm…no, I didn’t say I was engaging in a dishonest argument.”
Yeah, you did. “OK, I know my terms are loaded,” – your words. You admitted your language was loaded. An inherently dishonest technique.
“I also didn’t tacitly admit anything.You did, for me. Thanks for that.”
Oh, but you did in your rambling gibberish about Julius Caesar and Cato. The implication was that formal logic was not important to your reasoning. If you’d care to walk that back? Be my guest.
As Gyges noted to G. Mason, the same applies to you Bob. “You’re still using words that are meant to belittle or demonize your opposition, You’re still steering the conversation towards what YOU want to talk about, which is how bad people who want stronger regulations than you are. You’re still doing things in a way that upsets people who disagree with you and puts them on the defensive. That’s a very poor tactic to bring people to your side.”
You aren’t winning any converts, Bob. If anything, you’re demonstrating that you can’t make your arguments without resorting to trickery like appeals to emotion (and not very well either I might add).
BTW, you keep telling yourself you’re a master of argumentation if that helps you sleep at night.
I think it’s adorable.
Gene H/Bob Kauten:
we will settle this the only honorable way, with pistols at 20 paces. Single shot, no more than 0.177 cal., air only. No aiming above or below the belt and heads are off limits.
Choose your seconds.
Its the only manly way. All this rhetoric is like 2 silver backs beating their chests.
Gene H.,
By your request. Is that a barnyard epithet you used to describe my argument?
How childish. Please, lead us by example.
Mmmm…no, I didn’t say I was engaging in a dishonest argument. I also didn’t tacitly admit anything.You did, for me. Thanks for that.
How childish.
You can’t think of a comeback, so I’m arguing dishonestly? Emotion is dishonest? That all you’ve got?
That’s a dishonest means of negating my arguments, don’t you think?
You have been out-argued, out-reasoned, and you’re out-of-ammo.
Please, tell me that my assertions are unfounded, dishonest, and childish. Actually, they can’t be. They’re just inanimate objects, right?
Maybe pick a fight with someone you can out-argue, like G.Mason.
I think that there might be only one way to settle the “gun” argument. Enact strict gun laws. Then, wait about a decade…do some research…and see if the number of gun homicides, gun suicides, and gun violence drops in this country. Otherwise, nobody will have proof of anything–and we’ll just continue to argue the issue till the cows come home.
Ah Elaine, if wishes were horses.
Bob,
Really, you should stop while you’re . . . whatever you are. Your buddy in bad propaganda, G.Mason, introduced the 2nd here.
And then there was a dogpile.
I was perfectly content to discuss the dangers of theocracy and I still am. Quite frankly, the gun debate in general – as it has in this very thread – has degenerated into a bunch of extremists name calling instead of addressing practical solutions. But if you think I’m going to standby and let either of you engage in what is essentially propaganda “concern” trolling without pointing it out, eh, you’d be wrong. You have a right to express your opinions. You don’t have a right to not have them criticised – and on any grounds the critic might choose whether you approve or not.
Now, have you got anything to say about theocracy and the 1st or do you want to continue to fling poo in the name of the 2nd?
I’m fine with it either way.
Tony,
Show where I specified sole cause?
You can’t, but good luck selling that . . . again. That you cannot differentiate between prime cause and sole cause is your failing. That’s what you get for building a straw man. I’d think you’d have learned the risks of trying to make my arguments for me by now.
As for the rest of your gibberish? I specifically answered about how intent operates at law and “fleeting intent” hasn’t got squat to do with it nor does ease of action – only action taken. That a killer may regret the action after the fact is immaterial to taking the action to kill no matter how easy it is for that specific killer. That actus reus requirement is a b*tch, but it is a requirement and as I said, there is no such thing as a mens rea only crime. That you don’t like the answer is irrelevant.
Try again.
Oh…I’m so slow. I finally got the connection…guns ARE intimately connected with the establishment of an official religion, the original topic of this thread.
Guns are the official religion of the United States of America. This also explains why no facts, no reasoning, can budge the faithful. It’s not a matter of reality, it’s a matter of theology.
Sorry, I’m just slow on the uptake. As you were.
There are two kinds of opinions, Bob. Founded and unfounded. There are two kinds of argument. Honest and dishonest. If you wish to use a quite frankly embarrassingly thin propaganda technique (and both you and G. Mason are actively engaging is a rather amateurish display of such techniques), then your embrace of dishonest argumentation is – like your opinion – your choice. Neither of you are helping the debate as you try to make each other “the bad guy”. Making enough hot air to pop popcorn, but doing nothing productive at all past that. A perfect illustration of the unreasonableness inherent in the polar extreme positions on this issue.
But please, react like a child some more when your bullshit weak tactics are pointed out. At least you tacitly admit that you don’t care about either logic or evidence in formulating your opinion. That is, of course, in addition to expressly admitting you’re engaging in a dishonest argument by using loaded terms which is inherently the fallacy of appeal to emotion.
It’s funny.
In the 80’s bad open mic standup kinda way.
Propaganda techniques are a tool.
And like all tools, poor tool users ensure poor results.
Carry on.
Gene: You can continue to build all the straw men you want and ignore that tools don’t use themselves
No, that is YOUR straw man; I have not ignored that at all, I addressed it specifically.
I shall again: Fleeting mens rea are an intractable fact of the physiology of the brain; so are the nervous system signals that ready muscles to act and sometimes trigger subconscious preparatory movement or muscle stiffening. Therefore the problem is in the energized “tool” that too easily senses and converts small movements into major energetic actions; in the natural world in which we evolved, the clenching of a fist in anger never blew anybody apart, nor did any other small two or three pound movement.
The problem is not in the people, the problem is in the tool, and specifically the “unnatural” sensitivity and power of the tool that preempts the natural (slower) mental and physical mechanisms that would normally prevent the shooting or murder.
The “fleeting guilty mind” or urge to commit violence is at the heart of the issue, just about everybody will naturally have such fleeting urges at some time in life. Knowing that, and that such states are normally fleeting and in the natural world would usually have to be non-fleeting in order to commit a violent murder, a “tool” that is so sensitive it bypasses our normal biological processes of self-restraint (which take time, we do not think infinitely fast) is an irresponsibly unsafe product.
Yes, guilt requires a guilty act; but the tool is at fault if, so to speak, it “jumps the gun.”
Gene H.,
Yes, yes, yes…most of us were in some generation that was fascinated by martial arts, and James Bond, and learned all these cute ways of killing without using firearms. Of course, you can kill someone without using a firearm. Run over ’em with your car. Tell them an interminable, boring story, until they commit suicide, a la Airplane.
Killing with your bare hands? Vulcan death grip? Choking? Cervical dislocation? Vibrating palm of death? A pencil? An ashtray? My logic?
It ain’t like in the movies or on TV, or on the dojo floor. If someone perceives that you’re trying to harm them, they might fight back. They might just beat the hell out of you. You’re scaring them!
A firearm is a different matter. You don’t need much nerve, or much determination, to injure someone, particularly if you’re not standing close to them. Even if you miss the first shot, the detonation will likely cause the victim to freeze. Not a brave way to kill, but easy.
OK, I know my terms are loaded, it’s a straw man, it’s ad hominem, it’s ex post facto, it’s coitus interruptus, it’s all mea culpa.
I don’t really care what Julius Caesar or Cato woulda said about my argument. I’m just stating my opinion.
G.Mason,
You know, you could just quit while you’re only paranoid and delusional, without dragging my name into your psychotic rants. You were doing just fine, displaying your paranoia dump. But, no:
“People like Bob Kauten are how people like Hitler and Stalin came to power.
I am not speaking of ‘commie etc etc’ either. I am speaking of mindless well intentioned sheep who blindly follow and obey the pied piper. Well the path to hell is paved with good intentions.
What I do not understand is, if they are so unhappy here with all of the guns, why do they not simply leave, move to another country where there are stricter gun control laws. Mexico comes to mind.”
G.Mason,
Ewe wooldn’t even have felt bleating sheepish, when I herd what ewe said?
Sorry, I would’ve loved to help you put Hitler and Stalin into power, but I wasn’t around then, yet. You could’ve asked ’em what “fascism” is, and for a demonstration.
Mmmm…no…actually, there is a great deal that you don’t understand, about most things, not just guns. You don’t understand that you have no business telling others to leave the country because they don’t agree with you. That’s in the superfluous amendment that comes before your all-defining super-god-amendment. Just run your eye up to the text before, “A well regulated militia…” It’s in there, really!
“It’s positively insane to allow access, open or otherwise, to high-powered, large capacity weapons, for which the only appropriate use is on a battlefield.”
Which completely ignores the facts about gun violence by gun type or that banning such things is technologically futile because of their ease of manufacture, but does a wonderful job of demonizing the opposition by dismissing them as insane.
First rate propaganda.
Not helpful to the debate in the slightest.
Swarthmore,
I hope that article is right.
The issue of gun violence is a complicated one, but if the dumbing down of society is going to continue (and we’ve seen attacks on education from public figures like Robertson and Limbaugh recently) irrational thought is going to become more widespread and lead to an increase in antisocial behavior. Add to that the fetishism surrounding guns and violence in the entertainment media and it’s bad policy to allow essentially unfettered access to anyone guns. It’s positively insane to allow access, open or otherwise, to high-powered, large capacity weapons, for which the only appropriate use is on a battlefield
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-politics/wp/2013/04/09/democrats-on-verge-of-beating-back-gop-led-gun-filibuster/?hpid=z2