Greetings from America where the shooting last week is giving rise to heart heartsearching – as it should. The cause most discussed is the growing abusive and violent rhetoric currently used in political debate here. Regular visitors can not help but notice the growing violence in the way opponents refer to each other. The next explanation is mental illness and the lack of publicly available treatment. The least discussed is the easy availability of guns and the lax laws about carrying and concealing them and how there are 100,000 used each year.
To me the order should be reversed. We are right to radically restrict the availability of guns – the decision after Dunblane was right. We are also right to be debating the provision of more mental health services. Events here add to the urgency. The call here for less aggressive rhetoric convinces me that we should not abandon the formal and polite way we address each other in Parliament. It spills over into public life. Some reformers think it quaint but I appreciate its value when I hear the rhetoric here. I also value that political power in Britain lies somewhere in the moderate centre and not in the extremeties which appears to give rise to the political hatred expressed here.
Will this change anything? Not as far as gun ownership here is concerned. Some feel they need to be better armed for self defence while a few call for more gun control. I am afraid the outrage will die down and the shootings will continue.
What about access to politicians? Visitors like me have already observed that more political debate is being conducted by e-mail, social networking sites, reality TV programmes, friendly interviewers and book reviews. This is less a matter of security and more about enabling politicians to be frequently seen and heard without having their opinions challenged.
Will we go that way?
It depends. If more and more criminals have guns, then arming the population is one way to go, but with consequences.
If you prevent criminals from having guns then gun control is probably a good thing.
However the problem is you’re failing on dealing with criminals with guns. {You’re part of government, you take the can)
As for political language, you’re thieving my money, in lots of cases to waste or spend on yourselves.
Intemperate language is a mild way of expressing concern about what’s going on, an its a direct result of your actions.
If we take some examples of your policies.
If a median worker had put their NI into the FTSE, they would be on a joint life, RPI linked annuity of over 20K. Instead, you’re leaving them with 5K, not a proper joint life, linked to the lower measure of CPI.
So when it comes to intemperate language, if you have had 15,000 pounds a year plus stolen by the likes of you and your policies (you were in power, you take the blame), what’s the problem?
It is indeed very easy listening when the Lords address each other with calm civility. And it is proper.
However, politics is a passionate business and brings out the beast in men who care. The Americans feel they have been deceived, as do most of our UK citizens. And they have. They have been lied to and deceived, led up the garden path for their cross in the ballot box and once the electee, through that vote, is in office he/she denies being of the persuasion put forward to receive the vote, or, is told that what was said was spoken without knowing the full facts.
MP’s and government officials, both sides of the Atlantic, deny the public the courtesy or the right of telling what their policies really entail. Just take the last governments thirteen years of deception to it’s voters. And their additional abuse of the elector if they dared to question what was taking place or voice their opinion openly. Remember bigotgate? For years the public have been stultified by government sponsored political correctness.
You cannot involve us and want to know what we think and want, whilst pretending we didn’t think or want that which you find doesn’t go along with your parties concept of our future. Just because it doesn’t suit you doesn’t make our anger and defiance invalid. In fact, it pre-determines a violent outcome when it appears all else
will fail.
The joke here is how on earth are we hand in fist with a nation that executes men and women who are mentally ill. That it executes it’s citizens at all is outrageous. But to put to death a woman who did not commit murder on the grounds that she colluded in it but allow the actual man who did the act to go free is as banal as those governments we condemn. Example Iran. Our UK government has absolutely no cause to be groveling around such a so called ‘superpower.’ What is super about it? Can any of you tell me?
It is an abusive and down right duplicitous country and the mere fact that this man shot one of the government officials is not at all surprising. Remember what they do to their people. Waco, for example, or, shooting students on campus who speak out against the vicious treatment levied and so on and on. It is a violent society and as such will be treated by the people as it is being treated.
However, it is their society and nothing whatsoever to do with us. We need to be separate from this rogue state and soon. Our future lies in Europe. The US is of yesterday and like those other countries who rely on brute force to pump itself up into something it isn’t, they too, will shrivel up and fade away.
Their deceit and greed creates enormous anger. Obama promised change. The American people are suffering hugely by their governments insistence of keeping enormous amounts of the public in dire poverty and telling them it is the way forward. And we, like the rats of the pied piper, are following suit. Anyone in their right mind would realise this causes acute anger and that the result of that is what took place in Arizona.
Americans are legally able to bear arms. It is in their constitution and with this very purpose in mind. That free men in a democracy can and ‘should’ rise up against a government they see is acting against the human rights of the public.
Anger festers, the next move is always disobedience.
Anyone who genuinely believes the Federal Government is a force for ill in the States also knows that it’s pointless “rising up” against the world’s largest nation state with pop guns.
A dedicated revolutionary force, backed by the resources of a small nation state, could probably use terrorist means to bring down the government within a decade – the USA is actually particularly vulnerable to certain kinds of supply-line disruption, particularly internally. That this hasn’t happened yet is further evidence that the War on Terror is a fake to dangle in front of the rubes and get them to stop asking questions – if Terrorism was a genuine threat, we’d see some proper terrorism, not these useful idiots with petrol in their knickers.
I hope you have a snow shovel handy? The snow that fell 9 thro 11 Jan has caused governors in Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Tennessee to declare emergencies. Somewhat of a rare event it seems.
Of the two houses of Parliament the Commons has force fields in place to prevent opposing members physically abusing each another. The front benches have a line on the floor that members cannot cross and the Speaker can order members to ‘toe the line’. This is where the expression comes from.
The distance between opposing front benches is exactly two sword lengths because there was a time when one felt undressed by not having such a weapon by your side. The present spacing came about after somebody drew their sword, leaned over and lifted the hairpiece of the member opposite.
If you watch PMQs you can see front bench members dallying with the Speakers authority by placing the toecaps over this line. Of course there could be another explanation: the size of shoe has increased and most front bench members have UK size 11’s on their feet. A study is called for; should the lines be moved closer so as not to taunt the authority of the Chair?
As for the Americans, perhaps the US constitution needs changing so that the politically frustrated in open acts of defiance can roll up their sleeves and flaunt their naked limbs to remind Congress that they have a constitutional right to bear arms?
In my youth I had a temper, I would say without doubt if US gun law was applicable in this country I would be serving time, I doubt on my own.
Guns are available in the UK, it possibly would not take me too many calls to get one. This is something that has to be worked on by Government and it is the ease of coming and going from the continent that is causing it.
The defence often used is guns don`t kill people, people do, this is incredibly naive. The availability of guns kill people, the simple act of pulling the trigger is just that. Knife crime is prevalent not because of offensive use but the defensive use of carrying it, people carry them to defend themselves in most cases because of fear.
I hope we do not follow that Politicians cannot be challenged, I often worry here if some don`t post frequently because they tire of the challenges we offer. It is an easy option not to participate.
While I’m all in favour of improved mental health care, I think it’s a mistake to say that this should follow as a response to a shooting by someone who may have had mental health problems.
The idea that people with mental illnesses are dangerous “crazies” is extremely harmful. In fact, people with mental health problems are more likely to be victims of violence than perpetrators. They need to be protected from society, not the other way round.
I actually don’t’ think the Violent Political Rhetoric had anything to do with this particular case. I do agree that the Polemic has become out of control, but given the facts of this case it seems rather silly to think this particular incident, while Tragic, was part of the overall Left-Right political battle, ignited by endless debates.
The reason I say this is because the Shooter was not himself some Ardent Right Winger who was in the TEA party, and who espoused the usual Neo-Conservative Values they do, he was himself a Democrat and an Ardent Left Winger. He had been a Supporter of Mrs. Gilford, and his Political Views had always tended toward Liberal, just as she had. He was simply more extreme in his Liberalism, such as advocating Flag Burning. Incidentally, Flag Burning would be Anathema to the Right in America who are somehow being Blamed for this Tragedy.
I just don’t’ see how his actions really show the Increasingly Violent Rhetoric of Politics being the Blame, given his own Political Affiliation. Isn’t it more probable in this case that he was simply a Lone Gunman who acted on motivations spurred by Mental Illness, as opposed to a Political extremist who shot a Political Opponent?
After all, he did Vote for Gilford.
I understood that the institutional mental hospitals of old have all gone but assuming that there are still a certain number of “hospitals” where the “patients” are under lock and key, one wonders what Lord Woolf’s quota system of releasing mental patients would have?
In the prison system the idea was to limit the number on a daily basis to 80,000, and release accordingly if it went above this number. He acknowledged that it might well entail a more criminal community.
In the example of doing the same in the Mental “Health” services, it would mean a ‘crazier’ one.
As it happens, since he came up with what I viewed as a very eminently wise approach to crime, the prison population has gone up to nearly 83,000, since about 2006/7.
A relative of mine, a distant cousin, who lives in Kentucky, which can be quite a wild state, always insists that the right to carry a gun is an important freedom for a US citizen. He uses the freedom in defence of is own home and property from time to time, not least to warn an Englishman staying with him recently, that he was mistaken to go through his property deed box in such a thieving way.
Toy guns have flags which come out of the end, but are exact replicas of the real thing.
There is even one which fires a US flag first
and if advantage is again taken, a bullet goes flying out through the window from the same device.
If you do not take the US flag seriously, be warned.
I’m not sure where you are Lord Haskel but I too am in the Staes this week and have been travelling around in Georgia and today, Florida, accompanying my husband here for a lecture in Athens at the university. We were caught in the ice-storm which followed the freezing rain and Georgia more or less came to a standstill for three days. But bad weather is so rare here they are not equipped, rather like the UK I’m afraid and a state of emergency was declared. Holed up in a hotel we watched the TV. Not once did the mental state of the perpetrator of the shooting of the congressman and fellow victim get a mention, nor did the possibility of gun control come up locally. Access to guns is so universal and so deep dyed into the culture it’s clear that most Americans would rather put up with the shootings than control them. No-one would deny that better mental health care would help, but only of the people who are troubled by a drive to violence find the services attractive enough to use. It isn’t clear whether the man in this case was in the system or not. Political rhetoric seems to have contributed little to the cause of the tragedy as Zarove has pointed out.
It is unlikely this man would come to trial in the Uk for a similar act, he would probably be found unfit to plead. The real shock here in the US is that his mental state, however disturbed he may be, will not be taken into account in the process of law and he may well be executed if found guilty.
The shooter in Arizona has been widely acknowledged as not being aligned with any party. Just a ‘nut’. It has been widely noted that he was been influenced by others.
Who?
One of the people he killed was a Federal Judge.
In any case consider words Representative Giffords sent to the Nogales International newspaper just the day before she was shot.
She wrote of concerns, “The first is of special concern to those of us in Southern Arizona: the continued inability of our federal government to secure our border with Mexico.”
“We must extend the stay of National Guard troops. We must increase the number of Border Patrol agents on the border.”
“The second threat is our dependence on imported oil – much of which comes from nations hostile to our principles.”
“The Department of Defense is the world’s largest consumer of energy. We must accelerate the production of biofuels for aviation, promote large-scale renewable energy projects at defense facilities, study the integration of hybrid technology into tactical vehicles and require the military to derive 20 percent of its electricity from renewable sources by 2025.”
“The fourth, and most important, threat to our nation is our $14 trillion debt. This is why I introduced legislation on the first full day of the new session to cut the salaries of members of Congress by 5 percent.”
“We are a great nation, but these threats to our national security can leave us fragile. We cannot succumb to such menaces.”
Bang!
Any questions?
I’ve got a question.
What?
Goodness, what a provincial interpretation of the USA. I really don’t think the USA needs some British dude with no real understanding of the culture telling them how to run their legal system. It is, as with most things, a bit more complicated than that.
I am, also, astounded by the extent to which people blithely assume that they know the positions of parties based on their orientation around the floor of the legislature. Lord Haskel decries the “extremities” in American politics, presumably referring to the notion of so-called political polarisation in the USA. But that is an impression you get from watching the TV news, not from studying US politics. In practice, the Democratic Party is moderately to the right of the Tories on most issues, by any method that you care to measure things along an admittedly imperfect left-right swing. Both parties are significantly to the right of the population median when they are polled on issues, not parties (most Republicans “prefer” Democratic policies; most Democrats “prefer” issues not offered on any ballot in American for 40 years). And both parties are remarkably similar in substance and basic philosophy, particularly in the Senate, and differences in rhetoric are precisely that – rhetorical. The idea that there is a huge left-right split in America is not supported by the legislative history of either the House or the Senate over the last half century.
Where there are polarisations in America it tends to be along lines of wealth vs poverty, or race/immigration. And on those issues, I find there’s very little to be said for “meeting in the middle”. Moderation in tone, perhaps, but when one side’s position is “we should have all the money and all you poor people are the means by which we obtain that, nothing more“, I don’t think it’s so wrong to oppose that emphatically. But, hey, that’s just me. I’m not a rich guy, so this is maybe partisan, hey?
In any event. The USA, like Africa, is a complex ecosystem of political systems and cultures that really doesn’t respond well to people blithely assuming commonalities with our own culture that it genuinely does not share. It confuses people when they forget that it’s actually a foreign country.
I live in a rural area and the talk of gun control is a nonsense when it comes to rural property, and I believe that deaths from shot guns involving farmers’ shotguns are very high indeed, a number self inflicted, with whatever incidence of deliberation in the accident.
The intense closeness of urban life in the UK
absolutely requires complete control by licence, and in the future of Urban living worldwide surely requires the same intense scrutiny.
USA is a country of agriculture, and similar considerations may apply to the ownership of a gun in urban areas as do here without the strict laws to ensure it.
For those with a clean record in the UK licensing a gun is not difficult but has to be done properly and with due sense of form and order.
I have never needed one, but those pesky rabbits on my carrots, and that pesky fox(with my hens)! A clean barrel and a good eye with an air rifle sees them off! no worries!
Low level Tasers are an interesting development.
Low level Tasers kill just as easily as guns. And the abuse of them as prevalent.
Robbery is already taking place with low level Tasers. Which, just as guns, are obtained illegally. Those who keep these offensive weapons are not likely to line up to register them are they?
There are more guns per head in London than is commonly known about, according to the press. However, the important issue here is the arming and use of guns by the British police. They killed 33 people and if the press is to be believed, 30 of these were completely innocent people. In fact mistakes, or, mistaken identity. Even those who may have been guilty of crime at the time did not receive due process. The punishment for crime in this country is not death.
I would say this is license to kill by the state.
How many innocent people have been murdered by illegal guns in the same period?
I am also worried about the arming of police. I have to say I was reassured entering and leaving Westminster tube at the time of 9/11 and the July 2005 events by armed police, but not otherwise.
In particular, I have noted a tendency for the police not to sit out sieges for 24 hours or as long as it takes, but to bring things to a head deliberately or unwittingly; this is foolish as all are tired and jumpy after, say, 15 hours. Of course if someone is really being threatened then ‘take him out’ may be necessary, but sometimes this is not so.
As to tasers, as someone with a dodgy aorta, I would probably drop dead at any sudden shock to my chest, so I aim not to be at the wrong end of one. No doubt they have their uses but I am not convinced they are only used at the recommended range, nor that they are fired only once.
Finally as to the USA, they love their guns and once the hubbub over this incident dies down, they will go on loving their guns. From our distance it is not easy to know what it feels like to live on a remote farmstead. But by definition, most gun carriers live in urban areas. They inevitably get used, and people die.
First step may be for Americans to learn that their assailants, however nasty, have an unalienable right to life. They seem a tad short of this at present.
shooting last week is giving rise to heart heartsearching – as it should. The cause most discussed is the growing abusive and violent rhetoric currently used in political debate here
This seemed to be a question about the rise of the far Right US Tea Party movement, but then I saw the noble lord said “lax” laws and not “tax” laws!
How does a historian distinguish between true and false myth?! The Tea Party has created an “anti-history”. how does a historian distinguish between Memory and history?
No easy task, Jung of course being sure that
Memory, or the understanding of it, was based in Arthurian style legends. How about that!!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_Tucson_shooting
and it certainly seems to be that.