There is no reason to enable white kids to call other kids this offensive word.

Black kids should also not be able to use this word..

I don't know, but I've seen it before in other demonstrations or illustrations so they must have had good gloves . I figure that the blade was probably only kept sharp at the tip.

from wiki on the ineffectiveness of cutting slashes against full plate:
"To overcome this problem, swords began to be used primarily for thrusting. The weapon was used in the half-sword, with one or both hands on the blade. This increased the accuracy and strength of thrusts and provided more leverage for Ringen am Schwert or "wrestling at/with the sword". This technique combines the use of the sword with wrestling, providing opportunities to trip, disarm, break, or throw an opponent and place them in a less offensively and defensively capable position. During half-swording, the entirety of the sword works as a weapon, including the pommel and crossguard. One example how a sword can be used this way is to thrust the tip of the crossguard at the opponent's head right after parrying a stroke. Another technique would be the Mordstreich (lit. "murder stroke"), where the weapon is held by the blade (hilt, pommel and crossguard serving as an improvised hammer head) and swung, taking advantage of the balance being close to the hilt to increase the concussive effect."

Weird. I get the sense that from the perspective of the author of the question, he's taking the specifics too literally; sort of the opposite of how people try to weasel out of introspection when confronted with things like the trolley problem ("I'd pull the lever, AND shout as loud as I could to try to warn the guy", etc.).

To me, the idea is not to be worried about things like accidental use of the power, whether or not you know/believe that you have the power, etc. Assume that you have the power, you are aware that you have it, and that there is no risk of accidentally triggering it. Would you use it?

I can say with near certainty that I would have used it when I was younger; faced with situations like the experience he had with the bully when he was 13. I might have given it up after a single use, when firsthand confronted with the reality of it. Or I might easily have descended into the depths of utter evil, and eventually started using it casually, for offenses real or imagined.

If I got the power NOW, I think it is fairly likely that I would never use it. I'd be strongly tempted, though.

Very analogous to Westboro Baptist "church" stooges. They (ab)use their constitutionally protected rights to free speech to say the most offensive and provocative crap that they can come up with, specifically with the intention to incite a (violent) reaction against them. Why? Because pretty much the entire Phelps family are lawyers, and they know that they can generally win any assault case that they can provoke people into. All that hate they spew boils down to a stupid, petty moneymaking scam.

Is the Seattle Nazi that devious and cunning? I doubt it. Probably just a crazy / fucked up guy, as Maher said. That doesn't excuse his fuckwittery, but it does reinforce Maher's argument that punching the guy is NOT the best response.

Morello is awesome, with RATM and Audioslave, and now Prophets of Rage, etc. But he's dead wrong on this issue, and comes across as a bit of an "internet tough guy". Outside of just ignoring them, I kinda think the only way to one-up these people is to know the law, what constitutes assault etc., and essentially beat them at their own game (ie. provoke them into doing something to you). On the other hand, there's something to be said for using using passive-aggressive snark to mock / humiliate them in a nonviolent way, ala the Foo Fighters:

@newtboy -- I used a credit card (Discover) almost exactly as you described while I was going to college. Get a balance to pay for normal stuff, but pay it ALL off at the end of every month.

But I don't think the credit card companies hate people like us for 2 reasons:

1) For every one of us, there's a buttload who pay the minimum rather than the entire balance.

2) In my case, I think that in 4 years of college I forgot to pay off my balance (simply forgot to send in the check) once or possibly twice. I remembered a bit late and called Discover to see what to do, and they would tell me to pay the balance (or the minimum payment, not that I actually did that) plus a late fee.

I can't remember how much the late fee was. Maybe about $20? Anyway, at the kind of monthly balance I was running (not high), I'd wager that $20 was equivalent to maintaining an actual balance and paying the interest for a month or two or three. Which makes Maher's argument that they are "profiting from people's mistakes" reasonably accurate.


...On the other hand, Discover had "cashback bonus" awards of .5 to 1% or so, from which I stocked up and claimed somewhere in the $50-100 range over the 4 years, definitely enough to keep me in the net positive range in spite of a $20 late fee or two. That tells me that the magnitude of my "mistakes" must have been tiny in comparison to average credit card users.

I don't think Discover is an evil company per se for "preying" on people that don't use the card in the same way that you or I would. Paying a $20 late fee was a fully reasonable thing to charge me with. On the other hand, there's many many examples of predatory type fees that really do take advantage of people for "offenses" that are way less egregious, even things that have previously been considered standard use of the product / service in the past (paying WAY more for an extra inch of legroom, checked bags, food, etc. on airplanes comes to mind). Many of those arguably do cross the line into "evil" territory, I think.

I 100% agree, but at some point it moves from acceptable to immoral, and that point varies. That's why I gave examples that I think many/most people would not consider rape (pretending you're rich), and what I suspect is its counterpart (pretending you're their partner).

Note that I'm not arguing whether or not this was rape, I'm just making the point that there's a valid argument to be made. I know that's cravenly copping out, but I'm not confident enough to make either case 100%.

I'm a follower of the George Carlin philosophy that says you can only take offense, you can't give it. i.e. offence is in the eye of the beholder, and so any judgement needs to take into account things like intention, and should err on the side of free speech. Any psychological attack - from being cut off when driving to being told you have cancer - will damage you only to the level that you let it (which is largely out of your own control), but that doesn't stop the source of the attack from being in the wrong.

This is why I looked at this case in cost-benefit terms. We can't know for sure how this affected those involved, but it's reasonable to suspect that the woman was psychologically scarred through little or no fault of her own, and sexual violation is one of the most cruel and personal. This is amplified by the public nature of it. Yes, maybe - hopefully - she chalked it down to a bad decision, but I think it would be completely understandable if she was significantly damaged by what was unarguably a malicious action against her (even if the malice wasn't directed towards her).

Two points.

Completely unreasonable to discharge a firearm in to a crowd like that, although I'm fairly sure that guy is drilled enough that he could accurately shoot someone at that range if he really wanted to. The guy has been charged, correct? Entirely appropriate.

Second, you notice the missiles incoming, the dickhead trying to turn a spray can in to a flamethrower? Do you honestly think these were isolated events? Do you not think that people prepared for this? Or does every person carry aerosols and lighters just for shits and giggles?

The pretext of antifa is that assaulting people is fine because it's proactive self defense, right? If it's okay to physically attack people for thinking and saying offensive things, then why the fuck is anyone complaining about someone drawing a weapon to defend others against an actual attack??? /grin

That's the problem when you justify unreasonable actions on one side, whether you like it or not you justify unreasonable actions for everyone.

And just to ice the cake, if you're dumb enough to show up with sticks/stones/cans of spray against the the white right who are well known to be armed to the motherfucking teeth, you might want to avoid poking the bear.

ps. Upvoted your vid because it should be seen (the more documentation about the whole shebang the better) and because I'm not a petty cunt... X D

i think you guys are missing the point of this video.this video was not produced for YOU.

this is a dog whistle video for those who identify as "right" leaning politically,and may be on the fence in regards to the alt-right.they may adhere to more conservative and traditional values but find the alt-right a tad to extreme,a tad too racist and neo-fascist.

and they most likely already find "leftists" and "liberals" offensive to their political sensibilities.

and here we have a video showing "lefties" perpetrating violence on innocent,rightwing by-standers..you know..their peeps.

so you watch with indignation and disbelief,while the rightwingers watches in horror and fear.this video is meant to do just that:instill fear and prompt a person to action and to view this action as righteous self-defense.

this is identity politics,pure and simple.

and now we have TWO extremists groups growing,and BOTH are convinced of their righteous convictions that THEY have a RIGHT..no..a DUTY..to perpetrate violence in the name of their ideology.

well,it is not EVERYBODY..

yeah..no shit sherlock.we get that.
not everyone is a neo-fascist,racist,super white nationalist.

nor are they all communists and black bloc anarchists.

but it IS those two groups who have adopted extremist ideologies that in their little pea brains have given them the moral authority to fuck some people up.

and THIS fucking video is a goddamn recruitment video for the neo-fascists!

communists and black bloc anarchists on my left..
racist neo fascists on my right..
here i am...
stuck in the middle...

*related=https://videosift.com/video/ANTIFA-is-a-major-gift-to-the-right

A lot of people probably don't remember that this guy was convicted of fraud and conspiracy by a federal grand jury in 1989 and sentenced to 45 years in prison, not to mention the allegations of drugging and rape by Jessica Hahn. This is the man whom Jerry Falwell (another televangelist crook) called "the greatest scab and cancer on the face of Christianity in 2,000 years of church history."

And yet here he is today, sitting in his white satin throne surrounded by sycophants and fellow charlatans, peddling salvation from a fake apocalypse to the poor and gullible one $175 survival bucket at a time. Chris Hitchens was right... "you can get away with the most extraordinary offenses to morality and to truth in this country if you will just get yourself called 'reverend'."

NOBODY is saying anybody is heroes. I haven't read or saw any reports saying they were heroes, save for Fox who says that the media was. Just that people were counter protesting those sort of people the whole word fought a war to defeat.

What is happening is that Trump refuses to say just how fucking evil Nazis and the KKK are. He wouldn't do this if it was a Muslim who ran people over, nor would you. He, Fox, and all those on the right would all be saying how it proves how evil Islam is. By that standard, the fact they don't see how evil Nazis are, proves how evil Christianity is, if God won't convict you that Nazis are one of the greatest evils that ever existed... that anyone who isn't a fucking Nazi themselves, wouldn't call out the absolute shit that is a Nazi or KKK is, is reprehensible. I'm sure most Christians would take offense to such a statement, for such blanket blame of a few bad Nazis proving how evil Christianity is, but don't think twice blaming a terrorist act by a Muslim on the religion itself.

We got Republicans trying to push through laws that protect drivers who hurt or kill people who are peacefully protesting. As if the first amendment doesn't matter. Now, to be fair, most of those probably wouldn't protect the asshole who killed that lady down there, as he clearly had intent to hurt and kill.

Let's repeat the main point, there are no mainstream media saying any group is a hero. People may have called out the one lady as heroic, though it wouldn't have been if it wasn't for a White Supremacist asshole who killed her because she was protesting against White Supremacist like him. But NOBODY in the mainstream media is saying any groups are heroes. All we have is Fox saying as such, and trying to give fucking Nazis a pass for not being some of the most evil people ever. There's no fucking blame on both sides. The fact that we have such a blatantly racist President, with a White Supremacist in Bannon, has emboldened such hate groups, they are gloating how he wouldn't put them down, and then how he rolled back what he said Monday. They love that he's so clearly on their side of pure hate.

He wouldn't have waited days to condemn the violence if it was Muslims at the center. He'd have said something right away, talking about the dangers of radical Islam. He wouldn't have waited to get the facts, as he's proven time and time again. Nor would have the far right media machine like Fox.

Fuck anyone who would stand with the Nazis and the KKK. Fuck anyone who'd defend their hate.

The fact that the Republicans who could do anything about this asshole only have harsh words and won't start a hearing on conduct unbecoming a President, the fact that he's made us the laughing stock of the world, just shows how low the party and its supporters have gone.

Normally I 100% give the police every benefit of the doubt in these situations. I believe you are ignoring the important parts of this video though.

The kid didn't 'cop an attitude', refuse to comply, or 'flee' the scene. He was defensive from the start, and I don't think it's unjustified to be a bit put out to be interrupted from your work to be grilled about what your doing there and to prove who you are. The turning point you are missing is when the kid asks for supposed police officer to identify himself. The guy acting like an officer not only fails to do so, he immediately wants to handcuff the kid now all of a sudden. At this stage, the kid is supposed to back away. He has a guy in a uniform refusing to identify themselves, he shouldn't be expected to hang around.

It's not an offense or problem to 'refuse to comply' with someone that isn't a police officer.

It's not fleeing a scene when there is no police officer present, let alone an officer telling you that your being detained or under arrest.

The officer's refusal to identify himself should IMO mean that he isn't considered to be a police officer at all yet in how the public is expected to interact with him. That's a public safety requirement and the fact that the department PR video is lying and calling walking away from this interaction 'fleeing' is disgusting to me.

Oh, and for the record, if the officer DID identify himself, and then said the kid was being detained or under arrest then it all changes to me. Then the kid is 100% expected to comply, and the officer is allowed to use the force required to arrest and detain the kid. At the point if the arrest is an abuse of power or not is up the courts to decide. The important distinction is none of that actually happened, the PR meeting video acts as though the officer had identified himself and attempted to detain the kid. Fortunately the kid has video evidence showing that none of that actually happened. It is legitimately scary how easily and frequently an officer could do exactly this same stunt, and without it being on camera, he would get away with the whole thing.

We've always got room to improve though because as a fellow Canadian I don't feel my country men are all similarly free.

Mike Ward, a comedian up here was sued for $35k because of a joke he made on set.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/mike-ward-verdict-1.3688089

Greg Elliott disagreed with a feminist blogger over twitter and was hit a three year criminal trial over criminal harassment, including a bail condition throughout the trial banning him from internet access. His job relied on that internet access so even though he was cleared of all charges...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R_v_Elliott

You aren't supposed to dress up as Mulan unless you are Asian, or even worse as Pocahantas unless your first nations.
http://nationalpost.com/news/canada/universities-crack-down-on-offensive-halloween-costumes-at-campus-parties/wcm/b1b50639-0157-4a7d-b7fc-fd45718c4d6d

If you run want to run a Women's only naked spa, you still must allow those with male genitals entry or face a human rights commission complaint which is still in progress:
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/body-blitz-transgender-policy-1.4158397

Those a re recent examples easy to mind, but this is pretty frequent.

I can't speak to the quality of the show, although it's hard to go wrong with Mike Judge.

Spaces v tabs seems like a fine thing to joke about. I just couldn't suspend disbelief about how it came up. Here's the sort of thing that really happens:

Bob opens one of Shiela's files, just to read it so he can figure out how something works. He sees gibberish for indentation, and says, "Hey, Shiela, what happened to lose_harder.cc?
The indentation is all wrong."

She doesn't know what he's talking about, and takes offense that lasts for most of the rest of the episode. Eventually she figures out what he's complaining about, and says "What's your tab width? I used 3, to optimize file size with our typical indents". Bob says "How should I know what my tab width is? Why should I care? Are you mental? Three?"

@Diogenes

Thank you for your detailed answer. I do agree with you that context matters and that words are neither inherently good or bad by themselves. However, I think you’re looking at the situation from a more microscopic point of view as a simple joke between two people. I prefer to take a more macroscopic view of the situation. Allow me to explain.

Going back to my hypothetical example, it’s true that I didn't mean any harm when I used the term "retard" towards my brother. I think all people like to think of themselves as "good" people. For example, I would never in my life point at person with Down Syndrome and scream "Retard!" at the top of my lungs or attempt to belittle someone with an actual mental disability. The problem, however, is that by using the word in the way I did in the example I am tacitly--and quite publicly (remember this is happening in a parking lot)--endorsing the equating of people with mental disabilities to stupidity. I may be making a joke towards my brother but it isn’t just my brother that winds up being the butt of the joke.

Now maybe from your perspective, it’s just one person saying a joke. Look at the context, you might say. It’s a distasteful joke but no big deal, right? And I could agree with that if it was just some off-color joke limited to a single individual. Unfortunately, and I think we can both agree on this, the use of “retard” to mean “stupid” is a relatively common occurrence in American vernacular. You couple that with the stigma against mental illness and mental disability and I think it becomes fairly plain to see that on the macroscopic level (i.e. society) we have a problem: a group that is socially disadvantaged and historically discriminated against is even further marginalized by the language people use in their everyday lives. Now, if you don’t agree this is a problem, I’m afraid the conversation has to end here since the logical conclusion of such a stance is that people should be free to say whatever they want and be immune to criticism, damn the consequences.

But if you do agree it is a problem, how are we going to solve it? My take on the situation is that doing absolutely nothing when witnessing a situation like the one I've described is unlikely to improve society in any way. The status quo will be maintained if people are not confronted about their language use.

That being said, people often say things without fully comprehending the implications of what they are saying. They often talk the way they were raised and never once questioned whether what they were saying was actually harmful or not. I don’t think people should be pilloried for that, but in the event that they are unaware of how they are contributing to the discrimination and oppression of others they certainly need to be educated.

This necessarily entails confrontation, although that confrontation might be very low key. Continuing the example above, I think a good way for the woman in the example to “enlighten” me about my misguided use of the word “retard” would be something along the lines of this:

“Excuse me. I really wish you wouldn’t equate having a mental handicap with stupidity. My nephew has Down Syndrome and even though, yes, he can’t do everything that a person without an intellectual handicap can do he is most certainly not stupid.”

Now, all of that said, I see nothing wrong with publicly shaming those who clearly understand the implications of what they are saying and out of either stubbornness, a need for attention, or actual spite willfully continue to use language that is degrading or oppressive. A white person frequently using the N-word in public to describe black people, for instance, is a situation where I’d be completely fine with them getting verbally eviscerated. We don't always have to be polite, even when being politically correct.

As a final note, I want to make it clear that I believe in free speech in the sense that everyone should be free to say whatever they wish. However, as a caveat to that I also believe that free speech comes with the responsibility that people must own everything they say. If someone wishes to use offensive, degrading, or oppressive language that is their choice. Free speech in no way gives them a free pass from criticism of that choice, however.