CP3S said:
zombie84 said:
It isn't ignorance when it's based on the existance of institutions, national policy, and daily encounters with individuals from said countries espousing those views. Again, I'm not saying every American is, for example, obsessed with guns. But as a nation...well, your country is obsessed with guns. That's based on the general cultural views you have as well as the existence--and widespread public support (it is a democracy after all)--of the national and state gun laws, as well institutions like the NRA, and also some really scary statistics. You have the highest gun ownership rate on the whole planet and one of the highest gun crime rate in most if not all of the western world. As a Canadian, the majority of my media is American--newspapers, television, and movies. I travel to the United States on a regular basis and have American family members.
It is still ethnocentrism. There are many cultural reasons for why Americans are the way they are, it isn't cut and dry, plain and simple, there is a lot of complexity to it. It is ignorance because you don't attempted to understand American thinking or the cultural and historical differences, rather you simply judge the hell out of it based on how unlike you we are.
I understand the historical reasons why things developed the way they did, that doesn't mean it has to make sense or justify them though. Especially since most of those reason no longer exist in the contemporary world.
But you hear of public shootings in the US all the time, and you don't hear of that anwhere else--I think you guys have actually become desensitized to it to not realize how bad it is.
There was a pretty big shooting in Switzerland a few years back, you'll hear of others from time to time. China has this crazy thing where lunatics run into schools with knifes and start slashing at children. America doesn't have a monopoly on senseless public mass target violence done by crazies. But yeah, it is obviously a problem here. However, saying we are desensitized to it is yet more ignorance on your part. You don't know how we feel about it. All you know is what our shitty over the top news media throws at you about it. Every time one of these shootings happen the next several days are usually pretty gut wrenching for us. You can't escape it, people sorrowfully talk about it where ever you go.
Yes, and in China it's knife attacks. Imagine had that person been in the US, and much guns they would have had? It would have been Aurora but worse. Everyone has crazies and killings. This year, Canada had a psycho that was into mailing body parts to the government. Norway had it's massacre. There are always these things, and Aurora is exceptional even by American standards. But my point is that something like 25 Americans die from gun violence each day. You don't need to have Aurora to see that something is terribly wrong with that. In most western countries the figure is more like 3 or 4, not 25. That's what I meant about desensitization. Mass murders always blow up in the media and people are affected by them--Canadians are very affected by them too. But it's the taken-for-granted everyday gun violence that people don't seem to think about, because it never changes and for most people isn't something on people minds the way Aurora is. There is something terribly, terribly wrong with united states gun crime, and while it's a political issue, unless there is some mass murder thing like Aurora no one is rushing to have conferences and make laws to deal with it. It just kind of goes back and forth and goes no where.
Why do you think there aren't "anti-Canadian" mentalities widespread across Europe?
Because Canada is a ridiculously low impact country. You guys don't really do anything or get involved in anything or export anything spectacular or noticeable. The important or notable things you do take part in go mostly unnoticed. As far as important players on the figurative Risk board of the world goes, Canada simply doesn't rank very high. During my years living in Europe you never really heard Canada's name mentioned. Once during my travels I mentioned a trip I took to Canada to an acquaintance and they asked me if it was a city or a state.
United State policies effect the world, in good and bad ways. The world gets billions from us in aid annually. Americans branch out all over the world providing benevolence and or stirring up trouble and anything in-between. Our movies, our television, our clothing, our restaurant chains, and our brand names are rammed down the world's throat, and a decent sized percentage of them are thrilled about this. America is extremely high impact.
I don't have near as many people who hate and can't stand me as Justin Bieber has. I also don't have near as many people who absolutely adore me. I don't have masses of idiots ragging on my every move regardless of what I do, "Damn you Bieber for dating American pop star Salena Gomez!", "Damn you Bieber for dumping American pop star Salena Gomez!". Poor Bieber is doomed to piss people off no matter what he does, regardless of his actions, someone out there who likes him isn't going to like it. I get to dump, be dumped, make horrible or wise decisions with only an extremely small handful of people really caring about it or being impacted by it in any way.
It's not because Bieber is just high impact and the United States is. People are annoyed with Justin Bieber because his music isn't very good and people can tell he's just another manufactured pop star. Plus, he comes across as obnoxious. People have always disliked pop stars and it's basis is because of the music they make, not the fame they have. No one goes around hating on Red Hot Chilli Peppers because for the most part they are respected music makers; not that they don't have critics, but there is no "anti-Chilli Peppers" sentiment anywhere. They aren't quite as in-your-face as Beiber, but they are pretty world famous. The "anti-American" sentiment (again, I use that in quotations) is mainly born out of the policies and mentalities that come from there like gun culture and religious extremism. It's not just irrational, and it's not always unjustified either. You can't say someone is ethno-centric just because they don't like parts of a society, there may be very legitimate reasons to take issue with those parts. Ethno-centricsm would also imply that I am saying this from some official Canadian stand point. I don't like a lot of things about Canada and have some pretty harsh criticisms for it. I don't even believe in nationalism. It's just useful as a contrast. I could easily pick a country in Europe that has some of the same stats and values (most of them, Russia and a few places excepted).
Dude, cannabis is illegal in the vast majority of the US. I have no freaking idea where to get it if I wanted some. Would I just walk up to some sketchy guy on the street and ask him if he has or knows anyone with pot for sale? I have no idea! But I do know that the state I live in has really high pot usage. I smell it while out for walks sometimes, I hear co-workers casually talk about it. It is out there, but I personally have no idea how to obtain it. Mostly because I am disinterested in obtaining it. However, if I wanted some, I am pretty sure I'd be able to find some.
Why would it be any different with guns? If I am the type that would commit armed crimes, I likely know others who are the same types, who are likely to know others, and there has to be a hook up in there someplace not too many degrees away.
Because guns are not cannabis. If I am in a gang, yes, I would know where to get a gun. But a lot of gun violence is not committed by gang members or people who set out to create gun violence, but because they have guns in the first place that violence occurs. If the shooter in Aurora had to go to an arms dealer, would he have? Would he even know where to go? And would he go that out of his way? Or would he have just picked up a knife instead and do what they do in China and cause far less amount of deaths? Cannabis is also tolerated by law enforcement to a certain degree, in fact it will probably be legalized north of the border within the next ten years. You can't compare a college kid smoking a joint to a guy going to an illegal arms dealer, it's two completely different things.
Even though most/many gun violence is caused by gangs and people who set out to cause violence, a lot of gun fatalities are not caused by people in gangs or people who would purchase a weapon on the street (if they even knew how to go about it). If 1 in 4 people own a gun like in the States, you will assuredly get situations where a person is murdered where there wouldn't be a murder had a deadly weapon not been present or accessible. It's just a numbers game.
Of course there is. Just like a country without cars is going to have a crazy low amount of automobile related deaths
I can see you are meaning this sarcastically, but I'm not getting it. That is my point. You don't think gangs in Japan can't get black market guns? They can and they do. But 99% of the population isn't armed, and the gun homicide rate is less than a dozen people in a whole year in some years. In 2007, or some time around then, something like 30 people were murdered by guns in Japan and it became a bit of a national crisis; in the United States there were thousands, I think up to 10,000 that same year. That is what I meant about de-sensitization. That is a crazy, crazy, frightening figure that should be met with a proportional response, but instead it's more or less business as usual. It's not something everything thinks of as a national crisis of apocalyptic proportions, if they think there is a gun problem at all. Even though the United States has a cultural history involving guns (revolution war, etc.) that many countries don't, do you think Japan would have such low gun murder rates if they had the same exact laws in the US, where guns are everywhere and easily accessible? Of course they wouldn't. And that is the point I was making. In Japan it is almost impossible to get a gun, and no one has them, so there is almost no gun crime at all. Gun laws wouldn't solve the problem in the US, but it certainly would save many lives.
This also reminds me why I stay out of politics. The internet is full of Americans and it's perfectly understandable that a lot of them would disagree with me, given the cultural and socio-political norms there. Just trying to provide an outside perspective that a lot of Americans either ignore or don't hear. I don't mean to come off rude, it's just very frustrating to see the health and well-being of people put at risk for reasons that aren't very necessary.