Question about private islands

Which one? It seems we're equal opportunity bigots here.

"Not to be a socialist at twenty is proof of want of heart; to be one at thirty is proof of want of head."
- Georges Clemenceau

Hey that's not a public hanging! That was entertainment for the masses. We had that and the US has the Fox network, which will get there soon I'm sure.

I think over a certain social standing in both the UK and the US you wouldn't be deported or killed for horse theft. Just fined more than a poor person could even dream of paying.

Nowadays people of that social standing make sex videos and get plastered on Youtube (ala Paris Hilton) or get their custody battles discussed on .. Fox News (Ala Britney).

But... but, he was French, for pete's sake. You're quoting a Frenchman for wisdom?

Hey! Me too!

The French smell funny, but they do occasionally say something sensible. They say it in a comical voice though.

And like any much quoted prominent - of any nationality - they usually have a reason for bombarding us with such banalities. He certainly did.

Context is for losers.

I'm glad you agree.

Oh good, I have a bottle of rather fine Armagnac I've been saving. Care for a cigar?

Let me put on my blue dress...

Right now, I'm not certain....this certainly IS the Doom Thread of Bigotry.....

People wore guns routinely. It's just historical revisionism, to say the "Wild West" violence is a myth or that it wasn't totally exploitive. When people had issues it more then likely turned into armed conflicts and people with the most guns, won. Gang wars. The same lowest common denominator can still destoys peace today, that is why there are laws and the need for constant effort and dialogue to keep the peace and reasons to criticize warmongers.

If people want anarchy, or peace, they are going to have to become enlightened first.

The "Wild West" as envisioned in Hollywood movies or in pulp novels is a fictional construct.

The legendary shootouts at high noon in every town really didn't take place. This is why the actual gunfights that did take place are so legendary.

Its not Historical revisionism, its Historical fact. The problem was the record was clouded by fiction and tall tales.

Certain towns did have some marked violence for short periods of time. Such as Tombstone. Or Dodge city but these periods were over quickly.

Dodge city was only a cattle drive town for a couple of years. The whole Cattle drive phenomena wasn't all that long relatively anyway.

Of course people who traveled out beyond "civilization" carried guns for protection. But the image of everyone wearing a gun in the towns is mythical. In fact the legendary "gunfight at the OK corral" was the result of enforcing a weapons ban.

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The conflicts with the Indians were real and violent (usually the Indians bearing the brunt) of course they were a direct descendant of Jackson's policy of forcibly evicting Indians off land they were given in treaties whenever US expansion moved into their vicinity.

The Cherokee nation for example won in the SUPREME COURT and Jackson forced them off their land anyway.

But properly those conflicts were warfare and occupation, not violence caused by a lack of government but rather violence imposed by a government.

Ahh, Manifest Destiny. Whatever happened to the good old days?

JUST KIDDING.

Even in the cattle towns, violence was pretty much limited to areas where single young men away from home gathered to consume alcohol. Susy Schoolmarm and Sam Shopkeeper were very unlikely to be victims of violence.

A gun is just a tool, no different than a hammer or ax.

So do you guys stand around comparing the sizes of your tools?

Okay so in a small western town Susy Schoolmarm and Sam Shopkeeper might be okay if they hide when the gunfights start. There are plenty of cases in Western towns where criminal elements and corruption took over the town and common people lived in fear.

Exploitation and Violence was way out of control in the Wild West. There is no way around it. Add alchohol to the mix and you get drunken griefers of all kinds.




An AX is to chop thing...hopefully just trees. A hammer is to hammer nails or pound things, hopefully inanimate objects. A guns primary use is self defense or aggression. Clearly if you need to carry a gun you are living in a nasty place.

Guns can also be used to shoot cans and to start illegal drag races down at the old abandoned aquaduct.

Yes they took place. What history books are you reading?




When one uses the phrase "Wild West" it is Tombstone, Dodge, Deadwood, Laramie, Cheyenne and a host of others, that is being referred to. All the famous cow towns and settlements is what is meant by the "Wild Wild West." Civil war, Range wars, Railroad wars, Fur and pelt wars, Mineral wars, Indian wars, Water wars, Race Wars even Religious Wars.





Regardless of the reasons for the fighting, or how long the period lasted, it was the "Wild West" and whoever had the most guns won. Peaceful Citizens had to ban up and carry guns and hire sheriffs and create laws to protect themselves.

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That governments have been imperfect and crazy as well, or that cities were also dangerous places, is no reason to think anarchy in the Wild West was somehow better.

The exploitation and violence in the "Wild West," was no myth.

It would still have been fun to live then/there.

I'd have been like Yul Brynner's character in "Westworld"; all grim and stern and silent until someone stood in my spot at the saloon. Except not a robot.

Not for me. I hated it.