In open warfare of govt vs people, drones don't matter, just like jets don't matter. I already covered this above.



Nowhere is an oppressive dictatorship - until it is.
[redacted]
I feel like people are too distracted with instagram and other B.S. to bother learning about how the world works.
History is long. The current peace is an anomaly. When things go bad, there is little warning. If you're lucky, a year or so of build up. If you're not lucky, weeks or days. Shit likes to spiral.
In bad times, you have only what you have on hand.


Most western countries with [regardless of gun ownership] don't have a population that's F'd in the head.
Nothing stops a German gun owner from taking his AR15 and shooting up a concert.
Storing his guns in a safe that he can open doesn't mean anything.
Paying for a new license card for every few guns doesn't alter the guns.

Gun laws, as proposed, are fluff. Nothing that makes people safer, nothing that prevents ownership, but plenty to crap on collectors.
* 10 round limit = 2 second pause to reload
* Gun show loophole is a misnomer.
* (re. above) Only private sales (gun show or not) don't require checks - but you still end up in court if the buyer does something bad.
* Assault weapons ban only bans pistol grips and threaded barrels. Cosmetics. Just google "California compliant AR15" (they already have a de-facto AWB).
* There's already laws against straw purchase.
* There's already laws against crazy people buying (already part of the background check)
* Registration is pointless as gun control. Doesn't alter the guns or who has them (background check already tells gov who, when, and where bought a gun).

(I'd sooner vote for mandatory roll cage and 6 point harness in every car. Could eliminate 90+% of car fatalities in one rule - if people cared enough.)


By the way, gun owners hate people like the Vegas shooter even more than anti-gunners hate people like him.
Precisely because assholes like that shooter make anti-gunners turn on their frustration on innocent gun owners.

The call to "do something" is the phrase that perfectly describes the sentiments that led to actions, that in turn became described by either "famous last words" or "the road to hell is paved with good intentions".





We had shit health insurance before Obama. We had shit insurance during Obama (only you're required by law to buy it, even if it's not a good value), we continue to have shit health insurance during Trump, and no matter what trump does, it will still be shit.
Problem is that the insurance company lobbyists draft the language of the law (no matter the party in charge), and it's not for our benefit.





Re. Minorities, most are living normal lives. The white eutopia that the few vocal people complain about, doesn't exist. At least I have yet to see it. Don't let a few thousand people in a nation of millions guide your thoughts about overall social norms.

I'm happy to see them protest. Frankly, I wish white people had the same solidarity that black people have. When a black gets shot by a cop, they come together. When a white is shot by a cop, other whites say "he probably deserved it". I wish the black community good luck and success.





Yes, I wish we weren't jailing more people than anywhere else on the planet, over things that harm nobody.
I wish we had the drug laws of Portugal (decriminalization)
I wish we had the legal system of Sweden (no jail before conviction).

Know how I said that most countries don't have as many people that are F'd in the head? Same applies for people in government.
None of this shit will get fixes.
Republicans are bible thumping retards that funnel money to defense contractors and campaign donors.
Democrats are buck-passing censors that funnel money to insurance companies and campaign donors.
And people just pick a team and bark at the other team, while each gets fleeced by their very own side.

-scheherazade

Two words easily dismiss your entire argument: predator drones.

Look, there are plenty of other countries with high gun ownership rates, but a few sensible regulations stop this kind of shit happening, and guess what? Those countries aren’t oppressive dictatorships, they’re modern, progressive societies.

Meanwhile, the USA, for all your talk of guns preventing dictatorship is a disgrace. You have have bigoted asshole running your country, your healthcare is barbaric (and they’re trying to make it worse), your tax system is ridiculous and your minority citizens are being criticised for daring to protest about the systemic racism they have to endure.

Gun control won’t make your country “less free”, because it’s already ranked pretty low there. But it will certainly lower the number of mass shootings.

Bob, the people you're trying to either defend or deflect attention from are fucking cunts, end of story. I understand that people are being driven to the far right (leftist violence and impingement on free speech predated Trump and the rise of the alt right, and has a lot to do as a causal factor for both), and that certainly not everyone heading to that end of spectrum are awful, but anyone preaching racial purity, resisting the white genocide etc have lost the fucking plot. There is no right side apart from condemning all illegal violence and upholding free speech.

Newt, you pontificate about how even handed you've been, but where are the hosts of videos showing antifa violence? Where are the upvotes for this video? I've been considering putting some of them up not as a mitigation for the actions of the right, but to show that polarisation and extremism is no good for anyone, but I was almost entirely sure they wouldn't sift in the slightest. Given this vid has been up for 9 hours and has 1 vote (mine), the theory seems to hold water...

Meanwhile, Arnold's tirade against nazi's is top sift of the week. Not that he was wrong of course, but anyone with five minutes and a willingness to be open minded can find endless unbiased documentation of leftist violence, something he completely omits to mention. He talks about the nazi's rotting in hell, how about Stalin's communists (which antifa models itself off...)?

Sift is leftward leaning and that's cool, I generally agree with a lot of sensible ideas that people around here are for. But it has it's own bigotry against people expressing views that aren't in lockstep with the majority view, and members certainly aren't afraid to punish people for not toeing the line.

And one of my favourite quotes as an advocate for free speech no matter how awful or confronting it might be...

"The trouble with fighting for human freedom is that one spends most of one's time defending scoundrels. For it is against scoundrels that oppressive laws are first aimed, and oppression must be stopped at the beginning if it is to be stopped at all."

H. L. Mencken

It's div-EYE-siv, not div-e-siv, you fucking inbred hick moron.

And plenty don't want to get rid of the confederate flag because it's divisive. It's because it represents slavery and oppression.

Look, if you feel this is "white washing history" (an argument so ironic it's almost some kind of amazing meta-criticism on itself), then just think of the confederate flag like the swastika.

Should we forget it? Hell no... it's an important part of history and we should see it in books and museums and movies.

That doesn't mean we want the fucking thing hanging on every street corner.

To punish and oppress is the american apartheid way. There are no black children in the eyes of police. An excuse to fear for their lives is created when the use of excessive force causes the victim to try to protect themselves from the beating which justifies the use of deadly when the victim tries to stop the beating by grabbing the cops weapon. Avoid any interaction with the police and run for your life to get away if you feel they have targeted you.

As much as I love Steve Hughes, and as much as I hate taking a comedy bit seriously, he's pretty much wrong about every single point in this video.

Oppressive health and safety? Oh please can we return to when employers could order me to endanger my life just for a paycheck.

PC? Been down this road a million times, but it's really easy for a straight white dude to talk about not being offended.

Smoking? I give zero fucks if you want to smoke, just don't do it around me. Oh, and I was in Ireland when they banned smoking in pubs. It was fucking great, and yeah, it encouraged a bunch of people to quit.

Anyway, as I said, it's a comedy bit and it's funny. Just don't go actually believing it.

this video nails it in my opinion,and i respect those who have chimed in but i notice there is a glaring omission in the discussion,and i think it should be the primary focus:

intent.

words are just symbols.
scratchings on a wall meant to convey meaning.
a meaning that can easily be misconstrued because we all inject our own subjectivity within the abstract nature of words.

it is the INTENT that drives the true meaning of the words we use.
the engine that moves that vehicle forward,with our emotions and thoughts as the fuel.

now there are some words that should never be used,as chaos mentioned,simply due to their vile nature and the history of oppression,suffering and vileness.there are some words where you simply cannot wash the stain of bloodied,vile corruption off of due to their inherent nature.

but do we avoid those words due to political correctness?
or basic,simple human decency and politeness?

this video points to very root of the problem,and that is our very nature.
political correctness seeks to demand we change our vocabulary,our very lexicon,all in the lofty goals of being more sensitive and compassionate,but it ultimately fails because it does not recognize the very nature of who we are.

a polite person has no issue discarding words from his/her lexicon in the name of politeness,but there are those who ARE vile,racist,misogynistic and grotesque...and they simply adhere to this new social norm to avoid detection,and then create NEW scratchings on the wall to convey their loathing and beligerent ignorance,now done in secret.

because it is the INTENT that is the driving force,which then lends itself to situational context to help us all understand the why's and the what-for's.

political correctness does not take this into account because it views the WORDS as being the culprit to societies woes,whereas politeness addresses this problem head-on.

basically it is this:
political correctness=you are being an asshole.
politeness=don't be an asshole.
enoch=already an asshole

too late fuckers!

intent is everything.
because you can call someone a motherfucker!
a MOTHER-FUCKER!
or a hey mothafucker!

intent my friends..intent.

@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.

Hmm... I'm not so sure PC speech can be so easily separated from politeness. I mean, isn't one of the main reasons for the promotion of PC speech to raise peoples' awareness of how our everyday use of words can demean people? That's why, for example, PC speech proponents pushed for changing the term "garbage man" to "sanitation worker." Or why they decried the use of the word "gay" being used as synonymous with "stupid."

Certainly PC speech also is concerned with how language is used to oppress others but it seems to me it is also quite concerned with creating more polite language usage.

@Diogenes

You're kind of unfairly painting it as a choice between division by "largest" or division by 7 billion complicated individual plans. What i was talking about was division by number of people that live there. That way you're not unfairly giving US citizens a "god" given right to pollute the Earth more. Maybe that's why China is gaming the system, if the system was gaming them.

Your best argument would be to say it's by size of economy and presumably you need the industry and manufacture and all the pollution that goes along with it, so US gets #1 spot. I would argue that the effect is counteracted by two things.

First, China is a less developed nation than the US. Some Chinese cities obviously pollute far, far too much but in rural areas there may not be the skills/infrastructure for higher technology energy production. America having a larger economy and being more developed is better placed to invest, update and pollute less per person.

Second, America is a modern democracy and can be held to account by its citizens, whereas China is relatively oppressive, far more likely to imprison protesters, and not strictly subject to election. You guys can do something, so do it. Or at least let a Chinese guy count as much as an American

It could also be that China doesn't give a shit, of course, and would go off on a fertility drive or something.. Or then again maybe they'd improve their mortality rates. Who knows.

I hear you, but the interpretation part is where I think the problem lies.

While you have a fairly benevolent interpretation, someone else who has trouble getting laid could read it as a god given justification to own sex slaves. That's a pretty extreme example of course, but you can imagine that there would be interpretations varying between your example and my extreme example, many of which could be used to oppress women.

When all that was needed was a simple "no gossiping in church" rule. It's a clear command, unmistakable and unexploitable for anything other that it's original intention.

So a 3rd testament would start with the words READ THIS LITERALLY :-)

Right now though - How do we know whether or not take the bible word for word? It's not even clear whether that is up to us to decide.

It's your interpretation that's made you decide not to read it literally, but instead to interpret it with the overall goal of viewing the good in the bible. And that says more about you being a good person, rather than the contents of the bible. I think you would be advocating living a compassionate lifestyle whether or not you read the bible.

That's why I'm thinking it's unnecessary to even have religion, when we can just teach ethical behavior, and ethical thinking in a very clear way, which leaves no room for error, or danger of allowing people to justify their bad behaviors.

Truth is truth....and this is not truth, or is at least intentionally misleading.
As mentioned above, the parties totally switched positions with the Republican Southern strategy. She's either ignorant, or intentionally misleading.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_strategy

What rich earn their money with "hard" work? Few if any, they more often make it by paying hard workers less than they are due, often by contract. (At least that's certainly true for many, including Trump)
Killing babies, nope. Embryos aren't babies. Babies can live outside a womb. >99.999% of abortions don't meet that requirement, and the few that do are only allowed to save the mother's life.
Oppressing business owners, nope, just stopping them from abusing their workers, customers, and environment. That only oppresses oppressors, and I'm more than fine with that considering how they act when unrestrained.
Allowing illegal immigrants in....nope, but offering far more work visas, absolutely. "Proper vetting" is meaningless, unless you agree to use the term as intended by the intelligence community, in which case democrats are totally on board...but not with a Muslim ban until Trump can figure something out, that's never....and totally unconstitutional.
Get rid of capitalism....did you see their candidate? Even Sanders didn't want that, but he was too hostile to unfettered capitalism for democrats....just duh.

Why do you see people mentioning the switch? Because you, and this woman, are trying to pretend it didn't happen....but it clearly, unequivocally, undeniably did. Take some American history and you'll learn.

Edit: what's funny is, had there been no southern strategy and swap of ideals as she and you imply, democrats would be your party, supporting all the right wing strategies you support.

You say that like those are bad things.

Taking money from the rich? Fuck yes. In case you missed it, they've been taking money from you for decades.

Killing babies? Well, most people would call it "allowing a woman to decide what happens to her body", but either way, there are too many damn people on the planet, so anything that lowers the birth rate is good.

Oppressing business owners? How exactly? Making them pay their employees a fair wage? Not allowing them to discriminate against people? Making sure they don't fuck up the environment? Zero problems with any of that.

Allowing illegal immigrants to enter? Leaving aside the fact that that is completely untrue, immigrants commit less crime, work harder and contribute to your economy. Get rid of the immigrants and watch your country fall apart in a week.

Get rid of capitalism? The fucking DEMOCRATS? Seriously, you think the democrats are socialist? You seriously need to see the rest of the world. In most other developed countries the democrats would be the right wing party.

But capitalism is ultimately on borrowed time anyway. Not in the short to medium term, but in 30-50 years, capitalism won't be sustainable. You can't have a capitalist system if the majority of the populace is unemployable (see automation, AI, etc).

Someday nuts like my friend @newtboy will wake up. Dont forget to up-vote. Truth is truth.



Just about every hate group today are Democrats. You can't state your beliefs without nearly getting smacked in the face by a Democrat. Majority of Democrats also agree with taking hard earned money from the rich and freely giving it to non hard working people. They believe in killing babies, oppressing business owners and allowing illegal immigrants to enter the country with no proper vetting. They want to get rid of capitalism and run the country poor by turning it into a purely socialist state. So why do I see other sifter video comments on this topic saying that the parties "switched" and the republicans are now the bad one's?

The whole conservative Christian Republican movement is directly opposed to the teachings of the Bible, though they claim to be the most Christian of all those here... If I were still a Christian (I used to be a far right, evangelical, speaking in tongues, going to 3 services a week, Republican is God's chosen party, Christian once upon a time, even my earliest posts, under a different name as I couldn't recover the password for that account, praised Fox news, creationism, though not young Earth creationism, and more) I'd be worried that the modern Republican party may indeed be the Anti-Christ system, since deceiving Christians would be priority one for Satan. No need to deceive the world, as they are already going to Hell, who you need to deceive are those already going to Heaven to practice a faith that claims to be Christ like, but isn't, while turning people off real Christianity, which is exactly what Right Wing Christianity does. Everything they stand for goes against he beatitudes, the commandment of love, the commandment to treat others as you'd have them treat you, how the rich (and not just that one specific rich guy) are very unlikely to get into heaven, to help the poor, to heal the sick , not to judge, and all that without exception... They ignore the fact the actual Sin of Sodom wasn't sexual perversion (though it didn't help to be fair), but being a "land of plenty while doing little to help the needy and poor" (and as a side note, while the Bible does indeed mention the sexual immorality, it also mentions how hostile Sodom was to foreigners)... and ignore Isiah 10 ("Woe to those who make unjust laws, to those who issue oppressive decrees, to deprive the poor of their rights")

As to the John Adams thing, they dismiss that as Adams being just political, because he made other statements about faith... of course his pro-faith and other Founding Father statements about pro-faith aren't just for political gain... no... statements against it though however.... Just like Mark Zuckerberg's recent pro-faith announcements have nothing to do with how he seemed to be making political moves so soon after... I'm sure it has nothing to do with the fact an atheist or even agnostic can't get elected to high offices (not saying he didn't actually find faith, he very well may have, just the timing is odd).