To me, it's a bit of a relief to have tape of Mitt Romney talking like your average far-right Randian asshole.

The biggest thing Romney had going for him was that the press was never going to try to push him to speak plainly about what he really believes, and let him just fill the airwaves with platitudes and sneers.

Even in his "press conference" he held last night to respond to this, he said that basically this is what he's meant by his public comments thusfar. In other words, that his opponents are all parasites and leeches who must be burned off the face of the earth in order for America to prosper.

You know, conservatism.

>> ^ZappaDanMan:

Romain Grosjean has been given a one race suspension for causing the first-lap collision at the Belgian Grand Prix, and also imposed a €50,000 fine.


I personally don't get what a penalty like that is supposed to accomplish, you mean next time when he's wheel to wheel with someone he should just yield the position without trying?

I mean, he fucked up, but this kind of crap happens all the time further back in the line, and people don't get suspended from the next race for it. I guess the standard now is if you knock out a star like Alonso or Hamilton you face a much stiffer penalty than if you knock out Timo Glock or Heikki Kovalienen.

I guess it's a much bigger safety risk if you endanger the FIA's bottom line than it is if you endanger someone's life by being stupid...

The only problem with this is that there aren't any of what he calls "real" Republicans anymore, at least not in the Republican party.

I mean, he correctly counts Mitch McConnell as one of the Tea Party extremists. Given his position in the Republican party, that's pretty much the ball game.

So you're saying you think there's a situation in which throwing peanuts at someone and saying "this is how we feed the animals" is acceptable behavior?

Part of why I sorta just view the entire conservative jihad as one giant threat to mankind is this way you guys always rally around people you identify as part of your tribe, no matter what kind of horrible thing they've done.

The only thing you guys condemn your own for is ideological apostasy -- bigotry, corruption, cruelty, even murder doesn't really seem to bother conservatives, at least when it's done by a conservative. But if a conservative says the rich should pay more taxes, or that global warming is real, or that gay people have the right to legally marry -- if they do something like that, then you'll immediately grab your torches and pitchforks and run the guy out of town.

>> ^bobknight33:

You and I don't know why they threw peanuts.

Also, this: http://xkcd.com/1093/

I've been a little worried about how this election would go.

I'm not anymore.

Randroid Ryan isn't going to end up a laughingstock like Palin did -- he can actually speak English as if he actually graduated from high school!

But picking Ryan is going to make it impossible for Romney to pretend to be interested in anything but robbing from the poor, disabled, and the elderly so that he can give truckloads of money to the extremely wealthy (like himself).

Krugman pretty much called this one right from the start: this is the Galt/Gekko ticket now.

*isdupe

*isdupe

Sorry, I'm just used to seeing comments on basically every one of my videos that is either pure Republican argle bargle (Kenyan Muslim Socialist blew up the debt, so who cares if Romney is a snake who will say or do anything to get elected!), or some backhanded comment that damns Obama with faint praise from more liberal and independent minded people.

I thought your comment was one of the latter. Sorry I jumped all over you for it.

>> ^A10anis:

There are NO contenders of any worth to take on Obama. There, you clear now of my initial meaning? I'm done, JEEZ.

>> ^kevingrr:

As Huxley said, "It is possible to make people contented with their servitude. I think this can be done. I think it has been done in the past, but then I think it could be done even more effectively now because you can provide them with breads and circuses and you can provide them with endless distractions and propaganda."
@StukaFox
Your comment is as clever as it is simpleminded. You can worship the elephant or the donkey and I'll disagree with you based on the zeal you have for one and the disdain for the other. The world is a complicated place and whats best isn't found in one camp or the other.
Look at Huxley's last novel Island. He merges 'East and West'. He takes what he feels is best from both.


I upvoted because my reaction to this is that we've ended up in a world a lot closer to Aldous Huxley's shiny, distracted, and soul suckingly disconnected dystopia than we have 1984's drab, brutal, overtly totalitarian one. Our dystopia is much harder to break out of, because on the surface it seems open, free, and filled with prosperity, until you scratch the surface, and see the rot festering underneath.

I could've just as easily have downvoted for the stupidity of your pox upon both their houses view of modern politics though. I don't really get the sense much of anyone on the left is filled with some sort of "zeal" for the "donkey" -- and the disdain for the Republicans largely stems from the way they seem to be functionally identical to the Inner Party members from 1984. They can shamelessly go from lauding an individual mandate as the "personal responsibility principle that's essential to bring costs down" and then when the party's needs change, decry the same policy as somehow being a violation of everything that Americans hold sacred. All this while demanding they still be treated as if they were serious people of conviction and principle, and painting those who dare to point out their hypocrisy as some sort of dishonest partisan hack.

The fact that one side, and only one side has fully committed to this level of partisan loyalty should make even the most cynical, above the fray, non-partisan person sit up and take notice. Maybe it's time to stop pretending this is politics as usual, and see it for what it really is: a battle to stop a group of committed fanatics without a shred of human empathy from pushing out the last vestiges of the flawed, inept, but well-meaning opposition standing in their way.

>> ^direpickle:

It was a terrible thing to happen, but you have to realize that some people are just crazy. These things happen occasionally even in the most nonviolent cultures. The finger-pointing isn't helping.


He wasn't pointing fingers, he's just saying it'd be nice if the tools of destruction this particular crazy person used had been harder to obtain.

Make it like health care is right now, where you can be denied for pre-existing conditions. Make it take a long time to set up, make it require boatloads of paperwork to get the bullets you need. Then, when it's all said and done, make it cost $5,000 for the cheapest possible gun, with bullets being hundreds of dollars each.

On the flipside, make it so anyone can walk into a hospital and get treatment. No background checks, no waiting periods, and if it costs anything at all, make it so cheap that a couple hundred bucks is enough to buy the lives of more than 10 people.

A better world is possible.

@jimnms I think the right lesson to take from the example of Brazil is "gun control laws need to be properly enforced to reduce homicide", not "gun control laws never reduce gun crime."

Also, you're wrong about gun shows, there's a pretty big loophole. From wikipedia:

U.S. federal law requires persons engaged in interstate firearm commerce, or those who are "engaged in the business" of dealing firearms, to hold a Federal Firearms License and perform background checks through the National Instant Criminal Background Check System maintained by the FBI prior to transferring a firearm. Under the terms of the Firearm Owners Protection Act of 1986, however, individuals "not engaged in the business" of dealing firearms, or who only make "occasional" sales within their state of residence, are under no requirement to conduct background checks on purchasers or maintain records of sale (although even private sellers are forbidden under federal law from selling firearms to persons they have reason to believe are felons or otherwise prohibited from purchasing firearms).

In other words, you can always just say you're a private seller, and sell guns at gunshows without doing background checks or recording the sale.

There are videos, sifted right here on Videosift, of people going and buying guns at gunshows while literally saying to the seller "I don't need a background check, right? 'Cause I probably couldn't pass one" with the seller replying with some form of "no problem, here's your gun".

But more than anecdotal video evidence, there's also a been series of studies about drug cartels moving serious amounts of guns using straw purchases at gun shows.

Yet for some reason you're calling Moyers a liar for saying the same thing.

Also, the Assault Weapons Ban set the maximum legal size of a single clip at 10 rounds. IIRC, this latest shooting featured the shooter using a barrel mag with over 100. That used to be illegal. Also, the Tuscon shooting featured a shooter using 2 guns with 30-round clips -- and he was stopped when he had to reload.

Personally, I don't quite understand the anti-gun control side of the argument. Say banning assault weapons only reduces the number of people killed by gun violence by 1.6%. That's still what, a few thousand people's lives a year? Why is having assault weapons legal for civilians worth the deaths of a thousand people a year? Why would it be worth the death of even one person a year? You can still have a pistol, a hunting rife, a shotgun, etc., you just can't have a high-velocity, large-magazine firearm. What exactly is the harm in making that illegal?

Well, he does have to actually win the election to stay President -- being the incumbent doesn't mean he isn't in contention for the highest political position in the world. I'd like for there to be more good choices too, but it doesn't seem likely that the Republican party is going to provide anything like a good choice for the foreseeable future. At least right now the Democrats have somebody pretty good to put forward, not so sure the same will be true in 2016.

And yes, it is kinda pointless to post if you don't want responses. I can't even remember posting a video where someone didn't stop by to voice their disagreement with the message of the video, my posting of the video, my title/tags/channels, etc.

>> ^A10anis:

You know, friends of mine, quite rightly, castigate me for bothering to post. I'm starting to agree that it is pointless. Yes, you moron, I am well aware of Obama. However, he is not a contender, he is the incumbent.

>> ^radx:

http://videosift.com/video/Bill-Moyers-Living-Under-the-Gun


Just nominate it, man. I won't be offended, just annoyed.

*dupeof=http://videosift.com/video/Bill-Moyers-Living-Under-the-Gun

>> ^A10anis:

I despair at the lack of serious contenders for the highest political position in the world. The fact that he is a mormon, should, given their tenets, automatically exclude Romney (unless we want to go back to the bronze-age, when religion dictated every facet of life).


There's a pretty serious contender on the ticket, actually.

Ever heard of this guy named Barack Obama?