Tags for this video have been changed from 'hunter, scavenger, cobra, snake, bee, animals, jackal, larva, ew, dont care' to 'honey badger, hunter, scavenger, cobra, bee, animals, jackal, larva, dont care' - edited by jonny

Tags for this video have been changed from 'hunter, scavenger, cobra, snake, bee, animals, jackal, larva, ew' to 'hunter, scavenger, cobra, snake, bee, animals, jackal, larva, ew, dont care' - edited by ponceleon

>> ^Winstonfield_Pennypacker:

What I intended to do in my rather strident initial comment was to smack some sense into folks who seemed to be [engaged in] a loathsome intellectual scavenging of misery. It could not go unchallenged.

To be honest, I have the same motivation behind about 80% of my comments. It the "someone on the Internet is WRONG" syndrome.

>> ^Winstonfield_Pennypacker:
Are there people out there who are using violent and apocalyptic rhetoric? Not as many as are typically implied. I cannot name a SINGLE person who I would hold up as “the example” of a person that routinely uses ‘violent and apocalyptic rhetoric’. When such rhetoric exists it is typically very isolated.

Let me give two examples of something I found both pervasive, and an incitement to violence.

The first one is Sarah Palin's invention of the "death panel":

The America I know and love is not one in which my parents or my baby with Down Syndrome will have to stand in front of Obama’s “death panel” so his bureaucrats can decide, based on a subjective judgment of their “level of productivity in society,” whether they are worthy of health care.

That was never something even remotely part of the Affordable Care Act, but you had it repeated and defended almost to a man by conservatives. Even the normally anti-talking point libertarians we have around here felt compelled to occasionally add "perhaps that's the basis for the 'death panels' the Republicans keep talking about..." to their criticisms of the ACA.

If you think that what liberals are trying to do is, as Senator Chuck Grassley put it, "pull the plug on Grandma", then it justifies trying to stop it by all means necessary. If talking about it doesn't work, intimidation, harassment, vandalism, and ultimately armed rebellion is okay, because it's all self defense against an unconscionable act of nihilistic genocide.

The second one is the talk about revolution and secession. The most famous are Sharron Angle's "Second Amendment remedies", Michele Bachmann's "armed and dangerous" about Cap & Trade, and Gov. Rick Perry winds up on TV a lot for talking about secession.

I'd also say that when I compare left vs. right on this topic, it's not so much about the quantity, but the quality and authority. The right-wing elected officials and candidates were talking about armed rebellion if they lose the election, while left-wing ones never did. Glenn Beck is making the case, night after night, that Obama and liberals aren't metaphorically taking us down the path of fascism and genocide, but literally doing so. That's qualitatively different from the average boisterous protester drawing a Hitler mustache on Obama or Bush's face, or some nobody like me calling him that in a comment.



>> ^Winstonfield_Pennypacker:
I'd just be a bit happier if they'd return the favor, and admit that liberal philosophy has a legitimate place in American politics, rather than talking about it like it's a cancer that must be completely eliminated.
Conservatives feel the exact same way. It’d be nice if liberals treated conservatives like human beings instead of vermin to be eradicated. Classic example: like how liberal pundits & politicians treat the Tea Party.

Okay, again, I think there's a big difference. The criticism of the Tea Party from the left has mostly been to call them:

• Racist
  
• Angry
  
• Incoherent/Stupid
  
• Believe a revisionist version of history
  
• Believe in a revisionist version of the Constitution
  
• Quick to resort to intimidation or violence
  
• Run by corporations
  

That's a pretty negative set of attributes. Well earned too, IMO.

Thing is, we don't really want them gone, we want them to snap out of it. We want to demonstrate to them the value of what we believe, and we want to show that the things we want and what they want aren't really so different when you come down to it.

Their criticism of us is:

• Elitist
  
• Incoherent/Stupid
  
• Weak (on terror/drugs/Ruskies/welfare parasites, etc.)
  
• Lazy
  
• Naive
  
• Run by special interests (mostly Unions and enviro-terrorists)
  
• Propagandist (we supposedly control all media, remember?)
  
• Unpatriotic
  
• Un-American
  
• Baby-killing
  
• Grandma-killing
  
• Job-killing
  
• Troop-hating
  
• Gay-loving
  
• Flag-burning
  
• God-hating
  
• Socialist
  
• Communist
  
• Fascist
  

I don't get the same sense of desire for outreach/reformation of liberals. I also don't get the sense of compatibility from them. They're not okay with a government that's part-conservative and part-liberal in inspiration. It's an all-or-nothing game to them.

I think that's less true in the broader right-wing movement, but the Tea Party-style of argument is in ascendance over there, and it seems like hardly anyone on the right thinks they should be trying to cool down that eliminationist streak.

>> ^Winstonfield_Pennypacker:
But most of the time the reality is that the guy we want to believe is such a jerk is nowhere near as bad as we imagine in our head.

I agree.

>> ^Winstonfield_Pennypacker:
So when some politician says, “Hey – Limbaugh (or whoever) is poisoning our national discourse with their violent rhetoric”, all too many people are ready to lap up the demagoguery. Politicians who do so are manipulating us for votes. Pundits who do so are manipulating you for ratings.
Don’t be a dupe. We live in a free country, where speech – even speech you don’t like – is protected.

I agree with where you start here, but not where you end. Throughout, I am talking about condemnation, not criminalization.

I can condemn anything I want because I have free speech. I also think that there's a lot of validity to the idea that our national discourse has been poisoned with over the top rhetoric.

I think the kind of political junkies who come and get in my face here are kindred spirits, but I get so very, very tired of trying to break through the vitriol, and I mostly just write off responding to the people who seem to only speak to provoke.

To be frank, you have been a pretty borderline case in my book. You come across to me as someone who's commentary often only serves to raise the amount of heat and useless vitriol in conversations. I know I can dish it out myself, but I tend to dial it way back if I sense someone wants a real conversation.

I'm glad to see you do that at least a bit here.

Like you said, don't be a dupe -- don't be one of these people who carries nothing but a burning hatred of people who disagree with you, especially if you like to hang out in a place you think is 90% people who disagree with you.

Suppose I'd been a bit more clear that I was raising it as a topic to discuss, rather than stating it as fact (I thought I had, but re-reading it I realize it didn't come off that way).

Acknowledged. What I intended to do in my rather strident initial comment was to smack some sense into folks who seemed to be taking pleasure in pointing fingers at conservative rhetoric as culpable for an obviously unrelated tragedy. To me, such behavior is a loathsome intellectual scavenging of misery. It could not go unchallenged.

It's only false if you think that there's zero possibility that anyone who's out there using violent and apocalyptic rhetoric wants people to act on it.

Are there people out there who are using violent and apocalyptic rhetoric? Not as many as are typically implied. I cannot name a SINGLE person who I would hold up as “the example” of a person that routinely uses ‘violent and apocalyptic rhetoric’. When such rhetoric exists it is typically very isolated.

Isn't that the natural consequence for liberals in what you are saying? That in the face of our concerns that violence is being incited towards us, that anyone who says we're concerned should shut up or be forced to shut down, while the violent rhetoric itself gets a pass?

Not to put too fine a point on it – but exactly what are you talking about? What conservative is regularly saying, “Go out and wax a liberal today”? What liberal is regularly saying, “Beat up conservatives for fun”? I think the accusation of inciting violence is being used WAY too glibly, when in reality such language is greatly exaggerated.

I'd just be a bit happier if they'd return the favor, and admit that liberal philosophy has a legitimate place in American politics, rather than talking about it like it's a cancer that must be completely eliminated.

Conservatives feel the exact same way. It’d be nice if liberals treated conservatives like human beings instead of vermin to be eradicated. Classic example: like how liberal pundits & politicians treat the Tea Party.

So let us not mince words and now take a serious look at the favorite targets when this issue comes up. Is there really any difference in what Limbaugh, Hannity, and Beck say (and how they say it) compared to Olbermann, Maddow, & Kurtz?

Both sides have staked out ideological positions, and entertain their respective audiences by chewing out their opposition. Fundamentally I see no difference between ‘left wing’ and ‘right wing’ pundits and their rhetoric. Neither of them are calling for violence, but they do treat opposing ideas disrespectfully and sarcastically and in doing so occasionally say something distasteful which opponents gleefully swoop on.

When we respect something, and some guy comes along and disrespects it – it is natural to believe that guy is being ‘hateful’. We WANT to believe they are hateful. In our head we believe that EVERYTHING that person says is hateful, and that the guy is ‘poisoning discourse’ and ‘inspiring anger & violence’ because they’re ‘lying’.

But most of the time the reality is that the guy we want to believe is such a jerk is nowhere near as bad as we imagine in our head. Anger at the message has magnified the rhetoric in our heads. We don’t want to believe that most of the time they (gasp!) actually have valid points put in terms we just dislike.

So when some politician says, “Hey – Limbaugh (or whoever) is poisoning our national discourse with their violent rhetoric”, all too many people are ready to lap up the demagoguery. Politicians who do so are manipulating us for votes. Pundits who do so are manipulating you for ratings.

Don’t be a dupe. We live in a free country, where speech – even speech you don’t like – is protected. ANYONE who comes along and even tentatively HINTS that “we should shut that guy down because he’s bad…” should be run out of town on a rail.

I don’t condone hate speech, but I strongly disagree with regulating the speech of others in the name of “improving civility”. To me that is unconstitutional and un-American. Anyone who thinks it is a good idea is a fool and desperately needs a civics lesson.

By this logic, love of god is equal to scavenging, deserting, betraying, divorcing and kidnapping.

And flossing.

Seriously though, when was the last time you were asked to put in 101%? I mean, they always ask for at least 110%! Which incidentally can be achieved by bludgeoning, trampling, partying, snuggling or vegetating...

idiots. those individual ice cream bars are separated into wire bins inside that cooler. pull and pour, noobs. not scour and scavenge.

Download Adam Carolla's podcast of him interviewing James Nguyen here (though you'll notice by the URL they thought his name was John Nguyen): http://www.adamcarolla.com/ACPBlog/2010/04/11/adam-and-john-nguyen

If there are just three uncomfortable words I take away from that interview (which is unfortunately wrought with language and culture confusion), they are: vultures are scavengers.

Internet scavenger hunt (and prizes in the form of starpoints).

Agreed this is beautiful. And especially on the creepy side after just watching the whale fall video, the musicians remind me of scavengers picking at a corpse.

I'd rather see it *promoted instead of scavenged by someone else.

http://www.videosift.com/video/Ron-Paul-s-Auto-Bailout-Speech-12-10-08-1 done.

In reply to this comment by radx:
While you're scavenging, you could also dig up Dr. Paul again, mate.

While you're scavenging, you could also dig up Dr. Paul again, mate.

^ yeah, because the conditions necessary for fossilization to occur are extremely common.

What are the conditions necessary for a fossil to form? I suddenly forgot about such typical event.

I remember some of them, like: low levels of bacteria, absence of scavengers, perfect temperature, soil, PH levels, weather, anaerobic conditions, the chances for mineralization to occur,etc, etc, etc.

Very typical.

Bah! many storks are scavengers or feed on small vertebrates. They are more likely to eat a baby than to deliver one.
...but despite this, I found the video really cute. Stupid Pixar. They're the same jerks who made me enjoy a movie about Nascar!

Interestingly, they only attack the weak, dying, wounded and dead. They are little scavenging bastards.

http://www.videosift.com/video/Take-a-Bath-with-Piranha