you're never going to convince enough people it's bad to justify a ban.

you can scream mutilation all you want but even if you're right, it's still too much of a victimless crime. Sure there are exceptions, but the general rule is that either people don't even miss the foreskin, or they don't even know what circumcision is until much later in life so they don't even know they were missing anything so it's an "out of sight, out of mind" situation.

Yes, I'm aware that there have been cases of doctors botching the procedure and there are life long complications, but that's an individual screwing up, not a problem inherent with the procedure itself.

Where's the outrage over mutilation due to body piercings? tattoos?

This is something that should be left up to the parents to choose. This is also where separation of church and state kick in.

If there was some worldwide epidemic of complications due to circumcision running rampant then that would be a different issue, but that isn't happening so.... In other words...where's the fire?

In a perfect world, I would agree that it probably shouldn't happen, there shouldn't be any stigma one way or the other about it. But we don't live in a perfect world and you can't work backwards on something like that. People have to choose. It's the same with abortion, it's the same with smoking, etc. If it's ok to choose to have an abortion, then it's ok to choose to have a circumcision done to your kid.

My 12 year old daughter begged me to buy these for her. I was reluctant at first but gave in so she'd shut up. Anyhow what a great idea! She has become very popular in school! So much so her friends show up every day after school. I swear 3 or 4 of her little guy friends appear after school asking if my daughter can come out and play! She's so popular and special and this has given her a great confidence boost!

She's is now 6 months pregnant, but on the other hand her popularity and confidence boost has made her the most popular whore in junior high! I am so proud of my little girl. For her 13th birthday she's asking for carton of marlboros, a clit piercing and a tatoo. She's such a darling white trash whore.

Thank you Sticky Nips!

Wait...does that baby have pierced ears? Am I seeing that correctly?

Let me chime into this discussion about, let's call it broadly body-modification so it can include piercings, tatoos, surgeries and so on.

My stance is quite simple: If a person, for whatever reason, wants to modify his or her own body, then they should be allowed to do so. It is their body and thus their decision and no one elses. If a person provides said service they can do so as long as they do not harm the person they provide this service to(harm is a bit fuzzy, I know).

In the case of this video, I see no reason why the woman should not be allowed to get the surgery done and why the doctor should not be allowed to perform it. Even though, I, personally, consider her chest more attractive without the added silicone.

It may surprise people to hear such a viewpoint from a guy without any piercings or tatoos (or implants), but that is just because I consider things like that childs play. Those are only aesthetical modifications and I want ones that upgrade bodily functions. If I could get legs that would allow me to jump 10m hight I would get them.

I think @NinjaInHeat's point of view is very close to mine and would agree with me, but I don't quite understand where you @bareboards2 differ, so please elaborate.

>> ^Sagemind:

So imagine if the patient neglected to remove a tongue piercing or worse yet - Nipple or genital piercings...
Nuf said!

This is exactly why they always ask you a lot of questions before they put you in one of these machines, for instance about whether you have a pacemaker, or whether you work with metal regularly. Just a tiny grain of metal dust can really wreak havoc with your body if it's logded in some critical place such as, say, your eye.

So imagine if the patient neglected to remove a tongue piercing or worse yet - Nipple or genital piercings...

Nuf said!

I call blankfist on
http://videosift.com/video/Obama-Voters-For-Ron-Paul
http://videosift.com/video/Conversation-with-the-Candidate-Ron-Paul (but this may be enoch instead)
http://videosift.com/video/Cop-threatens-to-Break-your-f-king-face-for-taking-his-pic
http://videosift.com/video/Billionaire-Complains-About-Having-To-Pay-Taxes

Arvana:
http://videosift.com/video/Pierced-man-hangs-from-hot-air-balloon
http://videosift.com/video/The-Most-Distant-Galaxies-Ever-Seen
http://videosift.com/video/Voyager-Finds-Magnetic-Bubbles-at-Solar-System-s-Edge

bareboards2:
http://videosift.com/video/Recording-a-cop-get-a-rapist-s-prison-sentence
http://videosift.com/video/Cop-Knocks-a-Handcuffed-Girl-s-Teeth-Out

bicyclerepairman:
http://videosift.com/video/How-Everything-Started

AdrianBlack:
http://videosift.com/video/Mytho-Logique

Hybrid:
http://videosift.com/video/Crane-crushes-house-when-trying-to-lift-hot-tub-over-it

transcript:

Dear Benny, hi, how are ya? Love the hat by the way.

You may not have noticed but I've been absent for awhile,
I wanted to tell you why and how I've been finding my own style.
A new way of looking at the world beyond the errors of the past.
You see I've read all of your teachings and cant see how they'll last.
Where angels feared to tread has now become the beaten track
but for every step that we took forward, the church took two steps back.

It took you four hundred years just to pardon Galileo,
while the murderer of Hypatia still enjoys his saintly halo.
It was these hypocrisies of the church, that drove me from the flock
though I still clung to the ideas and kept some belief in stock
that Jesus really loved me and god was close at hand
and the day was fast approaching when we'd find the promised land.

When people could stand together and colour wouldn't mean a thing
but i slowly began to realise, thats not the message that god brings.
He constantly plays favourites setting nations against each other
tearing apart families, pitting brother against brother.
The jew and the gentile, the muslim and infidel,
the terrorist gaining heaven while their victims go to hell.

This god isn't worth my worship or the thanks that he demands,
and things have gotten so much better now the powers in our own hands.
Life expectancy has tripled, smallpox has been made extinct.
Our eyes pierced the veil of heaven and what was hazy is now distinct.
A cacophony of symphonies all composed in mathematics,
a ballet of matter and energy performing cosmic acrobatics.

Why didn't your book tell me I was born of a supernova.
Instead demanding belief in what an ancient madman told ya.
Houses can't catch leprosy, epilepsy's not possession
and when it comes to sex what the fucks with your obsession
with what grown men and women do in the privacy of their own home.
Why do you care where they put it? You've got problems of your own.

You let suffer the little children while the paedophiles protected,
the people wanted a shepard but its a wolf that was elected.
You spread disease and misery with every denial of tested science
so people remain upon their knees out of terror and compliance
so please excuse my harshness after breaking religions spell,
and if by chance your god is real, I'll save you a seat in hell.

I am asking, and this is my main point, which you need to address, can parents make any decisions related to cosmetics? Or is it limited to what you and I use as our subjective standards? For example, can a parent have the earlobe removed because it will make the baby more beautiful/handsome to the parent? It is, after all, reasonable to point out that both are harmless cosmetic adjustments. (And why note that a parent has a right to have one cosmetic surgery but be a hypocrite and say that the same parent does not have the right to have another.)

Can a parent have a harmless lip-reduction done on a child? Or how about removing the nipples on boys? I ask because some parents do have these surgeries done... and it seems you are fine with them...because they do not leave trauma.

Also, we can speculate a bit on the extent of damage, but damage to the body does rewire the brain. You blind a man, you just don't take his sight, his brain rewires to the physical trauma...

Some studies suggest that ripping an infant's dick skin off creates aggressive tendencies later in life. Do I "have an idea of" how far that damage or violence caused might be. No. But we all DO know that physical trauma does propagate violence.

And removing some of the earlobe is not like removing all of the foreskin. All the earlobe and all the foreskin. Just because you leave actual dick skin, that doesn't equate to the foreskin...

>> ^SDGundamX:

@<a rel="nofollow" href="http://videosift.com/member/Lawdeedaw" title="member since May 3rd, 2010" class="profilelink">Lawdeedaw
Read the link I posted if you'd like to know how to get rid of your scar. It explains the procedure pretty clearly (and is apparently painless).
I understand that you don't believe ear piercing and male circumcision are equivalent. That doesn't mean they aren't equivalent, though. You just don't agree with me, just as I don't agree with you that circumcision is akin to chopping off earlobes. I'd say shaving the earlobes a little bit would be a better comparison and I suppose it is just a quirk of fate that such a cosmetic change is not considered aesthetically pleasing by any particular cultural group. So, on that point I think we're pretty much at a draw.
As to your second point, it doesn't matter that "you have no idea what happens" to the brain during a circumcision. The medical consensus is that it isn't harmful physiologically or psychologically to children. If there's no evidence, how can you legislate against it? You have no idea if eating apples causes cancer, do you? There's no medical evidence for it. Do you see my point here? Saying "you have no idea what happens" isn't a defensible argument in any way.
My primary concern is the medical consequences of the procedure. If there are none (and there don't appear to be so far--who knows what they'll find in the future) and if the process is reversible (which, if you read the link I posted apparently it is) then I don't see the need to legislate against it other than because of someone's Don Quixotic profound interest in interfering with how other people live their lives. There are far better and more serious issues to campaign for than this.

@Lawdeedaw

Read the link I posted if you'd like to know how to get rid of your scar. It explains the procedure pretty clearly (and is apparently painless).

I understand that you don't believe ear piercing and male circumcision are equivalent. That doesn't mean they aren't equivalent, though. You just don't agree with me, just as I don't agree with you that circumcision is akin to chopping off earlobes. I'd say shaving the earlobes a little bit would be a better comparison and I suppose it is just a quirk of fate that such a cosmetic change is not considered aesthetically pleasing by any particular cultural group. So, on that point I think we're pretty much at a draw.

As to your second point, it doesn't matter that "you have no idea what happens" to the brain during a circumcision. The medical consensus is that it isn't harmful physiologically or psychologically to children. If there's no evidence, how can you legislate against it? You have no idea if eating apples causes cancer, do you? There's no medical evidence for it. Do you see my point here? Saying "you have no idea what happens" isn't a defensible argument in any way.

My primary concern is the medical consequences of the procedure. If there are none (and there don't appear to be so far--who knows what they'll find in the future) and if the process is reversible (which, if you read the link I posted apparently it is) then I don't see the need to legislate against it other than because of someone's Don Quixotic profound interest in interfering with how other people live their lives. There are far better and more serious issues to campaign for than this.

I would say the parents are materialistic for doing something like piecing their child's ears, but hey, we are speaking about Americans...

However, I would not say piecing your baby's ear is equivalent to circumcision. An adequate comparison would be removing the earlobe from a baby's ear completely. After all, who needs the extra skin? And we both know Gundam, that is definitely illegal.

Secondly, you have no idea what nerves do to the brain when functioning to trauma--even when unremembered. If a baby is beaten until they are two-ish, remember nothing of the beatings and are otherwise healthy, don't you still think his/her brain will actually form based on its experiences? I do. You read to a child, his brain actually grows differently than when you would not. You chop off his dick's skin...

Lastly, you can pull out earrings. How the fuck is my scar ring supposed to be fixed? Or for that matter, what about those with really botched, fucked up shit?

>> ^SDGundamX:

Just to echo what I wrote on the Penn and Teller Sift regarding circumcision:
I feel it's a cosmetic choice. It's not a crime to pierce your kid's ears when they are born--and that's done without anesthetic. There are people who clearly have medical benefits from having it done (see nanrod's comment at the Penn and Teller video) and if it's done at a hospital anesthetic will often be used so that it's not nearly as traumatic as the pundits are making it out to be. Even if anesthetic ISN'T used, no child ever remembers the experience. If you belong to a culture that supports male circumcision and want your kid to fit into that group then by all means, have it done. It's not going to do any permanent damage to him. And if he really, really wishes you hadn't done it, it can be undone.
I agree with DerHasisttot, legislating this is just stupid. Even if it passes, it won't be seen as anything except an anti-Semitic attack and--unless some new compelling medical research appears that shows it is harmful to have the procedure done--will likely be overturned. Educate people about the truth--that for most people it's medically unnecessary and let them decide for themselves how they want to raise their kids.

@hpqp

I don't agree that the argument of aesthetics is vile. Why is it vile exactly? Feet binding is a red herring argument. Feet binding has severe medical consequences (not sure about neckrings, do you have any info on it?) and that is why it shouldn't be tolerated. The medical consensus so far is that male circumcision does no medical harm (this is not to say that some doctors think it does harm, only that the majority consensus is that it is neither harmful nor beneficial). That's why it's an aesthetic decision and actually is preventative in some cases (i.e. nanrod would have benefited from it as a baby). And that's why it belongs in the same category as ear piercing. BTW, I pierced my ears 20 years ago and I still have the holes even though I haven't worn an earring in over 15 years--it never completely heals.

@SDGundamX : I am aware of phimosis (I suggest reading the whole article), and do not oppose circumcision as a last resort in a severe case thereof, should all else fail. Justifying circumcision as a preventive measure, however, is absurd and unethical (cf. this video's comments).

The argument from aesthetics is vile and contemptible. Feet-binding and neckrings where/are performed for the same reason, should they be tolerated too? Circumcision and ear-piercing are not alike (although I disprove of doing the latter to children as well). A pierced ear will heal, a foreskin will not grow back; the functions of the foreskin (and there are several) are lost forever, whereas nothing is lost from a pierced ear (but susceptibility to infection is gained).

As for FGM, just because one act is worse than the other (and FGM certainly is worse than male circumcision, as I've stated many times before: see this video), does not mean that the lesser of the two evils is therefore justifiable. Every time someone argues in favour of male circumcision on non-consenting people, they are undermining the fight against FGM and other religion/culture-based barbarisms that use the same defensive arguments.

Just to echo what I wrote on the Penn and Teller Sift regarding circumcision:

I feel it's a cosmetic choice. It's not a crime to pierce your kid's ears when they are born--and that's done without anesthetic. There are people who clearly have medical benefits from having it done (see nanrod's comment at the Penn and Teller video) and if it's done at a hospital anesthetic will often be used so that it's not nearly as traumatic as the pundits are making it out to be. Even if anesthetic ISN'T used, no child ever remembers the experience. If you belong to a culture that supports male circumcision and want your kid to fit into that group then by all means, have it done. It's not going to do any permanent damage to him. And if he really, really wishes you hadn't done it, it can be undone.

I agree with DerHasisttot, legislating this is just stupid. Even if it passes, it won't be seen as anything except an anti-Semitic attack and--unless some new compelling medical research appears that shows it is harmful to have the procedure done--will likely be overturned. Educate people about the truth--that for most people it's medically unnecessary and let them decide for themselves how they want to raise their kids.