@shveddy, I agree that gradual adoption is really the only way this works.

I wonder which would make more sense: high density urban areas with lots of traffic and lots of expense in redoing the roads or some comparatively empty highways where there would be less traffic disruption?

I agree. This isn't so much a social experiment as it is a study in urban camouflage. Some good military applications here...

You're not wrong. I'm actually glad I live in Nebraska, it's right wing obviously, but it's not total nutbag like the south. The Republicans in Nebraska did lose their shit in 2008 when the Omaha district voted for Obama and they tried to go back to winner take all. But I think cooler heads prevailed as if trends continue, urban populations will outstrip the rural areas and more traditionally red States start turning blue. At least in a split vote system, even if the state goes blue, the right still retains a minority voice instead of no voice. I had been following wolf pac but hearing about this makes me want to be a member now

Why ask why? To see eif the urban legend is true.

*british

You're missing the forest for your own trees concerning these government agencies and how they are used by special interests, people-Lands declared federally-owned then 'managed' in this country have been historically for public use. According to the Sierra Club: "Public lands are used in the production of oil, gas, coal, hardrock minerals, timber, and livestock in addition to being used for roads, power and gas lines, and communication facilities just to mention a few. Likewise, the Public lands are an environmental treasure house for recreation and wildlife and scenic wonder from desert to seacoast, mountain top to prairie, grassland to forest -- a shared heritage for now and the future."

Most generational ranchers don't fuck-up the land, they don't abuse it , it's their goddamn livelihood. They know it's vibe way better than the feds and their little friends....

Bundy was paying to, and had a preexisting deal with Clark County and his damn family had been cattlemen on these lands for a few generations, living in harmony with the goddamn turtles, and not trashing the place like newtbox (god you think you know what the fuckit is you know nothing about except what the TV tells you) here and others use in defense of the encroaching and over-reaching bureaucracy whose ONLY goal is to save their own interests in the rights of this land for their nefarious personal good-ol' boy club purposes.

Urbanization and ominous government with peeps with votes never getting involved in righteous decisions during the process of being ASS-RAPED from behind tomes legislation with special interest laws piggy-backed within legislation has ALWAYS been the method of politicians, licking the asses of the money-men.

If people would get an ACTUAL clue abut how the government works to benefit these cunts, they'd start to sound like people who did their homework instead of self-righteous cunts trying to sound smart.

I am happy to accommodate the cries of 'ignorance' and 'fail', heard all this shit before, so go fuck yourselves unless you have anything else to spew but scripted 'what you think you know' horse-shit. I understand that certain types of dum-basses are quite satisfied with themselves to talk a lot and say nothing but whats fed them.

The United States government fucked the Native Americans, now they're fucvkng cowboys and ranchers......No digression with land and money drunk robber-barons, especially when they have dutiful putties to interpret history to suit their delusions.

Wanna fix the situation America? Stop eating their meat. Try turtle soup, the shits awesome.

Your video, Creative and Talented Urban Snowboarding, has made it into the Top 15 New Videos listing. Congratulations on your achievement. For your contribution you have been awarded 1 Power Point.

This achievement has earned you your "Pop Star" Level 7 Badge!

While I see where you're coming from, I have a few issues with what you're saying:

1. The organization you're referring to is staffed, has offices and overheads. Assuming it isn't corrupt and skimming and holding multi-million-dollar appreciation nights and galas (and we probably shouldn't assume that it isn't), the money you're giving this organization still gets portioned off quite a bit. Your point about helping on the systemic level is quite valid (provided you are channelling your concern into actually doing so), but I'd look more into local community health centres or the nonprofit down the street, and still, that money isn't guaranteed to reach the person in front of you. Much as a social worker can help him connect to essential services, advocate for fair and affordable housing, counsel him on trauma, etc, he will still need money for a lot of basic needs.

2. You are vastly oversimplifying the needs and situation of every person on the street. That person may actually depend on money from strangers to make rent (being that welfare barely puts a dent in even the lowest affordable housing costs), feed kids, buy food that isn't McDonald's or canned food, get a haircut, or a million other things that everyone needs money for.

3. Even if that person intends to spend some of your money on oxy or crack, it is not in your right to judge that. While addiction can very generally be called "bad", this person may suffer from chronic pain, trauma, mental illnesses, or some combination and short of governments finally realizing that housing and caring for the poor is cheaper than incarcerating them and treating emergency health conditions, self-medicating is the only reasonable way they can continue functioning for another day. This isn't even an unlikely scenario; think how easily someone can go from your (or my) comfy life to homeless, poor and desperate. It isn't always "bad decisions"; you could be a contractor that falls and gets a serious injury, hit by a car, stricken with a mental illness you have no control over, traumatized earlier in life, born into a high-risk environment or social strata, or anything else, and then start sliding from there. You develop an addiction, your income comes to a screeching halt, your loved ones can't or get too tired to support you, bills that were routine become suffocating, and there you are on the street, pain exploding relentlessly in your body/mind, on the other side of the decision, seeing chins turned up and eyes turned away from you and hearing people mutter "Don't give anything to him; he's just gonna use it to get high," to each other.

4. Not a single person in the video (and really, in just about every situation you see on whatever street you're on) speaks to or even looks at the guy.

While I wouldn't expect that everyone gives money to folks on the street (I myself have only done it a few times), it frustrates me to hear people insist that nobody should. "He's just going to use it for drugs/booze" is a presumptuous and ignorant statement and mindset.

One more thing: if you really care about urban poverty and those suffering from it, the biggest thing (IMO) you can do is vote for politicians/parties who openly and strongly support social services and welfare, then hold them to their promises. I don't make a ton of money, but I am happy to pay higher taxes and lose some luxuries if it means people who need help just to get by get it.

from Urban Dictionary :
"
The year is 1965 and an almost unknown rock band from Ohio called The McCoys recorded a song called "Hang On Sloopy."

"Hang On Sloopy" was inspired by a woman named Dorothy Sloop who was a native of Steubenville, Ohio. Apparently she had a career as a singer in the 1950's and used the name "Sloopy" as a stage name. Dorothy Sloop passed away in Pass Christian, Mississippi. Her song will long live on in the hearts of people for years to come....

hang on sloopy, sloopy hang on...
"
(the other definitions are par-for-course)

So just to be clear, he's a salesman for a car dealership or something and accompanying this awful woman on a test drive, where she's doing double the speed limit (and presumably in an urban zone?).

I would have told her to slow down, and if she didn't. I'd have told her to stop the car and get out. And if she didn't do that, I'd call the cops then and there.

Mass shootings and irresponsible gun owners represent a small fraction of gun violence and as such they shouldn't be the main justification for gun laws.

The problem is that our gun culture creates an environment that makes illegal guns more available (in Mexico and urban environments, among others), and that it puts guns within reach when someone gets a violent urge (whether against themselves or others).

Laws should be tailored to help gradually change that gun culture over the long term.

SPEAK ENGLISH OR DIE

Yellow Machinegun anyone? They don't always wear the school girl thing, but the first album I owned of theirs featured them wearing schoolgirl outfits and SCREAMING!

This ain't new or news. Lamer, poppier version of something that's been around for more than 20 years.

My wife works in fashion, designs for Urban Outfitters, PacSun, Roxy, Quicksilver, etc. etc. Your girlfriend or wife probably owns either a handbag or an article of clothing designed by her. The styles and trends that are in take us all the way back to Cramps/Misfits/Rocky Horror fashion sense, amalgamated with '90s nihilism and modern pop (often hip hop, but in the case here, J Pop) trends.

Nothing new is happening and that makes it SOOOOOO much easier to anticipate the trends and succeed in making people think something "new" is on the horizon. lol

> "but I disagree that the answer is to stop governing."

This is kind of a straw man argument you're setting up. "Governing" does not mean the "State." Being anti-state does not mean anti-governing. There are other ways to govern that does not require a state monopoly.

> "I am surrounded by both cool people and losers, but we're spread out enough that it's easier to ignore the losers from here. I got lucky."

If you live outside of an urban area, that's of course an advantage when it comes to not being subject to a deluge of regulations.

> "I do, I vote. That's how it's set up to be done, if people were more thoughtful, it would work better."

It doesn't work. But again, I'm not stopping you. Vote to your heart's content for your favorite liberal or conservative or whomever. To me it makes no difference.

> "I only pointed out my situation because you had apparently decided I'm a worthless taker"

Don't know where you get this from. I said no such thing.

@longde
Out of politeness, I've removed the link.

But the article's chronicling of the urban decay data seems to be a useful companion to mainstream sources, which need to either spin data optimistically or not report it. That leaves behind a lot of victims who could have prevented the crimes against them.

The only mention of race in my comment was inclusive of all ancestries: "I'm speaking to the minority of people from all ancestries who are on the side of civilization."

The rest of the comment is about culture. Many people try to make them the same thing. They're not the same. That's why I included the clarification about all ancestries.

These types of considerations are far from the site you mentioned, which isn't a place I'd ever go. They'd consider me a hippy.

"Over time, we're going to see what works and what doesn't and things will generally settle down"
Illusion and fantasy...total confabulation.

A government is a simple creation really, it uses force to achieve the end goal which is control, not unlike a rapist or a thief-The antithesis of liberty in the example of say, the American government works because force is used by an immoral core of liars and thieves to achieve goals that benefit the few rather than the whole of society. Examples of just how fucked things are at face value VooDooV, why bother to cite the examples that are glaringly obvious to anyone who at their core, is a moral and free individual...pointless and insulting to anyone who can think.

Mind you, infrastructure and social safety nets enhance freedom, but what should the end-goal be? To enhance the moral framework of a society, which has surely not been done so far with the American form of government, on the contrary, we see the fabric of what makes a society prosper and maintain a fairness for all being eroded to serve the interests of a few, through force and control...through civil liberties being chipped-away at through surveillance and more prisons, more laws, more fines and punishments for more people, etc. Deficit spending pays debt forward to further enslave the recipients of services like roads and social welfare programs, higher education, etc. The freedom to make poor choices at a micro and macro level is what the current government is all about, getting worse every year.

Urban sprawl will continue as folks with pipe-dreams tout more green, less energy usage, cleaner burning cars and factories, etc. One 'problem' is addressed by creating one for another somewhere else.

Ever listen to Buckminster Fuller's idea of a 'green' or 'energy efficient society'? It doesn't use ANY of the current models of societal structure, it pretty much SCRAPS them all for a trans-formative way of moving forward. The old models are shit if they accomplish them through force and control of human activity. YOU don't live in a democratic system, in case you have been asleep for your entire life, democracy is only a fucking word, a concept not unlike any 'ism' created by humans in the past 3000-7000 years.

The financial structure of the United States is inherently evil. It can not be made fair and moral for everyone, it wasn't designed to. It is designed to serve the few at the top, with enforcers and regulators at the bottom-tier of their system. The government is NOT inherently evil but it has been hijacked by cunts.

Just because you think you know how politicians should perform, does not make it happen that way. Sane health care system? Nope. Maybe for the privileged classes-What they hand the masses is complete shit. National debt? Foreign policy? How would YOU do it? Then that's probably saner than the way it's being run, innit? Government is not needed for ANY of these aspects of a civil and moral society to function. All it takes is moral and sane judgement and agreement at solutions and for folks to voluntarily subscribe to these actions, without force, without police, without armies, etc.

Many more examples too many to pontificate upon, many variables of systems, all of which could function to afford everyone freedom and liberty, WITHOUT a government. The government is a construct just like everything else man creates-It takes willing humans to make them either function efficiently, or to scrap them for something new and improved.

I'm no libertarian, no anarchist, just a practical human being.
There are more reasons for scrapping the world system of government than there are for maintaining them, you simply refuse to see any other way THAN systems of government.

Mankind can self-govern if it does so with a formidable and sound moral compass...Is mankind doing that? It can also make the entire planet it's playground if it chooses to do so...Is mankind doing this??
FUCK NO!