henry porter is an idiot, not to put too fine a point on it.
he advocates european and u.n. intervention upon american soil to stop the "civil war" that goes on between americans in the form of "gun violence."
nope, i do not make this up. "american gun use is out of control. shouldn't the world intervene?" 21 sept 2013, the uk guardian/the observor, http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/sep/21/american-gun-out-control-porter .
his is a relatively straight forward argument.
1.)american gun violence justifies foreign intervention. he adds up american war casualties since 1775, compares them to gun deaths, and says that the deaths we have inflicted upon ourselves exceed the casualties we have suffered in all the wars since 1775. satisfied with his statistical proof, he says this is civil war, and the world should step in and do something about it.
he says:
"but what if we no longer thought of this as just a problem for america and, instead, viewed it as an international humanitarian crisis – a quasi civil war, if you like, that calls for outside intervention? as citizens of the world, perhaps we should demand an end to the unimaginable suffering of victims and their families – the maiming and killing of children – just as america does in every new civil conflict around the globe." http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/sep/21/american-gun-out-control-porter .
2.)he also says that we are lunatics in that we cling to ancient precepts of gun ownership which we should discard, and become, well, enlightened on the subject as he is, and as he posits most europeans to be. he says those of us who hold to the second amendment do so on the same basis as slave owners held to the institution of slavery, prior to our own civil war. (does he say that war shouldn't have been fought?) he says the following, in case you think that i am miscasting his remarks:
"half the country is sane and rational while the other half simply doesn't grasp the inconsistencies and historic lunacy of its position, which springs from the second amendment right to keep and bear arms, and is derived from english common law and our 1689 bill of rights. we dispensed with these rights long ago, but american gun owners cleave to them with the tenacity that previous generations fought to continue slavery. astonishingly, when owning a gun is not about ludicrous macho fantasy, it is mostly seen as a matter of personal safety, like the airbag in the new ford pick-up or avoiding secondary smoke, despite conclusive evidence that people become less safe as gun ownership rises. [live link edited: jjj.]" http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/sep/21/american-gun-out-control-porter
well, as you might imagine, this has sparked some reaction among american commentators. i won't go into that here, or link it, ... , it should be easy enough for you to google, and the live links below should get your reading started.
nope, that's not what i am about.
the thrust of his argument is that gun ownership begets violence, and preserves nothing of value in terms of heritage, historical, or intellectual value. he says we simply are not as enlightened as europeans, have made a muck of things, and that we ought to "dispense" with those rights previously held by englishmen in the magna carta, the english common law, and the bill of rights of 1689, ... , just as have the contemporary english.
he is enlightened. we are ignorant, churlish, and lunatic. in a word, backward.
well, simple and straightforward has some virtue. but, only when one is right, only when one is correct.
when one is butt wipe stupid, and woefully ignorant of european and english history, then there is no virtue whatsoever in being simple and straightforward. it simply becomes simple-minded. you know, leftist pap.
let's look at history. let's look at the history of 20th century war in european history, in that glorious search for the collective that european leftists and intellectuals like henry porter have foisted upon europeans. let us look at the costs of the "intellectual path" followed by those who have dispensed with individual right (such as encompasses the right to weapons for self protection and political expression.)
"list of conflicts in europe" is a summary of european wars, with a chapter specific to european wars of the 20th century. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_conflicts_in_Europe#19th_century .
20th century[edit source | editbeta]
- 1903 Ilinden Uprising
- 1904–1908 Macedonian Struggle
- 1905 Łódź insurrection
- 1907 1907 Romanian Peasants' Revolt
- 1910 Albanian Revolt of 1910
- 1911–1912 Italo-Turkish War
- 1912–1913 Balkan Wars
- 1912–1913 First Balkan War
- 1913 Second Balkan War
- 1914 Peasant Revolt in Albania
- 1914–1918 World War I
- 1916 Easter Rising
- 1917–1921 Russian Civil War
- 1917–1921 Ukrainian–Soviet War
- 1918 Georgian–Armenian War
- 1918 Georgian-Turkish War
- 1918 Finnish Civil War
- 1918 Polish-Czech war for Teschen Silesia
- 1918–1919 Georgian-Russian conflict over Sochi
- 1918–1919 Polish-Ukrainian War
- 1918–1919 Greater Poland Uprising
- 1918–1920 Estonian Liberation War
- 1918–1920 Latvian War of Independence
- 1919 Hungarian–Romanian War of 1919
- 1919 Christmas Uprising
- 1919–1922 Greco–Turkish War
- 1919–1923 Turkish War of Independence
- 1919–1920 Czechoslovakia-Hungary War
- 1919–1921 Silesian Uprisings
- 1919–1921 Polish-Soviet War
- 1919–1922 Irish War of Independence
- 1920 Polish–Lithuanian War
- 1920 Vlora War
- 1921 Georgian-Russian War
- 1921 Uprising in West Hungary
- 1922–1923 Irish Civil War
- 1924 Georgian Uprising against Soviet Union
- 1934 Asturian miners' strike of 1934
- 1934 Austrian Civil War
- 1936–1939 Spanish Civil War
- 1939 Slovak-Hungarian War
- 1939 Occupation of Zakarpattia Oblast by Hungary
- 1939–1940 Winter War (Soviet invasion of Finland)
- 1939–1945 World War II
- 1939 Soviet invasion of Poland
- 1939–1940 Winter War
- 1940–1941 Greco-Italian War
- 1941–1945 Soviet-German war
- 1941–1944 Continuation War
- 1944 Slovak National Uprising
- 1944–1956 Guerilla war in the Baltic states
- 1945–1949 Greek Civil War
- 1953 Uprising in East Germany
- 1956 Uprising in Poznań
- 1956 Hungarian Revolution
- 1956–1962 Operation Harvest
- 1958 First Cod War
- 1959–2011 Basque Conflict
- 1968 Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia
- 1968–1998 The Troubles
- 1970–1984 Unrest in Italy
- 1972–1973 Second Cod War
- 1974 Turkish invasion of Cyprus
- 1975-1976 Third Cod War
- 1988–1994 Nagorno-Karabakh War
- 1989 Romanian Revolution
- 1991 Ten-Day War
- 1991–1992 Georgian war against Russo-Ossetian alliance
- 1991–1993 Georgian Civil War
- 1991–1995 Croatian War of Independence
- 1992 War of Transnistria
- 1992 Ossetian-Ingush conflict
- 1992–1993 First Georgian war against Russo-Abkhazian alliance
- 1992–1995 Bosnian War
- 1993 Cherbourg incident
- 1993 Russian constitutional crisis
- 1994–1996 First Chechen War
- 1997 Unrest in Albania
- 1998–1999 Kosovo War
- 1998–present Dissident Irish Republican campaign
- 1998 Second Georgian war against Russian-Abkhazian alliance
- 1999 Dagestan War
- 1999–2009 Second Chechen War
- 1999–2001 Insurgency in the Preševo Valley
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_conflicts_in_Europe#19th_century .
now, just how did international intervention in these conflicts work out? you ever hear of the league of nations, and how successful it was.
i would remind mr. henry porter, that in the midst of american glee at killing one another via the use of historical right we should have "dispensed" with years ago, as he has so cheerfully done, the united states intervened in two world wars to pull western europe from the cauldron of chaos and carnage that it, with its enlightenment, plunged itself into all by itself, and without any help from we ignorant, backwards and lunatic americans.
look at the above list, if you will, and examine the periods preceding world war 1, and world war ii. those wars did not spring forth in full bloom absent historical context, and that "context" was a series of wars between european nation states preceding general conflagration. prior to world war 1, there were wars in the balkans, between greece, italy and turkey, and after world war 1 there were further wars between the combatants to consolidate their gains in lands, property, wealth and influence to be spread around with the break up of the ottoman empire, and the austrio-hungarian empire, not to mention civil war in russia as the bolsheviks consolidated the deposing of the czars.
what in the hell did this have to do with americans clinging to ancient liberties.
look at the above list, if you will, and look at the years preceding world war ii. it shows civil war in austria, civil war in spain, and war between slovakia and hungary. there was war beginning in 1939 when russia invaded finland, and war between the finns and the russians continued during world war ii over lands contiguous to st. petersburg/leningrad. prior to the war, the greeks, italians and turks waged an armed conflict. it doesn't mention it, but the italians invade ethiopia, and had a rough go of it. it doesn't mention it, but the italians also waged war in the balkans. after world war ii, there was civil war in greece.
the list is also quite silent as to the war between england and argentina over the falkland islands. although it was not a very large war, it cost lives, and consumed wealth and material. ships were sunk, planes were shot down, and pilots and crew died.
now, the conceptual point of all of this is quite simple.
how did the "dispensing" of civil right and liberty by english and european people, how did the embracing of this notion of collectivism and suppression of individual right which has been a hallmark of european and english history in the 20th century, ... , how did all of this glorious self subjugation as championed by henry porter in his leftist zeal, ... , how did all of this prevent world wars i & ii, and the death and destruction suffered by millions in violent conflict.
well, the surrender of individual right and liberty, those things which we "lunatics cleave to," the giving up of guns held by individuals, did nothing to prevent wars by armed collectives, did it?
the death total suffered by americans throughout history because of gun deaths inflicted by citizen upon citizen pales in comparison to the wars fought by european collectives, shed of their individual liberties and rights, and shed of any manner by which to influence the course of a collectivist history which killed them in droves, as wheat stalks before the scythe of henry porter's enlightenment.
i have provided a link to a listing of all wars since 1900, at the polynational war memorial. http://www.war-memorial.net/wars_all.asp .
the wars, and the casualties suffered in them, are listed in chronological order.
world war i is said to have consumed 10,670,868 persons, a rather precise number given the general nature of death and destruction on the battlefield, and in cities and villages.
mostly english and european, with a smattering of colonial troops and americans thrown into the mixture for, ... , what, ... , metaphors fail, ... , leavening?
world war ii is simply described as having 50,000,000 people killed.
again, i remind the dolt who is henry porter, "journalist & essayist," that the tolls would have been much greater if not for the intervention of we gun-toting & lunatic americans, with our antiquated values of right, liberty and freedom.
this list is sobering. if you are a leftist who holds to the shibboleth of american violence and a mentality that embraces war, i suggest you look at this list and its accompanying death tolls. you will see, simply, that war is not solely our provenance, and that a gigantic military is not necessary to inflict untold suffering and death.
finally, i leave you with this link, entitle "europe," http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Europe .
in the contents bar, click paragraph 3.7, "20th century to the present," where you will find these paragraphs.--
"In 1933, Hitler became the leader of Germany and began to work towards his goal of building Greater Germany. Germany re-expanded and took back the Saarland and Rhineland in 1935 and 1936. In 1938, Austria became a part of Germany following the Anschluss. Later that year, following the Munich Agreement, Germany annexed the Sudetenland, which was a part of Czechoslovakia inhabited by ethnic Germans. At the time, Britain and France preferred a policy ofappeasement.
Shortly afterwards, Poland and Hungary started to press for the annexation of parts of Czechoslovakia with Polish and Hungarian majorities. Hitler encouraged the Slovaks to do the same and in early 1939, the remainder of Czechoslovakia was split into the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia, controlled by Germany, and the Slovak Republic, while other smaller regions went to Poland and Hungary. With tensions mounting between Germany and Poland over the future ofDanzig, the Germans turned to the Soviets, and signed the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact. Germany invaded Poland on 1 September 1939, prompting France and the United Kingdom to declare war on Germany on 3 September, opening theEuropean Theatre of World War II.[134][135] The Soviet invasion of Poland started on 17 September and Poland fell soon thereafter.
On 24 September, the Soviet Union attacked the Baltic countries and later, Finland. The British hoped to land at Narvik and send troops to aid Finland, but their primary objective in the landing was to encircle Germany and cut the Germans off from Scandinavian resources. Nevertheless, the Germans knew of Britain's plans and got to Narvik first, repulsing the attack. Around the same time, Germany moved troops into Denmark, which left no room for a front except for where the last war had been fought or by landing at sea. The Phoney War continued.
In May 1940, Germany attacked France through the Low Countries. France capitulated in June 1940. However, the British refused to negotiate peace terms with the Germans and the war continued. By August Germany began a bombing offensive on Britain, but failed to convince the Britons to give up.[136] In 1941, Germany invaded the Soviet Union in the ultimately unsuccessful Operation Barbarossa.[137] On 7 December 1941 Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor drew the United States into the conflict as allies of the British Empire and other allied forces.[138][139]
After the staggering Battle of Stalingrad in 1943, the German offensive in the Soviet Union turned into a continual fallback. In 1944, British and American forces invaded France in the D-Day landings, opening a new front against Germany. Berlin finally fell in 1945, ending World War II in Europe. The war was the largest and most destructive in human history, with 60 million dead across the world.[140] More than 40 million people in Europe had died as a result of the war by the time World War II ended,[141] including between 11 and 17 million people who perished during the Holocaust.[142] The Soviet Union lost around 27 million people during the war, about half of all World War II casualties.[143] By the end of World War II, Europe had more than 40 million refugees.[144] Several post-war expulsionsin Central and Eastern Europe displaced a total of about 20 million people.[145]
World War I and especially World War II diminished the eminence of Western Europe in world affairs. After World War II the map of Europe was redrawn at the Yalta Conference and divided into two blocs, the Western countries and the communist Eastern bloc, separated by what was later called by Winston Churchill an "Iron Curtain". The United States and Western Europe established the NATO alliance and later the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe established the Warsaw Pact.[146]"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Europe#20th_century_to_the_present .
so, were i to meet mr. henry porter, "journalist & essayist," i would ask him, just who are you, you smug arrogant enlightened euro son of a bitch, to lecture americans on violence? i would simply point out to him, that all of the americans who have ever died at the hand of other americans, pale in comparison to the europeans who have died at the hands of other europeans, thorough going collectivists and lovers of "humanity" that they are.
i doubt mr. henry porter has the capacity to see the relationship, ... , but i think the fact that americans hold the ultimate power of their politics, even as against the collectivists liberals and the oligarchical money barons, because of their gun ownership is the reason that we have not suffered the ravages of europe and england in the 20th century.
we have helf the power to prevent our politicians from leading us into this sort of carnage. if we have to, we hold the means to rise up against our ruling classes and displace them, to prevent the kind of things the europeans and british have suffered.
and, our "leaders" know it. they understand that power flows from our tacit approval of their actions, and when we disprove, we will simply unseat and replace them.
or, perhaps mr. henry porter understands full well the implication of the above historical fact about european and british warfare, and the death and destruction it has visited. perhaps he fully understands the importance of our gun ownership, and for that very reason wishes to see it destroyed.
not here. not on my shift. over my dead body. gun clutched in my warm dead hands.
john jay @ 09.24.2013
One must remember that Maxim invented the machine gun in order to make it easier for Europeans to slaughter each other. He thought war would then be too horrible to contemplate. As most Americans he didn't understand the European mind nor the age old animosities which still lurk just under the surface.
Posted by: Rollie | September 23, 2013 at 08:22 PM
Damn right.. Nailed it again..
- Rumson
Posted by: Rumson | September 23, 2013 at 08:34 PM
rollie:
they do like to kill each other. w/ enthusiasm.
scratch 'em deep enough, it comes out.
rumson:
thanks for coming by, thanks for the read, and thanks for the comment.
i don't think the euro/brits/ruskies have any moral standing to criticize the u.s., or anyone else, for that matter, when it comes to the issue of blood letting.
the list of the 20th century wars in europe is truly astounding. we are utter pacifists by comparison. i do not say that w/ tongue in cheek, either.
john
Posted by: john jay | September 23, 2013 at 10:50 PM
Bravo. We might add, what about the brush fires currently infecting greater Europe in particular at the hands of peace loving Islam? How's that gun-free thing-y working out for them? They'll probably want the Americans to intervene again at some point.
Posted by: Rex | September 24, 2013 at 08:37 AM