For years we were told that Americans should aspire to be successful enough in life to buy a house. Sometimes I'm told that the lack of minority home ownership is a sign of structural racism in America, and I would make the case (not here, it's off this topic and would take too much space) that the Community Reinvestment Act which tried to fix that perceived injustice was the root cause of the real estate crisis during the GW Bush presidency.

Now this article is claiming that owning a home is sexist? That being allowed to take the part of my income that's left after all the taxes and buy a residence where I don't have to hear the neighbors stomping around upstairs or pay extra for a garage I'm not allowed by the property manager to use for changing the oil in my car, is biased against women?

My wife works, and despite the statistics claimed in the article, she currently has a longer commute than I do (I bought my house before we met, or we'd live somewhere in between). She doesn't want to deal with multi family zoning. She loves having a big yard, loves having a decent sized house, and if someone tried to tell her she needs to be next door to her mom she'd probably throw something at them.

I know, that's a sample size of one- but I don't think a single person I work with has a spouse who wants to move out of their house and into an apartment.

Zoning in the big cities (the article references Seattle, half an hour north of me and scene of a ludicrous housing market) has to change because there's no way to pack as many people into a city as want to live there. Men, women, it doesn't matter. Everyone has trouble living in Seattle unless you're making Amazon/Microsoft money.

 

It seems I remember this period when child seats were first out or ten years ago :-/ Anyways there was a period I remember where it was thought that there wasn't much difference between having a car seat and not. But things have gotten noticeably better, right? I'm not a parent so I haven't really had much need or interest in pursuing the issue, sorry. Did watch the video though.

 

I think the author has made the point that much of the decisions out there regarding issues made was made by men. She argues that it was made with man being in the position to take advantage of that decision made. Several times she made reference of Europeans being more in tune to building for society in general.

From my limited experience of taking mostly subways in the LA area with bicycle. I did at one time use that system for over 9 years. I found that just designing open space in both subways and buses were quite useful. Yeah it didn't have seat in the open area, but if the buses or subways were really crowded, open space really packed more in than having seats. Also open areas would easily accommodate wheelchair, stroller or bike and people quite easily.

 

I'm going to skip over a few of the more minor points and end with how the author doesn't feel safe.

I've worked for a local police department for the last ten years. People deserve to feel safe in their homes and communities... but I have a problem with anyone who has an SJW attitude towards life and complains about not feeling safe. Not because their opinion makes them less worthy as a human being. It doesn't. It's because many of them actively oppose the things that would actually make them safer where the law and crime is concerned.

The article links to a Slate article about a mother who was prosecuted for negligence in the death of her child, who was improperly secured in a child seat. The Slate piece says the crash was caused by an off duty cop, who was arrested, but argues that the mother should not face responsibility for not securing the car seat, as the death of her child ought to be punishment enough. The streetsblog article casually paints the incident as systemic racism, combined with systemic sexism.

Why? I don't know, it's not specifically explained, but the mother being black would be a pretty good guess. And she is, you find, if you dig another link deeper. Slate doesn't mention race or racism, perhaps because the arrested cop was also black. Keep digging in The Advocate's news stories, and you find the victim vehicle's driver was cited for no seatbelt, driving without a license, and three improperly secured children. Another adult passenger was cited for no seatbelt, and the child who died was strapped loosely in a child seat resting on the car's center console. Eight people total riding in a car with five seats.

So what does this have to do with the original article I've been talking about? Even though the crash was the fault of the cop, and he probably ought to be convicted for the negligent homicide he was charged with, to say holding the grossly negligent occupants of the victim vehicle responsible for their lack of proper action is racist/sexist is ridiculous. Especially when the author argues about the need for more safety and free child seats everywhere.

 

If you want to feel safe, there are things you can do as an individual and as a society to actually be safer, which is better than actually being less safe and lying to yourself about it. Enforcing existing law is a good place to start. Every single person who breaks the law and gets arrested rather than sent to a hospital for mental health evaluation is capable of changing their ways and reforming themselves. Unfortunately, most of them don't want to. Why should they? Crime was working pretty well for them until they got caught, and when the prosecutor lets them plead out to a few days of time served plus probation, there's not a lot of downside to it.

I work near Seattle. The Seattle/King County government has bought in to the SJW idea that disparity of outcome means discrimination even if there is no intent. They won't enforce the lowest degree of driving with a suspended license, because they believe black people won't pay their traffic tickets and therefore punishing anyone for it is racist (generally suspended 3rd here comes from not paying tickets). I still have a hard time wrapping my head around how casually some people assume black Americans are incompetent by nature and can't be responsible for things as simple as getting a driver's license. You want to talk racism? A blanket belief that an entire race should be treated like children is the best example I can think of.


They're choosing not to enforce drug laws, and doing everything they can to avoid prosecuting simple assaults and property crimes, all on the grounds that punishing people won't help them, and we should instead provide services to help them become productive citizens again. It's not working. Your profile says you live in Sacramento, do you see the same thing happening there? I certainly read about it enough on the news, and you posted another article before about similar problems in San Francisco. I posted a response to that with a KOMO news special called Seattle is Dying- if you haven't watched it, please do. It's tragic, honest, and shows no political bias.

I don't know if you hold to the SJW approach or not. It sure looks like the author does, though, which means she probably won't take responsibility for her own safety and carry a gun. She probably wants reduced sentencing for a wide variety of crimes, which will have the effect of increasing the crime rate. She hints at outlawing 'hyper-macho dangerous trucks,' which tells me she doesn't mind increasing the amount of regulation on regular people, as long as it makes her feel safer, even as her ideal world would become less actually safe. This kind of cognitive dissonance would be enough to make me question the entire piece without looking at the details, but the details don't seem to hold up either.

 

Thanks hasdrubal,

You have done a nice job on responding to the article in question. Thanks for taking the time to do so. I see most of your arguments here. I am a bit alarmed that you expect the author to take up arms in order to make herself feel safe. Seems there are better options out there. I feel for the females in our society. It has to be difficult navigating about. Even in the daytime it may not be that safe for them.

Your profile says you live in Sacramento, do you see the same thing happening there? - Unfortunately I don't really have the pulse of the city and other than reading articles and going about my day, I don't feel like I know what happens day to day to the society in general.

I don't know if you hold to the SJW approach or not. - I have to say I hold those values much more than not. I do feel that I make an attempt to see the opponents' view point.

In conclusion I do see the author's views and points made. I do pretty much support the article and some points stronger than others.

 

She shouldn't have to carry a gun. She has the right to do so as an American, but she does not have any obligation. If she wants to be safer than she is, though, she can either do something about it, or not.

The answer requiring less personal risk is to vote for politicians who prioritize enforcement of law without regard to race, gender, creed, etc, and prioritize the well being of law abiding citizens over those who break the law. Then police (like me) can take the risk for her and reduce the number of criminals making it dangerous for her to walk around at night.

Since we don't have the ability to arrest people for crimes they might commit in the future, this is only a partial solution- even in the nicest neighborhoods there is the potential for violent assault. This is where someone truly concerned would take steps to protect themselves. We all mitigate risk, living in lower crime areas, locking our doors, owning dogs, even not walking around at night (grown men are the majority of the robbery victims I meet) if we can walk around in the daytime instead.

And for anyone who understands that unless a cop sees you being attacked, the fastest your 911 call can actually be put out over the radio is about three minutes, you can exercise your inherent human right to defend yourself, and your Constitutional right to bear arms in the process.

We can't make laws guaranteeing any person's right to feel safe- otherwise we'd have to eradicate spiders across the continent for my wife.

 

Oh yeah, having everyone carry guns sure will make everyone safe! It seems you would also support the view that any and all teachers in schools should be carrying too, right? This scenario will far make more people unsafe and far more lives lost to shootings. Like teachers don't have enough to deal with nowadays, we're going to pile a BIG responsibility on them more.

Not even fully trained full time FBI agents can handle the duty wisely!

Dancing FBI Agent Accidentally Shoots Bystander

OH yeah........ your other points make much sense and agreed upon.

 

How do you know when you're near the pinnacle of society? When people have time to be offended about every little thing. Life was a lot simpler when people were just trying to avoid getting eaten by a saber tooth tiger.

As far as that video above, just outlaw bad dancing and it'll solve a few problems at once...

 

Look at some of the details of my post on guns/safety. I'm specifically saying not everyone should have to carry a gun. Many people are for various reasons, uncomfortable with them, and that's ok. Many people are fine with owning guns, shooting them for recreation or hunting, but know they won't be able to pull the trigger at another human being even if their own life is on the line. I have no problem with that.

Statistically, when a state changes their laws to allow concealed carry, a drop in violent crime rates tends to follow. And since there are many states that have allowed carry permits for years, we have statistics describing the responsibility of permit holders. They tend to be very low compared to the average population- they're a self selected group that cares enough about doing things the right way to jump through whatever hoops their state requires. The last time I looked it up, it was even lower than for police officers.

By that token, I believe teachers who are willing to carry a gun, attend regular training, and pass qualifications like I have to, should definitely be allowed to do so. The teachers who are not willing (probably 90% or more based on the local schools) should definitely not be forced. One thing's for sure, though, an armed teacher will be at the scene of a school shooting a lot faster than any policeman who has to hear it on the radio and drive there.

Have you seen the video of the DEA agent who shot himself in the foot while talking to a room full of students? There's idiots everywhere you go. The trick is to fire them when you find out they can't be trusted.

 

The problem is of people that think they are trained. You can have "extensive" training like our FBI hero above, and they still do stupid $hit. They do stupid $hit and then it gets labeled an "accident". The accident was giving the person a gun! You need references of "trained" people doing stupid $hit with guns?

 

If your argument is that even people who are intended to have a decent level of training are not to be trusted with dangerous weapons, then the endpoint is universal disarmament of even the military. We have people doing stupid things with pistols, rifles, tanks, fighter planes, warships, and nuclear missiles. My company commander in Iraq accidentally discharged a machine gun right over my head. Fortunately it was into a berm, but the battalion S-1 officer tried to climb up into a hatch on a Stryker and fired a burst into a building because he grabbed a gun as a handle to boost himself up.

I wasn't in a tank unit, but I've seen more than one article on tanks rolling over in training. I could post links to flight training crashes where instructors got students killed by telling them to fly lower than they were cleared for, Navy ships running into freighters (not just us, the Norwegian Navy had the same problem pretty recently), and I seem to recall one story where an Air Force guy dropped a wrench in a missile silo and caused a fuel leak that ended up making the entire thing explode.

Good policy isn't made by looking at a few unfortunate but rare events. Good policy is made by looking at cost/benefit impartially, and most of the time the numbers point to carry permits and armed, responsible citizens bringing significant benefits to crime rates and very little cost. I don't mind you disagreeing, but using the FBI moron as an example isn't going to convince me. Find some studies that don't use 20+ year old gang members as youth victims of unprovoked gun violence, that don't lump suicides in with murder victims (because you can't get a gun in Japan, but that doesn't stop them from killing themselves), and convince me with data.

 

Did our FBI hero have "decent level of training"? Look at the results!

Universal disarmament is not a bad move. We currently spend about as much as next 10 countries. So what do you think? Lets scare the public and generate more spending? This is kinda what I'm expecting from you!





No it's not, but you better hope it isn't your loved ones that end up with some loony with a gun, dancing at some night club.

 

You don't actually believe this, do you? You're being facetious, right?

 

See hasdrubal, scaring people would not be hard to do at all!

 

That's not what I asked. Nor is he scaring me.

You're proving hasdrubal's point I quoted earlier and extrapolate:

hasdrubal has been quite factual and even-handed in his points. I would imagine one would only find his arguments scary if one can't see past their own biases.

 

You're right. I always get so emotional when innocent lives are lost. We need to get more a-holes doing stupid $hit on streets. Lets get more "decent level of training" for all the a-holes!!!!!

 

You're exemplifying the point.

 

He's in Cali so we can Red Flag them to make sure they are not a danger to themselves or others...

Universal disarmament? Good luck with that. After the shooting in NZ, they instituted a "buy back" and only a small percentage of the weapons were turned in. How do you think that would fare in USA where firearm ownership is even more ingrained?

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/world/h...ing-6-weeks-in

 

Universal disarmament is an impossibility and those that advocate for it are simply not living in reality. (apparently the live in California instead...)