"The idea is that if you smoke during the flight e-cigarette you publicly display your addiction and that is not a good pedagogical example for others and so on and so on."

Or (far more likely) the airline realised that other passengers don't like people smoking around them in a confined space. You want to vape at home or outside? Knock yourself out. But kindly refrain from doing so in my cramped airspace. Otherwise, we'll test the old adage about how my right to swing my fist ends at your face.

He hasn't really presented any kind of decent argument here. Ok, the Carmen thing is stupid, but if you actually read the story behind that, it's because the Opera house was sponsored by a health company. Essentially they bowed to commercial pressure. Nothing to do with PC.

Even if WAS a "PC" decision, on what planet is that "a more dangerous form of totalitarianism"?

Someone decided they didn't want to stage an opera because there's smoking in it... oh no! Save us from opera-hitler!

Did the government step in and force them to do this? Nope, they made the decision themselves.

Liberals oppose totalitarian ideologies automatically.

Read that sentence again. As far as I'm concerned, it's axiomatic. Consequent to that principle, no liberal will ever support or apologise for islam.

What we're seeing with our 'regressive leftists' is people who've been raised in an environment, the educated middle class say, in which liberalism is associated with goodness. Since they define themselves as good, they naturally also define themselves as liberal. They know that among the intellectual set to which they aspire, any admission of social conservatism will quite properly be met with contempt.

So, even while calling for censorship, even while defending the brutal and mindless suppression of individual freedom that is inherent in islam, these reactionaries delude themselves into believing that they're liberal.

I never said to rely on Putin or RT solely. I just tried to explain that ignoring him and RT because of stupid reasons like that is not very wise, because the west isnt much better. You have to see all the sides to make a proper judgement.

A, B and C are irrelevant. Ownership is irrelevant because the western media is also "owned" by people with an agenda. But even between those different people there is a common agenda. You can see that in Germanys media right now very well. They are outright lying collectively to the people just to stay politically correct.

Reputation also is irrelevant because objectivity > reputation.

Funding is also irrelevant, as you said yourself. You can see it very well that it doesnt change much where they get their money from. The agenda matters. Also very well observable lately.

Putin first and foremost is a counterweight. He makes the western mistakes more obvious. He also has very good points when defending his own countries actions. Even the homosexual ones, if you ever listened to him on that topic. Yes, as a political leader he is of course manipulating, but he makes much more sense, actually uses facts and doesnt nearly lie as much as any politician I have ever seen.
You of course need to have and acknowledge those facts to realize that. But you made it clear that you arent. Comparing Russias imperialism with Americas shows just how much. Its pretty much clear the USA was involved in that coup detat once again. Now imagine how the USA would have reacted if Russia did that in Canada or Mexico. Or imagine how the USA would react to being completely surrounded by Russian military bases, having decades of history of destabilizing and overthrowing countries and whole regions, breaking and ignoring international law, even threatening the country where the international court sits to never dare to bring one of their before their court and then Russia claiming that the USA is the aggressor.

Actually Russia has long been very passive about the eastern expansion of NATO and they forgave that bleeding out of Russia towards the west in the 90s. Something like that happening at their doorstep actually justifies much MUCH harsher reactions, but they didnt use them. Instead they actually took another (hypocritical) slap in the face rather passively and silently with those sanctions.

Syria... I am surprised you even bring that up, because thats just stupid to use that for your argument. Syria has been a long ally of Russia and they asked for help after the US and NATO started bombing their infrastructure instead of ISIS. The war in Syria is even more obviously an externally funded war, not a civil war, while in the Ukraine you can actually see parts of a civil war, it started like that, because those people didnt want the new government. Also again mostly due to America and their support of other totalitarian regimes in that region.
You should read this:
https://consortiumnews.com/2015/05/31/holes-in-the-neocons-syrian-story/

It's really not correct to say we're all human and we have a responsibility to care for one another and so forth when so many of the refugees are dangerous, mediaeval fanatics.

It's not that they're predominantly brownish-skinned; it's not that they're poor or uneducated; it's not that they come from some other country, as if geography means anything; it's that they're devout and practising members of a cult of murderous, totalitarian evil. Europe has enough fascists already, we don't want any more.

The compassionate, humanitarian thing to do would be machine gun all the muslims at the border, and welcome the rest of the refugees with open arms. Migration is a human right; some people just aren't human.

"defend against evil".
Should make you wary instantly.

And I laughed hard when I saw that they have 54,000 and 50,000 in Japan and Germany, where almost no threat exists, and only have 28,000 in South Korea where a real threat exists.

Sorry, but intelligent people dont buy this crap anymore. Its not the USA keeping the world safe, its cooperation. But if you stir up shit in the East, like right now and for the last few decades, there will be war. You cant expect people to stay peaceful when you invade their countries, install totalitarian regimes everywhere, finance and organize coup d'etats, sanction countries so only the people suffer and kill civilians everywhere with drones and cruise missiles. Its an audacious self-fulfilling prophecy, bullying tactics. You stir up shit and then when they get angry and attack you and those who support you, you point at them and say "told you so, you need our protection". And then furthermore have the audacity to blame other countries that do similar stuff in a MUCH smaller scale and mostly only due to the stuff you incited. Seriously... WTF? How stupid must you be to believe such bullshit of "world protection"???

"Although some intolerance, bigotry, and lust for persecution is still left in religious matters, it is unlikely that religious passion will kindle wars in the near future. The aggressive spirit of our age stems from another source, from endeavors to make the state totalitarian and to deprive the individual of autonomy."
- Ludwig von Mises
(Theory and History, p. 64)

Those draconian bastards, the damn government, keeping me from my business of selling endangered tiger gall bladders. Regulations are all evil, they must be, Little Kim and Hitler used regulations, so...evil. We must be free to do whatever we want because we all know that any regulations are the same thing as draconian totalitarian dictatorship.

@newtboy
thats why i love you brother!
it is your optimism that i absolutely adore,sincerely.

notice my wording:ideology vs reality.

in the first part of my argument i actually agree with you,though we may use different terms.

i think we may be crossing lines due to verbiage.
when i say "power" i am referring to what is my opinion,a plutocracy,so my argument flows from that perspective.

sheldon wolin makes an excellent example but uses the term "inverted totalitarianism" in his book "democracy incorporated".

you are making an ideological argument that is based on rights SHOULD be protected..in theory,but i do not see play out in reality.if you look at the history of how rights have been obtained over the past 100 years alone you will see that not ONE was ever just offered by our government.each and every one has been hard fought (and died) for.

now moving on to your texas reference,well...i totally agree with you but that is revisionism not indoctrination,at least in the manner in which i am referencing that term.

when i say this video makes a case for indoctrination i say so with my subjective AND objective understandings.
subjectively:i believe that the onus is on the very person,institution or government to prove they have a right to said authority.
objectively:this video...although extremely over-simplified..makes its case that there is a concerted effort to get very young children to tacitly submit to a centralized authority.

now when we consider what education actually IS,and this is not the thread to truly dissect such a complicated and multi-faceted subject but suffice to say,as succinct as i can:
education is the teaching of abilities,to consume data and information in order to come to informed and well-thought out conclusions,to better understand our:world,society and the reality we reside.

to be taught the skills the dissect and disseminate complex problems and the ability to formulate questions which can push boundaries and challenge pre-conceived ideologies.

so with that definition in mind.
how can we be expected to view this than anything other than a ploy to get that young mind to tacitly submit to a central authority?

and this is for 2nd graders? these kids are 8 yrs old!

education should be giving kids the tools to challenge and question not blindly submit.we might as well call the government jesus the way this thing is being taught.

so if you look at a religious family and find how they "indoctrinate" their young children into the ways of the church,then you should have the exact same problem with this tactic.

because the tactics being used are identical.

His last point, the one they dubbed soft authoritarianism, was outlined rather nicely as inverted totalitarianism by Sheldon Wolin.

Is this an example of what the US is filling it's kids heads with for "education"? This reads like a deprogramming guide for totalitarian governments.

God bless Israel, one little sandbox where people live free, pursue their dreams, value education and family, and totally kick totalitarian ass.

Yeah well, lol back-Take a country like saaaaay, North Korea-One generation deprogrammed would cure the ills of yet another born onto abject totalitarian spin but how to accomplish it without the world whining? There is no 'achieving' when the sanest solution to a problem does not jibe with a more convoluted model which works only for a small percentage of assholes who also happen to run world economies and flotillas of carriers and subs.

People? To those in command at the top of the homo-sapien food chain they represent so much disposable meat.

If you're still interested in emerging details of the NSA/GCHQ story, keep reading. If not, feel free to delete the comment.

As you might have heard, a parliamentary investigative committee was set up in Germany to shed some light on at least some of the claims made by the press. They don't want to pay too close attention to it, given that our own intelligence services are just as bad, but that's another discussion.

Today, two expert witnesses were supposed to testify, William Binney and Thomas Drake, Everything was to be broadcast, as is custom, but they decided not to broadcast it after all. Given that recent interviews with both Binney and Drake indicated that they were planning to reveal quite a lot about shady cooperation between NSA/GCHQ and our own services, a set of rather embarassing details might have emerged. What a coincidence... [see footnotes]

Additionally, one of our public broadcasters, in cooperation with Jacob Appelbaum, revealed a piece of source code from a selector of XKeyscore. Hardcoded within, for some reason, we find the IPs of all servers running a TOR directory authority, once of them owned and maintained by a German student. So now we have the names of two German citizens under surveillance, and it'll be significantly harder for our Attorney General to find ways not to open up an invenstigation into espionage.

Also part of the revealed code was a confirmation that using TOR gets you labeled as an "extremist" and your ass is now amongst those whose activities will be monitored, constantly. A Google search for it is enough to land on their shit list, same for Tails.

That's the day so far, and it's not even 1pm.

Edit #1: Binney and Drake are considered witnesses, their statements are exempt from broadcast/streaming. Opposition forced a vote on it, government prevailed, no stream available.

Edit #2: I'll provide a summary of the juicy bits once they are done.

Edit #3: Members of the US Congress present, curious to see some (yet unmentioned) names.

Edit #4: Well, 0:20 and they're finally done for the day. Here's a summary of today's session, though the source can sometimes be a bit of a mouthpiece for the government.

You have just proved your totalitarian character (aside from your totalitarian title) and then tell me you wish you were wrong?
lol.. The audacity... Very funny. Please... You bathe in self-righteousness and arrogance. I know you love yourself more than anything, but there are people who dont fall for your bullshit, because they are smarter than you (think).

But please, continue to make a fool out of yourself, you dont seem to have an issue with it either, since you dont grasp what I said.

Who wouldnt?
Only totalitarian hypocrites.