Philosophy Now Forum

The most shocking visual image from the Connecticut school massacre had nothing to do with the massacre itself. It was a picture of the police taking the gunman's brother in for questioning in handcuffs.

Hi bobevenson

bobevenson wrote:The most shocking visual image from the Connecticut school massacre had nothing to do with the massacre itself. It was a picture of the police taking the gunman's brother in for questioning in handcuffs.

The choice of shocking visual images are:
1: 20 dead children.
2: 6 dead adults.
3: 1 man in handcuffs.

You chose 3. Would you care to reconsider?

uwot wrote:Hi bobevenson

bobevenson wrote:The most shocking visual image from the Connecticut school massacre had nothing to do with the massacre itself. It was a picture of the police taking the gunman's brother in for questioning in handcuffs.

The choice of shocking visual images are:
1: 20 dead children.
2: 6 dead adults.
3: 1 man in handcuffs.

You chose 3. Would you care to reconsider?

First of all, there weren't any visual images of any dead people, but there was a visual image of somebody not connected with the case being arrested and led away in handcuffs in violation of his Constitutional rights.

Hi bobevenson

bobevenson wrote:First of all, there weren't any visual images of any dead people,

Have you no imagination?

bobevenson wrote: but there was a visual image of somebody not connected with the case being arrested and led away in handcuffs in violation of his Constitutional rights.

The way the law works in a free society, bobevenson, is that in most cases the person arrested has yet to be found guilty of the offence they are arrested for. It is only unconstitutional if they don't get a fair trial.

uwot wrote:Hi bobevenson

bobevenson wrote:First of all, there weren't any visual images of any dead people,

Have you no imagination?

bobevenson wrote: but there was a visual image of somebody not connected with the case being arrested and led away in handcuffs in violation of his Constitutional rights.

The way the law works in a free society, bobevenson, is that in most cases the person arrested has yet to be found guilty of the offence they are arrested for. It is only unconstitutional if they don't get a fair trial.

Sorry, imagination is not a visual image, and it is improper for the police to arrest somebody without probable cause.

Hi bobevenson

bobevenson wrote:Sorry, imagination is not a visual image,

So the images released by the media are the whole truth?

bobevenson wrote:and it is improper for the police to arrest somebody without probable cause.

Do you know what he was arrested for?

uwot wrote:Hi bobevenson

bobevenson wrote:Sorry, imagination is not a visual image,

So the images released by the media are the whole truth?

bobevenson wrote:and it is improper for the police to arrest somebody without probable cause.

Do you know what he was arrested for?

I'm not talking about the truth, I'm talking about what I saw on TV. The gunman's brother was arrested for questioning. The police put handcuffs on him as if he were a criminal for all the world to see. The gunman was obviously mentally ill, but the police didn't have that excuse.

Hi bobevenson

bobevenson wrote:I'm not talking about the truth, I'm talking about what I saw on TV.

Do you know the difference?

bobevenson wrote:The gunman's brother was arrested for questioning.

Is that the truth or what you saw on TV?

bobevenson wrote:The police put handcuffs on him as if he were a criminal for all the world to see.

Is that the truth or what you saw on TV?

bobevenson wrote:The gunman was obviously mentally ill, but the police didn't have that excuse.

Is that the truth or what you saw on TV?

You know, I think you may be almost as crazy as that gunman.

bobevenson wrote:

and it is improper for the police to arrest somebody without probable cause.

I have to agree with BobE.

In cases like these, mass hysteria erupts and to pacifiy sometimes, people who are innocent are put in handcuffs and led away. It brings to mind the Bob Dylan's song.

Cries out "My God they killed them all"
Here comes the story of the Hurricane (Rubin Carter)
The man the authorities came to blame


and look what happened to him. 18 years wrongful prisonment and again in 1996 Carter, then 59, was arrested when Toronto police mistakenly identified him as a suspect in his thirties believed to have sold drugs to an undercover officer. He was released after the police realized their error.

I'm ok with gun control, but I think we'll find that trying to legislate weapons out of existence is a fool's errand in an era when technology and information are exploding.

If we took every gun off the street then the wackos will resort to poison gas or fertilizer bombs, or something else. In the not so distant future the wackos will be using DNA engineering to release dangerous new life forms, and more and more things like this that we currently aren't even thinking about.

The question is.... who are the wackos?

99% of the time they are men.

Yes women can surely be wacko too, but it usually doesn't express itself in violence, especially not random mass violence against strangers.

The reason we see so much violence all over the world is because everybody likes to wring their hands, but nobody wants to do what is needed to actually make it end. That is we choose to accept violence, and content ourselves with tweaking it here and there.

Thousand of years of evidence from every corner of the world reveals that this tweaking operation will never deliver a state of peace. And, as technology continues to empower everybody, including warlords and wackos etc, we should expect to see the violence hit us with ever more impact.

The problem is not the weapons, but the people using them.

The only real choices are:

1) Dramatically re-engineer the human mind.

2) Get rid of men.

3) Accept ever increasing levels of violence.

Option #1 is ideal, but hopelessly futuristic at this point.

Option #2 will start to look reasonable once a few more cities are erased by wacko men.

Option #3 eventually leads to the end of civilization.

My guess is that one way or another men will be leaving this planet. Either as the result of war, or as a choice made by those who have finally seen that the choice is, find a real peace, or die.

Felasco wrote:The question is.... who are the wackos? 99% of the time they are men.
The only real choices are: 2) Get rid of men.

OK, so much for the dyke vote.

Felasco wrote:3) Accept ever increasing levels of violence.

But the level of violence in society is not increasing.

Steven Pinker: The surprising decline in violence: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ramBFRt1Uzk

again i'd have to surmise that banning guns is not the solution. i would be all for it aside from the fact that i know it wouldn't work in the U.S. and would spawn very negative results.

the negative results i think might happen:

decent people angry about their rights taken away

more people pulling their kids out of the public schools

violence ensuing

underground weapons trade

increased taxation to maintain something that probably 3/4's of the nation would argue is not working and making things worse

.