> healthcare > unlimited homelessness, in one day in la i saw more homelessness people then in my entire life in australia, this was only eclipsed by san fran. now i get why devs are leaving california, i wouldn't raise a family there. > gun violence > political instability > terrible pre-12 education system. > general shitty american population (why do you need to clap and chant so much)
Well, one of these things is most definitely not like the others.
I never got shot and killed in the US, not even once. But the fear of gun violence is real, not just as a subjective experience but as a tool, Switzerland has more guns, but the US is unusual in that it is both a democracy and has so many guns on display. The standard response to this from my side of politics is to say that the US needs gun control. My feeling is that the US is different because the US is different, it’s bigger, more complex and there are greater and more numerous tensions and conflicts than the other Anglo/euro democracies. Americans relationship to their government and the culture around personal responsibility and political participation is very different to the disconnected disinterest in my own country. So I don’t want US gun culture exported, and I don’t want my kids living in it. But when you read things like:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colorado_Coalfield_War
It seems there is an intimate connection between the generative political culture of the United States, that doesn’t shy away from conflict in pursuit of ideals, and gun culture, that cannot be easily separated. I believe there is something in American culture that calls people to intervene, that urges facing into conflict, even violence in pursuit of higher ideals that is both useful and destructive, even if we could never tally the full cost, in short order we can produce horrific numbers, but I believe this same imperative drives vital movements like feminism, gay rights, anti racism that inspire required changes in my country. So I both agree with you and think you’re missing the point. Cancer, heart disease, dementia are numerically vastly greater killers, but as an outsider from Australia coming to the US the underlying conflict in the society is hard to come terms with, it is much better hidden in Australia. I think my experience is common, I will always regret leaving the US. I adjusted to that sense of threat that personally, and I think I would have tolerated it if I had stayed and had children there, but I can’t bring myself to move my children there.
My hypothesis as to why the new US administration is so fixated on gun control is that they really need to import big piles of migrants to do the low rung labor, but if that new underclass gets guns, things will go downhill. So their plan is to pack the supreme court with anti-gun judges (to bypass the bill of rights) and take the guns. They seem to be trying the Australian scenario where a possibly manufactured shooting was used as an excuse to ban guns.