@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 don't know where you live, but if you're ever near Little Saigon in Orange County, California, right off the 22 fwy at Westminster Ave and Brookhurst, there is a place called Pho Vie. I don't think I've spent more than 12 dollars for 2 bowls of pho + soda chanh. There are so many Pho places around the area though, it can be very easy to mistake the spot.

It's tough sometimes to find 5 dollar pho that's actually really really good -- but PLEASE never spend more than 20 dollars for 2 bowls of pho. Vietnamese food isn't supposed to be expensive. Sort of a thing.

Rally co-pilots have it tough,

https://videosift.com/video/Sorry-explain-again-what-happened-to-your-co-pilot

If you're gonna be dumb, you better be tough.

Ukraine was a NATO arrangement. That is a tough one. Probably not directly attack but use UN sanctions.

Syria line in the sand issue... If Trump was president at the time I think he would have acted in some sort.

Today Syria with Russia on its side. Hornets nest. But It wold be Boss to fly daily humanitarian flights and tell Syria / Russia not F with these flights or else ...

so i have been watching this argument over the "ban" all over my facebook.people really like their little "memes" that offer no real criticism,nor any context,they simply display that persons particular bias.the discussion over this "ban" was not my issue.my issue was with the utter lack of depth of understanding.the evident laziness of those who got up on their little soapbox and sanctimoniously,and self-righteously moralized over a situation that they maybe..maaaybe..spent a total of five minutes on.

until finally my head exploded,and i went into hulk-mode.this was my rant,that i now share with you all:

jesus fucking christ...am i reading these comments correctly?

ok,lets put a little clarity into the mix,shall we?

first of all its not actually a "ban" but an extension to vette refugees further.

sounds reasonable right?

but what is NOT mentioned is that the majority of these refugees have already BEEN vetted,and the process has taken up to two years already.

so stop wetting your pants over brown people who happen to be muslim.

secondly,
let us take a look at the countries whose refugees are being "banned".

notice anything?

each and every one of those countries the american military is deployed in.the CIA has been fighting a proxy war in syria for five fucking YEARS.obama expanded operations into:sudan,somolia,yemen,syria and jordan (another proxy war executed by our radical saudi arabia buddies,who just happen to hate america and promote the most radical of muslim interpretations:wahhabism.they spend BILLIONS of their oil money to open madrasas across the region to light the match of radical islam)

so we,along with russia,turkey and other nations,are bombing the SHIT out of these countries,therefore creating the refugee crisis in the first place,and then we turn around an slap a "ban" on them.

oh,i'm sorry,not really a ban,just an extension to vette them further,because god knows we need more than two years to find out if someone is radicalized.

hypocrisy much america?

thirdly,
and this should make us all VERY nervous,but corporate media has YET to address this little turd nugget.a federal court slapped an injunction on this "ban",because it was not done through the proper channels,but rather through executive order.

and DHS ignored the injunction.
IGNORED it,because who needs "checks and balances" right?
who needs an institution,which was put in place to uphold the law and to restrict a sitting president from over-stepping his authority?
right?

and the fact that the DHS,which is under the DoD,outright ignored a direct order from a federal judge to cease and desist,because trump had overstepped his authority by attempting to use executive orders to circumvent the law.,and this was just an injunction,which really just means "stop!until we further review"...the DHS ignored the injunction.

lets ignore the fact that trump gutted the very agency that would have been the first to challenge his executive order "banning" these refugees.trump literally gutted all the high ranking officials at the state dept.

his press secretary said,and this is fucking laughable..they resigned..ALL of them?
all of them just stood up and resigned?

so it came down to a judge to hold trump accountable,which he did by injunction and an entire dept ignored that federal judges ruling.

now let us look at the countries left off that list.

notice anything?

well well well...would you look at that.
not only do they all purchase large amounts of weapons and military apparatus from us.not only do have they have large reserves of oil that our american companies make a shit ton of money from,but lookie here..trump has business in every singly one of those countries.

coincidence?

oh,and lets not overlook the fact that by executive order trump opened the door to have steve bannon on the national security council!
an unqualified,and with zero experience white nationalist is now on the national security council.

this is unprecedented!

but who cares right?
who needs those protocols,or checks and balances right?

trump is slowly creating his own tiny cabal of extreme loyalists and you people are wetting your pants over some brown people who lost everything,and have spent TWO FUCKING YEARS to find refuge?

this isnt the behavior of a president.
this is the behavior of a king.

yes,other presidents have implemented bans.
this is not a new thing.
what IS new,and some of you nimrods are either willingly,or unwittingly ignoring,is that THOSE bans were in direct response to the US being threatened by a particular group,and THOSE bans had the approval of congress..not a fucking piece of paper that king trump signed.

does america need to reform it's immigration policies?
yes,most certainly.

do we need to have an system in place to help assimilate refugees from syria beyond vetting?

of course,all we have to do is look at germany and see what happens when you allow refugees into your country without proper preparation and a system in place to see just how horrible it can get.

does this mean that every muslim refugee is somehow a terrorist?

well,just look at dearborn michigan.the largest muslim community in america and tell me how many terrorist came from that city? how many muslims were radicalized in dearborn?

is radicalized islam a problem?
yes,of course,who would deny this?

but the causes of radicalization are well understood,and have been well documented,and it is NOT only muslims who engage in terrorism.

really folks,before you start making declarations of certitude without having even the most basic knowledge how our government functions,you need to shut the fuck up.

and for FUCK sakes pick up a book once in awhile,and stop being a gaggle of fucking bed wetters.
jesus...you little fags piss yourselves every time a muslim is even mentioned in conversation.

oh,and before one of you tough guys even think about talking shit to me.
1.i am ex military.so go fuck yourself.
2.my JOB is to debunk bullshit stories and research politics and offer analysis.

so you better think twice before you go off half cocked,because my comment hurt your wittle feewings.your comments are ignorant and they are so lacking in the basic understanding of how this government operates that the only feeling you should having right now is:SHAME.

*edit:this is not directed towards anyone in particular here,but this single focus on trumps ill-thought "ban",and how he did so in such a broad,and general wave of a pen stroke that affected even those HAD gone through the process to get their green cards,visas etc etc is simply buying into the corporate narrative.

and then NOT consider the implications of a gutted state department,the loss of the attorney general and the defiant,disobedience of the DHS in regards to a federal judges injunction.

is unforgivable in it's ignorance.

the implications ALONE should make us all worried.
very very worried.
because it appears trump is reshaping our government into his own little fiefdom of loyalists,willing to defy the everyday governmental operations of checks and balances.

trump is consolidating and concentrating his power by creating his own little cabal of loyalists.that motherfucker has ALREADY put his candidacy on the ballot for 2020.now accepting donations to the highest bidder! feel free to purchase your own piece of the american presidency!

on sale NOW! so act fast! positions are limited!
*prices may vary according to your status and where you reside on the class scale.poor people can simply fuck off.

i realize this speculation on my part,
and i could be wrong.
god..please let me be wrong.

I would bet; I imagine that the fish wintering under the ice had a tough moment with that shockwave.

In another note: why didn't the water put out the fuse? From simple starvation of oxygen if not actual dousing?

How did that eagle not break anything? I was expecting it not to be able to fold its wings after those impacts but...damn...tough birds!

Well said, as always.

Every time I get pulled down the rabbit warren of despairing at the insanity of both the entrenched left and the entrenched right it's tough to pull back out and find a response other than attacking the malicious wrong mindedness. What I get pulled back to though, and your post reminded me of again is that the better response is to unite the middle. The response to birthers looking to build walls and ban muslims isn't to unite the left as a counter, but we should instead be uniting those of us in the middle. The response to safe spaces, rejection of dissenting opinions as 'triggering', and calls for vigilante rape-culture when faced with due process should not be met with the uniting the right as a counter, but uniting the middle.

If we unite the middle, we can tell both the extreme right and the extreme left exactly how disgusting the silent majority find their behaviours.

The USA isn't the worst place to not conform to the standard state religion. ...But it sure as hell isn't the best either.

Growing up atheist (I started identifying myself that way around age 12-13 or so) in the bible belt (Kansas) in the 80's was tough. Not as tough as growing up gay at the same time/place, but I get the feeling that Millennials are miles beyond my generation (late Gen X) in terms of accepting sexuality. I don't think they have made as great strides in accepting atheists / religious differences, but progress has been made there also compared to my day.

About 10 years ago I moved to Thailand. I went from 85-90% Christian USA to 95% Buddhist Thailand. And yet even though I'm in an even smaller minority as an atheist here, it simply isn't an issue at all compared with back in the US. I don't think Christianity itself is to blame for that, because one can comfortably be an atheist in some other countries with rates of self-identifying Christians similar to the US. No, I think it is a cultural problem largely unique to the US. Which certainly contributes to my high level of comfort as an expat.

I know life sometimes can get tough!
And I know life sometimes can be a drag!
But people, we have been given a gift --
we have been given a road.
And that road's name is: ROCK N ROLL!

The problem with offensive jokes is the same as the problem with pornography.

No, I don't mean they're both great. Even if they are.

I mean just like the line between art and pornography, there can be a fine line between comedy and hate speech. It's all in the intention of the creator and the eye of the beholder. Similarly, you can make 'artistic' pornography, and racist jokes can be used to stir up hatred.

It's a tough one, but the problem is it's all subjective. There's no simple way to objectively judge someone else's intentions besides looking at patterns, and even that's not always black and white. So to speak.

Wow... that's utterly stupid.

Let's walk around New York and pretend that racial minorities there are exactly the same as in those states where voter ID laws are being pressed hard.

Let's also pretend that those other states make getting an ID as easy as New York.

New York does not represent the country.

New York does not represent states/cities where voter ID and the follow-up of tough-to-acquire IDs are a problem.

So why do all your interviews in New York? Laziness? Political slant? Any way you slice it, this is an utterly stupid bit.

There's no discussion here. Clinton has played fast and loose with the rules for her own gain, she's gamed the system, she's taken the expedient position far more times than she's taken the good, honorable, or right positions. She's not a very good choice for president.

Donald Trump is bankrupt. He claims to be a great businessman, but in reality it certainly appears he owes more than he has right now. In any case, at the very LEAST, even if you take his own over-inflated assessment of his net worth he'd have been further ahead putting his money in indexed mutual funds than trusting his own business acumen. He'd have been farther ahead still if he'd just held on to all the real estate daddy left him. The best you can say about him, business wise, is that after stiffing contractors for their pay, paying NO taxes for decades, and arranging at least six bankruptcies in such a way that he took minimum damage and his investors bore the brunt.... after all that, he's only BEHIND a few billion dollars from where he'd be if he'd just invested it and left it alone.

On top of that, it certainly appears he's a rapist, or at the very least guilty of sexual assault. He's so weak and afraid he has to constantly bully and puff himself up (this is not how strong people act). He appears to have little to no grasp of international affairs, tax policy, the environment, the economy. Worse still, he doesn't care that he knows nothing and makes no attempt to educate himself.

So... rapist-psychopath-egomaniac-moron, or lady who's a bit shifty. Hmm, tough choice.

Tough to find info on this!
Amazing tho.