It may appear as if school shootings are happening all the time but the numbers prove otherwise. It only appears that way because they are high-profile news stories, rightfully so.
Note that these numbers are not designed to ignore any individual person's loss nor are they designed to suggest that these incidents are unimportant. Instead, these numbers serve only to highlight that news stories claiming that there is an "epidemic" are artificially generating hype.
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The father in this instance is likely in some trouble for not properly securing the weapons; however, there is no sensible gun legislation which would have prevented this particular incident--the guns were essentially stolen, not purchased.
It may appear as if school shootings are happening all the time but the numbers prove otherwise. It only appears that way because they are high-profile news stories, rightfully so.
Note that these numbers are not designed to ignore any individual person's loss nor are they designed to suggest that these incidents are unimportant. Instead, these numbers serve only to highlight that news stories claiming that there is an "epidemic" are artificially generating hype.
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The father in this instance is likely in some trouble for not properly securing the weapons; however, there is no sensible gun legislation which would have prevented this particular incident--the guns were essentially stolen, not purchased.
It's just these incidents affect children and it is needless that they happen so often. One or two every month is too often.
It's just these incidents affect children and it is needless that they happen so often. One or two every month is too often.
I cannot disagree with that sentiment.
In the interest of being equitable--I always prefer "equitable" as opposed to "fair"--if we look at *all* gun-related incidents at schools, even the ones with 0 fatalities, then the number of incidents rises to 223. That averages to 12.74 incidents per year--just over 1 per month. The vast majority of these incidents involve handguns, not long rifles.
It's just these incidents affect children and it is needless that they happen so often. One or two every month is too often.
I cannot disagree with that sentiment.
In the interest of being equitable--I always prefer "equitable" as opposed to "fair"--if we look at *all* gun-related incidents at schools, even the ones with 0 fatalities, then the number of incidents rises to 223. That averages to 12.74 incidents per year--just over 1 per month. The vast majority of these incidents involve handguns, not long rifles.
That list records 21 incidents in less than 5 months this year, so on the face of it there would seem to be an increasing problem. However, it wouldn't surprise me if some or all of the apparent increase in recent years was due to many incidents just not being newsworthy enough to make it onto the list in the past.
Not my writing, but certainly my thoughts are echoed here by Josh Marshall. It gets to the societal issue we are dealing with here. It's guns, but it's also what the guns represent to the people who commit these acts:
Is this really a mystery? This happens all the time. It happens all the time. It is almost always a young man or boy in late adolescence who enters his school or the school he used to go to and tries to kill as many people as possible rather than any particular person.
Now, to be clear, I know what Williams meant. Again, not a criticism of him in any way. It’s a broader point. He’s saying we haven’t seen any evidence of the shooter pledging fealty to ISIS or spewing far-right conspiracy theories or militia rhetoric. But I think this shows how we really miss the point of why any of these things happen.
The impulse, which is rooted mainly in young men and pretty much exclusively men, is the origin of these things. Depending on where they’re situated they express these murderous rages through an Islamist idea system, or a militia or white supremacist idea system. But I think it’s a mistake to see these different forms of extremism as the cause of these shootings. School shootings are a contagious phenomenon in American society which virtually always involves boys in late adolescence who have histories of rage and alienation and play that out in mass atrocity attacks at their school, which for them is their social world.
We can all see that they are highly choreographed, often using the same set of strategies to maximize fatalities, sometimes with new innovations which are then folded into the ritual of attack. What we call extremist ideologies are really just the languages these guys glom onto to articulate and understand those impulses. This doesn’t mean extremist groups and extremist ideologies don’t matter. For some, they clearly provide a language and a rationale and even a sense of righteousness to their actions. For some that helps bridge the path between extreme rage and actual violence.
But if that’s absent, it’s no mystery. Because it’s a mistake to see them as the real driver. Again, this happens all the time. The motive is pretty clear: angry and alienated young man, a late adolescent consumed with rage and alienation who lives in the United States and thus has become a devotee of the cult, the ideology of the redemptive school shooting atrocity. The ideology is really the cult of the mass shooting, in which the gun, with all its cultural and political omnipotence, plays a central role. Every school shooter learned from the history of school shootings, mimicked the strategies, was in a sense acting out a ritual which has become deeply rooted in our culture. We know the motive. We know the ideology: rage and alienation transmuted through mass gun violence.
Beyond those thoughts, after today (and there was ANOTHER shooting tonight outside of a high school graduation ceremony in Georgia), more people have been killed in just SPECIFICALLY school shootings this year than we've had military service deaths. Which means that statistically speaking, at least for the first half of 2018, our nation's schools are more dangerous than being an active duty soldier. We've had the discussion before about how policing is not one of the most 10 dangerous jobs in America. It may not be long before we have to add "student" to the top 10 list. When Columbine took place, it was generally assumed it was a horrific aberration. Instead, it has become a ritual of violence that occurs 2 or 3 times a year. And it almost always goes back to the toxic combo mentioned in the writing I presented above: young males totally alienated from society (usually from what could be defined as suburban areas to be honest) and easy access to deadly weaponry. We have a problem, a sickness. We won't do anything about it, but let's not pretend it isn't there. The whole rest of the world sees it for what it is. And it's not just going to stop without doing SOMETHING.
Mr. Marshall naming the motive as "angry/alienated young man, consumed with rage, etc" doesn't begin to address what to *do* about it. *Why* are these young men becoming this way? No one becomes alienated or consumed with rage overnight; instead, a long string of events set them down that path. Identifying them when they are 15 is too late--I suspect they already felt alienated by the time they were 10.
Mr. Marshall naming the motive as "angry/alienated young man, consumed with rage, etc" doesn't begin to address what to *do* about it. *Why* are these young men becoming this way? No one becomes alienated or consumed with rage overnight; instead, a long string of events set them down that path. Identifying them when they are 15 is too late--I suspect they already felt alienated by the time they were 10.
To me the solution may be things like more food stamps. Longer welfare benefits. Counseling. Paid maternity and paternity leave. "Sit with the guy who sits alone" day. A living wage for workers.
You know stuff that some of those other democracies in Europe do. Do the stuff that hardcore Conservatives complain about. Why? Society will be better off. That has value.
As a society, we need to do what we can to not force people (and families) into situations that are unwinnable. People crack when they feel trapped. With easy access to guns, they can release their frustrations on us all.
Mr. Marshall naming the motive as "angry/alienated young man, consumed with rage, etc" doesn't begin to address what to *do* about it. *Why* are these young men becoming this way? No one becomes alienated or consumed with rage overnight; instead, a long string of events set them down that path. Identifying them when they are 15 is too late--I suspect they already felt alienated by the time they were 10.
To me the solution may be things like more food stamps. Longer welfare benefits. Counseling. Paid maternity and paternity leave. "Sit with the guy who sits alone" day. A living wage for workers.
You know stuff that some of those other democracies in Europe do. Do the stuff that hardcore Conservatives complain about. Why? Society will be better off. That has value.
As a society, we need to do what we can to not force people (and families) into situations that are unwinnable. People crack when they feel trapped. With easy access to guns, they can release their frustrations on us all.
Except as @jjstraka34 mentioned earlier, these mass shooters are generally from the middle class suburbanites, not from the low income families so I don't see how those social programs would help stop this. If you're talking about reducing gun violence in general then yes, those programs might help.
Mr. Marshall naming the motive as "angry/alienated young man, consumed with rage, etc" doesn't begin to address what to *do* about it. *Why* are these young men becoming this way? No one becomes alienated or consumed with rage overnight; instead, a long string of events set them down that pattern Identifying them when they are 15 is too late--I suspect they already felt alienated by the time they were 10.
You can psychoanalize each of these individuals to death to search for patterns and then take the traits that are found and start singling out kids who might commit these types of acts, but the only thing that will be accomplished is isolate these people more. This may only push these individuals to commit acts at a later date instead, walking into his work place instead of a school.
And as I mentioned after the Florida shooting, police, FBI, schools, whoever can have all the red flags in the world that an individual is likely to commit an act but they are limited in what they can do until that person is in the process of committing the act.
Looking at the Florida incident, the school suspended him because he had these tendencies, his guardians at the time took and locked his guns away. What else could have been done?
You can, as a society look at the cause, instead of the individual. Adter Columbine and the rash of copy cat acts that happened, that is what society did. How kids treated other kids and bullying was cracked down on and was given more awareness and It did fix the problem (IMO) until social media introduced new ways for everyone to communicate their thoughts.
You can attempt to take away the tools that allows them to get that feeling of being powerful (read guns) and that is the most successful way to prevent these acts. No humming and hawing can eliminate that truth.
Mr. Marshall naming the motive as "angry/alienated young man, consumed with rage, etc" doesn't begin to address what to *do* about it. *Why* are these young men becoming this way? No one becomes alienated or consumed with rage overnight; instead, a long string of events set them down that pattern Identifying them when they are 15 is too late--I suspect they already felt alienated by the time they were 10.
You can psychoanalize each of these individuals to death to search for patterns and then take the traits that are found and start singling out kids who might commit these types of acts, but the only thing that will be accomplished is isolate these people more. This may only push these individuals to commit acts at a later date instead, walking into his work place instead of a school.
And as I mentioned after the Florida shooting, police, FBI, schools, whoever can have all the red flags in the world that an individual is likely to commit an act but they are limited in what they can do until that person is in the process of committing the act.
Looking at the Florida incident, the school suspended him because he had these tendencies, his guardians at the time took and locked his guns away. What else could have been done?
You can, as a society look at the cause, instead of the individual. Adter Columbine and the rash of copy cat acts that happened, that is what society did. How kids treated other kids and bullying was cracked down on and was given more awareness and It did fix the problem (IMO) until social media introduced new ways for everyone to communicate their thoughts.
You can attempt to take away the tools that allows them to get that feeling of being powerful (read guns) and that is the most successful way to prevent these acts. No humming and hawing can eliminate that truth.
The US will go through every other option before they ever get to the guns, which are the one thing that allows people to kill quickly and easily. How else do you kill a dozen people, poison the cafeteria food?? Almost certainly not by individually stabbing 12 different people (possible, but HIGHLY unlikely). People who are shot are far more likely to die than someone who is stabbed. It takes far more physical and mental exertion to beat or stab something to death. With guns, it is as easy as pointing and moving your finger back.
I mentioned the Lt. Governor of Texas yesterday offering the idea that we have too many entrances and exits from schools. Really?? Let's imagine we only have one instead. Besides the obvious, massive fire hazard danger this presents to thousands of students, what happens when a kid smuggles a gun into his locker, pulls the fire alarm, and then every child and teacher in the school funnels themselves to the one exit, resulting in everyone just walking into the easiest tactical massacre ever perpetrated. What an incredibly stupid idea. On FOX News last night, the suggestion was to monitor the social media accounts of ALL children in the United States. Point being, every suggestion no matter how asinine is on the table, but never, ever the weapons whose only true purpose is to kill things. That's what guns do. They kill. They don't have any other use (and no, I don't include target shooting, because target shooting is, ostensibly, just practice for when you actually need to shoot something accurately). Knives are used for cooking. Cars are how society can function in regards to travel logistics. Any comparison and suggestion we ban or regulate those two things if we ban or regulate guns (which comes up every time this happens) is either made in complete stupidity or in a wholly disingenuous way. Everyone knows why we need cars and knives. They have tangible uses outside of the act of homicide. Guns don't. Guns are meant to kill. It was why they were invented, and it's the only real reason to own one. Even if you own one for self-defense of your home, the point is to KILL the perpetrator. Again, the function of any firearm, before anything else, is to take a life, of either a human or an animal. It's all they do. When we pretend guns aren't different than other ways you can kill people, we are simply engaging in some sort of mass delusion. Guns ARE different and it's perfectly obvious why. It's because killing is what they are meant to do.
Anyway, how many times have we had this conversation in the last 18 months since the thread started receiving more traffic?? By my recollection it has to be almost a half a dozen at this point. The same points get repeated over and over again in a perpetual loop, everyone knows there won't be a single thing done about ANY aspect of this issue, and everyone knows we're going to talk about it again in another couple weeks, or (at most) 2 or 3 months from now.
I'm pretty confident with the thought that the MAJORITY of school shootings are the direct result of bullying. Shootings and teen suicides. Taking action against the school bullying epidemic would reduce a LOT of tragic events.
You very well could, though the guns are just a tool. Its the mindset of the alienated and the weird semi divine place guns hold in our society that is the root of the problem. Changeing attitudes will do more to reduce violence. After all, what is a tool without the will to use it?
Mr. Marshall naming the motive as "angry/alienated young man, consumed with rage, etc" doesn't begin to address what to *do* about it. *Why* are these young men becoming this way? No one becomes alienated or consumed with rage overnight; instead, a long string of events set them down that pattern Identifying them when they are 15 is too late--I suspect they already felt alienated by the time they were 10.
You can psychoanalize each of these individuals to death to search for patterns and then take the traits that are found and start singling out kids who might commit these types of acts, but the only thing that will be accomplished is isolate these people more. This may only push these individuals to commit acts at a later date instead, walking into his work place instead of a school.
And as I mentioned after the Florida shooting, police, FBI, schools, whoever can have all the red flags in the world that an individual is likely to commit an act but they are limited in what they can do until that person is in the process of committing the act.
Looking at the Florida incident, the school suspended him because he had these tendencies, his guardians at the time took and locked his guns away. What else could have been done?
You can, as a society look at the cause, instead of the individual. Adter Columbine and the rash of copy cat acts that happened, that is what society did. How kids treated other kids and bullying was cracked down on and was given more awareness and It did fix the problem (IMO) until social media introduced new ways for everyone to communicate their thoughts.
You can attempt to take away the tools that allows them to get that feeling of being powerful (read guns) and that is the most successful way to prevent these acts. No humming and hawing can eliminate that truth.
The US will go through every other option before they ever get to the guns, which are the one thing that allows people to kill quickly and easily. How else do you kill a dozen people, poison the cafeteria food?? Almost certainly not by individually stabbing 12 different people (possible, but HIGHLY unlikely). People who are shot are far more likely to die than someone who is stabbed. It takes far more physical and mental exertion to beat or stab something to death. With guns, it is as easy as pointing and moving your finger back.
I mentioned the Lt. Governor of Texas yesterday offering the idea that we have too many entrances and exits from schools. Really?? Let's imagine we only have one instead. Besides the obvious, massive fire hazard danger this presents to thousands of students, what happens when a kid smuggles a gun into his locker, pulls the fire alarm, and then every child and teacher in the school funnels themselves to the one exit, resulting in everyone just walking into the easiest tactical massacre ever perpetrated. What an incredibly stupid idea. On FOX News last night, the suggestion was to monitor the social media accounts of ALL children in the United States. Point being, every suggestion no matter how asinine is on the table, but never, ever the weapons whose only true purpose is to kill things. That's what guns do. They kill. They don't have any other use (and no, I don't include target shooting, because target shooting is, ostensibly, just practice for when you actually need to shoot something accurately). Knives are used for cooking. Cars are how society can function in regards to travel logistics. Any comparison and suggestion we ban or regulate those two things if we ban or regulate guns (which comes up every time this happens) is either made in complete stupidity or in a wholly disingenuous way. Everyone knows why we need cars and knives. They have tangible uses outside of the act of homicide. Guns don't. Guns are meant to kill. It was why they were invented, and it's the only real reason to own one. Even if you own one for self-defense of your home, the point is to KILL the perpetrator. Again, the function of any firearm, before anything else, is to take a life, of either a human or an animal. It's all they do. When we pretend guns aren't different than other ways you can kill people, we are simply engaging in some sort of mass delusion. Guns ARE different and it's perfectly obvious why. It's because killing is what they are meant to do.
Anyway, how many times have we had this conversation in the last 18 months since the thread started receiving more traffic?? By my recollection it has to be almost a half a dozen at this point. The same points get repeated over and over again in a perpetual loop, everyone knows there won't be a single thing done about ANY aspect of this issue, and everyone knows we're going to talk about it again in another couple weeks, or (at most) 2 or 3 months from now.
Are the school doors not locked?
Every school here has all doors locked from the outside (can still be pushed open from the inside in case of fire or evacuation) except for the main enterance, limiting access to people who should not be there, so I am agreeable with the governor if that is the case.
That’s a safety issue in more than one way.
Monitoring social media of every kid is 1) impossible 2) infringes on the right of liberty but it doesn’t surprise me that Fox (where the F is beginning to stand for Fascist) would recommend it, but once again, law enforcement can’t do anything unless the kid makes an actual threat or commits an act.
Mr. Marshall naming the motive as "angry/alienated young man, consumed with rage, etc" doesn't begin to address what to *do* about it. *Why* are these young men becoming this way? No one becomes alienated or consumed with rage overnight; instead, a long string of events set them down that path. Identifying them when they are 15 is too late--I suspect they already felt alienated by the time they were 10.
To me the solution may be things like more food stamps. Longer welfare benefits. Counseling. Paid maternity and paternity leave. "Sit with the guy who sits alone" day. A living wage for workers.
You know stuff that some of those other democracies in Europe do. Do the stuff that hardcore Conservatives complain about. Why? Society will be better off. That has value.
As a society, we need to do what we can to not force people (and families) into situations that are unwinnable. People crack when they feel trapped. With easy access to guns, they can release their frustrations on us all.
Except as @jjstraka34 mentioned earlier, these mass shooters are generally from the middle class suburbanites, not from the low income families so I don't see how those social programs would help stop this. If you're talking about reducing gun violence in general then yes, those programs might help.
Yes, I was talking in general. Society must be improved to mitigate "angry and alienated young man, consumed with rage". You might not be able to do much about the anger directly but you can address the alienation. Hopefully that lessens and prevents the former.
I've been vacationing in Jamaica and I thought I'd share some things I heard from a couple of local Jamaicans who discussed the economic situation in Jamaica. The following are not necessarily my thoughts; much of this is simply what I've heard while I was here:
Jamaica suffers from widespread poverty. Most Jamaicans work for minimum wage, which is 52 American dollars a week. Prices, however, are not correspondingly low. The island can't produce much on its own due to its small size, so many products have to be imported, which can increase prices dramatically. Oil prices and car prices are especially high. There is a high sales tax and a 67% import tax, and a hamburger can be $15 USD in Jamaica, over three times as high as it would be in the states. So, adjusting for purchasing power parity (PPP) would not necessarily make that $52/week minimum wage that much higher than it seems (I personally assume that other prices, for local items and such like bananas, would be much more affordable).
Jamaica has a democratically elected government with two political parties; no third parties. People want the government to raise the minimum wage, but politicians have not done so, though they have made promises to that effect (my dad and I suspected that the local politicians had a vested interest in maintaining higher profits for employers).
Violent crime is rare, but corruption is rampant, both at the highest and lowest levels of government. Police officers routinely accept bribes because their base wages are low--why worry about some guy breaking the law when a $20 bribe can help you feed your family?
There are no labor laws and no labor unions. Only government workers receive healthcare benefits or pensions; private companies do not offer these things. Private companies only offer minimum wage. There are no protections for workers, nor are there any effective organizations to lobby employers to raise wages beyond the minimum. There is no retirement for ordinary people; there are no pensions. You work until you die.
There is a single electricity company with a total monopoly. They can charge any price for electricity, and thus it is very high. Few people can afford electricity. In a hot and humid tropical environment, only rich people would have air conditioning at home.
Tourism is an important part of the economy and one of the few industries that thrive in Jamaica. However, little of the money earned gets reinvested into Jamaica. A single Spanish company owns the four largest hotels in Jamaica and their employees--the waiters, cooks, cleaners, service people in general, etc.--receive minimum wage. Most of the profits from tourism leave Jamaica and go to foreign companies. One man twice referred to the practice as raping Jamaica.
The only reason people work at these hotels is because of tips. While Europeans seldom tip because it's not standard in their home countries, Americans and Canadians tip often, which can bump up a hotel employee's wages. The employees at our hotel also got to eat for free at the buffet, though they could take nothing home. They get searched before they leave to make sure they aren't smuggling food or alcohol or other materials out of the hotel to sell elsewhere, though that smuggling still happens.
The Chinese government has a deal with the Jamaican government. China builds roads and infrastructure and in exchange, it is easier for Chinese to set up new companies and Chinese groups receive a discount: they only have to pay a 37% import tax instead of 67%. This allows them to open up grocery stores in Jamaica and sell low-quality knockoffs at lower prices that Jamaicans can afford. The Chinese are known colloquially as "Mr. Chin" and they are viewed positively.
One man suggested that things were better before Jamaica achieved independence from England. Corrupt politicians were more able to rig the system to their benefit once they were independent (he did not specify the exact process). Jamaica used to be more well-off when corruption was lower several decades ago; sugar and coffee and bauxite powered the economy.
Jamaica is rich in sun and rain and the soil is fertile; everything is shrouded in green and plants grow easily here. However, the island is 80% mountains, and traveling through the mountains is very difficult due to the lack of roads. Some people make a living off the land, setting up a shack in the hills and growing bananas and other fruit as well as wild goats, and getting their water from rivers or by collecting rainwater. However, living in the hills means you are very disconnected from the rest of the island; you have zero access to modern technology or products of any kind unless you walk on foot into town to sell the food you've grown at the market (which I'm guessing would yield rather little money). You would struggle to pay for health care if you got sick.
There is no social safety net and no public health care system. If you need healthcare, you pay out of pocket. Doctors and dentists are fairly wealthy. If you can't afford healthcare, you don't get treatment.
One man expressed frustration at what he viewed as American complacence, saying that the only reason someone would end up a "bum" in the United States would be because they wanted to be; there were too many opportunities for career growth to miss out on all of them. A straight-A student since he was young, he has been working towards moving to America (legally) to find a new job, which he will use to pay for college. He intends to study finance and get a better-paying job in the future. While some Jamaicans work abroad and send money back home, many of the people he knows have gone to America and never returned, simply because the economic conditions in America are so much better ("No matter how much you hate Trump, you don't go back to Jamaica"). One of his friends lives in American not to have a job, but simply to live off food stamp abuse and other, non-government-related scams. He stressed that getting a better-paying job is well within reach; he mentioned the existence of 117,000 different scholarship programs to pay for school.
From this, we might propose 10 different causes for poverty in Jamaica:
1. An exploitative tourism industry in which a single company rakes in most of the profits 2. A low minimum wage and few jobs that pay any higher 3. No labor laws to protect workers 4. No labor unions to fight for higher wages and benefits 5. The island is heavily reliant on imports to attain goods, and shipping is expensive 6. The island is mountainous with few roads in the mountains, making transportation more difficult in places 7. A one-company monopoly on electricity 8. "Brain drain," the loss of talented and productive individuals who leave the country to seek higher-paying jobs elsewhere 9. Government corruption 10. High taxes, especially on necessary imports
Interesting. I don't think we can challenge any of these conclusions, they seem correct.
To me it sounds like exploitive capitalism to the max. Especially once you look at wages, lack of unions and monopolies. The economy seems to consist of funneling big money to the few while multinational businesses collude to artificially suppress wages to the people.
Police and government officials can't overcome the situation. They exploit the system to at least "get theirs" so they take bribes, might as well get theirs.
@deltago: No, but not because I view tourism as a negative force. Jamaica has few other industries and many Jamaicans are wealthier because they can work at these hotels, get free meals, and earn extra money via tips. Even if most of the profits goes to rich businesspeople in Spain (which is definitely worth complaining about) it's a net positive for Jamaica. That being said, if you do go to Jamaica, I think it would be more in the island's interests if you went to a Jamaican-owned hotel rather than a foreign-owned one. And, of course, there are probably other countries you could visit where your tourism dollars would have a more positive impact, depending on where exactly you spent them.
The real reasons I wouldn't go back is because I've already been there once--there's less new stuff to see now--and because, like my grandfather on my mother's side (not the grandfather I've spoken about elsewhere on the forum, though both of them were missionaries), I am extremely cheap. I only went because I was going with my parents. I myself don't spend money on basically anything besides gasoline and food, and even then, I prefer to spend at most $1 per 100 calories on food. I don't need to save money, exactly, but I prefer it.
My dad has also suggested that poverty in Jamaica is simply intrinsic due to its status as a small island. Because practically everything remotely modern must be imported in order for Jamaica to function, operating in Jamaica is inherently more expensive than operating in other countries. If you're a foreign investor, why build a factory on an island with limited transportation infrastructure when you can build one on the mainland? Moving goods on paved roads is much cheaper, much faster, and much more convenient than moving goods by sea. The net result is that fewer people invest in Jamaica, and less money goes to developing Jamaica's economy.
Yet there are plenty of islands that have enjoyed economic success despite being more resource-poor than Jamaica, including islands both much smaller than Jamaica, like Singapore, or much larger than Jamaica, like Japan. Some small islands have become wealthy because of offshore banks that hide rich people's and large corporations' funds overseas to dodge taxes from back home. But Singapore and Japan are fairly odd examples, as Singapore is primarily a city-state with a small population and no agriculture, and Japan has had a strong economic buildup dating back to the nineteenth century--I'm not sure how many factors they truly have in common.
I am generally disposed to think that institutions are the biggest factor in determining economic performance in the modern era. Corruption and low competition in the private sector both reward inefficiency and thwart growth. Jamaica's one electricity company is a good example. With a monopoly on electricity, the company can charge whatever rates it wants. That means maximum profits for one company, but the nation as a whole suffers.
I think the electricity issue might have cascading problems. If electricity prices are high, few people have electricity. If people don't have plenty of electricity, there is no market for electronic goods. Likewise, without widespread electronics, there is no market for Internet providers. Without widespread Internet, people are starved of information and communication is universally slower.
Modern economies are heavily dependent on ample access to cheap energy. If that energy isn't cheap, every industry that depends on energy will suffer. If you can't afford oil, why would you buy a car? This means that a single monopoly could cripple multiple sectors of the economy.
@deltago: Nope. I have a lot of things to say about communism in all of its various forms, on several different levels, but rather than go on a long rant, let's just say I'm the most anti-communist person I know.
When it is all said and done, it is going to come down to the fact that, despite being the party that has called liberals "traitors" for decades for simply disagreeing with foreign policy decisions, the Republican Party is now running interference and harboring the biggest group of ACTUAL traitors who have ever taken power in this country, by completely subverting our free elections:
How many times have I said Trump would order an investigation of his political opponents (officially) when the shit started to hit the fan?? Dozens by this point. Donald Trump will burn democracy to the ground before he surrenders a single inch.
There is also the issue of attempting to out an undercover FBI agent, blowing their cover to serve a political agenda. This is apparently now something of a tradition of in Republican Administrations. It isn't a real GOP Administration until you attempt to out a CIA or FBI operative to serve a domestic political agenda. The idea that this party ever ran on the idea of "law and order" is farcical.
But the violent crime rate is horrendous, it has one of the highest murder rates in the world. What you said jumped out at me because there's been some reporting here in the UK about it.
Where did you get the idea that violent crime was low in Jamaica?
Comments
It may appear as if school shootings are happening all the time but the numbers prove otherwise. It only appears that way because they are high-profile news stories, rightfully so.
Note that these numbers are not designed to ignore any individual person's loss nor are they designed to suggest that these incidents are unimportant. Instead, these numbers serve only to highlight that news stories claiming that there is an "epidemic" are artificially generating hype.
*************
The father in this instance is likely in some trouble for not properly securing the weapons; however, there is no sensible gun legislation which would have prevented this particular incident--the guns were essentially stolen, not purchased.
In the interest of being equitable--I always prefer "equitable" as opposed to "fair"--if we look at *all* gun-related incidents at schools, even the ones with 0 fatalities, then the number of incidents rises to 223. That averages to 12.74 incidents per year--just over 1 per month. The vast majority of these incidents involve handguns, not long rifles.
Is this really a mystery? This happens all the time. It happens all the time. It is almost always a young man or boy in late adolescence who enters his school or the school he used to go to and tries to kill as many people as possible rather than any particular person.
Now, to be clear, I know what Williams meant. Again, not a criticism of him in any way. It’s a broader point. He’s saying we haven’t seen any evidence of the shooter pledging fealty to ISIS or spewing far-right conspiracy theories or militia rhetoric. But I think this shows how we really miss the point of why any of these things happen.
The impulse, which is rooted mainly in young men and pretty much exclusively men, is the origin of these things. Depending on where they’re situated they express these murderous rages through an Islamist idea system, or a militia or white supremacist idea system. But I think it’s a mistake to see these different forms of extremism as the cause of these shootings. School shootings are a contagious phenomenon in American society which virtually always involves boys in late adolescence who have histories of rage and alienation and play that out in mass atrocity attacks at their school, which for them is their social world.
We can all see that they are highly choreographed, often using the same set of strategies to maximize fatalities, sometimes with new innovations which are then folded into the ritual of attack. What we call extremist ideologies are really just the languages these guys glom onto to articulate and understand those impulses. This doesn’t mean extremist groups and extremist ideologies don’t matter. For some, they clearly provide a language and a rationale and even a sense of righteousness to their actions. For some that helps bridge the path between extreme rage and actual violence.
But if that’s absent, it’s no mystery. Because it’s a mistake to see them as the real driver. Again, this happens all the time. The motive is pretty clear: angry and alienated young man, a late adolescent consumed with rage and alienation who lives in the United States and thus has become a devotee of the cult, the ideology of the redemptive school shooting atrocity. The ideology is really the cult of the mass shooting, in which the gun, with all its cultural and political omnipotence, plays a central role. Every school shooter learned from the history of school shootings, mimicked the strategies, was in a sense acting out a ritual which has become deeply rooted in our culture. We know the motive. We know the ideology: rage and alienation transmuted through mass gun violence.
Beyond those thoughts, after today (and there was ANOTHER shooting tonight outside of a high school graduation ceremony in Georgia), more people have been killed in just SPECIFICALLY school shootings this year than we've had military service deaths. Which means that statistically speaking, at least for the first half of 2018, our nation's schools are more dangerous than being an active duty soldier. We've had the discussion before about how policing is not one of the most 10 dangerous jobs in America. It may not be long before we have to add "student" to the top 10 list. When Columbine took place, it was generally assumed it was a horrific aberration. Instead, it has become a ritual of violence that occurs 2 or 3 times a year. And it almost always goes back to the toxic combo mentioned in the writing I presented above: young males totally alienated from society (usually from what could be defined as suburban areas to be honest) and easy access to deadly weaponry. We have a problem, a sickness. We won't do anything about it, but let's not pretend it isn't there. The whole rest of the world sees it for what it is. And it's not just going to stop without doing SOMETHING.
You know stuff that some of those other democracies in Europe do. Do the stuff that hardcore Conservatives complain about. Why? Society will be better off. That has value.
As a society, we need to do what we can to not force people (and families) into situations that are unwinnable. People crack when they feel trapped. With easy access to guns, they can release their frustrations on us all.
And as I mentioned after the Florida shooting, police, FBI, schools, whoever can have all the red flags in the world that an individual is likely to commit an act but they are limited in what they can do until that person is in the process of committing the act.
Looking at the Florida incident, the school suspended him because he had these tendencies, his guardians at the time took and locked his guns away. What else could have been done?
You can, as a society look at the cause, instead of the individual. Adter Columbine and the rash of copy cat acts that happened, that is what society did. How kids treated other kids and bullying was cracked down on and was given more awareness and It did fix the problem (IMO) until social media introduced new ways for everyone to communicate their thoughts.
You can attempt to take away the tools that allows them to get that feeling of being powerful (read guns) and that is the most successful way to prevent these acts. No humming and hawing can eliminate that truth.
I mentioned the Lt. Governor of Texas yesterday offering the idea that we have too many entrances and exits from schools. Really?? Let's imagine we only have one instead. Besides the obvious, massive fire hazard danger this presents to thousands of students, what happens when a kid smuggles a gun into his locker, pulls the fire alarm, and then every child and teacher in the school funnels themselves to the one exit, resulting in everyone just walking into the easiest tactical massacre ever perpetrated. What an incredibly stupid idea. On FOX News last night, the suggestion was to monitor the social media accounts of ALL children in the United States. Point being, every suggestion no matter how asinine is on the table, but never, ever the weapons whose only true purpose is to kill things. That's what guns do. They kill. They don't have any other use (and no, I don't include target shooting, because target shooting is, ostensibly, just practice for when you actually need to shoot something accurately). Knives are used for cooking. Cars are how society can function in regards to travel logistics. Any comparison and suggestion we ban or regulate those two things if we ban or regulate guns (which comes up every time this happens) is either made in complete stupidity or in a wholly disingenuous way. Everyone knows why we need cars and knives. They have tangible uses outside of the act of homicide. Guns don't. Guns are meant to kill. It was why they were invented, and it's the only real reason to own one. Even if you own one for self-defense of your home, the point is to KILL the perpetrator. Again, the function of any firearm, before anything else, is to take a life, of either a human or an animal. It's all they do. When we pretend guns aren't different than other ways you can kill people, we are simply engaging in some sort of mass delusion. Guns ARE different and it's perfectly obvious why. It's because killing is what they are meant to do.
Anyway, how many times have we had this conversation in the last 18 months since the thread started receiving more traffic?? By my recollection it has to be almost a half a dozen at this point. The same points get repeated over and over again in a perpetual loop, everyone knows there won't be a single thing done about ANY aspect of this issue, and everyone knows we're going to talk about it again in another couple weeks, or (at most) 2 or 3 months from now.
Every school here has all doors locked from the outside (can still be pushed open from the inside in case of fire or evacuation) except for the main enterance, limiting access to people who should not be there, so I am agreeable with the governor if that is the case.
That’s a safety issue in more than one way.
Monitoring social media of every kid is 1) impossible 2) infringes on the right of liberty but it doesn’t surprise me that Fox (where the F is beginning to stand for Fascist) would recommend it, but once again, law enforcement can’t do anything unless the kid makes an actual threat or commits an act.
Jamaica suffers from widespread poverty. Most Jamaicans work for minimum wage, which is 52 American dollars a week. Prices, however, are not correspondingly low. The island can't produce much on its own due to its small size, so many products have to be imported, which can increase prices dramatically. Oil prices and car prices are especially high. There is a high sales tax and a 67% import tax, and a hamburger can be $15 USD in Jamaica, over three times as high as it would be in the states. So, adjusting for purchasing power parity (PPP) would not necessarily make that $52/week minimum wage that much higher than it seems (I personally assume that other prices, for local items and such like bananas, would be much more affordable).
Jamaica has a democratically elected government with two political parties; no third parties. People want the government to raise the minimum wage, but politicians have not done so, though they have made promises to that effect (my dad and I suspected that the local politicians had a vested interest in maintaining higher profits for employers).
Violent crime is rare, but corruption is rampant, both at the highest and lowest levels of government. Police officers routinely accept bribes because their base wages are low--why worry about some guy breaking the law when a $20 bribe can help you feed your family?
There are no labor laws and no labor unions. Only government workers receive healthcare benefits or pensions; private companies do not offer these things. Private companies only offer minimum wage. There are no protections for workers, nor are there any effective organizations to lobby employers to raise wages beyond the minimum. There is no retirement for ordinary people; there are no pensions. You work until you die.
There is a single electricity company with a total monopoly. They can charge any price for electricity, and thus it is very high. Few people can afford electricity. In a hot and humid tropical environment, only rich people would have air conditioning at home.
Tourism is an important part of the economy and one of the few industries that thrive in Jamaica. However, little of the money earned gets reinvested into Jamaica. A single Spanish company owns the four largest hotels in Jamaica and their employees--the waiters, cooks, cleaners, service people in general, etc.--receive minimum wage. Most of the profits from tourism leave Jamaica and go to foreign companies. One man twice referred to the practice as raping Jamaica.
The only reason people work at these hotels is because of tips. While Europeans seldom tip because it's not standard in their home countries, Americans and Canadians tip often, which can bump up a hotel employee's wages. The employees at our hotel also got to eat for free at the buffet, though they could take nothing home. They get searched before they leave to make sure they aren't smuggling food or alcohol or other materials out of the hotel to sell elsewhere, though that smuggling still happens.
The Chinese government has a deal with the Jamaican government. China builds roads and infrastructure and in exchange, it is easier for Chinese to set up new companies and Chinese groups receive a discount: they only have to pay a 37% import tax instead of 67%. This allows them to open up grocery stores in Jamaica and sell low-quality knockoffs at lower prices that Jamaicans can afford. The Chinese are known colloquially as "Mr. Chin" and they are viewed positively.
One man suggested that things were better before Jamaica achieved independence from England. Corrupt politicians were more able to rig the system to their benefit once they were independent (he did not specify the exact process). Jamaica used to be more well-off when corruption was lower several decades ago; sugar and coffee and bauxite powered the economy.
Jamaica is rich in sun and rain and the soil is fertile; everything is shrouded in green and plants grow easily here. However, the island is 80% mountains, and traveling through the mountains is very difficult due to the lack of roads. Some people make a living off the land, setting up a shack in the hills and growing bananas and other fruit as well as wild goats, and getting their water from rivers or by collecting rainwater. However, living in the hills means you are very disconnected from the rest of the island; you have zero access to modern technology or products of any kind unless you walk on foot into town to sell the food you've grown at the market (which I'm guessing would yield rather little money). You would struggle to pay for health care if you got sick.
There is no social safety net and no public health care system. If you need healthcare, you pay out of pocket. Doctors and dentists are fairly wealthy. If you can't afford healthcare, you don't get treatment.
One man expressed frustration at what he viewed as American complacence, saying that the only reason someone would end up a "bum" in the United States would be because they wanted to be; there were too many opportunities for career growth to miss out on all of them. A straight-A student since he was young, he has been working towards moving to America (legally) to find a new job, which he will use to pay for college. He intends to study finance and get a better-paying job in the future. While some Jamaicans work abroad and send money back home, many of the people he knows have gone to America and never returned, simply because the economic conditions in America are so much better ("No matter how much you hate Trump, you don't go back to Jamaica"). One of his friends lives in American not to have a job, but simply to live off food stamp abuse and other, non-government-related scams. He stressed that getting a better-paying job is well within reach; he mentioned the existence of 117,000 different scholarship programs to pay for school.
From this, we might propose 10 different causes for poverty in Jamaica:
1. An exploitative tourism industry in which a single company rakes in most of the profits
2. A low minimum wage and few jobs that pay any higher
3. No labor laws to protect workers
4. No labor unions to fight for higher wages and benefits
5. The island is heavily reliant on imports to attain goods, and shipping is expensive
6. The island is mountainous with few roads in the mountains, making transportation more difficult in places
7. A one-company monopoly on electricity
8. "Brain drain," the loss of talented and productive individuals who leave the country to seek higher-paying jobs elsewhere
9. Government corruption
10. High taxes, especially on necessary imports
What do you guys think?
To me it sounds like exploitive capitalism to the max. Especially once you look at wages, lack of unions and monopolies. The economy seems to consist of funneling big money to the few while multinational businesses collude to artificially suppress wages to the people.
Police and government officials can't overcome the situation. They exploit the system to at least "get theirs" so they take bribes, might as well get theirs.
Now knowing how the tourism trade is treated in Jamaica, would you return there?
The real reasons I wouldn't go back is because I've already been there once--there's less new stuff to see now--and because, like my grandfather on my mother's side (not the grandfather I've spoken about elsewhere on the forum, though both of them were missionaries), I am extremely cheap. I only went because I was going with my parents. I myself don't spend money on basically anything besides gasoline and food, and even then, I prefer to spend at most $1 per 100 calories on food. I don't need to save money, exactly, but I prefer it.
Previously from the Onion:
Yet there are plenty of islands that have enjoyed economic success despite being more resource-poor than Jamaica, including islands both much smaller than Jamaica, like Singapore, or much larger than Jamaica, like Japan. Some small islands have become wealthy because of offshore banks that hide rich people's and large corporations' funds overseas to dodge taxes from back home. But Singapore and Japan are fairly odd examples, as Singapore is primarily a city-state with a small population and no agriculture, and Japan has had a strong economic buildup dating back to the nineteenth century--I'm not sure how many factors they truly have in common.
I am generally disposed to think that institutions are the biggest factor in determining economic performance in the modern era. Corruption and low competition in the private sector both reward inefficiency and thwart growth. Jamaica's one electricity company is a good example. With a monopoly on electricity, the company can charge whatever rates it wants. That means maximum profits for one company, but the nation as a whole suffers.
I think the electricity issue might have cascading problems. If electricity prices are high, few people have electricity. If people don't have plenty of electricity, there is no market for electronic goods. Likewise, without widespread electronics, there is no market for Internet providers. Without widespread Internet, people are starved of information and communication is universally slower.
Modern economies are heavily dependent on ample access to cheap energy. If that energy isn't cheap, every industry that depends on energy will suffer. If you can't afford oil, why would you buy a car? This means that a single monopoly could cripple multiple sectors of the economy.
Your dad chose the wrong road.
If the island adopted a communist government, do you think the people of Jamaica would be better off?
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/19/us/politics/trump-jr-saudi-uae-nader-prince-zamel.html
And right on que, the would-be autocrat is now issuing decrees. Someone sounds panicked:
How many times have I said Trump would order an investigation of his political opponents (officially) when the shit started to hit the fan?? Dozens by this point. Donald Trump will burn democracy to the ground before he surrenders a single inch.
There is also the issue of attempting to out an undercover FBI agent, blowing their cover to serve a political agenda. This is apparently now something of a tradition of in Republican Administrations. It isn't a real GOP Administration until you attempt to out a CIA or FBI operative to serve a domestic political agenda. The idea that this party ever ran on the idea of "law and order" is farcical.
Interesting post about Jamaica, thankyou.
But the violent crime rate is horrendous, it has one of the highest murder rates in the world.
What you said jumped out at me because there's been some reporting here in the UK about it.
Where did you get the idea that violent crime was low in Jamaica?