Regardless of what people here think of Alex Jones, there are millions of people that listen, follow, and believe in him. Millions. Not thousands. Not hundreds. Millions. I agree that the guy is, much of the time, just batshit crazy, but he does have his moments. He does have a huge research team. He doesn't just throw out random baseless "facts". He looks like an idiot because he is overly passionate about what he believes in. He tends to rant, which is a huge turn-off for me. Is he a strawman? Not entirely. Do his emotional rants make him look like a fool? Yes, most of the time. I do pick and choose very carefully what I get from this polished turd. I do research anything I may think he says that is interesting. I do not worship him like the second coming of (insert preferred religious figure here).
A true Patriot fights for their country, not for their government.
Well, I didn't know who this guys is beforehand, but he's pretty much exactly like I imagined every gun advocate to be.
This is by far one of the stupidest things I have seen in a while. This is like a racist saying "I never really knew any black people, but after meeting Tyrone they are pretty much how I expected them to be." If you are serious then you are as ignorant as pro gun nuts who think an any type of firearem is needed to defend their homes.
Then you need to reconcile your imagination with reality. Jones is a political extremist, and was specifically chosen to appear due to his emotional, irrational, confrontational nature. His problem is that, while he does provide facts and evidence for SOME things, he often tries to twist them to suit his needs, and/or jump to conclusions 3 steps beyond what he presented evidence for that have no basis in reality. Example: Flouride is in drinking water. Flouride reacts with certain types of neurons in the brain regarding behavior. Conclusion: The government is putting flouride into drinking water as a means of mind-control. NOTE: I do not believe this, however this is a common, documented argument made by Jones and his followers fairly regularly.
Rather than working this morning, I've just spent an hour and a half watching a fair few of the various Piers Morgan interview recordings. Often Piers is described as rude, or as having been "owned", or as "grilled". But I'm not sure, or rather, it's not clear to me that on any one of these interviews Piers was actually rude at all. It's almost as if rather than actually answer the detail of the questions presented in an accurate and clear fashion, certain interviewees would merely rather label Piers rude, and proceed to ignore or evade this or that particular question.
One thing I should like to point out, is that, judging by the UK's standard for interviews, Piers isn't rude, but just asking honest questions to which he want's an honest answer. I do wonder how those same individuals would stand up to someone like Jeremy Paxman; who by contrast to Piers Morgan is, in my opinion, a much more critical and interrogative interviewer. I suspect many people feel as though Piers Morgan's quest for detail and honest answers which may be controversial, is rudeness, when really it's just an interviewer wanting detail and honesty. If pushing someone to answer a question publicly is rude, then perhaps we should all be that little bit ruder.
As for the particular "interview", at the start of the thread, Piers did very little except allow the man to discredit himself. I'm not entirely sure what is said to constitute a good, or meaningful or impactful debate; but it was impactful, and this "interview" will appear nearly entirely to the discredit of those arguing for guns.
Late Edit but, here's one with Paxman interviewing an American; and she also seems to regard Paxman as rude. Perhaps it's just the British type of interview: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4aiHbUplz3k
Last edited by Themessiah; 2013-01-09 at 12:03 PM.
My point is merely that it's a straight forward question: One can add in that there is more to the debate than merely one statistic, and that's fine. It would be a rare political issue to involve only one meaningful statistic. But we never got to hear that over the rant. Piers only needed and "got in" that one question because of the rant. Instead of an exchange of opinion, we just got blasted. Why didn't the guy just answer the question, and then attempt to add in, but also, did you know that X. Is Piers actually rude, and are his questions actually anything other than straight forward and honest?
You just need to have a damn good reason for having one. Coming from a rural area, most farmers are in possession of a gun for hunting/pest control/humanely putting down livestock.
Most "violent crimes" in the UK involve fists, it's how British guys, especially the testosterone fuelled 16-25 category 'sort things out'. You need to remember that different countries see what constitutes "violent crime" differently. As I have said before, every drunk idiot that throws a punch at someone at 2AM falls under that category. And we have a lot of drunken idiots.
People seem to keep ignoring this though, along with when I pointed out that the US's rape statistics are higher than the UK's, which flies in the face of the "guns lower crime because they're great for self defense!" theory.
Rape statistics have never been a valid argument. For starters, most rapists know their victims, and as such their victims aren't likely to think "hey this person that I've known for X amount of time has never given me any indication that he could be a violent rapist, but I should be ready to shoot him anyway". Also, a large percentage of rapes go unreported. How many is a topic of much debate because, again, they aren't reported.
Also, I own my guns for the dual purpose of hunting (providing for my family) and defense (protecting my family). I've never brandished a firearm in a threatening manner, and never keep them loaded. I'm properly trained in all aspects of firearm safety and am a competent marksman. I'm also a firm believer in "don't pull it if you don't intend to use it." If anyone sees me brandishing a firearm in a threatening manner, it's likely to be the last thing they see.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cf0MO55kMsI
It's not hard to do a little research and find out that all these Anti-Gun arguments hold no ground when compared to other causes of death in the U.S. I'm pro-gun. My grandpa taught me to shoot a little .22 rifle at the age of six. In 1999 I joined the Army as an Infantry soldier, served 11 years until injuries forced me to retire. I understand the concern for safety, but there is more safety in being able to proactively and legally defend yourself with a gun, than sitting there with no way to defend yourself and being a victim.
I love my country, we're great because of what we once stood for. We're losing our foundation, slowly willing to give it up piece by piece. If/When we fall, we'll have no one to blame but ourselves (American Citizens) for losing our American Pride and giving up piece by piece.
I lost 3 good friends, brothers in combat. All died fighting for what they believed in, bringing freedom to others. I don't know what goes on behind closed doors, but when it comes to putting your life on the line, you have to find something to Anchor you sanity and courage or you turn-tail and run. For us, our Anchor was our country, our families, bringing freedom to others.
This may seem a bit disjointed, but my message is to Americans, trying to reach the core of other Americans, to remember what we are about. Do things change? Yes, but don't forget what made us great. Read our history, how we fought for our freedoms. Read biographies of men who gave it all so that maybe their children and grand children would live free in a Great Country. We are great because our forefathers stood alone and led the way against the tyranny when everyone else said it couldn't be done.
Don't give up being American because so many say it isn't popular. I pray this doesn't completely fall on deaf ears....
Last edited by select20; 2013-01-09 at 11:40 AM.
my SWTOR referal link:
http://www.swtor.com/r/CVCyHD
So sad.. He comes off as psychophatic and a real jerk.
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hahaha i could not stop laughing, This had to be a joke.
It wasn't used by me. In the rare cases where victims don't know their attackers it WOULD make a difference, but since less than 10% of REPORTED rapes involve a complete stranger, it's invalid. A violent crime is any crime during which violence occurs. What should I mention? Just because the U.S. doesn't bother to arrest and prosecute every drunken bar fight doesn't make you "right". They're still violent crimes.
And hey, maybe if you Brits actually gave a fuck about your freedoms you wouldn't have CCTV all over the place, which is exactly why, as you put it, "every drunk idiot at 2AM is a violent criminal".