France is banning the sale of fireworks on its biggest national holiday after protesters used them as weapons against police
businessinsider.com
The ban is in effect through Bastille Day in order to prevent "serious disturbances" to public order, the French government announced Sunday.
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It's always struck me as rather odd that, in the US, one of our major holidays celebrating the military features fireworks considering how awful they can be for many veterans' PTSD.
Why does that strike you as odd? America doesn’t care about its veterans.
Unfortunately our military is way too big to give veterans the proper care they need.
I think the average person wants to support veterans, but when you have 26 million of them it makes it extremely costly.
As with most things, take it from the wealthy.
If it ever seems like there's not enough to go around, blame those who have too much. We could solve these problems, but not while protecting the profits of the ruling class.
I disagree that all of our problems can be solved by taking other peoples wealth and the government allocating it as they deem fit.
Why? If my neighbor hunts deer and gets 10 deer this winter, and I hunt and get 0, how is it his fault?
We could solve these problems but we gave 10 trillion dollars into a black pit of war and the military industrial complex over the last 2 decades.
We could solve these problems but the government has a budget with 50% going towards social programs that are economically unsustainable.
If your neighbour, having been born in an extremelly wealthy family, hired 100 hunters and hunted all deers in a 100 mile radius and offered to sell you venison, and you subsequently went hunting, got 0 and had to buy the venison from him, that would absolutelly be his fault.
As it so happens my version of the metaphor is very much how it works nowadays at that level of wealth compared to the normal individual.
It's funny that in your mind they work just like you, even down to doing it hands on: that's not even close to how it happens with the vast majority of them and even the ones who do "work" used their wealth as a force multiplier to make way more happen than you could ever possibly do and thus get way more benefits than you could possible get (normallly make way more money which they can use as an even bigger force muliplier in the next round).
Thanks to the force-multiplying effect of money the actions of the rich absolutely have the power (quite often purposefully abused, like in my hunting metaphor) to distort the conditions within which everybody else "hunts" and make sure everybody else has to go through them to get what they need.
Nobody would have any problem with the rich if their taking wasn't so vast that it stops everybody else from getting even a little bit.
His fault of what? Hunting more? I don't own the deer, nor the land the deer are on. In fact, it'd probably work better for me, he doesn't have use for all the deer, and I can buy it pretty cheap from him without getting my hands dirty. Isn't that what you do? All your stuff, do you make it? Or buy it from someone who provides it?
Not really. You didn't explain why it's my neighbors responsibility to give me food.
Yeah. Once you have your needs met and have expendable income you can use that how you see fit. Some use it for luxuries, some use it to make more money.
I'm not gonna be mad at how someone uses their property. That doesn't do anybody any good.
Yes, you and many other young left wing folks would. It stems from jealousy, not necessity. The world is a much much much better place due to capitalism, which has brought insane amounts of people out of poverty, into positions they don't have to worry about starving everyday.
You're just mad because your wealth hasn't increased as much as theirs. Your life is easier than 90% of people throughout world history, your on your little Mac or Iphone, in your air conditioned home because it's a little too hot this july, drinking your starbucks coffee, stewing in hatred about how rich people are awful, but anybody in human history will look at your life of luxury and be appalled how someone with so much comfort and wealth is complaining.
Considering my age and that I've actually worked in Investment Banking, your take on me is hilarious.
Let me explain it in a really, really, REALLY, simple way:
It's ideological blindness to a level only found in cults to not apply the same rules of responsability to those whose power comes from money as to those whose power has a different source: Power is Power and using one's position of having way much more Power that most other people to limit the choices and even force choices on those other people is, for those who think people should as much as possible be Free, equally wrong, no matter what the source of that Power is.
Maybe we should have less wars?
Just spitballing here.
I absolutely agree, I'm conservative and am fine with cutting 80% of our foreign military activity.
Using that money to help folk here including veterans.
I feel like agreeing is some sorta trap for some reason.
All I know is I protested the Iraq war and I protested our involvement with the "moderates" in Syria.
I don't think it's a trap.
I was only 9 when we invaded Iraq, I wasn't in much of a position to protest.
But seeing for the majority of my life, how that played out, along with studying American history and our involvement in other countries the last ~70ish years has made me a borderline military pacifist. We spent some 10-20 trillion on an endless war that got us absolutely nothing, and killed millions of people across the world. What Americans life was positively impacted from that?
I'm almost always going to say to stay out of foreign conflicts going onward.
I've never met one Veteran that was against planned fireworks displays. It's the backyard ones that are the issue.
I mean when I set off some fireworks I am not trying to mess with some vet. You are right however, I should be more aware of this issue.