Your hate-bated propaganda will not work here.

And my definition of a THUG, is someone with superior strength who uses it against DEFENSELESS CHILDREN.

There is NO JUSTIFICATION FOR ISRAEL'S SLAUGHTER OF CHILDREN.
Especially since Hamas rockets have done no appreciable damage.

First defenseless retired airplanes, now life-giving trees!!!!

MADNESS!!! Someone must stop these evil machines...

WHERE IS BAGGER 288???!!!

First defenseless retired airplanes, now life-giving trees!!!!

MADNESS!!! Someone must stop these evil machines...

WHERE IS BAGGER 288???!!!

Wait...don't you blame people on welfare for being 'takers'? Then why not corporations...they're people too, right? This is like people who make $500K+ per year also taking welfare and food stamps, it's irrefutably immoral and should be illegal.
This behavior keeps me out of Walmart, I've never shopped there.

I see it like this....either you can support people with public assistance through the government (which most would agree is less than perfect in it's administration of said assistance) or you can support systems/businesses that support their employees enough that public assistance is not needed for them.
The former costs us in tax dollars, the latter in product costs...either way we pay, but the former costs more for less.
The former aids the 'job creators' by giving them massive public aid by proxy (allowing them to skim off their employees wages because the fed will take care of them) and incentivizes taking advantage of the indigent and defenseless, the latter incentivizes moral behavior by 'job creators' and removes a middle man (the fed) from the equation (always a good thing).
If more people would 'vote' with their pocketbook, they would get the results they want more often.

SO uh....mom probably did abandon it or thought it fine, if it had been in any real danger of predators chances are good there aren't toooo many black bear
bobcat, lynx, cougar, or coyote in Hudson NY, river town (har)...smallish, quaint, lotta antique shops...cops with terse tones t'wards defenseless animals (probably bullied in school, hope he doesn't have kids). Why call animal control, free the little guy and let him loose back into the food chain, he/she looked fine innit?? Not like it was frikkin' choking on those xmas lights.

@bcglorf - That was the original intent of the 2nd amendment, to allow the people to keep the government in check. They wanted to mitigate the possibility of any heads of state from becoming overzealous and using their power against the people. The British tried to put an embargo on firearms and tried to disarm the colonies in order to leave them defenseless against the British military, and the revolutionaries didn't want that to happen to the people again.

Checks and balances were a major part of the planning of our government. If the three branches somehow failed to keep each other in check, it would be up to the people to defend themselves from tyranny.

Nowadays local government is more likely a threat to individual citizens than is a tyrannical dictator, but the constitution doesn't seem to help much on that front. The only thing that seems to keep police in check, for example, is the video camera. And even then, innocent people end up dead, and cops end up with relatively light or no punishment.

That's human nature for you.

This beyond shameful practice needs to be loudly and publicly shoved in the federal governments face, demanding a stop to funding a quota based drug war targeting defenseless special needs children. As if it isn't evil enough to manipulate impressionable, peer pressure driven kids without going after easy targets already ostracized by whatever condition, making them even more vulnerable.

Isn't there a special level of hell reserved for those who hurt children for profit?

For someone who has admitted to being too much of a pansy to kill his own supper, you exhibit an enormous understanding of what goes through the head of someone that enjoys such a hobby.

I've got a story for you. When I was a child, I lived in a rural community full of hunters. Not my family. My parents taught me to love and respect animals. We had a couple of dogs I loved dearly. If stray cats showed up at our door, we fed them and gave them attention. If an animal was injured, we nursed it back to health. In school there were a small group of boys who came from a family of hunters. They were taught to hunt from a very young age and animals had no value to them, other than to be enjoyed as a meal. They would torture animals for the fun of it...throw rocks at the birds and squirrels to score points, stomp on them to finish them off and then skin them so they would have their trophies. They would pull the legs off live frogs. Pour gasoline on defenseless little animals and light them on fire. They got off on making animals squeal and would brag about it to whoever would listen. They also bullied kids at school. They didn't feel any empathy and got a rush from inflicting pain and making children cry and scream. One day I was walking home from school and saw the boys with a gas can. They had cornered a feral cat that I had been feeding and were about to light it on fire. I intervened which led to a violent confrontation and thankfully the cat got away. I hollered for a neighbor to help which scared them off but I still ended up being beaten quite badly. When I got home, one of my dogs was missing. We couldn't find him for days. I later found his charred remains in the adjoining forest to my property.

In case anyone was wondering, my user name "carnivorous" is a long standing pet name given to me by my wife (don't ask). I am not a vegetarian, I eat well balanced meals and have a garden where we grow a lot of our own vegetables and my wife bakes bread and other baked goods on a regular basis. We do make an effort to eat less meat and find other sources of protein such as beans, eggs, nuts and cheese, but when we do eat meat we don't let any of it go to waste and appreciate the animals who lost their lives for our meal. As I stated previously in the thread, I am not opposed to hunting if an animal is killed humanely for the sole purpose of providing food and I would prefer that an animal had a glorious life in the wild, ending in a quick and painless death. The issue I have with shang is not about the hunting, but his enjoyment of the violence associated with hunting and what he is teaching his children about violence and aggression. My children have beautiful innocent little hearts and care about the feelings of people, animals and even insects and I am proud of how I've raised them.

Think me a bully if you will but I have always been the sort that stands up for what I believe in and I will not apologize for that.

How far away the mother was and what a terrible mother she is is irrelevant. Even if she was Mother of the Year she still wouldn't have been hovering over her son with a leash she could use to yank him out of the way to safety.

The bottom line is the skater was a douchecock for being so careless as to potentially seriously injure that defenseless, innocent little boy. Yes, smashing someone's head to the concrete can be fatal. It's very common for someone to impact the ground with their head and die from the resulting brain trauma. (It happened to a Marine in the news last week. It happened to a guy I knew in high school. It happened to Natasha Richardson. It almost happened to Larry Miller, but they saved him by removing his skull.)

For his fucking selfishness and ignorance toward people around him he deserves more than a single punch to the face. It should be beaten into him to watch out for bystanders and especially small children when practicing his poser-ass skateboard tricks.

Of course, he, like many people commenting here, surely feels he didn't do anything wrong, so I'm sure he'll take nothing away from the incident except that some little asshole kiddie got in the way, causing himself to get an owie, and his low-life absentee psychopathic mother is just a raving lunatic.

The problem is none of that which you highlighted furthers your argument. If Zimmerman hit Travon, you would be right. But "provoking" the fight goes far beyond just tailing someone and making them feel like a punk bitch as you profile them. That is in no way physical, and in no way deserves a physical response. If it did, I could have beat the fuck out of a whole lot of people, some defenseless.

Anyways, a drug deal in and of itself is in no way provoking a fight. It has happened where offenders get off doing these deals (or having done illegal shit and someone got shot.) Already been done. Shooter got off. He had a legal right to be where he was (I.e., not in the guy's home illegally) and there was a slight break in the drug deal before the attack. (I.e. he turned his back and took a step or two, and got hit from behind. Drug deal, turn around, fight, kill, but you are okay...)

Remember, there is always an exception that can be found in the law. And calm down Jimnms, no need to rage. Just read the law a bit closer and try to think like a pussy would, like Zimmerman would. It could one day get you off of murder charges.

If you ever find yourself designing androids, especially for combat or constable duty, make sure the head is cosmetic only and contains no critical components.

When the enemies/rebels go to battle against them, they'll waste all their ammo and effort destroying what is essentially a hood ornament, leaving your now headless platoon fully functional against exhausted, defenseless meatbags.

Those poor defenseless clams. What a vicious old man!

Okay, that's one example. Have any others? Also, guess how the shooter in that spree was stopped? He was shot by someone else with a gun. If nobody else was carrying guns in that area, the casualties would have been significantly higher.

The fact is that the vast majority of shooting sprees happen in schools and business areas.

Also, why do people think that banning guns would be any more effective than banning drugs? Have the junkies and cartels disappeared since the war on drugs began? No. Will guns disappear if they are banned? No. If people really want a gun, they'll get one, legally or not. Banning guns just ensures that people who obey the law will be left defenseless against criminals, which is exactly what criminals want.

Ok, I'll start with a few things that most people would probably agree with, but the police force currently would fight like hell to avoid. How about we decide to actually punish cops who break existing rules and laws. Use testing to weed out unbalanced power hungry or corrupt types from becoming cops. QUIT hiring COMBAT veterans to become PEACE officers. I'm sure there are many things that could be done to fix the problem with the police, its just that it's not being done because the police think the only problem is that we, the lowly people, dont always follow ALL commands,and sometimes we need to be put in our place. >> ^shveddy:
False dichotomy, among other things. There are innumerable intermediate steps between "allowing them to do whatever they want to you" and "shooting the motherfuckers." I'll admit that there is a point where armed resistance is warranted, but if you think that we have arrived anywhere near that point with enough frequency to warrant armed resistance, then you are crazy.
Yes, there are plenty of instances of people's rights being violated - but in 99.99% of those occasions, I think the problem can best be solved through other means.
Do I think that the students who got peppersprayed at UC Davis had their rights violated?
Yes, I do. But this guy seems to suggest that the proper response is for the students to pull guns and start a shoot-out. Let's imagine what that would look like for a second:
One of the students peers through the caustic mist with righteous fury and a wet t-shirt over his mouth. He can feel the comforting weight of his Barretta, held close to his heart in a chest holster, and he knows that this is the moment to act. He stands up tall despite the onslaught of bright orange asphyxiation, reaches for his piece and takes aim. Somewhat startled, the officer is suddenly defenseless with his canister and it is not long before he crumples to the ground in an ever expanding pool of blood. He basks in a brief moment of clarity before chaos reigns. His fellow students are quick to bear arms themselves, but the training, body armor and poise of the officers allows them a significant head start and the students suffer heavy casualties in this initial volley.
Not to be deterred by the deaths of their friends, the occupy movement takes up refuge in the life sciences building which, designed in the late sixties with a brutalist aesthetic, is mostly concrete and as such is a perfect fortress from which to outlast the ensuing siege and inspire innumerable citizens on the outside world to take up arms as well. Guerrilla warfare is the only tactic effective in such asymmetrical circumstances, and after a few weeks of violence the powers that be succumb to international pressure and agree to negotiate with the 99%...
...or we could launch an official investigation, fire the guy as a scapegoat after an admittedly long, expensive and cumbersome process, and let the public outrage that ensued lead to a more cautious approach to future student protests. Bloggers and editorialists collectively write millions of words on the subject, increasing awareness and generally shaming the agency that allowed it to happen.
Not perfect, but a whole hell of a lot more civilized.
Any time you use guns against a government entity in he US, you will eventually be caught and put in jail. Period. The only way to avoid this is to be a small part of a large popular movement that eventually overthrows the US government, and I don't see that ever happening with citizen gun-owners unless it involves guerrilla tactics. Imagine gunfights erupting at your local municipal buildings. Imagine pipe bombs at your local police station. People need to realize that this is what they are advocating when they argue for second amendment rights as a fourth check and balance.
If you disagree with that statement, feel free to fill in a reasonable sequence of events to span the gap between "guy whose fourth amendment rights are violated guns down cop" and "said guy is vindicated, and massive changes are made to our law enforcement policies." I suspect that we are far more likely to see a greater militarization of the police in response.
I humbly propose that we join the civilized world and come up with more creative ways to correct our problems.

False dichotomy, among other things. There are innumerable intermediate steps between "allowing them to do whatever they want to you" and "shooting the motherfuckers." I'll admit that there is a point where armed resistance is warranted, but if you think that we have arrived anywhere near that point with enough frequency to warrant armed resistance, then you are crazy.

Yes, there are plenty of instances of people's rights being violated - but in 99.99% of those occasions, I think the problem can best be solved through other means.

Do I think that the students who got peppersprayed at UC Davis had their rights violated?

Yes, I do. But this guy seems to suggest that the proper response is for the students to pull guns and start a shoot-out. Let's imagine what that would look like for a second:

One of the students peers through the caustic mist with righteous fury and a wet t-shirt over his mouth. He can feel the comforting weight of his Barretta, held close to his heart in a chest holster, and he knows that this is the moment to act. He stands up tall despite the onslaught of bright orange asphyxiation, reaches for his piece and takes aim. Somewhat startled, the officer is suddenly defenseless with his canister and it is not long before he crumples to the ground in an ever expanding pool of blood. He basks in a brief moment of clarity before chaos reigns. His fellow students are quick to bear arms themselves, but the training, body armor and poise of the officers allows them a significant head start and the students suffer heavy casualties in this initial volley.

Not to be deterred by the deaths of their friends, the occupy movement takes up refuge in the life sciences building which, designed in the late sixties with a brutalist aesthetic, is mostly concrete and as such is a perfect fortress from which to outlast the ensuing siege and inspire innumerable citizens on the outside world to take up arms as well. Guerrilla warfare is the only tactic effective in such asymmetrical circumstances, and after a few weeks of violence the powers that be succumb to international pressure and agree to negotiate with the 99%...

...or we could launch an official investigation, fire the guy as a scapegoat after an admittedly long, expensive and cumbersome process, and let the public outrage that ensued lead to a more cautious approach to future student protests. Bloggers and editorialists collectively write millions of words on the subject, increasing awareness and generally shaming the agency that allowed it to happen.

Not perfect, but a whole hell of a lot more civilized.

Any time you use guns against a government entity in he US, you will eventually be caught and put in jail. Period. The only way to avoid this is to be a small part of a large popular movement that eventually overthrows the US government, and I don't see that ever happening with citizen gun-owners unless it involves guerrilla tactics. Imagine gunfights erupting at your local municipal buildings. Imagine pipe bombs at your local police station. People need to realize that this is what they are advocating when they argue for second amendment rights as a fourth check and balance.

If you disagree with that statement, feel free to fill in a reasonable sequence of events to span the gap between "guy whose fourth amendment rights are violated guns down cop" and "said guy is vindicated, and massive changes are made to our law enforcement policies." I suspect that we are far more likely to see a greater militarization of the police in response.

I humbly propose that we join the civilized world and come up with more creative ways to correct our problems.