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Big Think: John Cleese on Being Offended

enoch says...

@Imagoamin

i can agree with your basic premise:free speech can have consequences in the form of MORE speech.

you are totally free to espouse the most ridiculous,self-centered narcissistic cry-baby drivel you like,and i am totally free to ridicule you as the cry-baby bed-wetter you are behaving like.

the problems arise when that interaction is then seen as "harassment" and a defamation of the constantly oppressed group of bed-wetters.how dare i slander such a tender group! havent they suffered enough?

nobody is saying that one group is excused from free speech or from criticism,and most people would agree that if you yell FIRE in a room and cause a panic when there was no fire,there should be consequences for your actions.

what people ARE saying is that making certain words unacceptable,therefore changing the very language we use to express,convey and deliver complex thoughts,feelings and imaginings is counter-productive.made further so when an abstract art form such as comedy is so easily taken out of context to further an agenda.

remember #cancelcolbert?

the comedy and satire was totally lost on that over-privileged nitwit suey park.she instead focused on a single element of his monologue and chose to be offended,without even considering the larger implications of the humor in colberts bit.

does she have a right to be offended?of course.
does she have a right to be outraged and start a twitter campaign to shut down colberts show?yep..she sure does.

and we have the right to absolutely take her inane,and un-self-aware false campaign for justice to task,and ridicule her relentlessly.

because bad ideas,poor understandings and judgements dressed up as social justice SHOULD be ridiculed for the stupidity they represent.

as for your assertion that comedians are thin skinned,or need to grow a thicker skin,i think you have no idea what you are fucking talking about.you ever spoke in public? in front of crowd?

believe me...you grow thick skin,and fast,until it becomes titanium.

i see no further reason to beat that particular horse but just look up chris rock,seinfeld,louis ck ,bill burr,joe rogan.they all lay out quite clearly why universities are a dead zone for comedy.

because the extreme end of social justice warriors are humorless cunts.

how social justice warriors are problematic

enoch says...

@SDGundamX

it is all good mate.
you vote however you wish,for whatever reasons you deem pertinent.

i do not identify so strongly with a video that it somehow represents me,or everything i stand for,and i have no issue if someone disagrees.though i always do respect when someone states WHY they downvoted.

which you did,and mad respect my man.

as i stated earlier i was fairly ignorant to a lot of this new flavor of social justice warrior.gamergate included.in fact,i still do find gamergate really that important in the larger context,though i am sure there are gamers who would disagree with me.

i found this video interesting in that it was addressing how the more radical and extreme elements were attempting to hijack public spaces by controlling language,and therefore dominate the conversation.

since i was not familiar with this particular youtubers stance on gamergate,nor followed his videos,i harbored zero bias on his conclusions.

in my opinion,this mans stance or political leanings in regards to gamergate is not enough of a valid reason to dismiss what he is laying down in this video.

what you are suggesting (and if i am reading your position wrong,please let me know),is that because this youtuber held a certain position on a related subject,devalues and dismisses his position on radical social justice warriors.

a good analogy is me pointing to the sky and stating "the sky is blue" and having my statement dismissed because you may disagree with my politics,religion or philosophy.

but that would not make my statement any less true.

i agree with you that it does not matter of someone is a narcissist or a special snowflake.it is the argument that matters.the IDEAS that should be examined for their veracity and clarity.

and yes,this youtuber makes certain assumptions that are not only irrelevant but extremely biased.

which brings me back to my main point.
freedom of speech and how these radicals attempt to impose their own selective bias by controlling the language we use to express ourselves and those very ideas that you and i find to important.

so while the radical right attempts to legislate morality and impose THEIR own narrow and subjective understandings on all of us.

the radical left is attempting to silence dissent and dialogue by controlling language by using this weird orwellian doublethink.

"zero tolerance for the intolerant" almost every college campus has something similar to this all over campus.

now THAT phrase is a brilliant example of orwellian doublethink.
definition of doublethink:The power to hold two completely contradictory beliefs in one's mind simultaneously, and accept both of them.

so my main point is in regards to freedom of speech and how the radical end of these social justice warriors are threatening that most basic and vital right.

did i get my point across?
well,the jury is still out,but i hope that at least i got a few people thinking and giving this situation a bit more scrutiny.

i am also attempting to address this phenom of binary thinking.
that because i post a video that criticizes the more radical elements of social justice warriors.this automatically translates to me being "anti-social justice warriors".

my recent posts on this matter have confused and troubled some sifters.because they had a certain mental image of who i was and because they may identify as a social justice warrior,my posts were offensive to them,and confusing.

now thankfully @Jinx spoke up and inquired about my reasons,because it appeared to him that i was behaving out of character.

but i am not.
i am,and always have been,about freedom,equality,fairness and justice.i apply that metric as evenly as i humanly can ( i make mistakes,of course).

bad ideas MUST be challenged and how this new batch of social justice warriors are behaving in order to further their agenda is a bad fucking idea.

does this mean trash ALL people who are socially conscious and wish to create a better world by fighting injustice,racism and bigotry?

of COURSE not!
but i do blame those well-intentioned people for not standing up this new form of bully groupthink.just because someone identifies as a social justice warrior does not mean that they get a free pass just for being part of a group.

so just like i blame the "good" cops who stand by and allow the "bad" cops to break the law,abuse their authority and behave like fascists with impunity.they are just as responsible as those cops who cross the line.

so while the intentions may be good,the execution is a horrible lovecraftian nightmare,with far reaching implications that affect us all and can be easily abused.

freedom of speech is good.
disagreement is healthy.
we cannot be so allergic to conflict that we shut down the conversation,and all reside in our own little echo chambers where everybody is agreeing and nobody is questioning.

as a society there is grave danger in that practice.

and that is really what i am talking about.
thanks for commenting my man.
as you may have figured out.this is a fairly important subject to me.
stay awesome!

how social justice warriors are problematic

enoch says...

@Jinx

hey thanks for keeping this conversation going and not just making assumptions and allowing us both to come to a better understanding.

though i am not really surprised,i am gladdened.

in my opinion,i think this situation may be a problem with indentifying with labels and maybe putting too much weight on them to convey complicated and complex human interactions.

i would call myself a social justice warrior,but i would never identify as those who behave is the extremists do.but to imply that the responsibility is on ME,or any other critic,to redefine these radical social justice warriors as somehow not being representative of the majority,is a false dynamic,because that is how they define themselves.

basically the "No true scotsman" fallacy.which is employed ad-nauseum by these extremists.that somehow if you do not adhere to their radical agenda you are somehow not qualified to label yourself:feminist,anarchist (this has been directed at me),socialist, etc etc.

this is just a silly and binary way of breaking down peoples complex human perceptions and understandings to fit a narrow,and restrictive narrative,in order to achieve an agenda.

so while we all viewed GW bush's "if you're not with us,you're against us",as an inane and utterly stupid statement.how come there is little push back when the EXACT same tactic is used to silence someone who may not be 100% on board with a certain agenda?

does me posting this video automatically translate to me being "anti-social justice warrior"?

of course not! that is just silly,but in todays climate that is exactly how some people view complex situations,and it HAS to stop!

you brought up police.
good.
lets use that as an example.
the fact the americas militarized and dysfunctional police force has accounted for more police shootings than soldiers have died in iraq.do we REALLY need to be told that it is not ALL cops.

of course not.again,that is silly but it DOES mean that maybe there is a problem within the institution that needs to be addressed.

here is a perfect case for social justice warriors to bring this corruption and rot to the surface,and here we have black lives matter.which is receiving mixed coverage in the media,but they have gotten people talking and even some incremental reforms in the woks AND,just recently..6 cops fired from a cleveland precinct for shooting civilians.this is where social justice warriors are not only necessary but vital!

but what if.....

those cops who were feeling threatened,or intimidated by the criticism and examination of their institution coming from black lives matters decided to use a tactic right out of these extremists playbook?

maybe some doxxing?
exposing personal information about the protesters?
how about a few false accusations of rape?
maybe personal harassing calls to friends and family members of the black lives matter movement?
how about some false charges of harassment and sexual discrimination?

that would effectively shut down the black lives matter movement within weeks,and how would we respond to that kind of underhanded tactics?

we would be outraged.
we would be furious at the absolute abuse of power.a power bestowed by the state.

and our outrage would be justified.

do you see where i am coming from here?

in the example i have given,which may or not be the best analogy.we can easily see the abuse of power as a form of bullying to get a group that is a dissenting ideology..to shut..the fuck..up.

freedom of speech is NOT just speech you or i agree with,or happen to support,but it also speech that we may dislike,disagree and even find offensive.

but by allowing those we dislike or disagree to say their piece,allows us and everybody else to examine,discern and ultimately discard as ridiculous.or,converesly,find some merit that was previously hidden from us,due to our lack of knowledge or understanding.

i realize i am reiterating my previous point,but i think it is so very important.

free speech allows the free flow of ideas and dialogue and allows good ideas to be absorbed into the body politic and the bad ones discarded into the trash bin.

but there MUST be the allowance of the free flow of thought!

so when i post a video such as this i am not ridiculing actual socially conscious people.i am exposing bad ideas,supported by narrow minded people who wish to impose THEIR sense of how a society should be and attempt to circumvent the very slow process of discussion,argument and debate by hijacking the conversation and shutting down all dissent and disagreement with the most fascist tactics possible.

up until a month ago i was fairly ignorant to things like gamergate and whatnot.i thought i had a pretty fair understanding of what a social justice warrior was,and even included myself as one.

but then,quite by accident,i fell upon a few stories that highly disturbed me.one ,in particular was the case of greg allen elliot who was being criminally prosecuted for harassment on twitter.

now the case was finally resolved,and elliot was found not guilty.
so hooray for justice right?
free speech won in the end right?
or did it...did elliot actually win?
i am not so sure.

you see.
he was a web designer.
and once he was charged 3 years ago,he was banned from any internet use.so effectively he was jobless.
on top of that his defense cost 100k.
sounds like a loss to me.

now let us examine stephanie guthrie.a prominent toronto feminist and tedtalk speaker:
1.she made the accusation of harassment and brought the charges.
2.even though this all started with a man who created a game where anita sarkesians faced was punched,and was the supposed imetus for all this fuss,guthrie never laid charges against the creator of the game.though she did,along with her followers harassed and bullied this man until he closed down his account.so chock one up for feminism? i guess?
4.what guthrie found so reprehensible about elliot was that he had the audacity to question guthries rage and called for a calm interaction.(mainly because there are literally 100's of face-punching games).
5.guthrie and her followers found this call for calm offensive and doxxed elliot and proceeded to harass his employer,his family and ffirends.
6.elliot lost his job.his employer could not handle the harassment.so feminist win again? i guess?
7.when guthrie blocked elliot on twitter she continued to publicly accuse him of misogyny,bigot and even a pedophile.
8.she then brought accusations against elliot for criminal harassment,and that she "felt" harassed.
9.guthrie has paid ZERO for her accusations.she has suffered no accountability nor responsibility.

now the court case is over,and elliot has been vindicated and free speech is still in place for today.

but lets look at the bigger picture.
and let us imagine how easily this situation could be abused.
can we really look at guthrie vs elliot as ANY form of justice? or is it MORE liekly that guthrie was abusing a court system to punish a man she happened to disagree with?with ZERO consequences.

now maybe you agree with guthrie.
maybe you are one of those people that believe in your heart that words are weapons and people should be held accountable for those words.they should be stripped of wealth,work and home..they should be punished.

ok.
thats fine.
maybe you agree because it is a matter you support?
a racist pig loses a job for saying racists things.
or a bigot gets kicked out of his apartment for being a bigoted asshole.

but how about this..
hypothetically:
a devout chritian woman is protesting an abortion clinic with her children in tow.

and lets say a pro-choice atheist comes over to her and starts to berate her i front of her children.ridiculing her for her beliefs and saying jesus was a zombie.that she is a horrible person for believing in such a tyrannical deity,that this so-called all-loving entity punishes all no-believers in a lake of fire for all eternity.that as a mother,teaching her children to worship such a god is tantamount to child abuse.berating her so badly that her children begin to cry?

now what if that interaction was filmed?
then posted to youtube?
what if a "social justice warrior" of the religious flavor decided that berating person needed to pay for his words?
what if that person got doxxed?
and the end result was he loses his job (because corporations are notoriously controversy allergic),and maybe his landlord is notified and he is kicked out of his apartment?

would you be ok with all that?
because that is the EXACT same metric that radical social justice warriors use!

and what about false accusations?
you dont even have to be actually offended and /or harassed,you just have to accuse and the rest takes care of itself.

are you ok with that kind of creative abuse?

so when i bring things like this to the forefront and attempt to expose the underlying idiocy.what i just wrote is where i am coming from.

and yes.these radicals and their underhanded tactics need to be exposed and all the attention brought to them the better.

why? because what and how they are behaving is anti-democracy anti-freedom and anti-liberty.

and i am all for debating specific issues,and will gladly do so..with glee,but i will not and cannot respect what the radical elements are doing to an otherwise worthy cause.

and YOU should be calling them out as well.

i know this is long and i probably lost the plot somewhere,but this is very important,becuase it threatens all of us and if we simply ignore these nimrods they will just become even more entrenched,self-righteous and arrogant in their own little bubble worlds.

that bubble needs to be popped,and soon.

anyways.thanks for hanging (if you made it this far)
there will be danishes and punch in the lobby!

how social justice warriors are problematic

enoch says...

@Jinx

you used a great word:"nuance" and i would add "context".

i know you identify as a social justice warrior,and many here on the sift do as well.i would even include myself on that list in certain instances.

but this video is not addressing the rational and reasonable people who have valid grievances and wish to stand up for:human rights,fairness,justice and equality.

this video is addressing those who abuse political correctness to further their own,personal agenda,dressed up as social justice.these people,who have co-opted,infiltrated and hijacked LEGITIMATE and VALID causes and corrupted them with an irrationality that should,and IS,being ridiculed.

why?
because in the free market of ideas,where there is a free flow of information and dialogue,is the place where bad ideas go to die.

but how do these extremist deal with criticism?
with scrutiny and examination of their call for justice?

well,they simply ACCUSE you of being a:racist,bigot,homophobe etc etc and that is where the conversation ends.the very act of accusing shuts down any dissenting voice by demonizing that person for having the audacity to even question their righteous crusade.

change takes time in a free society.this is a slow process.
so archaic,societal and cultural belief systems take time to shift,but what has ALWAYS been the successful trait in every single victory for social justice is:conversation and discussion.making people aware of the situation and then addressing the problem.

basically it takes people talking about it.

but that is not the tactic we see used by these perpetually offended and faux outraged.THEIR tactic is to shut the conversation down as viciously and violently as they can.they are allergic to dissent or disagreement,and to even attempt to point out the logical fallacies,or incongruities will get you labeled a racist,bigot or homophobe.

that is not justice.that is censorship with a large dose of fascist.

this video makes a solid case for pointing out how a small cadre of narcissistic cry-babies have hijacked groups who had actual grievances and created an atmosphere of fear,anxiety and paranoia simply to promote their own brand of social justice by latching onto real movements...and in the process..destroyed them.

did you SEE what they did to occupy?
or their current slow motion destruction of feminism?
or how about that semi-retarded atheism plus?
good lord..just go watch PZ meyers slowly become a former shadow of himself to pander to these fuckwits.

look man.
even YOU acknowledge that their are some who abuse political correctness for their own self-aggrandizement,and i suspect that even YOU do not identify with this small group of extremists.

well,that is who this video is addressing.

i mean.what fair and reasonable person is AGAINST women having equality or being treated fairly?
who would be AGAINST fighting corruption in our political and economic systems?

but this new batch of social justice warriors are all about THEIR rights.THEIR feelings.THEIR safe spaces and THEIR fascist ideologies on how a society should behave and act.

and if you happen to disagree they will unleash the most vile and vicious tactics to not only shut you up,but lose your job AND,in some cases,abuse a court system to make you criminally libel.all because of THEIR agenda.

free speech is only something THEY are entitled to,YOU get to shut the fuck up.

this ultra-authoritarian,cultural marxism is so anti-democratic and anti-free society,that it must be called out and ridiculed for it's own absurd lack of self-awareness.

they should be laughed at,ridiculed and chastised for the idiocy it proposes.

now maybe we disagree on this,and that is fine.disagreements will happen and they are healthy.

but just know i am not addressing those actual social justice warriors,but rather their more radical and fascist minority that appear to have hijacked the conversation.

and i truly highly doubt you are part of that minority,and if you are?
sorry man.we disagree.

enoch (Member Profile)

radx says...

The mixture of valid points, exaggerations, ignorance of context and completely false information makes it a bit... difficult to digest.

Generally speaking, a lot of errors were made regarding Cologne.

The police fucked up entirely and basically was unable to maintain control of the square in front of the central train station where shitloads of theft, sexual harassment and even a few rapes were committed.

The public media did not report on it properly. They did, in fact, refuse to report it at all at first. But that doesn't stem from an obession with PC nor is it special treatment for refugees/immigrants -- it's good old-fashioned pro-government bias. A few days later, they were all playing the same tune again: bad immigrants, bad muslims, need more law-and-order, close the borders, need new laws, etc. Same shit as always.

And yes, you cannot expect all these refugees to be model citizens from the get-go. Different culture, different language, segregation, no work permit, no familiy, maybe first-hand experience with war -- they are bound to commit crimes, assuming otherwise would be naive.

And accepting a million refugees might have been a bad idea after cutting down public personnel and services for two decades straight. But what's done is done. The question now is what can be done to improve the situation for everyone involved. What doesn't help is further segregation (refugee camps), private security (aka mobs hunting brown people, happened in Cologne already) or downplaying the massive problems.

As for that wierd tirade from 1:07 onwards about true Germans: except for all the people from Bohemia, Prussia and Silesia, aka Poland; or the millions of immigrants from Italy and Turkey; or the folks from former Yugoslavia; etc. Two thirds of the bloody country has family names that mark them as n-th generation immigrant. Half of my extended family is from what is now Russia (Kaliningrad) while my family name is distinctively Dutch. "Paid German taxes" gives a hint to his motivations. Folks in East Germany didn't pay German taxes: do they count? Refugees from former German enclaves ("Russlanddeutsche") didn't pay German taxes, nor did they speak proper German: do they count?

All in all a very misguided rant, too eager to abuse real fuck-ups for his own ideology. Rape culture, SJW, PC -- doesn't apply in this case. It's small government, media with establishment bias, a general inability for open discussion of problems, and a shitload of incompetent arseholes in positions of power (e.g.: chief of police in Cologne, gone now).

By the way, he forgot to mention the hundreds(!) of refugee shelters that were set on fire during the last few months. Bands of immigrants committing crimes are a problem, bands of Germans committing crimes are a problem.

We had a six digit number of prime suspects for trouble already: young, male, unemployed, un(der)educated, no fucking hope. It's the main cause for the persisting problems with Nazis in East Germany: no hope. Adding a million additional people, lots of them with equally bad prospects, without any serious effort to integrate them is bound to blow up in our faces eventually.

The best thing that can happen for the entire Eurozone would be a massive integration program in Germany. And by massive I don't mean a meagre billion Euros. We're talking 15-20 billion a year, for at least five years. The more the better. Even in the current economic regime, it would be much cheaper than the repercussions from staying the current course: doing fuck all.

enoch said:

i love this guy.he is sooo pissed and is an absolute rage machine,but i was curious your take on this situation.
is this guy making valid points?
i know that an influx of 1 million refugees in a country with 60 million has to have changed the demographics of germany substantially,but since i am not there and naked ape does have a point in regards to media tap-dancing around the harsh realities.

so i would love your input on this dudes rage induced rant:
http://videosift.com/video/naked-ape-rages-against-the-syrian-refugee-crisis-in-germany

secondclancy-the new face of social justice warriors

enoch says...

agreed,to a point.the narrator didnt bother me that much,and i felt the content far more important than some random youtube channel owner.

this new overly sensitive,overly privileged with a healthy dollop of self importance being placed on the individual really needs to be addressed.

this new trend to silence dissenting opinions and demanding respect for our own,tiny and insubstantial habitats.while simultaneously disrespecting those who happen to disagree is hypocrisy on steroids.

to scream at the top of your lungs to the dean of students that his job is NOT to create and intellectual space but rather to create a home,and NOT be aware of the incredible disconnect to reality is quite disturbing.

there is REAL danger in demanding a space where only ideas YOU agree with,opinions YOU agree with are allowed,and all dissention needs to be either protected from or compartmentalized.

the reason why the free market of ideas is so brilliant and VITAL,is because this is the place where bad ideas come to die.bad ideas are challenged,scrutinized and criticized.when you remove this free flow of thought,then bad ideas can find homes in these small "safe spaces" and are allowed to breed and fester.

the new form of social censorship must be completely,and utterly destroyed.

lets get some fingers snapping shall we?

eric3579 said:

Although this dude The guy (commentating) is a bit of a douche, the whole situation regarding that college campus deal with those admin/teachers was insanely ridiculous. Youth often does stupid shit by definition.

Asmo (Member Profile)

enoch says...

hey man,
thanks for addressing the distinctions between the two videos.

and i can agree with your assertions,but i fear the larger implications.

i have been down the rabbit hole for a few days now in regards to "intersective third wave" feminism,and wow..juuust wow.

the deeper i go,the more disturbing and horrific it becomes.

so yeah,
turdnugget losing his job does not really bother me as much as how easily i see social media being used to control speech,opinions and attitudes.i guess i saw a tactic that could easily,and quickly be abused.which was mainly due to what was happening to greg elliot and the targeted prosecution by the SJW third wave feminists.

now maybe i conflated the two,but i think my concerns are not specious.

you know me.
i am ultra anti-authoritarian.
i am prefer a free market of ideas,which translates to zero censorship..none.
anything goes...
lets put it all out there,so we can weed out the bad ideas.

so turdnugget losing his job?
not that big a deal,and lets be honest..he was grotesque,but how easily would it be to fabricate a situation? edit? how many examples do we need to see that just the act of accusing can have devastating effects upon the accused with little or no evidence?

and that is where my concern lies,not some idiotic racist who was too dumb to shut up in front of a camera.

draak13 (Member Profile)

enoch says...

why thankies!
i think all ideas should be challenged,especially my own.
if my ideas cannot withstand criticism or scrutiny,then they are probably bad ideas to begin with,and should be discarded pronto.

so i try to post videos that challenge the staus quo,or bring a new perspective and sometimes i just post videos that i agree with and see if those videos hold water.

so i am grateful that others can appreciate what i am trying to do.
stay awesome!

draak13 said:

Thank you for posting pieces that challenge the viewer to learn and think critically!

China's gamified new system for keeping citizens in line

artician says...

It doesn't have to, and is actually just as frightening that it won't work. In its failure or success it's going to absolutely crush the citizens and civil rights, and make peoples lives hell for years and years before it's finally overturned or the country implodes.

Since it's already clearly a bad idea, but it's too late to avoid it, we should be focused on minimizing the amount of time people have to live under such a system.

Xaielao said:

It'll never work. The US watches it's citizens all the time, records their phone data, their social messaging, who they hang out with, where they travel, what they buy and yet so much stuff falls through the cracks.

Now try doing that and more in a county with nearly 5 times as many people in it!

John Oliver On America Vetting Syrian Refugees

kceaton1 says...

It is in some ways far more terrifying to have these type of individuals around and even the REMOTE possibility that they will implement any of their "solutions", rather than the threat ISIS poses to us.

For example, the one individual who thought it was getting to the point (which is absolutely mind-blowing since this person has a better chance of knowing a victim of one of the many gun-massacre assholes, rather than any ISIS encounter) were we needed to re-use the VERY badly implemented and all-around bad idea internment of Japanese U.S. Citizens during WWII. But, like Trump and all of his gaffs and mistakes, he's doubling down and telling everyone that this is definitely something that needs to be looked at.

I'm actually amazed these people can walk through their house at night while it's dark! The amount of phobia and absolute paranoia is amazing. It is RAMPANT amongst the republican candidates; you simply don't hear the same "type" of rhetoric from the left (not yet, anyway).

ISIS is winning without EVER setting a foot on U.S. soil and even if they HAVE, they STILL have achieved more in some ways than Al Queda did. Al Queda was only the boogyman in the closet after 9/11 (except to those of us paying attention and knew damn well who it was on that day because they already tried it once) was carried out and time went by (after all it needed to be "confirmed"; THEN they were terrifying...).

ISIS could commit to ONE crime and the amount of absolute hysteria on our news cycle and amongst our own people will probably make sure we see to it that an NEW federal organization is created to protect whatever they target; if they target a Hostess factory, we'll have a federal agency in one year to protect our precious and vital Twinkies from the harm that may come to them...

This is the craziness John is speaking of. I have NO idea what to do to make Americans dial it down to five rather than eleven for every negative event to happen, including the way they think they need to react to said event.

Hopefully, we have leaders that can react to these events in a much more balanced approach (like, well, Obama).

richard dawkins hammers ben carsons belief in creationism

FlowersInHisHair says...

Politicians are so fucking scared of the losing the religiot vote it makes me sick. Look at them, cravenly pandering to turd-for-brain creationists, each candidate terrified that if they don't say they're a Christian 20,000 times between now and election day they haven't got a chance. Such cowardice. Why do such bad ideas as creationism get to figure on the world stage? Why should the leader of one of the most powerful countries in the world even consider the opinions of people who believe in cherubim and seraphim and gods and planets appearing out of the void by magic? Ignorance of the facts is one thing, but anyone who seriously believes that the world is 6000 years old and that every living thing was poofed into existence by a kind of wizard, after being exposed and eductated by the evidence, should be mocked off the podium.

Hypothesis: each and every candidate, educated as they are, fucking knows that evolution is true. So they lie to keep the votes of dumbfuck creationists. The stand at rallies and make speeches about their anti-evolution stance, lying over and over again but they fucking know. And you know what? The people who genuinely believe in creationism should be insulted that their candidates pay mere lip-service to their religious beliefs. The public ends up electing a liar and they either don't know because they're too weak-minded to work out they're being lied to (they are creationists, after all) or they don't care because it's the right lie; it's the lie they want to hear, and yeah, the guy's lying, but there's plenty of cognitive dissonance to go round. It's the lie that you can't get elected without telling.

Just Another Black Man Almost KIlled By Cops

Jerykk says...

That's pretty stupid. Complete footage of the incident from the cameras of all the officers involved should have been released, unedited and uncensored. Police shouldn't get to pick and choose what gets shared.

That said, the councilman didn't really handle the situation well. If a cop tells you to step back, you should probably step back even if you aren't legally obligated to. Ignoring a cop or arguing with him/her is one of the worst things you can do. Physically resisting when they're trying to cuff you is the also a bad idea. If you feel that a cop's actions are unjustified and/or illegal, report him/her after you're inevitably freed and call a lawyer if necessary.

It's important to remember that cops are just humans with guns (and tazers and pepper spray). As such, you should treat them with the same caution that you'd treat any human armed with weapons.

poolcleaner said:

http://www.latimes.com/nation/nationnow/la-na-nn-texas-city-council-police-taser-20151012-story.html

His body cam "fell off" before the illegal taze. But I guess if you're a cop anything is legal.

Bill Maher: Richard Dawkins – Regressive Leftists

gorillaman says...

It doesn't. Any criticism of religion is, of necessity, a criticism of its adherents.

If you don't want to be associated with bad ideas, don't sign up for a bad ideology. If you don't want to be labelled as following a hateful oppressive religion, don't follow a hateful oppressive religion.

Mikus_Aurelius said:

Where does the criticism of the religion end and its followers begin?

CNNs Reporting Of The Oregon Mass Shooting

Jinx says...

BBC news did pretty much exactly the same thing. They even have an article on their website outlining the reasons why it is a bad idea to report the shooters name and picture etc...but then they are just as guilty of writing these bullshit stories about who the killer was, who his parents were, his hobbies, his favorite colour, that thing he once said to someone etc etc. Meanwhile the victims are just numbers for the most part.

ant (Member Profile)



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