A new trial forum for political discussions. Largely unmoderated, so whilst discussing politics is fine, personal abuse isn't. So please keep it civil.
As with other forums the posts to do not reflect the view of the FLYER team.
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By simon32
#1912665
wrt the gun topic
I have often been struck on visits to the USA, especially in Southern states by the number of outlets specialising in guns and ammo. At a pilot fly-in in the mid-West I was invited to the house of a pilot friend of my host in rural Indiana. It was at the time of the Beltway sniper killings. The subject came up in conversation and it was obvious that my new friend had good knowledge of weapons and even identified the regiment that the sniper must have been in to use such a gun. Out of curiosity I asked some questions and he pulled out a couple of similar weapons from under the sofa on which I was sitting and explained to me in some detail how they worked and could be converted to automatic fire. He claimed to have over 200 guns in the house.
Another Southern friend told me that everyone he knew had a hand gun in the glove compartment of their car. I realised that legislation was not going to have much effect, despite the fact that hand guns are only useful for killing people and most people think that automatic weapons should not be sold to the general public.
In France members of gun clubs must be registered with the police, but it does not stop drug gangs acquiring lethal weapons, most of which I believe originated in ex-Jugoslavia. After WWII, the authorities were worried about the numbers of weapons supplied to the resistance and stashed away in barns here and there. These stories are still whispered about today.
Simon
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By eltonioni
#1912669
kanga wrote:
eltonioni wrote:@kanga I'm pretty confident that after an afternoon with a bunch of constitutional lawyers, you (or, heaven forfend, even I) would work out how to nail it. The idea that a constitution can't be amended is massively undermined by the very many amendments to consitutions.

It's not a matter of Law, it's a matter of will. Sadly, in the USA, the whole democracy is so corrupted that they can't do the simplest things.

God Save The Queen.


:thumright:

.. but the bars to changing the US Constitution in an Amendment are made much higher (in that Constitution, in its original 18th C form) than are those to passing a Federal Law; in particular, the requirement for Ratification by the legislatures of 3/4 of the States within a limited time after the passage by Congress. There have been only 27 Amendments since 1789, one of which simply repealed another (on Prohibition). The Equal Rights Amendment, proposed 1972, failed 'out of time' in 1982; a measure which to most of those in other democratic societies seemed and still seems glaringly overdue.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_a ... nstitution

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equal_Rights_Amendment

What this means is that nothing jointly drafted by the collective wisdom of Forumites (including @eltonioni and me :wink: ) would have any chance of passing these obstacles.

So (back to topic), I judge that the latest school shooting cannot fairly be adduced to any personal shortcoming of the current President, nor therefore to be included in any perceived (by some) catalogue of his personal shortcomings reflected in current US policy over Ukraine.

I knew you'd know : :thumleft:
But why bother amending, merely hold up the actual amendment.

A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed

I fail to see how a pilot with 200 guns under his sofa fulfills any part of the alleged 'Right'. As I said earlier, it's not a matter of Law, it's a matter of will. I mean, how anywhere but in the land of the locked in and the home of the terrified does a bankrupt NRA find $13m to donate to Mit Romney?



On topic; Ukraine - now THERE is a "well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State" because Russians are lot scarier than Canadians.
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By kanga
#1912717
eltonioni wrote:.. the actual amendment.

A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed...


Indeed, but AIUI the NRA and their supporters argue that 'A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State..' is mere explanation, while the Constitutional guarantee under the Amendment '..the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed..' is absolute. Had the wording been 'As long as a well regulated Militia is necessary..' it could be grounds for a challenge, but as phrased it is not.

Obviously, many Americans disagree, but State, Federal and Supreme Courts seem to have accepted that legal argument.

[Back to topic: On Ukrainian territorial defence forces .. :thumright: ]
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By eltonioni
#1912901
If Ukraine 'lose', who's buying a bulletproof vest and gas mask?
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By PeteSpencer
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1912908
[url]i[/url]
eltonioni wrote:If Ukraine 'lose', who's buying a bulletproof vest and gas mask?


Living within the MLD/LKH CMATZ as I do I’ll be buying potassium iodide tablets :shock:
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By kanga
#1912948
"EU's awkward summit: Don't mention Russian oil ban"

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-61591614

'..resistance, notably from Hungary, has held up the EU's troubled sixth package of sanctions.

.. Prime Minister Viktor Orban's Hungarian government, which has compared an oil ban to dropping a nuclear bomb on its economy, is seen as the ultimate obstacle. He wrote to the European Council to say he didn't even want to discuss it next week. ..'

I hold no brief for Orban, but I thought it might be pertinent to recall some of the history of the Magyar nationalist sentiment he has been shamelessly exploiting since he first emerged onto his national political scene, ironically starting with anti-Russian credentials.

<history nerd, as usual :oops: >

During the changes of national frontiers in the aftermath of wars during the 20th century, two European nations lost to neighbours the most of what had been 'their' traditional territory where the (thitherto) majority of traditional inhabitants had been of 'their' linguistic and cultural heritage. Albania lost most (>50% of 'their' land and people), Hungary the next most. In both countries their "compatriots' " language and cultural rights have been significantly eroded and sometimes brutally erased by the authorities in the nations which now rule them. This erosion markedly accelerated after the collapse of the Soviet Bloc, where it had previously been part of declared policy reflecting 'socialist ideology' to promote cultural friendship between and within 'socialist' nations; the successor governments were frequently more aggressively nationalist in tone. The result was a further diaspora of these now 'minority' people. These losses of territory and perceived oppression of people is keenly felt in both countries.

For the now separated Magyar communities outside the newly reduced Hungarian borders, the change in Vojvodina from Tito's Yugoslavia to Milosevic's Serbia, or in the Kosice Region from 'socialist' Czechoslovakia to Meciar's Slovakia, or in Transylvania from Ceausescu's 'socialist' Romania to Iliescu's 'democratic' one, all brought about significant loss of local Magyar cultural and linguistic rights in areas where Hungarian-speaking people had been in the local majority. This loss has often seemed to be treated with indifference, or even welcomed, by local people of the now national majority group. [a] However, in post-Soviet Western Ukraine, Magyar rights had been largely respected, and the Hungarian government had been allowed to fund significant efforts through agencies reminiscent of the British Council to preserve the culture. Hungarian was also a permissible medium of teaching in local State schools.

[a] I have seen this at JAM. Fairly recently on the same day I met separately two (local UK resident) Romanian families. As usual, I welcomed them in Romanian and asked from where in Romania they came. Both replied with towns in Transylvania. I then repeated my welcome, but now in Hungarian. The first couple was delighted, and it turned out that the husband was Romanian-speaking, the wife Hungarian, and children bi- (actually tri-, with English)-lingual. The second couple looked puzzled, so I asked in Romanian if they knew Hungarian. The wife indignantly replied that they were from Romania, and only Romanian is used there. :?

But after the Russian seizure of Crimea and the blatant support for Russian culture and language in the Donbas regions, the Ukrainian government imposed nationwide restrictions (but not a veto) on teaching in State schools in languages other than Ukrainian, and on foreign governments' funding organisations for the promotion of languages other than Russian. These new restrictions were often unenforceable in Donetsk and Luzhansk, although of course they were cited by the Putin regime as proof of Ukrainian 'neoNazi' oppression of ethnic Russians, as part of the casus belli propaganda. However, they were enforceable and (unoppressively) enforced in the Magyar minority area in the West. This helped Orban denounce 'Ukrainian nationalism', and fail to condemn Russia, in his successful campaign in the latest Hungarian elections. This must make it easier for him (through the national media and courts he now largely controls, of course) to resist EU calls to boycott Russian oil and gas, even before citing the economic arguments about Hungarian dependence on them.

</>
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By eltonioni
#1912964
Even putting Orban's unpleasantness aside, Hungary doesn't have ports to bring it in from elsewhere so they are reliant on pipelines and third countries.

Then there is this utterly unsurprising news;

Germany was on Friday accused of deliberately watering down the EU’s planned embargo on Russian oil imports to benefit its own economy.

European sources told The Telegraph that Berlin wanted an exemption for deliveries via pipeline to be extended from Hungary, Slovakia and the Czech Republic to the entire bloc.

In a bid to unblock talks over the EU’s sixth package of sanctions against Moscow, German officials – who had previously backed a full ban – proposed only imposing the embargo on sea shipments of Russian oil.

It comes as EU countries scramble to agree a deal in time for leaders to endorse it at a summit early next week.

The move was originally negotiated in order to win over landlocked Hungary – which has so far blocked the EU’s latest round of sanctions – and give it more time to rearrange its supplies away from Russian oil.

But an EU diplomat said Germany hijacked the talks in order to secure wider concessions that would benefit its own economy.

“Initially it was about giving Viktor Orban space, but now Germany has seen it as an opportunity to help itself. Germany has pushed for this… to narrow the scope of the sanctions on Russia,” the diplomat said.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/ ... l-imports/

Even if we take an 'unnamed diplomat' with a pinch of salt, there's the horse's mouth. It stinks of a massive stich up. Never mind turning off Nordstream 1, I'd put money on Nordstream 2 being active by the end of 2023.
By johnm
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1913290
News outlet interest appears to be fading a wee bit but overall the issue is a complete lack of anything useful to say at this point I fear :-(

Russia is simply trashing those bits of Ukraine it can reach and this seems to be its only military strategy which is to take possession of large piles of rubble, to what purpose remains a mystery :-(
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By eltonioni
#1913309
@CloudHound Thank Christ that they only need to fight each other and not an actual enemy.
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By kanga
#1913330
CloudHound wrote:.. squabbling in Brussels over turning off the oil tap . ...


"Russian oil: EU agrees compromise deal on banning imports"

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-61638860

'.. ban will only affect oil that arrives by sea but not pipeline oil, following opposition from Hungary. ..'

.. but oil only, not gas, except that Nordstream 2 still not operational.

latest (6th) tranche of EU sanctions:

'.. Russian seaborne oil to be banned by the end of the year, with a temporary exemption for pipeline oil. Two-thirds of Russian oil arrives by sea

Pledges by Poland and Germany to stop importing pipeline oil by the end of this year will raise coverage of the ban to 90% of Russian imports

Russia's largest bank, Sberbank, to be cut off from the Swift payment system, which allows the rapid transfer of money across borders

Three more Russian state-owned broadcasters banned

More restrictions on "individuals responsible for war crimes in Ukraine" ..'
By A4 Pacific
#1913352
Scholz’ self interest is crystal clear in that tweet.

Darf Gewalt mit Gewalt bekämpft werden?


“Can violence be fought with violence?”

A quick translation means, “if only some countries in the West would stop assisting Ukraine then they would have to surrender. Giving up a third of their country (so far!) for ‘peace’. Then we could all normalise relations with our dear friend Vlad, and get back to buying € billions of his lovely oil and gas!”

Absolutely disgusting but a view shared by his other pal Macron. The historical characters of the various European nations are writ large all over this! Some stand only for immediate convenience. Others stand for freedom, whatever the odds!

The answer to Scholtz’ pathetic tweet is that evil violence must be resisted with every tool at our disposal. Including violent resistance. But also by taking the route of inflicting economic pain on ourselves for the greater good. Anything else is acquiescent appeasement, inviting yet more evil violence.

Some countries choose freedom whatever the cost. Others do not.

The very moment a ‘ceasefire’ is declared, there will be leaders, gagging to reward Putin for his murderous slaughter of innocents. That is as predictable as night following day. If Putin succeeds, then the world will be a far more dangerous place than ever before in my lifetime.
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