I hope he's actually giving the cat something to eat after each torturous "You hungry?" moment.

Dubai & the UAE:
Shari'a
Torture
Slavery
Homosexuals, adulterers and apostates can be stoned to death.
Abortion, blasphemy, public displays of affection, premarital sex, all illegal and punishable by flogging.
Domestic violence against women is legal.

Qatar:
Shari'a
Sodomy, extramarital sex, alcohol consumption, blasphemy, apostasy, proselytism all illegal and punishable variously by flogging or imprisonment.

Kuwait:
Blasphemy, homosexuality, transgenderism, public displays of affection, eating or drinking in public during ramadan, alcohol, pornography and 'sending immoral messages' are all illegal.
Domestic violence and marital rape is legal.

Indonesia:
Islamist violence against religious minorities is widespread.
Muslims are pushing hard to criminalise homosexuality.
Female applicants to the military and police are subjected to 'virginity tests'.
Shari'a in Aceh province includes the flogging of homosexuals among its atrocities.

Tunisia:
Homosexuality and blasphemy are illegal.
Persecution of the LGBT by both government and private groups is common and increasing.

Mali:
~90% prevalence of FGM
Half the country under islamist control, with all the oppression, murder, torture and rape that implies.

I agree with Oliver here, but I think he sorta missed an opportunity to talk about confirming exactly who our US Constitutional protections should apply to.

It has been all-to-common in the past decade-plus for people / bodies in our government to "justify" questionable actions by saying that they were performed on people who aren't US citizens. Detain and torture suspected (or *known*) terrorists indefinitely without trial? That's fine, they aren't citizens. Send drone strikes against people outside of US borders that we suspect may be aiding terrorists, even though collateral damage is likely? Meh, they aren't Americans. Spy on people, record and intercept their communications to the greatest extent possible without a warrant or probable cause? Never mind -- we're not doing it to our own citizens (even though we now know that even that justification is an outright lie).

It would be nice for the government to take a stand and state that ALL of the protections that are granted by our constitution and have made our country what it is should actually be considered universal and binding in terms of how our government interacts with ALL people, not just US citizens.

Freedom of speech, religion, press, assembly, fair trial, no unreasonable searches and seizures, etc. etc. Consistently and universally applied whenever the government has any interaction with any human being on the planet -- inside or outside of US soil, and whether that person is a US Citizen or not.

I suppose it would take a constitutional amendment to codify that. That would require 2/3 support in congress -- so I won't hold my breath. But here is where a president with true leadership could step up and say that whether there is an official amendment codifying that or not, every government office under his (or her) command should behave as though that was law. All the 3-letter agencies, the military, etc. I think that would get the ball rolling and make an amendment possible on down the line.

Our constitutional protections are arguably what made our country great. We have nothing to lose and everything to gain by proving that to the rest of the world by actually standing by the courage of our own convictions.

The US has made the rod for its own back - torture, murder, illegal invasions, nuclear brinkmanship, extra judicial assasinations even of US 16 year olds by killer robot..

The US is about to be China's bitch for a few centuries and you idiots have made sure the ruthless dictators can LAUGH at your protestations of acting better when you had the chance - while your kid is being tortured to death and they laugh at you..

YOU DID THIS

We're morally superior to them because we do it in an abattoir and have a modern drainage system. God we're so civilised.

If only right wingers gave half as much of a shit about innocent kids getting bombed/killed/raped in Aleppo and elsewhere as they do about animal sacrifice when it's done by a Muslim.

I look forward to seeing the same commitment to comments about seal cubs being beaten to death by blood thirsty Americans, Canadians, Swedes, Fins, Russians, Norweigans. Or when whales and dolphins are slaughtered in open water in Japan. Bulls tortured in Spain.

What a tortured life for people with Tourette syndrome. Its heartbreaking. But how amazing it is to see how the music gives him escape.

I find it disgusting and outrageous that people are still allowed to use this kind of indiscriminate trapping these days at all. There's no way to keep endangered, or unwanted animals from being killed or injured to the point where they'll likely die later.
I would like to think I would destroy any I found, and/or use them on the trapper if I found them, leaving them pinned in the forest with both arms and legs attached to separate trees in hopes that the animal they were going for finds them and has a nice treat.
Just sickening. I hope at least this one animal didn't die a horrendous, painful, long, torturous death by starvation, but with the injured leg, it still may have.

Bovine milk from a happy cow that eats grass and lives in a field with good, appropriate medical care, like the one's we raised and the one's I visited last week, yum.

Your hyperbole is showing. You lower awareness with that kind of lie...that all animals are mistreated so all animal products are products of torture. It's bullshit, you know it's bullshit, and you just keep on spouting it. I'll keep on contradicting it. That's the deal.

Sorry, you missed the mark. I take lies, any lies, as an attack on humanity. You are lying. It's not because it's a personal or family attack, but that is the reason I have the personal knowledge to discredit you thoroughly. I actually hate the relative with the goat farm and would love to see her lose her shirt, but I admit she is an excellent animal caregiver...to the point where she often sleeps in the goat pen (outside in Texas Hill country) with them for their comfort and safety.
I have nothing to sell, I'm not invested in it at all beyond my home garden/subsistence farm. I buy my meats, but I buy good quality, properly cared for meat, not Burgerking, because I care about quality and animals. There are certainly abuses in farming, but they are the exception rather than the rule, contrary to your position. I have the extensive personal experience to say that comfortably.

EDIT: Buying LCD products is what causes the abuses you complain about. Quality products are not made as cheaply as possible, so do not have the issues you claim all animal products are tainted with. You know this.

I agree with you and don't hate Nazis. I hate murderers though, so I hate many of the Nazis but not all of them. Some Nazis helped Jews escape their fate and if it were not for them, some of those people would not be alive today. Disagree with me all you want, I couldn't believe otherwise.

In fact, even some of the mass murderers, the Einsatzgruppen, the meticulous destroyers of entire populations throughout Eastern Europe showed signs of their shame and guilt. When someone feels shame and guilt, that is a sign of their humanity which begs for love and forgiveness.

That doesn't excuse the horrors that they contributed to, but it also shows that they were not merely bogeymen and were themselves victims.

Now, it's very human for you to disagree with my sentiments on this topic out of love and honor for those who were unjustly murdered in this life -- we are a passionate species and it is very right to feel anger towards murderers -- but if an actual loving god (not a torturing one) were to exist, it would forgive and love for the same reasons. That's my belief and I sleep well at night for having it. Otherwise, I would simply be filled with anger and hate for the people who have caused me pain in MY actual life.

Nazis never did a goddamn thing to me directly so it's only conceptual hate that I can feel towards them. But there are people who existed side by side with me who have done me great harm -- and I even forgive and love those people who directly violated my trust. People MUST forgive those that have harmed them in order to move forward with their lives, by accepting their humanity, which although flawed, is still a mammalian emotional being, neocortex enabled and desiring compassion.

Another interesting conceptual form of love is when the family of murder victims forgive the convicted killers who harmed their own family. Isn't that interesting that some people are willing to not hate murderers of their own family members? Or when George Wallace forgave the man who attempted to assassinate him? Sure, he was a born againer and the pro-segregationist who tried to deny black people from signing up for school with white kids, but he still had it in him to forgive and to love, and that to me says he too must be forgiven and loved, because a change occurred in him and his empathy manifested in new ways as his perceptions of mankind changed over time.

I'll echo the video again and say you only have to read the qur'an. If you think, for example, 'unbelievers deserve to be tortured forever in the afterlife' is a belief that could be held by a good person, then I just don't know how to find common ground.

People are deceived into defending muslims because they don't like the kind of people they see attacking them. Obviously we don't like Donald Trump, obviously we don't like bible-thumping pastors and their qur'an burning parties, and islam doesn't have to be a race for racists to hate muslims.

None of that bigotry goes any way whatsoever toward excusing actual islamic doctrine. If you examine it objectively and without apology you will find you despise it.

Fear isn't a reasonable reaction to individual muslims, at least not if you meet them in a non-islamic country, but hate certainly is. I don't typically say of people I hate that I'm interested in peaceful coexistence or protecting them from radicalisation.

@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..

It's not fully a joke.
I honestly think people not willing to examine their beliefs in the face of new contradictory evidence need to be removed from those actually willing to learn in order for us to evolve as a species/civilization...but that evolution is probably over now. I don't actually advocate killing, sterilizing, or even removing them, I do advocate teaching them, by force if necessary, or removing some privileges. Lucky for everyone (including me) I'm not in charge.
I do wish there was a way to identify them and bar them from teaching, voting, or governing, or any other activity where their solidified beliefs might tend to negatively impact others, but they are not easily identified.
I think it's a mental disorder to believe something so strongly that you can't even try to consider new information or even consider that your belief is possibly wrong. I would like to see that disorder eradicated in my lifetime. I'm willing to change my opinion if presented with incontrovertible evidence that I'm wrong, though. ;-)
I'm not angry with ignorance, ignorance is forgivable and curable...I'm angry with ignorance masquerading as certitude, which is what people who say truthfully that nothing could ever change their mind (about any topic) are displaying.

As for your above example of torture, what if you were shown incontrovertible proof that it's not only effective, but is (somehow, this is hypothetical) MORAL, and is suddenly found to be acceptable to 99.999% of society due to this new evidence? Would you at least CONSIDER that your position might be wrong? If so, you can stay in society and you don't have to be fixed. ;-)

@ChaosEngine

Comparing your joke to Jim Jeffries joke is a bit unfair, I think. @Chairman_woo gave an excellent analysis of why Jeffries's joke was masterfully crafted, with multiple levels of irony that all orchestrate beatifully together to subvert the listeners' expectations--even if you disagree with the subject matter of the joke.

Your joke, on the other hand, has none of that. It belongs in the same category as Dave Tosh's joke to the female heckler in the audience:

“Wouldn’t it be funny if that girl got raped by, like, five guys right now? Like right now?”

Tosh said that in anger and frustration. I see yours and newtboy's comments coming from the same place. Both are jokes filled with malice and lacking cleverness, and therefore I find them to be wholly unfunny and in fact disturbing. Of course, YMMV.

Now, as far as the rest of your post goes, I think you might have missed the point of my previous post: your anger is misguided because the gentleman who made the comment that outraged you said what he said because he was put under pressure to make a statement that opposes his own party's rhetoric at his party's national convention during a Presidential election year!

It's pretty easy to see how someone, knowing they were likely going to be on TV and seen by millions, might make an overzealous statement to show support for their party that in hindsight turns out to be asinine. In fact I'm sure that's what the show's producers were banking on when they originally came up with the idea for the segment. Whether this particular person--or really any person--will ignore evidence that is contrary to their beliefs is unknown no matter what they may say in public. And their statement is especially suspect when being asked to give an unrehearsed response to a question on TV.

You say your are angry at "woolly thinking" but I think what you really mean is you are angry at ignorance. Personally, I agree with you that feigned ignorance is something to be angry at--politicians who know the facts but continue to say despicable things (i.e. Trump) that they know their people want to hear in order to further their own careers are most certainly deserving of our anger and possibly some form of appropriate punishment, such as being removed from office, if it can proven that they were being dishonest with the public.

But I can't be angry at actual ignorance--people don't know what they don't know. Or even worse, people who think they know when in fact they only have some (but not all) of the facts. Not everyone is lucky enough to grow up in an environment that values education, critical thinking, and seeking out multiple opinions. And even growing up in such an environment is no guarantee that a person is going take advantage of the priviledges presented and become a reasonable and reasoned adult. But my own personal belief is that all of us who are healthy individuals have the capacity to learn, grow, and change our minds given the proper environment and time, regardless of the current state of our knowledge or beliefs. All those things you mentioned--slavery, homophobia, the drug war, etc.--it's pretty clear we are in fact learning and moving on. The transition may be painful but it is happening.

One thing I find interesting about your thinking on this matter is how it exactly mirrors that of the Republicans presented in the video. You see "wholly thinkers" or ignorant people or whatever you'd like to call them exactly as these Republicans see Black Lives Matter activists--as some nefarious and dangerous group of "others" that should be distrusted. I prefer to see them as human beings who are, admittedly, flawed... as am I in a great many ways. I guess it just comes down to having a more optomistic view of humanity.

EDIT: "Would you reconsider in the face of new evidence?" is not a simple question at all. For example, I don't believe torture is an acceptable method of intelligence gathering. You could show me study after study "proving" its effectiveness and I still would never approve of it. On the other hand, if you showed me a study that found a competing laundry detergent got stains out better than the one I was using, I'd probably switch detergents the next time I went shopping.

1. I *AM* an LGBTQ person, I don't speak for them, but I am one voice.
I tend to avoid harassing people.

2. No.

3. a) Both. They aren't mutually exclusive. I want women to be equal and I want legal protections in place to maintain this. This is not secret information.
b) They do.

4. Question 3b) suggests women should be responsible for their safety. Question 4 seems to criticize the notion of being responsible for your own safety. Glad to see unified thought in this. The answer is I expected random bouts of mockery, judgement, and violence. You know, the other 95% of my life.

5. Because shitting on a group that seeks to change culture to react similarly to loss of black life as it does for white lives, while pointing out where society fails to meet this standard is pretty charactersticly racist.
Also I don't say that "Kill all white people" is not racist.

6. Yes. Did you know that the permanence of objects, the transmission of ideas and culture and systems of law are based on events in the past? That by studying history we can understand how humans work in a unique way, that knowing that say, there was a WWI may help us understand the conditions under which WWII occurred and that this knowledge may help us decide what to do in the aftermath of WWII to avoid a recurrence?
That if a group has historically had problems, many of those problems have probably been inherited along with consequences of the problems (such as poverty, strongly inherited social trait). Yes. Linear time,human affairs, culture. They are all things that exist.

7. Yes, I have many examples of people doing this. Mostly this is due to short lifespan. But there are many manchildren in our culture, who seem to think that other people asserting boundaries is immature.

8. There are programs designed to help boost male education dropout rate. If you 'fight' for 'improvements in the fairness of social order ' to help achieve this, you are a Social Justice Warrior, and so you could just have asked yourself.
Also, American bias? Pretty sure this is not a global stat...

9. Because one focusses on correcting the inequalities between the sexes and was born at a time when women didn't have proper property rights, voting rights etc etc, and so it was primarily focussed on uplifting women and so the name 'feminism'. Egalitarianism on the other hand, is the general pursuit. Many feminists are egalitarian, but not all. Hence different words. English, motherfucker....

10. Nothing, as I am not.

11. No, my grandparents were being enslaved in eastern Europe by the far left and right (but more the right, let's be honest).

Seriously though, I don't remember the liberal protests of "Not all ISIS".

12. Ingroup outgroup hatred and distrust is a universal human trait. Race seems to provoke instinctive group psychology in humans, presumably from evolving in racially separate groups.

13. The phrase is intended to deflate 'Black Lives Matter' whose point is that society seems to disagree, in practice, with this. There's only one realistic motivation to undermining the attempts to equalize how the lives of different races are treated socially.
It's also designed to be perfectly innocuous outside of this context so that white people can totally believe they aren't being dicks by saying it.

14. My social justice fighting is almost always done in secret. I hate the limelight, and I hate endlessly seeking credit for doing the right thing. So I try to keep it to a minimum while also raising consciousness about issues where I can.
Hey wait, did you fall for the bias that the big public figures are representative in all ways of the group? HAHAHAHA! Noob.
Wait, did a man voicing a cartoon kangaroo wearing an Islamic headdress, superimposed on video footage of a woman in a gym grinding her hips tell me to stop trying show off how awesome I am and and to get real?

15. No, they are both not capable of giving consent. Sounds like you have had a bitter experience. Sorry to hear that.

16. I spent two decades trying to change myself. I tortured myself into a deep suicidal insanity. When I stopped that, and when society had changed in response to my and others plights being publicised sympathetically I felt happy and comfortable with myself.
You would prefer millions in silent minorities living through personal hells if the alternative means you have to learn better manners? What a dick.

17. Sure. It's also OK if you say 'nigga' in the context of asking this question. But I'm white and English. You should ask some black Americans if your usage causes unintended messages to be sent. I'd certainly avoid placing joyful emphasis, especially through increased volume, on the word.

18. Ah, you've confused a mixture of ideas and notions within a group as a contradiction of group idealogy. Whoops. I don't understand gender identity. I get gender, but I never felt membership in any group. That's how I feel, and have since the 1990s. The internet has allowed disparate and rare individuals to form groups, and some of these groups are people with different opinions about how they feel about gender and they are very excited to meet people other people with idiosyncratic views as they had previously been alone with their eccentric perspective.

19. If white men are too privileged then the society is not my notion of equal.

20. After rejecting the premise as nonsensical. In as much as I want rules to govern social interactions that take into consideration the diversity of humanity as best as possible, I recognize those same rules will govern my behaviour.

21. Women can choose how to present themselves. Video Game creators choose how to present women in their art. I can suggest that the art routinely portrays women as helpless sex devices, while supporting women who wish to do so for themselves.

22. You DO that? I've never even had the notion. I just sort of listen and digest and try to see if gaps can reasonably be filled with pre-existent knowledge or logical inferrences and then I compare and contrast that with my own differring opinion and I consider why someone might have come to their ideas. Assuming they aren't stupid I try to understand as best I can and present to them my perspective from their perspective. I don't sing, or plug in headphones or have an imaginary rock concert.

23. I have done no such thing. Look, here I am listening to you. You have all been asking questions that have easy answers to if you looked outside your bubble of fighting a handful of twitter and youtube users thinking these people represent the entirety of things and seeking only to destroy them with your arguments rather than understanding the ideas themselves.

24. Reverse Racism is where white guys are systematically (and often deliberately) disadvantaged - such as the complaints against Affirmative Action. I'm sure your buddies can fill you in on the details. The liberal SJWs you hate tend to roll their eyes when they hear it too. Strange you should ask.

25. No. I've never seen the list. I just use whatever pronouns people feel comfortable with. Typically I only need to know three to get by in life, same as most other English speakers.

26. I'm the audience motherfucker, and so are you. That's how it works.

27. I don't do those things, but yes, I have considered the notion of concept saturation in discourse. Have you considered the idea that people vary in their identification of problems, based on a number of factors. Some people are trigger happy and this may be a legitimate problem. Since you are aware of this, you also have a duty to try to overcome the saturation biases.
Similarly, if you keep using the word 'fucking', motherfucker, you'll find it loses its impact quite quickly. See this post motherfucker. Probably why you needed to add the crash zoom for impact. You could have achieved more impact with less sarcasm and and a more surprising fuck.

For starters, I have to oppose the implied thought that Saddam's reign of terror was preventing this sectarian violence. His rule through the Suni minority to wage genocides against the Kurdish and Shia majority and decades of brutal repression of same all served to make the sectarian hatred and violence worse. Tally up the hundreds of thousands he killed through genocide, the million plus he killed in the Iran-Iraq war and everyone that died by direct execution or deliberate starvation level poverty and compare it doesn't stand out as starkly and objectively a desirable alternative to today.

Now if you ask what would I do differently it depends on what level of power I've got to act with. Ideally, we can go back to first Iraq war and have Bush senior march on Baghdad. This would've aborted one of Saddam's genocides. Equally importantly, this would have kept the Shia Iraqi population's view of America as a liberating force. The standing in the desert and watching Saddam slaughter them thing still carried their mistrust of American forces after Saddam's actual removal later. That singularly stupid move of leaving Saddam in power, at the urging of most of the planet, drove the Shia population of Iraq back to Iran as their sole sympathetic ally.

Next step, after the removal of Saddam, whether we can do it back then, or only a few years ago as it really happened is to truly setup an occupation government. You don't bring stability to a region by immediately trying to transition to a democracy before the shooting has even stopped. The occupation government would be run by somebody with actual knowledge and experience with Iraq, rather than as Bush senior did by sending in a guy with zero experience and a two week lead to brief himself. The task you should place on this leader, is to setup a federated Iraq, with distinct and autonomous Shia, Sunni and Kurdish states. The occupation government would dictate things after taking input from Iraqi's rather than holding them to the tyranny of the majority as Bush and co allowed. The occupation would setup an initial constitution defining what laws and agreements spanned all three Iraqi provinces/states and what extent of autonomy they had to define their own systems of government. The American military's job would be to enforce this very basic constitutional framework. Each Iraqi state/province would be aided in setting up their own governments with a transition plan again dictated not voted upon. The transition plan would define the point in time when each state transitioned from occupation rule to a self determined future and rule of law.

The above plan on the whole would work, but Bush and co couldn't have managed post Saddam Iraq more poorly if they had actively tried to.

If zero time travel is allowed and we are to 'fix' things today, you need a lot MORE power. You need an army the size of America or Russia's and the political will to spend several years doing things the public will hate you for. The end game is still the same as above, a federated Iraq kicked off under a dictatorial occupation. To get there from today though you need to create stability. You need to take an army and march it across the entire country. As each city is cleared of militants you take a census of everybody and keep it because you need it to track down future militants. In entirely hostile locations like were ISIS has full rule, you bomb them into the stone ages before marching the army in. The surviving population is given full medical treatment. Now, as for sorting militants from civilians though, you do NOT use American style innocent until proven guilty justice. Instead, any fighting age males are considered guilty until proven innocent. This level of rule of law needs to remain in place until stability can be restored. You of course guarantee lots of innocent arrests, but your trying to prevent massive numbers of innocent deaths so it's required. As you stabilize the nation you can relax back to innocent until proven guilty and work on re-integrating the convicted.

You'll note that although the methods I'd declare necessary above are by any count 'brutal', they do not extend into Saddam's usage of genocide, torture and rape as the weapons of choice.