
at the risk of seeming cold, dozens of these incidents happen every month in Africa or SE Asia, and they go unreported. As sad as it is, every time I hear one of these reports about some nutjob in USA/Europe, it just reminds me that collectively we don't really consider those in the third world to be the same level of human as us.
Descendants of white Europeans slaughtered = several days of front-page news.
Descendants of others slaughtered = 2 paragraphs a week later.
Not that I'm preaching from a high moral standpoint - I don't care about African massacres either.
( , Fri 14 Dec 2012, 18:44, Reply)

I think in this country we kind of assume that most of Africa is in the shit one way or another, so we aren't surprised by the articles.
I remember a day or two after the London bombings in which 52 people died I saw a small article on the BBC website about 99 people killed in a bus bombing somewhere. Might have been Egypt...don't even remember now, but it was a grim context.
( , Fri 14 Dec 2012, 18:55, Reply)

www.boston.com/bigpicture/2012/12/the_wake_of_typhoon_bopha_phil.html
( , Fri 14 Dec 2012, 18:59, Reply)

You know when they have thta guy from Singapore on.
( , Fri 14 Dec 2012, 19:21, Reply)

I've read alot about Rwanda, DRC &c. and I've had tears streaming down my face reading- it's hard to comprehend such carnage/brutality/erosion of empathy....
And worse that the global reaction is a big "meh".
( , Fri 14 Dec 2012, 19:01, Reply)

that said, and at the risk of having 3 likes withdrawn (I know - the sacrifices I am willing to make)and as much as the USA is a fucking ignorant basket case, I do support the second amendment.
Thats not to say I think they manage it well, and the US has gone from being the most interesting debating ground (they very nearly voted in a Socialist President in the '30s) on the planet to being the most collectively & wilfully ignorant concentration of humans in history (including Australia) in the relative blink of an eye.
That aside, enshrining a populations right to arm itself to keep its government in check (which was one of the key reasons initially) is a fine principle which I think should underpin all civilised democracies.
The right to bear arms isnt America's problem, its the fact that it being the spiritual home of capitalism has led it to render most of its population bereft, pig-ignorant, expolited & bitter.
'A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed'
( , Sat 15 Dec 2012, 1:20, Reply)