Didn't watch the video, but did skim the comments... Christ...

First off, moving to Canada and any other decent first world nation be it New Zealand, Australia, the UK, Iceland, Netherlands, Canada etc... not as easy as just packing up and moving. You need a very narrow set of skills to move to those countries. We looked into all this countries, and all of their entry requirements exceeded what we had to offer them. People always say if you don't like it leave, but that ignores several facts. It isn't we don't like it, we just think it can be improved, change isn't bad. Humanity isn't bad. Caring for those less fortunate isn't bad. Guaranteeing everyone a minimum level of affordable health care isn't bad. Working to insure that all workers get a living wage (the way we used to have before the employers/owners started getting greedy and redistributing more wealth to themselves), isn't a bad goal, in fact it's a very good thing. The famed clip from the Newsroom's first episode when he goes on about how America isn't great anymore but it used to be...

Of course the whole concept of American exceptionalism, or any nation exceptionalism is flawed. We are all humans on this planet. Being American doesn't make you superior to somebody born in China or Mexico, Ethiopia, Syria or anywhere else. Location of birth is an accident of timing... and if it is divine intervention by God that placed you here instead of Ethiopia where you may have starved to death with an inflated malnourished belly despite all your prayers, then God is an ass and not worth serving. So if he's not an ass, then it is pure accident that you are here and not there. To think oneself superior and better than somebody in another nation because of their location of birth, and the religion that comes with that location, is insanity. And I draw that all ways. The Muslims who despise Christianity for not being the true faith, and Christians who despise Islam for not being the true faith. You are your faith by accident of birth, be it location and/or parentage etc... all of which is getting away from the point. Which is simply that to say that Chinese worker doesn't deserve a job manufacturing something that you think you should be building is asinine and not respectful of their humanity and a complete lack of any sort of empathy. Christ, I have Aspergers and I have more empathy in my farts than the entire Tea Party Christian Right.

Yes we need to respect the individual, but "the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, or the one"... and that quote is in context and not just a cherry pick sample. If it benefits just one and damages the many, then it is not a good thing. Most every faith in the world has some variation of the Golden Rule, to treat others the way you want others (not that specific person, but people as a general whole) to treat you. Christianity's Christ went further and said the greatest commandment was love, to show love to one another. Greed and selfishness is not love. Collectivism has many faults as well, but it isn't tyranny, and is certainly better for society as a whole in the long run than unrestrained greed motivated individualism. Like Pink Floyd's song, On the Turning Away, says, we are all "just a world we all must share". We can't turn away from the coldness inside towards others. We need to lift all of humanity up. Perhaps showing the Muslims love instead of hate and bigotry would convince them that perhaps Christianity isn't the enemy, that perhaps it is the answer, but showing them hate, and bigotry... and denying refugees trying to flee a horrible civil war is bigotry and hatred, and the fact that a rather disturbingly large percentage of the right can't see that isn't bigotry and hatred is scary beyond measure. I again find it amazing that people could lack that much empathy without a neurological disorder.

To invade others, tell them how to live their lives, to force democracy on them if they aren't ready, to insult them and belittle their faith, and all that isn't world building. It isn't reaching out with empathy. It's hate. It's bigotry and as noted by artician, it's what helps drive people to fly into buildings. They know that they know that their faith is the right one, and the lack of empathy to see that people of the Muslim faith have just as much faith in their religion as Christians have in theirs, that they have the same amount of knowledge and comfort from god that they are the correct faith, is what drives extremism.

And oh my god the guns. Guns would have saved the Jews. American mainland can't be invaded because too many people own guns... ask the Branch Davidians how well having not only military grade weapons but also training on how to use them worked for them against a slightly militarized police force, let alone an actual military. Yes, it would be incredibly hard, and resistance would probably eventually wear any invading force down the way the Taliban wore the Soviets down, or the Viet Cong did against the US Military might. So perhaps that can be counted as a victory, but would be long fought. Look, I support gun ownership. All I really call for is 1) allowing the CDC get back to it's job of collecting the data and finding out what's really going on with gun violence, and 2) closing the gun show loophole unless the CDC's investigation shows that it has zero effect, 3) you have to have a legal ID to own a gun and can't be on the no fly list, 4) the existing background checks kept the same, but also add a drug test, the right wants drug tests for welfare, then we should be testing for gun owenrship too. (I see little reason for "assault weapons" but aside from perhaps having perhaps a slightly better background check, I don't know if a ban yet needs to be called for, but I'm in the middle here.) Once we have have better data points from the CDC then we can really tackle the issue of gun violence. Yes, it will take years to get those answers, but I find it insane that the Republicans refuse to allow the investigation to go on, which says to me that they are afraid of what the data will show.

Unless you are nearly a pure Native American, then you are a refugee to the US.

The primary problem here and around the world is poverty and lack of proper education. This drives people to crime and extremism in religion which makes them susceptible to acting out terrorist acts, be it in the name of Allah (as is the public perceived norm) or Christ (ala the Planed Parenthood terrorist attack, the 2011 Norway attacks, etc). We need to address the growing income and wealth gaps. The way to doing that isn't by giving those at the top even more tax breaks and losing regulations (which is funny thing to complain about, too many regulations here in the US, meanwhile the same people complain about the low quality Chinese goods that aren't safe due to low regulations and poor labor conditions etc). We need to push education, and proper STEM programs, not deflated science trying to force Creationism in via so called "Intelligent Design" or "teaching the controversy" stick to the actual science. Don't object to the "new math" if it's teaching better fundamentals of understanding what the numbers are actually doing even if it doesn't teach the shortcuts we were taught... and lots of the stuff people complain about is just the fact we don't skip right to the shortcut that works. Yes, it works, but it helps if they better understand the underlying fundamentals of the numbers and the actual math. Again, change isn't a bad thing, to object just because you don't understand or don't like it compared to the simplified shortcut we all learned doesn't make it bad. Reading also needs pushed, and understanding of logical fallacies and logical and faulty thinking.

I believe that a post scarcity world is impossible due to the nature of humanity. There are far too many greedy people that will never want the world to get to that point. However, that should be the noble goal. Post scarcity society has many issues, but perhaps by the time we actually got there we'd be able to solve them.

TLDR: Basically it all comes down to empathy. To view everything as the others view it. I get the fear and panic and all that the right has, and not just because I once upon a time was a right wing evangelical Christian who called those who received food stamps lazy bums, who said that Democrats and the liberals just wanted to keep the poor trapped so they would always need help. Yes, I was there and that helps, but I can still empathize with them without that past. I've never been a Muslim raised in a nation dominated by Islam, but I can still empathize with the way they see what the US is doing to them, the way they have to see people like Donald Trump and the scary amount of Americans that support him. It's easy to see why some are driven to extremism. I can empathize with that Mexican who just wants a better life and knows that Mexico can't give it to him so he has to risk it all to try and immigrate to the US. I can empathize with the Chinese worker who has been given an opportunity to build something, to escape the poverty... for while perhaps still poverty, less poverty than before, and I'm thankful that I got that opportunity, and I'm sorry that somebody in the US doesn't get to do it, but I'm a human too. Empathy. Learn it. It can be learned, neurological disorder or not.

If you'd like, I can go back over all the comments you people make about how all cops are a gang of murderous, racist, out of control brutes.

If you'd like to take back what you have said in the past, I suppose I can live with that.

I don't have a problem criticizing police, I do it myself. I am offended when you paint all police officers as a gang of militarized racist trigger-happy maniacs.

This smells like a case of use it or lose it. A while back there was a video posted concerning the militarization of police forces. In short there was a clause where bye if toys weren't used without a certain time frame they were either reclaimed or further gifts couldn't be received. That's my guess, but it's just a guess.

@bobknight33
here is what i don't get about you or lantern:
1.you state that you are a conservative with a "tea party" flavor to your politics,
YET...
you consistently defend the power of the state to authorize our ever-increasing militarized police force to engage in violence and brutality which often leads to the death of a citizen,often with impunity (such as this case).

this is neither conservative nor tea party,it is fascist.

2.many of your arguments point to obeying a lawful order,be polite and respectful and much of the brutality and violence would end.on this point i totally agree,
BUT....
you totally ignore how "equal under law" has been perverted to only serve the elite and those who can "pay for justice" and how the system of "justice" has been corrupted to target minorities and the economically insolvent (poor) and feed them into the largest prison system on the planet.

they are commodifying the poor,blacks,latinos in the name of profit,all for the same elitist fucknozzles who perpetrated fraud,theft and outright lies,walking away with trillions of our money and not a single indictment.(check that,ONE indictment of a low level banker..whoopdy-shit).

yet i see you consistently BLAME the poor,black and latino.

this is not conservative nor tea party....it is racist.

3.many of your posts deal with a corrupt government.how it is bloated and inefficient.you decry the 'welfare/nanny state" and the horrible misappropriation of funds.

this is a typical,and necessary argument.that is the way of political dialogue and while i am not debating here the finer points nor the validity of your position,i am,however,saying the discussion is a necessary one to engage in.

however,

you,almost without fail,disregard and will actually DEFEND:police brutality and military action on foreign soil.yet BOTH of these institutions are exclusively government controlled,operated and executed.(which is why many of lanterns posts make me laugh).

this is not conservative nor tea party ......... it is the epitome of cognitive dissonance.

my point is:
your arguments and positions are not philosophically harmonious.
they are in direct opposition.your posted philosophies are a direct contradiction to what you espouse.

here is an example of late:
@newtboy tends to post cops behaving badly videos.
you will chime in,almost always,siding with the cop (in one fashion or another).
newtboy will make an argument about exercising your rights.the rights as a citizen in a situation with a representative of the state..
AND YOU WILL ARGUE WITH HIM.

in that instance..newtboy is more a tea party conservative than you are bob.

think about that for a moment bob....
newt is MORE of a patriot and constitutionalist than YOU are.
maybe you are just being a contrarian?
maybe just a bit of trolling?

but...in the end,your arguments make no sense due to their contradictory nature.
you can't be for a smaller,more accountable government and then look the other way when that very same government is over-stepping it's lawful directives.

"They methodically fired explosives into every room in this house in order to extract one person. Granted, he had a handgun, but against 100 officers? You know, the proper thing to do would be to evacuate these homes around here, ensure the safety of the homeowners around here, fire some tear gas through the windows. If that didn’t work, you have 50 SWAT officers with body armor break down the door."

-----

You see, they methodically blew out walls with explosives to force him into one area. They used an APC with a breaching attachment to open multiple entries into the residence. One hundred cops against a guy with one handgun.

If this is our standard procedure, terrorists don't need to hit big targets, just split up and hide out in buildings. By the time our militar...oops, police force is done, the building will be wrecked to a shell. But we'll have that one terrorist, so as the Chief of Police said in this case, it's a WIN!

I hate cops with a passion. Things are getting worse, my town has militarized the police with humvees with 50 caliber turrets. All police with AR15's and 5 K9's and my town only has 2 redlights and a population of 2000.

This is getting out of hand. The next Civil War will be people vs pigs. And hell I have coronary artery disease, I'm not going to live a long life anyhow, I'll definitely take some pigs out when pushed. I'd love to see pigs exploding in gta5 style blood spray

I wasn't quite clear. I don't mean scrap the system. I mean replace the officers, and train the new ones how to behave PROPERLY, and insist on severe punishment for any infraction. When the rule enforcer breaks the rules, they should have to pay twice what non-enforcers pay for the same crime...with no coddling in "protective custody".
I also agree with reversing the militarization. People will use the tools you give them...if you give them tools of war, they'll commit acts of war with them. Seems obvious to me.
My issue is that the "good cops" NEVER go after the bad cops themselves....as I see it, that makes them accessories after the fact, and also bad cops for obstructing justice. I'm fine with keeping any cop that's testified AGAINST another cop, even one that has documentation proving they stopped another cop from taking things too far. The rest need to go, IMO. They have all been complacent in the face of their own being criminal, and I'm simply not OK with that.
I do agree, simply enacting a zero tolerance policy for ANY officer misconduct, and stricter punishment than normal citizens get for the same infraction would remove most "bad cops" right away...but only if their fellow officers no longer cover up for them. With what we have today, there's no prosecution because they can't make a case when most officer crime happens off camera and the only witnesses either lie or refuse to testify. That's why I say they ALL need to go, and be replaced with new people who take the job knowing it's not a power trip and abuse won't be tolerated a whit. I also think they should have to waive their right to not talk, even self incriminate, in order to wield the authority they wield. I know it won't happen, but a newt can dream.

I'm nowhere near the point of saying scrap the entire system. It needs to be fixed, with real investigation and harsh punishments to weed out these people, but you don't do away with the entire concept.

You refine it, you look for characteristics that indicate a person is going to make an exemplary officer and you start selecting off that guide. You reverse the militarization trend and remove government subsidies that are turning the police into private militias. Last but not least, you make it clear that police are held to a higher standard. You hold THEM to a zero tolerance policy.

Believe me, if we took some simple steps, a significant amount of the bad police would be gone in weeks. Then we could replace them with qualified people.

wait..what?
do you even know what a cops job is?
or have you become so fucking indoctrinated that you will lie down and tacitly accept an ever-increasing militarized and VIOLENT police force?

let us take your inanely stupid comment and take it to its logical application,according to your own facile and twisted logic.
shall we?

"don't wanna get hurt? then don't F'n speed"
"don't wanna get hurt? then don't F'n jaywalk"
"don't wanna get hurt?then don't F'n smoke weed"

and before you start backpedaling like a pussy and try to make an argument of distinctions,you need to go look up what a cops actual job IS and what it is NOT.

it IS to enforce the law....period.

outrage over cops over-stepping and abusing their authority is a bleeding heart?
seriously?
sorry man,but that is fucking dumb.

/drops mic

Transcript: http://truth-out.org/news/item/27901-noam-chomsky-talks-us-militarism-and-capitalism-at-home-and-abroad

if you say so man.
but i think you are confusing politics with policy.

i dont find your comment necessarily wrong but rather inaccurate.reflecting the current rhetoric of certain talking heads without any real analysis.

so let us break down your comment:
1."the democrats have turned socialist"
this is a popular meme for the past decade.its a canard but it does hold a nugget of truth.the meme is a creation to distract you from the reality and instead points to things like welfare queens,social security and obamacare as being "socialist".

there is a growing socialism,but its corporate socialism,corporate welfare and state run capitalism.the republicans are even worse in this regard but both parties serve their corporate masters.

2."republicans have become democrats".
if you are referring to wars of aggression and a growing surveillance state and militarized police force.then i agree,this is antithetical to the republican ideology.though their rhetoric attempts to distract,they have consistently voted for bigger government in regards to:military,police and data-gathering on american citizens.

bravo bob! inadvertent truth sayer that you are!

@bcglorf
this assumes there will be no consequences for breaking the rules or no structure in place to enforce those rules.this implies that if their WAS no enforcement,everybody would spend the entire day robbing,raping and causing mayhem.

so you are right,the base argument is indeed intellectually dishonest,but is also not an argument FOR a militarized police force.the real arguments is the laws themselves.

start with more humane and common sense laws and the need for a massive police force becomes irrelevant.

in an anarchal system it is the people who are the representatives who create legislation.
lets take the iraq war of 2003,where the american people were overwhelmingly against going into iraq..yet we still invaded.representative democracy? not a shot.
or in 2008 when the american people,in a massive majority,rejected the bailout and wished to see the perpetrators held accountable.well? what happened? i think you know.

anarchism is a varied and dynamic political view.its not just one simple flavor.do you see trance and i agreeing on much?my politics over-laps with trance but it does with @newtboy and @ChaosEngine as well.

the basic gist is individual liberty trumps everything and that the structures put in place should be temporary and be directed from the bottom up,not the top down.we realize that we live in a society populated by people and it should be the people who direct where that society should be going.we have no need or use for "leaders" or "rulers" and when the "representatives" have obviously jumped the shark to whore to their donors,it is time to question/criticize the system and not just replace the crack whore with a meth whore.

anarchy is simply a political philosophy,thats it.

so we would see:
zero wars of aggression
no more criminalized drug addicts or poor people
no more corporate welfare
and most likely the people would vote out the federal reserve and print its own currency.

anarchists prefer direct democracy but will accept representative if they are actually being represented.(though begrudgingly).

you should read up on some anarchy.you may find some very food ideas and while not a perfect political philosophy,the one thing it does offer that i find most appealing:if it aint working...vote it out.

@VoodooV: "Every one of these youtube crusaders are comfortably enjoying the perks of a system they despise."

What perks? Like roads and firemen? You know, it's not like we couldn't have those things without government. And those kinds of services are only a small portion of the federal budget. In fact, from all the excise taxes collected on gasoline, tobacco and alcohol, they'd cover the roads completely, which costs around $60 billion annually. In fact, things like the EPA, Dept. of Trans, NASA, Dept. of Edu, all cost less than the revenue the federal government categorizes as "other." Look it up: http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/budget/historicals

So what about all the wars and militarism? Is that, too, a perk? And the prison industrial complex that locks up 1% of our population? What are these perks you speak of?

Even Ayn Rand took gov't assistance.

I love it when statists bring this up. I personally am not an Objectivist, and find lots of flaws with their ideology, but this is a cheap blow. Obviously it shows the economic illiteracy of most statists. For one, she's forced to pay into social security, so therefore why shouldn't she receive some of it back? And second, if you spend more than a couple seconds reading about U.S. monetary policy, you'd know that the purchasing power of the dollar is reduced over time due to inflation, and hence savings are always impacted. This should alarm you instead of excite you.

The whole thing is infested with logical fallacies: false equivalencies, ad homs, strawmen, and even a no true scotsman thrown in for shits and giggles.

By all means don't take any time to point out which things he said were these things. No, that'd be helpful, and we wouldn't want to cloudy any appeals to emotion with pesky things like fact and well thought out rebuttals.

they spend all this time criticizing the problems of gov't and NEVER ONCE demonstrate how it would work without these systems.

I think there are plenty who do. It's just that statists don't accept those answers, or any answers that don't emulate the current status quo systems they're accustomed to. I'm not interested in replacing public schools with another bureaucracy.

I think you know that the police have fought to keep those numbers from being kept at all. There is no national database that has numbers on innocent people shot by cops. I saw a news story about that just last week.
Cops aren't doctors. If a cop does their job properly and conscientiously, people don't often still die as a result. The same can't be said for Doctors. Also, Doctors don't break into your home and force surgery on you....EVER! ;-)
What the numbers DO clearly and definitively say is, in a meeting between a cop and a citizen, the cop is more than 10 times more likely to kill the citizen than the citizen is to kill the cop. That's outrageous under any circumstance.

Bluffing=lying. Respectfully, since you are now an admitted liar, how can you be trusted about anything?

I wish police would consider that before 'bluffing' citizens out of their rights, often by pretending they don't have any and hoping the citizen will follow what SEEMS like a 'legal command', but is really carefully worded to be a 'forceful request' that only sounds like a command.
Once you've 'bluffed' once, you are untrustworthy for life. Because so many (if not all) police 'bluff' remorselessly, shamelessly, and consistently, most people rightly don't trust ANY of them about anything.

I would prefer to buy my grass at the weed store in full daylight, legally. Sadly, right wing insanity and left wing fecklessness continues to perpetrate the disastrous 'drug war', which is really a militarization of the police and a war on Americans, not a war on drugs...no drugs have been sentenced or fined, but many people are. It's because of this situation that the black market exists, and those in it must protect themselves, because they can't call the police for help. That puts us all in danger...for less than nothing in return.

This is what welfare looks like coming from the right wing side. This is all the result of the 'jobs programs' that are military 'defense' programs, making military equipment the military doesn't want, then it's sold/given to cops, and big surprise, they start acting like the military. Write your congressmen and tell them to stop these programs that are anti-American in their results.
When the police are militarized, they become a military unit, and it's supposed to be illegal to use the military against citizens.