Please do not hammer fist my pretty nose. If I fall down, I'm done. Promise.

"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.

@ChaosEngine

Just like with religion, there is no point in trying to get a point across to someone who doesn't want to hear..

I think I am listening to you. You think you are listening to me.

I KNOW you aren't listening to me.

I'm not that interested anymore in attempting to get my point across to you, dear Chaos. You want perfection in the world, which is a zealot's point of view. I can live with the horrible imperfection of humanity -- because I have no other choice. I have all of human history as support for my point of view.

The suffering of the idealist. I know it well. I have it in certain areas of my life. I can't stand seeing office systems that can be improved but human need for fiefdom's block efforts to make things better. I suffer and suffer and rail and shake my fist as I know in my ideal world things can run more smoothly. I've been in the same office for 30 years and have made some progress, but I am finally realizing I have to stop and just let it be. As an idealist, it drives me crazy.

But it's all good.

This. Is. The. Human. Condition.

OK, you're clearly not reading anything I write.

My point is NOT that "they shouldn't be in a church you don't approve of".

My issue is with your assertion that some people NEED the church. It's not cherry picking, it's the central point.

And I never used the word "shouldn't".

Once again, I have no problem calling out someone for belonging to an awful organisation, anymore than I would for a clan member or boko haram.

And clearly, at least 1500 people decided they don't "need" the church any more.

Just because people like a thing, doesn't mean they "need" it and it doesn't mean it isn't bad for them.

As for it being none of my business, well, you posted the video, I'm entitled to comment. And when the religions stop forcing their bullshit on everyone else and actively harming others, then it'll stop being my business.

In the meantime, you're goddamn right I will shake my fist at "millions of people" and tell them they're wrong. So what? Millions of people believe in creationism. Millions of people still think women are second class citizens. Millions of people are dying because some fucking morons told them not to use a condom.

Millions of people are wrong.

@ChaosEngine

I'm not missing your point. Your point is that you think they shouldn't be in a church you don't approve of. I say it is none of your business.

You can cherry pick a word or two out of what I say. Doesn't change the fact that you say they "shouldn't" be in a church you don't approve of.

It is judgement coming from you about someone else's life choice. And that is what religious people do towards others.

Bottom line -- humans aren't 100% rational beings. Including yourself, in my opinion.

I look at the facts. And the facts are there are people who "need" religion and there are people who don't. How do I know these are the facts? Because the world is full of religious and non-religious people, and a multitude of churches, some of whom kill each other over tiny differences. As it has always been, so it shall be, until we stop being human.

And yet, as a purportedly rational person, you shake your fist at millions of people and tell them they are wrong.

Nope. They "need" these religions, or they wouldn't exist.

Period.

A big old spikey gloved fist up the anus to ANYONE pushing X-mas in November. It's the 12 DAYS of X-mas, not the 12 WEEKS of X-mas.
You can't really take the 'Christ' out of X-mas, he was never really in it. If you must insist it's a 'god's' birthday, that god would be Mithra (AKA. Mithras), not Christ. The whole idea that Dec. 25 was Christ's birthday was a political ploy of the Romans, not a religious (and in no way a historical) idea.

Below is purportedly part 2 where another officer engages in a fist-fight with a teenager in the classroom (though it's hard to tell if this is the same event; it does seem to be a different kid):

There is absolutely no suppression.
It's not analogous to 'banning books', it's more like not checking out and reading certain books, or certain authors. No author has the right to force their 'work' on others. Your right to swing your fist ends at my nose.
You simply don't have a right to 'be acknowledged'. That is not a right. EDIT: Freedom of speech is not the freedom to force others to listen.
You absolutely SHOULD be able to remove someone from your personal existence. As you said, there are even laws to do it in real life, which actually effects the actions of the other party, unlike this, which is more like blocking their phone number and emails at best. Do you think it should not be possible to block phone calls and emails?
How do you find that offensive? Why do you feel that a person's right to force their views on another person outweighs that other person's right to NOT have a person's views forced on them?
Again, NO ONE IS SILENCED. How do you not get that? To censor, you must hide the work from OTHERS, not simply not look at it.
I clearly explained the reasons I asked for it, you just don't get it for some reason.
The behavior you described is exactly what was happening, but was done in such a way that the moderators said it didn't rise to the level of banning or even hobbling them (although I still can't understand how, since at least one of them was repeatedly using the N word, others using the C word to describe any woman, others making nasty personal insults, etc.) Since ban and hobble weren't happening (now ban, THAT's censorship...but for cause), something else was needed, this was it.

Possibly, and I'm not familiar with US law, but I know in Australia there are laws that allow proportionate responses when either defending oneself or acting in the defense of another.

The guy was attacking a helpless person with a closed fist. He got hit (and is far more able to defend himself) with, at most, a closed fist. Proportionate. That he might die as a result of the blow could be foreseen by a reasonable person (ie. manslaughter) but the fact that he is attacking someone so incapable of defending themselves, in my mind, means that someone leaping to the defense of the blind guy has considerable latitude to remove the threat to him.

At least insofar as Aus law is concerned, might be completely different in the US, but I suspect any jury would take a very dim view (no pun intended) of someone bullying a blind kid.

I did the spider thing with my wife, only I stuck it above her head on the kitchen ceiling. After I had calmed her out of her panic attack, I had to just stand there whilst she pounded me with her fists.

"I think there would be a fist fist there..."

No... I think a baseball bat would be involved and he's toning it down because his daughter and cameras are present.

You seem to be offended that Ulysses spoke up that he didn't find her funny, and have taken it to the nth degree (really, analogies re: anal fisting?), but a big part of Amy's speech/performance was the idea that she has always been a bit unique and saw no reason to change herself to conform to others ideas of what she should do or be.

So why do people who do not find her funny suddenly owe you an explanation as to why? Why is it even a point of analysis? If the hypothesis is that if you're not a feminist, you're more likely to not find her funny, is it not also possible that feminists are more likely to find her funny because they subjectively want her to be funny? Aka confirmation bias.

Amy doesn't seem to mind that some people don't find her funny, so I don't see why it seems to irk you so much.

ps. Tina Fey is hilarious in ways Schumer has never managed imo, as is Amy Poehler. Similarly, I find Eddie Murphy funny but never really got much of a laugh out of Richard Prior or Bill Cosby. That doesn't say anything about my values or attitudes towards women and black men, it's just a subjective opinion based on what they say or do.

Yeah, but it is complicated on my end. Hence I find her brilliant.

I love that you picked that particular "joke". I didn't like it at first -- I thought it was crude and I was instantly uncomfortable. And in the very next moment, I got it. I got what she was doing. She was taking a woman's body and the way it works AND TAKING THE SHAME OUT OF IT.

Now, if you aren't a person who is in touch with the shame that most women have about how their bodies work, that is just a crude nothing of a nothing.

But I am a woman who carries that shame. She exploded it. She made it on par with the tired old joke of men and their skid mark underwear. She turned it into NOTHING.

It isn't a very good joke. I agree with you.

And it is brilliant for what it achieves.

And that is why I love her. She does this over and over and over again. She is de-shaming women about their bodies and their sexuality and their mistakes. Guys are really good at making fun of themselves. It is one thing I really admire about men, and as I get older, even before Amy came along, I have thought we should emulate that characteristic. Amy is doing that for us. Bless her, really really bless her.

But I don't think you get the joke. Many women don't get the joke -- they are stuck in the shame and think she is just crude.

It's okay. You don't have to get the joke. You also don't have to enjoy anal fisting. Ha.

What, no fist bump?