"[capital punishment] is said to be a deterrent. I cannot agree. There have been murders since the beginning of time, and we shall go on looking for deterrents until the end of time. If death were a deterrent, I might be expected to know. It is I who have faced them last, young men and girls, working men, grandmothers. I have been amazed to see the courage with which they take that walk into the unknown. It did not deter them then, and it had not deterred them when they committed what they were convicted for. All the men and women whom I have faced at that final moment convince me that in what I have done I have not prevented a single murder."
-- Albert Pierrepoint (autobiography)

That said, there appears to be some dispute over his eventual position on capital punishment.

welcome to the epic battle of the narcissists!

where women...children and young men indoctrinated into the religion of nationalism, die in horrible and grotesque manners all to appease the bloated ego's of two sociopaths!!!!

coming to Netflix this fall!
don;t miss it!

No NHS in the states. Personally, I think that'd be the way to do it. And I think it kind of needs to be a long and difficult road, to make sure that drastic option is necessary and won't be regretted later.

It's a bit hard for me to accept it, because I tend to think of it like that episode of South Park. Kyle can't actually become a tall black kid, and his dad can't actually become a dolphin.

But even though I think that is true -- you can't really become something you aren't -- I recognize that gender reassignment surgeries can be life saving / massively beneficial to quality of life in many cases.


To take a stab at answering your other questions:

I believe that Trump is saying that the military is instituting a blanket ban on transgender people from serving in the military. If / how the military elects to enforce that remains to be seen. I don't know the full timeline on that sort of stuff, but back in the 60's one (considered extreme at the time) way for young men to get out of being drafted to go to Vietnam was to take photos of themselves naked with another man (implying they were gay) or wearing women's clothing (implying they were trans). The mere implication that you might be either was enough to disqualify you from military service.

More recently, during Don't Ask Don't Tell you could be gay or trans in the military, but couldn't reveal that you were. That ended only 5-6 years ago. The military definitely wouldn't have paid for trans-related medical treatments prior to that, and didn't for quite a while after until Obama OK'd it.

Again, I don't really think that the military should be required / expected to pay for those kinds of treatments for soldiers, BUT I'd be 100% OK with something like the NHS making it available to any citizen, as in the UK. For one thing, I wouldn't want trans people to see the military as the only way to get those treatments (short of paying out of pocket), and having that be a major part of their motivation to join.

And I 100% agree that this is a basically a political distraction that sets back the rights and acceptance of an already marginalized group that in no way deserves it.

I don't think he is; he wants the typical Republican things like trickle down economics, he wants to defund Planned Parenthood; he opposes trade deals which sadly isn't either D or R anymore; it's still a progressive issue though so that's about all I can agree with him on; I feel like he basically wants to line the pockets of rich people; nothing new there for the R's; plus I'm pretty sure he's going to start a war which is very Republican; cowards dodge wars themselves, but put our young men in harms way

Haha, I enjoyed all the attempts at atmospheric posing and preening at the top. Young men, so stupid.

Yeah. No.

He didn't nail it. He doesn't get it.

And I have heard funny rape jokes. It is possible to tell the truth about rape and be funny.

Maybe once rape isn't something that is filmed by young men standing around a passed out young woman at a party, maybe when that crap is STOPPED WHEN IT IS HAPPENING, instead of being filmed, then these jokes will become funny.

Until then....

Nope.

I'm not going to defend this point of view, so go ahead and tell me how I am wrong.

And then read this, written by Comedy God Oswalt Patton.

http://www.pattonoswalt.com/index.cfm?page=spew&id=167

I wonder if those who were responsible realize the love for their God is instead the catalyst to bring actual, physical demons to our world through their actions.

Because I doubt any evil they were afraid their youths were perpetrating doesn't even compare to the evil of a group of adults torturing young men.

All internet success stories are like this. The internet is half porn. It makes sense that losers with nothing to do but watch videos will act out their fantasies in any way they can. A certain % of them validate themselves through the reactions they get. Hence trolls. I used to receive death threats on a pretty regular basis when I ran a forum. A combination of jealousy and jadedness will cause young men to be like this. Women interpreting this as just sexism is a mistake.

@Barbar
what you are speaking of in regards to the 2 religions (judaism/christianity) are the reformations they both experienced.

now there are a myriad of reasons why these reformations occurred:age of enlightenment, renaissance and a new way of thinking=secular philosophy.i could go on but those are the big three.

islam has yet to experience a reformation and reza aslan's book "no god but god" makes the case that islam is in desperate NEED of a reformation,to which harris dishonestly suggests that islam needs while in the same sentence accuses reza of ignoring.the man wrote an entire nook making the case for islamic reformation!

when you are going to criticize belief you have to also ask the "WHY" of that belief.if you strictly confine your arguments to a book then you are ignoring the multitude of factors to the origin of that belief and are actually formulating an argument with the very same absolutist and fundamentalist thinking that you are criticizing.

you are quite literally using fundamentalism to criticize fundamentalism.

example:
harris makes the point that suicide bombers blow themselves up because the quran glorifies martyrdom,with little thought to WHY those young men strapped bombs to their chest in the first place.

when the WHY is the most important question!

and the answer is NOT because the quran demands it of them but rather out of hopelessness brought on by oppression,murder,torture of their friends and family.

the quran offers a rationalization for the suicide bomber.a desperate person will grasp desperately at any thin straw to give their life meaning,but it most certainly not the cause.

this fundamental lack of understanding is why i find harris to be a mediocre atheist thinker.

literalism in regards to scriptural interpretation is a fairly new phenom,(past 100 years),and that includes muslims.

David Letterman still has the best intro ever for the Foo Fighters.

"If have to say, we have some young men here, that if it wasn't for them; we as Americans would be out there every day, fighting foo."

I laughed so hard when he said that. =)

Something that struck me while watching:

There are arguably a lot of parallels between her putting herself through school by doing porn, and other young men/women putting themselves through school by joining the military. Both institutions will target or recruit the young and naive. Either could play out as either A) a largely positive experience, B) a fairly neutral means to an end (pay for college), or C) a soul crushing hell that chews you up and spits you out as an utterly broken shell of a human being.

Maybe the military has a lower rate of option C than porn. Maybe. But on the other hand, the porn industry is much less likely to brainwash you into going to some country you know nothing about and ordering you to kill people that you don't have any personal conflict with. Interesting which choice gets widespread support and respect from the general population, as compared to those that make the other choice being ostracized, shamed, and shunned by former friends and family alike...

My 2 cents -- I think "throws like a girl" refers more to the *form*, not the 10% or 20% or whatever speed/distance disparity between men/women when throwing.

And form can be learned, as shown by the mythbusters clip above.
The point is, we socialize young men to learn correct throwing form whereas we discourage young women to learn correct throwing form. Once that correct throwing form is learned, is there still a 10%, 20%, or 30% difference in speed/distance performance between men/women? Sure, just like there is with most athletic feats. But again, that (relatively small in the scheme of things) disparity is not what "throws like a girl" is referring to.

I remember working in a group home for adults with developmental disabilities, and going to a dance that was held for various other similar adults. Among the dancers was a loud, desperate woman who was grinding on a number of thighs, and a douchey young man who made fun of other young men who were dancing and having a good time. It really humanized these adults with disabilities when my first impression of them was, "I don't think I like those people."

Congratulations! Your comment on Sean Garnier hustles young men in street soccer has just received enough votes from the community to earn you 1 Power Point. Thank you for your quality contribution to VideoSift.

I get that Sean Hannity has to defend himself in some way and yeah Stewart can be annoying but he's obviously funny. If you don't think he's funny you don't know comedy. Why all the weird edits?

Also Hannity should be distancing himself from this guy pretty quick right about now.

Following quote from http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2014/04/cliven-bundy-wants-to-tell-you-all-about-the-negro/361152/

“I want to tell you one more thing I know about the Negro,” he said. Mr. Bundy recalled driving past a public-housing project in North Las Vegas, “and in front of that government house the door was usually open and the older people and the kids—and there is always at least a half a dozen people sitting on the porch—they didn’t have nothing to do. They didn’t have nothing for their kids to do. They didn’t have nothing for their young girls to do.

“And because they were basically on government subsidy, so now what do they do?” he asked. “They abort their young children, they put their young men in jail, because they never learned how to pick cotton. And I’ve often wondered, are they better off as slaves, picking cotton and having a family life and doing things, or are they better off under government subsidy? They didn’t get no more freedom. They got less freedom.”