Glad to hear you stating things as you did, I largely agree with you.

The trick playing out in Canada now is that because we've expanded the definition of protected classes more quickly than the US, the protected classes rights are interfering more and more.

I do not believe that religion should be a protected class in the same way as race, gender or ethnicity. Similarly sexual orientation and gender identity shouldn't be either. Race, Gender and ethnicity are all assigned at birth and can largely be determined by blood test and demonstrated to be something entirely outside an individuals control, choice and behaviour.

Religion is the most easily demonstrated as deserving a different status of protection than the others in that most religions ALL hold the others as heretical. Declaring other faiths immoral is necessary to religious freedom and I take as the very positive basis of America's freedom of religion notion being a wonderful agreement between Catholics and Protestants to agree to disagree over war.

More controversially, I would also class your sexual preferences and identity in with religion as a different degree of protected class. There is an element of behaviour and choice here that can not be determined at birth with any manner of blood test or parental bloodline.

More simply, the right to discriminate should not exist for immutable things people are born to and remain beyond their choice or control, while the right to discriminate based upon behaviours is entirely necessary and important. If you want to believe Scientology can help you heal broken limbs and transcend the world your free to it, but I'm gonna treat you differently than a sane person. To similarly treat someone different based upon race or gender though is unacceptable.

I'd hope that they put some time into automated dick-detection technology. Or perhaps just a tagging system to alert about rogue dicks for the admins to delete. I mean, you can't make this and not address that issue in some manner.

Well, things are not as rosy as folks like Steven Pinker would like us to believe. As much as I dislike resorting to Hollywood for philosophical insights, True Detective was absolutely on point in this quote:

„Transference of fear and self-loathing to an authoritarian vessel. It's catharsis. He absorbs their dread with his narrative. Because of this, he's effective in proportion to the amount of certainty he can project.“

Now, they were talking about a preacher. But I'd argue this applies to scapegoats as well. And if your arguments undermine the scapegoat, it starts losing its efficiency as a focal point of people's discontent.

Most of us have so much day-to-day shit to deal with that outsourcing the macro-shit to a boogeyman, any boogeyman, helps us get through the day without wanting to bash our head against the wall. Or bash someone else's head in, for that matter.

This doesn't excuse this level of self-delusion, but maybe it explains it to some degree. I'd say keep doing what I know you've been doing for many years: present your case in a respectful manner.

Golden lady bug?

What manner of sorcery is this?!

I really liked Rogue One, the plot was reasonable enough and it felt like Star Wars, but this...I don't know. Harrison Ford's portrayal of Han Solo is a really hard act to follow: the subtle mannerisms, the voice, the look, everything. Right off the bat this new actor doesn't share any of the physical characteristics of the Han Solo that we all grew up with, so it's jarring and my mind doesn't want to accept him as Han Solo.

In my opinion, someone like Anthony Ingruber should have been cast as a young Han Solo:
https://youtu.be/vwLv993khfI?t=21

I can totally see him as Solo.

newtboy you have the exact same mindset as a racist. You feel that a member of a certain group of people wronged you in some manner and now you bundle all of them together. Replace the word Cops with a skin color and you have a typical racist quote...

I take all that to heart.

In my native language and for me any woman under my age is a girl AND any man or woman taking part in sports and games is a boy or girl. They would be greeted and befriended in a much less formal manner than, for example during an opera performance intermission in the theatre hallway or in a workplace setting. For me girls running around on skis with guns are girls, I dont think of them as world class athletes but as ordinary people doing something enjoyable and rewarding.

I have trouble being entirely serene in the face of political correctness, so do feel free to correct my errors if I am found wanting in this area, even if I sometimes may appear to not take things seriously. Just a disclaimer.

"Edit this video" is now hidden in a menu that appears when you hover over your name above your video (Eric told me). Thanks.

Agreed. To play devil's advocate, we don't know where she's going or why she's acting like this.

It's possible she has a genuine reason for her impatience. Maybe there's some kind of emergency (a family medical issue, for example). I know there have been times in my life where I've driven in a less than courteous manner for various reasons.

Or maybe she's just an asshole.

In all seriousness though, here's my thoughts on the matter: I believe the n-word is used by most black people ironically. It's an attempt to reclaim power over the word that was used for so long--including today--to oppress them.

The thing is, there is precedent for this ironic use. Many in the gay community use the word "bitch" in an affection and jesting way to other members, but it takes on a completely different tone when a heterosexual person--even one who has a large circle of gay friends--tries to use it in a similar manner towards a gay person.

The thing is that this kind of ironic language usage is self-deprecating. As a member of the black or gay community, you're using a derogatory term that could just as easily be applied to you by somebody else.

Self-deprecating humor of this kind doesn't work so well when you're not a member of the group. It just comes across as punching down, especially in the case of privileged group members like middle-class white kids who will likely never know what it is like to be an "other" in their country of citizenship no matter how much they may sympathize (although as "minority" groups continue to eclipse the Caucasian population maybe within my lifetime they might actually start to experience it).

I mean, how hard is it for non-black people to not call someone an n-word? Very few black people are okay with it. The whiny " b-b-but they use the word all the time" excuse just reeks of entitlement to me.

But what do I know. I'm just some dumb white kid living in a foreign country where I can be pulled over by cops because I look different from the rest of the population and jailed for not immediately providing ID (unlike Japanese people who are legally not required to carry ID at all).

The point
Your head

And I don't believe for a moment that you really are missing the point.

The victim in the video made a tweet that sounds racist, but was meant in a sarcastic manner to be making fun of the stupid things racists say.

Your own comment you've made before is the same thing, saying profiting of racism is AOK, in a sarcastic way to be making fun of the stupid things racists do:
Once you learn to profit from racism then BS like this doesn't bother you. In fact you begin to appreciate all the hard free labor that keeps the dividends flowing

You weren't really advocating for enjoying the free labor and profits of racism, you were making fun of it. The victim you are so quick to run a bus over and see ruined made the same joke as you did, but you still fail to see any irony or double standard in this.

And 1 sentence to refute your off-topic rant. Apparently newtboy and I differ from you in believing the historic racism and prejudices were BAD and should be ended rather than recycled against a new range of victims.

Freedom of religion is independent of civilian armament.
History shows that religious persecution is normal for humanity, and in most cases it's perpetrated by the government. Sometimes to consolidate power (with government tie-ins to the main religion), and sometimes to pander to the grimace of a majority.

Ironically, in this country, freedom of religion only exists due to armed conflict, albeit merely as a side effect of independence from a religiously homogeneous ruling power.



It's true that Catalonians would likely have been shot at if they were armed.
However, likewise, the Spanish government will never grant the Catalans democracy so long as the Catalans are not armed - simply because it doesn't have to.
(*Barring self suicidal/sacrificial behavior on part of the Catalans that eventually [after much suffering] embarrasses the government into compliance - often under risk that 3rd parties will intervene if things continue)

When the government manufactures consent, it will be first in line to claim that people have democratic freedom. When the government fails to manufacture consent, it will crack down with force.

At the end of the day, in government, might makes right. Laws are only words on paper, the government's arms are what make the laws matter.

Likewise, democracy is no more than an idea. The people's force of arms (or threat thereof) is what assert's the people's dominance over the government.



You can say the police/military are stronger and it would never matter, however, the size of an [armed] population is orders of magnitude larger than the size of an army. Factor in the fact that the people need to cooperate with the government in order to support and supply the government's military. No government can withstand armed resistance of the population at large. This is one of the main lessons from The Prince.

Civilian armament is a bulwark against potentially colossal ills (albeit ills that come once every few generations).

Look at NK. The people get TV, radio, cell, from SK. They can look across the river and see massive cities on the Chinese side. They know they have to play along with the charade that their government demands. At the end of the day, without guns, things won't change.

Look at what happened during the Arab Spring. All these unarmed nations turned to external armed groups to fight for them to change their governments. All it accomplished was them becoming serfs to the invited 3rd parties. This is another lesson from The Prince : always take power by your own means, never rely on auxiliaries, because your auxiliaries will become your new rulers.






Below is general pontification. No longer a reply.
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Civilian armament does come with periodic tragedies. Those tragedies suck. But they're also much less significant than the risks of disarmament.
(Eg. School shootings, 7-11 robberies, etc -versus- Tamils vs Sri Lankan government, Rohingya vs Burmese government. etc.)

Regarding rifles specifically (all varieties combined), there is no point in arguing magnitudes (Around 400 lives per year - albeit taken in newsworthy large chunks). 'Falling out of bed' kills more people, same is true for 'Slip and fall'. No one fears their bed or a wet floor.

Pistols could go away and not matter much.
They have minimal militia utility, and they represent almost the entirety of firearms used in violent crime. (Albeit used to take lives in a non newsworthy 1 at a time manner)

(In the U.S.) If tragedy was the only way to die (otherwise infinite lifespan), you would live on average 9000 years. Guns, car crashes, drownings, etc. ~All tragedies included. (http://service.prerender.io/http://polstats.com/?_escaped_fragment_=/life#!/life)






A computer learning example I was taught:

Boy walking with his mom&dad down a path.
Lion #1 jumps out, eats his dad.
(Data : Specifically lion #1 eats his father.)
The boy and mom keep walking
Lion #2 jumps out, eats his mother.
(Data : Specifically lion #2 eats his mother)
The boy keeps walking
He comes across Lion #3.

Question : Should he be worried?

If you are going to generalize [the first two] lions and people, then yes, he should be worried.

In reality, lions may be very unlikely to eat people (versus say, a gazelle). But if you generalized from the prior two events, you will think they are dangerous.

(The relevance to computer learning is that : Computers learn racism, too. If you include racial data along with other data in a learning algorithm, that algorithm can and will be able to make decisions based on race. Not because the software cares - but because it can analyze and correlate.)

(Note : This is also why arguing religion is likely futile. If a child is raised being told that everything is as it is because God did it, then that becomes their basis for reality. Telling them that their belief in god is wrong, is like telling the boy in the example that lions are statistically quite safe to people. It challenges what they've learned.)



I mentioned this example, because it illustrates learning and perception. And it segways into my following analogy.



Here's a weird analogy, but it goes like this :

(I'm sure SJW minded people will shit themselves over it, but whatever)

"Gun ownership in today's urban society" is like "Black people in 80's white bred society".

2/3 of the population today has no contact with firearms (mostly urban folk)
They only see them on movies used to shoot people, and on the news used to shoot people.
If you are part of that 2/3, you see guns as murder tools.
If you are part of the remaining 1/3, you see guns like shoes or telephones - absolutely mundane daily items that harm nobody.

In the 80's, if you were in a white bred community, your only understanding of black people would be from movies where they are gangsters and shoot people, and from the nightly news where you heard about some black person who shot people.
If you were part of an 80's white bred community, you saw black people as dangerous likely killers.
If you were part of an 80's black/mixed community, you saw black people as regular people living the same mundane lives as anyone else.

In either case, you can analytically know better. But your gut feelings come from your experience.



Basically, I know guns look bad to 2/3 of the population. That won't change. People's beliefs are what they are.
I also know that the likelihood of being in a shooting is essentially zero.
I also know that history repeats itself, and -just in case- I'd rather live in an armed society than an unarmed society. Even if I don't carry a gun.

-scheherazade

Here's a Canadian example:

http://nationalpost.com/news/canada/aly-hindy-salaheddin-islamic-centre

A mosque who's former founder has gone off to lead a team of Al Qaeda linked suicide bombers in Iraq. The mosque Ohmar Khadr's father brought their family to before relocating them to fight for Bin Laden in Pakistan. The mosque attended by the leaders of the largest terrorist ring Canada has broken up thus far. Other members have gone off to join terrorists in Somalia and Egypt.

The question of should we be setting up some manner of legal accountability for an organization that is clearly idealogically supporting these things isn't a clear and obvious, nope, nothing can be done. At least not any more than nope, nothing can be done is clearly the answer to the Vegas shootings.

You cannot assault people - not unless you are protecting yourself or another from immediate physical harm. And if it's not immediate, call the appropriate authority and let them handle it. THE END.

If you are so offended that you feel like you need to intervene, then politely ask why he is a nazi, and explain to him why it's wrong, challenge his views in a non-confrontional manner. It's as easy as saying "I don't agree with Nazi ideology because of XYZ" He's clearly in the wrong, so it shouldn't be hard to explain to him why.

Anything else means you are OK with living in a society where punching each other is an acceptable form of communication - leaving yourself and your loved ones open to the same treatment next time someone disagrees with one of your views.

I wanted to use this vid in a different manner. That is of how some Blacks and liberals think that white Americans OWE them for the past sins of the father.


The sins of our fathers are that of the father and not carried generationally.

With said Today Americans do not owe jack to ancestors of slaves.

American can just get along and move past BLM and all the white privilege BS that is being promoted by liberal outlets.

welcome to the epic battle of the narcissists!

where women...children and young men indoctrinated into the religion of nationalism, die in horrible and grotesque manners all to appease the bloated ego's of two sociopaths!!!!

coming to Netflix this fall!
don;t miss it!