Disabled Woman Denied Entrance To US Due To Private Medical Records 784
Jah-Wren Ryel writes "In 2012, Canadian Ellen Richardson was hospitalized for clinical depression. This past Monday she tried to board a plane to New York for a $6,000 Caribbean cruise. DHS denied her entry, citing supposedly private medical records listing her hospitalization. From the story: '“I was turned away, I was told, because I had a hospitalization in the summer of 2012 for clinical depression,’’ said Richardson, who is a paraplegic and set up her cruise in collaboration with a March of Dimes group of about 12 others.'"
While... (Score:5, Insightful)
..literally hundreds of others crossed the border illegally. USA USA USA!
Statue of passing judgement (Score:5, Insightful)
Give me your tired^whealthy, your poor^wrich/Your huddled masses^wvisa-workers yearning to breathe free^w"managed"
Only a few more words to go people; you can do it!
D for douchebag? (Score:5, Insightful)
Does the D in DHS stand for douchebag?
interesting though stupid comment (Score:5, Insightful)
The US can deny anyone entry into their country for any reason or no reason.
While I think we all agree that flying like many activities is something of a privilege. But at the same time, who really thinks it's a good idea to let some preening, unaccountable bureaucrat decide whether or not you should be granted that privilege with no justification needed?
While the commenter goes on to note that US Customs and Border Protection should not have had access to that medical information (with the poster claiming that is the only "deeper issue" at stake), it's interesting how many issues this one incident bring up.
In addition, we have regulations that can block someone from flying on dubious medical grounds. And that US Customs and Border Protection has the authority to block people from merely flying through the US on their way to other foreign locations.
It's like someone knocked a whole crate of worms off the locking dock.
Re:Collusion (Score:3, Insightful)
It's the kind of situation where you want to hear all the evidence before passing judgement. We don't have it all here.
Although I don't really understand why they want to keep depressed people out, it's just a tourist visa, not even a long term thing.
Re:While... (Score:5, Insightful)
They can walk, and they can work cheaply.
That's quite impressive access (Score:5, Insightful)
That is absolutely amazing. (Not in any good way) TSA/ICE people literally have access to this stuff. It amazes me in an utterly horrifying way. That it's more international data sharing at this level should be cause for all manner of scrutiny and corrective action.
I'm sure Canadians and others are just about done with the US and what the government is up to.
USA,..... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:very understandable (Score:5, Insightful)
We don't want no evil Canadian paraplegic terrorist to assault our defenseless citizens with kind words.
Irrational fear is the new patriotism.
Re:Collusion (Score:5, Insightful)
Although I don't really understand why they want to keep depressed people out, it's just a tourist visa, not even a long term thing.
Bruce Schneier calls it "the war on the unusual" - I like "the war on diginity" because it better encompasses the kafka-esque nature of the unthinking and unyielding bureaucracy that produces this sort of result.
Re:Maybe not NSA snooping (Score:5, Insightful)
If the book was published in 2009 and the exact event stated by DHS for denying entry occurred in 2012, how did the 2012 event get known by the DHS from a 2009 book?
Re:Avoid a psychiatric diagnosis at all costs (Score:5, Insightful)
This is basically the opposite of good advice, and none of it conforms to any experience I've ever had, or that anyone I know has had. I have a psychiatric diagnosis or two, and I've gotten treatment, and you know what? It's made my life a heck of a lot better actually getting some help. I've never had a doctor try to somehow disregard physical illnesses based on this, either.
The thing with "treatments" in scare quotes is a pretty strong indication that you're not merely unaware of the state of the art in the field, but actively avoiding any risk of being contaminated by actual information about it. And I guess if you wanna be that way on your own dime, that's your business, but when you start telling other people they should avoid basic health care services because you're afraid of them, that's sorta harmful to other people.
Re:very understandable (Score:5, Insightful)
Irrational fear is the new patriotism.
No, it is not new. Irrational fear has ALWAYS been the keystone to American "patriotism". Hell, just look at the whole McCarthyism thing.
Re:very understandable (Score:2, Insightful)
The pharmacist still has to keep it private, even in a town of 10.
Why bring up her physical disability? (Score:5, Insightful)
Disabled Woman Denied Entrance To US Due To Private Medical Records
While it wouldn't necessarily be a surprise to find out that her physical disability (paraplegia) might have had some affect on her mental wellbeing over the years, is it not just a little bit disingenuous to make it the first word of the headline, implying that it was her physical disability rather than her mental illness that caused the issue at the border?
You wouldn't write the headline "Black man arrested for insider trading" would you?
Re:very understandable (Score:2, Insightful)
That's wishful thinking at its finest. I suppose you have never lived in a village.
Dude, you're way off base. (Score:5, Insightful)
That creature was no bull dyke.
Now, don't get me wrong. I'm not a fan of bull dykes, at all. I've no use for them, and they have no use for me. But, a bull dyke is a woman, after all, and human.
That creature you refer to, who was running DHS, is a full fledged fascist pig, with an agenda of her own. She has no love for the United States, or any segment of the country's demographics.
As little as might like bull dykes, I would have preferred that there actually WAS a militant lesbian bull running DHS.
Re:very understandable (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:That's quite impressive access (Score:5, Insightful)
It's not our government that gave away your information, it was your own government that did that.
Since you refuse to blame the right party, your attitude is hardly going to help solve your problem.
And I might also point out, the UK, Australia, and Germany probably also have all your information. But don't blame them, they're also not the ones who gave it away.
You're correct, mostly (Score:2, Insightful)
There actually is valid reason to assess people's mental capacity and mental state though. A lot of the centrists and right wingers are agreeing that maybe it would make sense to keep crazy people from acquiring weapons.
The problem is though, as you hint, that left wingers are going to define "crazy". Already we see children being taken into custody for the act of play acting in schools.
Bite a pop-tart into the shape of a gun, and school officials call in the cops. Imagine that. Point a finger and say "POW", and you're marked for life as a crazy person prone to violence.
I suppose that some liberal will read your post, and mine, and be begging for the opportunity to drag us onto an analyst's couch.
Re:Why bring up her physical disability? (Score:5, Insightful)
Aren't you assuming that mental illness isn't a disability?
Re:very understandable (Score:5, Insightful)
irrational fear has been the keystone to all patriotism
nothing american about a human phenomenon
Re:Umm, what? (Score:5, Insightful)
This is exactly why it's the only government in the world I'd trust to obey the law.
best troll ever?
Re:Umm, what? (Score:5, Insightful)
he's explaining a shitty reality, not condoning it
ever hear of the phrase "shooting the messenger"?
The US just spies on everything (Score:5, Insightful)
The point is that the NSA knows about everyones personal medical records. And they abuse that information.
Re:very understandable (Score:5, Insightful)
All the recent mass murders in the U.S. have got the right wing blogosphere screaming for a crackdown on the mentally ill.
Should we point out to them that all these mentally ill people are loose on the streets and not getting proper treatment because these same right-wingers are insisting on social service cutbacks?
Re:Avoid a psychiatric diagnosis at all costs (Score:5, Insightful)
The state of the art in the field is medication. The drugs have changed over time, but drugs have been the first line of treatment for at least 40 years now. I have both experienced myself, and witnessed in others the indescribable suffering and agony that can occur due to drug side-effects, and those that appear due to withdrawal of the drugs after long-term use. Psychiatry would have you believe, I suppose, that the central nervous system is endlessly plastic, and can rapidly adapt and respond to medications being added and removed as one pleases. For the majority, perhaps this is true - but there is a sizable minority who find their mental health deteriorate the longer they are on the medications, and then discover (to their horror) that they cannot discontinue the drug without terrifying mental and physical symptoms, far worse than the original illness. If it should happen to you, psychiatry absolutely _will not_ have your back, or really anything to offer you, as even the drug manufacturers themselves do not know how the medications affect the brain long term.
One might argue that any treatment has risks, but after experiencing what I've experienced, I think people should understand what kind of risk they're really taking. For my part, I do not consider this kind of medication Russian roulette to be a "basic health care service."
Re:Collusion (Score:5, Insightful)
Delusional? No, she was treated for clinical depression after a relationship ended. I guess you've never had a soul destroying break up that leaves you alone and utterly bereft of joy in your life. Be thankful for that because it fucking sucks.
Re:very understandable (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Collusion (Score:5, Insightful)
Gosh, guys, what on earth could a person who is paralyzed from the waist down have to be depressed about?!
Re:very understandable (Score:2, Insightful)
What McCarthy & co did was wrong and too much, but not necessarily irrational. Communism was a real threat to non-communist countries all over the world, and the U.S. was not the only nation to take extreme measures to defend themselves against it.
In hindsight we know that the treat probably wasn't as big as it was perceived back then, and that the "defense" did more harm than good in many cases, but at the time they did not know this. So: Maybe "misinformed" but not "irrational".
Re:very understandable (Score:3, Insightful)
Yet it is far more prevalent in the U.S. than in other Western countries.
Re:Umm, what? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:very understandable (Score:4, Insightful)
I think it's fair to say that the biggest threat to the world wasn't communism, it was the interplay of two superpowers struggling for dominance: everyone else is a target to them.
You were both a real threat to the rest of the world.
Land of the free my arse.
Re:very understandable (Score:5, Insightful)
It is more overt in the U.S. than in other western countries.
Re:very understandable (Score:5, Insightful)
Yet it is far more prevalent in the U.S. than in other Western countries.
Clearly you've never heard of the Daily Mail.
Re:very understandable (Score:2, Insightful)
It is only through hindsight that we can say that a desire to ferret out communist subversives was "irrational". At this time during the cold war, considering that there actually WERE subversives and attempts to subvert the USA's government, a desire and hunting for such subversives was a very understandable and reasonable concern. Protecting itself and it's integrity is a proper role for government and there were valid concerns.
What made McCarthyism bad not the hunt for subversives per se, it was tossing out the constitution in the hunt for subversives.
Re:You're correct, mostly (Score:5, Insightful)
I could be described as liberal, I think the over reaction to children playing with toy guns, drawing guns etc is absolutely ridiculous. What I find more ridiculous, is peoples inability to understand liberal and conservative are not two molds where everyone thinks exactly the same and has the same reaction and level of intelligence. Stop turning politics into a tribal war thinking there are two distinct sides, and one is out to get you.
Re:Maybe not NSA snooping (Score:5, Insightful)
The DHS quite obviously have access to sweeping surveillance information on anyone who wants to enter the US. This was obvious before the Snowden/NSA leak. A couple of years before that leak there was a British man who made national news here for being denied entry to the US (and being interrogated for hours) because of a tweet he made not long before he boarded the aircraft (the tweet was of the nature "we're gonna go out and destroy the town tonight" which in British slang means we're going to get drunk and party, but the DHS took it literally as if he were planning to bomb Seattle). To link someone's Twitter username with an actual living person in such a short period of time and have it ready on a border agent's computer when the unfortunate person arrives means they must have had pretty wide and detailed surveillance already capable of making all the links necessary to link a living person with a pseudanonymous Twitter username.
Re:very understandable (Score:5, Insightful)
What made McCarthyism bad not the hunt for subversives per se, it was tossing out the constitution in the hunt for subversives.
Gee, now why does that sound so familiar?
It's deja vu all over again.
Those who fail to learn from history...
Strat
Lucky Founding Fathers (Score:3, Insightful)
The DHS would never have let those religious nutjobs in.
Re:While... (Score:5, Insightful)
....and there are people who will hire them.
Re:very understandable (Score:4, Insightful)
Really, +4 Insightful? "Not necessarily irrational"?
Two small quotes:
1. -"... is the practice of making accusations of disloyalty, subversion, or treason without proper regard for evidence. It also means "the practice of making unfair allegations or using unfair investigative techniques, especially in order to restrict dissent or political criticism".
2.- "The term is also now used more generally to describe reckless, unsubstantiated accusations, as well as demagogic attacks on the character or patriotism of political adversaries. (...) During the McCarthy era, thousands of Americans were accused of being communists or communist sympathizers and became the subject of aggressive investigations and questioning before government or private-industry panels, committees and agencies. The primary targets of such suspicions were government employees, those in the entertainment industry, educators and union activists. Suspicions were often given credence despite inconclusive or questionable evidence, and the level of threat posed by a person's real or supposed leftist associations or beliefs was often greatly exaggerated. Many people suffered loss of employment and/or destruction of their careers; some even suffered imprisonment. Most of these punishments came about through trial verdicts later overturned, laws that would be declared unconstitutional, dismissals for reasons later declared illegal or actionable, or extra-legal procedures that would come into general disrepute".
You might want to rethink that "misinformed but not irrational" part, it was a witchhunt. It was, basically: If I do not like what you think, do, say, film, perform, or just who you are, I am going to destroy you, your family, your career and everything you hold dear.
Those quotes come from the first two paragraphs from Wikipedia. Go, read the article. Done? Now go read some of essays and the extensive literature available on the subject, now that you are at it. And by you, I mean the author AND the people that moded that post.
Re:Collusion (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't think you have a clear understanding of mental illness.
It's like physical illness, but applied to the brain and mental functions. People get better. People get worse. Some people are very very ill, many are just a bit ill. 1 in 4 people will have a mental health issue at some point in their life.
By "is delusional" you mean "was delusional". This is now managed with drugs, just like someone who lost their leg has their "balance issues" managed with a false limb. I don't think anyone would condone blocking entry to a country because that person had lost a leg in the past.
The decision was appalling, and the fact that it is clear that Canada is giving up private medical records to US authorities is disgusting.
Re:D for douchebag? (Score:4, Insightful)
I hear "Homeland," and I think "Fatherland," or "Motherland." Very 1930s Germany, very USSR.
Re:You're correct, mostly (Score:3, Insightful)
If I look at liberal and conservative politicians, it seems like there is only one mold. Seriously, why do Americans still vote at all?
Re:very understandable (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Umm, what? (Score:5, Insightful)
Nice apologia, but it's bullshit.
When people are denied entry on a capricious basis, everyone suffers. Though they don't know it, even the border patrol fuckwads suffer. And then the country produces more fuckwards, who apply for border patrol jobs because they sense an opportunity to bully people. Then they invent a bunch of bullshit rationalizations for being assholes.
I tell everyone I speak to on the subject not to visit the USA. You'd have to be an asshole to give us your money. We're just going to use it to fuck you and everyone else over.
Re:interesting though stupid comment (Score:4, Insightful)
When three of the latest mass murders that happened in the US was due to people with mental illness. It is not statistically likely but it could become highly deadly given the failings previously.
This is a combination of several logical fallacies. Let's examine the given argument: Because attacks happened, and because the perpetrators were mentally ill, if we let a mentally ill person into the country, then there might be an attack.
First, correlation does not indicate causation. Simply because a person is mentally ill does not mean that an attack was perpetrated because of them being mentally ill. You would need further proof that this is the case, and it wasn't due to political or ideological motivation.
The cum hoc ergo propter hoc logical fallacy can be expressed as follows:
A occurs in correlation with B.
Therefore, A causes B.
Secondly, this is a fallacy of the single cause.
It can be logically reduced to: X occurred after Y. Therefore, Y caused X (although A,B,C...etc also caused X.)
Often after a tragedy it is asked, "What was the cause of this?" Such language implies that there is one cause, when instead there were probably a large number of contributing factors. However, having produced a list of several contributing factors, it may be worthwhile to look for the strongest of the factors, or a single cause underlying several of them. A need for simplification may be perceived in order to make the explanation of the tragedy operational, so that responsible authorities can be seen to have taken action.
This is also straight up cherry-picking. If it's not statistically likely that a mentally ill person will commit a terrorist act, then why would you base your argument around it?
Cherry picking, suppressing evidence, or the fallacy of incomplete evidence is the act of pointing to individual cases or data that seem to confirm a particular position, while ignoring a significant portion of related cases or data that may contradict that position. It is a kind of fallacy of selective attention, the most common example of which is the confirmation bias.
That barely skims the surface of the problems with that argument.
Re:very understandable (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:very understandable (Score:4, Insightful)
War on Terror: 2001-
Your rant is fifty years off.
I'm not justifying anything or claiming that any government was right. I just said that in the political context of the early 1950:s, fear of communism was not considered irrational.
Today many people seem to have forgotten that before the 1970s, many countries supported the U.S. anti-communist agenda. Many of the same countries are now more or less opposed to the current U.S. foreign policy.
So, aim that flamer at someone who actually disagrees with you, OK?
Re:interesting though stupid comment (Score:4, Insightful)
over the constitution
I've got real problems with that one. If it's so damn important to put something above the Constitution, make an amendment. Otherwise, the Constitution is the supreme law of the land. Otherwise, you've just defeated the point of having rule-by-law.
Re:Collusion (Score:3, Insightful)
Geeks have a hard time entering human mode, eh?
Re:very understandable (Score:5, Insightful)
It is a real peeve of mine how laws get passed with absolutely zero thought given to what the consequences will be. People change their behavior, but so many of these dumb bills just assume that they won't.
Re:While... (Score:0, Insightful)
The Obama Administration denied this women access. Don't forget that.
His department, his appointees, his rules.
Re:very understandable (Score:4, Insightful)
Where is "over here"? If you're talking about the UK then yes it absolutely does.
Shit like the porn filters David Cameron is so proud of are the direct result of a Daily Mail campaign.
Re:While... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:very understandable (Score:5, Insightful)
Fear of guns is not irrational. The fact is, someone with a gun can kill you and there's not the damndest shit you can do to defend yourself.
If however someone tries to attack you with a knife you at least have the chance to try and punch them in the fact and stamp on their balls afterwards.
That's why gun murders are a different problem to other murders - they're harder to defend against, and even if you have a gun yourself it doesn't help because a criminal will always ensure they get the jump.
Even outside of that, if you do manage to fire back then there's a greater chance that stray bullets will kill innocent bystanders, something that doesn't happen when you're instead resorting to punching someone in the face.
It's also very easy to stick up, injure, or kill multiple people with a gun - you can quite easily assault a group of 5 people with a gun, but assaulting 5 people with a knife is probably the fastest way to get yourself a good kicking. You may injure or kill one or two of them but the fact you're going to get the shit beaten out of you after that is a rather massive deterrent.
So yes, violence occurs without guns, but guns amplify the problems of it by making it too easy.
This isn't to say I think banning guns outright is the answer in the US - they're too prominent and widespread for a UK style amnesty that has been extremely successful to work, but pretending they're harmless items that don't cause any problems is stupid, it's pretty obvious that they do.
But to turn your "I have never understood anti gun folk irrational fear of an inanimate object." comment around, I've never understood pro gun folks irrational fear of leaving their house without their gun or living without one in the first place. Are you really so lacking in confidence of your ability to defend yourself should someone try and physically attack you or what?
Re:While... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:USA,..... (Score:5, Insightful)
The terrorists won.
Re:very understandable (Score:5, Insightful)
Perhaps you should consider that you possibly don't understand what "anti-gun folk" fear about handguns. They don't fear an interlocking series of components that produces a chemical reaction that accelerates an emitted object or objects. They fear the human abuse of such an item.
I don't think I've ever heard an anti-gun protester complain about a marine carrying a sidearm in uniform, but lots of them seem to complain about how amazingly trivial it is to obtain one even if you're a diagnosed schizophrenic felon (just head to your nearest gun show.)
Death by handgun isn't any more horrible than death by any other method (hell, you could argue that it is more humane if the shooter knows what they're doing - I'd rather die by gunshot to the head than burn to death) - but I have never heard anyone complain that dying by handgun is worse than anything else.
What I have heard people complain about is that handguns are more dangerous than other 'murder weapons' for the same reason that assault rifles are more dangerous than handguns, that hand grenades are more dangerous than assault weapons, that grenade launchers are more dangerous than hand grenades, and a 20mm automatic cannon is more dangerous than a grenade launcher. Each one makes it easier to kill more people than the next.
I assure you that carrying two M9s will allow you to kill far more people than carrying two knives.
So, perhaps you're a bit mistaken about why people don't like handguns. Personally, I enjoy handgun shooting as a sport, but don't carry one - I use a Mark 23 (a little big to carry anyhow.)
Re:While... (Score:5, Insightful)
You are implying that this means we should be on the lookout for people with depression. You are mistaken.
If having depression on your medical record is something which can bite you, fewer people with depression will seek help. This will if anything cause more shooting-sprees, not fewer.
It's exactly this kind of bullshit that makes it so important medical record be kept genuinely private, not just handed out to government agencies as a matter of course.
Re:While... (Score:4, Insightful)
Also, none of them were in wheelchairs. This is DHS grasping at straws to create some boogeyman terrorists where they don't exist.
Re:While... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:very understandable (Score:3, Insightful)
"The major difference is that you will live in abject horror for a little while longer, and then slowly bleed to death, when confronted by a madman with a knife."
That's time in which an ambulance can reach you and save you.
As an aside, why the hyperbole "abject horror", "madman", do you not ever die in "abject horror" when shot? do madmen only ever use knives?
"If someone intent on harming you with a knife is 21 feet away from you, and you have a holstered gun, you stand a pretty good chance of being dead."
You can dodge a knife easier than you can dodge a bullet, you can disarm someone with a knife charging you easier than you can disarm someone you can't even reach with a gun, you can run from someone with a knife easier than someone with a gun. All these factors make a drastic difference.
"I think you may be overestimating your ability to defend yourself should someone try and physically attack you."
Whatever the ability is, it's higher than the chance of stopping or dodging a bullet which is pretty much exactly zero.
I don't pretend that surviving a knife attack is easy, but it's still orders of magnitude easier than surviving being shot at
Pretending you're as likely to die when faced with a knife attack as opposed to a gun attack is all kinds of retarded. The very fact a gun is a ranged weapon alone drastically alters the balance, the very fact they can attack you without you physically being able to reach them back changes everything, as does the fact that their tool of harm - the bullet travels at a speed you simply can't react to compared to a knife which can only move at the same speed you too can respond - that of human reflex.
If guns didn't offer a massive advantage in terms of killing or causing harm then we'd all be walking round with broadswords and polearms because guns would've been pointless in the first place. Their very existence is based on the fact they're a far more effective and efficient method of killing whilst avoiding being killed, that's a cold hard unavoidable fact even if it is inconvenient to those paranoid enough to feel they can't possibly live their life without a firearm.
Re:very understandable (Score:5, Insightful)
Americans are not patriotic. Patriotic people wouldn't let their country slide to tyranny, nor let its leaders shit all over its laws, nor keep voting for people who can't even pass a damn budget without turning it into a game of "chicken".
While that's entirely possible, the fact is that they aren't at the top. It's American's turn to show what you're made of and whether you can handle real power. This far, the answers seem to be "pyrite" and "no". And so the USA fades to history, the same as every previous empire who failed the test. But at least the world has calmed down enough that it's unlikely anyone will be ransacking Washington.
Yours isn't, sadly.
Re:very understandable (Score:5, Insightful)
Pharmacists are supposed to be more than pill counters. They're highly educated drug experts, far more so than physicians. The pharmacist is supposed to check what the physician prescribed, make sure it's correct, a reasonable dosage, and doesn't conflict with anything else the patient may have or be taking. It's very useful for the pharmacist to know the diagnosis, in order to do his job.
Re:very understandable (Score:3, Insightful)
The fact is, someone with a gun can kill you and there's not the damndest shit you can do to defend yourself.
You could shoot back.
If however someone tries to attack you with a knife you at least have the chance to try and punch them in the fact and stamp on their balls afterwards.
Please tell all these dead children [wikipedia.org] how to defend against knives. Because you're thinking of the children, right?
That's why gun murders are a different problem to other murders - they're harder to defend against, and even if you have a gun yourself it doesn't help because a criminal will always ensure they get the jump.
Because the knife wielding criminals always announce themselves, right?
Even outside of that, if you do manage to fire back then there's a greater chance that stray bullets will kill innocent bystanders, something that doesn't happen when you're instead resorting to punching someone in the face.
Or you could be properly trained on how to use your gun to defend yourself. Are you trained in martial arts? You might accidentally punch a baby in the face with those unregistered deadly weapons you call hands.
But to turn your "I have never understood anti gun folk irrational fear of an inanimate object." comment around, I've never understood pro gun folks irrational fear of leaving their house without their gun or living without one in the first place. Are you really so lacking in confidence of your ability to defend yourself should someone try and physically attack you or what?
Didn't you just tell me how I can't defend myself from someone with a gun? I have such an irrational fear of being attacked with a gun that I've resorted to getting my own gun to try and even the odds. Yes, I have guns. No, I don't carry. Why? Because I live in a rural area and the crime rate diminishes the further away I get from the "gun-free zone" urban areas. The only thing I'm worried about is someone breaking in to rob the house. And even in that case, I hope that the sound of me racking the 12 gauge will be enough to scare them off because if I shoot them, NY will probably throw me in jail.
Re:very understandable (Score:1, Insightful)
Fear of cars is not irrational. The fact is, someone with a car can kill you and there's not the damndest shit you can do to defend yourself.
If however someone tries to attack you with a banana you at least have the chance to try and punch them in the fact and stamp on their balls afterwards.
That's why car murders are a different problem to other murders - they're harder to defend against, and even if you have a car yourself it doesn't help because a criminal will always ensure they get the jump.
Even outside of that, if you do manage to collide back then there's a greater chance that stray car parts will kill innocent bystanders, something that doesn't happen when you're instead resorting to punching someone in the face.
It's also very easy to run over, injure, or kill multiple pedestrians with a car - you can quite easily assault a group of 5 pedestrians with a car, but assaulting 5 pedestrians with a banana is probably the fastest way to get yourself a good kicking. You may injure or kill one or two of them but the fact you're going to get the shit beaten out of you after that is a rather massive deterrent.
So yes, violence occurs without cars, but cars amplify the problems of it by making it too easy.
This isn't to say I think banning cars outright is the answer in the US - they're too prominent and widespread for a UK style amnesty that has been extremely successful to work, but pretending they're harmless items that don't cause any problems is stupid, it's pretty obvious that they do.
But to turn your "I have never understood anti car folk irrational fear of an inanimate object." comment around, I've never understood pro car folks irrational fear of leaving their house without their car or living without one in the first place. Are you really so lacking in confidence of your ability to defend yourself should someone try and physically attack you or what?
Re:interesting though stupid comment (Score:5, Insightful)
I believe all those people also had a Y chromosome instead of the normal double X.
Re: USA,..... (Score:2, Insightful)
As Obama likes to say: it's all Bush's fault. Well actually this time that saying has validity given it was Bush's government expansion that created the oppressive TSA. Then again, it's not like Obama can't shut down the TSA or get rid of the "patriot act" . So Obama shouldn't escape blame. And Obama did promise to be more transparent and citizen friendly making him quite the hypocrite as well.
Re:USA,..... (Score:2, Insightful)
In the other countries you let these people have control of their lives too. They are just brainwashed so they don't mention their problems outside their homes.
Re:While... (Score:5, Insightful)
Way to miss the point. Just exactly how does a DHS rent-a-cop get access to her medical records? That's pretty freakin nuts.
Re:very understandable (Score:2, Insightful)
And the US intentional homicide rate, from all causes, from the equivalent Wikipedia page, is 4.7 per 100,000.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intentional_homicide_rate [wikipedia.org]
So most of your 'firearm related death rate' are suicides, justifiable homicide, or accidents.
So you're using bogus statistics to support an anti-gun agenda. Hey, what a shock. Never seen that before.
BTW, Mexico's intentional homicide rate is 23.7. Clearly they don't need guns to murder people.
Re:USA,..... (Score:4, Insightful)
I agree that the US has become less civilized, but you can't say your own (I'm assuming western european) country(ies) are any better. For one, many are quite happy being the lapdogs of the US fed and the fortune 100 (eg copyright cartel), and secondly, like the US, their own, current policies routinely clobber freedom for the sake of mob rule and the coddling of its collective, kneejerk feelings. Unlike the US, however, they don't even have free speech, self defense rights, and protection from unwarranted search, codified into their laws, which leads to even more abuse than the average US citizen gets in the US. What's more 'civilized' about that? I think the western world needs to reevaluate its priorities lest it become the harbinger of the next dark age.
Re: USA,..... (Score:4, Insightful)
Yes.. Bush and his crew created it, and Obama's extended it. He also voted for PATRIOT as a senator. Bush and Obama really are two faces of the same coin. In fact, Obama ran on the promise of shutting down secret prisons and killing off PATRIOT. What did he do? Extend the bill and move the secret prisons here, giving precedent to expand them on american soil, later. Also, do not forget about the expansion secret courts and the denial of proper due process for the sake of 'national security.'
The democrats and republicans need to go..
Re:While... (Score:5, Insightful)
And those people are rich and well connected.
You want to stop illegal immigration, start putting business owners in jail for hiring them. No labor market, no illegal immigration.