Bay 12 Games Forum

However, restricting that even further because "they look like automatic firearms!" is a absolutely stupid and pointless action, done for political points rather than for any benefit to the people.

*coughs* I'll not argue about the rest of it, but the "looks like" argument actually is a decent one for gun control. Part of what stringent gun laws does is make sure there are very clear signalers for when someone is doing or carrying something illegal -- the more clear that is, the more effective that portion of the controls are. If you actually do have something that is mistakable (and, for stuff like this, "at a distance" is a fairly good measure) for whatever's been identified as particularly dangerous, that is something that could be desirable to fix. It probably is just panicked PR stuff, and wouldn't have prevented what happened (basically nothing that's been proposed by anyone major would have ) but still. The visual similarity is a fair reason to restrict. Gun laws aren't just about restricting gun ownership, they're also about giving police very clear points (generally, when firearms or certain forms of them are being carried or transported) for when they should be investigating something. Something that gives police a reason to relax in the face of targeted weapons (in the case given, visual similarity to legal ones) can be a pretty valid issue.

... though this really isn't exactly the thread for that line of discussion, now that I pay more attention to what thread I'm in. So I'll drop that there and back out.

That's arguably even worse, since you can't even narrow down the cause when unrest starts spiking all over your nations

Ooh, those stealthy/flying/awe pigeon sacreds look hilarious. Don't seem to have stealthy priests to go along with them, though, but that can be fixed...

... I'm totally voting for the mulligan at this point, though. There are a lot of spy nations on the field, and I'd be verra' happy to roll the dice for a chance to lower that number >_>

The widespread slaughters and conquests the eastern religions presided over tended to more or less stay "in-house", mostly, from what I understand. Stayed in the general eastern regions (which, to be fair, was pretty bloody huge :V). There's still plenty of blood spilt in their names or presided over by their believers, heh.

That said, several of the major ones are somewhat considerably more accepting of integration than the abrahamic ones are -- both the vedic traditions (which more or less explicitly allows for new gods to pop up and new traditions to be integrated) and the buddhist ones (which is at its core largely atheist (or, perhaps more accurate, apatheist) in nature, and many of its principles can slot in fairly painlessly with other religious/theist beliefs) are fairly notable in that they fold in different sects with comparatively less trouble. Still plenty of history of them murdering each other over religious schisms, mind. Just... less theological issues. Conceptually.

That said, again, even the bloody jains (for whom non-violence is their highest principle and killing unforgivable in pretty much any circumstance) were the primary religion of expansionist et al empires and owe a fair amount of their spread to the sword.

Also appears to more or less lie out of every orifice, but that might not be a con for the GOP

Not sure if the inclusion of everything except politics is particularly accurate, though. Granary man is perhaps not the most historically apt. Pretty sure he's a wingnut in the field of economics, too. Really good neurosurgeon, less good... other things.

I rather imagine TD1 was talking about actual countries. Daesh is as much a country as my cat's left nut.

And my cat is a tortoiseshell. Those don't come with nuts.

... also, why is this discussion happening here? Shouldn't it be in one of the politics threads, or armchair general or some shite?

*sigh*

Just had a real life conversation with a real life person in real life.[snip]

... was that actually your first time? I've been hearing that or things very much like it, offline, at least monthly since around '01, usually from different people.