Rant One

So I stumbled into this conversation on IRC…

 |TeslaTony| But the blame should largely be put on the parents
 |TeslaTony| Hello
 |Kathleen| There's lots of things that make those shootings happen. Bad
family lives, trouble at school, easy access to guns.
 |Kathleen| Right.
 |Kathleen| Hi
 |TeslaTony| Y'know, it's not that hard to make very lethal weaponry
 |sam| hahaha
 |sam| true.
 |TeslaTony| Propane bottle and a road flare
 |Kathleen| Very true.
 |Kathleen| But the school shootings are all happening with guns.
 |TeslaTony| Because they are convenient
 |Kathleen| Exactly.
 |TeslaTony| A bit of ingenuity could make a zip gun
 |Kathleen| What's that?
 |TeslaTony| Very simple single shot pistol
 |Kathleen| ah.
 |TeslaTony| Usually involves a nail, strong rubber band and a bit of pipe
 |TeslaTony| Most designs are stupid weapons, you're really better off
holding a pipebomb in your hands
 |TeslaTony| Or a kitchen knife
 + Kathleen nods
 |TeslaTony| Actually a serrated kitchen knife could make a really nasty
wound.....worse if it has been soaked in meat juices overnight
 |Kathleen| It could.
 |sam| personally I think trying to "fix" school shooting by keeping guns
away from kids is like trying to "fix" suicidal teenagers by drugging them
so much they don't feel  _anything._  You still have people so miserable
they want to die and maybe take other people with them.  This would still be
a problem even if you found a way to make it so NONE of them could EVER kill
anyone.  actually it would be WORSE of a problem then because it would be
stifled and ignored.  The problem is kids in America's schooling…
 |Kathleen| But with a knife the person holding it has to be within arms
reach of the person they're trying to hurt. With a knife it wouldn't work to
just spray bullets around the room.
 |Kathleen| Keeping guns away from kids wouldn't help. You have to go to the
root of the problem to really fix it, not just take away the symptoms.
 |sam| system are so totally oppressed and mistreated that they would like
to die and take everyone they know with them.  THAT'S the problem.  I don't
even see the point in stopgap measures to curb the violence.
 |sam| the violence isn't the problem, it's the wake up call.
 |TeslaTony| On one side one has to say "That evil person, he murdered!" but
on the other side you have to say "Who failed to teach 'Thou shalt not
kill'?"
 |Kathleen| Exactly.
 |sam| it's a hell of a lot worse that FAILING to teach "thou shalt not
kill"
 |TeslaTony| There's more to "Thou shalt not kill" than those four letters
 |sam| it's teaching "thou shalt not kill" along with an entire meme set
that is known to be 90% wrong.
 |sam| that' is OBVIOUSLY at least 90% wrong.
 |TeslaTony| If they were taught ways to deal with their anger in less
destructive ways then shootings wouldn't happen
 |sam| it's about making peoples lives so incredibly miserable that they
don't CARE if it's wrong, they want blood.
 |TeslaTony| Egads....
 |sam| if they weren't filled with so much rage by being told when to go
where, what to learn, what to think, HOW to think, WHY to think, when they
can use the bathroom, and that they're supposed to be better than they are
(no matter how well they may fit what's desired), then maybe, just maybe
they'd get rage in small enough bits at a time to learn how to deal with it
properly.
 |sam| maybe, if they got half an ounce of respect for their humanity every
once in a while from the people who dictate every movement they make, they
wouldn't want to kill them.
 |TeslaTony| A guy I know of said that he hated his school so much that if
it weren't for the fact that he knew better he would have blown the place
up
 |TeslaTony| And is smart enough to make a bomb powerful enough to eliminate
the entire school
 |sam| maybe if they weren't taught that someone else knows better about
everything, maybe if they weren't told exactly what where why and how to
think every thought in their head, and told by someone else what they're
loves in life should be, maybe if they were told that they got to chose what
felt right to THEM sometimes and GO with it, then maybe they wouldn't find
themselves with an irresistible urge to rebel against any and all of the
dictates from the powers that be over them.
 |sam| including rebelling against obvious intuitively known morality.
 |TeslaTony| I think part stems from the parents, and the other part stems
from the school
 |sam| like I said: the powers that be over them.
 |sam| culture is to blame as well. but I don't blame "violent movies" or
"explicit lyrics" all those do is feed on the rage that's there, and show it
rather lousy possible outlets.
 |sam| I blame gym commercials.
 |sam| I blame D.A.R.E commercials.
 |TeslaTony| Gym and DARE commercials are just stupid
 |sam| I blame the glorification of being half the weight you should be.
 |sam| I blame the cultural pressure to "do well" in school, and the
vehemently held belief that you are an inferior human being and will "go
nowhere" if you don't get good grades, and now days, if you don't go tens of
thousands of dollars in dept to go to college for four years.
 |sam| I blame the dogma that says kids should all be able to read at age
six and the ones who can't are inferior.
 |TeslaTony| I believe that people need to be pressured to learn, but I
didn't start reading until 9
 |Kathleen| I'm just now getting over the idea that I have to have really
really good grade or I'm stupid.
 |TeslaTony| Right now I can read and spell as well or better than anyone in
this room
 |sam| I blame the dogma that tells kids they have to have one kind of
intelligence or they're a disappointment.
 |Kathleen| I mostly just had to get over the idea that grades are
important.
 |sam| I blame the entire set of greedy filthy ideas about what makes
someone a worthwhile human being that gets drilled into kids from the first
day they walk into school.
 |Kathleen| Now the only reason I care about my grades is I get a $75 bonus
from work if I get straight A's.
 |sam| I blame the fact that the entire schooling system is specifically
designed to raise masses of undereducated mentally stifled laborers to keep
our sick, demented economy running.
 |Kathleen| It's a big problem that grades matter so much to so many
people.
 |Kathleen| Good grades do not necessarily mean you're smart, they mean
you're good at taking tests and playing the game of school.
 |sam| I blame the way our society brings up its youth by pounding them with
lie after lie day in and day out until they believe it so staunchly I can't
even talk to them because they can't hear me.  All to make a social system
of most people working themselves to death work, in a time when the race
could happily survive entirely without nine tenths of the labor that gets
done.
 |sam| THAT'S the way _I_ blame culture.  violent movies are nothing but
icing on the cake.
 + sam goes to copy all that...
 + sam congratulates himself on a damn good rant
 + sam bows
 + Kathleen laughs
 |Kathleen| It was a good rant
 + Kathleen applauds