>> ^dag:

Exactly. This second group of beautiful dancing idiots are protesting the heavy-handed police brutes who assaulted the first group of trolls. Bodyslams for shuffling your feet is never right action.
Yes, these guys are kind of idiotic and they dance poorly - but damn it, this is how things start. This is how you begin to throw off the yoke of an increasingly represive government security apparatus that instills fear in its people. This is what democracy looks like.
>> ^Ryjkyj:
I've been to the Jefferson memorial a few times. If I went there on a nice evening for a little bit of quiet reflection (seriously), then I can see how I would be annoyed by a bunch of people dancing around it. It would certainly seem a little disrespectful. But at the same time, it might be fun, and I might even join in. (I dance like an idiot too)
Either way, the fact is that these people were trolling. So to arrest them is to fall right into their trap. It's so absurd to arrest someone for dancing under a statue of Thomas Jefferson, it's a shame that it couldn't have just been laughed off for what it was.



bit late but.......they werent "bodyslamed for shuffling their feet" they were bodyslammed for repeatedly and adamantly resisting arrest.

but you see what you wanna see i suppose

Comment hidden because you are ignoring dag. (show it anyway)

Exactly. This second group of beautiful dancing idiots are protesting the heavy-handed police brutes who assaulted the first group of trolls. Bodyslams for shuffling your feet is never right action.

Yes, these guys are kind of idiotic and they dance poorly - but damn it, this is how things start. This is how you begin to throw off the yoke of an increasingly represive government security apparatus that instills fear in its people. This is what democracy looks like.

>> ^Ryjkyj:

I've been to the Jefferson memorial a few times. If I went there on a nice evening for a little bit of quiet reflection (seriously), then I can see how I would be annoyed by a bunch of people dancing around it. It would certainly seem a little disrespectful. But at the same time, it might be fun, and I might even join in. (I dance like an idiot too)
Either way, the fact is that these people were trolling. So to arrest them is to fall right into their trap. It's so absurd to arrest someone for dancing under a statue of Thomas Jefferson, it's a shame that it couldn't have just been laughed off for what it was.

I fear you're all wasting your time.

At the heart of this debate is one simple element: that of changeability. Is the theist changeable? Is the atheist changeable?

If neither is capable of changing their (or the other's) mind, then debate is a waste of time. For the theist, doubt and skepticism are poisonous to their faith so I'd be very surprised to hear any theist say they are open-minded (changeable) and really mean it. This thread is evidence of that.

On the other hand, I've never met any atheist (though I'm sure some exist) who couldn't describe, at the ready, a specific example of some otherworldly event that would change their mind about god forever. That's what results from placing value on evidence.

In The God Delusion, Richard Dawkins tells of a marvelous story at a lecture at Oxford's Zoology Department. I'll quote the author if that's OK with everyone:

...my belief in evolution is not fundamentalism, and it is not faith, because I know what it would take to change my mind, and I would gladly do so if the necessary evidence were forthcoming.

It does happen. I have previously told the story of a respected elder statesman of the Zoology Department at Oxford when I was an undergraduate. For years he had passionately believed, and taught, that the Golgi Apparatus (a microscopic feature of the interior of cells) was not real: an artefact, an illusion. Every Monday afternoon it was the custom for the whole department to listen to a research talk by a visiting lecturer. One Monday, the visitor was an American cell biologist who presented completely convincing evidence that the Golgi Apparatus was real. At the end of the lecture, the old man strode to the front of the hall, shook the American by the hand and said - with passion - 'My dear fellow, I wish to thank you. I have been wrong these fifteen years.'

We clapped our hands red. No fundamentalist would ever say that.

they are absolutely prime fodder for destructive ideologies.

but i've seen mentally ill atheists take after their bosses with machetes after watching too much anime. i've seen mentally atheists flip out while watching eternal sunshine of the spotless mind.

like at @GenjiKilpatrick said, it usually takes a catalyst for mental illness to turn into violence. but that catalyst doesn't HAVE to be religion. and in the absence of religion something else takes its place.

religions aren't something invented out of thin air. they have existed in every culture i can think of. most of them are really really similar. in the more ancient ones you can trace their dogma to serving an actual purpose benefiting human survival in the region (see cow worshipping hindis, or desert dwelling religions abstinence from pork). they obviously serve a purpose. and they change and evolve over time.

of the billions and billions of devout people throughout time how many of them have brutally slaughtered their children? i know you can list several. but thats out of BILLIONS. i'm not seeking to diminish the atrocities committed in the name of religion. i'm saying correlation does not = causation.

i'll wager my paycheck that there were warning signs leading up to this event. and i'll also wager my paycheck that the people who saw the warning signs were uneducated (about mental disorders) and i'll equipped and scared. declaring religion the cause of these kinds of horror stories doesn't lend itself to prevention very well. perhaps we need to take a better look at our mental health apparatus and not-nearly-adequate outreach, education and support system.

one thing i do think churches could do (and i know many churches that have) is adopt church counseling programs.. staffed by actual trained psychologists and counselors, not seminary graduates. to treat their members and give families an accessible, trusted place to turn to when they start seeing some destructive warning signs.

>> ^Deano:

>> ^campionidelmondo:
Crazy people often do more violent things than eat skittles. I don't see the connection between her crazy actions and religion. Linking this to religion is just like linking school shootings to violent video games. No, nothing that's being mass consumed drove this person from being the nice neighbour to slaughtering people. Stop looking for the fault in the things you don't like and accept the fact that some people are just crazy.

Of course there are connections. Just look at Islam. Christianity isn't as bad but people kill and maim others based on their reading of the Bible.
There's always the "just crazy" view. And I accept that to an extent. But I suspect people like that are prime fodder for destructive ideologies and supernatural thinking.
And she had access to a well established cult that served to radicalise her to a point where her family were no longer physically safe.

"Technological dream machine"?

More Like Nightmarinsh death-apparatus!

Skepticism is a virtue, to me. Ignorance is not.

Things are bad with the corporations quickly taking over in our society. At some point in our lives most of us will work for a large corporation as there will be very few small businesses left. And these corporations use the apparatus of government to create legislation and regulations that help them grow, increase profits, but most importantly they use it to stifle competition. And a lot of these corporations are profiting from the war, particularly the oil companies. Gas prices just rose here in LA to over $4 a gallon. And what gets me is how surprised people act when they see the new price hikes. I can't wait to see how they'll react when it goes over $5/gallon.

And we all think voting once every two or four years will fix all the ills of society and somehow magically contain the corporations and spendthrift politicians and bureaucrats. It's a bit of a joke when you think about how powerless we really are. But, before things turn for the bleak, I can say I believe what Joseph Campbell once said (and I paraphrase) that the world is as good today as its ever been and as bad as its ever been. In other words, it will always be getting worse and better, and we each participate in it.

So, yes, we should question everything the government does, and if we don't give in to cynicism we should participate in changing it as well.

In reply to this comment by Duckman33:
In reply to this comment by blankfist:
Typical dumb fuck truther comment right there. You know, it's easy to belittle those on the fringe. Always has been. When the majority believes in something, how dare the minority challenge it or have an opposing viewpoint?

Someone once told me that history was written by the winners. He was referring to those who win the major battles in history writing it so the "facts" are favorable to them. Somehow I feel like that probably happened a lot over the course of human events, and not just after conquest and war. I cannot help but wonder what in my school history books was true and what was fabrication.

Unlike science, history cannot be tested and proven. It just exists as an unchallenged retrospective.

What I find funny about anyone who challenges the "official story" of 9/11, is how many people come out of the woodwork on here to scoff them. And they all somehow allude to themselves as being scientists or people with scientific knowledge of events surrounding that day. I don't know, it just seems so damn fishy, doesn't it?

And the ferver in which they attack those who disagree is astonishing. I don't buy the official story as the gospel, but that doesn't mean I think the corporate media added fake CGI planes to the footage of 9/11. Or that Bush masterminded the events. I simply don't know what happened. And that doesn't make me a wing-nut or a dumb fuck. And you either.

In reply to this comment by Duckman33:
What cracks me up is simply because we don't believe the "official story" we are labeled a "dumb fuck truther".

You know, I have been thinking about what you said, and not only is it not being a dumb fuck, or a nut job to question. Isn't It our duty as American Citizens to question things our Government tells us that don't make sense? I mean, the whole GasLand thing going on. And Inside Job. This shit is getting out of control. They are getting away with anything they want and are not being held accountable for any of it...

As @VoodooV put it:
"To me it's a moot point. Even if it was proven that it was a conspiracy. America simply doesn't show any willingness to prosecute anyone anymore. No one was prosecuted for the lies that led us to the Iraq war, no one is prosecuted for Wall Street destroying the economy. America simply doesn't care about justice anymore. Justice is inconvenient.

Of course, one could imply that because of America's inability get much done these days, that it's a strong argument for it not being a conspiracy. It actually takes competence to pull off a conspiracy of that magnitude. We're too busy fighting with each other."

>> ^NetRunner:

Now we're getting somewhere. So what does the right to freedom of speech entitle unions to? The ability to say whatever they want to their government, or is it somehow confined only to some subset of things you approve of?


Remember, I'm coming from a position of voluntary interactions instead of coercive force. Before you take us down a hypothetical rabbit hole, let me add to that statement and say, I believe force is justifiable when seeking protection from an imminent injurious action or redressing the victim of an injurious action*. Fair enough?

I don't think force is justified when manipulating industries. That is to say, I do not agree with using the violent apparatus of government to tip the playing field in any one group's favor whether that be unions or corporations or individuals.

If the unions wish to organize and be persuasive, that's one thing. They can easily make compelling arguments if they're worth what they're asking for. But if they wish to have government set rules in an industry, that's protectionism. And that's unfair.

Government intervention is wrong because it unfairly tips the playing field. And when a group or individual uses the government in that way, I can safely condemn them for being self-interested scumbags just as I condemn the legislators for being coercive and violent scumbags. It has zero to do with their right to free speech.

>> ^blankfist:

Pressure [presh-er] –verb (used with object)
to force (someone) toward a particular end; influence:
That's from dictionary.com, though I'm not sure why you couldn't look it up yourself. Why would I have a problem with people exercising a right to free speech or assembly?

Well, it's that dual meaning that made me ask you to define what you meant by pressure. Exercising your right to free speech and assembly can rightfully be called "applying pressure to legislators to create laws in their favor".

You made it sound like unions are okay with you...unless they exercise their rights to free speech or assembly.
>> ^blankfist:
I don't want people (singular or in a collective) using the violent apparatus of government to satisfy their own selfish ends.

Now we're getting somewhere. So what does the right to freedom of speech entitle unions to? The ability to say whatever they want to their government, or is it somehow confined only to some subset of things you approve of?

>> ^NetRunner:

Define "pressure". Certainly you don't object to people exercising their 1st amendment rights, do you? You know, freedom of speech, freedom of assembly and all that?


Pressure [presh-er] –verb (used with object)
to force (someone) toward a particular end; influence:

That's from dictionary.com, though I'm not sure why you couldn't look it up yourself. Why would I have a problem with people exercising a right to free speech or assembly?

I don't want people (singular or in a collective) using the violent apparatus of government to satisfy their own selfish ends. If they want to assemble and try to apply pressure to their employer through nonviolent persuasion, that's one thing. But when people use government to restrict industries, it always results in protectionism which is bad.

@blankfist

Eventually we could all be working for the big corporations, and with less competition they could lessen benefits such as health or vacation pay, they could easily lower wages, and they could then extend the expected work week from 40 hours to something like 100 hours. If that sounds farfetched, I can tell you from first hand experience I've seen this exact thing happen to an industry I know very well. And when I say big corporations, I mean major parent companies that buy large businesses. For instance, let's take the advertising industry. One parent company could own almost all of the major companies in that industry, so if you complain about the 100 hour work week and loss of vacation benefits, your chances of receiving another job in that industry are cut to almost zero. I've seen it. And they do illegal shit like tell women not to get pregnant.

That is exactly what's happening. Wages began stagnating in the 70's. At the time, women were moving into the work force so the impact on families was offset by an extra income. And today, it's out of control. It's been researched and it's been documented. And it's visible if you look at all the personal debt families have. Americans take less vacation time than other industrialized nation. The US is also the only industrialized nation who does not mandate vacation time. I read something the other day (disclaimer: i don't have a good grasp on economics, it was a complicated paper and i'm a bit dyslexic/dyscalculic so I've got to reread it a few times before I'm totally confident I understand it, and then research it for accuracy) and the idea of it just fascinated me. It was something like, wages used to increase as labor's productivity increased.. like it was inherently built into the market. So maybe technology eliminated the need for as many people, but the remaining workers were more productive, so their wages should have been going up. But the mid 70's saw an abandonment of this principle in favor of higher profits and the consequences of that have been devastating for working people ever since. Like, they broke a rule of the market and it's sent tremors through almost 40 years and now everything is fucked up and the worker is more and more screwed everyday.

now, regulation: we've been peeling back regulations for decades. and it seems to have worked antithetically to your hypothesized outcome. why do you think that is? which regulations are you talking about, specifically?
I don't disagree that it should be fairly simple to start your own new business. And I don't like or trust government either, but I want some kind of assurance that this new business is not polluting my air, water, community, that its employees are not being exploited and are paid a living wage and that sanitary practices are being followed. What sort of system do you propose to keep new restaurants from serving rat poo infested soups made by 5 year olds? ..... maybe, eventually, the free market would take care of this sort of violation but after how many people eat there and get sick? And after how many child chefs burn their little fingers on hot stoves?

And when people feel they pay into a nanny system, they feel less generous to help those in front of them. I know, I see it every damn day in LA.

this statement is a motherfucking cop-out. i'm not saying that you dont "see" it.. i'm just saying people should know better. The "nanny-system" obviously, isn't taking take care of those in front of them. This is where i see a major downfall in individualism. "I would help, but something else is already helping you. I'm looking out for #1!! I already gave to charity this week.. see where my pay stub says 'FICA'?"... And "someone else is already doing it" has become the operative ethic of the gen-x yuppie class. It is an excuse for petulance and cold heartedness and snobbery. If we lived in nomadic, tribal hunter/gatherer communities, they would be the first kicked out of the clan. ... and John Winthrop would have thrown them off the arabella. Shame on them.

I spend a great deal of time with the "nanny-system"... personally, professionally and academically. There are atrocious disparities. My most functionally impaired clients also happen to my poorest clients. At first, I thought this was a coincidence. It isn't. Not at all. Diagnosis doesn't have as much to do with prognosis as the financial and social status of the person living with the disability. (e.g. parents can't afford to make the home handicap accessible, so the wheelchair can't make it through the front door, so person with the disability spends 30 years crawling around on the floor, which solves the problem of moving from room to room, but creates 100 other problems in its place. the body is so malformed at this point, employment placement for the disabled adult is impossible, i could give you 500 other examples) This is a sin.

In a lot of ways, I agree... government is too bulky and convoluted here to be as effective as it needs to be. The apparatus is too cumbersome and the funding and political/community support for such services is far too small. It doesn't have to be this way. Nationally, we've tabled charity and efficiency as a virtue, in favor of strength and might and greed and pride. Social Services could be reworked, in a vastly more effective and efficient way if only we had the political and social will to do it. We could do it for a lot cheaper as well, I think. I won't go on my diatribe about how disability services needs to function, mostly because its full of jargon and boring.

But, I think we mostly agree on a lot of things, namely, corporations are fucking us all and the government is providing the reach around. every 4 years half of us orgasm when our candidate is elected by popular vote. only for the pounding to commence again the following January.

Its a sad trend that people target Islam as the source of oppression. Religion is an ideology, like anything else. That means it occurs within a context of economics, state-apparatuses, class interest, racism and patriarchy. Religion becomes an extension of these power relationships. The religion doesn't matter, its the class forces behind it. Any religion can become oppressive so long as the conditions of power exist to cause that to happen in the first place. To target religion, then, is to target a symptom, not a source.

You can claim that Islam is *naturally* misogynistic. This is false. Few religions will be *naturally* anything. Evidence of this lies in the vast differences between interpretations of religion. What is more accurate is to analyze how this religion fits into the interests of ruling elite, how they exert their hegemony through religion, etc.

Please, stop focusing your energy on Islam as evil. That is a neoconservative lie created to make a split in internationalism more severe. It is instead the material system that the religion finds itself in that is evil, namely, capitalism. Not to say that an ideology is incapable of being "X or Y". Just that these variables are less potent than the concrete material limits of economic and racial systems.

@MaxWilder, thanks for trying to have a civil dialog. You wrote "How is it that people cannot defend themselves right now?" Owning a gun is still a right in the US, but try to carry it with you in public places. That's the important distinction between owning a gun and using it to defend yourself outside of your home. Cops aren't always around, and most recently with the gunman in Arizona, it might've been handy for others to have guns to subdue the gunman.

My "whole" argument has nothing to do with "I can't smoke what I want". Not sure why you're attempting to paint it as such. I'm trying to illustrate how there's more to the immoral statist system of government than just protecting us from egregious crimes like murder, rape, robbery, etc. Like I said, if that was all they protected, you'd not hear a peep out of me. But it's the other areas of control that bother me such as, sure, what you smoke and eat and drive and whatever else. I ask you, name ONE thing in your life where government doesn't intervene in some capacity. It's impossible. They're influencing what we watch, how we learn, what we eat, where we can go, and even how much water is necessary to flush our shits. It's madness.

This was the purpose of my Hayek quote above: "It is indeed probable that more harm and misery have been caused by men determined to use coercion to stamp out a moral evil than by men intent on doing evil." -- F.A. Hayek

That quote means that as we try harder and harder to correct the problems with society through the violent apparatus of government, we tend to create more tyranny in the process. To mean we do more harm than good. This is how I view big government, which is what we have in the US. A very big, powerful, rich government.

Those of us clamoring for a free and voluntary society, we think people can do better than the current immoral system of government. You see it as a quick leap to chaos and a warlord-run Somalia world. We see it as a gradual shift from institutionalized violence and coercion to a more moral existence of self-governance. If you think "fear is a good thing", as you wrote above, then I don't think there's any way of reaching you, unfortunately. As the socialist AJ Muste once said, “There is no way to peace, peace is the way.” I think he was on to something. You cannot reach peace by war, central planning, coercion, using fear, etc.

Peace is not a destination, it's the path. Not the end, the means.

If you want to peacefully coexist, you have to start by giving freedom to those around you. Don't try to turn my words back at me and propose I'm saying we shouldn't be vigilant. That's not the case at all. We should all remain vigilant and take steps to protect ourselves.

Comment hidden because you are ignoring dag. (show it anyway)

The most moral system for me is a representative democracy that derives its mandate from the consent of the governed. A government that does not overly restrict a strong private enterprise but uses a moderate tax rate to provide public services for the common good.


In reply to this comment by blankfist:
Is that what I said? Your attack of my world views aside, I point out the Franklin adage of "doing well by doing good", and you claim some moral superiority of this man as if to damn the 7 billion common folks across this rock to a lesser moral degree than him. To sweepingly claim this of the world is black and white, not the other way around. Your fixes for the world's ills are through majority rule and using the state as an apparatus of coercing people to the will of the perceived greater good (e.g., "we need libraries so you must pay for it", etc.).

People individually will do good for others when incentivized to do so either by voluntary engagements with profit (free market) or under threat of state sanctioned violence (statism). Both are capable of corruption and both are capable of failing, but which seems more "moral"?

In reply to this comment by dag:
What, so if I don't think we're all as exceptional as Ben Franklin - then I don't believe in Democracy? Sigh. It really is a black and white world for you.

In reply to this comment by blankfist:
And this is the first chink in the egalitarian and democratic armor. On the face you appear to want all men to have a say in society (be equal), but then in meaning you really only believe certain people are capable. I think you may not understand what "shades of gray" truly are.

In reply to this comment by dag:
Ben Franklin was a very, very exceptional man. Applying his moral life to the 7 billion inhabitants of this planet shows a disregard for reality and an inability to see those "shades of gray" I mentioned. You're a utopianist and misguided.

Is that what I said? Your attack of my world views aside, I point out the Franklin adage of "doing well by doing good", and you claim some moral superiority of this man as if to damn the 7 billion common folks across this rock to a lesser moral degree than him. To sweepingly claim this of the world is black and white, not the other way around. Your fixes for the world's ills are through majority rule and using the state as an apparatus of coercing people to the will of the perceived greater good (e.g., "we need libraries so you must pay for it", etc.).

People individually will do good for others when incentivized to do so either by voluntary engagements with profit (free market) or under threat of state sanctioned violence (statism). Both are capable of corruption and both are capable of failing, but which seems more "moral"?

In reply to this comment by dag:
What, so if I don't think we're all as exceptional as Ben Franklin - then I don't believe in Democracy? Sigh. It really is a black and white world for you.

In reply to this comment by blankfist:
And this is the first chink in the egalitarian and democratic armor. On the face you appear to want all men to have a say in society (be equal), but then in meaning you really only believe certain people are capable. I think you may not understand what "shades of gray" truly are.

In reply to this comment by dag:
Ben Franklin was a very, very exceptional man. Applying his moral life to the 7 billion inhabitants of this planet shows a disregard for reality and an inability to see those "shades of gray" I mentioned. You're a utopianist and misguided.

They explained the biggest problem (aside from the clouds blocking the sun, Is having to move the mirrors as the boat would move. even when they had the boat stay in place at the test, it was still unable to catch fire. I am curous to see if they will bring back the guy from nasa who made the long range mirror apparatus, but had his damaged along the delivery.

My guess is at this point, all they can do at this point is spam the entire area with mirrors.