@bcglorf

i don't think using @drradon 's example of anarchy a good use as a rebuttal.

now may be larken rose's vision is an extreme example,taken from the von mises institute,and where they dreamily offer a counter to police with a "non-aggression principle".while cute and adorable,humans tend to be far more vicious and violent in nature,especially when desperate.

but again,i think our respective approaches to authority will not find common ground here.

i do not seek a leader,but i am ok with a representative,though i do not seem to have any in my government at the moment.

i find it curious,amazing and not a little disturbing just how easily people will quietly,and tacitly accept a police that has become more and more draconian,violent and aggressive while SIMULTANEOUSLY decreasing the citizens rights to protect themselves,defend themselves and resist unlawful police practices.

because they simply change the law to make what WAS illegal...legal.with a stroke of a pen.

and i simply cannot respect when an american says,without any sense of justice or history,to just sit down,shut up and do what you are told.

while claiming they are a patriot,waving their american flag made in china.

the history of law enforcement in this country reveals that their main job,their main focus and duty is NOT to the poor,the dispossessed or the marginalized.

the police's job is to protect those who hold assets,who have money and wield political power.

and before you say anything,i am quite aware that there are some,and they are the majority,who do their job with honor and distinction.my argument is not about singular police officers but rather the systematic problems inherent in the system.

lets take my city for example.
i am blessed enough to live adjacent to a very wealthy and influential housing development.

average police response time?=7 minutes.

right down the street,not 10 miles down the road,is a depressed area of town.industry and manufacturing abandoned that area 20 years ago.it is stricken with prostitution,heroin addicts and abject poverty.

average police response time?=22 minutes

yet the main police station is in THAT area.

or should i bring up the history of american labor movement?
where the coal miners in west virginia decided to strike,and because the owners of the mines were politically connected.the governor sent in the state police to...and this should send chills down your spine...shoot any miners unwilling to go back to work.

and they did.
they murdered any coal miner still willing to stand up against the owners of the mine,and this included women and children.

now lets examine that for a minute.
workers for a coal mine decided to strike for better working conditions (which were horrible) and actually have a day off,besides sunday (because:god).

the owner of the mine,who was losing immense of amount of money due to zero production of coal,called the governor to have the state police,a civil institution,sent in to put those people down.to force them to either get back to work or face violence.

*now the owner brought in his own mercenary group to assist in the process of intimidation,strong arm tactics and violence.

i will add one more story that is personal,and comes from my own family,and may possibly explain my attitude towards police in general.

my father was born in 1930,in alton illinois.
now that small town had been hit particularly hard during the depression.my father spoke of not having indoor plumbing until he went into the navy,and how the floors in his childhood home were simple boards over dirt.

he grew up extremely poor,and my grandfather struggled to find steady work,and i gather from what my father told me.my grandpa made bootleg beer out of the bathtub.so he and his 6 brothers and 1 sister had to bathe in the mississippi river while grandpa tried to make money by selling illegal hooch.

my father also regaled me with stories of the chores he had as the youngest of 8 kids.it was his job every morning to head to the train tracks and pick the coal that dropped from the coal carts.(which he admitted to being lazy and stole directly from the very full coal cart itself while his brother kept an eye out for the station master).

my point is that my father grew up in desperate and poor times.

but one story always stood out,and i think it is because it has a wild west feel to it that always transfixed me,and i made him tell me the story over and over as a child.

when times are tough,people will do whatever they have to in order to survive,so my grandfather making illegal hooch was not the only illegalities being played out in that small town.neighbor upon neighbor did what they had to,and most were considered criminals in the eyes of the state.

so i guess one of my grandpa's friends was on the run from the law,and sought refuge at my grandpa's home.which he allowed,because neighbors take care of neighbors,at least they used to.

well,in a small town everybody knows everybody,and eventually three police officers showed up at my grandpa's house,and demanded that he turn over (i forgot the guys name).

and i remember the pride on my fathers face whenever he retold this story....

my grandfather stood tall on the top of his stairs facing his front door,holding his gun he was given during WW1 and told the police officers (which he knew.small town remember?),that if they took one step into his home..he would blow their heads off.

now this is a story retold from a childs perspective many years later.i am sure my fathers memory was a tad....biased..but i would bet the meaty parts were accurate.

now my question is this:
how would that exact same scenario play out in todays climate?

well,we would see on the 6 o'clock news how a family was tragically shot to death for harboring a criminal and that the police had done EVERYTHING in their power to avoid this kind of violence.

i know this is long,and i hope i didn't lose you along the way,but i think we should not dismiss the very real slow decent into a society that silently obeys,quietly accepts more and more authoritarian powers all in the name of "safety",and that any form of resistance is to be viewed as "criminal" and "troublesome".

so while i agree that "when should we shoot a cop" should be in the realm of:let us try to never do that.

i also cannot agree to placing cops on a hero platform as if their job is somehow sacrosanct and beyond reproach.they are human beings,of limited intellect,whose main job it is to protect those who own property,have wealth and wield political power.

and with the current disparity and blatant inequality their job has been more and more focused on keeping those 30% undesirables down.

the poor,the destitute,the marginalized,the addict and the junkie and the petty criminals.

those are a threat to the "better" citizens.they are a blight on a community that should be cleansed from the tender eyes of those who are deemed more "worthy".

rich folk may wring their hands,and lament the plight of the poor and wretched,but for GOD's sakes! they don't want to actually SEE them!

so a police officer can do all the mental gymnastics they want in order to justify their place in society,but at the end of the day,they serve the elites.

and they always have.

But not 1/2 as clownish, petty, or damaging as our president.
Ask foreigners which makes us look worse. Excluding Russians, I'm certain it's him, not them.

lol what a clown show American media has become. Slowly killing the country and $ with one smear campaign article after another. Just look at this site's top articles or any of your news outlets. How do you think that looks to us foreigners ? To sum it up in one word : petty

@RFlagg
what i find most disturbing by many of my friends who supported trump is their almost blind attachment to an ever-increasing lean towards authoritarianism.

while i find trump's petty tantrums due to the realization that those pesky other branches of government are independent to the executive branch..HILARIOUS..the response of many trump supporters,who appear totally willing to give trump blanket authority..pretty fucking scary.

trump appears to really be bothered about those pesky "checks and balances" and that ancient and archaic "constitution",and his supporters seem to be just as pissed.

this new age of populism,be it left or right,should be a concern for all of us.

it seems the days of neoliberalism are waning,and we are entering the new age of neonationalism.

and with supporters who refuse to examine what trump is doing without any critical thought....may be the most concerning of all.

they are blindly promoting king trump.
and i am not down with that.

You know, back when Obama first decided to embrace the republican label"Obamacare", I thought it was a clever bit of political jiu jitsu.

But, now I can see that republicans knew that identity politics is something everyone can grasp. It's like the secret to their success is that they never underestimate the pettiness of the average voter.

Further to my post above, the back and forth, left vs right, petty bickering all serves to perpetuate the existing problems.

For instance, here in Canada statistics do clearly show that aboriginals are over-represented in crime statistics. Simply observing that statistic though already marks me as a racist in most circles and conversation/debate is supposed to shut down and your not supposed to talk about it.

The trouble is that the disproportionate crime rate isn't because skin colour influences the probability you'll become a criminal. Things like poverty and environment though absolutely do. The reality in Canada is that Aboriginal reserves have conditions that are much worse then comparable municipalities. The system of segregation of Aboriginal people on reserves has created a disparity and this disparity is at the root of the problem.

As I stated though, people aren't even supposed to discuss the issue because it's racist to say most of what I just did. The worst part is that refusing to talk about the problem, let alone working on resolving it, is allowing the continuation of a systematic disadvantaging of Canadians based upon their race.

I remember when I used to create artwork for punk, indie & rock acts and the guy that sat across from me used to play electronica with Mckenna talking over it. I heard it a lot and for years I thought he was annoying & insane [both Mckenna and the kid that sat across from me lol), yapping about drugs and aliens... it seemed absolutely absurd.

... Almost a decade later I took a couple of puffs of the real magical adventure and I've listened to Mckenna probably a few times a week for years

Those puffs of the real magic dragon, the real genie in the bottle, the real portal to other dimensions will make a person sensitive to petty monkey human judgements and though I have forgiven myself for being judgemental of Mckenna, I will always remember that I had been. Be gone monkey judgements!

There were categorically no facts in his post (see the key phrases "I think" and "they seem").

There was no logic or arguments either. Logic and argument come from reasoning based on presented facts.

This might sound petty (it does to me and I'm writing it), but when Post Truth Politics caused Brexit and Trump, words like "facts", "logic" and "reasonable arguments" cannot be thrown around.

Regardless of whether I agree with @Spacedog79 (which I mostly do), what he presented was "opinion", not fact, logic or argument.

*promote

i would like to say a few things.

first,
i would personally like to welcome my anti-war democrats back to the party.it appears it only took voting in the worlds most successful used car salesmen and professional internet troll to get you fuckers to get off the bench.

saved a seat for ya!../pats seat

second,
while i can admire this woman's passion and self righteous indignation,i refuse to accept her moral condescension,because for all her flowery and bombastic condemnation of anyone who voted for trump was a vote for:racism,sexism,bigotry and hatred,and implies she has deep understanding the motivations for voting trump.

i submit that she does not.
i submit that she is a hypocrite.

i submit that while she decries her anger and outrage at the moral ineptitude of her fellow americans for failing to rebuke an obviously unqualified candidate,who openly used racist and sexist rhetoric to appeal to our most base fears and anxieties.

she was missing the main point.the main reason.

so while she stood upon her ivory tower aghast at the horror unfolding in front of her on election night,she STILL did not get it.

she watched in horror as her fellow americans ignored trumps obvious racism.
ignored the sexism.
ignored the proto-fascist verbiage.
ignored the narcissism and petty tantrums.
ignored pretty much everything leading an election night into the surreal and absurd.

because she didn't get it,and obviously STILL doesn't get it.

because voting trump was not a vote for:racism,sexism,bigotry or hatred.
a vote for trump was a "fuck you" vote.
a trump vote was a "no confidence" vote.

now of course there are those who are racists,and sexist and are most certainly bigots and hateful fuckheads..of course.

and there are those who are diehard rightwing republicans...of course.

but the majority of those who voted trump are NOT those people.the majority of americans have..for forty fucking years..tried to utilize a system to counter correct the political establishment only to get fucked in the ass by the very same system they were trying to correct.

you can go look for yourselves.it looks like a clock pendulum.swinging dem and then back to repub and then back again.

and what did the american people get?
nothing.
nada.
zip.
zilch.

they got:
expanding wars.
stagnant wages and jobs.
higher taxes.
higher living costs.
drone strikes and secret prisons.
a two tiered justice system.
private prisons.
debt peonage.

and a government bought and paid for by:big banks,wall street,military industrial complex and multi-national corporations.

all this while the american middle class fell off the map into poverty and working poor.

so while those who voted trump may be politically unsophisticated,they are most certainly not dumb.

they got it.
and they finally understood that the system that they had been raised to believe was "by the people,for the people" no longer functioned at that capacity.

so the very same people who voted for obama and his "hope and change" campaign.
voted trump.
the people who had become politically engaged by the message that sanders brought to the table,either stayed home,or voted trump.

this was a protest vote.
plain and simple.

your fellow americans just nuked the system.
because it was the SYSTEM that was corrupt and no longer was functioning.

i find their choice just as terrifying as you do,but i have to admire the audacity to just nuke the entire system.

but can you really blame them?
they tried for decades to course correct,but the two party dictatorship had a stranglehold,and they served not 'we the people" but money and power.so our fellow americans utilized their one power given to them by the constitution.

and the hypocrisy here is that when bush was in office the left was losing their shit,and rightly so,but when obama was in office all we heard was crickets....and a disturbing silence from the left.(i realize this is an over generalization.there of course was some noise coming from the left).

and this woman is so out of touch that she is convinced that voting trump was a social issue matter?

i am sorry sweetheart,but some things are just not that simple,and condescending from your ivory tower,prattling on about social constructs as if you have been given some moral authority to judge others,only serves to solidify your own tiny and secluded echo chamber.where everybody can smell their own farts and pat themselves on the back for how clever they are,without ever having to critically examine ones own position.

which just means that she will never..ever..get it.

that is my .02 anyways.
take it for what it is worth.

The thruth of this world is that most ideals are bullshit. Let's look at the idea that human life is sacred, the sanctity of human life. God disapproves of murder.
The death penality is older than scripture. It existed before we had written words. It is still a thing.
How can that be if we are so developed, so evolved, so civilized?
Human life isn't sacred. We shit on that on a daily basis. Murder is committed every day. For petty reasons. For political reasons. For stupid reasons.
Your holy book, the Bible, tells me to kill people for adultery.
How can you defend this?
That's why I'm a cynic, that's why I'm a dissapointed idealist. I'd like to believe but I can't. Belief makes me inhuman, makes me cruel, makes me kill adulterers. It commands me to be a murderer.
For what?
For betrayal? For sex? For deceit? For breaking promises?
I'd rather be a cynic. I choose humanism over homicide.
Your book is evil. Your faith leads to evil.
I chose compassion. I chose cynicism.

As great as John Oliver is, he spent more time there mocking them over petty things as opposed to really concentrating on the (admittedly real) flaws in their platforms.

OK, Stein's "music" is cringeworthy. And Johnson's "skirt" comment is creepy and ill advised, but clearly meant in a metaphorical way.

It kinda bothers me when people (not just Oliver) do it to Trump and Clinton also. Like Trump having "tiny hands", or bringing up cankles or pantsuits for Clinton.

All of those things can be funny, a few times. But bringing them up constantly makes it seem like we have nothing of actual substance to criticize them for -- which is clearly not the case.


He did bring up legitimate concerns for some of Stein and Johnson's signature platforms. In both cases, that criticism boiled down to "you can't actually do that", as in the president doesn't actually have the power to implement the policy that they want. That's fair ... BUT, pretty much every single politician ever makes campaign promises that they don't actually have the power to implement. You pretty much have to if you want to get elected.

That doesn't mean that setting those policies as goals can't have value. Obama wanted a much more thorough overhaul of healthcare and insurance, but he didn't have the power to make it happen unilaterally. So we ended up with a watered-down version of Obamacare after the Republicans in the legislature did everything they could to obstruct it. But still, even though it isn't exactly what Obama originally had in mind, there are plenty of people now with some health coverage who had none before. That's a tangible positive result.

Trump will never build his wall, even if he ends up in the White House (not likely). I offer no defense for this idiotic idea, but it is at least possible for massive public works projects to be used to create jobs, improve infrastructure, and have other tangible positive effects; like FDR's New Deal.

Hillary would face lots of obstruction if she attempts to implement her plan to let people attend public universities for free. Probably more than Obama did on Obamacare. But trying to do something to make post-secondary education more available to everyone is a good goal. Even if the cynic in me thinks she only produced this "plan" as a way to try to win support of Sanders voters.

Johnson couldn't eliminate income tax, or abolish all those departments he mentioned. But he could rein in a lot of spending that the Executive branch does have power over. That could be a good thing in many cases (I'd be happy to see the TSA eliminated and military spending drastically reduced), but there are also a lot of potential problems. See Kansas transformation to "Brownbackistan" as a result of Sam Brownback's drastic tax cuts.

And Stein couldn't forgive student loan debt for this "entire generation". But just like Clinton's proposal to make public universities free, there is potential value to be found in just trying to do something about the insane problems with our university system. Hillary is a savvy enough politician to know not to say too much about her plan, which would open it up to scrutiny and criticism. Stein stepped into that by revealing her political inexperience, but I tend to trust that she does actually want to do something as opposed to Hillary just saying what she needs to say to get more votes.

She didn't call, she sent letters to his employer, the local police and the media. In that letter she referred to him as a Nazi so many times it could be required reading for anyone studying Godwin's Law.

Keller decided to act like a petty vindictive asshole simply because someone had to gall to disagree with her on the internet. The fact that someone else managed to turn her life upside down does not change what she did or somehow make it more excusable.

That being said, I did find the video where thunderf00t doxxed Keller and I also thought he acted like a petty vindictive asshole. And I'm fine with calling them both out on it, rather than trying to draw attention away from one person's wrongdoings by pointing to someone who they believe to be worse.

Sure, the MRA trolls will love some of what thunderf00t has to say about Sarkeesian and other feminists. Liking or agreeing with something someone says however does not mean you buy into their ideology in it's entirety. Donald Trump could tell me the sky is blue, and I might agree, but agreeing to that does not also mean I think we should build a big wall to keep out Mexicans.

As far as what some of his "fans" and or Baphomet did I suspect you'll ignore their individual or group responsibilities in favor of simply blaming it on thunderf00t simply because you want to. Buttered my bread? Based on what I've read so far I can imagine you would know something about bias.

@SDGundamX, first up, it was a throwaway line, you're reading way too much into it.

I'm not going to go over Jim Jeffries joke (it's been discussed to death already), except to say that, yeah, I got what he was trying to do and no, it still wasn't that funny or clever.

Besides, I wasn't trying to compare the two. Mine was a throwaway line, his was an extended sketch by a touring professional comedian. My point was simply that taste is in the eye of the beholder.

And would you please do me the courtesy of not telling me what I'm thinking. I'm not angry about ignorance, I'm angry about woolly thinking (specifically, lack of critical thinking).

If you're ignorant, then you just need to be taught. I'm not angry at ignorant people, I'm sorry for them and I want to help them.

My problem is with people (like the guy in the video) who have been presented with evidence, but ignore it because it doesn't fit their worldview.

200 years ago, if you believed that disease was a result of demonic possession, that's unfortunate. If you believe that today, you're deliberately ignoring knowledge.

As far as viewing people who reject evidence as a dangerous "other", I'm ok with that. As I've said before, I don't believe in "tolerance" as a virtue. If someone isn't bothering me, or someone is doing something I don't like, but it doesn't harm anyone, then I'm fine with them; I have no need to "tolerate" them.

But if people are doing something that causes harm (racism, homophobia, misogyny, etc), I don't tolerate that at all, and will speak out against it.


As for your torture example, it is flawed. You're saying that you wouldn't reconsider the ethics of torture, even if evidence of its efficacy was available. Do you see the problem?

You proposition was that torture is unethical, and your hypothetical evidence states that it is effective. The two are orthogonal properties. It is possible to be both effective and unethical.

Besides, I didn't say you had to change your position, I said you had to reconsider. If someone presented you with a philosophical argument arguing for the ethics of torture, are you saying you wouldn't even hear it out?

I hold positions like that myself. Despite everything, I believe that one day, people will overcome their petty differences and venture out into the stars. That doesn't mean I don't question it..

Musically, pretty damn close to Tom Petty's Wildflowers. And not getting the humor. I like Gervais, but it seems like there were a ton of gags and jokes that could have been here - but weren't.

Tags for this video have been changed from 'bob dylan, harrison, orbison, lynne, petty, volume 1, springsteen, new jersey' to 'bob dylan, harrison, orbison, lynne, petty, new jersey, Travelling Wilburys' - edited by RFlagg