@bcglorf

i don't think using @drradon 's example of anarchy a good use as a rebuttal.

now may be larken rose's vision is an extreme example,taken from the von mises institute,and where they dreamily offer a counter to police with a "non-aggression principle".while cute and adorable,humans tend to be far more vicious and violent in nature,especially when desperate.

but again,i think our respective approaches to authority will not find common ground here.

i do not seek a leader,but i am ok with a representative,though i do not seem to have any in my government at the moment.

i find it curious,amazing and not a little disturbing just how easily people will quietly,and tacitly accept a police that has become more and more draconian,violent and aggressive while SIMULTANEOUSLY decreasing the citizens rights to protect themselves,defend themselves and resist unlawful police practices.

because they simply change the law to make what WAS illegal...legal.with a stroke of a pen.

and i simply cannot respect when an american says,without any sense of justice or history,to just sit down,shut up and do what you are told.

while claiming they are a patriot,waving their american flag made in china.

the history of law enforcement in this country reveals that their main job,their main focus and duty is NOT to the poor,the dispossessed or the marginalized.

the police's job is to protect those who hold assets,who have money and wield political power.

and before you say anything,i am quite aware that there are some,and they are the majority,who do their job with honor and distinction.my argument is not about singular police officers but rather the systematic problems inherent in the system.

lets take my city for example.
i am blessed enough to live adjacent to a very wealthy and influential housing development.

average police response time?=7 minutes.

right down the street,not 10 miles down the road,is a depressed area of town.industry and manufacturing abandoned that area 20 years ago.it is stricken with prostitution,heroin addicts and abject poverty.

average police response time?=22 minutes

yet the main police station is in THAT area.

or should i bring up the history of american labor movement?
where the coal miners in west virginia decided to strike,and because the owners of the mines were politically connected.the governor sent in the state police to...and this should send chills down your spine...shoot any miners unwilling to go back to work.

and they did.
they murdered any coal miner still willing to stand up against the owners of the mine,and this included women and children.

now lets examine that for a minute.
workers for a coal mine decided to strike for better working conditions (which were horrible) and actually have a day off,besides sunday (because:god).

the owner of the mine,who was losing immense of amount of money due to zero production of coal,called the governor to have the state police,a civil institution,sent in to put those people down.to force them to either get back to work or face violence.

*now the owner brought in his own mercenary group to assist in the process of intimidation,strong arm tactics and violence.

i will add one more story that is personal,and comes from my own family,and may possibly explain my attitude towards police in general.

my father was born in 1930,in alton illinois.
now that small town had been hit particularly hard during the depression.my father spoke of not having indoor plumbing until he went into the navy,and how the floors in his childhood home were simple boards over dirt.

he grew up extremely poor,and my grandfather struggled to find steady work,and i gather from what my father told me.my grandpa made bootleg beer out of the bathtub.so he and his 6 brothers and 1 sister had to bathe in the mississippi river while grandpa tried to make money by selling illegal hooch.

my father also regaled me with stories of the chores he had as the youngest of 8 kids.it was his job every morning to head to the train tracks and pick the coal that dropped from the coal carts.(which he admitted to being lazy and stole directly from the very full coal cart itself while his brother kept an eye out for the station master).

my point is that my father grew up in desperate and poor times.

but one story always stood out,and i think it is because it has a wild west feel to it that always transfixed me,and i made him tell me the story over and over as a child.

when times are tough,people will do whatever they have to in order to survive,so my grandfather making illegal hooch was not the only illegalities being played out in that small town.neighbor upon neighbor did what they had to,and most were considered criminals in the eyes of the state.

so i guess one of my grandpa's friends was on the run from the law,and sought refuge at my grandpa's home.which he allowed,because neighbors take care of neighbors,at least they used to.

well,in a small town everybody knows everybody,and eventually three police officers showed up at my grandpa's house,and demanded that he turn over (i forgot the guys name).

and i remember the pride on my fathers face whenever he retold this story....

my grandfather stood tall on the top of his stairs facing his front door,holding his gun he was given during WW1 and told the police officers (which he knew.small town remember?),that if they took one step into his home..he would blow their heads off.

now this is a story retold from a childs perspective many years later.i am sure my fathers memory was a tad....biased..but i would bet the meaty parts were accurate.

now my question is this:
how would that exact same scenario play out in todays climate?

well,we would see on the 6 o'clock news how a family was tragically shot to death for harboring a criminal and that the police had done EVERYTHING in their power to avoid this kind of violence.

i know this is long,and i hope i didn't lose you along the way,but i think we should not dismiss the very real slow decent into a society that silently obeys,quietly accepts more and more authoritarian powers all in the name of "safety",and that any form of resistance is to be viewed as "criminal" and "troublesome".

so while i agree that "when should we shoot a cop" should be in the realm of:let us try to never do that.

i also cannot agree to placing cops on a hero platform as if their job is somehow sacrosanct and beyond reproach.they are human beings,of limited intellect,whose main job it is to protect those who own property,have wealth and wield political power.

and with the current disparity and blatant inequality their job has been more and more focused on keeping those 30% undesirables down.

the poor,the destitute,the marginalized,the addict and the junkie and the petty criminals.

those are a threat to the "better" citizens.they are a blight on a community that should be cleansed from the tender eyes of those who are deemed more "worthy".

rich folk may wring their hands,and lament the plight of the poor and wretched,but for GOD's sakes! they don't want to actually SEE them!

so a police officer can do all the mental gymnastics they want in order to justify their place in society,but at the end of the day,they serve the elites.

and they always have.

I am not sure this is working as intended. I distinctly remember these engines would physically shake a massive concrete grandstand under your feet. I can not get that from my earphones or PC speakers.

Interesting how the two end parts of the exhaust system appear to be differently tuned.

Awesome to have real concrete information presented in a way that seems very distinct from what you'd get from sources on the far ends of the spectrum, like High Times or the DEA.

I'm quite surprised that smoking pot seems to carry an increased risk of bronchitis, like tobacco, but apparently NOT lung cancer (unlike tobacco). Are the carcinogens in tobacco cigarettes all from additional ingredients? Could people be growing their own tobacco and rolling their own cigarettes and avoiding one of the biggest health consequences? If so, shouldn't there be a market for tobacco cigarettes without any added ingredients?


I have never smoked pot OR tobacco. A lot of my reasons for avoiding either come down to a hatred of and pretty real sensitivity to / negative reactions to exposure to smoke. Some of my bias against that transfers into bias against pot in general, since smoking it is the default method.

At the same time, it seems ridiculous to me that pot is double-secret schedule 1 illegal while alcohol and tobacco are both perfectly legal. Especially when it seems apparent (although I don't really know what I'm talking about since I've never used it myself) that the intoxicating effects of pot are comparable to but generally LESS dangerous than alcohol, and the negative health consequences of pot are FAR LESS than either alcohol OR tobacco.

Getting real facts and knowledge out there like this video is doing has to have a positive effect on that very questionable policy.

There are some valid points here, but I think there are multiple interpretations to these issues and it's not so clear cut.

I'll just pick an easy one. Trigger warnings are no more a restriction of free speech then calling a movie rated R VS PG13, it's just more specific, so lets get that out of the way. Take a read of a classic like John Stuart Mills “On Liberty”. He does a great dissemination of freedom and balancing it with causing harm developing the harm principle and the offense principle. It's well thought out and addresses these very issues. There is a recognition that free speech should be regulated depending on if it causes harm. For instance it's illegal to yell “fire!” in a crowded movie theater since it could cause harm from a stampede of people trying to leave. I apologize if I get things wrong, but the following is my understanding here, but look here if you're interested. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Stuart_Mill#Theory_of_liberty)

It's a difficult concept to define what is an act of harm. In general this is highly related to concepts of political correctness and has it's very roots in classical liberal thought. In my understanding, Mill would say not to restrict free speech in the case offense only in the case of harm. However, psychology and neuroscience make this line less distinct in caseses of trama or deep internalized concepts where we might see words leading to genuine harm of an individual, not just offense. This means that harm is less universal and depends on the individual and it leads to the idea of separating spaces based on the line between offense and harm. My understanding is the idea of rating systems, red light districts come from this. Also, now, a newer concept of safe spaces. It's easy to say that people should just suck it up, but it's not always that clear cut and there is historical precedence for this idea.

@newtboy,
Compromise implies give and take, not a one sided one way capitulation.
I'm glad to hear that, I dearly hope that both parties attempt the same. Failing both, the democrats absolutely must compromise. They need more voters and it's on them to reach out. Maybe back track on carbon taxation. Maybe allow that there is a distinction between cracking down on illegal immigration and racism against non-whites. Maybe entertain more protectionist policies on trade agreements to encourage domestic production. Regardless of any of those individual compromises being a good or bad idea, they are all ideas that resonated with voters that ditched Clinton and they at least seem potential olive branches to reach out with.

You also said:
I really think the outrage over pc thugs is a red herring. If you don't live on a liberal campus, you'll probably never meet one.
As I said, I'm from Canada so I see it daily. The over the top PC agenda and social justice fights are everywhere up here. The examples Norm gave are ones we see everywhere up here.

Example, the local university student union had an active year. They had shutdown a student club because it was pro-life and then found themselves being sued.

Our public education system bars any christian activity in schools, even so far as barring the Gideons from extending an offer of free Bibles to students who would request it. At the same time as that separation of religion from the schools is happening though, Aboriginal religion and spiritual practices and beliefs are part of the normal curriculum. And I don't mean cultural background, but as active participants in cleansing of spiritual auras and learning the function of the spirits of everything.

The silent mass of white christians up here see where the PC stuff goes and are getting a bit sick of it.

One of my first jobs was in a stone burr mill packing flour bags. This was a distinct possibility on a daily basis.

It's a very subtle distinction, as far as I can tell. It's about hating the other who is less deserving. So---they can accept Obamacare/Kentucky Connect, but be furious about others because they feel that the other people accepting some sort of government benefit are LESS DESERVING...

I think.

And like the very nice lady who had her breast cancer treated says: "I didn't know the government was subsidizing my insurance"...

They tend not to know their own state's economic balance sheets and cash flow statements

I thought both were well done, but they overused Tarkin. A scene or two would have been fine, but he was on screen for so long you had time to spot the imperfections. Leia's appearance worked much better because it was so brief.

Also they just couldn't get Tarkins voice right. Cushing had such a distinctive clipped tone, and it was painfully obvious that it was someone else.

Bullshit. There are lots of decisions you can make that can affect everyone. Having kids is not as distinct as you're making out. The 1%ers can make decisions which affect millions of people way more than me having a kid ever could.

Every single one of us is someone's kid. Your moral situation is no different to anyone's, including my offspring. You can't separate yourself from any parent child thing, you're already intrinsically connected to that relationship. Your life is made better every day by things that other people do. Things that other people have invented, created. You're kept safe by people dying to protect you.

You live in a world made entirely of the work of other people's kids.

I get the distinct feeling I've seen this exact movie before...
Certainly no risk taking here.

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.

You know it, brother. It looks pretty damn good too. Absolutely no bias in that statement, I swear.

Hey, I see you got a galaxy star. Congrats, amigo. it's pretty distinctive too. I like it a bit more than @blankfist 's cat butthole. (JK, blankfist. Who loves ya, buddy?...I mean someone does, right?)

"But Catholic priests, bishops, and cardinals don’t give “reproductive advice”; they articulate the truth about human life and reproductive ethics in accord with Catholic teaching. A teaching promulgated and practiced for centuries by an entire religious group is fundamentally distinct from a panel of “virgins in bathrobes” dictating to women what they can and cannot do."

I'm...failing to see the difference... It all seems like an appeal to tradition. The fact virgins in bathrobes have been telling women what to do for centuries doesn't actually make them right.

also "truth" LOL

I can't really disagree with that, but it has to be said that the issues that are not brought up are distinctly non-partisan--that is, the issues that are not brought up are the ones that are disadvantageous to both parties.

For instance, no one talks about gerrymandering anymore. It clearly benefits both parties, but it is destroying our political system by creating disincentives to working across the aisle with the other party.

In my view, there are three major structural reforms in the US government that need to be addressed: 1) Gerrymandering 2) Campaign finance and 3) regulatory capture. Of these three, only the second one is addressed by either candidate, but not in a satisfying way.

We need major reforms in healthcare and economic wealth distribution, and we need to prepare ourselves for certain worldwide economic changes due to technological innovation and globalization, but until we deal with those three major issues, we won't be able to make any headway.