Quote Originally Posted by Gelatinous Cube View Post
You're making a conscious effort to misunderstand me!
No - he isn't.

The American idea contains the notion that some day the people might have to overthrow the government.
This is a European idea - you imported your variant from Britain after we chopped the head off our Divinely Ordained King. People forget that now, but that's what Cromwell and the others believed they were doing. Without the English Civil War your rebellion would have been inconceivable.

It is part of our psyche, and a vital part of our collective morality over the ages.
And ours.

Take away the guns, and we enter into a new chapter of total submission to the government, and most Americans are not keen on that.
The government is elected by the people - the people submit to the rule of Law when they are governed, not to the government itself. QED - the British are no more submissive than the Americans. We chose to ban most firearms, and there is little support for lifting the ban.

Far more dangerous is the American tendency to see "the Government" as something remote. That discourse has crossed the Atlantic and infected my country. Something I am not grateful more.

Newsflash people - politicians are human beings. Don't like them? Stand for election or shut up.

Secondly, London is a unique city that doesn't really compare to anything we have here. Sure, it's big. We have many, many large cities that don't have the benefit of london's suffocating surveillance. Good luck going into LA, or Dallas, or St. Louis, or Detroit with the intention of confiscating all the guns![/QUOTE]

And yet - we did. There are some guns in London - not many. We got most people to give theirs up before there was any surveillance.

Nor is the size issue what Americans make it out to be - your population is about 5-6 times that of the UK, the population of Texas is about half that of England. The US is governable at the state level to the same extent as the UK or any European country.

Bottom line - America isn't really special. It's the UK circa 1950 - corrupt antiquated law enforcement, awash with weapons, and no healthcare unless you're rich.

I'm sorry GC, but that is literally the way your country looks to me - not all of that's a bad thing - but you have some serious problems that everyone over here has already dealt with

Quote Originally Posted by Montmorency View Post
For the record, NYC is definitely bigger than London.
It's something like 8 million New Yorkers to 7 million Londoners - logistically that's not a big difference.