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@shang
@bobknight33

How do you propose they stop masses of people, the vast majority of which are clearly economic, social or political refugees from crossing? Build a fence like Trump says?

I would have thought living in the US with experience of Mexican undocumented migrants you'd have figured out that never works.

The reality is Europe, moreso than the US (because Mexico is relatively far more stable than the Middle East) will end up with refugees whether they like it or not.

The only question is whether you (1) manage than transition and benefit from the surge of young workers by training them to supplement the declining workforce and support the pensions of the bulging aged population to come or (2) some kind of loony comes to power and decides to stage endless raids for illegals turning Europe into some kind of authoritarian police state where every night you wonder if someone will mis-report you for harboring illegals and you'll be in store for a 3am SWAT raid.

If your answer to that is "no they're illegal", "I ain't paying for no training or educashionnnnn" then you sir, are unable to face reality and make the best choice of an imperfect situation.

I was thinking the same thing. Can you imagine the adrenaline surge the officer had? Hearing that train and pulling at that door and the guy, who isn't helping much, and thinking---whoa, I gotta get us clear so we don't get dragged and killed when the car gets knocked around.

Dunno? Surging testosterone levels overwhelmed the trimmer's sheet clutch?

The one thing that I don't like about the One Ring explanation:

It turns you invisible, unless you are the one person for whom it was actually designed (Sauron).

To me, it seems like the rings of power and especially the one ring should grant a more consistent actual power than that. The three elven rings made by Celebrimbor outside the influence of the one are much better examples.

Narya is the "ring of fire", and in the timeline of LoTR it is held by Gandalf. Which makes sense, because he does a lot of fire-related stuff with his magic. Nenya is the "ring of water" held by Galadriel, and Vilya the "ring of air" held by Elrond. These are used less consistently in the books (or movies), but one movie example is the flood that helped save Frodo and get him to Rivendell. In the movie, the flood is shown as being made of water with horse shapes surging through it, which suggest the magical influence of both Nenya and Vilya (water and air) working together. Anyway, those 3 rings have a consistent and fairly well established list of powers associated with their "elemental" attachments, fire, water, and air.

But the one ring lacks that consistency. It is supposed to help Sauron with his urge to dominate, but it doesn't really explain how that works. It doesn't make him invisible; only others who wear it. Also, it helps him to control or at least influence the wearers of the other rings. That is probably the best, most established power of the one ring, but it is also a bit shaky because wearers other than Sauron don't get those abilities. It seems to make other wearers just more susceptible to corruption, greed, and lust for power.

To me, I think it would be more interesting if the one ring actually granted a more specific power, unique to the psychological state of the wearer. The consistently presented thing about the one ring is that it corrupts, and nothing corrupts more than power. So basically, I think that the one ring should be analyzing whoever wears it, and granting them a unique power that is specifically designed to provide them with their greatest source of temptation to abuse that power.

The invisibility power actually makes a lot of sense for hobbits. As presented in the video here, they generally aren't very ambitious. BUT, hobbits are established as being stealthy beings by default, so granting them invisibility is a good source of temptation to turn that stealthiness into more nefarious purpose. So, I don't mind that the three main hobbit (or hobbit-like) wearers (Gollum/Smeagol, Bilbo, Frodo) all consistently get the invisibility power out of the ring.

Human wearers like Isildur would have less consistent powers granted by the rings, because they have more diverse motivations than hobbits. Just as an example, I'd think that Isildur would be motivated by martial prowess and leadership after watching his father killed by Sauron and the human/elven armies decimated at the end of the second age. So, the ring could perceive that about him and grant him physical power and charisma to lead -- both of which would be very easily turned to corruption. Invisibility just doesn't logically provide the same level of temptation for someone like Isildur.

Finally we come to Sauron himself. He is already an exception to the "ring grants invisibility" concept. But for him, the ring should (and arguably does) represent power and control. Sauron had to put on a false face and play the role of deceiver to get Celebrimbor and the other elves to accept him and create the other rings. Having to stoop to that rather than simply crushing them made him despise that sort of approach; after creating the one ring he cast that aside and became all about sheer power and domination, rather than trickery and deception. So, I see the ring's powers granted to Sauron himself as being sort of a conversion of those cunning/deceptive abilities into might, self preservation, and overwhelming mental dominance that allows him to control his orc armies.


Sorry for the length of that -- I have just always felt that the established powers of the one ring would be a bit more interesting if they led to corruption through real power granted to the wearers, rather than "it makes them invisible, but not Sauron, and in general corrupts them, just because".

In the current situation, "structural reforms" is used to subsume two entirely different sets of measures.

The first is meant to remove what you previously mentioned: corruption in all the shapes and forms it takes in Greece, from a (intentionally) broken tax system formed over decades of nepotism to a bankrupt national media in the hands of oligarchs. The institutions of the Greek state are precisely what you expect when a country has been run by four families (Papandreou, Samaras, Mitsotakis, Karamanlis) for basically five decades.

This kind of structural reform is part of Syriza's program. Like you said, it'll be hard work and they might very well fail. They'll have only weeks, maybe a few months to undo significant parts of what has grown over half a century. It's not fair, but that's what it is.

The second kind of "structural reform" is meant to increase competitiveness, generally speaking, and a reduction of the public sector. In case of Greece, this included the slashing of wages, pensions, benefits, public employment. The economic and social results are part of just about every article these days, so I won't mention them again. A Great Depression, as predicted.

That's the sort of "structural reforms" Syriza wants to undo. And it's the sort that is expected of Spain, Italy and France as well, which, if done, would probably throw the entire continent into a Great Depression.

I'd go so far as to call any demand to increase competitiveness to German levels madness. Germany gained its competitiveness by 15 years of beggar-thy-neighbour economics, undercutting the agreed upon target of ~2% inflation (read: 2% growth of unit labour costs) the entire time. France played by the rules, was on target the entire time, and is now expected to suffer for it. Only Greece was significantly above target, and are now slightly below target. That's only halfway, yet already more than any democratic country can take.

They could have spread the adjustment out over 20 years, with Germany running above average ULC growth, but decided to throw Greece (and to a lesser degree Spain) off a cliff instead.


So where are we now? Debt rose, GDP crashed, debt as percentage of GDP skyrocketed. That's a fail. Social situation is miserable, health care system basically collapsed, reducing Greece to North African standards. That's a fail.

Those are not reforms to allow Greece to function independently. Those are reforms to throw the Greek population into misery, with ever increasing likeliness of radical solutions (eg Golden Dawn, who are eagerly hoping for a failure of Syriza).

So yes, almost every nation in Europe needs reforms of one sort or another. But using austerity as a rod to beat discipline into supposedly sovereign nations is just about the shortest way imaginable to blow up the Eurozone. Inflicting this amount of pain on people against their will does not work in democratic countries, and the rise of Syriza, Podemos, Sinn Féin, the SNP and the Greens as well as the surge of popularity for Front National and Golden Dawn are clear indicators that the current form of politics cannot be sustained.

Force austerity on France and Le Pen wins the election.

Meaningful reforms that are to increase Europe's "prosperity" would have the support of the people. And reforms are definatly needed, given that the Eurozone is in its fifth year of stagnation, with many countries suffering from both a recession and deflation. A European Union without increasing prosperity for the masses will not last long, I'm sure of it. And a European Union that intentionally causes Great Depressions wouldn't be worth having anyway.

Yet after everything is said and done, I believe you are still absolutely correct in saying that the pro-austerity states won't blink.

Which is what makes it interesting, really. Greece might be able to take a default. They run a primary surplus and most (90%+) of the funds went to foreign banks, the ECB and the IMF anyway, or were used to stabilize the banking system. The people got bugger all. But the Greek banking system would collapse without access to the European system.

Which raises the question: would the pro-austerity states risk a collapse of the Greek banking system and everything it entails? Spanish banks would follow in a heartbeat.

As for the morality of it (they elected those governments, they deserved it): I don't believe in collective punishment, especially not the kind that cripples an entire generation, which is what years of 50+% youth unemployment and a failing educational system does.

My own country, Germany, in particular gets no sympathy from me in this case. Parts of our system were intentionally reformed to channel funds into the market, knowing full well that there was nowhere near enough demand for credit to soak up the surplus savings, nowhere near enough reliable debtors to generate a reasonable return of investment without generating bubbles, be it real estate or financial. They were looking for debtors, and if all it took was turning a blind eye to the painfully obvious longterm problems it would create in Southern Europe, they were more than eager to play along.

Adrenaline has a very strong impact on memory storage. If you have it surging through your veins during memory creation, those memories become extremely easy to access, and far clearer than otherwise mundane events in your life. This is part of the reason that war vets have such a hard time with PTSD and flashbacks.

I dont doubt this guys words...he would have had to have gone over this story a hundred times to his superiors and with the grand jury case, of course it is rehearsed...what do you want? To hear him speaking to someone directly after the incident?

Just asking.

Why do you think it too so long ? Government bureaucracy? ineptness? No one really cares how long you wait? Surge of ill people causing temporary under staffing?

Why did Australia service you so quickly?

Tags for this video have been changed from '236com, surge, iraq, mccain, gwot, terror' to '236com, surge, iraq, mccain, gywo, terror' - edited by xxovercastxx

Holy moly! It will be interesting to see if this surge of estrogen results in less.... muscular defense reactions.

I grew up hearing that if women were in charge, it wouldn't be such a violent world.

We may have a test case going!

edit: I posted this on facebook where all my progressive feminist friends can see it -- I can't wait to read their comments!

What a complete and utter moron. Good detective work is more effective than starting wars and creating more hatred, giving terrorists more support around the world. Ya know how many people in Yemen hated us before we started to Drone the shit out of their tiny villages? Can you guess how easy it was to kill just a few dozen people and turn our allies and in rabid American Hating psychos?

Bush and Obama have hurt us around the world (and Obama got a fucking Nobel Fucking Prize). There's going to be more and more hate, more and more attacks on us and our children because of them. Because we supported them and we didn't wake up.

I don't care what people thought or were told to believe on Sept. 12th. I care what they do, and what we did was barely anything good. We started stupid wars, we threatened we cracked down.

We even commissioned a study on how to prevent future 9/11s and what did we do with the information? FUCK ALL. You can get a nuclear device from an increasingly destabilization Pakistan, which is Obamas fault with him surging the war to shit in Afghanistan. Get your Nuclear device, wrap it in a bale of fucking Marijuana, and put it in a fucking shipping container to the USofA. It'll get here, not be inspected, be taken to a fucking hotel room in lower Manhattan, assembled by a scientist who's fucking child was blown up by a fucking drone, and detonated.

We don't care, we don't THINK, we just keep going. They're not protecting us, they're not even trying. It's up to us to remove THEM so we can get in people who represent US.

@enoch, I feel I need to step in and clear out some of the crazy here. Instead of attacking any argument I've made above, notice how "Jigga" is still only attacking me personally. Then he even attacked Alan Moore instead of his political argument.

Jigga's excuse is because I compared myself to Thoreau over this comment. Go read it, please: http://videosift.com/talk/Gov-t-stopped-funding-charity-private-donations-surge-500#comment-1185054

Am I really "comparing" myself to Thoreau? Or comparing a common political position of anarchism? I just like how Thoreau explained it. Better than I ever could.

@JiggaJonson, I think you're angry at me because I wasn't interested in the Muppet Baby idea you pitched to me. No need to leave weird profile messages trying to provoke me into an argument. Not everyone is meant to work together creatively. I have no hard feelings toward you. Let's all just move on and forgive. Cool?

@enoch

Well, note that the "governs best, governs least" quote IS Thoreau speaking, and although I think it's nonsense (I don't personally want to live completely outside any social structure, I don't think it's practical to separate myself from all of the advancements of society), I DO still think that Thoreau was a brave and noble person for believing in something and seeing that belief come to fruition. That's freedom.

But, when you're constantly putting down a system that you seem to wholeheartedly disagree with, but still support, that's hypocrisy, again, acc to me.

I brought up the issue of taxes because that's what Thoreau did. It's not terribly complicated. He felt that the system of government he was a part of was corrupt and restrictive, so he chose to not participate in it by not paying his taxes. He was jailed because of it, and when his friend Ralph Waldo Emerson bailed him out of jail he was upset. He WANTED to remain in jail because he didn't want to contribute to the social system he disagreed with so.

So when blankfist compared himself to Thoreau: http://videosift.com/talk/Gov-t-stopped-funding-charity-private-donations-surge-500#comment-1185054

I felt, and am reminded every time I see this type of propaganda, that there are a few ways of looking at this american libertarianism and those who follow it:

1) They don't believe in the government, but still support it through taxes.
2) They don't actually believe in the principles outlined in their own philosophy, and that's why they support what they affirm is a corrupt, freedom crushing, system, and that explains their support of it.
3) They believe in their ideas, but want to change things through the current system of government, which seems like a bit of a weird Catch 22.
or
4) They just want to have a theoretical discussion.

I've asked and asked, but he maintains that he's a freedom fighter who supports the government that he hates (through the payment of taxes, etc.)

There are other options I've probably considered along the way that aren't mentioned here, but I really put more thought into this than trying to tear blankfist down. It's genuinely confusing to me for someone to seemingly believe something so strongly and not act on those feelings.

Let me give you an example of what I mean. My first teaching job was in a very rural part of the US. Word got out quickly to the principal that I didn't say the pledge of allegiance in the morning (I have a variety of reasons for this, but the main one is that I am an atheist and don't agree with the phrase "under god"). I was brought into the principal's office after his stooge assistant "stopped by" my room several days in a row before and after the announcements. He wanted to know why I wasn't saying it and the conversation was respectful but went something like:

"Well, I choose not to, and I make sure everyone, including myself, is respectful during that time of the day, but I make it clear to the students that they don't have to as well."
"But don't you think you're setting a bad example for the students?"
"Well, no...? (at this point I knew they basically wanted me to just fall in)"

Long story short, at the end of the year, my job no longer existed. They moved the journalism teacher to another building and my position went from Eng teacher to Eng/Journalism teacher (I don't have a journalism license). Since I didn't have a license for that, I couldn't stay. :-/

It was hard to deal with, impossible to prove, but I'm better off 7 years into my career not being surrounded by those people anyway. They REALLY wanted me to just say the pledge, but it wasn't in my job description that I had to say the pledge every morning, and today, I'm happy to be in an inner city school with a more diverse and understanding population where I don't have to.

That's one BIG example from my life, and I'm no Thoreau, but neither is Blankfist. Now if he would just admit it.

@blankfist
No. I'm interested specifically in people who regularly spread libertarian propaganda, since it's a philosophy I disagree with.

More specifically, I am interested in YOU because of the comments you made about yourself here: http://videosift.com/talk/Gov-t-stopped-funding-charity-private-donations-surge-500#comment-1185054

I admire Thoreau for what he did. I would feel the same way for you if you took up the cause you seem to believe in. Now, will you answer my questions? I'm trying to decide if I have another hypocrite to add to the list of libertarians that annoy me with the philosophy they're unwilling to act on.

.. it felt like watching a live-action cartoon in the very best way. Ron Perlman's character design and the loving shots of his shoes are straight out of a Madhouse anime (Animatrix, REDLINE).

I might potentially go back to see this one a second time. I hope it has a surge at the box-office..