The dregs of my exchange with the Kevin Baker Fan Club are still carrying on back at the original thread, and it suddenly occurred to me what it was Baker's fatuous suggestion of how the Norwegian victims could supposedly have saved themselves reminded me of. It's Protect and Survive - the infamous series of Public Information films to end all Public Information films, that would have been shown on TV had there been a significant and imminent danger of nuclear war. They contain a series of incredibly complex and faintly ludicrous instructions about how people should spend every waking moment before the potential Soviet attack "making sure everything is ready for you and your family". It was of course the ultimate distraction technique on behalf of the government - the problem we face is not the weapons, or our trigger-happy attitude to using those weapons, the only problem is your own lack of readiness. You see, thermonuclear war needn't be the big deal everyone thinks it is - it's perfectly survivable as long as you're prepared. So if you get killed, it's nothing to do with our recklessness as a government, it's entirely your fault for not choosing the correct "fallout room", fortifying your "inner refuge" with the requisite number of hardcover books, having sufficient supplies of tuna to last for at least fourteen days, and having enough batteries to listen to the BBC Wartime Service on your trusty transistor radio.
And so it is with the Kevin Baker Fan Club. A psycopath kills dozens with legally-obtained weapons? Oh, it's not the weapons or the laws we should be looking at, that's a peripheral issue. The only problem was that Norway failed to introduce a National Indoctrination Programme advising young men that in such a situation they are required to calmly attract the gunman's attention by running towards him and pelting him with rocks. You see, widespread gun ownership is no big deal, and gun massacres are perfectly survivable. If you don't survive them, it's largely your own fault.
In truth, of course, while some people would have survived a nuclear attack, that would have been principally down to the luck of their location as much as anything. For most people, the advice in Protect and Survive would have been utterly useless. All that the absurd perception that an individual could "take responsibility for his own survival" achieved was to give certain people an alibi for not focusing on what should have been the first and only priority - making sure the unthinkable never happened in the first place. I'd suggest the same truth applies to potential gun massacres of the type we've just seen. Whatever Kevin and co might like us to believe, it's really not OK if these weapons are everywhere - some attacks are not survivable, however much responsibility we all take for our own personal safety.
This is a better use of your time? Repeating the analogy of nuclear holocaust that was already shown to be incorrect in the comments of another post? This being the fourth blogpost you've made expressing your misanthropic hatred of the idea that people can actually act in emerfency situations.
ReplyDeleteWhy don't you get round to explaining how exactly panic is better than planning for emergencies? You know, since you'd rather people did panic. Why don't you try to sell us on it?
"Repeating the analogy of nuclear holocaust that was already shown to be incorrect in the comments of another post?"
ReplyDeleteEr, no, THR, it was not "shown to be incorrect" - someone disagreed with it. I'll do my best to explain to you the difference between the two concepts if I can ever lay my hands on a blackboard and have three hours to spare.
No Jimmy, explain to us how exactly panic serves people better than thinking about how they'd cope in an emergency like this.
ReplyDeleteFirst of all, THD, thankyou for dropping the formalities and using my preferred name - nice touch. But why the name change yourself?
ReplyDeleteOK, onto the "substance" of your comment (snigger). First of all, I said absolutely nothing about recommending panic, as you know, so as that was your own invention that part of your question is irrelevant. The reason why it is not good to focus obsessively on how people should act once an incident like this is underway is precisely the one I gave in the post above - it gives people like you an alibi for ignoring the real problem, namely that the likes of Breivik shouldn't be able to obtain guns legally with such ridiculous ease.
"First of all, I said absolutely nothing about recommending panic,"
ReplyDeleteYou're attacking people for thinking about how to avoid panicking in bad situations. You're also pretending that bad situations can be completely prevented, as an 'alibi' for fostering an attitude of psychological victim disarmament, which turns into panic whenever a Breivik appears on the scene (with, in your dreamed-of society, guns either obtained illegally or from a 'legitimate' source, like an army base).
So, since you so disdain preparing for emergencies, tell us how panic (and being psychologically disarmed) is supposed to serve people better than being prepared, in the sorts of emergencies you and your kind LIE about being able to prevent.
"You're attacking people for thinking about how to avoid panicking in bad situations."
ReplyDeleteNo, I'm not. I quite specifically attacked Kevin and his followers for blaming the victims of the Norway massacre for the own demise. I also attacked them for trying to distract attention from the real issues by pretending that the only problem here was that the victims weren't "prepared".
"You're also pretending that bad situations can be completely prevented"
I'm not doing that either. The rest of your comment is, therefore, based on a false premise. This is not untypical.
Yeah...you never did back up those straw-man accusations of Kevin et all 'blaming' the victims, so all you're doing in repeating them is making yourself look very silly and even more disingenuous to boot.
ReplyDelete""You're also pretending that bad situations can be completely prevented"
I'm not doing that either. "
Sorry, your whole argument is that people mustn't expect to have to deal with the event of nutters like Breivik because it's society/the state/the government's job to stop him through (attempting to) prevent him from getting guns with which to kill large numbers of people. One would assume that one of the reasons why you prefer this to individual self-protection is because you believe (however mistakenly) that eventually this will make it totally impossible for a gun massacre to ever occur ever again.
Now what are you saying? That you acknowledge that gun massacres will never be completely prevented through pushing ahead with gun control, but you still don't think people should 'plan for the worst' i.e. the possibility that they might find themselves faced with another Breivik? IOW, you know that there'd be more gun massacres even under your gun control utopia, but you still won't hear of people doing anything other than relying on the authorities to protect them (regardless of whether the authorities actually can)?
When it comes to summing up your position, these are our only two options. Either you believe that gun control will make it completely unnecessary for people to have to emergency-plan for that kind of situation, or you realize that gun control will fail to completely prevent gun massacres but it doesn't actually matter what happens to the people caught on the ground (and there's no way in hell you want them doing anything other than relying on the state to try to 'control guns').
Since you've explicitly said you don't think gun massacres can be completely prevented, it must be the latter, mustn't it?
"Yeah...you never did back up those straw-man accusations of Kevin et all 'blaming' the victims"
ReplyDeleteWhat, you mean apart from the multiple times I did back it up and you stuck your fingers in your ears? It really wasn't very hard to back it up given that it was there in black and white in the original quotes.
As for the rest of your comment, in all honesty I didn't actually finish it because your marathon display of tortuous pseudo-logic was making me lose the will to live. For the first time, I'm beginning to see genuine possibilities of how we could minimise casualties in the event of another Breivik-style attack - forget about the young men with rocks, just give THR a loudhailer and let him talk for five minutes. In no time at all, the gunman will be clutching his head and screaming "NO MORE! IT HURTS!"
"What, you mean apart from the multiple times I did back it up and you stuck your fingers in your ears?"
ReplyDeleteRepeating straw-man accusations =/= backing your statements up. You backed it up 'multiple times' did you? What, like when I asked, 'HOW are the victims being BLAMED? Of course you'll probably dodge this question',
If I recall, your answer to that was the following -
"I'm not going to carry on indulging your drivel-fest into infinity." (Dodge that question Jimmeh!)
Yes that surely does illustrate how Kevin meant to BLAME the victims of this latest mass shooting. That truly is a full and convincing explanation.
"As for the rest of your comment, in all honesty I didn't actually finish it because your marathon display of tortuous pseudo-logic"
I was simply asking a question of you Jimmy. Why do you so decry people thinking of better options of saving lives then running away/hiding (a.k.a. waiting to be found by the gunman), even when you acknowledge that your vision of gun control won't prevent gunmen intent on mass slaughter, thus leaving people in the s**t?
"Repeating straw-man accusations =/= backing your statements up."
ReplyDeleteI didn't need to repeat accusations - I simply needed to requote Kevin's own words. And, as you're aware, I did that before I noted that I wasn't going to indulge your drivel-fest into infinity. But by God have I indulged you since then all the same.
Jog on now, there's a good chap. Your laboured attempts at 'fisking' me are making a 1973 episode of Songs of Praise look riveting.
No, 'requoting Kevin's own words' doesn't back up your straw-man accusations either, when the point Kevin was making was about the best way of preventing gunmen from killing large numbers of people, as indeed I pointed out to you.
ReplyDeleteNow, a statement in support of your accusations would take the form of explaining (A) why Kevin's words do not in fact make the point that resisting the gunman may do more good than giving him a free hand to kill large numbers of people unopposed, and (B) how Kevin's words can honestly be construed as laying moral blame at the feet of the victims. Neither of which you have done.
It's ironic how you're involved in a tete-a-tete with this Labour Hame person which involves you accusing him of 'sticking his fingers in his ears saying la-la-la', and yet, when asked to elaborate on your (dishonest) notions that Breivik's victims are being 'blamed' for thei own deaths, you do indeed stick your fingers in your own ears and say la-la-la...
"No, 'requoting Kevin's own words' doesn't back up your straw-man accusations"
ReplyDeleteIt does back up my 'accusations' when Kevin's own words blame the victims in unambiguous terms. I fully appreciate this is deeply problematical for you, but repeating the words 'straw man' ad nauseam isn't going to make Kevin's grotesque statement go away.
"you do indeed stick your fingers in your own ears and say la-la-la..."
Oh dear. Maybe Larry can lend you some of his self-awareness tablets.
No, Kevin's, and the blogger he quoted, point is (again) that 'resisting the gunman may do more good than giving him a free hand to kill large numbers of people unopposed'.
ReplyDeleteNow, in order to prove your accusation, you have to show how this interpretation of the quotes in question is wrong. You haven't done this. Nor have you EXPLAINED HOW the victims are supposedly being blamed.
You haven't done this, because you can't. I at least have shown how interpreting the quotes as carrying any blame for the victims is mistaken (and where you're concerned, it's a deliberate and dishonest mistake) through elaborating on the actual point being made. Which you haven't attempted to dispute or rebut, again, because you can't.
What do you expect these so-called 'self-awareness tablets' to do for me? Con me into believing that you going 'la-la-la' is an actual argument on your part?
For starters they might help you remember that words actually do have meanings. Particularly the word "responsible".
ReplyDeleteYou see, the line you are studiously avoiding is this -
"When (the shooter) began shooting, everyone ran.
That last factor alone is responsible for almost all of the dead."
No interpretation is required. The word 'responsible' speaks for itself. The shooter was not responsible for most of the deaths, the responsibility lay with the fact that the victims chose to ran.
Please note that this is the umpteenth time I have explained this to you - and it will also be the final time. All you are doing is repeating yourself to the point of tedium, and putting points to me that I have already addressed at length over and over again on multiple threads. You also pretend that you haven't noticed my responses, accuse me of sticking my fingers in my ears, and then come out with the most ironic use of the word 'irony' in recorded history.
Enough. Thread closed.