TL;DR: it is the guns, but it isn’t just the guns. It isn’t any one thing and it isn’t not any one thing.
it IS the guns. It’s hard / difficult to massacre with knives.
it IS mental health too.
Canada, Australia, UK, etc have horrifically underfunded and backed up mental health care systems - but yes, still far better than anything in the USA.
Canada has guns. Australia has guns. Neither has as many guns as the USA. Neither is as easy or cheap or widely available as in the USA. Restricting guns is what actually happens and is meant by your imaginary liberals and guns. They don’t mean that farmers shouldn’t have guns - they know that as a tool, they’re useful. I’m not saying hyperbole isn’t used (which pisses me off as much as you). But what I am saying is they’re right. It’s the guns. It’s the amount of guns. It’s the types of guns.
Which brings me to:
using words like “hysterical” doesn’t help. It’s misleading, and plain wrong.
And yeah, I’ve gone off from your main point of “the USA is too emotionally extreme”. This is… not wrong, but I want to argue overly simplistic. I (and others) have described the USA not as one country, but 50 or so (I’m not sold on the Dakota twins) countries that are loosely bound by their xenophobia of everyone else more than anything else. The country wasn’t founded on a love of the USA, but the hatred of the UK.
I mean, the UK isn’t really that much different. Remember Northern Ireland and Great Britain? Scotland and England? If they had guns like the USA had guns… woo.
So, America being a drama, etc? You’re not wrong. It’s an ideology that was instilled at birth, and raised by capitalism - money from engagement, and emotionally trapped people are engaged. It’s a society/system created, used and trapped by itself.
And guns are what turns that bubbling cauldron into massacres.
And massacres make the emotional drama cauldron bubble more.
Get rid of guns, you get rid of a lot of stress and drama. You don’t solve all problems, but you solve one that is repeating and feeding the drama machine.
Sell the guns to South America/ Israel / wherever they want to ruin next, and use the money to fund affordable housing or something. Solved two birds with one stone!
PS: I’d love to see the USA fundamentally change in one big way: a stronger, standardised federal government. For example, let states do state elections however they want. But if you’re voting in a federal election, it should be the same forms, same design, same level of access everywhere in the country. If you can drive freely between states, driving rules and tests should be standardised (they basically are, rural vs city aside). Education? Anything which affects and creates a level playing field across the country, ie. federally, should be standardized. If a state wants to charge sales tax, and another doesn’t - that’s fine! That’s local.
In the same vein, remove weird voted-in positions, like judges and sheriffs. Emotional, populist,partisan involvement in roles that are supposed to be neutral and balanced is insane.
You are simply describing the effects of political and social polarization. I blame it primarily on a decades-long process of consolidation of wealth, influence and opportunity in the hands of an elite few, but no doubt there are other factors at play as well.
On the flipside I am very much opposed to any theory of the case that has it as being somehow uniquely American. It’s not an American thing; it’s a human thing that can happen in any country and has in fact happened in many countries throughout history. It does not require that we posit some kind of national hysteria that’s unique to Americans when we can, with far fewer assumptions, simply point to polarization.
Yes, polarization is the relevant factor, as I said. What part about this do you not understand?
It’s not as if Europe has a great record in this sense either. One look at the last century tells us everything we need to know about how susceptible European populations are to polarization.
Polarisation is absolutely that bad or worse in Europe. Poland and the UK are two good examples.
Oh, and holy shit, Germany, etc. with lockdowns and such with covid. They went nuts.
Oh, and how about riots in France every year? Come on. For a relatively small country, they flip out and set fire to things WAY more often than the USA does.
Man, voted in positions sound so reasonable and logical and democratic, it’s a real bummer it doesn’t work in our current systems. You just end up introducing marketing to everything, ugh.
Positions should be based on merit, not money (advertising) and popularity. Judges and sheriffs have to make judgement calls all the time, and I’d prefer to have people with experience and without bias (as much as possible), instead of bought and paid for. Also, accountable to the system, not just the next election.
I am very much oversimplifying it, and skipping some issues, such as other existing systemic problems - but in short: what’s popular is not always right. Like mobs.
TL;DR: it is the guns, but it isn’t just the guns. It isn’t any one thing and it isn’t not any one thing.
it IS the guns. It’s hard / difficult to massacre with knives.
it IS mental health too.
Canada, Australia, UK, etc have horrifically underfunded and backed up mental health care systems - but yes, still far better than anything in the USA.
Which brings me to:
And yeah, I’ve gone off from your main point of “the USA is too emotionally extreme”. This is… not wrong, but I want to argue overly simplistic. I (and others) have described the USA not as one country, but 50 or so (I’m not sold on the Dakota twins) countries that are loosely bound by their xenophobia of everyone else more than anything else. The country wasn’t founded on a love of the USA, but the hatred of the UK.
I mean, the UK isn’t really that much different. Remember Northern Ireland and Great Britain? Scotland and England? If they had guns like the USA had guns… woo.
So, America being a drama, etc? You’re not wrong. It’s an ideology that was instilled at birth, and raised by capitalism - money from engagement, and emotionally trapped people are engaged. It’s a society/system created, used and trapped by itself.
And guns are what turns that bubbling cauldron into massacres.
And massacres make the emotional drama cauldron bubble more.
Get rid of guns, you get rid of a lot of stress and drama. You don’t solve all problems, but you solve one that is repeating and feeding the drama machine.
Sell the guns to South America/ Israel / wherever they want to ruin next, and use the money to fund affordable housing or something. Solved two birds with one stone!
PS: I’d love to see the USA fundamentally change in one big way: a stronger, standardised federal government. For example, let states do state elections however they want. But if you’re voting in a federal election, it should be the same forms, same design, same level of access everywhere in the country. If you can drive freely between states, driving rules and tests should be standardised (they basically are, rural vs city aside). Education? Anything which affects and creates a level playing field across the country, ie. federally, should be standardized. If a state wants to charge sales tax, and another doesn’t - that’s fine! That’s local.
In the same vein, remove weird voted-in positions, like judges and sheriffs. Emotional, populist,partisan involvement in roles that are supposed to be neutral and balanced is insane.
And the guns aren’t helping.
Damn, this should be copied and pasted to everyone arguing its not guns, you’ve covered basically ALL of the talking points incredibly well
Look, I don’t think it’s merely about mental health spend either.
I genuinely think that Americans are not very laid back.
It’s mir magic - some nations are more laid back than others.
You say the word “hysterical” doesn’t help.
But it’s what you need to hear.
Everything has to be coated with so much sugar you all get fat and the meaning is lost.
Yeah. That’s what’s it is. You’re just all always looking for drama and shit to get upset about.
It’s not more complicated than that. It doesn’t need everyone to sit down and get to therapy or make a TV show show about your pain.
It’s just that you’re all always looking for drama.
You are simply describing the effects of political and social polarization. I blame it primarily on a decades-long process of consolidation of wealth, influence and opportunity in the hands of an elite few, but no doubt there are other factors at play as well.
On the flipside I am very much opposed to any theory of the case that has it as being somehow uniquely American. It’s not an American thing; it’s a human thing that can happen in any country and has in fact happened in many countries throughout history. It does not require that we posit some kind of national hysteria that’s unique to Americans when we can, with far fewer assumptions, simply point to polarization.
Polarisation isn’t that bad in Europe. We take things in our stride better.
We’re not constantly freaking out over tiny things.
America seems neurotic.
Yes, polarization is the relevant factor, as I said. What part about this do you not understand?
It’s not as if Europe has a great record in this sense either. One look at the last century tells us everything we need to know about how susceptible European populations are to polarization.
Polarisation is absolutely that bad or worse in Europe. Poland and the UK are two good examples.
Oh, and holy shit, Germany, etc. with lockdowns and such with covid. They went nuts.
Oh, and how about riots in France every year? Come on. For a relatively small country, they flip out and set fire to things WAY more often than the USA does.
Man, voted in positions sound so reasonable and logical and democratic, it’s a real bummer it doesn’t work in our current systems. You just end up introducing marketing to everything, ugh.
It is completely unreasonable in every respect.
Positions should be based on merit, not money (advertising) and popularity. Judges and sheriffs have to make judgement calls all the time, and I’d prefer to have people with experience and without bias (as much as possible), instead of bought and paid for. Also, accountable to the system, not just the next election.
I am very much oversimplifying it, and skipping some issues, such as other existing systemic problems - but in short: what’s popular is not always right. Like mobs.