OT dangerous dogs

And The U.S. will pay just as much attention to the monarch as do Australian, Canada, Northern Ireland, Scotland, Wales, and most of England. To wit: not much. :-)

Kevin

Or requiring a license to operate a printing press, or practice religion?

Kevin

| On Sat, 19 Nov 2005 16:30:37 -0600, Morris Dovey | wrote: | || How so? They were a major help at the battle of Yorktown, | | OK, so what about the _last_ 230 years? | || they were an ally in two world wars and during the police action in Korea, | | "ally" in the definition of "load to carry", yes.

The attitude of the time as best I can recall was close to "He ain't heavy - he's my brother". By the time the US entered the war all of the other allied participants had already taken a beating. I don't recall anyone ever singling out the French as especially burdensome. I _do_ recall disgust with the Vichey government and total admiration for the Resistance, along with gratitude for the willingness of French civilians to take enormous risks to help allied aviators and GI's avoid capture by axis forces.

|| they warned us about Indo-China, | | They _caused_ the clusterfuck in Vietnam.

They also warned that we would also find ourselves in over our heads - as we realized after too many of our young men (also) were killed.

|| they shed tears with us on and after 9-11, | | So did everyone else that matters.

Exactly who, in your opinion, does not matter? There were a lot of people in the world who were not sorry to see the US take one on the chin. To say that those people do not matter would seem a most dangerous form of denial.

|| and they did their best to tell us that our intelligence on Iraqi || WMDS was incorrect so that we would not make ourselves look like || liars and/or idiots to the rest of the world. | | Funny; they _sold_ a bunch of those WMDs to Iraq, so no wonder they | didn't want us looking too closely at the situation. You _do_ | acknowledge the tens of thousands of Kurds killed by the Iraquis | with WMDs sold to them by France, do you not?

My understanding is that the US also provided Sadam's government with weaponry. It would be comforting to be able to believe that we weren't guilty of enabling those behaviors; but I doubt it'd be very realistic. I don't think we're in a very good position to criticize other arms suppliers on this issue - because we all screwed up.

|| What have you noticed that I missed? Or does all of the above || constitute "askin' for it"?

IMO, even if I accepted every assertion you made, that would still not provide any kind of sane justification for advocating action of any kind against the French.

| The French are useless on a good day.

To you, perhaps. I don't see 'em that way - and I confess that I've never felt that I had so many friends that I could afford to discard any.

-- Morris Dovey DeSoto Solar DeSoto, Iowa USA

| On Sat, 19 Nov 2005 11:40:51 -0600, Morris Dovey wrote: | || || Why wouldn't she like Kansas? Is she agoraphobic? (Seems unlikely.) | | Three words were left out - "board of education" :-).

Of course! How could I have overlooked that? :-))

-- Morris Dovey DeSoto Solar DeSoto, Iowa USA

And be 3-4 years late again, no doubt!

And you really think guns would make a difference?

Did the Germans who tore down the Berlin Wall have guns? Did the Romanians, the Czechs etc?

Attempts to justify everyone having a gun are pretty pathetic.

That was an ordinary armed robbery, something which happens a thousand times more in the US than in Britain. You're getting desperate!

Yes.

No, they didn't need them. They only did that after they were allowed to.

Sun, Nov 20, 2005, 8:46am (EST+5) snipped-for-privacy@excite.com (Bob=A0Martin) burbled: More to the point: what *could* you do? And you really think guns would make a difference? Attempts to justify everyone having a gun are pretty pathetic.

I read about home invasions, and hear about them on the news. And, I read, and hear, people saying that if it happens to you, don't resist, and you won't be harmed. But, I also read, and hear, about so many of those same home invasions resulting in unarmed people, not resisting, and being killed anyway by the people invading their homes. No witnesses you see. So, if those homeowners had a weapon in the house, thay might at least stand a chance of getting out of it alive. Sure as Hell beats getting killed by some thug just because he wants to rob you.

JOAT Just pretend I'm not here. That's what I'm doing.

Sun, Nov 20, 2005, 8:48am (EST+5) snipped-for-privacy@excite.com (Bob=A0Martin) doth burble: That was an ordinary armed robbery, something which happens a thousand times more in the US than in Britain. You're getting desperate!

Where'd you come up with that figure? Anything to back it up?

"Ordinary" armed robbery? In Britain? with their strict gon control laws?

JOAT Just pretend I'm not here. That's what I'm doing.

They sure made a hell of a difference for us in 1776.

At the point that the wall came down, the government had abandoned even the pretense of forcefully suppressing dissent. Prior to that, when the government

See above.

You missed the point rather badly -- the point being that it happened anyway, despite the strict gun control laws that are supposed to make it impossible.

I've always been baffled by the naivete and/or gullibility of those who believe that gun control laws have *any* affect on the behavior of criminals, who are, by definition, people who _don't_obey_laws_anyway_.

Uh, back when the "Evil Empire" was still intact it was pointed out many times that Soviet Citizens were allowed to own rifles and shotguns, ostensibly for hunting. I dunno if there was a limit on ammunition and I suppose that handguns were restricted, but they were not 'disarmed'.

Dunno about East Germany.

Oh, and has been also noted, AK-47s or (more likely) the Chinese knock-offs were quite popular and legal among Iraqi civilians under Saddam Hussein.

I'll agree that an armed populace can be quite helpful as far as overthrowing a dictator, or preventing an overthrow of a legitimate government, but it is plainly not sufficient.

On Sun, 20 Nov 2005 08:48:58 GMT, with neither quill nor qualm, Bob Martin quickly quoth:

There are "a thousand times" more people here, Bob. UK crime rates are actually higher than the US.

Google it. The facts are there. We just went through this a couple months ago either here on on rec.crafts.metalworking. DAGS on that.

----------------------------------------------------------- -- This post conscientiously crafted from 100% Recycled Pixels --

But I thought British citizens weren't allowed to own guns! How then could this happen? After all, that was the point of disarming the citizenry, wasn't it, to prevent these kinds of violent events from occurring? The fact that they continue to occur kind of points out what a pathetic argument for disarming the citizenry that was. That it happens more in the US has more to do with the facts that, for one thing, the US is larger, and secondly, there are some cultural influences, apart from gun ownership that contribute to that issue. The only thing you've accomplished by disarming your country is to provide a country full of potential victims (sheep) for the wolves to ravage at will.

Dammit Dave, it's no fun when I keep agreeing with you :-).

But I bet there's a lot of shotguns in Britain :-).

And, you see that as a _good_ thing? The dangerous people have weapons, and their victims are unable to resist?

I don't see that as an acceptable solution. I want my _criminals_ to be in danger, not the good citizens.

Yes I do. If there is one word to describe the British it is "angry", especially on the roads, and if every driver carried a gun the M25 would soon resemble the Somme.