i am just going to add to the opinions and perspectives that @MilkmanDan ,@ChaosEngine ,@dannym3141 and especially @newtboy who i agree with so clearly that i swear we are related.

since many dynamics have already been covered, i.e:police culture,racism,incompetence etc etc.

i shall offer a historical perspective in the ways of the power dynamic.

while this is a power vs powerlessness dynamic dealing with agents of the state,it helps to understand just how we got to this point,and it is NOT the first time we have been here.

see:labor movement of the 30's and the labor strikes,and the response from not only the business community but our own government.

see: the civil rights movement and segregation,and how demagouges used political power to divide by way of racism,and then used police to intimidate,beat and imprison.

there are many MANY examples here in america where the police have been used to suppress and oppress a people or community for less than altruistic reasons,and most certainly not aligning with the ideology we were taught in school the function of police.nevermind the syrupy sweet,idealized picture shoved down our throats since an early age.

so we see on our facebooks,our twitters and/or whatever social media you prefer,that black lives matter...and the counter point,that NO..ALL lives matter.

now this would make sense in a world that never took history into account,or a growing cultural norm of violence and oppression that had been slowly seeping into poor communities (mainly black and latino).

oh wait..
that's right.
social media pundits NEVER fucking consider any of those factors,because just like bill o'reilly,those are pesky nuances and context conflict with their own narrow narrative.

but let us consider them and how they may possibly be a major driving factor in americas current climate.

let us take ferguson as an example,that is a good place to start.
and let us go back to 2008,where we can see the boiling begin to take place in this extremely impoverished community which was already struggling.

the population is a black majority,poor to working poor.home ownership is low,food stamp recipients are high and the future is pretty bleak.

in 2008 ferguson received approximately 18% of it's total fiscal revenue from misdemeanor infractions i.e:traffic,parking,moving violations.small time stuff.basic fines for small infractions.in 2008 that number jumped to 66%.

why?
what happened?
what changed?

well the comptroller of ferguson (and greater st louis),along with HUNDREDS of other smaller municipalities across the country,had bought the rotten fish that wall street was selling in the form of bullshit derivatives.

now wall street and the big banks got their tax payer bailout,but towns like ferguson did not.they lost millions,sometimes billions.this meant pensions were either reduced or outright denied,because there was NO money!

but a town still has to pay police.
fire fighters and school teachers,
clerks and judges,
keep the roads paved and the street lights working.

so what is a local government to do?
can't tax the working class who own homes.you already jacked their property tax to the roof.
can't tax the local business,you already squeeze them as well.
how about those non-property owning people in ferguson?
they need to pay up as well,and let's use the police force to relinquish them of the paltry money they don't have.

to the tune of 66% of all of fergusons revenue.
that is insanity.

so what if you live in ferguson?
chances are you are black,and either poor or working poor.

you make,if you are lucky,20 grand a year and by one man's testimony he paid over 2,000 in traffic tickets in one year.the majority of americans dont see those kind of numbers their entire lifetime.

and what if you began to realize that it was not just you.that almost every person you know or talked to had similar stories.

would you begin to feel a tad bit targeted?

what if the city of ferguson started to become very creative with not only their rules but how they enforced those rules?

what if every year the fines went up?
not remained the same,but actually UP? every year.

what if,as a community people began to actually fear the police? to experience anxiety just by the sight of a patrol car,even though they were not engaging in anything illegal? and who knows...maybe there is some new ordinance on the books that you are unaware of?

would you become paranoid and suspicious of law enforcement?

and then..what if....you started losing friends to cops.people you grew up with being shot in the street,and every time the mayor comes out and calls it a "justifiable killing".

would that make you feel any better?
any less paranoid or anxious?

there was ONE police shooting in ten years and then..as if by magic ..(which is how the media seems to always portray this..shocking news..at 11)..you lose 5 friends in a year.all to cops..all "justifiable".

would you begin to think there was a conspiracy?
targeting you and your neighbors?

i BET you would.
i know i would.

now lets look at the cops.

they are just a tool.
an instrument for the state to uphold the law and write citations for infractions.they dont MAKE the laws,nor the infractions,not even the fines.

they just do what they are told.

and they are told to go into these poor and working poor neighborhoods and write tickets,a LOT of tickets.

do you really think they are unaware of the growing hostility towards them? the looks of disgust,fear and apprehension?

but...this is their job,and they do what they are told.

they see.
they know.
they are aware of the growing hatred towards them,and this makes them anxious..and defensive..and in some horrible,tragic cases...trigger happy.

a natural and normal response to heightened stimuli in the face of great uncertainty.

so they react impulsively and out of fear in a way that ten years ago would have been unheard of.

they think themselves good cops.
they do a good job.
they do what they are told.
and the people hate them for it.
so they respond instinctively and with poor judgement.

we..as citizens,respond with disgust and indignation when a cop abuses his/her authority.we see this as a major moral breach in the citizen/cop relationship,because we feel as agents of the law they should be held to a higher standard than the rest of us...and rightly so,but when you put a human being in a tense and dangerous situation,not of their making,they will fail at some point to react correctly and with sound judgement.

they SHOULD be held accountable,but so should the city council members and the mayor and all the local representatives who created this toxic climate in the first place.

the lesson to be learned here is that nothing is a binary situation when people are concerned.

so when black lives matter protestors address people to make them aware of the situation,this is what they are talking about.the police killing are only a last stage manifestation of a situation that began in 2008 on wall street.

and we need to be aware,because right now it is the predominantly black communities,but soon coming to a neighborhood near YOU.

the poor and working poor have become expendable.no longer relevant to the system.which is why police shootings are being handled the way they are.our value is ever increasingly being judged on how well we can feed the system.

until this disparity is addressed there will continue to be police shootings.people will die and there will be no indictments.

because police do what they are told.

it is up to us to make policy makers accountable for their actions,and in doing so address a toxic climate that both the poor,working poor and cops alike have to swim in.

stop forcing cops to write tickets to fund a city that lost it's savings due to fuckhead bankers.

this blood..all of it..is on those bankers hands.

No, I'll do as I please.

Your reading of this, or interacting with me is your choice. If I'm pestering you, then you're equally pestering me.

That I am any of the things you've listed is only because you fail to comprehend anything outside of your extremely narrow world view.

You wrote "This conversation is over."

Looks like you were wrong. It'll only be over for you when you stop. Remember, my actions don't dictate whether you continue or not.

It seems to me you want the last word.

Go on then. Eat your heart out.

He said that "Hillary won" I'm assuming that means she won the nomination, which she hasn't.

And it wouldn't be that odd if the super-delegates backed Bernie, not because they are going against democracy, but because it was a close race and when you have to decide between running the 'favorite' by a narrow margin, or running the candidate that could actually beat Trump in an election.

videos of someone monologuing with a very holier than you attitude about something they have obviously only looked at with only one narrow perspective. (but mostly when I disagree?? probably)

and videos that have a cool concept but the people making it aren't talented enough to pull it off. it's so frustrating.

I have to strongly disagree with the suggestion that animals are killed and tortured for my "taste preferences" and "pleasure".

It gives me no pleasure that an animal has to die for me to eat. My pleasure in the consumption of that animal is a fleeting, automatic chemical reaction triggered in my body. In an evolutionary sense, i only receive this pleasure because it prolongs the survival of my species to feel it.

Most of these arguments reek of over simplification and ignorance to the reality of the society westerners live in.

In ideal conditions, i would eat meat from animals that i tended, who died of natural causes (mostly old age i assume) which i would personally butcher. In reality, it is not possible and even if it were possible for one person, it would not be possible for every person - we have limited space, limited resources, limits placed by law, limits on our time. As well as the cost of the land, I would have to hope enough animals died naturally to sell enough humane meat to pay taxes on the land and maintain my farming equipment, buy grain for the animals and so on. Or maybe i could grow my own grain and use primitive DIY tools, but then i'd probably need help for all the farming i'd have to do every day and now i'd need enough animals to die to feed three, so more land, more grain... Oops, it looks like this is getting complicated doesn't it. Shall we keep going until we reach a society of 70 odd million people, or should we consider that the problem is far more complicated than comments here would care to acknowledge?

Furthermore gluten is often the primary protein source for vegans, but i have a disease that requires me to avoid that protein in entirety. The smug, holier-than-thou field radiating from certain commenters here will i'm sure extend far enough to condescendingly say "ah, but you can be a vegan and avoid gluten, you poor, uneducated, smiling murderer!" Yes, and you could live your life without ever being touched by the sun's rays, or sail a small sailboat without ever getting wet, not even a droplet. And how can we know what effect gluten-free-veganism may have on public health when it is extended to a population of 7 billion? What a dangerous experiment to salivate over - reckless and potentially harmful in a way that a butcher could never hope to be.

It would be wonderful if the world was ideal. I wouldn't have this disease, and all people of the world could enjoy their own 10 acre farm and eat only those animals whose time had come. Unfortunately when i am abroad, away from home, the only source of protein that i can entirely trust might perhaps be a roast chicken. And i will eat it, the only true pleasure from which i take is that i will not spend the next three days doubled up in bed.

There are people worse off than me, but i don't know enough about their situation to use it as a point in this discussion. To people like me, the language used by some people here makes me think of someone dancing around at a diabetics convention shouting "I can't believe you losers have to use insulin! I hope you all realise that drug addicts use needles!"

I reject any notion that these people have a moral advantage over me. Have any of them ever heard of walking a mile in another man's shoes, or does their narrow mind only reach as far as "ME"?

By the way, plants are also alive. Or is this about sentient life? Shall we move on to abortion then, if non-sentient life is ok to end? Shall we have the philosophical discussion about degrees of sentience and types of sentience and whether we can even know if a plant has its own brand of sentience? If yes, let's try to at least do it without you being smug and in return without me being sarcastic.

Worrying about how people treat vegans? How about the language used to describe people who have no choice in the matter, lest that choice be never leave your own house and eat only this very small list of things which you may or may not find too disgusting to stomach? Am i to live in misery and squander my life so that a chicken could have an extra 2 years to run in circles? This issue is not fucking black and white despite the attempts to paint it so.

People talk about how much dollar value media exposure he got for free, but I think it's more the lack of criticism by networks afraid of losing access to him. That and being afraid of alienating the viewers who support him.

Instead you get the usual news equivocation of opposing views as equally valid and the treating of his policy ideas as serious proposals no matter how loony.

Similar to the Daily Show under Stewart, polit-satire shows like Colbert are able to get away with more direct criticism because it's under the umbrella of 'it's comedy, so everything is fair game' so I wouldn't equate him with more general TV news coverage.

Plenty of written coverage has been very good (Economist, Vox, hell even Fox had some good criticism):

http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2016/05/03/any-republican-who-thinks-its-better-to-elect-trump-than-hillary-needs-their-head-examined.html

But obviously that has a much narrower reach or effect on publicity.

The economy has of course added jobs under Obama but you really can't talk about the unemployment rate (% unemployed of those actively looking for work) without factoring in the participation rate (% of in the labor force working or looking for work out of the population) which has been dropping since 2000 in the US.

This is not explained by baby boom retirees as even if you take a narrow 25-54 measure you see the same decline. China's acceptance into the WTO ('95) is often talked about as a turning point as it was in some ways an abrupt green light to many companies that opened up a huge labor pool and a led to an influx of outsourcing. I would argue the US government among many others has done a poor job of retraining manufacturing workers and financially supporting them to be mobile to find work elsewhere.

https://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/LNS11300060

Yeah, Cenk went the wrong direction with this. But I think a narrower point can be made, we should expect elected politicians to have some rational skepticism about misinformation on the internet.

Either he cynically believes his base isn't smart enough to tell that it's photo shopped, or he is gullible enough to believe it himself. One is a dramatic failure of character the other of intelligence. And it does seem like republican politicians are far more guilty of spreading bullshit internet memes.

Sure she says she's changed, but she was on the board of directors for Wal-Mart. She took many six-figure speaking opportunities for Wall Street, she promoted the disastrous "jail every black man" legislation Bill enacted.

The problem with Washington is that Republicans and Democrats essentially saw eye-to-eye for many years as they both shifted to self-serving "neo-liberal" parties and she's right in the middle of that. That's a big part of the reason politics is blowing up in America right now, there hasn't been a REAL choice in decades. The only difference has been on social issues and even then it's a pretty narrow range of social issues.

As much as she pretends to have outgrown it, she's still the good little Republican girl her parents loved. It's just the politics around her that have shifted to the right.

Again?
It seems that doing DMT makes EVERYTHING about DMT for you for the remainder of your life, and makes DMT the only topic that interests you. That alone is enough reason to avoid it, forget the myriad of other reasons it's unsafe.
These never ending, repeated, constant 'DMT is great, you should all do it' videos have worn me down to the point that I'm struggling to not downvote them on principle alone, and I no longer watch them.
So much for DMT expanding your mind, from the outside, it seems to have quite effectively narrowed your mind to a single topic.

I believe that you are correct, and Carr was not actually fined or otherwise legally penalized for his remarks.

However, it *was* a possibility that he would be, according to the first line in the article I linked to in my first post in this thread:
"Jimmy Carr could face sanctions for making a joke about dwarves during an appearance on BBC1’s The One Show."

I believe that I read other news articles that suggested that was a possibility at the time it happened, but I can't find anything with a real quick search now.

Going outside of the scope of that single incident, I definitely have seen quite a few reports of things that I would consider to be fairly trivial incidents like this being looked at by the UK government as "hate speech" and therefore potentially subject to "fines, imprisonment, or both" (according to that wikipedia article).

Samples from a quick search include a politician being arrested for quoting a passage about Islam from a book by Winston Churchill, a young man who was jailed for 12 weeks because of "some offensive Facebook posts making derogatory comments about a missing child" (it doesn't say what the posts were exactly; I am not saying I would defend his posts but I don't think anyone should go to jail for being an idiot and running their mouth on the internet), and another young man who was fined for saying that "all soldiers should die and go to hell". Plenty more incidents beyond those as well, it seems.

So while Jimmy Carr didn't end up actually facing any legal repercussions for his joke, I think it is not far fetched at all to suggest that he might have (and there seems to be some evidence that legal repercussions enacted by the government were being considered in that particular incident).

That is what seems crazy / wrong to me. That is NOT freedom of speech; it is freedom of benign speech, with an increasingly narrow view of what speech is benign.

I'm 100% OK with their being "consequences" for Jimmy Carr for his joke. But the government shouldn't be involved in that (and again, to be fair they DID end up staying out of it in that case). The consequences that I think are fine include:

* Ofcom or the BBC passing on some/all of any fines that the government levels against them on to Carr (ie., IF they get fined for breaking broadcast decency standards, make Carr foot the some or all of the bill for that).

* Ofcom or the BBC electing not to invite Carr to appear on any more programs if they are concerned about preventing fines / protecting their image / whatever. They are a business, they gotta look out for themselves.

* Individual people who were offended by Carr's joke boycotting programs that he appears on, refusing to pay to attend his live performances, etc. Obviously. If you don't like what he has to say, you are are of course not obliged to continue to listen to him.

Anything beyond those consequences is going too far in a society that claims it is democratic and free, in my opinion.

@newtboy.

Just for you.

But you would call this social justice and about time people of color stood up against white privilege.

Me I just call it for what she is, narrow minded brain washed liberal.

Feel the sting as you hide behind your social blinders.

I think you're taking a very narrow view on the point he eventually arrives to at the end. Shellshocked/PTSD/Battle Fatigue is the perfect example of the exact same thing being watered down into it's least offensive 'sounding' form. It's not two different things (say stupidity vs dyslexic). By using the raw form for something unpleasant, we don't get to mask the ugliness from anyone and we perhaps have a greater chance of dealing with it in some way.

He was certainly ahead of his time; I had a friend's FB post come up requesting 'tone-policing' because he felt the term 'hookers and blow' was disrespectful to sex workers. It makes my brain hurt.

@Imagoamin

whoa whoa whoa...
did you think i was calling YOU a bed-wetter?
like as in actually using the pronoun "you" to direct my fictional interaction as representing an actual person,in this case YOU?

well,that certainly explains the tone of your reply.

if this is the case then i humbly and sincerely apologize.i was not referring to you at all,but rather a hypothetical and totally fictional interaction between a cry-baby and myself.

which you actually just made my point about humor,and in this case sarcastic humor.an over the top referencing of a certain hyper-sensitive group,in order to make my point about bad ideas,bad philosophy and poor judgment.

the sarcasm should have been obvious.
but alas...it appears it was not,and has been misconstrued as a personal attack.

moving on to your suey park rebuttal.
while the response to her initial call for justice can easily be seen as vile and grotesque (because it is) how does that take away from her inanity? her blatant disregard for nuance and context? or that she simply lacks the basic intelligence to discern satire from actual racist remarks?

it does not.

i think that most people would agree that the vile,disgusting and dehumanizing responses that suey park was subjected to,are to be condemned and yes...ridiculed..for the stupid and trollish behavior they represent.

you do not reply to stupid with even more stupid.

i dont really understand your defense of language,or better put,the imposing of certain words being stricken from the language altogether because some people find them offensive.

language is a fluid animal,and it is ever-changing.words and terms are dropped from the vocabulary or they morph into something altogether new.i have no skin in on the game in that regard.that is how language progresses,and yes,certain words can be offensive in certain contexts.so we should avoid using them,if only to be a decent human being.

my issue is with the FORCED attempts to re-integrate new words.to control what people say and attempt to bring real world consequences upon them,and then turn around and call it "justice".that is not justice! that is censorship!

maybe this will help a bit.
i view words and language as such:words are the means to express thoughts,feelings and imaginings.when we consider the complexity of our thoughts,feelings and imaginings then it becomes quite apparent that words will NEVER suffice to truly,and accurately,express those very human creations.

words will always be inadequate.

so when some people get it in their head that certain words are just too offensive to even utter.this narrows the field of expression that is already inadequate.(i am not talking about BLATANT,and archaic terms that are not only offensive,but are no longer relevant,and in existence still to simply disparage,insult or dehumanize).

now maybe some words no longer serve a valid purpose or are truly offensive and need to be re-examined,but the only way to reach that conclusion as a people..we must actually TALK to one another,and it is in this free market of ideas where bad ideas go to die.

but we have to able to conversate for that to happen.don't you agree?

now i am not going to bother addressing the rest of your comment,because your tone was just a reaction to where you presumed i was coming from.

and you did presume.

you seem like a decent sort,so i will just chalk your final response up to finding my comment offensive and replied in kind.

just know i wasnt heated,nor enraged.
and i certainly wasnt calling you a bed-wetter.
though the extreme end of social justice warriors are STILL humorless cunts.

@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!