I'm totally with you on the need to understand the motives that drove him to this desperate and indefensible action.
I don't think trying to understand what happened is condoning it, but I do think it's a necessary step in trying to keep it from repeating.

I don't think it's a stretch to think that he had some bad encounters with police. I don't think it's a stretch to guess that he felt abused by a nation that he served in war but wouldn't stand with him (or those like him) when police abuse them. I don't think it's a stretch to believe he thought his community was under attack from the police, and that belief was reinforced daily on the news. It's only a guess, but I would guess he didn't have a great life, so didn't have much to lose in this suicide attack (he couldn't think he would survive).

I also don't think it's a stretch to believe this won't be the last time this happens if the current division between police and citizens continues to grow. One can only hope that this terroristic act will foster empathy in both directions...for, and from police, or I fear we're doomed to see an escalation of this kind of thing.

My Facebook feed is filled to the brim from right wing nuts about cops, "pray for cops", "cop lives matter" and the like. Not a single one of them posted anything about the two recent killings that sparked the demonstrations.

And it's like newtboy said, nobody is saying cop lives don't matter, or that black lives matter more than others. What they don't seem to understand is they rush to find an excuse for a cop killing a black man, "oh look at his prior records" and don't care that he was doing nothing in the situation that caused the fatal shooting. They focus on the report that says the one guy didn't raise his hands and say "don't shoot me" and ignore the other report by the same people, released the same day that there was "systemic" racism in Ferguson, and similar reports have said the same about Cleveland and far too many others. When Brock Turner got 6 months for rape, they evoke his swimming records, and deny that if he was black and poor they would have searched for priors instead of his outstanding swimming records, and if he had no priors these same people would have been outraged had a black judge given him only 6 months in jail. They deny such things, but it's evident from their actions every time something like this happens. They lack any real empathy... which is especially funny since many of these people post things like the reason Christians suffer depression so much is they have so much empathy, and I'm thinking I don't see it, and I'm sure those in the LGBT don't see it when you deny them equal rights under the law, or deny them access to the bathroom of their gender identity, and I doubt blacks don't see it when you ignore their plight and instead post about how cop lives matter, or white lives matter.

If they do so out of ignorance, it is purposeful.

I used to be a evangelical, far right wing nut. Then I started vetting the information and news. Learned what sources are trustable and not. There started to be a pattern. I started educating myself further and changed positions. I became a liberal Christian, and eventually lost the faith due to the far right's overly big influence. So if I, who's not overly intelligent (perhaps more than the average person, but not nearly as intelligent as many family think I am), with no skills or real worth can get out via self education, they can to, but they prefer the comfort of their ignorance, and that I can't abide. You can point things out until you are blue in the face and they will just dig in harder to hold on to that ignorance and their limited world view.

I think we can trace a lot of this back to the rise of right wing radio and eventual rise of Fox News which convinced the Christian right that the regular, responsible news outlets were "liberal" when pretty much all news is controlled by a very select few, and none of them have an interest in making people aware of the truth... just because you can watch perhaps 12 hours of CNN before they point out something in the Obama administration that is bad, where Fox does it several times an hour doesn't make CNN liberal... it makes Fox an ass that is singly focused on making people angry at the Democrats and what they deem as liberals, and then they shift the goal post and make old Reagan era style political beliefs the new liberal... and they work to build the division. It's not longer acceptable to work with Democrats on finding a reasonable middle ground, that's being weak, and they want to dig their heals in and have it their way or the highway (basically they want a dictatorship but under the guise of a democracy). Then the rise of social media is perhaps the thing that really pushed the schism further as they further surround themselves in an echo chamber. So when people say "black lives matter" their echo chamber fills up with "well so do white lives and cop lives" and their echo chamber fills up with the idea that those on the left don't care about cops and that we think most of them are corrupt and don't care about their lives.

...aborts rant early as I'm already a million miles off topic...

@Chairman_woo

Sorry to have misunderstood. Glad to know that your words, which seemed pretty straightforward, don't mean what I thought they meant.

I'm not interested in explaining myself more than I have. Chaosengine gets it. Maybe Patton Oswalt gets it -- it's hard to say about him, though. Would he see the same disconnect from empathy and "kicking upwards" as I see? Can't know that without him chiming in. I do know he "gets it" generally.

I'm happy with letting it be at this point.

I fear you have misunderstood what I was getting at.

He talks for full minute about the ironic idea of the victims hypothetically having a sense of cognitive dissonance about the experience (done from his perspective).

Timestamp: 3:40ish to 4:50ish

I don't for a moment think he is suggesting they actually did, but the juxtaposition of that can be funny for the reasons I already outlined.
i.e. it is a common phenomenon in other areas of our experience, with people we idolise. By associating it with an experience in which we presume most people wouldn't or didn't feel that way, we have more strings of that irony thrown into the comedy orchestra.

Cosby is famous and loved and his fans presumably find him funny. There is therefore humour in the ridiculous idea that there might be some starstruck joy in being violated by said idol.

I think the bit worked perfectly if one can detach oneself from ideological prejudices.

As I already said, Louis's bits about paedophilia don't appear to be doing anything different here and thus far you have failed to explain how they actually differ, other than using the unqualified term "truthful".

Louis talks about their desires and relates them in a way universal to the human condition. This is precisely what much of Jim routine is clearly doing. "think about the thing you really love to do, well that's how Bill feels about rape" (paraphrased).

I can't see a distinction right now other than you appear to be much more emotionally sensitive to the rape thing. This is understandable, but I'm not seeing the lack of equivalence between the two comics here in terms of composition and implied meaning?

This whole bit felt deeply multi stranded and was tackling many disparate concepts at once. The gradation of rape was merely one of them and I think it's unfair to break it down to only one, or to deny the "truthfulness" hiding behind the sham.

Without that "truthfulness" the whole bit doesn't work, the assumption that the audience recognises the reality beneath the sham is unavoidable. Unless of course you think the audience and or Jim to be genuinely callous and misogynistic (which you've made clear you do not).

I guess my whole point is that the two bits are functionally almost identical. The only difference I can really see is a different style of delivery and subject matter.

I notice you appear to have dodged the comparisons to his war jokes?

Is there no moral equivalence there? If anything there is far less empathy and personal "truth" being explored. The "little cunt" just dies, Jim never attempts to humanise him or relate the kids experience in an ironic way.

By your logic that routine should be far more offensive surely? (especially when we consider that life and subsequent brutal death in a warzone is quite possibly a more horrible experience than most rapes, especially the kind being discussed here)

I figure it's the difference between empathetic and non-empathetic humour. Laughing with someone, as opposed to laughing at them. Jefferies shtick is non-empathetic. Getting angry at things and people. So when he "jokes" about rape victims, he's laughing AT them. Otherwise, when he's joking about people we don't like, we're ok with it, because we're all a bit narcissistic. When he aims at people we have empathy for, it falls flat.

@ChaosEngine mentioned Louis CK's SNL paedophile bit. That, even with it's dark and sick subject matter, is empathetic. He's causing us to laugh WITH the paedophile, not AT them. We're laughing at ourselves. He's bringing us, kicking and screaming, to the view the paedophile is merely ill, not evil.

(I don't think paedophiles are merely ill, I think like cancer, they should be bombarded with chemicals and radiation until they disappear. But that's just me.)

Got to love the country singer's straw man about Hitler and Japan and ignoring the fundamental issue of US policy in the Middle East and acting to protect oil interests over letting them self rule and work out whatever issues they have to work out. I understand the need to try and contain the fallout from the wars between the various Islamic factions (mostly Shia and Sunni) from spilling over to neighboring nations, but the US policy has been overt in serving US interests over the long term interests of the region since the 50's. The US solid backing of Israel, even in cases where it is clearly in the wrong, adds fuel to the fire.

And I know those on the right complain how Obama has backed away from Israel, though the evidence clearly differs as the US still refuses to tell Israel, to the degree we should, to treat people within its occupied zones with proper respect... and the fact so many Americans feel the need to protect Israel and favor Israel over its occupied territories no matter what, again adds fuel to the fire and shows those in Islam how under attack their faith is, which makes them stronger in their faith and more sure that they are on the right path, since the devil is working harder to put their faith down than any other faith... of course I hear this exact same argument from Christians all the time, how the devil is trying to put Christianity down proves that Christianity must be true... amazing how a little empathy would probably help world peace, but neither faith seems to have any... though I've seen enough FB memes about how Christians are so depressed because they have so much empathy and I wonder where it is, as I've yet to see any empathy from Christians as a whole. All of which digresses from the original point...

US foreign policy is directly responsible for the rise of ISIS/ISIL, whatever you want to call it... now ISIS has risen itself up to be a rather large threat via its actions, which are deliberately provoking, as it's easier to radicalize people when the world starts turning against Islam as a whole, as those on the Right are apt to do, than turn against the small segment that aren't peace loving. Of course the Right's preferred response to those provocations are to do exactly what ISIS has publicly stated they want. They want a large war against them, they'd love it if Republicans banned them from coming to the US as it would make lone wolf attacks in the US by US citizens more prevalent, which like they did with Miami (the shooter himself pledged allegiance to ISIS, but he also pledged allegiance to Hezbollah, which is fighting against ISIS)... Republican policies, especially those of Trump and Cruz are so on point with ISIS desires, one has to wonder if they themselves are tied with ISIS interests, or if they are tied to military interests that profit off continuing the war and sacrificing American lives in the name of war profiteering... but Republican Jesus said "Blessed are the warmongers and the war profiteers and cursed be the peace makers"... It was there on the Sermon on the Mount when he also said, "Blessed be the rich employer who pays his employees poorly, and cursed be those employees who are poor and needy and needing assistance. Surely I say unto you, if you give tax breaks unto the rich and cut benefits for the needy and the poor, I shall bless your Nation... oh and forget the sick and dying, they got themselves into their mess, they are responsible for getting out, only the well to do shall have healthcare." Again I digress though...

Not to poke or prod, but then what would you do to stabilize the country? His fear only worked if he killed harmless civilians, otherwise it wouldn't work at all. It's an all or nothing there.

The democratic government, hardly a corrupt government as the media would have you believe, is actually worse by far now than when Saddam was in power. (Yeah, that's hard to believe...but with the mass terror attacks, beheadings, raping of the Yazidi, unpredictable poverty, and the crime by non-terrorists, it is...) So with wholehearted empathy, I ask again. What would you do to help this even-worse situation?

Does the Bible reduce empathy? Lots of violence.

Actually, kids cause violence because they're kids. And not just any kids, but males. Male teens are responsible for almost 90 percent of violent crimes.

Video games do tend to reduce empathy, but so does any other violent training. Putting your kid into martial arts increases the likelihood they'll get into fights over just walking away, because... kids.

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/17/opinion/campaign-stops/a-week-for-all-time.html?emc=edit_th_20160617&nl=todaysheadlines&nlid=40977923

Golden quote:
"In this week of trial and tragedy, Trump showed us how he would govern — by fear, by intimidation, by lies, by turning American against American, by exhibiting all the empathy of a sociopath. Seal this week. Put it in a time capsule. Teach it. History will remember. But come November, will we?"

By the way, I've stayed out of this extremely boring back and forth. There was nothing to be gained by weighing in. It finally has come to a blessed end, just as this op-ed was published in the New York Times.

So I'll say it again, since this video is my contribution to the Sift and I am claiming final word. I may not be accorded it, but I am claiming it.

It is a stone hard fact that eligible does not equal fit. A brain-damaged accident victim with the right birth certificate, with the right age, is eligible to be president. That person is not fit to be president. This is logic. It just is. You can ignore the crystalline beauty of the fact of this analogy and have a fine time talking around it. Doesn't change the fact that Ken Burns is right, Timothy Egan is right, Mitt Romney, both Bushes, Meg Whitman, and the Republican strategist who is quoted in this op-ed are all right.

Trump is unfit for the Presidency.

You can say the exact same thing about Christians or Jews. Violence in the name of religion is what a "true believer" does, because any non-believer is an agent of evil, so sub-human and not worthy of empathy or understanding.

It's not the particular brand of religion that's the problem, it's religion itself.

I'm pretty sure that all major religions in one form or another instruct believers to attack non-believers with violence and/or death. Most also contradict themselves by saying violence is wrong, leaving the "rules" open to interpretation, ostensively making all religions nothing more than excuses for atrocities that would otherwise be clearly inexcusable.

I agree the kid's rather irritating.

...But to be fair, he's hardly an outlier in that regard among kids roughly that age.

I was a pretty insufferable know-it-all when I was around that age too. And I probably shouldn't be so sure that that is something that I've entirely grown out of now that I'm in my mid 30s either...

He's got an opinion (which I'm inclined to agree with) and is exercising his right to express it. Perhaps it is better to be opinionated and a little annoying than a blind follower. He'll grow into wisdom and empathy to temper that opinion with in time.

So, let's stop pretending "the friend zone" is solely the realm of socially stunted, fedora wearing, Menanists. That's tired old internet group-think.

What it really means is being in a relationship in which there's a perceived benefit by both parties to maintain close social contact, yet the depth of emotional attachment is unbalanced.

At it's worst, one or both parties in the relationship may be acting in a manner that disregards the others feelings. Maybe one person is pushing way too hard or one is taking advantage of the other. But this negative element doesn't have to always be the case and is more a sign of emotional immaturity.
Plus, I have news for you...YOU were also emotionally immature in a relationship at some point. Maybe you still are but it's working for you so you don't take notice.

Our emotional side and our logical side don't always see eye to eye. Because of this, we're all in danger of finding ourselves really attracted to someone who doesn't return our feelings. How this plays out between the two parties depends on their unique combination of personality, personal awareness, empathy, self respect...and so many other things.

So, if you're in a relationship like this, there are lots of good logical ways that you can approach the situation that may be really hard given your non-logical, emotionally driven, perspective. There's lots of good advice that can be given too if you know someone involved like this. And it's probably better addressed sooner than later.

But disregarding people's humanity and drawing them as stunted and potentially dangerous monsters....says more about you than it does the person in "the friend zone".

I didn't have an answer until I saw these comments above.

Definitely Young Turks. They need to talk less and get some voice/diction lessons.

Truth distorters. Hate that with a passion.

Anything with pain as humor. I have too much empathy and end up distressed. The ones with the nutsack shots? People falling on their necks? I don't think I have ever gotten to the end of one of those compilations -- I start watching because some "fail" videos are funny without serious harm being involved. But the compilations mostly seem to toss in something that makes me quickly shut 'er down.

And of course -- sexist/racist "jokes". Louis CK has a potty mouth of the nth degree -- doesn't bother me. I love him, because he tells the truth. The man has told a funny rape joke! Who thought that was even possible before he figured out how to do. Sexist/racist crap is lies and ugliness.

I'm sure there is more. That is without thinking about it too hard and stealing from the first posters.

address please...
i'll be right over to cock punch you,and i shall do so with all the humanity,empathy and compassion that one human can generate.

but you are still taking one to the baby maker.