>> ^berticus:
the psychology of the military fascinates me
"it's a game you have to play"
"too busy trying not to piss yourself"
"stripped of your dignity"
so bizarre


it should be both fascinating and bizarre to you

sad to say but there has always been and continues to be a need for soldiers in civilized societies

training them necessitates making them different from the rest of the populace, otherwise in wartime you could just give your everyday citizen a gun, wave vaguely in a direction and tell them to fire at will... and watch them be slaughtered

soldiers need to be trained to a higher level of discipline in order to react appropriately in stressful situations, to suffer a higher level of discomfort routinely, to more easily shrug off pain or fatigue that might incapacitate a civilian population

for this reason, there are various and sundry methods of training to achieve the desired effect -- are they perfect? of course not...

will this paradigm seem odd to you? sure, you're not a soldier - you're an ordinary citizen who probably never thinks for a moment about the underlying structure that protects you from complete anarchy

^ what enoch and skeeve said

as a marine vet let me assure you that boot camp, et al, is where the talk-the-talk 'tough' become the walk-the-walk truly tough, both physically and mentally -- you are first stripped of your dignity and soon enough earn it back, and more so, through merit

that said, this appears to be some kind of ROTC or JROTC event rather than a usmc drill instructor training marine recruits

next up... a half dozen hermits burn a chinese flag in a walmart

brava!

every nation acts in what it perceives to be its own self interest... it's a given

i think it's impossible to give an example of american intervention that has 'turned out well'... well, because it's impossible to say how it would have turned out without said intervention... and history never stops

maybe at some point in the far future, after we've all destroyed ourselves, some alien race will arrive and piece together the entire history of humanity

at that point, perhaps, they'll be able to gauge right and wrong definitively... but i doubt it -- moot point for us anyway

alien #1: "wow, those humans were messed up! why didn't they listen to ron paul?"
alien #2: "well, at least their wiping themselves out did subsequently allow the tadpole-squirrel race to evolve in peace on this planet..."
alien #1: "yeah! grytzlaak the great of the tadpole-squirrel people did go on to bring ultimate equilibrium to the entire universe!"
alien #2: "yup! i love you, dude..."

do competing ideologies cause suffering? absolutely

would a single, global ideology alleviate suffering? maybe, but what a boring world we'd live in

@hpqp: you may be right... and i may be way off base

i guess in my mind 'child abuse' is systematic, and this could have been just a one-off

as i said, i routinely got worse than this... but that was going on forty years ago

we all see things differently through an often-distorted lens of our own memories and experiences... and to me, something just doesn't ring true here - of course you can disagree... your opinion is just as valid as mine

let me give you an example of where i'm coming from though: my folks were very much a couple of 'spare the rod, blabla' parents - when i was naughty (which was often), i'd be physically punished

just before my 16th birthday, my parents filed for divorce - on separate occassions each of my parents brought me with them to their respective lawyer's office, where i was asked to give a statement regarding the other parent's abuse of me -- i asked each of them 'what does it matter?' and their responses were that it would help that parent's bargaining position and eventual financial settlement - each parent offered me incentives to speak out on solely their behalf

i refused, and petitioned the court for my own emancipation at age 16, which was granted

sooo... for me, it's not whether or not that what happened to hillary adams is 'child abuse' (this can be so subjective, especially when it's a single instance captured on video)

rather, i'm suspicious of the motivation and manner of her coming forward now - she's obviously a canny individual (the hidden video camera is our first indication of that), and add to that the facts i mentioned in my first post

it just strikes a chord with me, remembering how dirty i felt while my parents tried to involve me in their revenging themselves on each other

i find it difficult to trust her...

i'm glad she's happy and all now, but... the whole thing went viral and we still don't know very much of the details

i watched the original and didn't think it was that bad, imho... i routinely got far worse and for less as a kid - i'd get a hiding like this for just throwing the cat in the koi pond... or a miserable report card, etc

there are some disturbing aspects as the possible motivations for the original upload:

-her dad had recently cut off her (adult) financial support after she dropped out of college
-he'd also recently denied/restricted her use of the mercedes-benz he'd provided for her
-the mother is in an ongoing court battle re. alimony/benefits and assessing her share of the value of his pension
-the timing of the upload was suspiciously close to the end of of the statute of limitations in their home state

let's keep in mind that growing up in the '70s and '80s was pretty different from growing up today... and that there are myriad shenanigans you can now pull with audio/video to build/strengthen a civil case

granted, i don't lay a hand in anger on my own kids, but that's me... and now -- still too early to say if my parents' tough love made me a better person, but it certainly didn't damage me

iirc, that 'what a wonderful world' clip is from one of michael moore's films

there's some 'truth' in there, but also a lot of untruth...

for example, the mossadegh and shah segments, and the whole bin laden / cia angles

there IS blowback, and rp is correct in stating that obl referenced some previous us actions as the basis for aq's attacks

but as a whole--and in virtually everything--if you overstate your argument, well, you're already on your way to losing it

i see... so if the scriptures mention three things together in one sentence, they become a trinity... a christian concept... a dogmatic practice, eg knife, fork and spoon

and you consider those two bible verses as enough to split god into three pieces? to treble his persona without increasing his divinity? like a lego... now he's together, now they're apart?

what do the ante-nicene church founders say about the trinity?

why does the trinity--the core of christianity--not appear until the 5th century of the common era?

so if the statement 'god is three persons coexisting consubstantially as one in being' defines trinitarianism, and the statement 'god is one person' defines unitarianism... you are a trinitarian, correct?

next... would you agree that among the founding fathers of the united states the following beliefs were held?

1. atheist (don't believe in gods)
2. agnostic (don't know what to believe)
3. deist (believe in an all-powerful creator god)
4. unitarian (believe as defined above)
5. trinitarian (believe as defined above)

finally... where does the word 'trinity' and/or its derivations appear in the bible and/or ancient manuscripts?

so you believe in the holy trinity, that is... a single god in three parts?>> ^shinyblurry:
I'm non-denominational, however, if I could pick any I had an affinity for it would be the baptists.
>> ^Diogenes:
shinyblurry, which christian denomination are you?

shinyblurry, which christian denomination are you?

sweet!

i play a lot of ultimate and frisbee golf, and seeing things like this make me hope for the ever-increasing popularity of these fun and easy sports

my best catch ever (not in a game) was in 3ft of surf near a beach in thailand - a group of us were practicing our 'H' catches (going horizontal), and for one perfect throw skimming right about the water's surface, i inverted to a handstand underwater and caught the disc with my feet

unfortunately, no video

i know less than some, and i know more than some... but i certainly won't be learning any history from your trollish spiels

the word 'christian' appears in the bible, huh? you mean it appears in an english translation of the bible, right? because none of the original manuscripts that came to form the new testament contained any english

the original texts were in greek, aramaic, and hebrew - we see khristos derived from the nominative greek, which was simply a direct translation from the hebrew meaning of messiah or annointed one - latin added the '-anos' suffix to create the adjective form

hey! did you know that the swahili word 'mafuriko' appears in the epic of gilgamesh? yes, it means 'flood'
>> ^shinyblurry:
You, sir, don't know much about our history. btw, the word Christian appears in the bible
>> ^Diogenes:
you, sir, are full of dumb

you, sir, are full of dumb>> ^shinyblurry:
This country was founded by Christians, and judeo-christian principles. 24 out of the 56 signers of the declaration of independence had seminary degrees, and some of them were ministers. The first meeting of the constitutional congress opened with a 3 hour prayer and a bible study. The reason we have "checks and balances" is because the founders knew all men are sinners and can't be trusted with power. James Madison got the idea for our three branches of government from Isaiah 33:22. This idea that this country has ever been secular in any sense is ridiculous. While some presidents may have been pandering, we are a Christian nation, and that is why we elect Christian leaders. Around 80 percent of us self-identify as Christian, and around 90 percent profess a belief in a higher power. Only around 13 percent of the country believes in darwinian evolution without any divine intervention, which is the reason why we won't have any atheists in the office anytime soon.
Newsweek
Now historians are discovering that the bible, perhaps even more than the constitution, is our founding document
12/27/82
>> ^Diogenes:
well, as the link infers... probably right from the start
i just find it difficult to agree with penn in that the umbrella term 'christian' began to flourish in the 1970s, and because of some sort of 'planning'
i mean, we know simply from the etymology of the word that it was used long, long ago... at first disparagingly by non-christians, and then embraced a few hundred years later as different assemblies used it to self identify
i think those who run for office are canny by nature, and it's probably second nature for them to understand that to garner more votes, they must present an inclusive image, rather than divisive

well, as the link infers... probably right from the start

i just find it difficult to agree with penn in that the umbrella term 'christian' began to flourish in the 1970s, and because of some sort of 'planning'

i mean, we know simply from the etymology of the word that it was used long, long ago... at first disparagingly by non-christians, and then embraced a few hundred years later as different assemblies used it to self identify

i think those who run for office are canny by nature, and it's probably second nature for them to understand that to garner more votes, they must present an inclusive image, rather than divisive