Pearl Harbor thrust the US into the war, though it had little to no bearing on the decision of whether or not to drop the bomb. Throughout the island-hopping Pacific campaign, it was noticed that the Japanese would never (or very rarely) surrender. Even if a soldier was the last man alive on an overrun island, he would fight. If he ran out of bullets, he would charge with a sword. In a few places, civilians threw themselves along with their children off of cliffs by the thousands because the Japanese government had told them that American troops would rape and torture them.

So the question was, what's going to be the human cost of a land invasion of Japan? They assumed they would have to fight not just entrenched enemy soldiers fighting for their homes, but the civilian population as well. It was also assumed this would mean the war would drag on for much longer.

Hindsight is 20/20 and we can look at this in comfy chairs from an academic setting. They didn't have such privilege.

I say we let the wiki include information on our members/memes/history. Otherwise it seems like a waste of a wiki.

If it starts being overrun with vandalism/abuse, then we can revisit, but I say let's try it and see what develops.

Of course, I may just be saying that because my first idea for a page for a videosift wiki was to make "pigfucker" point to blankfist's bio page.

>> ^TheFreak:

Big upvote.
I am completely exhausted with being concerned over the crazy BS going on in US politics. My coping mechanism now is to just say, "fuck it".
So let the teabaggers elect inexperienced morons who are too stupid to know when they've become corporate shills. Let the conservative right try to return this country to the social and economic dark ages. Let it happen. If this country is really overrun by so many mindless conservative sheep and self styled "patriot" lunatics that they actually succeed in taking over the government...well...it's going to be one hell of a ride.
I'm going to be laughing my ass off as the train flies off the tracks. And if there's one ounce of life left in my after it all comes crashing down, I will pull my broken body across the ground just to point and laugh in the face of any of my fellow survivors.
Bring it.


Enjoy your checkpoints n' shit.

Big upvote.

I am completely exhausted with being concerned over the crazy BS going on in US politics. My coping mechanism now is to just say, "fuck it".

So let the teabaggers elect inexperienced morons who are too stupid to know when they've become corporate shills. Let the conservative right try to return this country to the social and economic dark ages. Let it happen. If this country is really overrun by so many mindless conservative sheep and self styled "patriot" lunatics that they actually succeed in taking over the government...well...it's going to be one hell of a ride.

I'm going to be laughing my ass off as the train flies off the tracks. And if there's one ounce of life left in my after it all comes crashing down, I will pull my broken body across the ground just to point and laugh in the face of any of my fellow survivors.

Bring it.

>> ^Winstonfield_Pennypacker:

How is what these guys said any different than what the 'other guy' says (and gets a pass)?

What I think is different about things like what Angle and Bachmann said is that are incitement of violence.

>> ^Winstonfield_Pennypacker:
Politicians since times ancient have grossly extrapolated the actions/policies of their opponents.
[snip]
Bachman wanted people 'armed and dangerous'. Barak Obama wanted people "angry, get in their face, hit back twice as hard, bring a gun". I see no difference.

First, you need to source your Obama quote. I only found this as context:

“If they bring a knife to the fight, we bring a gun,” Obama said at a Philadelphia fundraiser Friday night. “Because from what I understand folks in Philly like a good brawl. I’ve seen Eagles fans.”

Kinda sounds like it's a metaphor, does it not?

Secondly, that never became any sort of Democratic talking point or campaign slogan. You didn't hear it coming out of the mouths of everyone on the left every 10 seconds for the better part of a year, the way you heard "death panels".

Thirdly, have you followed the link on Bachmann's full quote, and read it in context? If not, here's more:

I want people in Minnesota armed and dangerous on this issue of the energy tax because we need to fight back. Thomas Jefferson told us ‘having a revolution every now and then is a good thing,’ and the people – we the people – are going to have to fight back hard if we’re not going to lose our country. And I think this has the potential of changing the dynamic of freedom forever in the United States.

I see the word revolution being used literally. I see talk of losing the country, of losing freedom, in the context of saying "I want people armed and dangerous".

Fourth, have I mentioned that this is in the larger context of falsely accusing Democrats of making up global warming?

So, the Obama quote isn't well sourced, doesn't involve a lie, was pretty transparently a metaphor for traditional electioneering activities, and I suspect if Obama was asked about it today he'd say it was a poor word choice. Bachmann's quote we have audio recordings of, involves a big lie, was pretty clearly about armed insurrection against the legitimate government of the United States, and while I suspect she would say "I didn't mean that", she probably wouldn't confess to any kind of issue with her word choice.

I don't see any equivalence.

>> ^Winstonfield_Pennypacker:
Palin's death panel is an exaggeration of the rationed care that IS a part of Obamacare. Similarly, Democrats accuse the GOP of starving people when they want to cut a social program.

Really? Neither statement is true.

First, medical care is a scarce resource, and any system by which we choose to distribute it is by definition "rationing", whether it's a market, or something else, so saying "Obamacare" has "rationing" is a meaningless statement. Even if I grant some special meaning of the word "rationing", there still isn't anything even remotely like Palin's "death panel" in the bill anywhere.

Second, when have Democrats accused Republicans of starving people? To be frank, I wish they would, especially since it's true more often than not. The closest I've seen is Alan Grayson saying that the Republican health care plan is "#1 Don't get sick. #2 If you do get sick, die quickly."

For that one to be true you need to wrap some caveats around it, but basically if you can't afford insurance, or have a preexisting condition, that was totally accurate.

>> ^Winstonfield_Pennypacker:
Do I like the overblown rhetoric? No, but it is part and parcel of any vigorous debate.
No normal person takes these statements literally though. And trying to pander to the NOT normal people seems to me an exercise in futility. Moreover, trying to be "PC" using the outliers of society as a standard is an impossible moving target, and rather subject to opinion.

To a large degree, this is a response to an argument I'm not making. I actually really like overblown rhetoric. What I don't like is the way the right imputes sinister motives to the left. It's not just "they're corrupt and beholden to special interests (and sometimes mansluts)", these days it's "they're coming to take your guns, kill your family, make your kids into gay drug addicts, take your house, your job, and piss on the American flag while surrendering to every other nation in the world".

The left is getting pretty coarse about the right, but most of our insults are that Republicans are corrupt and beholden to special interests...and dumb, heartless liars.

>> ^Winstonfield_Pennypacker:
There is no nice way to say this, but you are wrong. They were not, and you know it. There is no GOP candidate who would have survived 5 seconds if they'd been calling for armed rebellion if they lost. That is hyperbole.

I'd love to be wrong about this. I am not. Scroll back up to my first comment here, there are two videos of Republicans calling for armed insurrection if they lose. These two were small potatoes, but Michele Bachmann and Sharron Angle both were saying the same thing, just a little less directly. Rick Perry has been a bit more overt, but also a lot less graphic (talk of secession rather than revolution). Not to bring the Tea Party into this, but they kept showing up with signs talking about "Watering the tree of liberty with the blood of tyrants"

>> ^Winstonfield_Pennypacker:
I put it to you kindly that this opinion is another symptom of perception bias. Would you not agree that from Glenn Beck's perspective his infamous 'chalkboard histories' are an attempt to educate and outreach? And quite frankly, I feel very little sense of 'outreach' or 'education' when liberals call conservatives hateful, angry, evil, nazis, corporate shills, mind numbed robots, neocons, teabaggers, racist, sexist, and bigoted.

No, Beck's not trying outreach with his blackboards. He's painting a false picture of history in which liberalism is about violence and domination, and entirely overrun by a conspiracy of nefarious interests. That's not outreach, that's poisoning the well so that it's impossible for people who think he's illuminating some sort of truth (and to be clear, he is not), to talk to the people who haven't subscribed to Beck's belief that liberalism progressivism is just the new mask the fascists have put on to insinuate themselves into modern society so they can subvert it from within.

It's true that the left isn't engaging in outreach when they're calling you names. I suspect you haven't seen much outreach, given the way you personally tend to approach topics around here. You don't seem like the kind of person who's open to outreach.

That said, if I thought there was a way to show you what I think is good about liberalism, I would do so. I'd be happy to give you my take on what liberals believe and why, if you're genuinely interested in trying to understand the way we think.

>> ^Winstonfield_Pennypacker:
Sure - just be sure to allow that both ways. Criticize conservative pundits all you want. But don't get all testy if conservatives criticize liberal ones. And if you try to pin accessory to murder on conservatives, don't be surprised when they get their back up.

Yeah, I didn't. See, the right's been calling us murderers and tyrants quite a bit lately. They've been making the case in countless different ways that government run by Democrats, and especially by Obama is fundamentally illegitimate. Not "something we strongly disagree with" but a total break with the fundamental principles of our government that present a direct threat to people.

Here I personally went one click further and suggested that perhaps this is an intentional strategy to rile up the crazies, so they'll physically intimidate liberals.

Again, I'd love to see someone prove me wrong about that. Ad hominem tu quoque arguments won't really do the job.

>> ^Winstonfield_Pennypacker:
That is because I'm bearding the lion in its metaphorical den, so to speak. The sift is liberally slanted. I'm not. So even when dare to challenge the consensus groupthink - even when done respectfully - I get blowback. I would say that I am incredibly patient, respectful, and moderate in my tone. I rarely (if ever) make things personal. Even when I'm on the receiving end of some rather nasty abuse I tend to keep it civil.

I think then there may be room for me to maybe help understand the kinds of reactions you get.

Part of the issue is a lot of your comments are of the formation "What liberals are saying is utterly, demonstrably, and obviously false, and in fact, they're more guilty of it than the right". You then support your argument with a litany of asserted facts...that you don't source, and are in direct contravention of what was said elsewhere (regardless of whether it'd been sourced or not).

Part of the issue with making an argument purely on challenging facts is that you run headlong into questions about the legitimacy of the source, and those can be some of the ugliest arguments of all, especially if the only source cited is yourself.

I'd recommend trying to make philosophical or moral arguments that don't hinge on the specific circumstances, especially when we're talking about events we only know about from news stories. I find it helps move conversations from heat to light when you shift the discussion to the underlying philosophical disagreement like that.

I also think you'll get farther with making a positive statement about what you believe, than a negative statement about what you believe liberals believe. (i.e. instead of "Liberals just want to boss people around with their nanny state", try "Conservatives are trying to give people more freedom to choose how to run their own lives")

People will likely still disagree with you, but at least there's a chance they'll respond to what you said, rather than just hurl invectives at you.

>> ^Winstonfield_Pennypacker:
I don't apologize for being a rare conservative voice in a chorus of liberals, but that doesn't mean that "I" am responsible for 'increased vitriol'. The vitriol comes when people other than myself. I simply present a different point of view.

I don't think you should apologize. However, I also think you have to be willing to accept some responsibility for how people react to what you say. I'm self-aware enough to know that what I say is going to sound inflammatory to some people, and I certainly don't feel like criticism of my own inflammatory speech is somehow an assault on my free speech.

If you're getting a lot of vitriol (and I know you are), and that's not what you want, I think you should examine the way you're presenting yourself rather than assuming it's all the result of some sort of universal liberal intolerance.

This place has a bunch of really thoughtful people who enjoy civil discussion with people who they disagree with. If that's what you want, I gotta say I think you're just pushing the wrong buttons.

It must be difficult to smear such a likable guy. Someone, get turdgurgler a shot of bourbon! Where has that snowflake been, anyways. That motel rendezvous on the Rio Grande with blankfist must have been a bad idea. I'd expect a Nebraska map with a bulls-eye on it if this place wasn't so overrun by pussy-whipped liberals. What were you expecting, a bunch of IT guys drinking soda pop, playing World of Warcraft, and watching the Daily Show while they wait for their parents to go to bed is not funny. It's pathetic.

^Winstonfield_Pennypacker:
1. The CBO has reported that HCR is going to cost hundreds of billions more than projected.
2. [...] the HCR will only reduce the deficit by only 100 billion dollars in a 10 years.

http://www.cbo.gov/publications/collections/health.cfm

"On March 20, 2010, CBO released its final cost estimate for the reconciliation act [...] CBO and the staff of the Joint Committee on Taxation (JCT) estimate that enacting both pieces of legislation will produce a net reduction in federal deficits of $143 billion over the 2010-2019 period. "


3. This of course assumes the program doesn't GREATLY run over costs

Certainly a possibility, but we'll see. If it overruns its costs then it might break even, but that's still a better scenario than the wars and upper-income tax cuts which increase the deficit no matter what happens. Why aren't conservatives worried about those costs?


4. We didn't need HCR to strip human freedom from citizens to reduce the deficit.

That evil Obama stealing conservative ideas again. He still hasn't learned that it's only constitutional when Republicans do it.

This is a lesbian's view of the legal stuff: "The Difference Between Marriage and Civil Unions".

I read enough of it to get the gist: that the two are not equal because civil unions are recognized by States only. My answer to that is...it's up to the people. I wouldn't mind a national "civil union act" but 70% of Americans still do.

My own two cents: I think that in a human sense marriage is just a label for loving commitment. People can be everything a husband and wife can be without that label just as that label doesn't automatically make the couple a paradigm. In that sense I don't care who calls themselves married. In the legal sense I always thought of marriage as a declaration of two people as a single legal entity and all the entitlements that that brings are a natural progression of that. I guess that simple definition won't stand up to most people's standards but in my mind everything else is just an elaboration. I don't see why a state would interfere with that on the basis of genders. The only difference between a homosexual union and a heterosexual union (excepting sterility) is the ability to produce kids. There's plenty of evidence that even the ability to raise kids is the same.

So... Gay marriage legal? It's only a label and taxes. The label doesn't matter a damn and the main argument against tax equality boils down to "we give these guys tax cuts 'cos they breed". <sarc> I say give the children of unfit breeders to fit gays and give everyone who's raising kids the extra rights. </sarc> Or not. There is that whole over-population thing.

Well said.

Some predictions: At some point within the next 20 years, on our present course, gay marriage will be legal, except in whatever cities or states have been overrun by muslims. 20 years beyond that, homosexuality will be considered a genetic defect correctable in vitro.

Excellent management of limited resources, Hollywood. Can't imagine how a state overrun with illegals and impossible-to-pay entitlements is bankrupt.

Well...Bill O has played to the ignorant crowd for his entire career. That's his niche. And fox's niche...and the overrunning tactic is divide and conquer by false dichotomy. You can cut and paste false dichotomies into every propaganda initiative. An us Vs them two dimensional ideological world. The truth is that races of people don't exist. The British empire broke down all humans into four races centuries ago(and they weren't the only on'es by far). And it stuck. But as I said races don't exist. They are a social construct. >> ^dannym3141:

THE DAY HAS FINALLY COME WHERE I STICK UP FOR THIS ASSHOLE!
C'mon........racism? I think you're all racist for assuming that because he's a black man, any references to him being a dealer must be racist rather than a joke.
I've heard about a million jokes like this, i've used it myself hundreds of times. I've heard it on the radio, i've seen it on TV.. If you STOP yourself from saying something you'd normally say to A PERSON because that person is black, then that's inequality of a different kind, my friends.
On surface value, there's absolutely no reason to think that this might be racist. If he's got a reputation for it, then ok. But as a surface viewer only, there's no racism here. It's about the only clip i've ever seen o'reilly say something that doesn't make me want to vomit.

>> ^HugeJerk:

Here's the funny thing about criminals... they don't obey the laws and will use guns even if they're illegal.

Thats why countries with stricter gun controls are overrun by gun crime.

Americans absolutely need guns because you never know when Britain will come and demand its empire back. Your distrust of government certainly isn't irrational paranoia.

Ok, so admitedly gun crime in the states probably has more to do with poverty and its social problems, but when you throw in automatic weapons into the mix for people to "protect themselves" and all you ever hear about is criminals "protecting themselves" from innocent people...well then something is wrong.

Sorry reposting with some edits...

Ok ok, I get that Islam is as fragmented into as many factions as Christianity is, but the simple truth remains; Islam is evolving into a death cult. Never mind the original tennets of peace and goodwill that Islam was founded on. They are just becoming the biggest bully on the playground that can't take criticism or have their territories or ideas impugned in any way. There are way too many Muslims that subscribe to the return of the Mahdi theory and that it can be sped along by creating chaos and death in the world. They also believe that they will be not held accountable for the suffering and even rewarded for the death of non-believers. Even one Muslim who subscribes to this thinking is too many, and free nations need to take as stand against the hate bred by "the truth of Sharia law" as this man puts it. All nations ought to be standing against any hate bred by inflamed ideologies in order to serve their neighbors and protect their hard won common good. Europe is being overrun by this aggressiveness and The US is quaking in it's boots over it (just look at the security paranoia in airports if you don't believe me). Censors remove TV shows that hint at even a small displeasure at the faith that has such contempt for the west (ie. Southpark, not my favorite show but still.), removing the right to speak out against such ideals. I say wake up free nations and be strong against such wantonly hateful ideals. They are a crime and deserve no equivocation.

Ok ok, I get that Islam is as fragmented into as many factions as Christianity is, but the simple truth remains; Islam is evolving into a death cult. Never mind the original tennets of peace and goodwill the Islam was founded on. They are just becoming the biggest bully on the playground that can't take criticism or have thier territories or ideas impugned in any way. There are way too many Muslims that subscribe to the return of the Mahdi theory and that it can be sped along by creating chaos and death in the world. They also believe that they will be not held accountable for the suffering and even rewarded for the death of non-believers. Even one Muslim who subscribes to this thinking is too many, and free nations need to take as stand against the hate bred by "the truth of Sharia law" as this man puts it. All nations ought to be standing against any hate bred by inflamed ideaologies in order to serve thier neighbors and protect their hard won common good. Europe is being overrun by this aggressiveness and The US is quaking in it's boots over it (just look at the security paranoia in airports if you don't believe me) and censors remove TV shows that hint at even a mall displeasure that the faith that has such contempt for the west (ie. Southpark), removing the right to speak out against such ideals. I say wake up free nations and be strong against such wantonly hateful ideals. They are a crime and deserve no equivocation.

Where's a kayak when you really need one?

Right here Yeah, someone got theirs out.

We lost power to the light circuit in our house (a rental we're in for a bit) due to the amount of rain/hail causing the gutters to overflow, the water come back in under the eaves (terrible design this house) and then flow over the outside lights and outside light power switches... therefore cause them to short. They've since been completely disconnected. Oh, and we also have a dent on the front of our car thanks to one of the larger hailstones (some of them got as big as golf balls), so that's annoying.

And seemingly related... our house became overrun with millipedes... hundreds of bloody millipedes are inside the house each morning now... takes ages to clean them up.

Yeah, what they all said. You've got top notch taste in tunes & an eye for quality across the board. Looking forward to contributing to your channel (unless it's *fatchicks, in which case it will be overrun by BTE & Rasch).