Lawl, my first video no longer exists because I got banned for it!

I had posted a vid of a cow I saw in Switzerland, mostly because I just wanted to test how posting worked. It didn't really have ANYTHING interesting about it whatsoever. Ironically, I had read the rules about self-posting, but thought it didn't apply since there wasn't any sort of "self-promotion" in the video, as in it wasn't me doing anything artistic or even interesting for that matter.

Anyway, long story short, I killed it and appealed after being banned and the rest is history... now what my first legitimate video was: http://videosift.com/video/Bioshock-2-Teaser

>> ^hpqp:

>> ^skinnydaddy1:
>> ^hpqp:
A civvy acts like a dick, abuses his power (as boss, parent, etc.)? Bah, just an individual.
A cop acts like a dick, abuses his power as law enforcer? FASCISM! FUCK THE POLICE!!!!
Grow up and get some perspective people.

Since I'm not allowed to down vote your comment. I do have perspective. I'm sorry you do not. A civvy as you call them and us, can not throw me in a room with bars and take away my freedom because he felt like and get away with it. A civvy can not beat the crap out of me while yelling "Stop Resisting" and get away with it. I civvy can not taze me for not complying to his demands and get away with it. That is the difference. Not all police are bad but the shitty ones make it bad for everyone. The camera is not a weapon, it is not a threat. It is a tool that even the police use. Why can us civvys not us it also? My, Prospective is, Don't oppress. Period. What starts off as a small thing can grow. Stop it now before it gets out of hand. If they start to believe they can get away with this. When will it stop? Taking a picture or video is not a crime. Throwing someone in jail for it is. Feel free to give up your rights but do not think I will allow you to give up mine.

You seem to have missed the point of my (admittedly somewhat confrontational) comment: cops are people too, some are dicks, and they will abuse their power like any other dick with power. I am all against oppression and power abuse, especially by those who are meant to uphold the law, but cannot help but feel that some people will jump on any occasion to vilify the police in general ("fascist!" is one of the more malicious of insults I've seen here on the Sift), which is immature, irresponsible and, quite frankly, quite dickish. You'll notice I didn't post this comment under a video of true police oppression, such as this one, but under a video in which a person is getting fined by an immature asshat.
I live in Switzerland, where any of the examples you stated (and even much, much less) would get the offending cop a nice sentence in jail (and a permanent loss of job) while the victim would go off with a handsome sum of compensation cash, so maybe I'm not one to talk. But from what I know, the US, as bad as it is, is not China. Yet, at least.
So yes, by all means we should fight for more justice and less abuse of power, but making sweeping generalisations about the police who, for the most part, do do their best to "protect and serve", is no help at all.


Alas, your efforts to be reasonable will fall on deaf ears. This is about as nuanced as most of the anti-police posters on here will get on this issue.

>> ^skinnydaddy1:

>> ^hpqp:
A civvy acts like a dick, abuses his power (as boss, parent, etc.)? Bah, just an individual.
A cop acts like a dick, abuses his power as law enforcer? FASCISM! FUCK THE POLICE!!!!
Grow up and get some perspective people.

Since I'm not allowed to down vote your comment. I do have perspective. I'm sorry you do not. A civvy as you call them and us, can not throw me in a room with bars and take away my freedom because he felt like and get away with it. A civvy can not beat the crap out of me while yelling "Stop Resisting" and get away with it. I civvy can not taze me for not complying to his demands and get away with it. That is the difference. Not all police are bad but the shitty ones make it bad for everyone. The camera is not a weapon, it is not a threat. It is a tool that even the police use. Why can us civvys not us it also? My, Prospective is, Don't oppress. Period. What starts off as a small thing can grow. Stop it now before it gets out of hand. If they start to believe they can get away with this. When will it stop? Taking a picture or video is not a crime. Throwing someone in jail for it is. Feel free to give up your rights but do not think I will allow you to give up mine.


You seem to have missed the point of my (admittedly somewhat confrontational) comment: cops are people too, some are dicks, and they will abuse their power like any other dick with power. I am all against oppression and power abuse, especially by those who are meant to uphold the law, but cannot help but feel that some people will jump on any occasion to vilify the police in general ("fascist!" is one of the more malicious of insults I've seen here on the Sift), which is immature, irresponsible and, quite frankly, quite dickish. You'll notice I didn't post this comment under a video of true police oppression, such as this one, but under a video in which a person is getting fined by an immature asshat.

I live in Switzerland, where any of the examples you stated (and even much, much less) would get the offending cop a nice sentence in jail (and a permanent loss of job) while the victim would go off with a handsome sum of compensation cash, so maybe I'm not one to talk. But from what I know, the US, as bad as it is, is not China. Yet, at least.

So yes, by all means we should fight for more justice and less abuse of power, but making sweeping generalisations about the police who, for the most part, do do their best to "protect and serve", is no help at all.

>> ^blankfist:

>> ^Ti_Moth:
I've always wondered, in a libertarian society what is to stop the super rich from creating their own states? Surely it wouldn't be hard, without a government to rein in their powers they could just hire a bunch of mercenaries and live like kings (whilst fighting other kings for land/resources). Libertarianism just seems like a massive step back to me.

There wouldn't be anything to stop the super rich from creating their own states. That is, except for the 350 million of us with guns who would object if they tried to force it onto us. That's the power of individualism. It's also somewhat the same reason why no one has marched into Switzerland and taken over.
But isn't your scenario a very specific, extreme and unlikely one? The arguments against libertarianism tend to always involve some evil Bill Gates with a one-dimensional motivation to do incredibly bad things.
It's interesting you compared them to kings, which is exactly what the US colonies were ruled by (British Empire) prior to the US Revolution. After the revolution, the new republic was a baby step toward individualism and less government, and it's a huge step in the right direction. Not perfect by any stretch, but better.
Imagine what can be accomplished if we continue toward less government and more individual freedom.


It may seem unlikely that some super rich individual would want to form his own state but there are alot of crazies out there, I wouldn't think it too far fetched to think that some super rich evangelical christian would want to impose his philosophy on people via the barrel of a gun (or many guns as the case may be).
So if someone did decide to take over with his mercenary army I would have to fight? I don't know about you but i'm a lover not a fighter I would rather pay a small portion of my wages to fund an opposition, a tax if you will. Also Switzerland was invaded and held by Napoleon for a period of 17 years (1798-1815) and it was after that, that the neutrality of Switzerland became internationally recognized not because many of its inhabitants are armed.
I do believe that libertarianism would be a massive step back after all wasn't the world originally libertarian by some definition, no countries, people working for themselves trading with other individuals and groups of individuals. Wouldn't it be better to have a form of government actually run by the people, a direct democracy with no representatives to become corrupt with true accountability, rather than to tear it down and descend into a Somalian style anarchy.

>> ^Ti_Moth:

I've always wondered, in a libertarian society what is to stop the super rich from creating their own states? Surely it wouldn't be hard, without a government to rein in their powers they could just hire a bunch of mercenaries and live like kings (whilst fighting other kings for land/resources). Libertarianism just seems like a massive step back to me.


There wouldn't be anything to stop the super rich from creating their own states. That is, except for the 350 million of us with guns who would object if they tried to force it onto us. That's the power of individualism. It's also somewhat the same reason why no one has marched into Switzerland and taken over.

But isn't your scenario a very specific, extreme and unlikely one? The arguments against libertarianism tend to always involve some evil Bill Gates with a one-dimensional motivation to do incredibly bad things.

It's interesting you compared them to kings, which is exactly what the US colonies were ruled by (British Empire) prior to the US Revolution. After the revolution, the new republic was a baby step toward individualism and less government, and it's a huge step in the right direction. Not perfect by any stretch, but better.

Imagine what can be accomplished if we continue toward less government and more individual freedom.

@messenger

QM and I are arguing it was good that previous immigrant groups learned the language and assimilated into successful culture, but it seems like your argument is that it's fine for Americans to be divided up into multiple mutually incomprehensible linguistic/cultural groups, just as Switzerland and Canada are.

I was raised liberal and I was liberal until I began to study the human sciences, so I understand liberalism pretty well.



1. Liberalism doesn't prefer decay, but it does prefer the conditions that cause decay.

1a. I don't think anybody's arguing liberalism didn't cause California's decay. We have some of the highest taxes and most liberal policies in the country, but we're still bankrupt because liberalism advocates decay-causing conditions. For example, liberalism advocates endless immigration from less skilled societies, indeed, from the least-skilled tier of the less skilled societies, then encourages immigrants to not learn the language that leads to success.

1b. Once things begin to decay, liberalism then complains that employers aren't willing to pay more for jobs that we don't even need to be done. California doesn't automate jobs in e.g. agriculture that other societies automate because liberalism brought us enough unskilled labor to last for hundreds of years. Automation is getting better every year, but the skill-level of the population is going to stay at the same low level, so know that underemployment and poverty are probably going to steadily get worse, just as they've done since when California was one of the best places in the world.


This mess has nothing to do with the smart fraction, and they're right to excuse themselves from it.


Sources:
• Immigration decreases farm automation
• Immigrants' descendants on average show little improvement in educational attainment even after 4 generations.

Clearly, printing forms in two languages has not crippled the Canadian economy. Microsoft publishes their software in (guessing) a hundred different languages. Hasn't hurt them either. And the poor, poor senator who once or twice in his career (this clearly isn't a common occurrence in his presence) has to hear a short deposition twice. Really? That's all you've got that's going to destroy nations?

You didn't answer me about whether Switzerland is a nation, with its four official languages.>> ^quantumushroom:

Multi-lingualism is another barrier to understanding and unity. E Plurius Unum. From Many, One.
What will happen to a nation is what's happening now. Government agencies must prints forms in multiple languages. Businesses have to spend money to make multi-lingual everything. And Senator Who-is-100%-Correct (and us) has to listen to everything twice.
Without common borders, language and culture, (and common sense) there is no nation, period.
Too bad there wasn't this fount of liberal wisdom back in the 1920s. Imagine! All those immigrants flowing into Ellis Island learning English as quickly as possible. What were they thinking?

>> ^messenger:
So Canada isn't a nation because not everyone speaks the same language? Switzerland isn't a nation? India? Spain? China? Singapore? Hong Kong?
What do you think will happen to a nation if it allows speakers of other languages to give depositions in that language? How does that eliminate the nation?>> ^quantumushroom:
Without common borders, language and culture, (and common sense) there is no nation, period.

Multi-lingualism is another barrier to understanding and unity. E Plurius Unum. From Many, One.

What will happen to a nation is what's happening now. Government agencies must prints forms in multiple languages. Businesses have to spend money to make multi-lingual everything. And Senator Who-is-100%-Correct (and us) has to listen to everything twice.

Without common borders, language and culture, (and common sense) there is no nation, period.

Too bad there wasn't this fount of liberal wisdom back in the 1920s. Imagine! All those immigrants flowing into Ellis Island learning English as quickly as possible. What were they thinking?


>> ^messenger:

So Canada isn't a nation because not everyone speaks the same language? Switzerland isn't a nation? India? Spain? China? Singapore? Hong Kong?
What do you think will happen to a nation if it allows speakers of other languages to give depositions in that language? How does that eliminate the nation?>> ^quantumushroom:
Without common borders, language and culture, (and common sense) there is no nation, period.

So Canada isn't a nation because not everyone speaks the same language? Switzerland isn't a nation? India? Spain? China? Singapore? Hong Kong?

What do you think will happen to a nation if it allows speakers of other languages to give depositions in that language? How does that eliminate the nation?>> ^quantumushroom:
Without common borders, language and culture, (and common sense) there is no nation, period.

Very well said.

In reply to this comment by hpqp:
Since one of my videos is cited in your argument, I thought I'd give my two cents.

First, I am anything but a copbasher, quite the opposite actually. I have enormous respect for law enforcement (and other public servants such as firefighters and teachers), and it is because of the high respect for them and their difficult work that seeing such responsibility being abused hurts all the more. Fortunately for me, I live in a country (Switzerland) where abuse of power is rare and severely punished (except when it's in business and banking, of course ). Here too (and probably in most of western Europe) cops are afraid of defending themselves, fearing lawsuits and instant defamation in the press.

Speaking of copbashing bias on the sift, the only example I know of that really annoys me is this video (and it's comments), presenting the abusive actions of a private security agent as those of an officer of the law, and cheering the mindless violence of the hooligan crowd.

As for the snuff/not snuff character of videos, I think one big difference between the video you had posted (which I would not want to watch; just reading the description makes me want to cry), and most of those referred to is this: your video depicts a firefight, engaged on both sides with more or less equal firepower. That someone might die is a sadly predictable and much less newsworthy outcome, contrary to the confrontation of an armed individual with a non-armed and non-threatening one: such a confrontation will inevitably present the question as to the shooter's motives, especially if the shooter is supposed to represent peace-keeping law enforcement.



That being said, may FSM bestow its noodly blessings upon our peace-keepers.

Since one of my videos is cited in your argument, I thought I'd give my two cents.

First, I am anything but a copbasher, quite the opposite actually. I have enormous respect for law enforcement (and other public servants such as firefighters and teachers), and it is because of the high respect for them and their difficult work that seeing such responsibility being abused hurts all the more. Fortunately for me, I live in a country (Switzerland) where abuse of power is rare and severely punished (except when it's in business and banking, of course ). Here too (and probably in most of western Europe) cops are afraid of defending themselves, fearing lawsuits and instant defamation in the press.

Speaking of copbashing bias on the sift, the only example I know of that really annoys me is this video (and it's comments), presenting the abusive actions of a private security agent as those of an officer of the law, and cheering the mindless violence of the hooligan crowd.

As for the snuff/not snuff character of videos, I think one big difference between the video you had posted (which I would not want to watch; just reading the description makes me want to cry), and most of those referred to is this: your video depicts a firefight, engaged on both sides with more or less equal firepower. That someone might die is a sadly predictable and much less newsworthy outcome, contrary to the confrontation of an armed individual with a non-armed and non-threatening one: such a confrontation will inevitably present the question as to the shooter's motives, especially if the shooter is supposed to represent peace-keeping law enforcement.



That being said, may FSM bestow its noodly blessings upon our peace-keepers.

^Westy

As an American expat living in Europe, I can testify the truth is quite the opposite of what you claim. In America, something is considered permissible unless it is strictly forbidden. In Europe, something is considered forbidden unless it is strictly allowed.

Switzerland may be a lot cleaner, but it's a police state way worse than America. You can't work how you want in France. Spain had a dictator until the 70's. Belgium's electoral system is so messed up we've passed the 300 day mark without a government. The UK? Germany? Sweden?

Why do markets allow people to suffer?

1. Better system than capitalism would be a balanced hybrid system of capitalism and socialism controlled by people in a true democracy - as opposed to the plutocratic charade we live under now. Think Finland, Switzerland, Nordic Slavic type social democracies. These systems are infinitely better than our capitalist nightmare by any metric.

2. All the think tanks that tell you what to think are funded by deep corporate pockets. Your guru milton Friedman was chummmy with all the neocons - Reagan, Rummy and some pretty nasty dictators. David Koch was even on the libertarian ticket. Open your eyes to reality, friend.

3. Feudalism is only freedom for the wealthy elite. You don't seem to understand that you have a very subjective and limited concept of 'liberty'.

7. Free market reforms are terrible to labor, as we are seeing right now, where libertarians are calling on American labor to 'get competitive' with Chinese slaves. No fucking thank you.

8. There's no shortage of excuses for your belief system, and never any empirical data. This is why I deride your political beliefs as religious beliefs.

9. It's nice that you used 'Corporatist America' as a way of refuting my contention that European social democracies are superior.

It's amazing to me that someone with such a tenuous grasp on reality could call anyone else ignorant. Time and time again your politics are debunked on this site, only for you to redouble your efforts. I hope one day you are able to overcome your indoctrination.


In reply to this comment by blankfist:
I'm an atheist. When I attribute things to God and say things like, "Why does God allow the his devout followers to suffer?" I don't mean, "Why does the ancient fictional religious construct that you based your life around allow his devout followers to suffer?" What I do mean is, "Why does your personal god that you believe in allow his devout followers to suffer?"

Most atheists, I think, tend to use God in this way, not because they believe in the existence of a personal god, but because it's the widely held understanding of God (if not the original definition). It's irrelevant to our conversation, so I'm not sure why you keep bringing it up. Your analogy is bad, IMO.

And you and I will continue to disagree what free markets are, and that's something I cannot change.

1. The claim was "[A free market] states that altruism and empathy are bad; greed and selfishness are good." That's what I was responding to. Still ridiculous. I've said constant that if you could find a better system than Capitalism, I'd be on board, but there IS NONE. All of this tap dancing around definitions is obfuscation.

2. Patently false. An absolutely disingenuous and false statement. What's pathetic about this comment is how you continue to twist this bastardized government legitimized entity back on free exchanges when we've covered this a billion times. Again, corporations are antithetical to free markets, because they enjoy a government created reduction of competition, government subsidies, corporate welfare, and so on. In short, they enjoy intervention in the marketplace, which is what YOU'RE touting, not me. So, it's YOUR concepts of government that have been and continues to be shaped by corporations?

3. I think people claim the free market is "self-correcting" more than "self-regulation", but that's a digression. But listen to what you wrote. "Claims of freedom, liberty" will spring forth in a free market? Yes. Yes very much. Why, you ask? One must only look to the definition of a free market: the voluntary exchange between people without coercion. That is liberty and freedom on its face. The opposite, your idea of regulated and interventionist markets, is coercive and authoritarian. The opposite of free.

5. Good for them.

7. What? No, I'm saying you're associating things like lowering taxes and "taking away power from labor" with free markets, which is ridiculous.

8. Failed states caused by the failure of statism (and the pilfering of government employed opportunists) is not the free market in action. Nice try.

9. Says you. California is a perfect example. It's struggling at the moment to pay for the huge number of government pensions for those unionized "heros" that retired at age 55 and get 90% of their income for the rest of their long lives. But then just recently the LA city council, a haven for modern liberalism and your capitalist/social-democratic utopia, cleared a 1.2 billion dollar construction project to build a fucking luxury hotel. According to this article, "overtime pay for the Los Angeles Fire Department soared 60 percent over the last decade", and "the department's top earner racked up a total of $570,276 in overtime in the last three years, including $206,685 in 2006." And that's just overtime. I could go on, but I've already been over this with NetRunner. Suffice it to say, this is your utopian hybrid in action, and it's a complete failure. And it's slowly going bankrupt. In fact, California has asked the Federal government repeatedly for a bailout.

Do go on, though. I like to watch you dig that grave a little deeper.

Ignorance is not a moral high ground.

In reply to this comment by dystopianfuturetoday:
It's very common in arguments of religion for atheists to attribute things to "God". Why does God cause so much pain and suffering? Why doesn't God heal amputees?, etc. It rolls off the tongue a lot better than 'Why doesn't the ancient fictional religious construct that you based your life around heal amputees.?'

It's not the definition of 'free market' that I question, it's all the wide eyed, miracle elixer promises that are used to entice gullible followers. For instance, there is no evidence that free markets self-regulate. There is no evidence that living under unfettered markets would create a desirable political climate for anyone but the super rich. All that stuff about 'voting with your wallet' is naive.

Free Markets do not equal free people. This is the big lie that gives this ideology its (fake) moral center. Under a free market economy, there would be a huge power imbalance between business and labor, which is why corporations champion (if disengenuously in your eyes) the free market. Deregulation, privatization, gutting social welfare programs and other "Free Market" inspired austerity measures always result in low wages, unemployment, poverty and labor abuse. Free Dumb.

1. Friedman has praised greed. Rand has praised selfishness. You have complained about the dangers of government programs motivated by compassion. Do you dispute this?

2. My point is that corporations, regardless of how you feel about them, are the driving force behind American styled libertarianism. Doesn't it give you a moment of pause that your concept of liberty has been, and continues to be shaped by corporations?

3. Again, it's not the definition I object to, it's the wild ass claims of freedom, liberty, self-regulation and other doctrinal bullshit that is supposed to mysteriously spring forth somehow once a set of arbitrary conditions are met. When I talk about lack of evidence, I'm talking about these pie in the sky promises.

5. It is funny that liberalism and libertarianism have swapped meanings in this country. American libertarians are always so confused when Chomsky calls himself a libertarian.

7. So you are saying that deregulation, privatization and the cutting of social programs would not function as intended if they were implemented by force? Why is that? Can you understand my skepticism when individual elements of free marketism fail on their own, and then I'm told that we need even more elements of free marketism for everything to work correctly? It's like a homeopathic doctor saying "of course these homeopathic remedies are making your cancer worse, you forgot the ginseng. You can't cure cancer without ginseng, silly fool."

8. Failed states with no taxation or government should be free market wonderlands, no? It's a common swipe at free market partisans that never gets addressed. Care to give it a go?

9. The most successful states are currently capitalist/socialist hybrids. We trail behind other states (European states) with a more even balance of state and business. If I believed in utopia, I wouldn't be a liberal, because compassion and empathy would be unnecessary in a true utopia.

http://videosift.com/video/The-evolution-of-empathy

For a rugged individualist, you sure do love your little categories and boxes. Do you ever notice your need to be defined and to define others? I don't share your need for precise definition. I like to keep my options open.

"Ignorance is not a moral high ground." I like this quote, especially when you use it to defend an irrational belief system. I'm stealing this quote.

We spend proportionally less that everyone on newluke's table except Estonia and Switzerland. The problem is that the "only cut revenues, never raise them ever" philosophy of the last 30 years means that the government only takes in about 15-20% of GDP while it spends 25-30. We definitely need to bend the cost curve on health care and wrap up these wars. I'm sure there are also plenty of opportunities to defund minor federal programs that aren't doing much good. However, even if we do all this it won't balance the budget. Unless we want to stop having an army, or stop providing health care of any kind to the poor or elderly, or stop paying social security (while still collecting the taxes for it), we'll need a lot more revenue to get defects to a sustainable level.

It's also 39'th for suicide, below Switzerland, Sweden, and Canada; and France by nearly x2. Your fabled Finland is over twice as high. And WTH does GDP have to do with anything? And frankly, no single nation comes even remotely close to our GDP, like by a factor of 3x, not that it is even relevant. Plus, murder rates doesn't even tell the whole story, we haven't even included violent crimes, or the distinction in the ways different countries report crimes. Looking at may different statistics, it is easy to show that America is the first in gun crimes, but average/above average in violent crime in general. We sure like to lock people up though, as we do have a majority of prisoner per capital vrs the world.

Crime was around LONG before guns, like from the start. America stands on about the high/average mark for total crime per capital which is actually pretty impressively low considering how much moral legislation we have (it's illegal to buy beer on a Sunday in most places).

Here in Texas, we have the highest rate of accidence related gun deaths in the union. We also have considerably lower murder rates than other states, currently 12th. California is 8th, they have much tighter bans on guns, it has not had a positive affect vs Texas as to murder rates.

Fact of the matter is, the nuclear option is an inevitable. There will be a time when going down the local hardware store will net you with world smashing possibilities. No matter of laws will protect you. Most assuredly, the Oklahoma city bombers bomb was illegal...and to little effect. The nature of technology is to become more lethal, and more pervasive. Controls will only subdue those who do not have criminal intent.

You may be fine with punishing non-criminals. I, for one, think this is the highest offence. The foundation of the most immoral of acts. Analogies are proper, and all cases of punishing people whom have done no wrong to their fellow man are applicable.

Guns are less devastating than drugs can be on a country. Drugs can cause countries to use guns in self defense, ask the Chinese about the opium wars.

Cars also fail the fake test you propose, cars kill magnitudes more people than guns, every year without fail. Guns aren't even fractionally comparative. Really, cars should be outlawed by all the logic you have laid out.

And in spite of all that, it still begs the question...who has the right to punish those guilty of no crimes other than possessing something. Next up, thought police, you possessed the idea of crime, guilty as charged.

EDIT: After all, death isn't the highest order of what the government is in charge of protecting, it's liberty. North Korea and Saudi Arabia might have low murder rates...but are hardly models of government to follow. If you want perfect safety, go the the moon...not many people there. If you are around other humans, you are inherently not safe...thems the rules.

Double edit: Also, I have not know anyone directly to ever of been killed by a gun...in my whole life. That is completely anecdotal...but you talk about it likes it rampant. Out of the 4 people on vent now, only 1 has known people to have been killed by a gun.