Pontus Gagge

Comment Threads

• Greg Tingey commented on Duelling - Essentially a Bloody Stupid Idea
  There was always the famous duel in "Those Magnificent Men in their Flying Machines" In Balloons, with blunderbusses, over the sewage farm ........
• HowardBrazee commented on Duelling - Essentially a Bloody Stupid Idea
  It's interesting that the complaints that made it illegal were that that kind of dueling was common with the upper class. They couldn't afford to loose officer material or nobility. When lower class people killed themselves, that wasn't considered dueling, and it wasn't about honor. But when the rulers were killing each other, that needed to be stopped!...
• Fletcher Christian commented on Duelling - Essentially a Bloody Stupid Idea
  Oh, please! The problem here is that the word "honour" is being used for two radically different things. The honour of an adult male (it almost always is that) which is at stake in a duel is completely different from the "family honour" preserved by murdering a woman who has had the temerity to object to being married off to a dirty old man - for example. And in the first case, both parties have a chance. Not so the unfortunate woman in the second. "Honour killing" is practiced in societies or social groups where women are regarded as property....
• Martin commented on Duelling - Essentially a Bloody Stupid Idea
  When you suggest "deportation for the people helping it along", it says something about you. It shows that you consider this to be a crime only ever committed by first-generation immigrants. So it's not a redneck thing, then? No Jets and Sharks, Montagues and Capulets, "no daughter of mine is marrying a (insert bigotry here)?" It doesn't make you look good......
• Fletcher Christian commented on Duelling - Essentially a Bloody Stupid Idea
  I don't care whether the conspirators are first-generation immigrants ot the family has been in the UK for a millennium. Except, perhaps, that in the latter case all the enablers ought to be imprisoned rather than deported. Existing laws against conspiracy ought to cover that. In any case, "honour killing" in the UK is overwhelmingly more commonly committed by recent (1st or 2nd generation) immigrants than others. BTW, I'm not aware of any US-style rednecks in the UK. We have some pretty unpleasant, ill-educated and bigoted people over here too, but that particular word is not one I've seen applied....