Willie Pep
Willie Pep's JournalEuropeans like Columbus were not the only violent people.
In light of the present controversy over Columbus Day, I think it is important to note that Europeans weren't the only violent people in the world during the period. On Aztec human sacrifices:
https://qz.com/374994/aztec-sacrifice-was-real-and-its-not-fetishistic-to-be-fascinated
There is an unfortunate tendency among some liberals to concentrate solely on atrocities committed by Europeans while ignoring the sometimes unpleasant historical evidence about non-European societies. The tendency sometimes goes so far as to paint non-Europeans as living in Edenic harmony with each other and nature until the evil Europeans showed up and made a mess of things. This itself can be seen as a racist trope, that of the "noble savage" untouched by the evils of modern Western civilization. It denies the reality and complexity of non-European societies.
Please note that I am NOT making excuses for the many atrocities and injustices committed by European colonialists, just that there is a very strong tendency on the part of some people on the left to have a biased and selective view of history.
They thought they were going to rehab. They ended up in chicken plants.
Very depressing but important article on rehabilitation work programs.
But in the rush to spare people from prison, some judges are steering defendants into rehabs that are little more than lucrative work camps for private industry, an investigation by Reveal from The Center for Investigative Reporting has found.
The programs promise freedom from addiction. Instead, they’ve turned thousands of men and women into indentured servants.
The beneficiaries of these programs span the country, from Fortune 500 companies to factories and local businesses. The defendants work at a Coca-Cola bottling plant in Oklahoma, a construction firm in Alabama, a nursing home in North Carolina.
Full article: https://www.revealnews.org/article/they-thought-they-were-going-to-rehab-they-ended-up-in-chicken-plants/
America's passion for guns: ownership and violence by the numbers
I thought this was an interesting article from The Guardian on some gun statistics from the United States.
For the full article see: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/oct/02/us-gun-control-ownership-violence-statistics
How did gun control become a "losing issue" for Democrats?
I am wondering if members here could help with some history. It seems like there used to be more support for gun control legislation. It seems like up until the 1990s there was more support for gun control laws culminating in legislation like the Brady Bill. But since then there has been a big push against gun control and now many people, including some liberals, seem to see the issue as a political liability and a losing issue for Democrats.
So what accounts for this change? I have heard theories ranging from the decline in crime making people less anxious about controlling gun violence (the theory being that white Americans tended to be more supportive of gun control when they thought it would take guns away from non-white criminals but not themselves) to blowback from incidents like Ruby Ridge and Waco in the 1990s that made people wary of government overreach.
Your thoughts?
Profile Information
Member since: Sun Oct 16, 2016, 06:41 PMNumber of posts: 841
