I disagree that it is victim-blaming.

He is honking his horn and yelling and neither speeding up nor slowing down in the face of a car coming for him.

Drive defensively. So every time they run that PSA, that is victim blaming?

She was totally in the wrong. You saw I said that right?

And he didn't drive defensively.

As a car driver (encased in a metal box), I don't argue with someone who is coming right for me. I try to get the heck out of the way (and curse at them the entire way).

Now, maybe I am missing something -- you can correct me if I am wrong about my observations. I"m not a motorcycle driver. Maybe he couldn't have slowed down, sped up, or done some other maneuver. Looked to me like he could have.

Please do correct me if my observations are incorrect.

(And might I inquire as to why in particular it is odd to see me "victim blame"? Not that I think I am?)

Is this really worth involving police in? I am with him for a honk or two, a bit of cursing and giving opulent instructions on how to acquire better driving habits. Then get on with your life.

"Aside from Tourette's, brain injuries, strokes, dementia , seizures and many other forms neurological damage can usher the onset of coprolalia as well. It is known to be caused by brain dysfunction, but the details are, as yet, hazy. One hypothesis, described by psychologist Timothy Jay in his book "Why We Curse" (John Benjamins Pub Co. 2000), suggests that it's caused by damage to the amygdala, a region of the brain that normally mitigates anger and aggression. Because cursing is a form of verbal aggression, amygdala damage could result in the inability to control aggression, including verbal aggression, or cursing."
http://www.livescience.com/33384-tourette-syndrome-people-curse-uncontrollably.html

One thing I never took the time to learn about tourettes is why are the verbal outbursts like this usually curse words? Why is it tits, arse, fuck, damn....why not tree, ball, yard, sky....what makes those words their triggered effects?

CURSES! World Domination foiled again due to sloppy observations!

Lawrence Wilkerson's dismissive comments about self defense are very disrespectful to people who have had to resort to self defense. He wouldn't say things like that had he been unfortunate enough to have had such a personal experience. (As one parent of a Fla victim said - his child would have given anything for a firearm at the time of the event.)

Re. 2nd amendment, yes, it's not for pure self defense. The reasoning is provided within the text. The government is denied legal powers over gun ownership ('shall not be infringed') in order to preserve the ability of the people to form a civilian paramilitary intended to face [presumably invading] foreign militaries in combat ('militia').

It's important to remember that the U.S. is a republic - so the citizens are literally the state (not in abstract, but actually so). As such, there is very little distinction between self defense and state defense - given that self and state are one.

Personally, I believe any preventative law is a moral non-starter. Conceptually they rely on doling out punishment via rights-denial to all people, because some subset might do harm. Punishment should be reserved for those that trespass on others - violating their domain (body/posessions/etc). Punishment should not be preemptive, simply to satiate the fears/imaginations of persons not affected by those punished. Simply, there should be no laws against private activities among consenting individuals. Folks don't have to like what other folks do, and they don't have to be liked either. It's enough to just leave one another alone in peace.

Re. Fla, the guilty party is dead. People should not abuse government to commit 3rd party trespass onto innocent disliked demographics (gun owners) just to lash out. Going after groups of people out of fear or dislike is unjustified.







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As an aside, the focus on "assault rifles" makes gun control advocates appear not sincere, and rather knee-jerk/emotional. Practically all gun killings utilize pistols.

There are only around 400 or so total rifle deaths per year (for all kinds of rifles combined) - which is almost as many as the people who die each year by falling out of bed (ever considered a bed to be deadly? With 300 million people, even low likelihood events must still happen reasonably often. It's important to keep in mind the likelihood, and not simply the totals.).

Around 10'000 people die each day out of all causes. Realistically, rifles of all sorts, especially assault rifles, are not consequential enough to merit special attention - given the vast ocean of far more deadly things to worry about.

If they were calling for a ban+confiscation of all pistols, with a search of every home and facility in the U.S., then I'd consider the advocates to be at least making sense regarding the objective of reducing gun related death.

Also, since sidearms have less utility in a military application, a pistol ban is less anti-2nd-amendment than an assault rifle ban.







As a technical point, ar15s are not actually assault rifles - they just look like one (m4/m16).
Assault rifles are named after the German Sturm Gewehr (storm rifle). It's a rifle that splits the difference between a sub-machinegun (automatic+pistol ammo) and a battle rifle (uses normal rifle/hunting ammo).

- SMG is easy to control in automatic, but has limited damage. (historical example : ppsh-41)

- Battle rifles do lots of damage, but are hard to control (lots of recoil, using full power hunting ammo). (historical example : AVT-40)

- An 'assault rifle' uses something called an 'intermediate cartridge'. It's a shrunken down, weaker version of hunting ammo. A non-high-power rifle round, that keeps recoil in check when shooting automatic. It's stronger than a pistol, but weaker than a normal rifle. But that weakness makes it controllable in automatic fire. (historical example : StG-44)

- The ar15 has no automatic fire. This defeats the purpose of using weak ammo (automatic controlability). So in effect, it's just a weak normal rifle. (The M4/M16 have automatic, so they can make use of the weak ammo to manage recoil - and they happen to look the same).

Practically speaking, a semi-auto hunting rifle is more lethal. A Remington 7400 with box mag is a world deadlier than an ar15. An M1A looks like a hunting rifle, and is likewise deadlier than an ar15. Neither are viewed as evil or dangerous.

You can also get hunting rifles that shoot intermediate cartridges (eg. Ruger Mini14). The lethality is identical to an ar15, but because it doesn't look black and scary, no one complains.

In practice, what makes the ar15 scary is its appearance. The pistol grip, the adjustable stock, the muzzle device, the black color, all are visual identifiers, and those visuals have become politically more important than what it actually does.

You can see the lack of firearms awareness in the proposed laws - proposed bans focus on those visual features. No pistol grips, no adjustable stocks, etc. Basically a listing of ancillary features that evoke scary appearance, and nothing to do with the core capabilities of a firearm.

What has made the ar15 the most popular rifle in the country, is that it has very good ergonomics, and is very friendly to new shooters. The low recoil doesn't scare new shooters away, and the great customizability makes it like a gun version of a tuner-car.

I think its massive success, popularity, and widespread adoption, have made it the most likely candidate to be used in a shooting. It's cursed to be on-hand whenever events like Fla happen.

-scheherazade

This IS the appropriate reaction to what happened. Cursing and all.

Yes. It was a long, painful slog to excise chingalera from the body. It was, in fact, the reason I started posting, because I just couldn't sit back and watch him make the sift an ugly place with little or no pushback.
Lantern, while I often disagreed with him vehemently, USUALLY didn't devolve into a 5 year old little girl who just had her ice cream taken away, ranting, screaming, cursing, and attacking anyone in earshot. It did happen, but not often. I realized one day that I seemed to be one of the few actually responding to his posts, so I ignored him, and he left soon afterwards. I thought the same thing might happen with bob, but clearly not. I shouldn't be so surprised though....my bad for expecting reasonable, rational, or even adult behavior from the die hard extreme right winger who spends his time on a left leaning site.

It's amusing how cruel people can unwittingly be (on YouTube) making fun of the elderly man being sucked into the sea to die and their misplaced vitriol at the disabled person who is unable to help. It's not so much that an old guy almost died and a crippled person couldn't do anything; it's the the irony in the comments due to people not knowing the truth. Then again, maybe it could also be a skit like the disabled fat guy from Little Britain?

Certainly, it is funny, despite the cruelty in laughing at other people's misery. It could be a gag in an Adam Sandler movie, except the old guy would be Bob Barker and he'd be pulled out to sea and heard cursing as he drifts and blinks out in the sunset. *Plink!*

Everyone would laugh and then Adam Sandler would kiss a blond woman, probably Drew Barrymore, while the sun sets and we do the Looney Tunes fade out, with Porky Pig interrupting with a hand gesture, "A bi-di-a-bi-di-a-bi-di-abi-di-that's all folks!"

I totally knee-jerked and was cursing the vert video before I realised it actually kind of made sense. Now I feel stupid.

The pain and misery which is ultimately the mediocrity of subway kindness viral videos. We are cursed with what we are doing here. The internet is a land that, if God exists, he created in anger. Overwhelming misery, overwhelming fornication, overwhelming lack of order. There is no harmony in the universe as we have conceived it.

But you don't hate it. You love it very much... against your better judgement.

wow, as much as the wood gave under the truck, those rickety looking anchors weren't budging. Not his first time over it for sure. Of course I would have cursed him a million deaths if he did wreck the bridge. Things like those in third worlds can take months to rebuild, and whole towns rely on them.

Ugh. That tofucken looks disgusting. If they're going to try to sell veganism, they should try to not make the alternative look like a vomit box.

And they totally, totally overdid it with the cursing. After the 18th fuck, it's not funny anymore. It just makes you sound like a 15-year old who just learned how to cuss.

And, I'm sorry @newtboy, but even animals raised in 'humane' conditions are still treated horrendously by any human standard for any other sentient being. If we treated our mentally handicapped like even the best animals in the best farms, it'd be considered an atrocity.

Keep on cognitive dissonancing the shit out of that. Just admit to yourself that your enjoyment is more important than another being's suffering. Just admit it! And say, "I'm an asshole because my hunger is more important than suffering." proudly. Stop dancing around with that "humane slaughter" nonsense.

@oritteropo:

The video definitely answers some questions:

1. She goes to an arts school and was able to do "anything" for her final project. No dig to her, but there's some privileged shit right there.


2. She's not super attractive, but she's cute and obviously very extroverted, friendly, and undoubtedly popular. If I was a shy nerd and was confronted by her (and probably having seen her be this way before in the halls), I'd definitely be skeptical and assume she was being an asshole to me.


3. Regardless, she does seem pretty genuine.


4. God damn, college art kids are annoying with all their "wow, I'm so laid back I fucking curse all the fucking time for no fucking reason or some shit. Fuck."

Um...try reading again. I see now that the English language is apparently hard for you. Here, I'll go ahead and quote it for you...."I re-read my entire post, and not a single vulgar word IMO. One abbreviation of a vulgar word." I guess when I wrote "one abbreviation of a vulgar word" you read that as "no sign of vulgar language, even abbreviated". You might want to go back to Cambridge and take English 101.

Ahhh, I see...well then a big old F- You right back to you for all your ridiculous vulgar insulting bullshit.

You might want to learn English as it's used...and you might want to look in a mirror. I'm WRITING to someone who not only seemingly doesn't know to read or use the English language, and he's been a smarmy douche about it to boot. "Fuck you" is vulgar, "Hillary is not a convict" is not vulgar. By your definition, your entire post thread is vulgar, as it is certainly lacking sophistication or good taste, is totally unrefined, ignorant, hateful, now vitriolic, sesquipedalian in the extreme, completely devoid of fiscal responsibility or even consideration, and is lacking in all common sense. It is, indeed, the exact mindset of people in a Fox bubble. (Yeah, Fox, you know, that world wide political news giant you claim to have never heard of...talk about ignorance...holy crap, that's not just ignorant, it's ignant. Look that one up.)

So you know what people mean when they say -Vulgar : Making explicit and offensive reference to sex or bodily functions; coarse and rude:

Perhaps you forgot that you clearly wrote that what you specifically meant by 'vulgar' was "cursing", not "Lacking sophistication or good taste; unrefined"...obviously you didn't read your own post, or thought I didn't have the capability to remember. So sad for you. Again, just like Fox bubble people, when your argument is torn to shreds, you just change what you claim your argument was and move on to make more unsophisticated argument.

I'm pretty sure you've broken or burnt out your bulb there, buddy. You WERE amusing until you were contradicted and you got angry and decided to move from being just smarmy on to silly, infantile, completely wrong ad hom attacks against someone you don't know rather than discussion. It's totally not above me to aggravate someone of such a '6 year old spoiled little girl' disposition, but it's not something I intend to spend much time on.

I think you better quit the internet, you're totally doing it wrong.

You've just lost a 'friend' here, one that's helped you repeatedly here already. You can go stamp your feet and scream at the walls in your room now. Expect no further help from me in navigating the site...and expect to be banned if you continue the ad hom attacks against me.