One of my favorite police PSAs ever.

My favorite, however, was when they cited me for possession and court ordered me to take a "marijuana" "class" taught by an ex-cop, who told us drug laws are bullshit, but as long as no one can see you smoke, it's a'ight.

I guess there's a reason he taught those classes -- emphasis on the "ex" part of "ex-cop" -- but damn. The. Court. Ordered. Me. To. Take. A. Class. Which. Said. Fuck. The. Law. As an intellectual who had only smoked marijuana like 3 or 4 times up until that point, it really opened my eyes. I was one of very few white people in that class room. That also opened my eyes.

Ahhhhh, the law. Such a fickle thing.

I feel like this is the equivalent of people who live in their car in America. People who's work is enough to feed them but not to house them. I live in the heart of Silicon valley when I go out at night I inevitably see car after car with someone sleeping in it, and the back seat filled with what I can only imagine is their only earthly possessions.

There are so many people living like this even in one of the richest places in the US, I can only imagine what it's like in areas with a lower concentration of wealth.

Ah yes Trump opened a can of whoop ass.
Up until 10pm election night every Democrat and main stream media outlet knew in their hearts that Hillary wold win Smug ass media....And that did not happen. Ultimate FAIL..

What a false argument you give.

Its like saying in football terms:

We ran more yards .
We has more time possession of the ball.
WE had more rushing.
Hence we should have won.

These, like your argument don't mean squat -- its the final score that matters.

So yelling fire in a theatre?
Talking about bombs at an airport?
Threatening the president?

Or to extend "speech" to "expression", you're ok with child porn (not making it, that's clearly illegal, but possessing/screening it)?

He seems like a decent person, and decent cop. No wonder he was fired.
I wonder if he actually turned in any fellow officers for inappropriate behavior, or just went after the boss?
It's pretty bad when working to make his department work for the citizens they work for gets him removed from that department. That's the opposite of what they should be doing. That said, demanding your bosses resignation will get you fired from just about anywhere.

Sadly, arresting people over minor infractions and ruining their lives is the job he chose, and not enforcing the law is not accepted, no matter how screwed up the laws are. Because our political system is broken, those laws are getting more and more screwed up constantly. I don't see a workable solution to this dilemma considering how differently we see the law.... for instance, some of us believe minor marijuana possession should end ones freedom and others believe your body and what you do to it are your decisions to make.

Really? So you don't think your statement "white people don't have crime" is blatantly racist? Well, no one ever accused you of possessing good comprehension skills.

And another adhom violation to boot.
You really DO want me to make an issue of this, don't you? You know what happened to the last guy with no self control that tried that, right?
Try again, I can make it an issue if you insist.

Also, learn to spell your insults.

One of the great intellectual catastrophes of the modern world, and probably the harbinger of the ultimate doom of our civilisation, is the collapse in the distinction between 'compare to' and 'equate with'. We can reasonably compare almost anything to almost anything else, and how unfortunate that we can expect immediately to be confronted by some aggrieved outrage-peddler who imagines they have a right to find the comparison insulting.

It is a literal fact that any group of two or more people, or living things, or indeed most objects of any kind, will possess some internal differences. As a matter of certain truth, not subject to doubt, muslims share with rats and serial killers the trait that they evince diversity of behaviour and belief. This demonstrates the total banality of the 'but they're all different' argument. It's not for their differences that these groups are disliked.

That's probably enough of a lesson for one day, and certainly @oritteropo ought to know better. I don't want to take the trouble to argue deranged claims like 'there are muslims who don't believe in god', or tiresome diversions on how christians and other jews can be just as bad, or to debate the relative merits of various religiously mandated dress codes; but you are right about one thing @SDGundamX: I would much prefer that islamic violence and oppression were a harmless and overblown bogey, but ethics is not a children's game - these are real people, with real victims, and too many of both.

@newtboy

you said:
Call it what you will. To me, massive illegal immigration with the goal of territorial control is invasion...no matter why they invaded. Invaders always have a reason.
Hence my making the distinction between Arab and Jewish controlled Palestine. Officially the British were still ruling over Palestine, but in most practical ways, Palestine was already divided before the mass immigration started. There was essentially Jewish Palestine and Arab Palestine, and the normal conflicts between close neighbours with different religion were already significant before the illegal immigration. Of all the places for Jewish Europeans to flee to, the land already in the possession and control of welcoming Jewish Palestinians hardly stinks of invasion to me.

Sorry, I know I tried to refocus on what they should have done and immediately leapt off the rails myself.

You said:
should have fought the Nazis, not the mostly blameless (for the atrocities) Palestinians
A majority of them that made it into Britain and America did just that. In fact, so many fought against the Nazis that when the civil war in Palestine came to a head and WW2 veteran Jewish soldiers started showing up it's counted part of the Arab narrative as 'western' support and part of the unfair military advantage that made Israel the mighty power and the Arab league army the underdogs.

You said:
The U.S. was open...if they could get here.
No, nothing was open. As pictures of the camps spread, doors started opening but that was very much after the fact. Leading up to and during WW2 immigration numbers were very restricted to jewish people. There simply was absolutely no legal immigration option for thousands and thousands of Jewish Europeans.

You said:
neighbors and allies try to secure their borders that are being crossed by invaders
You misunderstand my statement on the Arab League member's intentions. They had NO intention of defending their neighbouring Arab Palestinian's land. Sure, publicly they declared a joint effort to liberate Palestine. Each member nation though was stating that as code for liberate a portion of Palestine by making it a part of themselves. Israel was able to take the best equipped and trained Jordanian army out of the battle without a single shot fired by agreeing with them to simply abandon the portion of Palestine that Jordan proceeded to make a part of itself. The other Arab states made similar bids militarily, refusing to co-ordinate their assaults because each wanted to declare the ground gained their own. As they each rushed their offensives and attacked individually Israel had the time to plant 100% of their forces in the path of each of them.

You asked:
Should I think you call Turkey an invader of Daesh, and you a supporter of Daesh?
In the sense that you are asking, it's a near yes. The original Syrian resistance is a group I really do support, and the Kurdish fighters have largely been on their same side and I support their efforts there as well. Daesh was much more interested in killing the 'legitimate' resistance than Assad and Putin's forces. Similarly, the Russians have made it a firm practice to exclusively attack the 'legitimate' resistance and doing their best to largely not bother attacking Daesh unless forced to. The main reason being that once Daesh is all that's left, the scorched earth fix becomes all the more easily justified, and the actual rebels pose a much more real and legitimate alternative to Assad's government than Daesh.

Also, hah at the reference to Linoleum :

Possessions never meant anything to me
I'm not crazy
Well that's not true, I've got a bed and a guitar
And a dog named Bob who pisses on my floor
That's right, I've got a floor
So what
So what
So what

I've got pockets full of kleenex and lint and holes
Where everything important to me just seems to fall right down my leg
And onto the floor
My closest friend linoleum

Lin-o-le-um

Supports my head, gives me something to believe
That's me on the beach side combing the sand
Metal meter in my hand
Sporting a pocket full of change
That's me on the street with a violin under my chin
Playing with a grin, singing gibberish
That's me on the back of the bus
That's me in the cell
That's me inside your head
That's me inside your head
That's me inside your head

Ahhhh fuck yeah shit YES I needed some Die Antwoord in my life tonight, baby! Zef style! I will let the demons possess me tonight. But no drugs. Just the pure madness of a freak on a leash needing to vomit out its soul. I might get hurt. I might be in pain after I'm done hurling myself at trees and walls and off of things; into things; out of things...

But more importantly, zef-portantly: what do I wear whilst embodying such madness?

Ye, CD Projekt could ask for my firstborn as payment for Cyberpunk 2077 preorder.

I read an interesting opinion thing about No Man's Sky - that hype can sort of be enjoyed in itself, like when you're a kid the best part of Christmas are the weeks before. Now I actually loathe the run up but I really enjoy the day (which somehow continues to surprise me), but sometimes it is kind of nice to be a kid again and just believe with all the naivete of youth. With the Witcher 3 I actually pretty much had possession of the cake and, simultaneous to having it, I had also eaten it. I really hope they manage to bake another quantum superposition cake because it was/is delicious.

@ChaosEngine

I think we're getting a bit far off from the original topic, so I'll try to stay focused on my original point: you're still saying this guy in the video was presented with evidence and refused to change his mind.

He wasn't.

He was asked a rhetorical question to which he spontaneously replied in the way that he felt would be most in line with the thinking of his political party since he knew he was going to be on TV. His throwaway answer triggered your angry throwaway comment and here we are, with you apparently unable to grasp the irony of how your demonizing a group of "wooly thinking" bogeymen (who according to you are responsible for slavery, homophobia, and the drug war among other things) is completely mirroring the rhetoric of all the people in the video who are demonizing the BLM movement and the rhetoric of Trump in general regarding Mexicans, Muslims, etc.

You can see how well that approach is working for the Republicans, so it's baffling to me why you'd take that approach in dealing with something that is a real problem--convincing people to change their minds about beliefs that are deeply held but also based on what others would say is faulty reasoning (but seems perfectly reasonable to the person holding the belief). I think you'll find, along with the Republicans, that this approach of demonizing the "other" (who exists only in your mind--when was the last time you met someone who actually believed they were possessed by demons when they caught a cold?) does nothing to solve problems but in fact exacerbates them instead.

And that concludes all I have to say on the subject. I'll read whatever response you post but won't be replying in this thread again.

@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..

I'm sorry, but that is an oversimplification too great to just allow you to apologise for and continue on with the point.

To suggest a narrative in which all Thatcher did was close a few factories and blame the communities for being too lazy to fend for themselves or find a new job is not only naive and ignorant of all the facts, but incredibly insulting to people from those areas.

An apology for oversimplifying? I personally think you owe one to the hard working people of northern mining towns that were not only made redundant by Thatcher (with no other jobs available), they were victimised by her and then blacklisted so that they would not be able to find work again - some have only been vindicated in the past few years.

The only redeeming aspect of your frankly disgusting ideas about deprived areas in the UK is that you are clearly not in possession of the facts. Lazyness? The miners were the backbone of this country, the WORKING class - you know? Steelworkers lazy?

To some people in this country there has been no recovery, they are more in debt than ever, they have less job and home security, they are depressed, there is no future and it doesn't even seem like their kids will be able to do any better. David Chameron appears on the TV and tells them we're all doing better and the recovery is going great and they laugh at him... THEY'RE USING FOODBANKS TO LIVE. Their families eat by the grace of generous community members who donate food... in 2016....... in the United Kingdom, ex-fifth largest economy in the world. Recovery!? That's how the recovery was FUNDED!!! By taking money from the poorest and most desperate in the form of cuts and austerity! They're using foodbanks right now so that you can claim the UK had a recovery. Disabled people committed suicide because they felt as if they were a burden, because they were scared and saw no hope, all so that people could claim we had a fucking recovery. But the average person is no better off and the debt that Osborne made such a big deal about has increased. He's missed every target he made for himself and redefined poverty so that the statistics looked better!

And that isn't BECAUSE of brexit - that was before brexit. Many people are blissfully ignorant of how some people have to live their lives in this country, especially those most influenced by the Westminster bubble. Politicians and political commentators have completely misjudged the mood of the nation; that led to brexit, that has led to Corbyn who in fact has been the ONLY man in parliament to be making these points.

And they think he's no leader? When he goes to work every day he has to deal with around 400 people spitting abuse and doubt at him. He stood in parliament with hundreds of them jeering him and faced them down and made the democratic will of hundreds of thousands of people (who were not in attendance) felt. He is the only man who looks like a leader right now, the only one who looks like he knows what the hell to do.

I had a similar reaction to films like exorcist and the omen when i was a child. Mostly due to going to a religious school when i was young. Demon possession seemed reasonable back then. I actually had a wooden peace sign hanging in my room and took it out and buried it when i found out it was a "broken cross" (something to do with witchcraft)
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