brute just had a revelation/thought while preparing dead animal flesh for consumption. he realizes this is only partly related to the topic of gun control, so if other humans want to debate brute's later rants, maybe he should open a new topic?
brute will start with a movie quote:
Hotel Rwanda wrote:Colonel Oliver: [explaining why the world will not intervene] You're black. You're not even a nigger. You're an African.
brute believes the (in his eyes) ineffective, emotional-appeal-based, irrational gun control debate in the US is in large part based on this sentiment. and brute doesn't think it's racism. it's just human nature to get used to things. humans get used to almost anything.
just as the movie character's sentiment is that to westerners, "Africans have civil wars all the time", to suburban wealthy humans in the US, "poor inner city blacks shoot each other all the time". yes, they make up the vast majority of gun deaths. no, the gun control alarmists don't care about them. not because liberals are racist, but because those young black men are not like them, or like anyone they know or care about.
liberals get riled up when white children in suburban schools get shot up because their white children go to suburban schools. 100x more black unemployed inner city human males get shot in the same time frame, but they don't care. they want those evil assault rifles banned, which the inner city gang members don't use anyway, but which look scary on CNN.
and how could brute blame humans for being human?
if humans actually cared about # of lives saved from gun death, not just cute white suburban human children, what could they maybe do to reduce the # of young inner city poor human males murdering each other over turf and sub minimum wage drug slinging jobs?
brute's theory is that it has a lot to do with society's disdain for certain types of humans.
humans are social animals and will do and endure practically anything to find belonging of some kind, somewhere. just to jog the memory, humans murdered 6 million jews to be part of the in group.
there are humans that (in certain cultures) just have no worth to society, and society lets those humans know it. the worth of a human to society depends on a few factors, including gender and education. brute suspects that "inner city black" is more a proxy for "no education" than it is racism here, because the same thinking applies to poor/uneducated white human males.
children have value to society, because biology + potential. any 10 year old young inner city black human male still triggers cuteness in adult humans and could still go to college.
by 17-20, it is pretty clear if an individual human is going to go to college, otherwise work at a productive job, or become a burden to society.
human males are valued for producing stuff for society and raising children (the next generation of potential work horses). education is a proxy for potential productivity, so college or other types of education are seen as such an indication. if a human male at ~18 years old shows no indication that he will become a workhorse, society despises him, pushes him out, calls him names, and does not give him a place in it, no feeling of belonging.
humans will do almost anything to belong. somewhere.
the whole gang phenomenon is likely just some kind of ersatz family/society for a group of humans that cannot find acceptance in "real" families or societies.
brute is quite sure that locking up a large percentage of black fathers doesn't help this situation, because it is much harder to give belonging and structure to a young human male's life if one is a working poor single mother. but it is probably not the only factor, because similar things happen to poor low-potential white human males, i.e. opioid crisis.
ideas brute has for giving meaning and belonging to young aggressive human males that would otherwise spend their energy to their own and society's detriment:
- reduce prison sentences for non-violent crimes
- legalize drugs (the more the better)
- relax child labor and minimum wage laws - black inner city youth unemployment is absurdly high. if these young human males had a way to legally earn money and respect, they would likely do it
- improve reintegration of former convicts into society by education and job training/placement
- drop general societal disdain for humans who happen to have drawn the economic short straw.
brute wants to talk a bit more about this last point.
it used to be that cities were shitholes and full of poor and dirty humans and the good suburban and country folk looked down upon them as immoral sinners. (criterion: religious purity or something)
now the economic tides have shifted. nobody needs factories or farms any more, and all the young professionals move to large metro areas because the money is much better. rust belt and rural folk are looked down upon as immoral, uneducated idiots. (criterion: education/metropolitan-ness)
both are terribly unproductive. why can humans not realize that their current luck of the draw is not due to their moral superiority, and that the other party's current bad state is due to lack of said luck?
brute would love to see the economic winners be nice and gracious to the economic losers. not in the form of wealth transfer necessarily (although a lot of that is going on anyway), but in the form of cultural/media acceptance, reaching out, community building.
money is nice, but belonging is priceless.
