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Those who cannot remember the past …

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33 thoughts on “Those who cannot remember the past …”

  1. Nobody’s takin’ that ole “Thou shall not kill” seriously anymore…
    Add in the mess with China, Japan, the Philippines and the atolls/reefs/sandbars squabble with assorted jets buzzing around…enough to make you cover your head and go back to bed.

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    1. Here in Australia over the past half century that I can recall, we have been pretty much an atheistic society, or at least heading that way and our homicide rate is not that bad, it’s not that good either if you consider homicide bad, however the US prides itself on being a christian nation and believes the 10 commandment business and yet the homicide rate is atrocious
      .
      My point is; would it not be a good idea to outlaw all religions as the murders and mayhem seem to stem from the differences in religious beliefs.

      I’m an atheist as you can tell.

      Heres a link re our homicide rate which apparently is going down.

      http://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/2015/02/05/national-murder-rate-hits-record-low

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      1. Sounds reasonable, but since that ole killing image/rule has been more or less outlawed in schools and public buildings since the 60’s – and recent polls indicate the most of the US public doesn’t feel religious at all, lets just discard the religion/church concept.
        It does seem a basic human concept of killing others is really non productive could be agreed upon despite diverse philosophy? (but that would have to mean that everyone agrees that each life has some value or some reason to justify using environmental resources)
        I just framed it in Hick speech, sorry for the confusion.
        The only problem is when life styles/culture/philosophy says killing others is OK and another says it isn’t. (whether as medical decisions, judicial reasons, making sure crops make…you can add more). Dealing with that is what is complicated.
        Not enough corners to send everyone to any more HA HA.
        Used to work in research thinktanks with massive data collections and analysis…so genereally speaking, data can be used. morphed, interpreted in many ways…we did it often…so with a grain of salt…
        Always enjoy your discussions!

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      2. Seems to me, bottom line, that those not into killing others still vastly outnumber those who are. And if we’ve got them outnumbered, why the heck can’t we get together and do something!?

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        2. Lots of possible reasons: our aversion to violence, our disorganization, our preoccupation with the “others” among us, our “Let George do it” attitudes, just to name a few.

      3. Banning bread would make more sense since almost every single one of the murders eat it.

        I think it was Mark Twain who said there’s three kinds of liars… Liars, Damned Liars and Statistics. But then he never heard of Hillary Clinton.

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        6. A man and woman near Houston were found to have adopted several (I didn’t hear how many) special needs children and have had them imprisoned in a cell like room for months… they are receiving $50,000 yearly from the government for doing it.

          In Los Angeles, a structure was repeated inspected and repeatedly found to be a fire hazard and nothing was done about it. Now the local DA is attempting to find someone other than the inspectors and their bosses to blame for the recent fire and associated deaths.

          Laws that punish people prior to them being found guilty of causing harm to any person or property are being passed constantly. Pre-emptive punishment of innocent and otherwise law abiding people are being created to control the actions of criminals who have no intention of abiding by any law.

          Individual responsibility takes a back seat in these cases where laws either inspired or exacerbated the harm that eventually ensued.

          There are untold examples where government/industrial alliances proved to be harmful to us all and yet when the harm is identified, scapegoats pay the price and not the government or it’s business partners.

          Trump is being applauded for creating an attractive environment for one business instead of creating the same environment for all businesses equally. This isn’t a new thing, but what’s new is people are applauding it this time. The shallowness of the media and it’s government heroes is unbelievable.

        7. Not sure I get your point. The state should not have adoption laws because someone abused them? Or building codes and inspectors because if they don’t do their job, there will be a fatal fire? We should not pass any laws against harming people or property until after harm has been done? (Trying selling that idea to a murder victim.)

          Of course we shouldn’t pre-emptively punish the innocent. (Forbidding something is not punishing.) But if, for example, a previously innocent person kills someone, then having waited to pass a law against murder won’t do the dead victim any good. Better to have passed the law in advance and saved that person’s life. Sometimes waiting to pass a law until or unless we realize the need for it is a good idea. But in other situations, waiting means failing to protect someone or something.

          There is always a risk of unintended consequences when laws are passed, since lawmakers can’t foresee every possible future situation. But as the name says, those are unanticipated and unintended.

          Again, I may have missed your point entirely, But you sound a bit like a Libertarian railing against the passage of any laws whatsoever. That’s extremely idealistic given the number of people in the world who have absolutely no ethics or morals worth mentioning. The purpose of government is to “establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity.” Aside from imposing and enforcing laws, I can’t think of another way to do those things.

        8. The law against murder doesn’t pre-emptively punish anyone. Do you understand the difference? The laws against robbery, fraud, human trafficing, etc. are not laws that punish people prior to them braking them.

          Child abuse is against the law whether the child is adopted or born to the parents… but paying an abuser should also be against the law. And yet that isn’t usually tried in court.

          Hopefully I’ve better explained what I’m trying to get across.

        9. Rereading helps. I see now that govt. payments to the child abusers continued after they were incarcerated for child abuse. (I think the first time I just read it as that being the allottment they got for adopting the children). Of course the payments to them should have stopped as soon as the abusers were convicted. But they needed to keep going to somebody to support those special needs kids, whether foster parents or court-appointed guardians or someone else.

          As for the possible murder charges being discussed in the Oakland fire case, I’d just assumed the people inspecting the scene had found evidence of arson, or someone having intentionally starting the fire.

          I’m still not sure what laws you’re thinking about that pre-emptively punish innocent people. Could you cite some specific examples? Maybe I’m just having a senior moment, but I can’t think of any.

        10. Any law that punishes, or criminalizes an action that hasn’t harmed any person, group of persons or their property is one that pre-emptively punishes.

          Like for instance: Laws criminalizing a woman exercising her reproductive freedom, laws criminalizing a Jewish business owner because he/she refuses to decorate a cake with swastika’s. Like criminalizing the possession of controlled substances that aren’t mentioned in the constitution… like Cialis made in Canada… just to scratch the surface.

        11. Okay, I see. Admittedly some of those laws are passed by people trying to be pro-active and prevent some harm from happening. The problem is, those people generally rule in accordance with their own personal beliefs and not the beliefs or wellbeing of the nation as a whole. You know where I stand on antiabortion laws. And I’ve mentioned before my very minority position that small business owners should be allowed to chose who they will and will not serve. I do appreciate being protected from useless or dangerous counterfeit drugs, and I understand that many of them, made overseas, are sold in and through Canada. However, if Canada tests and certifies them, that should be sufficient for US regulators. (It’s our pharmaceutical mfgs who object as much as the FDA does.)

          I think pre-emptive laws are necessary in some cases, however, just to protect lives. Traffic laws. Building codes. Clean air and water regulations. Gun laws. If you wait till someone dies, it’s too late for a law to protect them and too late to get them justice by prosecuting the violator. So some laws have to be pre-emptive in nature.

        12. Most of the laws you mention harm more innocent (of causing harm) people than those who do the irresponsible act they were designed to prevent. Besides, real criminals don’t give a damn about illegality.

          Most pre-emptive laws are simply government money makers.

        13. I think most laws impose some order on society, without which we’d have chaos and anarchy, Those I disagree with I will work to rescind; those I think we need but don’t have, I will work to bring about. Aside from that, we’ll just have to agree to disagree.

  2. As an atheist are you also a humanist, and do you believe that man kind can save himself from the very destruction that we are bringing upon ourselves? Mind you I am not just talking about America but the world powers that are in charge now and in the immediate future.

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    1. I’m an atheist/humanist (you choose the label; I don’t care) and I believe certainly we can save ourselves if, as I noted above, those of us not into murder will just unite against those who are. We have to decide to save outselves. Religion is dividing the world, not uniting it.

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  4. Judging from the popularity of murder themes in books, movies and TV series, you’d think the homicide rate would be skyrocketing! But that’s not the case in most parts of the western world—except for the US. So maybe the act of viewing violence takes some of the heat out of the most dangerous elements of human behavior.

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    1. Then we have to ask ourselves how the US is different from the rest of the western world. I think there’s something lethal in the mix of proliferating guns, the media’s penchant for focusing on the most violent, divisive news events and exacerbating the partisanship and factionalism that already exists, the growing divide between the haves and have nots, hyper political correctness, and the list goes on. I don’t know where or how we’re going to reverse the trend. We may just implode the way the Roman Empire did — rotting from within.

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      1. IMHO, the demise of the liberty to take (or be held accountable for) personal responsibility contrasted by collectivist (government) usurpation of societal morality has a lot to do with it.

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        1. We are each responsible for everything we say and do in the course of the day. Societal morality really boils down to individual responsibility. I’m not sure what societal morality you think the government has usurped or enforces. Are you referring to the imposition and enforcement of laws? If you disagree with specific laws, you can work for their change or abolition. But without laws, we’d have anarchy.

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