No, the Harper government does, too. YMMV on whether the current government means "Canada" or not, of course. Stephen Harper's opponents are nothing if not vocal.

You're right about their support. I was referring to this vote.

Excellent. Good information to know. Thank you for posting it. That's a thousand times more helpful to an actual dialogue than "That's patently ridiculous, like arguing that you can still die in a car crash, therefore seat belts are pointless."

Just quick FYI, I never said that.

Sorry, that was my mistake; someone else said that, and I got confused over who I was replying to.

I definitely think if a gun is used in a crime, its serial number should immediately be tracable to who bought it, and that selling a gun to another person should require you to file paperwork with the government, in the same way you have to do so when you sell a car.

I completely agree. It will never happen however. That's one of the things that the anti-gun control crowd will never compromise on because of their fear that the government is going to come take away their guns. The only way that their guns are safe is if the government doesn't know they have them. You could come up with a dozen rational gun control ideas and they would shoot every one down. See my previous post, this is not a group who compromises. They believe their right to guns is sacrosanct regardless of the harm to the rest of society.

That's what it appears on the surface. The vocal minority of the groups tend to paint the public perceptions of the group, helped by the media liking to highlight more extreme views to generate clicks. The pro-gun advocates who I've personally spoken to agree with some reasonable forms of gun control, as long as they don't have to give up their guns and can still hunt and etc... Gun fans want gun violence to go down, so they aren't as stigmatized just for owning a gun.

Though yes, the people preparing their bunkers definitely do exist, I doubt they make up a large enough portion of the population to sway the vote if politicians didn't align by party and had their more independent stances.

Because the decision is: [Help the poor, reduce gun violence, and bloat bureaucracy, etc...], or [reduce the debt, protect the unborn, and give corporations more power to exploit people, etc...], it comes down to people's priorities.

If we can break up the rigid party alignment, I think it'd fix some these problems.

97% of food stamp benefits reach eligible Americans in appropriate amounts.

I'm okay with putting more of my tax dollars towards a program which has a 3% abuse rate (assuming all 3% is abuse) and which nearly half the recipients are children.

ericrrichards22 mentioned:
"I'm a little concerned when I see EBT cards used to buy Doritos, soda, and Hostess cakes, while whatever cash people have is used on cigarettes, beer and lotto tickets"

For the record, ^that^ doesn't concern me. If we give someone financial support, they should mostly be able to use it however it most makes sense in their situation, which they usually know best. Also, junk food is usually cheaper than healthy food (because of what our government decides to subsidize, and because of certain economies of scale), so it may be that junk food is all they can afford.

What bothers me is when food stamps are traded for drugs while children starve (my brother being one of those children who practically starved before my parents adopted him), or when young mothers get visited by their "boyfriends" the day after their benefits arrive, who demand "their money". This was Richmond California. This is a problem post-delivery. Though it looks like they are trying to address that issue.

My brother - the same one my parents adopted (a few years before I was born) - actually had two social security numbers, so his biological mom could get two government checks. After the adoption, my mom fixed that, so now one social security number correctly points to the second.

In some areas centralized government databases make sense; in other cases, centralized government means more laws and bureaucracy which means it's harder. This is one area were centralized government is a good thing.

At the same time as the abuses, food stamps were really benefiting others in the Richmond area... though sometimes it required the single-mothers to be hand-held enough to force them to actually save money, and use the money on themselves and their children instead of loser boyfriends with five different girls who only visits once a month the day after the government aid arrives.

So while 97% may be getting delivered into the right hands, that doesn't show how much of it actually stays in the right hands. Do you happen to know how much of a problem this actually is? I don't know the numbers; it also might be harder to detect. It may not be a problem nationally or on a large scale, but my family history informs me it is at least a problem on a small scale. I can't dismiss subjective experience just because I don't have data to prove it, though I can dismiss it when I have data to disprove it.

Again, the Republican method of, "Let's ax funding for the entire thing" is stupid - I don't agree with their method. But I think we need to look at these programs from the ground view, instead of the birds-eye government view, to see what flaws there are, and how to fix them, before increasing funding. If it's not a big problem, then I agree with expanding funding for food stamps.

Also, because I believe bigger systems tend to fill their original purpose less and less, I'd like some funding to go to non-government food pantries, soup kitchens, and things of that nature (religious and non-religious). While yes, that is also open to abuse and also suffers from lack of economies of scale, one benefit is it breaks up the harm of bureaucracy by providing alternative methods of help if you can't navigate the bureaucracy. If you're really poor and have to move around alot or don't have a dedicated phone number, or have mental issues, it's hard to maintain contact with the government to have your requests go through, if by the time they get around to mailing you something, you no longer live at that address.

I realize I keep on harping on about bureaucracy; I'm not opposed to organization, hierarchy, and structure. It just seems like, over time, corporate or government organizations get clogged up with unnecessary complications that make it harder for people unfamiliar with how to navigate the system to actually get easy access to help. If SNAP doesn't suffer from this, great! 97% reaching the right people, doesn't mean 97% is reaching the people who need it most. If it's working well, more funding would be good. If it's not working well, it needs to be looked into (from the ground up) by impartial observers, to decide how much more funding it needs, and equally importantly, where it needs to focus that funding.

I'm not opposed to increasing funding, I'm not opposed to increasing taxes, but I want to be sure it is balanced with reduced unnecessary government spending (if we can find any parts of the gov that can be streamlined or made more efficient), and reducing our national debt.

I also want, ideally, government aid to people to ultimately help lift them out of poverty, so they can go from (economically) net negatives into the government coffers, to net positives. Ofcourse, human life matters more than financial numbers. The problem is, if we keep on funding aid programs, without reducing our debt, and without having a balanced budget, then we'll eventually have to catastrophically and reactionarily cut funding in a dramatic way, and that'd become a huge crisis. And if we aren't helping people move from poverty to the middle class, but keep them in poverty dependent on aid, then when the government cuts funding, there'd be riots in the streets.

This [...] will never change unless we can somehow change how elections and voting works here.

That is what I'd love to have happen. That is what I think we need most (as far as human solutions go).

Health insurance for the poor? Great idea. If part of my taxes go to that, that makes sense to me - caring for the poor is important. Forcing me to buy health insurance for myself? I don't like that. Intentionally lying to trick voters to support your plan? Not cool.

What's the alternative? Single payer is all but impossible for us because of the Republican's irrational fear of "socialism". The status quo before Obamacare was unacceptable, and there are appreciable differences in health outcomes for the poor under ACA.

[...]

It's not perfect. Far from it, but it's better than the situation we had before.

But that argument doesn't work. It's the same argument with the Iran deal.

It's a bad deal, "but it's better than nothing!", yes, but it's worse than the alternatives that we could've focused on instead. Ofcourse, now, as a result, the only Iran alternative is war (which is a terrible option), because we didn't:
A) demand a better deal.
B) take one of the better options.

Another option? We could've struck their nuclear enrichment plants ages ago.

Striking their plants would not have led to war - Iran doesn't have the capability to retaliate. Their plants are isolated from civilian areas, it would've only killed military personal and nuclear scientists - who we'd want to kill. And if you don't want to kill the scientists, fine, you could strike it at night to reduce 'civilian' casualties.

Unilaterally striking nuclear plants has worked twice before; though people debate the benefits of it, neither case led to war and neither nation got nuclear weapons.

Stuxnet and Flame was the right idea.

But, back to your question: Whether Obamacare ultimately is the correct solution remains to be seen; the Democrats intentionally delayed major parts of it that'd be controversial (because they lied about it), and they haven't yet come into effect.

My biggest issue is the same as my biggest issue with unions:
Insurance is good, Healthcare is good, helping the poor is good.
Working is good, safe working conditions are good, increasing wages is good.

But I don't like organizations getting continual streams of money without them being forced (by economic means) to actually provide better and better results.

The insurance companies have to compete with each other, which is good, but that doesn't prevent them from implicitly or even explicitly colluding. Ofcourse, explicit collusion is against the law, but that didn't stop in recent years the major Flash Memory collusion or the Book Publishers w/ Apple collusion, because in many situations the ultimate punishment doesn't make the collusion unprofitable, and many of the corporate executives don't get punished - only the company itself does. And I don't think implicit collusion is illegal - but I might be wrong here - and Americans appear to have been punished by implicit cellphone and airline collusion (though it's hard to prove it, because there was no explicit coordination).

Further, as mentioned, providing cheaper insurance (which may not be currently true, and might even get alot worse) still doesn't do anything to reduce medical costs. And reducing medical costs should be a bigger priority.

I think you'd agree that the desired goal is elevating the poor into the middle class, not dragging the middle class into the lower class.

Again, health and access outcomes are improved for the poor. They are less likely to be financially ruined by a health issue. That alone should contribute to their economic wellbeing.

Or it could make them more dependent on the government micro-managing their finances. The more financially independent from the government people are, the better, in my opinion.

I am strongly against the runaway copyright and patent laws, which corporations lobby in favor of, and which Republicans usually side with, and which Obama is also siding with (Trans-Pacific Partnership).

No arguments there. When Republicans and Obama can agree on something, you know it's bad news.

With 28 House Democrats approving it, and 49 House Republicans voting 'no' on it. [link]
And 13 Senate Democrats approving of it, with 5 Senate Republicans voting 'no'. [link]

Obviously alot of Dems voted No, and alot more Repubs voted Yes, but at least it wasn't entirely along party lines.

You don't throw out all organizations just because some of them are corrupt. Unions today are largely a joke because they have been destroyed by Republicans.

Could you elaborate on that? I don't automatically see the connection.

Also, you cannot be forced to join a union. The myth of compulsory union membership. The most they can do is force you to pay partial union dues which are only allowed to actually cover the provable cost of collective bargaining agreements.

When my brother (different brother) was doing ironworking, he was practically strong-armed into joining a Californian ironworker's union, despite him holding out for several weeks (at least three) and trying hard to avoid it despite repeated occurances of the union representative putting pressure on him. It certainly seemed like he was required to join or be fired, and so when he finally caved, they made him pay his back-dues as well.

He did basic internet research to see if he could avoid it, but came to the conclusion he couldn't. I guess he didn't look hard enough.

Israel deserves a lot of the ire they receive. How exactly are Palestinians supposed to react when the international community decides to take over half their land and turn it into Israel?

That is almost the exact opposite of what happened.

Jews were already in the land prior to 1948. 32% of the population was Jewish, vs 60% Muslim (with the remaining 10% being Christian, and <1% assorted other)
The international community abandoned Israel, expecting the state to be destroyed by the five-nation army marching against it. It was expected to not last a week, and nobody lifted a finger to help. The USA gave vocal recognition (by Democrat President Truman), but that was it - and even blocked arm shipments (to both sides), and threatened to revoke the US citizenship of anyone who went to fight there.

The partition plan is utterly one of the stupidest layouts ever. How would Israel as a nation possibly defend that? And when you add in the neighboring regions... Yeah, that wouldn't be fun to defend.

Yes, Britian were breaking it up by demographic, which, in an ideal world, makes sense. But in a world where people want to kill the Jews, it is a death trap. Heck, even if it wasn't Arab vs Jew demographics, and was a French vs British demographics, that layout is still asking for trouble.

Israel agreed to a fair division of the land. The Arab states said 'No', and formed a mega-army to curb-stomp the crap out of the Jews.

With barely nothing, and no international support, the Jews thought back, and established the state of Israel. They had to make their own ammunition, illegally trick the USA government into selling surplus WW2 planes for commercial usage, fly them in a round-about way to Italy, retrofit them secretly in Ukraine (Ironic bit of history trivia: The flight uniforms the Ukrainians sold the Jews were leftover Nazi Luftwaffe uniforms. ), and then fly them to Israel.

After the 1948 war, Jordan annexed the west bank, and Egypt took control of the Gaza strip (but gave it in name only to a newly created Palestinian government).

After again trying to destroy the Jews in 1967, and again getting their butts handed to them, Israel gained control from Egypt and Jordan of Gaza and the West Bank respectively.

From a government control standpoint of the West Bank, it went Ottoman Empire -> British control -> Jordan control -> Israel control

For the Gaza strip, it went Ottoman Empire -> British control -> Egyptian control -> Israel control

There was no 'Palestinian' state. In fact, 'Palestine' was the name the Romans gave to the Jewish-owned land, when the Roman Empire controlled it.

When people talk of Palestine as "occupied territory", and then in the same sentence are forced to say "of a future Palestinian state", it's a self-contradiction. What nation are they occupying? The extinct Ottoman empire? Or, the British Empire? Or the Jordan Empire? No, they are occupying an state that hasn't actually existed except in name. They are occupying a territory that never was a concrete government. An extremely lopsided civil-war occurred, and Israel fought for their lives and came out the victor.

That doesn't mean a Palestinian state shouldn't exist, but it means the "occupation" terminology is mostly used to sensationalize the situation and score emotion points. There was a civil war where no government existed (because Britain abandoned it, assuming the Muslims would win the fight, so Britain wouldn't actually have to make a decision), Israel came out the victor, and Egypt and Jordan got the rest of the land.

What it really is, is Israel has control of land that the people in the land want to rule themselves. As a government, have as much "right" to an independent nation, as Texas has of seceding from the United States. That is to say, a non-existent right. Nevertheless, if you think Israel shouldn't rule the west bank, and think Jordan also shouldn't rule it (which would be the logical alternative to Israeli rule), then you're left with something that is analogous to the Southern US states trying to secede from the Northern US states. If Israel is "occupying" the never-having-existed "Palestine state", then that's the same as saying the Northern US states are "occupying" the southern ones.

As individuals, I think people should have a right to elect their own leaders. However, I look at situations in places like Ukraine where the Russian population broke off because they were different ethnically/culturally, and I don't think dividing and subdividing is the ideal solution for living in peace with each other. We really can't live with people from a different culture?

Other land that Israel has captured during wars started by the nations they captured the lands from include land Israel returned in exchange for peace (for example, the Sinai peninsula). Some land they have captured they refuse to give up, because the nations that owned the land repeatedly used the land to attack Israel (for example, the Golan Heights).

Israel's primary concern is survival. Because many nations openly want to kill them. Because those nations' religion call for the slaughter of the Jews and views Jews as sub-human. And because Jews have been repeatedly slaughtered by those people in the past, the Jews kinda take their word for it when they say they want to wipe them off the face of the planet, drive them into the sea, destroy them in a nuclear hellfire inferno, or slit their throats one by one until the canals flow with their blood.

The land they want to hold on to, they want to hold on to for defensive purposes. That's why this layout is unacceptable. Though Israel agreed to it, for the sake of peace, but the Arabs said "No, we'll just kill you and take the whole thing".

Jerusalem, they want to hold on to because it's a key part of their religious and historic identity. Israel would be fine with this layout, though, because it identity-wise and defense-wise is acceptable.

Israel without Jerusalem, is like saying after WW2, the French can have their nation back but the Germans get to keep Paris.

What's preventing the conflict from being resolved? The Palestinian want Israel's ancient capital as their capital. Jerusalem is part of the core identity of Jews finally having a home again. Why do the Palestinians care so much about Jerusalem? Because the Muslims built their third most holy site (1,300 years old) on top of the Jew's only holy site (3000 years old, destroyed in 70 AD by the Romans when the Jews were driven out). You can't make this stuff up.

Why is this site holy to Muslims? Because their prophet visited the Jewish holy site (because it was the Jewish temple ruins site), supposedly ascended into heaven to meet Jewish religious heroes (Abraham, Moses, and Aaron (the first Jewish high priest)), and Christian ones (John the Baptist and Jesus).

You know who also had religious experiences at that site? King David, King Solomon, Jacob, Abraham and other Jewish heroes. That's why the Jews built the temple where their heroes had those experiences - King David chose the site, because of his religious experiences there, Solomon his son built the temple and had a religious experience there, and Jacob and Abraham generations earlier had religious experiences there (if I wasn't Christian, I'd assume there must be a gas leak there. ). Muslims claim it as holy because it was the Jew's Holy Site, and the Muslims view themselves as the replacement of the Jews (just as some Christians incorrectly do, contrary to the Bible) and a replacement of the Christians.

Things were somewhat better >2000 years ago, when they (the surrounding Arab cultures) pretended that the "real holy mountain" was a different one (the one across the valley), and that the Jews were just ignorant. But I guess they got bored of that and switched (when Islam was created) to the Jewish one being the real one after all.

The Jewish temple is key to Jewish religion and culture; the focal point of it. It was built and destroyed twice (~600 BC and 70 AD), both times marking the exile of Israel from the land. The rebuilding of their own temple marks being re-established in their home. Their messiah (also the Christian messiah, but the Jews disagree with that) can't return until the third temple is rebuilt. There's actually room for both temples side by side - and that'd still place the Jewish temple on its original location (the Muslim mosque was ironically built on the wrong location - it was hard for them to tell, because at the time it was just ruins and nobody did proper archaeology).

During the time-period when Jordan had control of the west bank and the temple mount, Jordan, as part of the peace deals, agreed to provide Jewish visitation rights to the area. The promise was never fulfilled. They let Christians near it though. During the current Israel ownership of the temple mount, Muslims have free access and control of the temple mount, and if any Jew ever steps near it, they riot.

If you think the solution is to force Israel to give them the land they want, think again: That's openly stated as just the first step. The stated ultimate goal is taking the entire thing. As the Muslims already tried to do. Three different times (well more than that, but three major times). And Israel had to defend themselves. Repeatedly. Without international help. Because internationally, the idea is to just let the Muslims kill them and then the problem will be solved. Even if the Jews were destroyed - which they won't be - the Muslims would still be at war with the Hindus and the Christians and the Buddhists, and themselves!

The Jews wants to live in peace with the surrounding nations. Many of the surrounding nations want to live in peace without the Jews. The Jews originally accepted peace on others' terms, and when that was denied them, the Jews were willing to fight for peace on their terms. Now that they've captured it, against some of the worst odds possible, they aren't going to give it up without some very strong iron-clad agreements. VERY STRONG. And no, "America will protect you!" doesn't cut it. We didn't protect Ukraine from Crimea being annexed by Russia, now did we?

The Jews do a crappy job with the refugee camps (has anyone every done a good job with refugee camps?), and they do a crappy job bulldozing houses to gain territory they need.

They've also done the best job of any modern nation, when it comes to humanely-waged warfare. But everyone bashes them for waging wars they didn't start anyway, because it's unbalanced warfare. It's unbalanced counter attacks.

Part of their problems are situations of their own making (e.g. the Gaza blockade), part of it is people actually wanting to kill them, actually saying they want to kill them, and actually trying to kill them. And this precedes the refugee crisis. And it precedes Israel as a nation. And it precedes Israel even trying to become a nation.

People want to kill the Jews, and the Jews don't want to be killed. Jews were mostly abandoned by the international community (with the USA being one of the few exceptions - but even then, don't help defend them and didn't help establish them as a nation, apart from vocal recognition), and had to fight for themselves to establish a state. They want to live in peace, and are tired of people trying to kill them. They want their own homeland, and of tired of living in nations that treat them literally as second-class citizens. They want their own ancestral homeland, that they were kicked out of millennia ago. They want to live in a Jewish-ran nation, because the vast majority of the non-Jewish-ran nations they've ever lived in have eventually turned on them and persecuted them. Promises of peace don't cut it. Multiple times the UN abandoned them once war broke out. They need it proven to them, or they'll stay in whatever corner they can stick their back to, and fight to defend their lives.

But what's more important is that even a ridiculously weak (original Derringer) pistol is demonstrably sufficient to kill someone. Modern "home use" hand guns are 5-10 times more powerful (depending on what caliber you use), and more accurate as well. The only difference between shooting you or me, and shooting a member of the government is that nobody really cares if you are shot (or if I am). If you shoot a member of the government, it's unlikely that you will get away without being gunned down by security personnel. But if you are not so much worried about your own life, you can most definitively always get sufficiently close and shoot someone -- what could they do to prevent that?

Insofar, I don't think that civil-owned guns are alltogether "irrelevant" because the military has so much better weapons, as had been alleged. They sure are something that people who have a reasonably high risk of being shot at want to consider (but of course, criminals or terrorists will have guns anyway, legal or not... so banning them doesn't really change that much).

In peacetimes, yes, every gun is quite powerful. Because an attacker WILL have the element of suprise if he plans accordingly, and because combatants carrying better equipment are normally not deployed because they do not fit a peaceful image, and because of security concerns or damage to property (MBTs are no longer allowed on swiss roads in peacetimes and have to be moved to special training grounds by train, my dad remembers a time when Centurions where allowed to drive around in swiss cities freely... the damage to the roads was disasterous).

Against an unarmed opponent, a knife is a deadly tool. And if the opponent is surprised, you might be able to kill him with little skill even barehanded.

Against a police officer with light body armour, a gun and sufficient training though your average gun gets less useful. Can you still wound him? Yes. Kill him? Probably, but thanks to that body armour the chance to kill him got much lower, IF you are not in point blank range. Which again, will most probably only be possible with the element of surprise.

Now, if we are talking about a SQAT Team member in full gear, or a soldier of the military, your chance to wound or kill that combatant with a normal hom gun is decreasing further. Better armour, better training, and much more powerful weaponry will make it hard for you to bring him down frontally... and while it is actually easier to surprise someone in full gear (helmets limit sight and hearing quite considerably), this guy will be well protected even against shots from his back, so you will NEED to aim quite well.

Your best weapon in any case is the element of suprise. A home defense gun can increase your chance to disable or kill your opponent, but is only really effective against an untrained an unarmoured opponent. At least when it comes to effectively taking out your opponent (as opposed to psychological effects, which will make your opponent take cover and hopefully make mistakes even if shots miss or fail to penetrate armour), you are better of using your surrounding as a weapon (pushing someone off a ledge, driving him over with a car, whatever) in combination with said element of surprise.

In the end, the question is what you want to achieve.

If it is peacetime assasinations we are talking about, using home defense guns are quite effective, as long as you want to send a statement, AND you don't care that the shooter will most likely be caught and apprehended. There are still better ways to do it, most of them do not involve a weapon (easier to hide as an accident), or a military class weapon (long range sniper rifles for example... sure, you can also use a hunting rifle with scope, but then you again will need to get closer to your target).

If we are talking about an uprising or a full out civil war as most probably intended by the founders of the US, then home defense guns will loose their value quickly. Again, that might have been different in the 19th century where the power gap between weapons available to private persons and the military wasn't very big, and actually every person could get access to every weapon through shady channels that have a harder time in todays society.

Against machine guns, drones, tanks, home defense guns are useless. Any upriser wanting to fight the government will need to get ahold of more powerful weapons.

And the value of assasinations with traditional means also decreases. Try to get close enough to a person in wartimes to kill him with a pistol. You will not be able to unless you dress as someone of the other side. Even then, security measures might prevent unknown soldiers from approaching near the target person, so you might need to actually serve for the opposing side and climb the ladder, and gain the trust of your target.

Possible? Yes. By that time you already have access to uniforms and insignias of the enemy, thus most probably also their weapons and ammunition. The killing will most probably be executed with just such a weapon, just to make sure your assassin only carries around equipment that is actually expected to be found on an enemy trooper or officer.

Want to circumvent these complications, and kill the target person faster? Well, you will need long range sniper equipment, explosives, drones, or whatever tech you need to get around the security measures set up by the opposing forces... and that is just to kill one guy. And none of these ingredients could be called "home defense gun".

One of the reasons why the current US military leadership has to jump throug so many hoops just to kill one al queda or IS leader... assasinating someone in enemy territory that actually expects to be targeted by assasins proves to be a pretty challenging task, even for the biggest military force on the planet using drones and whatever future tech they can.

Could overwhelming numbers make up for it? Maybe. But then, since WW1, or even earlier, since the colony days, militaries worldwide have become terribly good at dealing with hordes of badly equipped opponents. And trying to surprise someon, or a military installation for that matter, with 1000 guys is gonna be a much harder challenge than a surprise attack with a single guy.

Israel agreed to a fair division of the land. The Arab states said 'No',

They are occupying a territory that never was a concrete government.

Well, to be fair, there's always two points of view in such a situation, and one must be careful not to be too much biased.

The Ottoman Empire was destroyed in '23, that's right. So, "no concrete government" and such, that's technically right. The French took their share and later the English did (both times with the League of Nations happily agreeing). Then came 1948 and the jews needed a place to stay, and they said "Why not here, this shall be Israel". The English said "Why, that's a great plan". Nobody even asked the arabs who had lived there for a hundred or so generations.

What looked "fair" to the to-be-Israeli didn't look quite so fair to the arabs.

Imagine you have a house with a garden, and I set up a tent in your garden. You come out and tell me to leave. So I reply "Yeah right, of course... But you see, I've already set up my tent here. So let's do a fair division. I'll have this half, and you stay in the other half, and there will be barb wire between the halves. If you come into my half, I'll shoot at you".

Would you be most happy to accept this fair division? I think not.

Jews were already in the land prior to 1948. 32% of the population was Jewish, vs 60% Muslim (with the remaining 10% being Christian, and <1% assorted other)

This is technically correct, but highly misleading. In 1948 they were 32% of the population. The vast majority of them had only arrived since the 1930's. Let's look at the timeline.

1915 - 1916: McMahon–Hussein Correspondence. British promised Arab independence if they revolted against the Ottoman Empire. The Arabs agreed and lead a revolt against the Ottoman Empire with the aim of securing an independent Arab state.

1917: The British, hoping to keep the US and Russia engaged in the war (through Zionist pressures in those countries) published the Balfour Declaration promising Jews a home in Palestine. They bribed the Jews with a place in Palestine which they had already promised would be an independent Arab state. At this point in time, Jews made up just over 10% of the population in Palestine.

Also in 1917, the Russians exposed the Sykes - Picot Agreement. It revealed that instead of Arabs getting independent control as they were promised, the land would be broken up into French and British Mandates.



This is the turning point in Western relations with the Arabs as it reneged on many of the promises made to them in order to secure their support in the war.

1918: Arab Muslims and Christians lead peaceful protests against the formation of a Jewish state in Palestine. At this point there is no Arab hatred for Jews. They wrote a document denouncing the Balfour Declaration stating: "We always sympathized profoundly with the persecuted Jews and their misfortunes in other countries... but there is wide difference between such sympathy and the acceptance of such a nation...ruling over us and disposing of our affairs.". The Zionists didn't like this declaration either, because they wanted all of Palestine. Not just a home in it.

1919 - 1929: Jews began the next large wave of immigration into Palestine. This increased tensions between Arabs and Zionists leading to riots and fighting.

1930 - 1939: Jews now at 17% of the population. They have more than doubled their population in Palestine in 10 years. This is when Arab resistance really ramped up. The Arab revolt was a uprising against the British as a demand for the independence they were promised and against the increasing Jewish immigration. Between 1933 and 1936 the Jewish population more than doubled yet again. In the face of rising conflict, the British finally tried to stem the flood of Jewish immigrants into Palestine through the White Paper of 1939. This policy paper also called for the formation of an independent Palestine governed by both Jews and Arabs. The Arabs accepted this proposal, but the Jews did not. In response to Arabs celebrating the White Paper, Jewish terrorists committed a series of bombings across Palestine. The attacks on government property and Arab civilians lasted months.

1940 - 1945: With WW2 underway, this time was relatively peaceful in Palestine but there was still tension and fighting. Jewish immigration both legal and illegal continued to climb.


1946 - 1948: Jews now make up 32% of the population. Here is a great image showing the breakdown of land ownership in 1946.



During this time the UN was looking into partition plans for the region since Jews would not accept a shared state of Palestine. The Zionists in the US used their influence to modify the boundaries to the point where they would receive 66% of Palestine. There is strong evidence to suggest that the Jews accepted the partition plan only to prevent an independant Palestinian state from being created. Their goal was always complete control over Palestine. When the British saw the proposed plan they called for it not to be imposed on the Arabs. They also refused to take part in the transition as you stated.

So yes, by the time the partition recommendation was made, Jews made up 32% of the population. However 70% of those Jews, around 500,000 had only arrived there in the past 10 years. They were hardly a significant portion of the population in the hundreds of years leading up to this point. There was no good justification for handing over 66% of Arab occupied land to Jews who made up 32% of the population and had largely just arrived in the last decade and who only owned 7% of the land at that point. The Arabs did not reject the partition because they wanted all of Palestine as you claim.

"This opposition [to partition] is based upon the unwavering conviction of unshakeable rights and a conviction of the injustice of forcing a long-settled population to accept immigrants without its consent being asked and against its known and expressed will; the injustice of turning a majority into a minority in its own country; the injustice of withholding self-government until the Zionists are in the majority and able to profit by it."

From a government control standpoint of the West Bank, it went Ottoman Empire -> British control -> Jordan control -> Israel control
For the Gaza strip, it went Ottoman Empire -> British control -> Egyptian control -> Israel control

There was no 'Palestinian' state. In fact, 'Palestine' was the name the Romans gave to the Jewish-owned land, when the Roman Empire controlled it.

No, but throughout that time the land was referred to as Palestine and it was the Arab's home for thousands of years. It was promised to be their own independent state by the British in support of overthrowing the Ottoman Empire. It was invaded by more and more Jews and finally chopped up by the international community and handed over as if they should be thankful for what little they were to receive. After trying unsuccessfully to repel the Zionist takeover, they were forced into smaller and smaller sections of land. The Arab hatred for Israel is not due to some Muslim anti-semitic belief, but a direct result of the creation of Israel (again, at the expense of Arabs who had lived there since the 12th century) and their actions leading up to that.

Israel's primary concern is survival. Because many nations openly want to kill them. Because those nations' religion call for the slaughter of the Jews and views Jews as sub-human. And because Jews have been repeatedly slaughtered by those people in the past, the Jews kinda take their word for it when they say they want to wipe them off the face of the planet, drive them into the sea, destroy them in a nuclear hellfire inferno, or slit their throats one by one until the canals flow with their blood.

Their primary goal was the creation of a Jewish state in Palestine. There is nothing in the Muslim faith about slaughtering Jews and it's possible that the Arabs and Jews could have coexisted if it wasn't for the Zionist movement. After all, Christians, Muslims and Jews were all getting along in the area before the Zionist takeover.

very long post about Zionist takeover

Funny how just about the exact same is now happening in Europe, but this time with the Arabs.

Now if one was paranoid, one might think this whole thing is a Zionist-driven plot to divert from Palestine. And if you consider that Merkel visited Israel in Mai and the massive migrations started in June, and that she is holding up to her course against all reason and even against half of her own party, it looks even weirder.

Funny how just about the exact same is now happening in Europe, but this time with the Arabs.

Now if one was paranoid, one might think this whole thing is a Zionist-driven plot to divert from Palestine. And if you consider that Merkel visited Israel in Mai and the massive migrations started in June, and that she is holding up to her course against all reason and even against half of her own party, it looks even weirder.

I thought about that as well while typing that up. I don't see any evidence of a Muslim master plan. Not being from Europe, I have a more difficult time telling the difference between bigoted FUD and actual issues happening in the UK.

The (theoretical) Zionist plan is to drive the Arabs out of Palestine? Correct? But the Arabs are leaving everywhere but Palestine. So isn't the Zionist plan backfiring?

And we may want to course correct the thread back to gun ownership in the near future ;)

The (theoretical) Zionist plan is to drive the Arabs out of Palestine? Correct? But the Arabs are leaving everywhere but Palestine. So isn't the Zionist plan backfiring?

And we may want to course correct the thread back to gun ownership in the near future ;)

I assume you're not referring the the nearly 750,000 Arabs who fled during the armed Jewish takeover of what is now Israel? That's 80% of Arabs who were in the area that were displaced by Zionism in a single year. Maybe you're referring to the 100,000 Arab youth who would flee Gaza if the blockade were to open? They can't. Gaza is a prison designed to contain the Palestinians until Israel can find a palatable way to get rid of them. Meanwhile, Israel continues the ethnic cleansing of Jerusalem.

On the topic of guns... We need mandatory training and licensing for owning private weapons. I think it's stupid to blame gun manufacturers for how their products are used, but I think gun stores, private sellers and family members should definitely be culpable if they either knowingly or through negligence put guns into the hands of a killer. For example, recently an 11 year old boy shot and killed an 8 year old girl because she wouldn't show him her puppy. He obtained the gun from an unlocked closet. The owner of that gun should be charged with murder as well. The only way to reliably be able to do this is to track gun transfers.

Background checks need to be tightened and include mental health red flags.

• The shooter at the movie theater in Louisiana managed to purchase a hand gun despite being denied a CCW permit due to domestic violence and being sent to a psychiatric hospital by a judge. This is unacceptable.
• The Charleston Church shooter was able to buy a gun even though it should have been denied. Under Federal law, if there is a delay in NICS processing, the gun can be transferred to the purchaser after three days. This is unacceptable. The default has to be to deny the sale until the NICS report comes back clean.
• The gun used in the school shooting in Marysville, WA should have been denied but the domestic violence protection order was never entered into the system. The father should be charged with murder for allowing his son access to the weapon, and the person who screwed up the reporting of the domestic violence protection order should be charged as an accessory to murder.
• The 2014 Fort Hood shooter was able to purchase a firearm while being treated for depression and anxiety. This should raise a red flag in the system, and trigger a follow up with the psychiatrist on whether they recommend denying the weapon purchase.
• The Sikh shooter was charged with criminal mischief and was known to be associated with a white-power group. This should have raised red flags and prevented the purchase of a firearm.
• The man who shot Gabby Giffords was forced to withdraw from college because officials feared for the safety of staff and students. This should have raised a red flag and prevented the sale of firearms.
• The 2009 Fort Hood shooter was under investigation by intelligence agencies for ties to a radical cleric in Yemen who is known for anti-American teachings. This should have raised a red flag and prevented the purchase of a firearm.

I mentioned red flags above a number of times. I think it should be very easy to get a red flag on your record, but I don't mean to suggest that those immediately disqualify someone from purchasing a weapon. I mean they should require human investigation into the situation. Possibly including interviews with gun buyer and psychiatrists involved in treatments if necessary. This, combined with the default fail if the report doesn't come back in time would go a long way to reducing these types of incidents.

I assume you're not referring the the nearly 750,000 Arabs who fled during the armed Jewish takeover of what is now Israel? That's 80% of Arabs who were in the area that were displaced by Zionism in a single year. Maybe you're referring to the 100,000 Arab youth who would flee Gaza if the blockade were to open? They can't. Gaza is a prison designed to contain the Palestinians until Israel can find a palatable way to get rid of them. Meanwhile, Israel continues the ethnic cleansing of Jerusalem.

I thought you and samoth were talking about the droves of Arabs leaving Syria and adjacent countries into Europe and somehow that being part of the Zionist conspiracy.

red flags

I agree.