New Zealand To Greatly Tighten Gun Laws After Christchurch Massacre

[Kartoffel]

Those who advocate that law abiding citizens have no right to self-defense with weapons are not anti-gun. They are in fact very pro-gun. They just want government to have all of the guns. And therein lies the problem. They think they are in some moral position by thinking all guns should be outlawed, but they lose the moral argument because the very act of what they advocate (government only having weapons) is, by any historical metric of how many innocent people governments have killed, immoral, if we were to judge by outcome alone, which is the only truly objective way to judge morality. So put aside the fact that gun bans won't stop black weapons markets from growing, even if they did work, all you're doing is trading in one thing for another --- by advocating that government have all the weapons to stop mass shootings (which until this day strict gun laws do not do), you are but merely trading in the bodies of mass shooting causalities in for the many bodies which will and always have historically come at the hand of government itself. It's akin to trusting in a corrupt Police department to investigate itself for officers who murder innocent people and take drug money. When only government has the weapons, then truly, there is no real accountability and, as human nature assures, absolute power will always be corrupted. I went on a long drive throughout central America a few years ago. I went through the good and bad parts. During that time, I was held at gun point and robbed by corrupt police officers on five different accounts. A few of them got very heated. I easily could have died and would have never been heard of again and the officers could have easily gotten away with it too. These were places where no guns were allowed for citizens to own. It is easy to ignore history when you live in a developed country that hasn't 'yet' seen such hardships and infringements on freedoms, where you feel fairly safe, and say it doesn't matter if government has all the weapons because it won't ever happen in said country. But when you have a rogue government who has all the weapons, and you have experienced it firsthand, and how quickly things can go wrong, and how great they can abuse their power, it is an entirely different situation and experience and often, those who advocate such ideas have not had such experiences. At least, if I am well armed, my freedoms are taken into my hands and are my own responsability, and I am not on my knees to government, at their mercy seat, hoping that they remain good. And of course, even if they remain good for some time, I am still defenseless against the people who do not obey laws and will therefore use illegal weapons to terrorize the innocent. So, like in those places I visited, you're at the mercy of the government that they not become bad, but you are also at the mercy of the drug lords and gangs that they not come after you and all that you worked hard for.

With freedom comes great responsability, and punishing those who abuse their freedoms to hurt others rather than dishing out collective punishments by restricting rights of the people is the only thing that works in a truly free society. It may sound nice to the utopian authoritarians, but their perfect view never works in reality and always ends up leading to a dystopia rather than a utopia. Governments will always work in their own self-interest to keep power, and as technology progresses, this consolidation of power will only make this even more dangerous to free innocent individuals. With robotics being used more in military and other such advancements, it makes it even more important than ever that checks and balances remain on the other side of the isle so that government is kept in check --- because with technology advancing, there may come a day where it only takes one time for them to consolidate enough power and they will have the technology and leverage to keep that power over a once-free peoples, forever. And I assure all, they will always have plenty of excuses like mass shootings to try to dupe people into giving up that power to them, by pulling at our emotional heart strings. And that time will come when there will be no going back.

I have an innocent question: Let's say we have a state like the U.S. or any other Western nation, and citizens are allowed to own handguns, maybe even automatic rifles. How exactely would the right to bear these arms allow citizens to protect themselves from a tyrannical government? If the government wanted to subjugate the people with force, than these guns and rifles wouldn't make any difference whatsoever. You can't fight an organized military force of the 21st century with a few automatic rifles, even if every citzen possesed one. This isn't 1776 where armed colonists could actually hope to prevail in a fight with their opressive government.
On top of that, all the guns Americans possess haven't stopped the American government from becoming the most Orwelian in the Western World. Where were the armed masses when the Freedom Act was passed? Have they prevented the surveilance programm of NSA and CIA, protected farmers from FBI raids, stopped the Illegal wars in Vietnam or Latin America?

 

[Jem Oz]

I have an innocent question: Let's say we have a state like the U.S. or any other Western nation, and citizens are allowed to own handguns, maybe even automatic rifles. How exactely would the right to bear these arms allow citizens to protect themselves from a tyrannical government? If the government wanted to subjugate the people with force, than these guns and rifles wouldn't make any difference whatsoever. You can't fight an organized military force of the 21st century with a few automatic rifles, even if every citzen possesed one. This isn't 1776 where armed colonists could actually hope to prevail in a fight with their opressive government.
On top of that, all the guns Americans possess haven't stopped the American government from becoming the most Orwelian in the Western World. Where were the armed masses when the Freedom Act was passed? Have they prevented the surveilance programm of NSA and CIA, protected farmers from FBI raids, stopped the Illegal wars in Vietnam or Latin America?

Fair points. So why are govt's SO obsessed with taking away our guns? Do you honestly think they care about public safety?

 

[miki14]

This is an Illuminati psy ops! Check out the Kiwi prime minister, he's a lizzard:

 

[Kartoffel]

This is an Illuminati psy ops! Check out the Kiwi prime minister, he's a lizzard:

Even worse, I think he might be a woman!

 

[postman]

On a positive note, Jordan Peterson's book has been banned from Whitcoulls book store in New Zealand, so at least that will prevent further tragedies...

He deserves it, for censoring others voices himself.

 

[Waremu]

I have an innocent question: Let's say we have a state like the U.S. or any other Western nation, and citizens are allowed to own handguns, maybe even automatic rifles. How exactely would the right to bear these arms allow citizens to protect themselves from a tyrannical government? If the government wanted to subjugate the people with force, than these guns and rifles wouldn't make any difference whatsoever. You can't fight an organized military force of the 21st century with a few automatic rifles, even if every citzen possesed one. This isn't 1776 where armed colonists could actually hope to prevail in a fight with their opressive government.
On top of that, all the guns Americans possess haven't stopped the American government from becoming the most Orwelian in the Western World. Where were the armed masses when the Freedom Act was passed? Have they prevented the surveilance programm of NSA and CIA, protected farmers from FBI raids, stopped the Illegal wars in Vietnam or Latin America?

I think America hasn't done much because people are still living comfortably enough to allow it. It isn't bad enough for them, so they will likely cope until a financial crisis hits, or the thermodynamic energy decline manifests itself more and that likely will be what puts more pressure on the US and Western economies. It seems we are moving into more stagflation and eventually, when people can't live the way they used to, or like they want to, things will keep building up until the right event or crisis comes along and it begins some type of chain-reaction, or domino-effect. Civilizational declines do not happen overnight, but I expect it to be faster than historical events because generally we have far more complexities coupled with serious resource issues, and this really began many years ago but it has been a slow-burn right up until now. So that is my view as to why Americans have put up with the Orwellian governance thus far. The government could in theory try to subjugate its people through brunt military force, but things are not bad enough for that to happen yet, so it would likely be too obvious to people and the military wouldn't have the political will by it's career politicians to do so. Usually, to have the right kind of totalitarian leader who uses such force and gets away with it, it has to happen at the right time in history where resources are constrained and things are so bad, that the military itself will be obedient to that leader up to a certain point because they need food and security as well. If that doesn't happen, the type of subjugation I speak of would be more like some Orwellian tech-police state where we are like lab mice, controlled in almost every aspect of our life. Similar to what China is doing with the social credit system it is trying to implement, with the social controls, etc.

But if the latter scenario plays out and it becomes too unbearable to live that way, then perhaps like those who argue for the morality on 'die with dignity', many will want to die with dignity by not dying as slaves and would rather attempt to rebel, as their lives are no longer enjoyable or meaningful to them. In reality, these things are hard to predict, but these are some possibilities as well. But regardless of some tyrannical government going full totalitarian, I would still rather put my safety in my own hands with regards to self-defense because, as economic conditions worsen, corruption and crime will continue to increase, which includes corruption of law enforcement, so I wouldn't want to trust in them to keep me or, if I had one, my family safe. I live in a major city and the crime here has shot up over the last decade. Gang violence has increased quite a bit as well as the level of violent murders, and where I live isn't considered a bad place. I wouldn't want to wait 30 minutes for the Police to come to my house in the event it is broken into. I'd rather trust my friend, Mr. Shotgun

But back to the first scenario: America is a country of well over 300 million people. Currently, if there was a country-wide emergency, such as an economic collapse coupled with the power grid going down due to some form of cyber or other type of terrorist event, and a mass-fracturing of U.S. politics to the point of a civil war, where various states would want to break away to form their own countries, the US government, with only 1.3 million active duty military and 800 thousand reserve forces, would only have the manpower with it's military to occupy and fully control a few of the largest US cities in the US., realistically speaking. And if it resulted in non-stop guerilla warfare, they would be even more challenged because they would want to try their best to not bomb/destroy expensive city real estate, and unnecessary innocent life. Various top pentagon officials have stated on many occasions over the last few years that they were not well equipped for this type of warfare and only began increasing their training to prepare for the futuristic battlefields of cities\suburbs, but still take the position that we are not ready for that if it were to happen. In fact, not so long ago, the Pentagon mentioned that in the near future the cities of tomorrow would be mega cities controlled largely by drug lords and hacker cyber-terrorist groups and that the military would have to establish it's bases outside these mega cities where it is more manageable due to population density issues. It is a really big problem many people do not think of when they try to envision what a war on US soil would look like.

But I think the failures in the middle east is a good example of this, and Iraqi cities are no where near as complex as US cities are in design, etc. I think if it was full-stop guerilla warfare, it would be bloody, and there would be a large loss of civilian life, but I think the military would be stretched so thin and it would be long and drawn out to the point where it would eventually cause a breakdown within the military itself. Military standards are not what they used to be in many ways as well. The average soldier of today I don't think is an equal match to the average soldier of 50 years ago in every aspect of physical fitness, intelligence, etc.

Also, it is very likely that foreign country governments which want to see the West fall would exploit the situation to their advantage and use proxy groups to fund militia groups and give them lower tier type training and military weapons/explosives. You would also have those in the military who would defect because they wouldn't want to shoot people they went to school with, etc. And in many ways our military is already stretched thin. So I think it is easy to overestimate what our military is capable of doing under those conditions as well. A country full of rebels with nothing to lose and nothing more than assault rifles and basic explosives can accomplish a lot if the environment and time is right. The last few wars America has attempted to win I think are a testament to that.

But a lot of it depends on the timing of when the empire is weak and strong. I suspect the US will have more technological improvements for the time being, but a decade or a few decades out, I don't see the world having a scientific technological utopia or dystopia either because I simply do not think the resource constraints will allow that, as the signs of entropy become more obvious to even the leaders of the world who think they can spend money and waste energy/resources endlessly without the laws of thermodynamics slapping them across the side of the face. In my view of things, we have left the age of prosperity and are now in the early stages of the post-fossil age. I believe we are heading back to a more multipolar world as resources are so constrained that countries fight over what is left for them and trade and currency wars heat up more. This I believe will lead into the second stage of the resource depletion-thermodynamic energy decline which will collapse our highly dependent-on fuel socities into a new type of dark age period. I do not believe a utopia or dystopia of AI robotics will be in the future, or that we will make it to mars and build a base there, or that wind and solar or even nuclear will be enough to save us.

So it is my view that, given the resource depletion issues that mainstream media and government has been trying it's best to mask as being the real cause of the worsening economic conditions of the last few decades, it will eventually put enough strain on the military itself and when rationing of fossil fuel happens, the military will be stretched very thin to go around the world fighting battles like it used to and this will affect other high-tech military equipment that is used today, so this will likely push the balance in favor of civilians if such a war were to happen at the right time when such energy issues will affect the military to that degree. Even recently, the military discussed switching to lighter vehicles, away from it's heavier armored vehicles, which I suspect to be related to the them understanding the energy problems we will be facing and trying to adjust to that accordingly. But there will come a time when the military won't have a lot of the heavy tanks and other machines to the degree that it did to really give it the arm up in battle. They will have small drones still, which can do damage, but drones have their own weakness which can be exploited as well, even by civilian militia that is backed by other forces.

All that being said, I don't have much hope in humanity and with what Americans have already allowed our government to do further makes me pessimistic. And if some other entity replaces our military in the event that it breaks up, I don't have much faith they will act in good moral faith as well.

 

[Cirion]

Well said @Waremu. And with that, I leave you with this appropriate meme

 

[Cameron]

Why would any person want a government to tell you what you can and can't have or defend yourself with? Criminals don't listen to laws. Not sure how that view point can be so excepted by people especially on a platform like this of empowerment and Independence. Guns need to be in the hands of strong empowered men and women. Look at the strict gun laws and Chicago and look at all the crime. Defend yourself and your family by your choice of power just cause your in a gun free zone doesn't mean the criminal is going to read that gun free sticker and leave his gun at home.

 

[DaveFoster]

It's a shame this had to happen first, though.

Hopefully they'll follow suit with Australia and Scotland who both responded to similar massacres with tightened laws and have both not had a mass shooting since.

While that's a horrible thing to happen, I always dislike when governments respond by decreasing freedoms in the name of "safety". Though I admit I am not familiar with their laws compared to here (US)? Do they do background checks there currently?

For example of iodicy (I could name many) - the whole desire to ban bump stocks was absolute lunacy here in the states. I can't think of a single time bump stocks have been used in a crime, ever. Zero logical sense. They claimed it was because of the one concert shooting some time back but it was already disproven that a bump fire stock was used by veterans at the scene who know the fire rate of bump fire vs. belt fed etc. That's another pet peeve of mine. Most people advocating gun control don't even understand how firearms work. IMO, one should not even make arguments if they don't even know the difference between a barrel and a heat guard. I kid you not, I remember one time on CNN when the talk show host said there was desire to ban heat guards because they "Look scary". Hey, let's paint all AR's hot pink then they won't look scary anymore!

Sorry, that turned into a bit of a rant. Lol.

BTW, you won't ever hear about all the times mass shootings have been STOPPED by a good guy with a gun- because that won't fit the narrative. Heaven forbid the narrative be challenged.

Leftists/liberals are the party of "Emotion" and not of logic. They are great at taking a tragedy (like this) and using it to stir up peoples' emotions to make an emotional, not logical, based decision.

Or, an alternative: Mandatory open and/or conceal carry for every citizen without a felony record. There's a lack of logic in blaming a particular weapon on the primal nature of humans. We're not a peaceful, egalitarian species. We have very violent roots, and at the core of every man is the possibility and the propensity to kill. Taking away certain weapons won't change the nature of mankind. You can take everything away and we would still kill with our bare hands. The greatest evil in this world isn't the actions of wicked men, it's the lack in action of indifferent good men. Besides, on a much less philosophical point, in my country (America) taking the guns, legally speaking, would spark one of the biggest black market trades we've ever seen. Quite possibly even more dangerous than the drug prohibition. Prohibition of any kind is doomed to fail.

@Cirion it's interesting you mention that, the stop a bad guy with a good guy with a gun. The original reports I saw coming out during the shooting say a Muslim from the second mosque went home and came back with a gun to stop the shooter. I'd have to check some archived sources to make sure.

Anyways, the now-previous laws in NZ were supposed to prevent what the shooter did. Last count was he had two "assault rifles" (sarcastic rather than scare quotes) and two shotguns. It's still unclear to me, but apparently he had a shooting club and that's how he got the guns. Rumor is that he and the club were reported years ago, but I can't find anything to confirm that. Thing is, he's Australian, so I'm not quite understanding if it was an importing problem when he visited or moved to NZ, or if he was allowed 4 guns. I say that because self-defense isn't a reason to be allowed a gun under previous NZ laws, from what I've been told from residents there. It's strange he ended up with more than one, or even one of each.

I'm all for preventing carnage, but I agree with what you're saying. Power grabs and authoritarianism are bad, and playing on emotions to do it is awful. Then there's the irony that the shooter said he wanted exactly this to happen in his manifesto. That it would be ignored that he's an immigrant who wanted death upon other immigrants, but it would still result in what's happened. It's like the Twilight Zone.

Lastly, there are countries that can, apparently, do this due to geography. I doubt with the cartels coming from anywhere south of Texas that the USA could keep black market guns out. I don't have a dog in this fight, but seeing as how I don't see any logic in the solutions, I'd still be pro-responsible-firearms-ownership outside of the 2A.

I'd rather have a christchurch attack every day than for basic human rights to be taken away.

I think America hasn't done much because people are still living comfortably enough to allow it. It isn't bad enough for them, so they will likely cope until a financial crisis hits, or the thermodynamic energy decline manifests itself more and that likely will be what puts more pressure on the US and Western economies. It seems we are moving into more stagflation and eventually, when people can't live the way they used to, or like they want to, things will keep building up until the right event or crisis comes along and it begins some type of chain-reaction, or domino-effect. Civilizational declines do not happen overnight, but I expect it to be faster than historical events because generally we have far more complexities coupled with serious resource issues, and this really began many years ago but it has been a slow-burn right up until now. So that is my view as to why Americans have put up with the Orwellian governance thus far. The government could in theory try to subjugate its people through brunt military force, but things are not bad enough for that to happen yet, so it would likely be too obvious to people and the military wouldn't have the political will by it's career politicians to do so. Usually, to have the right kind of totalitarian leader who uses such force and gets away with it, it has to happen at the right time in history where resources are constrained and things are so bad, that the military itself will be obedient to that leader up to a certain point because they need food and security as well. If that doesn't happen, the type of subjugation I speak of would be more like some Orwellian tech-police state where we are like lab mice, controlled in almost every aspect of our life. Similar to what China is doing with the social credit system it is trying to implement, with the social controls, etc.

But if the latter scenario plays out and it becomes too unbearable to live that way, then perhaps like those who argue for the morality on 'die with dignity', many will want to die with dignity by not dying as slaves and would rather attempt to rebel, as their lives are no longer enjoyable or meaningful to them. In reality, these things are hard to predict, but these are some possibilities as well. But regardless of some tyrannical government going full totalitarian, I would still rather put my safety in my own hands with regards to self-defense because, as economic conditions worsen, corruption and crime will continue to increase, which includes corruption of law enforcement, so I wouldn't want to trust in them to keep me or, if I had one, my family safe. I live in a major city and the crime here has shot up over the last decade. Gang violence has increased quite a bit as well as the level of violent murders, and where I live isn't considered a bad place. I wouldn't want to wait 30 minutes for the Police to come to my house in the event it is broken into. I'd rather trust my friend, Mr. Shotgun

But back to the first scenario: America is a country of well over 300 million people. Currently, if there was a country-wide emergency, such as an economic collapse coupled with the power grid going down due to some form of cyber or other type of terrorist event, and a mass-fracturing of U.S. politics to the point of a civil war, where various states would want to break away to form their own countries, the US government, with only 1.3 million active duty military and 800 thousand reserve forces, would only have the manpower with it's military to occupy and fully control a few of the largest US cities in the US., realistically speaking. And if it resulted in non-stop guerilla warfare, they would be even more challenged because they would want to try their best to not bomb/destroy expensive city real estate, and unnecessary innocent life. Various top pentagon officials have stated on many occasions over the last few years that they were not well equipped for this type of warfare and only began increasing their training to prepare for the futuristic battlefields of cities\suburbs, but still take the position that we are not ready for that if it were to happen. In fact, not so long ago, the Pentagon mentioned that in the near future the cities of tomorrow would be mega cities controlled largely by drug lords and hacker cyber-terrorist groups and that the military would have to establish it's bases outside these mega cities where it is more manageable due to population density issues. It is a really big problem many people do not think of when they try to envision what a war on US soil would look like.

But I think the failures in the middle east is a good example of this, and Iraqi cities are no where near as complex as US cities are in design, etc. I think if it was full-stop guerilla warfare, it would be bloody, and there would be a large loss of civilian life, but I think the military would be stretched so thin and it would be long and drawn out to the point where it would eventually cause a breakdown within the military itself. Military standards are not what they used to be in many ways as well. The average soldier of today I don't think is an equal match to the average soldier of 50 years ago in every aspect of physical fitness, intelligence, etc.

Also, it is very likely that foreign country governments which want to see the West fall would exploit the situation to their advantage and use proxy groups to fund militia groups and give them lower tier type training and military weapons/explosives. You would also have those in the military who would defect because they wouldn't want to shoot people they went to school with, etc. And in many ways our military is already stretched thin. So I think it is easy to overestimate what our military is capable of doing under those conditions as well. A country full of rebels with nothing to lose and nothing more than assault rifles and basic explosives can accomplish a lot if the environment and time is right. The last few wars America has attempted to win I think are a testament to that.

But a lot of it depends on the timing of when the empire is weak and strong. I suspect the US will have more technological improvements for the time being, but a decade or a few decades out, I don't see the world having a scientific technological utopia or dystopia either because I simply do not think the resource constraints will allow that, as the signs of entropy become more obvious to even the leaders of the world who think they can spend money and waste energy/resources endlessly without the laws of thermodynamics slapping them across the side of the face. In my view of things, we have left the age of prosperity and are now in the early stages of the post-fossil age. I believe we are heading back to a more multipolar world as resources are so constrained that countries fight over what is left for them and trade and currency wars heat up more. This I believe will lead into the second stage of the resource depletion-thermodynamic energy decline which will collapse our highly dependent-on fuel socities into a new type of dark age period. I do not believe a utopia or dystopia of AI robotics will be in the future, or that we will make it to mars and build a base there, or that wind and solar or even nuclear will be enough to save us.

So it is my view that, given the resource depletion issues that mainstream media and government has been trying it's best to mask as being the real cause of the worsening economic conditions of the last few decades, it will eventually put enough strain on the military itself and when rationing of fossil fuel happens, the military will be stretched very thin to go around the world fighting battles like it used to and this will affect other high-tech military equipment that is used today, so this will likely push the balance in favor of civilians if such a war were to happen at the right time when such energy issues will affect the military to that degree. Even recently, the military discussed switching to lighter vehicles, away from it's heavier armored vehicles, which I suspect to be related to the them understanding the energy problems we will be facing and trying to adjust to that accordingly. But there will come a time when the military won't have a lot of the heavy tanks and other machines to the degree that it did to really give it the arm up in battle. They will have small drones still, which can do damage, but drones have their own weakness which can be exploited as well, even by civilian militia that is backed by other forces.

All that being said, I don't have much hope in humanity and with what Americans have already allowed our government to do further makes me pessimistic. And if some other entity replaces our military in the event that it breaks up, I don't have much faith they will act in good moral faith as well.

Why would any person want a government to tell you what you can and can't have or defend yourself with? Criminals don't listen to laws. Not sure how that view point can be so excepted by people especially on a platform like this of empowerment and Independence. Guns need to be in the hands of strong empowered men and women. Look at the strict gun laws and Chicago and look at all the crime. Defend yourself and your family by your choice of power just cause your in a gun free zone doesn't mean the criminal is going to read that gun free sticker and leave his gun at home.

Did anyone even read his manifesto? The government overreach following the shooting aligns with his agenda, as stated on page 2 of his writings, The Great Replacement: Towards a New Society.

"Why did you carry out the attack?

To most of all show the invaders that our lands will never be their lands,
our homelands are our own and that, as long as a white man still lives,
they will NEVER conquer our lands and they will never replace our
people.

To take revenge on the invaders for the hundreds of thousands of deaths
caused by foreign invaders in European lands throughout history.

To take revenge for the enslavement of millions of Europeans taken from
their lands by the Islamic slavers.

To take revenge for the thousands of European lives lost to terror attacks
throughout European lands.

To take revenge for Ebba Akerlund.

To directly reduce immigration rates to European lands by intimidating
and physically removing the invaders themselves.

To agitate the political enemies of my people into action, to cause them to
overextend their own hand and experience the eventual and inevitable
backlash as a result.

To incite violence, retaliation and further divide between the European
people and the invaders currently occupying European soil.

To avenge those European men and women lost in the constant and never
ending wars of European history who died for their lands, died for their
people only to have their lands given away to any foreign scum that
bother to show up.

[Here, he repeats himself.] To agitate the political enemies of my people into action, to over extend
their own hand and experience the eventual backlash.

To show the effect of direct action, lighting a path forward for those that
wish to follow.A path for those that wish to free their ancestors lands
from the invaders grasp and to be a beacon for those that wish to create a
lasting culture, to tell them they are not alone.

To create an atmosphere of fear and change in which drastic,powerful and
revolutionary action can occur.

To add momentum to the pendulum swings of history, further
destabilizing and polarizing Western society in order to eventually
destroy the current nihilistic, hedonistic, individualistic insanity that has
taken control of Western thought.

To drive a wedge between the nations of NATO that are European and
the Turks that also make a part of the NATO forces, thereby turning
NATO once more into a united European army and pushing the Turkey
once more back to the true position of a foreign, enemy force.

Finally, to create conflict between the two ideologies within the United
States on the ownership of firearms in order to further the social, cultural,
political and racial divide within the United states.This conflict over the
2nd amendment and the attempted removal of firearms rights will
ultimately result in a civil war that will eventually balkanize the US along
political, cultural and, most importantly, racial lines.

This balkanization of the US will not only result in the racial separation
of the people within the United States ensuring the future of the White
race on the North American continent, but also ensuring the death of the
“melting pot” pipe dream.

Furthermore this balkanization will also reduce the USA’s ability to
project power globally, and thereby ensure that never again can such a
situation as the US involvement in Kosovo ever occur again(where
US/NATO forces fought beside muslims and slaughtered Christian
Europeans attempting to remove these Islamic occupiers from Europe)."​

 

[Lyla]

Three people, including the wife and son of the imam of the Linwood mosquem all two said seeingthey saw 2 shooters. Here is the link to the article reported on the next day of the shooting 16 Mar 2019 https://www.theage.com.au/world/oce...-carnage-in-christchurch-20190316-p514r6.html

One of them said " the police was So quick..."
NewstalkZB, a radio station in New Zealand reported that the police in Christchurch was doing a drill on the very same day of the shooting. Coincidence?

 

[thomas00]

Leftists/liberals are the party of "Emotion" and not of logic. They are great at taking a tragedy (like this) and using it to stir up peoples' emotions to make an emotional, not logical, based decision.

Creationism, the Iraq war, trickle down economics....all conservative articles of faith, not reason.

Gun activists have cited fear of tyranny as justification for spreading weapons everywhere. Not only is this fear emotional by definition, it's become a phobic obsession.

It doesn't guarantee anything other than money for the arms industry . If it did America wouldn't be a totalitarian security state with an all powerful government that collects information on it's citizens and reserves the right to throw them in jail for exposing it's crimes.

In the meantime, until this supposed Hitler regime comes into power at some undisclosed time, the population has to endure thousands of firearm deaths and watch school children get shot up on the news.

Not really that hard to understand why some countries don't want to go down that road.

 

[thomas00]

On a positive note, Jordan Peterson's book has been banned from Whitcoulls book store in New Zealand, so at least that will prevent further tragedies...

Damn.

Where will people get inane youtube advice from now...

Maybe YouTube?

 

[sunraiser]

So basically you are saying you're a socialist then?

I'm a socialist in the MODERN sense, yes. That means mixed market social democracy. I'm this way not because of some kind of subversion by government and media - the government and media in my country support neoliberalism (trump politics) through and through. I had to FIND this path because I could see huge injustice in society and didn't understand why it wasn't questioned in the media.

I'm also this way because the countries with the highest quality of life are running this model - the countries where citizens have the MOST REAL TERMS freedom - free access to higher education, very high social mobility (it's much easier to gain and sustain wealth despite having poorer parents, free access to healthcare and huge social infrastructure systems to ensure less people get left behind when they encounter misfortune.

You've quoted a paragraph I wrote that literally defines empathy and fairness, and how those things can be exploited by ONE party to REDUCE the freedoms of another wider set of people. You've quoted the paragraph in which I outline how the concept of "freedom" can be USED to impassion people while actually reducing their wider freedoms as a whole - the privileged can reduce the freedoms of the unfortunate under the banner of "individual freedom". Your only response is to say I'm a socialist? Do you not see how dogmatic and faith based your views are?

To you, socialism is something evil because it has been PREACHED that way to you. Mixed market social democracy has the lowest povery and highest human wellbeing. You've listed a set of autocratic countries in your post that are using regulation to INHIBIT wider freedoms, not increase them. That is NOT social democracy or socialism in a modern sense.

Also, Venezuela are not a good example. They had a Trump style neoliberal government and ended up in revolution because of it. The country had huge decreases in inequality and increases in quality of life for over a decade before their over reliance on imports of everything and exports of oil got them into trouble. It has nothing to do with socialism - it has to do with getting too comfortable and not expecting oil prices to crash the way they did. Poor management, yes, failure in social democracy, no.

The reason Venezuela are constantly in the public eye at the moment is because they're the next TARGET for your government. It's a slow building of public support so they can and do what they did to Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria. Venezuela have the largest natural oil reserve in the world. It's opportunistic tyranny.

You come across as intelligent, you clearly have empathy and care about other humans from your posts and yet you're supporting the politics that are the antithesis of those things. Trump's politics are borne of privilege - they're born of not having any idea of the struggles normal people face because he was born into money. Just like Rupert Murdoch in the UK - the guy who owns Fox news (and lots of other media outlets). Do you not see how faith and rhetoric based your responses are when you see the notion of socialism as a threat? The notion that the most prosperous countries (in terms of human wellbeing) have a system that you demonise?

So my arguments are emotional, not logical, but not the anti-gun groups? How is what you just posted not intended to be passion promoting? Freedom controls the masses, really? Tell that to north korea, cuba, venezuela or other ultra communist countries that have no freedom.

The CONCEPT of freedom controls the masses. The concept that there's a big bad enemy or invader coming to take your freedom is a way to stir passion in people that are just living their lives and are unaware of socio-economic policies that work in the wider world. They're a way to keep people focused on various invisible perceived "enemies" instead of the main enemy to human wellbeing - INEQUALITY.

A lot of middle class America has the idea drummed into them from a young age that any kind of government intervention is a threat to their freedom, because that suits the people in control. The people born into massive wealth want to keep it that way, and government regulation that redistributes wealth, making society stronger as a whole (as demonstrated by quality of life:inequality rankings) is a threat to their monopoly. The worst part is, even rich people would do better with higher equality. A healthier society means more creative outlet, it means the people with the most money aren't able to buy their way towards the best education and only provide one social view in the most powerful jobs. It means people with a huge diversity of different views can have a say in how society runs to keep things balanced.

The best and brightest are not the ones that bought the best grades - a narrowly defined meritocracy only suits the rich and powerful.

It's not irrelevant. RE my example of cognitive dissonance and bias comfirmation - hearing no news must mean it doesn't happen, and hearing news must mean it happens a lot. Sorry just because you don't hear about it doesn't mean it isn't the case, most of the time. Again, a story about someone STOPPING a massacre isn't going to be popular news. And no you will not stop massacres by banning guns. It is easy enough to make something home made from parts from lowes, or even 3d print one.

Banning guns has LITERALLY stopped massacres in the UK and Australia. It's an actual effect. I don't know if it's easy to imagine as you're from the USA, but I haven't ever needed a gun in my lifetime in the UK.

I haven't ever seen another human with a gun beyond police in airports during terror threats. Police here don't need to carry guns. I lived in one of the poorest parts of Peru and I didn't need a gun, nor did I see another person with a gun.

The idea that gun ownership is somehow tied to your freedom is simply propaganda of BIG BUSINESS. There's huge huge huge amounts of money in gun ownership, and using your power and influence to rile people up is a great way to keep business booming. That's why the movement has so much publicity - corporate interests.

Agreed. If we REALLY want to solve crime we must fix the ROOT CAUSE which as you alluded to is more often than not, metabolic dysfunction, mental health etc, Haidut posted something to this effect a while back. There is a ton of spiritual dysfunction nowadays as well as you said.

Too much time is wasted on "band aid solutions" which isn't gonna fix anything at the end of the day.

At least in the USA, virtually all school shootings involved a kid that was on high dose SSRI. The better thing to do then is ban SSRI, not guns... SSRI have many negatives that Haidut has repeatedly posted about.

I completely agree with you about solving the root cause. I don't think it's specifically SSRIs but they obviously don't help.

It's utterly galling to me that someone in your position could possibly see root cause solutions in neoliberal politics. Do you not see how the concept of freedom of the invididual can be used to inhibit the freedoms of others? There's a reason why FOX news (owned by a billionaire) constantly chirps on about this stuff. It's because regulation means they can't exploit others in the way they want to. There's a reason republican candidates have huge corporate backing, and it's not because they want to enhance human wellbeing. When you live a life so privileged, so far removed from the struggles 99% of people are living, you simply CAN'T develop proper empathy for the human condition. It creates sociopathic politics and policies of media control that we're seeing today.

Putting the idea in people's minds that government regulation is somehow a threat to freedoms of normal people (it obviously CAN be, but it isn't as a concept) is the best possible way to create exploitation, inequality and poverty.

Do you not wonder why the mega rich guy with his media corp is lobbying to minimise government? Do you not wonder why the mega rich guy is lobbying to not have to pay fair taxes, to not have to deal with pesky government intervention and pay his workers a minimum wage?

Do you not wonder why the mega rich guy is against having to give his workers mandatory holiday? The "freedom" of one person to impede the freedoms of wider society CANNOT be upheld as a standard of morality. It's simply tyranny.

I understand I'm effectively uprooting a lifelong and spoon fed belief system for USA people with my postings, but all I can do is share it and let you find your own way. We all know about industrial complexes and the immoral actions of corporate interests. Please DO NOT buy into their media machine.

You have it worse in the USA because both parties represent the same economic values. One party just uses nationalism and flag worship and the PERCEPTION of freedom, creating an imagined enemy from "muslim invaders" - ironically most of the people voting for it have never actually met a muslim. If any of you did you'd realise they're human just like the rest of us. Some good, some troubled.

I'm not having a go at you - I enjoy your posts and respect your outlook most of the time. I'm just upset that you clearly know hardship and feel empathy, and also know that corporate interests will often cross horrendous lines, yet you're falling for the politics CREATED by such corporate interests and the sociopathic view of the mega rich.

I promise you muslims are not invading anything. Terrorist groups exist because of Western foreign policy literally destroying the infrastructure of their entire countries. Uprooting generations of families. It's classic divide and conquer politics - - - people are a threat to the establishment, so divide them by constantly publicising an imagined enemy (muslims, mexicans, poor people on government aid etc etc).

Divide and rule - Wikipedia

The enemy is inequality - it is NOT humane to have 95% of the wealth in the hands of a few. Stop being distracted by imagined and dreamt up enemies to social wellbeing and start fighting against the actual oppressor to freedom.

 

[postman]

Did anyone even read his manifesto? The government overreach following the shooting aligns with his agenda, as stated on page 2 of his writings, The Great Replacement: Towards a New Society.

"Why did you carry out the attack?

To most of all show the invaders that our lands will never be their lands,
our homelands are our own and that, as long as a white man still lives,
they will NEVER conquer our lands and they will never replace our
people.

To take revenge on the invaders for the hundreds of thousands of deaths
caused by foreign invaders in European lands throughout history.

To take revenge for the enslavement of millions of Europeans taken from
their lands by the Islamic slavers.

To take revenge for the thousands of European lives lost to terror attacks
throughout European lands.

To take revenge for Ebba Akerlund.

To directly reduce immigration rates to European lands by intimidating
and physically removing the invaders themselves.

To agitate the political enemies of my people into action, to cause them to
overextend their own hand and experience the eventual and inevitable
backlash as a result.

To incite violence, retaliation and further divide between the European
people and the invaders currently occupying European soil.

To avenge those European men and women lost in the constant and never
ending wars of European history who died for their lands, died for their
people only to have their lands given away to any foreign scum that
bother to show up.

[Here, he repeats himself.] To agitate the political enemies of my people into action, to over extend
their own hand and experience the eventual backlash.

To show the effect of direct action, lighting a path forward for those that
wish to follow.A path for those that wish to free their ancestors lands
from the invaders grasp and to be a beacon for those that wish to create a
lasting culture, to tell them they are not alone.

To create an atmosphere of fear and change in which drastic,powerful and
revolutionary action can occur.

To add momentum to the pendulum swings of history, further
destabilizing and polarizing Western society in order to eventually
destroy the current nihilistic, hedonistic, individualistic insanity that has
taken control of Western thought.

To drive a wedge between the nations of NATO that are European and
the Turks that also make a part of the NATO forces, thereby turning
NATO once more into a united European army and pushing the Turkey
once more back to the true position of a foreign, enemy force.

Finally, to create conflict between the two ideologies within the United
States on the ownership of firearms in order to further the social, cultural,
political and racial divide within the United states.This conflict over the
2nd amendment and the attempted removal of firearms rights will
ultimately result in a civil war that will eventually balkanize the US along
political, cultural and, most importantly, racial lines.

This balkanization of the US will not only result in the racial separation
of the people within the United States ensuring the future of the White
race on the North American continent, but also ensuring the death of the
“melting pot” pipe dream.

Furthermore this balkanization will also reduce the USA’s ability to
project power globally, and thereby ensure that never again can such a
situation as the US involvement in Kosovo ever occur again(where
US/NATO forces fought beside muslims and slaughtered Christian
Europeans attempting to remove these Islamic occupiers from Europe)."​

The fact that such an unabased and racist accelerationist did not mention jewish influence over western immigration law, culture creation, and war policy stinks to high heaven. Wouldn't surprise me if this was a Mossad operation. The Christchurch attack happened the very same day as Israel bombed hundreds of targets in Gaza, and Christchurch was uncovered as a Mossad hotbed a couple of years ago. Furthermore a total war between christians and muslims is exactly what zionist jewish leaders have been wishing for for a long time and it has been the direction that they have been pushing western nationalists in, for decades.

 

[schultz]

trickle down economics

You mean supply-side economics?

Damn.

Where will people get inane youtube advice from now...

Maybe YouTube?

I suppose they could just order the book online or buy it from another book store.

 

[Waremu]

Creationism, the Iraq war, trickle down economics....all conservative articles of faith, not reason.

Gun activists have cited fear of tyranny as justification for spreading weapons everywhere. Not only is this fear emotional by definition, it's become a phobic obsession.

It doesn't guarantee anything other than money for the arms industry . If it did America wouldn't be a totalitarian security state with an all powerful government that collects information on it's citizens and reserves the right to throw them in jail for exposing it's crimes.

In the meantime, until this supposed Hitler regime comes into power at some undisclosed time, the population has to endure thousands of firearm deaths and watch school children get shot up on the news.

Not really that hard to understand why some countries don't want to go down that road.

Don’t act like the left doesn’t have its own religion. Sure, you have religious radicals on the right who deny science, but today the anti-science crowd on the left make the anti-science folk on the right look like Einstein.

Progressivism and belief in the state is the God of the left. I mean, it’s to such absurd levels today that they deny sex differences, think kids should have the right to sterilize themselves and mudilate their bodies with sex change surgery and that they are old enough to do so, etc. Many of them are very anti-free speech as well.

And lastly, don’t act like the left is just as pro-war as the neo-cons on the right. There have been many pro-war president hawks on the left in the past and in fact, many of the original neo-cons were originally defected leftists. And must we forget the many unjust wars started under Obama and Hillary? And slave trade even starting back up again or expanding in some of these countries after they plundered them? I could go on. And the warmongering anti-Russia hysteria which probably could have led to a conflict with them.

And lastly, today’s supply-side economics or demand-side economics is very different in the macro sense than what their proponents claim, or what is observed when such ideas are put to practice via policy. And in many ways are two sides of the same coin rather than something born out of conservatism. It’s basically just another form of central planning and much of that came from FDR and other such progressives. Once establishment figure-heads on the right had power, they changed a few things and called it something different, but at the core it was still the same centrally-planned type economics. But generally speaking, it is true with regards to supply-side economics, in that government chokes out innovation and breeds monopolies, which the left says it is against but in reality it is for. The most prosperity in America was brought under the least regulation, and even the European nations which so-called democratic socialists hold as some holy cow ecample of their utopian view, have became more economically unstable over the last few decades as the result of over-taxation, regulation, and spending and government bloat. They had some cheese to live off from the prosperity of the boomers, but all that is being spent and offset by their demographics and cultural problems. And we will likely see the EU come apart in our lifetime because they somehow thought debt doesn’t matter and that they create prosperity by governnmet bloat and currency creation and social programs which they think are rights. But centrally planned economies work until they don’t and it is always at the expense of the currency, which means loss of purchasing power for the common person. And if you lower taxes but cause inflation, in the long run, you really haven’t lowered taxes in any meaningful way.

 

[thomas00]

Don’t act like the left doesn’t have its own religion. Sure, you have religious radicals on the right who deny science, but today the anti-science crowd on the left make the anti-science folk on the right look like Einstein.

Im not sure what you are talking about seeing as you didn't substantiate that in any way.

Progressivism and belief in the state is the God of the left.

I don't see how belief in government is a religion. Nonetheless, if it is then how are conservatives not members too?

And lastly, don’t act like the left is just as anti-war as the new-cons on the right. There have been many pro-war president hawks on the left in the past and in fact, many of the original neo-cons were originally defected leftists. And must we forget the many unjust wars started under Obama and Hillary? And slave trade even starting back up again or expanding in some of these countries after they plundered them? I could go on.

War often has bipartisan support amongst most politicians in most countries. As far as the citizenry goes, the right wing are far less hesitant to go to war. All polling shows this.

And lastly, supply-side economics is not something born out of conservatism. You neither understand economics or history. It’s basically just another form of central planning and much of that game from FDR and other such progressives.

SSE recommends a tax system which is completely different to what FDR implemented.

Reagan and Thatcher were conservatives.

 

[Fetch]

The military is made up of American citizen's. American citizen's that overwhelmingly support gun rights from top to bottom.

If the United States government tried to enforce gun confiscations, there would be a mutiny and the resources of the military, would be used to defend the 2nd amendment and the constitution.

 

[Waremu]

I don't see how belief in government is a religion. Nonetheless, if it is then how are conservatives not members too?

Progressives essentially believe that government or the state is the answer all our problems. Their solution is almost always in more government control and the falsehood that governments are for the most part moral and not subject to corruption as human individuals are. By their deeds this is essentially what they believe. But they don’t understand how value works and that you cannot create value out of nothing (which centrally planned economies and statists need in order to make their systems work for some period of time before they fail again, due to the laws of economics and physics) and this is precisely why government destroys value, and why their old and tried failed economic systems do not work.

War often has bipartisan support amongst most politicians in most countries. As far as the citizenry goes, the right wing are far less hesitant to go to war. All polling shows this.

Using word salad now aren't we? My response was to the claim or insinuation that it was one-sided. You insinuated it was one-sided. If it was a bi-partisan thing, you should have said or insinuated that instead of insinuating that it was mainly a conservative thing. How about a little intellectual honesty?

War is bipartisan because the use of resources and quest for power is a bipartisan issue.

SSE recommends a tax system which is completely different to what FDR implemented.

I don’t read minds. What do you mean by SSE?

Reagan and Thatcher were conservatives.

​

And? Never said conservatives (in name) didn't go to war...

 

[Cirion]

@sunraiser

Sorry if I sounded argumentative at all. Trying to be as matter of fact as I can in this following post.

You bring up a ton of topics that I could basically write a book on lol but I'll give it a shot

The assumption is I am a toe the line republican because I dislike liberals. That's actually not the case. In fact I disagree with most republicans as well. I don't let anyone tell me what to think, democrat republican or otherwise. Lately R's have hardly been different from D's, and I believe it was even trump that promoted a bump fire stock ban, disappointing.

I certainly do not have faith in the government to have our best interest in mind. The more power a government (or any one person) the more corrupt they will be. This is the #1 thing I disagree with liberals on in particular. Waremu put it best in some of his earlier posts as to why. Sure, you quoted a few countries where now it SEEMS fine, and maybe it will be fine for a while. But sooner or later, EVERY country (without fail) that puts all power in the hands of government, WILL become corrupt. It is a matter of time. Just look back to history. Either way, the more government grows the more tax I have to pay which I do not like. "Tax the rich" is a nice sentiment but the reality is it makes tax go up for everyone. I think I had to pay tax on like 35+% of my bonus this year, and I'm not rich.

Also, the US is not a proper capitalist country, I'm actually with you on some of your gripes. For example - I am not happy that many big corporations are in bed with the government. I was upset with all the company bailouts. Let companies fail. Others will take their place. No company is too big to fail, not even walmart, amazon, ford, whatever. However, the answer is NOT more corporation tax or more regulations - what many liberals fail to realize is that this screws over the small businesses, the very businesses they claim to be in favor of (as far as I know?) I have known or indirectly known many businesses fail because of prohibitive government regulations and fees and this hurts the economy for everyone and also raises prices.

We also don't have proper freedom, not anymore. I am sure you know that as well and you basically alluded to it. Giving up 2A, 1A rights away will only make matters worse. Why do you think I am so anti gun regulations? Barring the whole arguments of self defense etc. It's a simple matter that I don't want to lose more rights, liberals want to keep taking pieces of my pie away until their is no pie left. Boiling the frog. I'm not limited to 2A. Arresting kids for trying to sell lemonade without a license. Arrested for trying to collect rainwater. Putting 200% tax on sodas. Banning straws. I could go on. All of this is stupid.

"Taxing the rich" really gets under my skin too. The rich already pay the VAST majority of taxes. Also "rich" is vague. Some people think $250,000 a yr is rich. Actually, in some places in CA, it's almost poverty. "Rich" is used as a means to tax EVERYONE more, including middle class (which most people are).

Trump is actually the first president in a while I kind of like, because he is NOT connected politically to the system and both dem's AND rep's hate him for it. Yeah he's rough around the edges but imo he does have our interests at heart. The border wall and all that is unpopular to be sure, but we need it to protect OUR people. What is so wrong with that? People say we need to help other people, that's great and all, but how can we even think about that when we're $20+ trillion in debt? Let's help our people, get out of debt, then MAYBE we can consider helping others. Perhaps that sounds selfish, but it's necessary. Now, it does remain to be seen if he will fix the economy - one of my most important desires to see happen - but our last president made that difficult to accomplish when he doubled our debt. The emotional response to this is "trump is evil he doesn't care about people" but this is what I'm talking about when I say take a step back, stop the emotional reactioning, and think logically - can we REALLY do anything to help other people if we can't even help ourselves?

The enemy is inequality - it is NOT humane to have 95% of the wealth in the hands of a few. Stop being distracted by imagined and dreamt up enemies to social wellbeing and start fighting against the actual oppressor to freedom.

I have nothing wrong with this at all. If someone is business savvy, plays smart and works hard, what's wrong with making money? I don't get mad at people for being rich. I acknowledge they're rich and I'm not because they put in the work that I'm not willing to. How do you define equality? Such a vague word. My definition of equality is equality of opportunity not equality of income.

I promise you muslims are not invading anything. Terrorist groups exist because of Western foreign policy literally destroying the infrastructure of their entire countries. Uprooting generations of families. It's classic divide and conquer politics - - - people are a threat to the establishment, so divide them by constantly publicising an imagined enemy (muslims, mexicans, poor people on government aid etc etc).

Just go to Saudi Arabia or some other ultra muslim country. Countries like that will execute you just for being gay. And people think gays are oppressed in the USA? Every major muslim country is also ultra oppressive to women. And people think women are oppressed in the USA? Just a couple examples.

BTW I have no problem against Mexicans - as long as they come here LEGALLY through the legal process of either asylum or immigration (NOT jumping the border fence or skirting border guards). I don't even have a problem with muslims as long as they come here legally and don't break the law or try to enforce their way of lives on us.

As a final note, nothing is free - "free" healthcare... "free" education you pay for that. And FWIW I barely paid a dime for any of my education by being smart about it and not going to colleges I could not afford or would have to take a student loan for. No doubt student loans are a travesty, but people need to learn to live within their means. Is life in general more expensive today? Sure, probably, but that just emphasizes my point - be smart, don't spend money without intelligent planning. And DO NOT charge up a credit card or get big loans. No, not even a car or home loan. A poor person has no business owning a car OR a house, unless they can buy a cheap car out of pocket, and even then I'm not a fan of it because cheap cars will break down.

Also my problem with poor people on aid are the LAZY, ABLE BODIED people abusing the system. I get that some people are in genuine need, that's fine, but the system has never been abused more than it is now. Also, and I'll say it again, people need to learn to live within their means.

Think you need a TV? no you don't.
Think you need an Iphone X? no you don't. Tracphones are like $20? ish.
Think you need an Xbox? no you don't.
Think you need a $20,000 car? no you don't.
Think you need to live in a $1,000/m apartment/house? No you don't. I knew two guys who split the cost of a $300 studio ($150 each) and it wasn't even in the ghetto or anything.
Think you need a car at all even? Again-nope. In fact I recommend AGAINST a poor person owning a car because they'll only be able to afford a cheap one which will likely break a lot and not be able to afford repairs, or even gas for that matter.
Think you need to be able to go out for dinner and alcohol frequently? You guessed it - nope. I'm not poor and I STILL don't go out for dinner or alcohol
You get where I'm going with this.

Point is - you can live VERY cheaply and not even need to be homeless. Would it suck/be boring? Sure. But you can look for better jobs later.

Before you say I don't get it because I'm not poor-I've lived on a $24k a year salary just fine living in Atlanta, and even managed to save up $5,000 to be able to move, in the span of just 2 years. I get it, sometimes life happens and you get broke, but I'd argue that 90%+ of people get or remain poor because of poor money management. Most people who win the lottery are poor and most of these people blow their money since they don't know how to save.

Middle class and rich people alike also have poor money management. A friend of a friend makes half a million a year and is broke AF because he spends every dime. If it were me I'd put away at least 50% of my salary a year and be financially secure in 4-5 years.

I know middle class people also who live well above their means. Living in CA on <100k incomes, several fancy vacations a year, fancy car, expensive houses, lots of kids, trying to fund their kids college etc (My parents never funded me beyond around $10,000, after that I was on my own), frequent eating out... I am quite liberal with my money actually and will still be able to retire in my 40's if I want to. As soon as 40-45 if I really wanted to, but I confess I do like to have SOME luxuries haha (Am not saying living without internet etc would be fun at all!)

An important point to make too, going back to the $20T USA debt, is that many many people fail to realize that the debt of the government is a hardship on all of the citizens as well. You wanna know why life is expensive today? Look no further than the US debt. I guarantee if we paid off our debt that life would be cheaper to afford.