Some of my thoughts at current

[Jackal]

I was reading this thread a minute ago
http://www.pafoa.org/forum/general-2...up-page-2.html

I think there is a serious problem at current in this country. There is a deficient collective consciousness. I felt a lot of pride reading the above thread, but most people would probably call us radicals had they read that. That is the severity of this problem in the collective mindset.

Government is and always will be, inherent in its nature, against the people. Any government that has power will seek more of it. This is a cyclic process. The constitution is nearly rock solid, so how did current times come to be, where we discuss such things as if they are likely.

George Carlin is a Genius, even if you don't favor his humor. One of his best points.....give the people more toys and they will give you more rights. Without hurting anyone's feelings or insulting modern ipod culture, consider how many people might function better in the vegetable section of your supermarket than in positions of civic duty? Personally I know a lot.

How many people did you go to school with or work with who are ignorant to all things vital but well apprised in matters of the esoteric consumer market, gaming, bright lights and distractions.

Whether it is specific intention or unfortunate result of US education, people are having a hard time thinking these days. I was in a discussion forum the other day, room consensus was that critical thinking skills should be taught no earlier than high school!?!? This was for our sake, because people can't handle complex topics earlier.

I got some weird looks and the comradery of only 1 other person when I explained how repeated lessons of societal obedience yields, logically, obedience. This kind of functioning does not lend itself to thinking and analysis but to listening and regurgitating information. Something like a mantra, zombie-speak even.

That is in essence of the condition of affairs here today. People receive information, there is little scrutiny or skepticism, and often times this information is accepted at face value because most of it falls within their accepted core beliefs. Anything outside of these beliefs is dangerous and must be treated with caution if not disdain.

Why? I would like to direct you all to investigate Terror Management Theory, a developing focus of psychology and social functioning.

One interpretation is as follows:
When people are faced with stimuli that threaten their security or highlight the salience (obviousness) of their own death, they act in peculiar ways. Evidence has shown that they will be driven to identify with figures and ideals that are advertised as common and intrinsic in propogating the survival of themself, vicariously represented by society at large.

So guns, though clearly essential to this nations freedom and efficacy, are continuously associated with negative stimuli that constantly reminds people of their own death. Homicide, robbery, terrorists, school shootings, any kind of violence involving guns will undoubtedly remind receivers of this information of their own death....and consequently, they appose this. It follows that anything that bolsters the salience of ones' death will be labeled as enemy, even if this is you and me, the common 2nd amendment supporter and freedom loving American.

The studies conducted to date seem to show that any stimuli coupled with the consideration of one's mortality will thusly become hated and feared. The other aspect of TMT theory is that people will follow figures who they believe will ensure their existence in life (and after death through legacy, children, fame, and fortune) and also the evidence suggests that people associate more with people who share views with them.

So, the most powerful thing we can do, now and always, is to think as much as possible and to use critical thinking. If not, your cries for liberty may go unheard and misinterpreted as foreign and/or enemy. You can't have a conversation with someone who is asleep....wake them up!

[TaePo]

Bingo,

I never put a name to the phenomenon but there you have it.

Some of my thinking comes from the fact I studied and spent a year on the DMZ in Korea.

Anyone who has done so, regarding a Communist totalitarian regime or studied propaganda etc. in Nazi Germany during WWII has an inkling of which you speak.

Kudos.

[Brown-Bear]

You know I never really realized how little I thouygh about hings til Iwas in college and we studied "The allagory of the cave". For those unfamiliar, this is where the " I think there for I am" came from.

In sociology we studied propoganda, marxism, commuinism and so forth. People should spend the rest of their lives eeking out as much knowledge as possible.

God post, Great thought.

BB

[markheck1]

Did they teach that these were good things, BB?

[sgser]

We can really drag the points that jh664 was making off topic by doing what frequently happens when someone posts a longer and more complex thread.

Brown Bear brings Plato into the picture which easily spins off to Descartes. If you want to, from here you can make a quantum leap (pun) to Heisenberg and delve into Quantum Physics. You know where, among other things, a particle can be in two different places at the same time. One of the "interpretations" of Heisenberg's musings was the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics. This can lead us into a discussion of the relative merits of spotting scopes.

But what of the issues brought out by jh664? Probably end up just as did the shadows in Plato's cave, which we all tend to see differently.

I am curious to see just how many respond to this thread. It will, indeed, be a shame if it dies on the vine. What a loss that would be.

Bausch and Loam, anybody?

[crlovel]

Good post. Thank you.

[Jackal]

I see very often far-fetched threads and ones with amazing creativity and speculation, what if, this creativity and imagination was used to produce discussions that immediately affected us all? That was my only hope with this thread.

Thank you for the remarks thus far.

[BenningBoy]

Since the majority of this forum lives on the other side of the Terror Management Theory and view guns as essential for survival, they exhibit a will to survive. Since the anti-gun masses clearly seek a political messiah to take the bad guns away and ensure their immortality, are they worthy of the attempts to wake them? Do they wish it? Does it suggest that natural selection applies to mankind simply as "survival of the guys who get off the couch and think beyond American Idol and take responsibility for themselves?" And why is ammo so expensive?

[Jackal]

Originally Posted by BenningBoy

Since the majority of this forum lives on the other side of the Terror Management Theory and view guns as essential for survival, they exhibit a will to survive. Since the anti-gun masses clearly seek a political messiah to take the bad guns away and ensure their immortality, are they worthy of the attempts to wake them? Do they wish it? Does it suggest that natural selection applies to mankind simply as "survival of the guys who get off the couch and think beyond American Idol and take responsibility for themselves?" And why is ammo so expensive?

You bring up an interesting point I was actually thinking about earlier. How come everyone on this board is into guns (making this assumption for obvious reasons) and seems to be savvy of political infractions on rights. Here is what I think, an unofficial psychological profile of members here.

Chances are, you believe in being left alone by the government.

You are not afraid, or believe you are not afraid, of providing yourself with protection - done through gun ownership.

You probably believe in the U.S. Constitution and therefore follow some of its philosophical ideology.
-you believe your life has individual rather than collective value.
-you believe your voice has power and others should respect its sovereignty.
-you do not believe in absolutism or totalitarianism
-you recognize the danger inherent in not believing in any of the above mentioned items.

Therefore, it would seem that this particular sub-culture of gun owners may tend to be inherently more resistant to collective ideation or groupthink. We are a more individualized sub-culture, and therefore, may not feel the need to relate to cultural leaders as proponents of our own immortality; indeed we are ourselves the champions of our own existence.

Its obvious how difficult it is to convince someone that they are wrong when this person knows that they are right. If someone has a complicated structure of false beliefs, each bull-shit brick stacked on the one below it, going higher and higher....the real problem is the foundation of the structure, which is also made of false perceptions and beliefs. You ask if they are worth it, I say how do we even go about it? Their skewed look on guns is probably just one piece of their mentality.

I have asked a Clinton supporter before about gun rights, and myself was stupefied not by her response but by how alien her view on it was to me. How this person, living in my immediate vicinity, could think about it that differently. It made me wonder about the deeper aspect of this conversation we had, which was subconscious even. It was not what we were saying but how we were taught to think. What experiences had we each encountered that A) caused me to feel the need to provide for my own protection, and B) caused this woman to feel the need to have it provided for her. I know why I do, and I am sure each of you have some idea of what has happened to you in your life or how you were raised that made you feel the need to be the master of your own fate.

So, it would seem, that before I ever approached the situation with her I should have asked her about her life rather than her position on gun rights. I would have gotten a more illuminating answer.

Thus, the modern culture may* (big speculation) be churning out people who get most of their sense of fashion, how to look, how to act, what is funny, how to behave, what is unacceptable, what is threatening (and illuminates the salience of our death) entirely from the media machine. If you do not subscribe to the media machine, then chances are most people you interact with do and thus by proxy you are still getting your dose of it. I do not know to what degree the media messages are influencing people, but surely it must be having some adverse affect that to some degree is making people more comfortable with accepting things and less inclined to ask questions.

[jon'76]

I am a college student and I deal with those who live in a false reality on a daily basis.

The problem is that humans are ruled by fear and anything regarding the restrictions of our rights are immediately justified by the fact that it was necessary because the government said so (and they wouldn't lie....would they? ), and since every other sheep believes it necessary I, the individual, am wrong.

I have come to accept that 90-95% of society is too ignorant and naive to even attempt to help. It's sad but should the day come when we the people are reduced to serfs as long as these fools have their distractions they'll believe whatever trash is fed to them.

I think it's far more preferable to attempt to reach the few individuals that show promise with our message; rather than spout off to any fool who brings up the topic.

Never Forget:

1.) Jury Nullification
2.) 16 Am Jur 2d, Sec 177 late 2d, Sec 256
3.) The Bill of Rights