Templar Knight

Far Cry 5

Apologies on the length, I tend to get carried away. I'll try and keep things brisk, no promises as I often have a lot to say. And I'm saying there was hardly anything of an investigation at all. They may as well have just investigated her for two days. But whatever, it doesn't matter. I'd personally call that embarrassment more than punishment, because it was a hilariously embarrassing situation for me to watch live as pretty much every single news outlet imploded as their BS narratives and flawed data were revealed for all to see. And I wasn't even rooting for any particular candidate. But yes, agreed, she's done and I don't particularly care what comes of her. I only wish that she would retreat into retirement with some dignity rather than still remain the very publicly visible Democratic figure who's going around blaming literally everyone but herself for her failure, that would probably help the Democrats out a lot. Warren certainly is a fair bit more palatable. Though my wager is on her not running for Presidency, personally. Though honestly guessing that is still a dice toss considering the Dems have not stated what they want besides getting Trump out. IDK about that. I've seen enough different political leaders rise up both in my own country and the US to be able to attest to the fact that the spectrums will generally coalesce around a candidate who leans in their direction even if they have different interests and beliefs, radicals and the odd third-parties notwithstanding. Because politicians rarely win or certainly maintain power solely by catering to a single subset of voters, you have to make yourself appealing to as many as possible regardless of which side of the board you're on if you're playing to win. I've seen all manner of Leftists coalesce around different politicians and rise them up to power if they find a leader they generally like, even if they have different views on subjects. One could argue that Obama was one such candidate, Trudeau up in Canada is another. It all changes with time, usually when the one side is bickering among themselves, the other is far more solidified, but we've seen this happen throughout time. Currently, the paradigm shift is being driven by a more unified Right push, doesn't mean that all of them are the same, but that they're willing to set their differences aside in order to achieve what they wanted. Give enough time, eventually they'll bicker again, the Left will see an opportunity, set aside their differences, and push in their turn. Because that's how these things usually work, from what I have seen. I actually like it since those periods of bickering can also be times of reflection for the side that is on the losing end as to what they can change to come back better. I wonder where you're getting these "massively unpopular" tax bill ideas from when his approval has steadily risen to the 40s now (Even the more Anti-Trump favouring polls have shown increases ever since Charlottesville, ironically enough. Though I credit it mostly to more and more people realizing that he's the madman super-villain the media painted him to be.) and the most I could see people criticizing the tax bill for was that "it gives too many cuts to the rich" ignoring the fact that it cuts a lot for the poor as well, or that it raises the deficit, like people magically care about that now. The health care bill he dropped because not even the Republicans could agree on it, and if he's correct, then all he needs to do is wait and support will come for his changes eventually, if not then we'll know he was wrong. IDK, he seems to be trying to cater a fair bit to the Rustbelt, I'd call them ordinary people. That's more than anything the Democrats said they'd be doing. "Bragged about sexually assaulting women." Dude, I've watched the tape. I saw it played over a dozen times and carefully listened because I was wondering what was so fucking damning, there is a reason no lawsuit ever came of it even with Clinton's initial backing of the "victims". That is not bragging about sexual assault. It is piggishly saying that he can sleep with any woman he wants (something which I would consider to be typical of many rich snobs and womanizers), but its not admittance of sexual assault. The most you can say is that it is a piggish comment. He specifically says: "They let you do it." He's not implying non-consent or that he drugged them, or that he ordered them to do so. He's implying that he's in such a position wherein there are women who will let him do this stuff merely to get stuff off of him, which he gives. Now, you could argue that he's in a position of power or authority and therefore pure consent cannot be given, but if that's the case, where the hell is the Cosby or Weinstein-esque scandal? The whole fucking case may as well have evaporated as soon as the election was finished. Pressure? Bullshit, they had no fear of such things when they initially came forward. Why suddenly stop? You'd think a President-Elect Trump would have kicked the case into overdrive simply to get mass publicity. You'd think there would be no end to the amount of support they could have garnered off of appeals to Democrat voters alone. But yet, nothing came of it, not even a lawsuit for money. Hell, they actually got photos of the one guy on the Democrats that was more damning than anything Trump said in that tape. Plus, to his credit and despite that stuff, no scandal of that variety has yet come out of the White House. That already puts him above many Presidents on that front who actually did have sexual scandals in the White House. Is that so? I would say that Trump has merely shifted things in terms of foreign policy focus with his style. His style seems to be more amicable with Asian leaders than European ones in terms of diplomacy. He's made far more progress in China and North Korea than Obama or Bush or Clinton ever did. So what if he's pissed off Merkel and the EU a couple times? They get pissed at anything that doesn't support their dreams of total European unification. They're not his concern, they're still allies and they're not going to break it over tax laws they have no fucking power over no matter how much they wish they could dictate foreign tax laws. And Canada? Last I checked, we're still friends. And the UN? I don't see much coming out of them besides hot air (which sadly is as per usual most of the time). I'd say it all depends on where you're looking. I've already gone over why Trump is having problems getting stuff done. His gap in the Senate is not wide enough when you factor in that more than a few Republicans do not obey every word he says (which is both good and bad). Some, like Rand Paul, do it on principle for certain issues which I can applaud (If you need any more evidence that the Republicans are not 100% united, look there). Most, like McCain, do it because they just fucking hate him and they would rather use their power to be punitive and stall Congress to show their distaste even if its on stuff they would otherwise support or have claimed to support previously. Its the reality of the situation when you have a President who is not a career politician, who basically undercut A TON of career politicians in the last election by making fools out of all of them (The RNC TRIED to rig their primaries like the Dems, but Trump had too much popular support for it to work), and who doesn't truly align entirely with the party he chose. The fact that that gap narrowed even more slightly doesn't help. I can tell you, if a blue wave does happen, it'll only hurt the Dems come 2020. Because then they'll give him the excuse that Obama had on top of the fact that his own party has petulant children instead of leaders in some of its seats. I also wouldn't congratulate the current Congress too much, its their fucking fault we have basically a new Cold War situation with Russia right now, despite Trump's initial wishes. There actually was a case where a guy claimed Obama paid him to get a blowjob or something, but I have no idea on the details of that and don't care to go into it. Besides he had his own scandals with bombing civilians with his various airstrikes that can be confirmed, but most don't recall. Either, off-topic. I could say the same for Obama. Its funny how the mirror switches yet many things stay the same. People ignored all kinds of things Obama fucked up on (myself included) at the times they happened, but that's the reality of political partisanship. I never claimed he was, I said what he initially tried to claim back when the election happened. Obviously, like many election promises across time, words are wind in the face of actions, but the fact remains he did what no Republicans had even attempted to do before. Even you have to admit that there was no way in hell ANY career Republican candidate would have dared try to make such a claim in an election race for fear of alienating their base, I certainly saw none of them even try to use it as an argument. Yet Trump was able to say it and still win on a Republican ballot. And, he has dropped the Gay Marriage issue from federal Republican political debate. He doesn't care to contest it, because he ultimately doesn't see it as a problem. I regard Pence as Trump's assassination insurance (Seriously, who would want to assassinate Trump just to get HIM in charge?), and a throwaway bone to the Evangelicals when his platform didn't really offer anything to them. That's my opinion. Vice Presidents have even less effective power than Governors, its why Teddy Roosevelt was made one, his opponents just didn't plan on McKinley getting shot. Funny, you seem to forget that for all Right-winger activists by your own admissions when you essentially call them all murderers waiting for the call to start their own Death Squads against all "deviants". Those in glass houses aught to not throw stones. And no, its not biased. If the group that committed mass vandalism were right-wingers, I'd want to see them all arrested too. I never made a distinction based on their political alignment. Also I wouldn't bring up Canadian courts, its actually far more easier to nail someone on a crime (most likely misdemeanour, actually) related to such an incident up here even if it is not directly vandalism. "Causing Mischief" or "Inciting Mischief" I believe would likely be one of several charges many of them would up on here even if they could not be proven to have broken anything personally and were arrested, which can be proven simply by the fact that they were there, in an unauthorized "protest" that led to an entire street of storefronts being smashed. (Which often is very easy to prove since its not often the case that many of these people make any secrets of where they are at the time of the events if they are participating, or due to the prevalence of so many cameras both public and private being available to consult. Not that many of them have any fear of such charges either, but that's another story. Yea, and they really succeeded in that when they looked like complete fucking fools to the public by letting rioters run wild for a whole day, then go whole-hog the next day to such an unreasonable degree that even today they're still in lawsuits over how badly mishandled the situation (I think) . . . yea real success in that goal. No, I'm gonna say that incident was a total fuck-up, their intent may have been that, but they executed it so poorly that it backfired in their faces immediately. People get charged or sued with bullshit all the time, especially in the US but also in Canada and elsewhere. The way we know if things are working as intended or if they require fixing is on the results of said charges, and the context of the case. I've read many accounts of Canadian companies immediately facing frivolous lawsuits the moment they try to re-locate or move into American markets as nothing but a competition tactic, what do you do? You sue back. If the justice system was not working as intended, these frivolous lawsuits would work, yet most cases they don't so long as the company holds their ground, because the rivals cannot prove their cases. I even saw a case up here in Canada where a cement company ACTUALLY tried to argue that burning tires would IMPROVE the air quality of a town because they wanted an excuse to get rid of their tires by burning them. Naturally, they failed to prove their case in court because our court systems operate (hopefully) on a logical basis. But the case was taken to court all the same because they wanted to be ridiculous about it. The existence of ridiculous court cases does not shock me. This has always been the case ever since Courts and Magistrates existed to mitigate laws, what matters is the results and if they're in line with the principles of the Nation's established laws, and are fair and open courts that give the defendants the right to innocence until proven guilty, and the right to a defense. Neither of those principles were violated in the case you brought up from what I can tell. They didn't get dragged into a Kangeroo court where they have no opportunity to fight back. They have their days in court, they have the opportunity to contest the Prosecution's claims, and even if they're dealing with a Judge who is biased (of which I know many in lower courts exist for a variety of issues that have fucked over many of different political alignments), you can appeal the case. And while I will admit I haven't looked into it, I'm going to wager that most haven't actually been charged with any such crimes, have they? My problem is when you have all of those things, but you have a system that is going against its principles and is unjustly charging citizens for crimes they cannot prove were committed or otherwise create situations that are not in line with the statements of their laws or constitution. That's a problem for anyone regardless of who you are. The fact that you cannot convince someone with a reasonable argument in a situation where they appear to have automatically made up their minds before they've even voted or rendered a verdict is a problem IMO. Like in the Senate committee meeting video I linked, Peterson responds to basically every single question regardless of what it is in a manner that goes as far as he can in the situation to reasonably explain his positions, or to tacitly refute whatever accusation or criticism is thrown at him to the point where I don't see how an objective committee could actually not have been swung to his point of view on the subject that the law is a bad idea, but it was obvious that many on the committee were heavily biased towards a particular side from the get-go and nothing he, or any of the other various critics said would change their minds. And they didn't, they still passed the law by a size-able margin if I recall. Didn't matter that he made compelling arguments, they went ahead anyway. I understand that isn't a court scenario, but its a similar type of situation. Or how the fact that Count Dankula's court case was drawn out as long as it was, and STILL, the Judge found him guilty of grossly offensive content I find to be ridiculous. Putting aside the reality that many in the UK in both professional and private capacities have made content in line with what Dankula has done in the past and present, that is still public accessible thereby making one wonder how the hell this law is supposedly enforced. The Prosecution's arguments and performance were moronic, and Dankula was thoroughly under the impression that they had decided the verdict long before they actually gave it, it was entirely a show trial. It is bad that he was even brought up on such a case, but it wouldn't have been as bad had he been found innocent. Because it would mean that the laws would still be being applied consistently and in line with their previous actions or inaction on various incidents related to the subject in the past wherein reasonable arguments could be made to prove one's innocence of the crime involved. No, they had made their decision a while back and were utilizing the situation for their own purposes. Those types of cases are the big signs of problems with a justice system IMO, not merely that ridiculous cases show up within a justice system. Because so long as you trust the justice system to make rational verdicts within its laws, you have no fear of any number of outrageous cases that get brought up. One would hope not too many reach courts to begin with since they just waste time and taxpayer money, but such is reality and people of all types love to be frivolous, and I can say that having worked in Customer Service alone. Like when Jian Ghomeshi was found innocent on the first round of charges, I read through the entire closing statements of the Judge explaining why he gave that verdict. To me, they made perfect sense, the Judge went to great extent to explain why reasonable doubt had not been erased, why the plaintiffs could not be trusted in their interpretations based on what the defense had presented, and ultimately that none of them could prove that Ghomeshi had sexually assaulted them in any consistent testimony. Now, he ultimately signed an agreed statement of facts for the second round, but he was still not found guilty on the first. I didn't see any reasonable argument to be made that the Judge had made an unfair verdict based on what had been presented to him, especially since he went to such great extent to outline his reasoning he knew people would be outraged. In short, unjust verdicts are my issue, not unfair charges. Not that I don't think that unfair charges are wrong, but that they're almost a necessary part of our justice system to simply prove that it is working as intended. You're never going to stop them from happening, but what matters is how they play out. And if the laws are inherently wrong, then we vote to change the laws and therefore how the courts respond to such issues. Nobody commented on the situation until it played out which was not unusual. I didn't see many talk about the Berkeley situation months prior, aside from lambasting Milo and how he's apparently a provocateur who shouldn't be listened to. Trump did get up and disavowed the Right wing extremists. He disavowed both sides because based on the video footage that we have, one can fairly safely make the argument that both fucking had a hand in making the situation get out of hand. Because that is the reality of protest situations. They're mobs, they're usually not under total control, some people WILL get out of hand on both sides if they're two sides that hate each other and you put them right up against each other. Counter-Protestors or Protestors of any variety, don't NEED to get in the fucking faces of people who they claim have no qualms about hurting or injuring them to show their distaste, and then crying foul if something happens. You don't fucking beat on the car of an opponent, and then get shocked when he fucking punches the gas and runs a dozen people over. Where is the sudden fascination that you NEED to be literally a foot away from the side you so vehemently hate, just to make a point? You're afraid the public won't fucking see you? IN THIS FUCKING PRESIDENCY!? Just like they don't need to trash a fucking campus or cause pandemonium when a "Right-wing" speaker shows up. Let me use an example here, okay. Purely hypothetical, but I'm gonna illustrate my problem here and why I think the whole situation like it is dumb. Let's say, you have a Klan or some kind of White Supremacist rally where they literally are chanting to lynch all Blacks. Let's say they do this right in front of an All-Black residence or some such place, or predominantly so. Lets also say for the sake of argument that they didn't bring any weapons besides makeshift ones like signs or rope etc. They don't just go to city hall for such a protest or even stand across the street and do their protest, they literally go right up against the building and right in the faces of all the people there coming and going. What reaction do you expect would come from at least SOME of the people within the building? They're going to see the situation as a threat, they're going to have physical altercations with the protestors because they hate each other and want the one out of their space. Fighting breaks out, both eventually disperse, but both get their stories. The one will claim that this proves how inherently violent the one side is, while the other will claim they were acting in self defense because they were afraid of these people coming up into their space. Does that sound unreasonable of a hypothetical scenario? Because that's a situation wherein the Protestors were deliberating intending to cause a violent scenario for their own purposes or simply because they wanted to pick a fight under the guise of freedom speech and the right to protest. That's just in a case of a protest group and non-protest group involved. What about in a situation of two protesting groups? Wherein one is already there, the other comes up right to them? Obviously they'd be looking for about as much trouble as the protest group in the other example. Otherwise, why come up right to them? They want the conflict, they want to throw punches and antagonize and show their disdain up close and personal to those they hate. The right to protest doesn't protect your right to injure an opponent or to lead yourself into a situation where the odds of that happening to you or them increases. One would hope that the police are smart enough to keep at least some separation between the two, but as we've seen, they have not. In short, you put two mobs right up against each other, its only a matter of time before someone is seriously injured or killed on either side. Why? Because they will antagonize each other. One side can come armed for bear and one can criticize them as looking for a fight. But if the opponents literally come to their faces and try and antagonize them into a fight, are they not also to blame? Oh yeah you look really self-righteous by proving the violence inherent in your opponent! Both sides have done this, but from what I've seen, its usually the Left that gets into the Right's faces lately and create the situation for their to occur, with people on both of their sides losing their cool. Hence, both can bear the blame for a situation that gets out of hand. Don't try and claim that Leftists have never antagonized anyone to violence in a protest-situation like that, I already know that the reverse is false, I have seen countless videos of the incidents, it is reality. Your "Counter-Protestors" are not babes in the woods. Many of them go looking for or anticipate a fight just as much as their opponents, and they certainly don't help the situations by creating the most ideal scenario for which both sides can antagonize each other's members into bringing out the violence. Just as I'm sure they asked for a lot of the people who were run over to identify the murderer of Heyer? Give me a fucking break, you're picking and choosing what are standard police procedures at this point. You got a problem with police asking people of each side to identify others in that fucking situation? Or are you just pissed that they didn't charge every single last one of them with murder? Tell me what you really think. Fanatics having no sympathy over a dead opponent is nothing surprising. I've seen countless Leftists do the same for their own or other people on other issues involving other groups do the same shit. Maybe because in our minds its not inherently a bad thing to simply let a person talk and listen to whatever case they pose before responding in a measured response, which many of the groups you support seem to have a problem with since they put so much power in words and the fact that some shouldn't ever be spoken out of fear that the masses are too ignorant to make a decent decision (which is still what you guys admit by the desire to silence people you hate, you're assuming that people are too stupid to make a decision in such an open scenario, or that your own speakers cannot present a compelling argument). If you hate Peterson so much, explain how his arguments or statement are somehow wrong even in just the video I linked. Many have tried, pretty much all have failed without resorting to ad hominem attacks. But its funny, considering how many Communists of different varities are lionized by modern Leftist activist groups, and some Communist ideas are within modern Leftist causes, yet you strangely don't consider Cultural Marxism to be an actual thing or the accusations that you're all simply communists under a new name has no merit. But no, talking with Right-wingers of different varieties suddenly make them all Fascist sympathizers while the latter somehow doesn't make you all Communist sympathizers. See the problem here? But here we go again, you misconstrue the tolerance to have a free and open discussion with people you disagree with for sympathizing and agreeing with their views, and resorting to ad hominems because you cannot address his arguments. You attack his character by the people he has engaged with, yet you're shocked when others do it to you guys (And not every "bad" publicity figure Leftist figures have associated with is a Tankie. Did you see the Bully Hunters fiasco recently?)? I actually didn't bring up search algorithms, at least not that I can specifically recall. But if you would believe it, I actually have to dig for a fair number of these when it comes to google searches since I don't trust the traditional Leftist sources to give any kind of legitimate criticism on some of these things that first get linked to me, or they link me without much desire for them in my Youtube searches. Its funny because I only really actively watch Styx, Razor and Dankula atm, none of whom are strictly "Far-Right" but then I guess Youtube has already automatically classified them all as "Far-Right" and that I must have "Far-Right" tastes, fuck em. Algorithms are corporate tools, so sue me if they think they somehow have me down. But I've mentioned it before off-handedly, I get tons of Left-leaning information thrown at me daily from other sources, I don't need to hear it retold again at me through Youtube by a similar voice, I prefer a bit of variety.

Hell, even Russia didn't back up their rhetoric. They threatened retaliation if anything happened, most they did was just public condemnation. Granted, the 3 were very smart in that they specifically chose to not hit anything anywhere near Russian assets, but it bears noting that they basically called their bluff and nothing happened. Which makes this whole thing interesting from a Cold War 2.0 perspective in that it basically just proved that neither party has any desire to actually engage WW3 at the present time over Syria, good for all of us.

I figure its best we don't point who's ignoring what, else-wise we'll be here forever. I gave you the courtesy of not pointing out some of the various things you ignored of my past statements. But in response, no, I didn't ignore it, nor did you even truly disprove it was happening (you mostly just said "if it is happening, its not for bad intentions or via authoritarian moves", or "the sources my algorithms find all don't make a comment on it. Well by that reasoning, I suppose GamerGate never happened or was entirely negative because that was pretty much the only two perspectives of the issue shown in that case? Give me a break.), this issue is very charged and can be very differently shown depending on which sources you look at, and you only made one single clear mention of it that I could tell, in Oberlin's case. It was not a center point of your argument. And I still addressed in that it doesn't change my opinion towards making the counters seem like good ideas. There's a difference between Liberal and Progressive. You may think they're synonymous terms, but they aren't. There was a point in time where College Campuses valued Liberal values before Progressive ones, you see that changing with how various free speech issues are handled on campuses alone. Really? Lots of people, not all of whom are Nazis or Fascists, seem to be able to attest to its existence and practice. I wager Dr. Peterson alone can put forward a compelling case and he's not a Nazi or Fascist supporter. More to the point, one could say the exact same thing about numerous other issues the Left claims exists, but I won't get into that, again we'll just be going in circles. How are those two statements different? They are not in my mind, so I don't get why you think they're suddenly two different statements or "backtracking", because if you think that, that wasn't my fucking intention. My statement was that even if that was the case, I still wouldn't support the idea because I think the idea is bad. Whether it is by demand, or people simply acquiescing to that is willful segregation in either scenario. A specific group of people asking for their own spaces on the basis of their skin colour and then everyone who isn't of that skin colour simply "abiding" by it IS a form of willful segregation. The only difference is that they're asking for it and everyone is just going along with it as opposed to being told such is the case by a fucking administration. You don't see anything wrong with that? Good for you. I guarantee you racism will not vanish in our lifetimes by those lines of thought. The new segregation will be one of voluntary action and self-flagellation rather than from the top dictation with that idea. Benevolent Racism or even Sexism will be the norm, and we can already see the roots of that with the culture of victimization. Oh really? Let me quote shall we: ".... Because the biggest criticism I could find of the bill came from the Daily Caller (A very very right-wing news orginization) that basically hammered the free speech aspect." Yes, you didn't say only ONE argument specifically, but you said that that was the singularly biggest criticism you could find, essentially saying that was the only argument you could find. I proved otherwise, and provided a few different sources of arguments and that even refer to other arguments within themselves, of which the only one you deemed to comment on was the Free Press. Both work on empirical data, and no I wasn't conflating the two IDK where the hell you got that idea. And yes, that's why I said they can OFTEN overlap. Of course there's times when laws have no real basis on empiricism or is necessary for such laws. Well then that becomes a question of what is "glorification" specifically, of which I find to be an interesting question for thought among History students. I'd argue that changes with time as the parts of history our societies choose to focus on changes with time, but that it is not merely just who or what is put into memorial but whether or not the nation is being actively encouraged towards remembering them in a positive light in whatever respect it may be (and people can be encouraged to remember various individuals for all kinds of different things). Are the Confederacy statues today for example glorified by any mass amounts of the population for reasons specifically related to slavery in that what they did was a good thing? I'd argue no, I'd say that glory goes to the Union and Abraham Lincoln, and mass respect paid to the Confederacy is merely for military reasons and the general idea that its a terrible thing that so many human beings died in such a war. Or even the Roman Statues of any variety? Is anyone really glorifying them? If glorification is merely allowing a statue of any kind to remain standing, I personally think that that is a little bit too broad. And if its the case where a statue or memorial has fallen out of relevancy to contemporary national, or international in some cases, interest, then I argue that they should simply be removed and put either in archives or a museum of some kind (likely an archive if that were the case). There's just so many facets to how one can be shown history that I'm loathe to destroy much of it, or any of its monuments or memorials, they can also IMO be re-purposed to a nation's interests. I didn't refuse to engage with your question, your question was one which begat a response which IMO assumed that the Right inherently gets more of a benefit of the doubt than the Left, I argued otherwise and that its situational. "Does the Right have more "benefit of the doubt" when it comes to their actions." Don't fucking berate me just because you gave a question, and a very one-sided question when this question can very easily be asked of both sides of the spectrum, and I chose to delve into an area of it which you side-stepped. And even then, am I wrong to say that the Right has basically gotten ZERO benefit of the doubt on Charlottesville alone? Anyone take any of their grievances seriously? Has any news agency taken any Right-wing grievances seriously before then (Besides maybe FOX if that)? No, they became the fucking laughingstock of Comedies both Leftist and Centrist and not really wrongly so in some regards, there has been pretty much zero national discussion of their talking points (AFAIK) that hasn't been one of derision or condemnation by many different political sides, including the President. Meanwhile, look who ARE doing just that: The Parkland Cult-I mean, shooting victims (I don't begrudge them for their losses, or their desire for change, but I will still say that I think their proposals are foolish and will accomplish nothing towards making the lives of their friends mean a fucking thing, and that all kinds of opportunists have jumped on them). But in direct response, no you don't see 60 people get pulled in for murder because, not all 60 of those individuals had a fucking hand in a murder unless its a Julius Caesar-style killing or mass beating to death. And last I checked, the individual responsible IS in custody, and facing the full force of the law for the crime he committed. Nobody else drove that fucking car but him. One could argue they could have been accomplice, but then you have to prove that a) They planned to murder people (Which last I saw was not proven at all), and b) That they helped this guy do it. (Which also, is not evident) Arson and vandalism, are two different type of crimes from murder. Can you assure me that all of those individuals didn't break, burn, or otherwise vandalize something when we have video evidence of tons of people partaking in such activities as a group during these kinds of incidents where this stuff takes place? (I've seen quite a few incidents like that, rarely is it ONLY "a few windows") I had a recent incident near me where a bunch of people organized over night to bust every window down a business street and trashed the owners' stuff as a "protest" against gentrification. You damn well bet I hope all of those people are caught and charged with vandalism and/or arson, they were all out there, they obviously knew what they were intending to do because all did it in the middle of the night. And let's say there is no direct evidence that they can prove that an individual themselves committed said crime, even if they were in the same group, I wager most of such people can get off without charges in those incidents. (Though I'd wager they'd still be up for unlawful assembly). Are such charges in those situations as you describe them ridiculous? Yes, I would say so and are mostly indicative of an over-reactive police force. But its hardly a universal idea that ONLY the Left suffers unfairly from this in regards to their relation to the law or the law working with them. If the cases you gave were equivalent crimes, I'd be inclined towards agreeing, but currently I don't see that. You cannot just arrest and charge 60 people for murder when you cannot prove they all had a hand in it. You can prove various other things, but not specifically the murder charges on all of them, just like I'm sure the vandalism charges will not stick to all of those people despite the prosecution's efforts. As I said before, the police responses to these incidents in the past even before Charlottesville were crap irrespective of which side did what. They refused to engage in Berkeley and other places where they could have averted public injury or damage. Why? Because often they're told to stand down and let the two sides fight it out or deal with it themselves by the administrations. Charlottesville was no exception, the difference was that someone actually died and they were then forced to step in just to save face. You think its fine for say Antifa and various groups to vandalize a portion of Berkeley's campus, mace people who were there, beat the crap out of some of them, because they so dared to have Milo Yiannopolous show up, and for the police to do fuck all until they basically started to disperse? Or for several months later to avoid a conflict as two different protests met and turned into a brawl, but the police didn't get involved because they were told not to and nobody had any guns on them? Or way back in Toronto many years ago during a G20 Summit, for the cops to do literally fuck all again for one day as they let the Black Bloc run all over the place, bust every window down the business drag, toppled and set fire to various cars and did all kinds of arson but arrested NOBODY. And then completely went into riot mode the next day by detaining anyone and everyone who happened to be in the street regardless of what they were doing and regardless of if they were Black Bloc? (Not to mention all kinds of other stories, many are still suing over that, and not all of them were even Leftist activists) Don't give me this crap that the Right somehow have it always or disproportionately better than the Left when it comes to the fucking police. They don't play favours to anyone unless they're told to by their bosses for their individual situations, which can often go either way depending on where one is. Which was my fucking point! Its all contextual, its all very variable based on the situation. You could have a police department that goes and just arrests everyone as a precaution, and another that literally does fuck-all because they're told not to get involved. IMO, the police in general can do a lot better by simply making it so that they at least form a human barrier between the two protesting groups in such situations. Both can protest whatever the fuck they want, but you do not let them get right next to each other when both vehemently hate each other and have no qualms about injuring the other if they're looking for a fight. So no, I don't think the message is that clear. Especially given the wider context. We spoke of glorification earlier, I don't see those fuckers in Charlottesville, on either side being glorified on any establishment scale. So tell me exactly how are "Nazis" being regarded as acceptable in that respect to the public eye, or its merely your interpretation because anything less than complete and total one-sided condemnation by everyone and anyone is "accepting Nazis"? ----- On Uranium One, if there legitimately was NOTHING to look in to, why would this happen after the article you linked? Sessions is hardly Trump's puppet, he doesn't bend over for everything he commands him to, and he's actually supported laws that not even the President has commented on. http://archive.is/buaoZ Plus Styx at the time IMO gave a fairly compelling reason for why the whole situation warranted further investigation regardless of outcome, that and into Fusion GPS on account of the FISA Memo. Or here, just 2 months ago, apparently FBI informants' testimonies mean fuck-all and instead there's efforts to cover up this revelation on the media? Or here, just a month ago the Democrats exonerate Hillary themselves of any wrong-doing, since apparently they have no bias in the matter, and apparently they needed to address the matter in some way rather than leave it as self-evident. As for the email server stuff, come on. The FBI never even saw the servers themselves anyway, if we're even to trust their interpretations that are nothing but second-hand from a private company that looked into them on the DNC's say-so, how the hell could Comey or any other FBI member say anything with absolute confidence? Almost everyone else of any significance who was involved in the business was at least put up on some kind of charges, or otherwise was fired or removed from their position, just as anyone would be in had it been a private situation. In a private situation, anyone who was associated with a scandal like this would be fired, resign, let go, if not charged. The only reason none of this happened to Clinton was because of her status as a politician and the DNC was not going to do anything to compromise their golden goose if they could avoid it. Its the whole reason they pinned the whole hack on Russia to try and deflect from the fact that Wikileaks got it, and that the content itself was damning in terms of proving that the DNC fucked Bernie like many of his fans thought, among many other things that would look terrible if the public saw it (which all of their supportive media outlets did not cover the contents of it, or in at least one case outright tried to claim it was illegal to view anything put on Wikileaks by the public, but that it wasn't illegal for Media outlets to do so). Assange himself and his associates proved that the leaks did not come from any Russian source, which was literally the whole reason the Russian narrative was even pushed at all, they say that it was a close DNC Staffer, someone like Seth Rich, if not Rich himself since he conveniently got murdered after the whole business happened. Who were the ones who said that it was Russia to begin with? Oh yeah, the CIA and the DNC. Because neither group have ever lied before for political purposes or abused their power for their own agenda or the agendas of those they support. But boy, wouldn't it be amazing for them to be so fucking lenient to Trump, eh? Because that's basically the extent of all I've seen on him in terms of what the initial results turned up. Its like okay, they can pin a lot on Manafort that has no relation to Trump and instead points to a different scandal, and Flynn was only charged with a count of lying to the FBI, but yet the investigation went on and has continued to go on despite no major developments that actually point towards any collusion between Trump and the Russians to effect the election in any way that can be shown. People seem willing to speculate to the moon as to how much power Trump has with his money and extended family, how the hell do you know that the Clinton family didn't exert their own pressure to get the deal through? Nope, two flavours for two different situations, I suppose. They just both happen to be extremely severe in what their implications are, but one apparently can be glossed over as nothing, whereas the other gets mass and critical attention. Oh, so we're holding private citizen deals of a decades long businessman as evidence of foreign interaction which should be held against someone as being compromised? My Gods then, the DNC emails aught to have proven that with regards to the Qatari and Saudis for the Democrats, but nope nothing to see there. Trump dealt with ALL KINDS of foreign nationals in his business. He did business in India, and all of his realty business (to my knowledge) was aimed at rich clientele so I assume many rich Indians were catered to as potential buyers, India is a major mass producer of various goods much like China, you don't see us investigating into Indian interference in the election do you? They'd have a lot of incentive to effect economics to boost their own situations to combat China for economic supremacy in the US markets! No, apparently only the rich Russians have substantial motive to meddle in US politics in favour of anyone in particular. Russian Oligarchs would be the ideal people to cater to for money if you want to get money out of the Russian market, they have the most expendable income out of anyone in the country, and Trump dealt in big business for such types of individuals. This is not a crime, nor do I regard it as anything suspicious for his business. You might as well be investigating into literally every single last country whose nationals his business has ever interacted with if this is supposed to be regarded as suspicious, yet we're not. The mandate is specifically in regards to Russian collusion. Hey, its not like Comey hasn't set a previous record of pulling shit out of his ass that ultimately amounts to nothing. Remember a week prior to the election when he mentioned Hillary was being investigated for a day and then back tracked? Boy, wasn't that an endearing move? I wonder how Comey might have been remembered HAD Obama fired him as pretty much all of the Democrats wanted him to at the time since they pretty much for a while blamed the election loss on him. Really? Who? At the time, the two people originally fingered (Manafort and Flynn) were not regarded as having had any major impact on the election (since both were fired before the campaign was even half-way done, I believe). I understand that the persons have expanded since, but we're talking the ones who originally caused suspicion. And again, Uranium One. The Clintons had DIRECT dealings with Russians in regards to a uranium sale that they got a ton of money off of, according to an FBI informant, yet THAT doesn't warrant a special investigation to iron out every single last strand of evidence, just to make sure? Big donations from members of nations that don't support equal rights in their own nations but apparently just want to give their money to the Clinton Foundation? Knowledge that such figures may very well have supported ISIS because they're Sunni Muslims? Nope, no interference at all there, no reason for special investigation, instead lets push the Muh Russia narrative ever since Wikileaks got ahold of their shit. Well, if we're to use Watergate as a comparison, of which this has been VERY heavily compared to by the MSM and various figures, Watergate didn't take this long (though it did take a while), from the time of the official start of the televised Senate Watergate Committee hearings to when Congress actually moved to impeach Nixon, it was a little over a year. And that one seriously ramped up as to not only what Nixon was doing in his paranoia, but in the caliber and status of the individuals coming forward with their testimony, or simply resigning only building by the months in severity as it became increasingly clear what the truth was. Prior to the official start, they had a already a pretty tangible line of evidence linking the "White House Plumbers" to individuals connected to Nixon simply by Nixon's own actions to try and stop that investigation, and even on one of the "Plumbers" giving a private letter to the Judge saying he perjured some of his testimony under pressure from government officials who weren't CIA. The Vice President of the US resigned on corruption, numerous aides or counsels pleaded guilty to crimes that directly relate to Watergate itself or illegal campaign activites or otherwise gave testimony that directly pointed to Watergate being real in its intent, The Watergate Seven are all indicted and brought forward, and the Republican lieutenant Governor of California gets hit with corruption. All before the move to impeachment. I don't see that happening here. You see a lot of people commenting on Trump's personality and his behaviour in the White House, and leaving for various reasons, but nothing much that's juicy for any Russian collusion story. Not even guys like Comey could give anything damning on the subject. If anything, the whole business has been nothing but a lesser attempt at imitating Watergate to the point where its almost laughable. Most people in the political establishment have no love for Trump, not even his own party, plus the atmosphere is and has been PERFECT to get mass media coverage of your story if you actually had anything damning. If they knew anything, why wouldn't they come forward and earn everlasting glory by being the one who toppled Tonald Drumpf, the tyrant who is literally Hitler reincarnated!? Fear of repercussions? That mysteriously hasn't stopped so many already from speaking out on him on numerous other stuff. What do we have here? At least 4 different false alarms I can recall by the MSM on various testimonials that amount to not that much that was damning. Charges on individuals that reek of desperation to find ANYTHING to charge them for in some cases (Flynn being a prime example). Numerous statements from various Intelligence and Law agencies that all say "Oh we 'know' this happened, but we cannot say how that it happened publicly, or that if it even had any effect on the election if it even did happen.". 13 Russian trolls who'll never be extradited even if they were indicted, with a few hundred thousand dollars in social media ads that were not only aimed to support Trump (Not to mention the fact that again, how the hell is anyone supposed to prove these had any effect at all on people's decisions over anything else? Its an impossible task.) Appointed as a placative gesture to the Democrats who were already saying he was acting like a Tyrant and stuffing his cabinet with people they didn't like. He'll likely do something similar when Ghinsberg keels over on the Supreme Court as a politically pragmatic maneuver. You're wrong, by all indications, they did it on a tip from Mueller, whom apparently is looking into this despite it not being strictly related to the mandate of his investigation. How does Stormy Daniels relate to his investigation into Trump on matters relating to the electoral interference by a foreign state to the point where he'd have any significant information regarding the subject? http://archive.is/E2sxO Hope so, but we'll see how that goes. The MSM certainly doesn't seem to be reminding anyone of that. And no, it does relate to Trump. Who the fuck else would be related to Stormy Daniels' shit at this point that anyone cares about that this shit is even making the news? Just like they know they can get away with lying to the FISA courts to get warrants to spy on anyone they want? Oh yes, I'm sure the FBI knows exactly what it can and cannot get away with, just as it has for decades. You should know this, all things considered. Good luck to them proving it was impossible for them obtain this information through any other less intrusive means than what they did. I know damn well that would be the case, my point was how ridiculously favourable the situation is to a political establishment seeking to impeach a President in this manner, because of course, there is apparently absolutely no wrong that said Special Investigator could possibly do, they cannot totally waste taxpayers' time and money on investigating a crime they cannot even prove had any effect on anything, if it even happened? And the hopes for impeachment rest almost entirely on this investigation's results? Boy, what a great situation for a setup of removing anyone a political establishment wants! You can just put a totally biased Investigator in charge, and if anyone tries to remove them, charge them with obstruction of justice! Because of course any attempt to stop the Grand Inquisitor is a sign of guilt. Had this same shit happened to Obama over his birth certificate crap (it wouldn't, but I'm using a ridiculous example), you'd be saying it was the sign of a totally racist state that was doing everything it could to kick him out. Riddle me this: What does the evidence they have shown tell you? This is a public investigation that has basically had unlimited access, they have to at least present SOMETHING to show that they have credible evidence to continue. Mueller himself came out and said just recently that Trump wasn't even being criminally investigated at the time! So what the fuck is the point of any of this?! We have the 13 Russians who have no connection at all to Trump or his campaign (who'll never be charged or extradited, either), a small amount of money in terms of campaign money used on ads we cannot prove had any effect at all, and a bunch of crimes that are almost all completely unrelated to Trump and the election coupled with confessions that aren't that damning. Looks to me like we have what he sought, and its a fucking dud! Small wonder they're dragging it out and have diverted attention onto Daniels. Or Riddle me this: Why was it that Russia even became a suspect at all (Besides the Classic Anti-Russia history of the US for political purposes)? Oh yes, one campaign led by a certain political opponent and party that was deflecting from their own fucking technical incompetence and who wanted to make the stuff Wikileaks obtained on their emails seem lesser than it was because they knew it clearly showed that among other things, they had totally fucked Bernie Sanders and rigged Hillary in. I'm not saying FOX didn't in their own time, I didn't fucking support it then and I have no love for FOX, and it doesn't make this case any better. But you acting as if there was any equivalent there to what has happened to Trump is being VERY disingenuous. I have never seen a media, cultural, and political campaign against a specific individual to the extent that has been conducted against him in modern times. Yes, and the news is painting everything he does bad because guess what? He pissed off most of the news because they were all arrayed against him from the beginning and continuously lied and took out of context and proportion almost everything he said, and he refuses to play ball with them on account of that, most of them. Why should they give him an inch of credit for anything? Even FOX didn't think he would fucking win the PRIMARIES, and only begrudgingly supported the fact that he did and then jumped on the bandwagon to capitalize on the fact that CNN had become what they were. I wager this will be the truth from now until he is out in regards to most of the MSM's coverage since it has basically been reality so far. Anything that goes well in the US under Trump's terms will NEVER be ascribed to him, even if he himself had a hand in it. Whereas everything that can possibly go wrong will ALWAYS be blamed on him even if he's not even totally to blame, or if its even true. Really? You want to talk diplomacy functionality, at least Trump is actually set to talk to North Korea in an actual face-to-face meeting atm (SOMETHING WHICH HASN'T HAPPENED SINCE BILL CLINTON BTW), and didn't have a total fucking embarrassment of a Chinese visit like Obama did on his last time there. IDK, to me, that's a bit more important, especially since everyone thought that such a thing was pretty much impossible in the former's case (myself included, honestly). "much worse in every measurable way." FFS. I may be inclined to over-dramatic language myself, but this is ridiculous. No President is an ace, but he's not the worst of all time yet. Yes, because every single last white, straight man has ALWAYS lived in greatness in America? I hope I don't need to explain THAT fallacy to you. Just like no Black has ever risen to any prominence, no woman has ever risen to any prominence, nobody who isn't strictly that description has ever lived what one could call a "great" life in the US at any point in time? I loved studying the American 60s, if there is one time period in modern history I'd have loved to have gone back to, it would be to the 1960s and participate in the works of MLK Jr. and others, and I know full well what people simply in that decade went through among others, but I am not going not entertain the fiction people are somehow exactly in the same position recently as they were then or that all have lived the same experiences. People live better and worse lives often regardless of their circumstances, and while some various issues need to be addressed that can help make more turn out better than worse, they have existed long before Trump arrived, and are not necessarily issues the Feds can solve in all cases. But you're also looking at that statement in a very specific way that is not necessarily reality. How do you know that is what he meant? Is that truly what he meant? Or what you think he meant because that's what your mind (as did many others) immediately jumped to? When Trump contextualizes the slogan himself, its not in regards to race or sexuality at all, he mostly contextualized it around the fact that America's power and standing had been decaying over the decades due to poor decisions by its leaders. Wars that held no benefit to the US and have only resulted in long drawn out wars that result only in tons of soldiers' deaths, deals that were not in America's favour and hurt American businesses, tons of internal problems that had been ineffectively dealt with by numerous administrations etc. Why would he even mention that Blacks were experiencing higher employment at his address if he's apparently running a return to White Supremacy? Why did he even manage to get such a big portion of the immigrant and even minority votes if his messages were so obviously racial supremacist in nature? Why did he not simply heed to White Supremacists' advice and just totally stack his cabinet with racists and try to revoke the amendment on racial discrimination and just completely revert to openly racist language all the time (Of which the two incidents people claim he did, have not been proven beyond conjecture)? Why didn't he run on such a platform if that was his goal? Why did he even say that he would support LGBT communities at all (Obviously to cater to their vote, but why do it and risk alienating his Republican base?)? Why did he gain significant support among women voters? Why didn't he re-ignite Gay marriage as an issue when that had been a Republican selling point for years!? That topic vanished as soon as he came in and said it was a non-issue! Your problem on that front shouldn't be with him! No, I think you, like many others, misinterpreted what he meant, and were reinforced that meaning by the mass media that all pushed that same message because they all opposed him and have literally made him out to be worse than Hitler by not giving him a single inch on anything, and widely publicizing every single last thing they could dredge up on him and his past. You tell someone a lie long enough, eventually they will accept it as truth, and they've been doing it for a few years on this subject and others. Oh, and another reason this line of thinking doesn't work? His opponent WAS the status quo. You know, the Democrats, the party which were actually the party of slavery in the past, the ones who got all the big corporate money you seem to hate so much, the ones privately who don't care about immigrants besides turning them into a voting bloc that will vote for them in perpetuity, the ones who for years have basically been in charge of dealing with numerous social issues across the urban US and yet mysteriously they only seem to be have gotten worse between them and the standard Republicans running shit. (Chicago has some of the strictest gun laws in the country, and has been a Democratic stronghold for a long time yet they became the murder capital of the US) AND whom many of its candidates, including Hillary and Obama both in their earlier careers supported traditional marriage customs and only switched when they saw an opportunity to capitalize on the Gay vote and look Progressive when they saw the Republicans would not (Not even the first time either party has done this when they saw an opportunity for votes, why do you think the geographic holds of the Democrats and Republicans switched around the 60s?). That is all this whole political game is today though, regardless of where you are. Who can make the other one look worse? The reality is that all choices often suck, and most of them have no fucking clue on what to do in order to solve anything in any meaningful way without risking political suicide. Considering how quick people were to try and not blame Hillary for Bill's sins, I'd say its fair not to judge Donald for his father's. But we've already gone over this subject before. On his money. He obviously needed to display some economic chops to maintain his wealth and business even if it were handed to him. If he was a total fuck-up, you'd think he wouldn't even have reached this point where he was even maintaining his family's status. There are countless stories both historic and modern of people who're incapable of running something being handed something via inheritance and completely pissing it away or ruining it because they have no clue how to run it. Even for matters that aren't even money-related, how many accounts abound of old nobility who get handed stuff just because they were born into it, yet completely fuck up because they have no capabilities towards sustaining it? By that regard, one can say he obviously must have had some measure of success on his own. I would say his appeal is his off-the-cuff speaking coming from the fact that he's not a career politician, not so much anti-PC language as you put it since by my judgement he hasn't actually come out at all that Anti-PC in terms of initiatives so far. And if it hasn't become clear by now, there is obviously a division as to what is regarded as "PC" depending on where you are, and what your experiences are. And before you say: "Yea, its Straight White Men versus everyone else!" No, your groups are not homogeneous anymore than they are, and even many in those groups disagree with the victimhood mentality, only to be called race-traitors and sex-traitors by the fanatics because apparently to be born or put into one of these groups is to be beholden to a specific political spectrum. My experiences as a GG supporter (for better or worse) have tempered a fair bit of my opinions on these subject since I saw it firsthand. I knew from the start it was ironic that he was basically a member of the financier sector running for office, me and a friend of mine got a lot of laughs out of that when we considered the whole thing to be a complete joke, but one cannot deny that he was the anti-establishment candidate in pretty much every respect compared to Clinton. Self and grass-roots funded, completely opposed by almost all of the establishment media apparatus and most establishment cultural icons, opposed by a huge part of the political establishment (Obama was the first sitting President I can recall who weighed in so much on an election at that time, I don't recall Bush shilling so much for McCain), and had basically every single branch of the establishment oppose him or berate him for pretty much anything and everything every single step of the way regardless of validity. Yeah . . . even though he's a member of the Financier class of politics, I am gonna say he was the anti-establishment candidate simply by how he posed himself as the agent of change. He tapped into the exact same desire for change that Obama did in his own time, one that didn't give them much effective change as they had hoped, so they sought more. A symbol which was manufactured for you to believe in before you had any reason to believe it, and to mentally prime you to ascribe every single last thing he does as a part of that. Anyone who says otherwise could be disregarded as nobody and literally a Nazi or Fascist in disguise. I had no love of Trump becoming President and even now I still stick to the fact that had I been able to vote, I would have abstained out of protest for better candidates, but I could not in good conscience get on the bandwagon with much of the hysterics about him when I saw that most of it was bullshit spun to favour of Clinton or otherwise to widen the partisan divide. Funny, I see the Democrat base in conniption fits and delusions, to the point where the term "Trump Derangement Syndrome" is not an exaggeration of many of their conditions. The Trump fans, by my judgement, are mostly quietly pleased with current events and don't regret their choice, barring several things and various moments (such as his flip-floping on Guns, Syria, etc). And most of the stuff he has delivered or made progress towards on so far, barring stalls from Congress or the Ninth Circuit. I also love how you're already condemning him as a total failure when he's not even done. I'd wait to see if he gets a second term first. I gave Obama that luxury, and generally don't hate him as a President even if I think he made some bad decisions. Believe me, if the US is ruined by the time he's done, I won't sugar-coat it. But I don't see how anything is categorically worse than anything that wasn't already there and being steadily fed the flames of over the past 10 years by forces even simply beyond political office. The culture war has been brewing for a far longer time than Trump, it just reached a boiling point because they turned the election into another facet of it of the greatest severity. Yea? I'm sick of politics' shit in general, I sick of the partianship and the refusal of ANYONE to compromise on ANYTHING, I'm sick of the media lying to our faces every single fucking day and treating the populace like idiots on so many issues for their own agendas, and I'm tired of being told that we're so great here in The West (by all sides, either for our progressive values or our more patriotic ones) we're the greatest places on Earth when nowhere else on Earth gives a flying fuck about the shit we make arguments about and don't care to make the society we have that's apparently so fantastic, and that we're slowly eroding away at the liberal values that made our nations great for the sake of specific peoples' feelings whilest ignoring the feelings of others! But I gotta talk about it because its literally all our fucking news talks about when its not banal. And things were already going to shit under Bush and Obama. I wouldn't call Trump the Anti-Christ, your political establishment has been on the road to ruin in various respects for a long time, just like many of ours.

By the sounds of things so far, Option 1 seems to be the victor. Unified military strike by the US, France, and UK to hit 3 sites related to Chemical Weapons Research, Storage, and Manufacture in Syria. All and all, I was the one who voted No, I doubted any major operation would take place, and all things considered I'd say this was the "safe" targets to choose without much risk of a full escalation. But it looks and sounds like it'll be a slap on the wrist. A bigger slap on the wrist than last year, to be sure, but one all the same.

I was referring to the video even simply forgoing Sargon's comments, which I thought I stated clearly, but either way. Obviously it depends on the University, not every Professor is a Demagogue, nor is every University an "Activist" University (I should know, I went to one that wasn't much of one). But perhaps what has contributed to that perception is that increasingly, you're seeing Universities become the foundation of Leftist activism (or rather becoming it again), often supported by the institutions, or the Professors themselves in some cases. Its no surprise that the majority of US University students predominantly vote Democrat, which while not being strictly left, tends to claim to promote Progressive ideas lately which are pretty much seen as Leftist. The question also becomes moreso how the institutions present themselves and how do they handle actual intellectual diversity of thought and debate. Its not merely what the Professors or Students say and advocate for, but also how they treat diversity of opinion on the campuses. There have been multiple cases on many universities of situations where Right-wing or Right-leaning speakers have been brigaded, or otherwise stopped from speaking, whereas a Leftist speaker will not encounter such resistance. That perhaps is the bigger contributor to this perception. The fact that many campuses are openly promoting one side while not even providing any kind of defense for the other, when a University should ideally be a place where people of many different political or intellectual viewpoints can debate, discuss, and research into pretty much any subject. Which also goes into the fact that not every topic is "up for discussion", shall we say? Cultural Marxism is an idea, specifically a perspective through which one can view information. It can be fitted, like many ideas into how you teach or analyze subjects, thereby influencing how people think about the subjects no different than any other. An uncritical mind can become indoctrinated through a perspective, if taught in such a manner. Therefore its perfectly possible that it could happen. Is it happening everywhere? No, but one could argue it is certainly happening in various places. Hell, people have argued it. I never said it had happened, if you recall, I said this stuff was proposed and that I had my reservations about the fact that it was even being proposed. The fact that it hasn't happened in many places merely shows that the administrations haven't completely lost their sanity. I don't support the idea of even willful segregation IMO, because how do you know you're not merely promoting the idea of benevolent segregation? It doesn't change my opinion that it is a regression back either. Benevolent or no, these motions are supporting stuff we claimed was bad less than 100 years ago. The Jim Crow supporters would be cheering at how we're validating their segregation viewpoints through voluntary segregation. ----- You asked for different sources, I presented them. I didn't speak for the quality of the Free Press, merely that they proposed different arguments. You claimed you could only find one line of argumentation. Personally, I found Dr. Peterson's arguments to be the best of the lot if you were wanting my opinion. And laws often are based in some manner of science, or that they can go hand-in-hand at times. The reason we no longer have racist laws anymore that have any kind of legitimacy based on biology is specifically thanks to the efforts of science, as well as social activism. Its extremely hard for someone to make the argument now that someone is an inherently different to the point where they're a separate sub-human species, and that's thanks to genetics. And I'm going off topic, but this was merely an example. Purposefully, perhaps. But how many situations are done on purpose, and does the law treat the situation that way, or does it regard ANY instance as a violation? Regardless of merely Trans, people seem content to purposely and casually be impolite to others all the time for so many situations, yet some get special consideration for being protected from impolite language over others? This is going moreso into my Free Speech ideals and philosophy, but I honestly don't see the major legal issue in someone addressing someone else impolitely, which is essentially what this whole thing is. Yes, there is the idea of mutual respect, but the reality is that most people don't approach each other from a setting of mutual respect until that is earned, most cases people approach others they don't know in reserved neutrality, and respect may foster between the two from there or it may not depending on how things go. How do you know our ancestors were not slaves at one point? My heritage is Irish-Scottish. Half of that ethnicity was effectively used as slave labour by the modern British for a time, and both were effectively subjugated by them for centuries prior. The Celtic Culture has been all but entirely destroyed from what it was between invaders and cultural conversion and arguably Cultural Genocide for centuries, what remains of the language is slowly dying, and many Celts were slaves in the ancient past to various ancient powers (and each other, but then such was reality at the time). My point being that if you want to make this argument, kiss all of history prior to the modern day goodbye, hell even the modern day, arguably. Or are we going to go into cultural relativist arguments and say that the destruction of some cultures is apparently more important to take into account as to who has more of say on these matters than others, or that there is a hierarchy of the oppressed of the past? All of it can be described as "a darker chapter in our history" compared to now, if one were to argue it. Ultimately, people can do whatever the fuck they want, I have no power over them and don't really care, I just have personal reservations on the idea and don't like seeing history get destroyed. ----- I didn't deny that, I merely made a remark on who arguably is driving PC culture at any given time, predominantly, and the fact that it shifts. Criticism is one thing, going so far as to charge people over very particular jokes when tons of comedians have made jokes on the subject before is another. John Cleese himself has said that if Monty Python's skits were filmed today, him and the whole gang would likely be arrested, which is a fucking farce to me. That's a very specific view of comedy, a subject which is often in the eye of the beholder and morphs constantly with time. Comedians, some of the greatest IMO, have no problems in saying jokes that may come across as offensive to various people. Why? Because of various reasons. Mel Brooks made jokes, or was willing to make jokes in his films about everything except pedophilia and the death camps of Nazi Germany (If I recall correctly), but he made tons of jokes on Hitler and his Nazis because he wanted people to think they were foolish and to turn a negative subject into a positive one ultimately. He believed we needed to be able to laugh at pretty much anything, and so he made jokes about everything he personally felt comfortable joking about, and didn't discourage others. This guy joked about his own peoples' suffering under the Spanish Inquisition, among many other culturally offensive jokes in History of the World Part 1 alone. George Carlin was quite Left-leaning, used all kinds of filthy language in his routines and touched on all kinds of otherwise politically incorrect subjects because he a) Wanted to show that the words themselves are nothing but words, b) He wanted to get people out of the mindset of political correctness, and c) He wanted his audience to think as they were laughing.. He also flat-out didn't give a shit, but he'd been doing that since the 60s when he grew up. Russell Peters' entire act is mostly race, cultural, and ethnicity jokes, and he gets sold out crowds everywhere he goes. Probably helps that he's an Indian man born in Canada, but the fact remains he goes through the full monty in his acts, he hardly leaves any part of the world untouched, and one of the major points he emphasizes is that everyone's racist to some extent and white people don't have a monopoly on it at all. Not every comedian needs to do those things at all, but I prefer variety over control when it comes to art, which means that likely some comedians will be offensive. ----- As for your question, here is the short answer I'll give: Very difficult to gauge, very situational, and ultimately very personal. People on the Left and Right or who favour one side or another will obviously not put their side under more scrutiny unless they have a specific reason for doing so. It also depends on where you are, who we're talking about in terms of who is supposed to be scrutinizing who, and what exactly happened. My conclusion? I would say that the Left gets a BIG free pass from a large part of the MSM. Fox and Breitbart are the exceptions, and the former is dying due to internal scandal and dying cable news, and the latter is nowhere near as popular to actually be any kind of replacement. But I can list TONS of Left-favouring outlets both great and small. CNN, CBC, MSNBC, BBC, The Washington Post, The New York Times, Vice Media, Huffington Post, Wired, Jezebel, Teen Vogue, and I'm probably forgetting a bunch of others but those are the ones that popped into my head. There are no where near enough Conservative alternatives with anywhere near as big of an audience to be actual competitors to many of these outlets, and even then its up in the air to whether or not they are actually "Conservative" in any true sense and not merely Neo-Cons. How many actual Right-Wingers do you see being chatted with on many of these outlets? Not many, and most get belittled or pushed around on them for their opinions, magically get cut off, or otherwise get stacked in panels that mostly have Leftists or Left-leaning individuals on them. Since there are far more of them that are undeniably far popular, I very much put this in the Left's favour. Publicly? Divides on who gives a free pass where and what they know. Law Enforcement? Similarly, it depends on where you are. Politically? Changes like the tides. Long response, where I'll demonstrate this: I'd say that's a very interesting way to analyze the situation when the reality of Charlottesville I saw from the footage was the one arguably intentional death and set of injuries was caused by a mentally instable individual in his car after said opposing protestors surrounded it and started hitting on it. I'm not dismissing his actions, he is AFAIK being charged within the full extent of the law and should pay for his crime. But its all the more interesting when said police in Charlottesville were told to stand down until said person was killed, even though they had to have been aware that in previous situations where incidents like there had occurred, the likely scenario was that there would be people fighting each other in the fucking streets. A lot of things went wrong in Charlottesville, the biggest blame I place is on the law enforcement who according to you, apparently served an order ruling it an unlawful assembly, yet where the fuck were they to enforce it before someone got fucking killed? They had every reason to suspect that the situation would get violent, yet where were they? Nowhere until someone got fucking killed. Same situation happened in Berkeley months prior, the only difference was that nobody got killed, so the police had no impetus to step in and thus simply abide by their orders to stand back. People (Specifically people who don't like the Dems) are making a big deal out of Clinton's email server because there was basically no investigation at all around it that wasn't swiftly dropped, or into Uranium One, or basically any scandal that Hillary may have been involved with at all, no matter how severe it looks. I ask you, WTF is happening to Trump right now? Oh yeah, A FEDERAL LEVEL INVESTIGATION, one which has moved pretty much without any serious opposition ever since it started. I'm sorry, but how the hell has Trump not been under a fucking microscope ever since he even started running for the office? This motherfucker cannot eat two scoops of ice cream without being put under scrutiny by the most popular sources of information in the world. There's evidence to suggest that he had been wiretapped, he'd been spied upon (both of which haven't led to any further investigations that I know of ATM), and his past has been dredged through as thoroughly if not far more publicly than Clinton's ever was. If anyone, blame the fucking MSM! These fucking morons have run the Trump-hate-train 24/7 non stop since the election, small wonder more and more people are tuning out. Its the boy who cried wolf. Meanwhile Mueller is pulling a fucking witch-hunt and violating attorney-client privilege because he has literally fuck-all on Trump after nearly 2 years solid of investigating, and is desperate to find anything for an impeachment. They raid his former attorney's house over a tenuous link that Stormy Daniels may have been paid off and it might be a fraud case (Boy, how the hell does this relate to Russian collusion tampering in the election in Trump's favour? The purpose of the whole investigation at all, might I add?), yet the FBI apparently didn't raid the Clintons' attorneys over any of the far more visible links between them and various other scandals? Guess what I don't see a lot of people being pissed off over? The fact that attorney-client privilege just got violated by a federal investigation that has completely overstepped its bounds and gone beyond its original mandate in the pursuit of anything they can pin to this guy they so desperately want out of office that they hope nobody notices that the investigation has completely forgone its original mandate. If a President cannot do shit about it, what the hell is an average citizen supposed to do if faced with a similar situation? The only reason Mueller likely don't be fired over this is because to do so would result in harpies crying out: "Obstruction of justice!" and handing them the fucking impeachment charges on a platter because apparently this is a sacrosanct investigation mandated by God that can go on for eternity until something is found. Over-dramatic language, yes, but frankly that's how ridiculous this whole business looks to me. Point here? I think besides what I posted, the evidence can be seen in the chat here. We all have our own opinions on what matters more and what deserves more scrutiny. From my perspective, the Media heavily favours the Left and its interpretations, while not sparing much for the Right, or the perceived opponents of the Left. Everyone else? Depends on where you are, and who you ask. The stats seem to suggest the same as well, from my understanding.

The Scottish Court ruling regarding Count Dankula was completely ridiculous. For multiple reasons. First off, I don't understand why the hell it took them so damn long just to reach a verdict. Its a fairly cut and dry situation legally. The situation did not involve any potential type of offensive abuse against any specific individual besides Markus' girlfriend and she wasn't the subject of the Prosecution so it wasn't like some mass sexual assault case where they had 300 witnesses to go through, and the content in question was a singular video that isn't even that long. What the hell was there to drag this out for pretty much as long as he'd serve a sentence for if convicted? Regardless, it made me basically realize that Scotland or the UK must not have any laws regarding Court lengths, over here in Canada, you actually cannot drag a case on forever because the laws grant the accused double the amount of time spent in court deliberations taken off of their sentences specifically to avoid these kinds of situations where an accused can spend years in court proceedings for no good reason. I thought it was a complete joke that the Crown Prosecutor was essentially allowed to turn the whole thing into a stage performance that ran way longer than it had any reason to do so, just because they wanted a fucking show trial. Second was the idea that "context does not matter" or that "context is decided upon by the court", while not necessarily untrue in principle in that courts ultimately decide what the truth of the situation is, I find it an extremely odd situation wherein a Court can literally just choose to ignore a person's profession or life if they so choose merely to say "No, this is obviously a crime, irrespective of circumstance" when the reality is that this is not the case. Comedians, many of them British or are available to be viewed in Britain, have been making Nazi-related jokes, spoofs, satires, imitations for mockery, or otherwise some variety of comedic routine for decades. Arguably ever since the Second World War, I'd wager, if one were to go back that far. Like in America, the fact that the Three Stooges during wartime had Moe dress up as Hitler and Larry and Curly dress up as other Nazi figures or even more offensive Japanese portrayals as part of their routines was a common thing then for war time positive propaganda purposes, they were not idolizing these figures, they were mocking them. I wouldn't be surprised to discover that Britain had equivalents of their own. No, context does matter when it comes to comedy. A fair number of comedians have actually spoken in favour of Dankula during the proceedings, saying how its a bad precedent to punish him over what was joke. Its all the more odd when Dankula has no prior history of any kind of incident where he was inciting hatred for any particular group, nor do his former political leanings or current ones lend themselves towards the narrative the prosecution was spinning as to WHO they claimed he was acting on behalf of, or trying to stir up. But nope, context doesn't matter, apparently, and now you cannot make jokes in the UK because the Government and its courts might arbitrarily decide that context does not matter in any situation it so chooses, and that you're breaking the law because they simply decide to ignore the fact that you said something as a joke, or for whatever reason you may have had. Doesn't matter the intent, apparently, they decide it all for you. Not only that, but you might also serve jail time for it! Totally ludicrous precedent in regards to speech laws. They've basically given carte blanche for the courts to ignore context on any matter it so deems to be considered offensive at any point in time.

I'm gonna forgo actually quoting you just to save space, dash. Well for the first few, I believe Sargon ran a video on it specifically, linking a CNN interview segment and various other sources feel free to look them up, with a couple of Professors who had been caught in such incidents. Their response was pathetic, IMO. Forgoing even Sargon's comments on the matter, I cannot understand what the hell these Profs are thinking in their reasons why they said what they said. The first claims it was satire. Oh yea, that's totally satire when they provide no frame of reference for what they're satirizing at all and give no hint that you're writing is satire either. Its already difficult enough on internet chat forums to discern trolling at times, one often has to be literal if they want their intent to come across clearly. Or "start a conversation" on this topic? FFS YOU DID THIS ON TWITTER! The one public forum where above all others, its perhaps the most difficult to have any kind of intelligent conversation because you're limited to how much you can write. How much of an intelligent conversation are you supposed to have when each post you write is limited to a small number of characters? Blitz intelligentsia conversations maybe, but nothing the general public can thoroughly engage in. No, he did this to be provocative, and is playing dumb, I wager. More to the point, what "intelligent conversation" would you even have on this topic? Supposedly all forms of Genocide provocation are bad, if not outright crimes in various countries, so what's the conversation to be had here if its not about the subject matter? "Oh, let's have a conversation about these edgy people who post this crap to get a rise out of people online?" Discussing why people might be prone towards posting edgy or provocative stuff might be an interesting psycho-analysis depending on how it was done, but that's not this Prof's area of expertise, so I doubt that's the conversation he'd be having. Second guy, very tasteless. Even if we go out on a limb and say he wasn't actively supporting the fact that some people got shot for their political party affiliation, this is ridiculously bad behaviour for a Professor to do in the wake of a shooting. You don't do crap like that unless you're either trying to be provocative and don't give a fuck about backlash, Plus his reasoning could literally be applied to any Racist who desires racial genocide on Earth, or heck, even just any kind of homicidal individual who thinks a certain group of people aught to be killed, and it would work with them. I have seen BLM chapters caught on film chanting for dead cops (I linked a couple from Sargon among others previously, regardless of his comments, I have little reason to doubt the footage clips), the POC-only spaces have mostly been argued by various campus groups on different Unis. And while I cannot find the links easily, I do have various instances I can list. -Oberlin University, where its student radicals issued a list of demands which included removing tenure from some Profs and giving it to others merely on the basis of being black, and creating POC-only spaces among other things. -Cal State University in LA offering segregated student Housing as a progressive initiative. -NYC, a University there had people demanding POC-only spaces just recently. -American University (Washington, I believe), protested for not only a POC only space, not only did they get their own time in the cafeteria separate from White students, they also protested for free extensions on all of their exam times and no risk of penalization for missing ANY of their exams among other things. ----- Lots of different groups pushed. Here is Dr. Peterson's copy of a section of the Senate Hearing on the issue with both he and the lawyer Jared Brown witnessing, its a full hour, so be warned, but I find it to be quite illuminating: Here's an article detailing about four or five other criticisms of its content in different respects: https://canadafreepress.com/article/canadas-bill-c-16-transgenderism-and-the-loss-of-common-sense Different section of the Senate Hearings, this is a Megan Murphy giving a Feminist critique of C 16, mostly on grounds that oppose the idea of Transgenderism: (I don't necessarily agree with her views, but I can appreciate her consistency within the speech) But as you said, we have no real stats on the situation. And even if that is the case, genocide would still be an exaggeration. Yes, but I'd say there is a difference between misgendering someone, and using a racial slur. A racial slur is an obvious insult. Not calling someone by their chosen pronoun is different, IMO. Yes, it indicates a lack of respect towards an individual, and potentially harassment if one goes out of their way to constantly do it, but its a different situation if say a person has no way of knowing what a specific person's pronouns are and misuse (apparently) causes some individuals mental trauma, and that even a single instance of misgendering can be treated as a crime. Dr. Peterson also discusses the idea of compelled language and how it doesn't necessarily resolve this issue of harassment in this kind of situation anyway, in fact it could just promote more harassment out of defiance. But that's what he views. ----- Possibly, though personally I'd make the argument that such a manner of thinking is an illusion, in many cases, or is merely utilized for political advantage. I'd look for non-party candidates for any genuine desire for that, IMO by and large. My province has been run by a Lesbian Premier for years, if there's one thing I've learned its that such a person can totally fuck up running a province as any other joker in politics. Funnily its been the recent years where a lot of problems have been coming forward in some of those communities. Then again, such could be the case merely by having someone of such an identity in power. Well, if everyone voted practically, lots of things in politics would be different, it would also change how the parties try to cater to voters. ----- Maybe so, and I don't disdain your preference. I just know to many others, even within your own wider community, it doesn't matter to them as much. I know quite a few who'd rather not get the attention, and merely have people not take it as a big deal so that they can just live normal lives. IMO, it'd be a healthier outlook for everyone in general, not even just of any particular group but everyone, to not be as fixated on such arbitrary concepts of identity. Its IMO the exact way of thinking which lead to the creation of ideas like racial hierarchies, or even just divisions of identity to begin with. Its a pipe-dream of course, but I'd think it'd actually go towards solving a lot of these problems faster than many other approaches. Holding one identity up on a pedestal accomplishes little except to shift the problem (hence why I don't call Black Panther a "diverse" film, for example). I reached the conclusion after finding group identity to be unfulfilling in that they have little nuance to be practical when put into policy, and individual identity to be an illusion. We aren't individuals in any respect. From our names, to our clothes, to our hairstyles, to who we chose to fuck, to what we like to eat, to what we enjoy watching/reading/playing, and often not even in our viewpoints (What is a truly unique viewpoint anymore, eh? Arguably, this one isn't either.). Very nihilistic perhaps, but to me it rings quite true of reality. I'd argue the average person in general has no real responsibility for the lingering effects of any government (on any level) or business policies. Why? Because the vast majority of people have 0 power over the situation by virtue of not being in government or control of a business. Most people are not policy makers, hell, most people don't even have any power to vote on them. And even fewer people have any power over companies. If anyone is to blame, its them, since they're the ones who ultimately make the choices and the arguments and present them to the public. The only power the general public have in that scenario is the threat of public opinion and protest, but in my viewing, most protests fail (especially up here in Canada). I loved studying the American 1960s and I won't deny that some protests are far more effective than others, but ultimately you're not talking about any great deal of power compared to lobbyists or even the effects of counter-protests depending on the issue. That public power only exists by making people care, as well. Which unless its a really serious matter that they can relate to, most people honestly won't care. Everyone has their own problems, and don't necessarily want to take up the burdens of others. Just look at the recent March For Our Lives protests. Yes, the media is making a big deal out of them being some of the biggest protests since the 60s, but there's also the factors they're not telling everyone. NRA membership and funds I believe tripled following the events, and an enormous number of people across the US DIDN'T join them. For one reason or another. Now, that general apathy may very well be not what our predecessors envisioned for democratic government, but its the reality we live in. You have a hard enough time getting anyone interested in voting for what they can vote for, let alone protest genuinely and effectively. ----- Just as a minor caveat to the Class identity I have, while we agree on it. I have become a bit more skeptic of class talking points like the often toted out "1%ers" even though in reality that's a colloquialism and the actual number of people is much higher and often a bit more varied than people think and therefore I see it as potentially proven to overzealousness as any other. Otherwise, again, I don't have much issue on it. ----- IDK though, because think about the 90s. I'm not gonna paint them as some great time where no discrimination happened at all, you can see that it happened a lot, especially in urban centers where you had big divides, but how often did it come up as a talking point compared to now? I honestly couldn't tell you, but a lot of people I know who lived and were aware during that time didn't notice it as much, you never really saw it as a major social issue even if it wasn't eradicated. You saw in the decades preceding them, a lot of talk about the issues, but then they kinda fade a bit from popular discussion, until they get revived later here in the 2000s to the present. There's a difference between the issues disappearing and whether or not they flare up again as issues. Think of it like diseases. You don't see much talk about them until a major incident happens or otherwise some major development that draws people's attention. The lack of conversation doesn't mean that its gone, but that its vanished from public sight as a major or prevalent issue. Various issues in society can basically vanish from public eyes for a long time before resurfacing based on various circumstances. Police brutality, especially racially motivated incidents of such, have existed for a long time as well, but they only flare up at various instances, such as with Rodney King. So when I say the Left "revived" race issues, that's partially what I mean. But I mean generally that the Left revived identity politics, and in so doing, race issues as well. Because identity politics is a double-edged sword, you cannot promote one singular identity without having others question why theirs are not also being represented or upheld. This is IMO why we see rise in White Nationalism among many other groups over the past few years, its gotten to the point where they're being encouraged to think in racist mindsets because all people are seeing is tons of activists thinking in what they regard to be as racist mindsets. The division of the Humanist Movement along identitarian lines IMO is the biggest sign of this. The fact that they no longer saw it as prudent to simply have a humanist movement, they had to emphasize half a dozen other areas of identity as splinter movements, because apparently its discriminatory or ignores people by simply asking that all people regard themselves as simply human, and not focus on the other aspects of identity. The talks of "privilege" and "intersectionality" are both very recent developments as well in terms of talking points, even if they may be evolutions off of earlier ideas. And in some cases they've gone way too far with them to the point where they flare up tensions themselves, and hence create issues. I just saw yesterday that apparently there's a new push among some groups about the idea of "Christian Privilege" as an idea, which not only kinda goes against the idea of privilege as I thought had been established where it mostly involved factors that one had no control over (since religious affiliation is ultimately a personal choice), but also comes across as very "First World Problems" kind of material. To complain about Christian Privilege in a society that while being Christian in origin, is mostly secularized, IMO makes no sense. Especially when there exist all over the world instances where being a Christian is not a privileged position at all, yet you don't see this discussion going on anywhere else for other groups. Which is IMO what is a cause of these problems. People see through the fact that many on the Left have no principles (granted they also see the same on the Right in their own times), but rather only care about "their own habitat" so to speak, and they get pissed off when these groups act self-righteous about their causes and incite protest over these very particular issues while appearing not to care about others that are arguably far more pressing in other places. It creates an appearance of a very self-centered Left. The traditional Right largely makes no illusion about being self-centered in terms of it usually being more local or national in its aims, but because the Left tend to argue for more issues of far more expansive natures that go beyond the mere locality or nation in terms of actually truly solving them, it can create a weird disconnect wherein they pick and choose which issues they care about, in which instances. Criticism of Christianity versus Criticism of Islam is arguably a topic where this has occurred. The reality should be that the Left criticizes all Religions equally and promotes secularization (since that's basically the whole reason why the modern Left's principles exist at all), yet you see Leftist politicians who refuse to criticize Saudi Arabia, who refuse admit that perhaps at least some aspects of the culture contribute toward various specific issues, etc. Yet there's no such hesitancy for criticizing Christians of any variety. People can criticize the Pope all they want, he's even apparently taken to promoting many Left-leaning ideas irrespective of doctrine (not that that is a bad thing, but its very noticeable, even to myself not being a Catholic or Christian). Another topic this has occurred with is Imperialism. China has, for all intents and purposes, become a new economic imperialist in terms of what it is doing in various African nations alone, yet you don't really see much criticism of them by Leftists, whenever you see Imperialism talked about, most cases they're referring to past European Imperialism, or slightly more modern American and maybe Soviet varieties. Even though the most pressing issues of the matter right now are arguably being done by China under everyone's noses. Or Conservationism, now admittedly this is often very issue-specific when it comes to activists, so I'll limit myself to merely the politicians. Even Environmentalist-favouring politicians pick and choose what issues to tackle rather than try and resolve as many as they can. Sometimes ignoring even ones you'd think would be very simple. Like the pacific garbage patch. How the hell has that thing NOT been resolved by even just the UN at this point? They've known about it for a long time, they constantly harangue over environmental issues and its obviously a very visibly bad thing, yet where's the action been on it? Basically nothing. They cannot even blame the US on that one, apparently most of the junk comes from East Asia. Its another consequence of living in a world that is far more globally connected than ever before. People cannot really get away from the fact that there are arguably far more pressing issues to attend to elsewhere in terms of needing urgent action. Basically, it creates a situation where people come to resent the modern Left because they look like hypocrites even if they may be opposing hypocrites, and people think they're no better, and at times fan the flames of issues that ultimately look petty, look differently when analyzed, or don't matter. Conservatives do this as well, the last UK election is evidence of that where Theresa or her party obviously thought it was a bright idea to alienate big parts of the population for no reason by trying to cram every Conservative agenda they could think of in their manifesto, regardless of relevance or political motive, small wonder they didn't gain a fucking thing. Styx has pointed it out as well. He noticed how back during the Bush era, when he still called himself a Leftist, you had all kinds of people being anti-war when Bush went into Iraq, yet immediately seemed to forget their own viewpoints when Obama became president and started authorizing drone strikes that caused many civilian deaths in places like Yemen or other nations, plus starting a few of proxy wars. He also noticed the same among Neo-Cons in reverse, its why he didn't flip right either. In this way, they arguably create their own opposition, as people who otherwise would not be opposed or even have any stake in the game, get drawn in. Which IMO is what the Left has been doing on many issues recently, followed behind by the Right. ----- Even if that was the intent, how the hell was that message supposed to stick in the 60s? The Confederacy lost quite handily a long time ago, the Union won. The only reason it would have been the case would be due to lack of Federal enforcement of its own laws (which was the case at the time of the 1960s). In which case that's a fault of the government, not necessarily the monuments. More to the point why tear them down now? Seems 40-50 years too late IMO and just a feel-good exercise that doesn't really do much for anyone in reality. "Oh yea, you tore down a statue of a centuries dead guy whose beliefs they may or may not have held have almost no resemblance to what our modern society holds. Good job." Tearing them down while there was still major opposition to blacks having the vote? I can see that. Now? What's the point? Regardless, I always cringe when I see stuff like that. ----- Ah, but that depends on the Feminist you ask. Many older Feminists disagree with their younger counterparts. Still, could it not be argued that the one is, in some regards, undoing the work the other did? I'd say it could. I'll also refer again to the Meghan Murphy link. ----- Still doesn't make sense why it would basically vanish from cable, it would explain a drop, but not complete vanishing. You can find all kinds of entertainment on the internet, yet you haven't seen all of those vanish from cable yet have you? You would think that at least some of them would persist, yet they don't. But that's only one example. Yeah, and now you see different things being regarded as politically incorrect compared to the 50s and 60s. There are a bunch of cartoons from the 90s alone I wager you'd never be able to show today without getting a flood of complaints, stuff that kids would watch barely 15-20 years ago. It changes because of who is charge of political correctness. Nobody denies that. I don't like the Right doing it anymore than the Left, yet ironically, you often see overlap between the two in their views on the subject. Both don't like over-sexualization of women albeit for different reasons, both don't like the use of filthy language (be it swearing or slurs for any reason), both don't approve of various drug usage (though that varies as to which they disapprove of and often changes with time), both have problems with various violent content, and both have their own sacred cows in terms of stuff they won't show or won't approve of being shown. They also both care about Halloween costumes, going to outrageous lengths for the sake of their political correctness. I'm talking about PC Culture in general, and the fact that primarily now the Left is currently in charge of it, at least in NA. That will obviously change in time as it always has, but right now, here, I'd very much say the ball is in the court of the Left. The fact that many different comedians have commented on the fact in the last few years that they simply refuse to go to many college or University campuses anymore because the student bodies cannot take jokes of different kinds they use is another hint towards this. I haven't played Far Cry 5 yet, so I cannot comment on specifics. I just know that in general, the Far Cry games have mostly been out to entertain and in some cases make over the top characters and stories more so than make any grand political statements, so I'm not surprised. I also wouldn't even say that that instance is necessarily political correctness, because is it right now politically correct to do such a thing? Last I checked, the supposed fear of offending Far-Right groups hasn't stopped most MSM outlets from repeatedly lambasting them for the past few years, it hasn't stopped all kinds of comedians and comedic routines from blowing all kinds of their issues or groups way out proportion, or it hasn't made Hollywood suddenly become worried about offending such people (Hell, they often openly provoke such people). The only way that works is if Ubisoft assumes that most of their audience is right-wing, and far-right at that. I don't think so. I think most people were apolitical, and didn't want to be beat over the end with a modern political narrative in their Far Cry game. They already got a lot of backlash early on because people thought they were capitalizing on Trump being president (The number of hack articles speculating about the game's content in the time prior to release and how its a "Glimpse into Trump's America" were outrageous), and they were fed up with hearing about modern politics 24/7 by what was literally almost everyone. Which that's a question, is catering towards a mostly apolitical audience, or at least an audience that desires some form of escapism from modern politics, necessarily a form of political correctness? IDK, I'll just leave it at that.

@kraken Don't give me this crap when you're saying I'm apparently forgetting what you said previously. If I recall, I left a whole damn page of sources of my opinions on various subjects after I got fed up with being told I have no fucking sources, and I had listed some of my various sources on subjects before as general statements. You're also still not getting my point. My point was on the hyperbole you spouted about black versus white crime and how apparently "everyone" views it, THAT is hyperbole and a colloquialism you provided, it was not your views on gun control specifically I was questioning. ----- Doesn't change the fact that the numbers are all down, and since its the DoJ and FBI's stats, I'm going to go out on a limb and say most of it is crime stats. US population is also much different in size compared to many other countries. Not everyone of them is necessarily a good comparison. Plus, different cultures, different punishments, etc. IMO the major factor in the prison population and justice system would be the likelihood of a criminal committing the same offenses again because the justice system is failing in its job. And if people are in jail for crimes that shouldn't necessitate jail time. Who knows? You're asking rhetorical questions that you yourself don't have the answers to. How the fuck do you know if that's the case? Your question is almost impossible to get any kind of accurate statistics for. Do you disagree that violent felons shouldn't be locked up? Maybe the spike went up because more people started reporting more crimes? Maybe certain states lowered the bars for incarceration for various crimes? (I know that happened under certain Presidencies and State Administrations) There's a lot of maybes and what ifs, I'm concerned with the data and what it shows, in relation to these arguments for gun control, not necessarily on other matters. ----- Eh . . . I'm on the fence on Universal Basic Income. Even though in my own country I'd love to have it since I make basically poverty-level income even with a full-time hour job. On the one hand, I approve of the idea of a country giving you a wage simply for being a citizen, if we're to believe that government is as Rousseau argued it should be, they aught to do this if they're not going to give totally free social services in exchange for our taxes. And I don't have any problem with welfare as an idea (though I will admit, I'd prefer less people be on it as possible). The classic fear has always been that if you just hand people money, they'll not do much good with it in order to build their status. Despite the video, I already have a lot of first-hand knowledge of this being true for at least a fair number of individuals I personally know. Doesn't matter how much money you give someone, if they don't know HOW to spend it in order to better their position to actually make more, they're never going to get out of their situation, it'll just be a question of how quickly they hit bottom. That's not to say I think that all who are poor don't inherently know how to handle money, I know plenty who do and just make some bad decisions or have a run of bad luck, but that the idea that some people cannot just be trusted with a lump sum at any rate isn't entirely unfounded. Hell, its the reason the idea of loans was invented, arguably, you give someone money, but you give it to them under the assumption that they'll make more in a set amount of time that you both agree upon, you don't just hand it out to them. But the real reason I don't like the idea of the government paying for you to live (which is essentially what this is), because that basically means you're guaranteed to reach a point where if the government's finances collapse for any reason, you're screwed. Because the whole idea of the basic income is to supplement an existing income, but if you could exist on the existing income, the basic one wouldn't be necessary, hence why you'd be screwed if the basic income collapses (at least in regards to all of the people this would benefit most to get above the poverty line, of course). If there is one thing I have learned about governments, its that I don't necessarily trust them to be good with money. In fact in most cases that don't involve a Financial Conservative (who's likely to cut social programs anyway) or a Business-oriented person governing the financial situation, I can fairly safely wager that money will be wasted and the government will be driven into debt, and since we're talking governments, they have the capacity to waste money in exorbitant amounts on stuff that will not make them much in return, doesn't matter who is in charge, necessarily. Its also an enormous expenditure when you factor in that many western countries have enormous government debt already. Most cannot afford to give you free social services of all kinds to begin with, why would they be able to give everyone a Universal Basic Income? You'd need such radical economic reform to even make all of this viable that I'm unsure as to whether or not it could be done in a decent manner, especially in a time of economic instability. I'm doubtful that in many countries you'd even get the unanimous support to do a total overhaul of the economic system and welfare systems in this manner, simply out of fear that it totally flops. Taxing the rich isn't really a solution to this either, because raising their taxes to extremely high amounts only gives them incentive for one thing: Move (themselves, or just their money). Because what incentive do they have to stick around? Pay enormous taxes to have the privilege of living in a particular country? We're talking about people who could theoretically buy anything they want. You could very easily end up in a situation where some nations trying to out-compete economically could just undercut everyone by simply offering to be a tax haven for the rich at a more decent rate than the taxes they'd have to pay anyway. The Rich move themselves or their money to these places, those places all get a cut, and the original nation is left with less major sources of tax revenue. Its why so many corporations have their HQs in places like China, for instance. And the Rich have the most mobility to move and take all of their assets with them out of all of the social classes. Its why I don't necessarily agree with just vastly increasing taxes on the upper echelons of society as a cure-all, if they know they can get a better deal elsewhere and they have the power to do so, you bet your ass they're going to move. Its not even always malevolent in their intent, why should someone who worked to earn their fortune be picking up the bill of the government because of poor economic decisions that cause inflation and unemployment to run out of control? Human decency? Its the governments' job (arguably) to look after the well-being of its citizens in all respects, not every citizen to every other citizen necessarily. But ultimately, that is the real issue here as to why its being discussed, besides jobs. Its inflation. Everything is steadily becoming more expensive, and less people can afford to pay for stuff even with jobs that would otherwise be half-decent. A UBI is essentially just a band-aid solution to this problem. Because unless it addresses inflation, its only a matter of time before you'd need to raise the UBI more to compensate. On the jobs end, I'm more worried about increasing automation and the fact that its going to drive prices insane over time while simultaneously un-employing A LOT of people, and make us all question the value of human labour. It'll be the new Industrial Revolution of our era, and it'll be curious to figure out how it will go. I'd also argue the real solution for capitalism would be massive expansion into space via colonization and big industry out there, but that's just me. Make the ceiling to expand virtually infinite so that we cannot feasibly hit it. But that's still a long ways off.

The Red Strings Club Pretty good, but ending was kinda lackluster. I didn't appreciate the contemporary political condescension of one specific bit, but I enjoyed the game nonetheless for the 4 hours you're likely to get on a first play though. Would recommend on sale.

Well I'm obviously behind, time to try and catch up. Again, dash first, then I'll get to kraken. Admittedly, "everything" may be a fair bit of an over-exaggeration, but I've certainly seen enough hacks and activists or speakers of various descriptions to say it is a prevalent thing that isn't really being challenged by anyone but people on the right, or centrists. I see some that, I've heard that argument made a lot up here in Canada for why various laws are changing, personally. And while I don't begrudge that idea if it is the case, it doesn't change the fact that quite a few people are going way too damn far with it. When I see University Profs of various places, not to many, but some, actually openly calling for White Genocide, or basically applauding the shooting of Republican Senators, I question if mere equalization is truly their goal. When I see BLM or many other groups arguing FOR racial segregation of laws and spaces, I wonder where the hell did Civil Rights go? It was 60 years ago they were arguing for no racially segregated spaces at all, now modern activists in many places are demanding POC-only spaces, social clubs, events, or what have you. Its a regression back, and its being argued on the basis of social justice. I also don't like BLM because they sparked the trend of dividing up basically every single movement along identity lines. I understood why they did it, but it doesn't mean I agree with their strategy. IMO nothing would come of it except perpetuating identity divides. But that's just stuff I've seen that makes me question the situations. On the more argumentative basis as to changing laws for such reasons, I can understand that and don't disagree, but my counter would be that in many cases it is not a discussion that is taking place (At least up here in Canada), it is a bowing to anything that makes the government look good and progressive without much care for analysis of the situations. Dr. Jordan Peterson's experiences up here in regards to Transgenderism, terms around them, language and pronouns is a prime example of this. If I recall correctly, one of the arguments used to push the provincial law making it illegal to say improper pronouns to a Trans individual was basically that: "Trans individuals are undergoing a Genocide here in Canada." To which I scratched my head and wondered what reality they were living in? Because while laws and the situation may not be entirely supportive of Trans lifestyles, I would very deeply struggle to call the situation a "Genocide". But no, they wanted to use dramatic language and emotional appeals to get the laws changed, and it worked. There's also the utilitarian argument, and how much a government should cater towards a minority bloc within its country, but I'm not going too far into that since it very situational. I believe that all should have the same rights regardless. I'm also not a fan of quotas or exact numbers to match overriding statistics, if a person is best suited for a position, they should have it. I don't care about a 50/50 sex ratio of cabinet ministers, I care more about who is most capable for the positions. It could be 90/10, 60/40, 35/65, whatever they want so long as things run as well as they can. See, IDK about that. Narratives are a fickle thing, and are very personal, even if some can be taken up by wider groups. Which is basically what I would call it, personal philosophy or motivation. Ideally, I would hope that all could find things they could understand in other human beings, and stories around them regardless of WHO they are. IMO that's the major sign when we'll genuinely have a society that not only values individual cultural or national pride of all kinds, but also a general humanist sense of tolerance to the point where nobody cares (I go for the literal the definition of tolerance, wherein you don't have to like or love everything you see, but you can at least "suffer the existence of it", as should others towards you). Its why I personally don't care for stories or pieces of art that make a big deal about identity politics, that stuff shouldn't matter, and one of the first ways Art IMO can help is by making it come across as natural without being preachy. The stuff is just there because its naturally there, not because the artist wants to draw your attention to it. (Though admittedly hack journos don't help this). I'll come back to this later. Me, personally, my philosophy around the whole thing is this (coloured by my Anthropology and History education): "So our ancestors sinned, so what if they were assholes? I guarantee you I can find ancestors in everyone's pasts who were assholes in some regard to someone else, or were assholes by our modern sensibilities. The difference is that I'm not them. I'm not responsible for their crimes, just as nobody else is responsible for those their parents committed. And while I will strive to not make the same mistakes, I don't owe anyone anything that I worked for just as I'm not owed anything of theirs." So, IMO its easy for one to find their own narrative if they think on it hard enough, that's not necessarily the most pressing issue. The issue is that the focus has been to press the negative narrative around our identity onto others to take it up as their narrative, to the point where some of those who do twist reality. Many of all stripes do this and have done this in the past across many cultures, its not unique to this instance. One can find that potential narrative. Another they can find is mine, which is one that basically encourages IMO more individual focus of self-actualization without much focus on the shackles of the dead and the past that are not yourself while still trying your best to live a life you're morally and mentally satisfied with. And most likely others have their own. Oh yes, I heard about redneck revolt. Call me a skeptic (or perhaps just an devout listener of Foxworthy), but I honestly wonder how many rednecks would be caught looking so sophisticated. Class can be a good source of unification, I won't deny, its certainly better than most IMO. IDK, I just never considered myself privileged in my ability to relate to characters who were not exactly myself. Nor do I necessarily see it as a bad thing that a majority of a culture's art should be reflective of the majority demographic. Like for example, do I go to Uganda and expect a lot of whites in their advertising? No. Do I go to Japan and expect a lot of artistic content that isn't centered around the Japanese? No. That's not to say I think there should be zero stories or pieces of art showing off different cultures or identities at all, but that I'm not shocked to see a disparity in the amount of content created catering to one group or another based on the place. But I could find commonality in stories made by people or featuring characters or individuals half a world away in myths, films, stories, etc. and didn't necessarily feel odd that I wasn't represented, because I knew it was another human being or otherwise being I could get some understanding of. I don't think of myself generally in identity terms in relation to viewing art. I'm a believer in the idea that actually removing the focus upon many aspects of our identities (race and sexuality, particularly) would actually help alleviate many of these problems. Because all it is, is language and culture (both made by us and only matter to us as of right now), and the less you use or put power to various terms, the more they'll fall out of usage and meaning to the present context. But this is a very idealistic idea, and certainly not the most popular one on either political side. We were on the path to it though IMO over the past few decades, until the Left revived identity politics as a source of issues, for better or worse. I'm also a believer in the idea of the past still holding merits, despite its many faults (Kinda have to, I'm an Archaeologist). And while yes, some things of the past deserve to be cast aside, I wouldn't say they aught to be forgotten, nor would I say everything of it should be cast away. Its a tight line to walk, and most times I've seen people go overboard on it. For example, tearing down Confederacy Monuments on the basis that they essentially idolize the values of the Confederacy including but not limited to slavery. I strongly disagreed with that. Not every individual who served an "evil" power in the past necessarily embodies all of that, nor does it mean that they didn't do something worthy of a measure of respect or remembrance. Back in WWI, for example, when the Germans took the city of Belgrade, the Serbian Army fought to the last man, and in the end, while they were enemies, the German Field Marshall erected a monument in the city to those Serbian soldiers, because even though they were enemies, he thought they were worthy to be remembered for their bravery in the face of death. The Serbians after taking the city back with allied help later, erected a similar monument for their German counterparts. To re-contextualize it back to the Confederacy monuments, since a fair number of them were built in Union territory, I cannot help but think that the reason for why they were erected had to be something other than "Oh yeah we totally agreed with these guys we killed hundreds of thousands of!", and personally I'd rather people be able to see it as a piece of history than to destroy it. If people don't want to have them in public areas and they put it to a general local vote, fine, but at least put them in a museum or something. I've also seen and utilized similar arguments for why writers like H.P. Lovecraft can still be praised for their works and shouldn't be censored even though some of their opinions are seen as bad by our modern sensibilities. Everything changes in time, especially culture, and what we accept today will not be what our descendants 100 years from now accept, necessarily. I don't begrudge people born in different social and cultures settings in time than ours for having different opinions on subjects we have, it simply means that they're products of their time. It also means that they can still be appreciated for the things they did create, even if it is tempered by the setting of its creation. All of it to me, and what I know is that legacy is a very difficult thing, and a very personal thing. For some to act in unilateral manners on subjects of legacy, to me, can be a risky business because we cannot foresee what will come as a result of what we're told about our past legacies. I prefer everything to be out for people to see in some form, in as unvarnished as way as possible so as to get a clearer understanding of the humanity of people, but to leave it for people to decide for themselves. Both the Left and Right have a tendency to dehumanize segments of the population or groups for various reasons (heck, many others do besides mere political affiliation). That's actually an interesting thing you bring up about Feminism. It is actually eroding in some fashions, depending on who you're listening to, for various reasons. I mentioned Dr. Peterson and his arguments against certain Trans-centric laws earlier, but there were also Radical Feminists who were on his side as well albeit using their own arguments. There actually is an argument being made that Trans-rights actually undermines Feminist works. Why? Because Feminism at its core still argues of the existence of a sexual and gender binary, and for specific rights to women because of their particular issues that are unique to women. They fought very hard in the past for women's only spaces because women needed to discuss their own issues among people who shared their experiences (2nd Wave Feminism, basically). But if a man can become a woman, or vice versa, how is that supposed to be rectified within those ideas? Many would argue that they can't, that the two cannot exist in tandem, but that since Trans-activism is the rising activist field, its obviously undermining some of the works of Feminism by promoting this idea that runs counter to what Feminism has been arguing for in the past. Take that as you will, its merely what I've heard. As for Free Speech, I don't know what to tell you, it most certainly is becoming eroded with time. There are basically blasphemy laws in the UK not to mention a war on humour, Hate Speech legislature has grown substantially over the years in many different "western" countries (Canada alone I can attest to), tons of past books are being censored in various fashions because of the language within them on local levels (To Kill a Mockingbird being a popular choice I have noticed, among others), you cannot discuss various topics on some University campuses without inciting groups coming to brigade your talk, more and more private companies are trying to police speech on what should basically be public forums (though that one's tricky), and it has basically almost reached a point where in many countries you may as well include "The Right for people to not be offended at anything anyone says" be included in their legislatures with potentially specific interests in who is offended. And its filtering into media as well and has been for a long time on PC culture. I saw it myself simply in the fact that the porno programs vanished over the years from cable channels. The one thing you would think would be the constant in cable as it is on the internet, they cut gradually over time. Tons of more mature movies are censored to shit depending on the channel (IDK why the fuck you'd bother watching a censored version of The Green Mile, for example, but that's apparently a thing). And even in films that try to utilize anti-PC elements in them for the purpose of the film, like Quentin Tarantino did for Django Unchained, or Three Billboards Outside Ebbing Missouri, they get lambasted for featuring racist content even though they're doing it for the purposes of authenticity of setting. Hell, Tarantino has been lambasted merely for how violent his films have been, or horror flicks like Saw for being "Torture porn". IDK what to tell you, to me, that's PC Culture eroding away at artistic liberty. Well yes, inherently race is not necessarily tied to culture. Just so happens that many on many sides like to tie them together. Whether its Whites with European culture, or Blacks with African culture, etc. Just my thoughts. I'll get to kraken shortly.

Takes two to tango pal. At least when pressed on it, I reveal most of my sources. You, mysteriously for this subject, have not by and large, which you admit yourself. I brought it up when you decided to go into hyperbole, which was the specific statement I was calling you out on. I demanded evidence to back your hyperbolic statement. My info is backed by the FBI's crime stats, and the Department of Justice. Gun related crime have dropped like a stone since the 90s in basically every respect. https://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/fv9311.pdf IDK about you, but a 39% drop in fire-arm related deaths, and a 69% drop in firearm related incidents entirely from '93-2011 alone is quite significant. And Pew Research has a very good article on the subject and crime stats in general, violent crime in general has also dropped like a stone since the 90s: http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/01/30/5-facts-about-crime-in-the-u-s/ You're also misunderstanding my philosophical dissection for implications. I never implied that people shouldn't be able to own materials that could be turned into weapons or argued for that to be the situation. My point was specifically that if we were to actually take the logic behind some of these arguments seriously, that would be the logical conclusion. There's also a big difference between Meth which is already highly illegal, and say a knife, any kind of tool that could be used as a weapon, various fertilizers, basic chemicals to make various mixtures that can be lethal (Hell, one can even make Thermite by trial and error) pressure cookers, a vehicle, or even paintball guns. You can obtain all of those without any real suspicion. You're going to argue with me that someone cannot buy over a dozen different kinds of innocuous weapons today without much hassle? Weapons that in the right hands can be even more deadly than the average gunman? Yet we don't see that as an issue? I was discussing the matter philosophically, not as an actual advocation on my part, but peeling apart the logic behind the taking away guns for peoples' safety argument.

@kraken You seem to misunderstand me and my intent. I don't merely criticize the Left for being Left, nor do I necessarily have anything against Anarchists (I merely don't believe that many of their ideas will work in any stable fashion. I'd support Libertarian ideas before an Anarchist, personally.). I criticize them because I want them to be better than the moral grand-standers who seem to be the forefronts of the modern Left who make lame arguments that appeal to emotion rather than make sense or actually work to solve a problem. I criticize them, because I want them to be better. Well that's a generalization if I've ever heard one, and a stereotype reaction. Yet you were just lambasting another for such arguments? (I wouldn't even argue the validity of it, because I know it has been the case before, I just find the situation ironic) I would argue for police reform before chanting for dead cops though. Which was my problem with BLM, among other things. Really? Show me the stats on that. Because the stats I found show that from 1993 to 2011 alone, over 1 million less gun incidents (note, incidents) overall have occurred, and 1997 saw the end of the Assault weapon ban, if I recall. Last I checked, the number of guns in the US did not drastically decrease in that time. There have also been times in the past where the populace was more armed than today, yet the peak for violence of that type of crime was in the 1990s. Also, I wouldn't necessarily bring up Christianity unless you're going to specifically outline a quote or explain the message you're referring to (I'm assuming you mean anti-violence?). I won't deny that there are hypocrites of all religions, but IDK if you've noticed, but Christianity in general seems to have degenerated into mostly a Civic Religion at this point, moreso than actual serious religion. After all, the US only incorporates religion in part in its social or civic rituals, like most secular western societies. One can also hold a different opinion on guns that doesn't necessarily conflict with their religious views. Now, allow me to sojourn formally into my thoughts on the recent Gun debates. I'll be honest, I think the March for Our Lives crowd is stupid, I think their proposals will do nothing to prevent any kind of gun violence, let alone another school shooting, and that most of the laws that have been passed as emotional reactions will be found unconstitutional within a short while. And that the entire argument has literally become a huge "THINK OF THE CHILDREN!" shout. The 21 age limit IMO is the first one that has no chance in hell of sticking around. The Second Amendment is clear on this, once a person reaches the age of majority (18), they can own one legally. Unless they feel like amending the constitution to make the voting age 21 (good fucking luck), you're never going to see an age 21 gun restriction stick. If it ever gets put to the Supreme Court, they will shoot it down. The Bump stock ban? Had nothing to do with the Parkland Shooting, that was Las Vegas. And so what? You're banning an accessory item to a weapon that is not too hard for someone to make themselves with the right tools, or to simulate the effects of with the right setup. Also not going to do anything to prevent future shootings. Waste of time. Assault Weapon ban. Considering that many for some reason think that the AR-15 is an "assault weapon" rather than a sporting rifle, I don't think most people are qualified to actually quantify WHAT an assault weapon is, or even understand the current laws around owning automatic weapons which are already fairly extensive, from my understanding. More to the point, any kind of ban isn't going to stop criminals from getting a hold of them, you've just made it impossible for a citizen to legally own one. Clip sizes. Much like the Bump Stock ban, I don't see this preventing further mass shootings. People can make their own clip sizes and magazines with enough know-how, or get them from other states. Moreover, how the hell is this supposed to be enforced state-to-state outside of businesses? Like is Vermont going to setup a huge checkpoint along New Hampshire checking every person's stuff for their clip sizes? And in a situation like a shooting. Okay, so the guy just needs to carry more clips, or he'll buy bigger clips from elsewhere and sneak them in, you're not preventing any tragedy here. Background checks? You'll cause the criminals to go underground, or they won't go to a Shrink for their mental problems because they'll prefer the ability to own a gun than to not to. The ability to enforce this everywhere outside of official businesses is also almost impossible. Again, not gonna prevent any other shooting. None of these proposals will stop another Parkland from occurring, all you're doing is making it harder for citizens to own guns and gun-related accessories. Which unless you're assuming that the average American gun-owner is a loose cannon ready to fucking massacre a school at a drop of a hat, I don't see the logic in limiting citizens' gun rights. Especially since the number of incidents involving firearms, and the number of deaths have fallen over the decades across the entire US. The number of school related incidents has also been decreasing. The country currently has the lowest amount of gun crime occurring in modern history, yet they want to act like its some huge epidemic of violence and bloodshed that requires control. But on to the more philosophical arguments. I've seen the idea basically tossed around: "Well why does a citizen NEED to own this type of weapon or accessory for their safety?" Does a person NEED a car that can accelerate extremely fast? Go over 150 mph? Why don't we just put in automated speed caps into cars, make it impossible to go faster than the legal limit? Does a person NEED the best kind of food if they can live off of KD? Does a person NEED a huge TV? Do they NEED to own chemicals and substances that in the right mixtures could be used to make explosives or napalm or other stuff? No. But who are you to say what a person should and shouldn't be allowed to have? What is the problem in a person owning an automatic weapon or a big clip size? Unless you're assuming that the average person is a psychopath, you have no reason to fear, nor to punish all citizens for the actions of a few psychos. And safety? Sure, such a gun may be excessive for such a purpose (though not necessarily always, I would admit that most average cases I could think of it would be considered excessive). But people regularly go to excess all the time in all different aspects of life anyway. We see no issue there, we only intervene on it as a public safety concern when it comes to mental intoxication by excessive drug partaking, and only then with the performance of certain tasks. Guns are also a hobby to many, from collectors to people who just like shooting various guns at the range. "Oh but its because these have no other purpose beyond killing people." That's a fallacy, because again, its assuming that every gun owner is a murderer and is apparently incapable of handling any kind of weapon properly. "You couldn't match the military anyway if the purpose was to protect against a tyrannical government." Well, certainly not when you refuse to allow the average citizen access to military-grade gear to begin with. I'd argue we should if that is the goal. Historically speaking, the Second Amendment was made in part so that there would be no need for a standing army, every citizen would simply be armed as well as any standing army and would be able to resist the more formal military of the British, or anyone else of the time. Its also why in WWII, the Japanese tossed the idea of a mainland invasion of the US out the window fairly quickly even after their attack on Pearl Harbour, even if they landed, they'd be facing enormous local resistance in California alone. But yea, even though I come from a country with a fair amount of Gun control (Canada), I don't see these proposals doing anything, nor do I see the reason in the line of thinking of limiting gun rights, IMO it might even be better for the US to be more liberal on gun ownership and education.

Or maybe that not even Centrists seem to be aware of the term, or deem it relevant to make it a necessary mention when they talk about various Leftists (likely I'm guessing because it is a term that Leftists use to differentiate themselves from Radicals, which is the term I use) makes it kinda moot for my purposes? Plus, I could just as easily say that many here that claim to be more Leftist don't seem to have much insight into the divisions of Right-wing discourse or ideology. But I digress. I took a hiatus for a bit, time to dive back into it. First, dash. Bits of Kraken in here on guns, but this is basically a response to dash. Of course there were Fascist sympathizers in the US in the years immediately prior to WWII, there were in many different nations. Just as there were Communist and Anarchist Sympathizers in many nations long prior to WWI, but many more after the rise of the USSR and Trotsky's more global revolutionary ideas being circulated (though he didn't gain ultimate power in the USSR, his rival Stalin himself dabbled briefly in the idea with his token support of various communist uprisings or parties, most of which failed due to his lack of serious interest.) While I can understand your analysis of Far-Right thought, and don't necessarily disagree with the conclusion, I'd argue that I have seen the reverse among Leftists, no less toxic IMO, only under a veneer of PC culture and moral self-righteousness of their own brand. I'll try and explain. For many recent years prior, there has been very much an erosion of "normative" culture in "The West" (I hate using the term, but its adequate to explain the general countries I refer to. Now, this inherently isn't a bad thing, culture naturally changes over time, and what is normal changes in time. But I'm talking about an actual active push to try and actively destroy many senses of identity and culture, while simultaneously and unashamedly promoting others like they're the greatest of all time. The Right are not wrong in that they've seen many different institutions, groups, and individuals seeking to undermine what they see as White-Eurocentric culture of many different varieties in different ways. I cannot even begin to count how many articles, speeches, manifestos, talks, campaigns, or initiatives have been put forward in recent memory that work towards the degradation of many of these cultural identities, and actively see the destruction of many of these cultures as a good thing. For various reasons, of course. "They're Imperialist in heritage and deserve to be thrown away, they've caused endless troubles to the world and should make way for others, its an inherently bigoted culture, they deserve to feel what its like to be under the thumb of other cultures, its in the name of equality/diversity, its paying reparations etc". I saw it pushed all the time during my GG days, all the time it was "angry white man-children" whose culture needed to become "more mature" or to "die" (as a culture. The infamous "Gamers are Dead" articles was the biggest push of this, and one of the actual sparks that ignited GG). A CIS White Man may as well be the equivalent of a deviant to the Left. Many look upon them as a group with about as much disdain and as a cause for society's ills, they encourage such people not to take pride in their backgrounds, more than a few have openly said that it doesn't matter how much such a person does to help others in their life they'll always be at fault because they were born as white men, they're always assumed to be "privileged" even if they're poor white men, and whenever "diversity" is brought up as a subject its funnily almost always in reference to not something that is actually genuinely diverse but simply is a code-word for "Anti-White Male" because they're always the group that is specifically outlined as getting the short end in such a situation almost without fail. The argument being that bringing down this group or taking it down several pegs will bring about more social equality and social justice, and they propose many different ways to do this. Some, very gradual, others far more radical. I've also seen BLM lambaste Blacks, especially celebrities, who refuse to bend the knee to their ideology, kinda defeating the purpose of their own movement at times, your point? I'd also say that disagreement on the idea of Gun Control doesn't inherently mean that their viewpoints on the other subject has changed. BLM specifically wants a removal of more overarching police forces in its own manifesto and has chanted for dead cops in multiple cases. Criticizing a police chief on gun control opinions doesn't necessarily change an opposition that the former stance. You're also getting into a lot of presumptive thinking on why people want guns. I would argue that it is not to "protect them from deviants", its to protect themselves and their property and so that people mind their own business, period. It inherently promotes the idea of individual privacy. You don't need to be a necessarily bigoted person to want to own a gun for such reasons. How many people of any background in the Ghettos or other rough urban neighbourhoods would you say own guns, legal or no? I would wager a fairly high number, for no other reason than they know that where they're living is not safe, and they want something that'll stop a potential rapist, mugger, thief, or killer dead. Regardless of whoever they might be. They're also arguably a deterrent for crime. Most criminals are not bold enough to actually go into a house, or rob a person who they think may be armed. Why? Because they also like their own lives, and don't care to risk losing them facing someone with a weapon if they can avoid it. How many farmers own guns? They not only have practical reasons for owning guns due to rural work reasons, but they also desire a measure of safety. They see strangers on their property, they don't know what they want, could also be thieves. Better to be safe and approach with a loaded gun just in case. I would not call it fear of the deviant, I would call it a primal desire for safety in a world you KNOW is not safe. Thomas Hobbes I find to be quite enlightening on this subject, among others. Our world is and has never been a 100% safe one, in fact its only been a recent modern phenomenon where people can generally live their lives without a measure of fear or anxiety constantly as to whether or not they'll survive next year. There will always be someone who wants to get one up on someone else, through force or through surreptitiousness. Or, if you weren't facing others, you were facing nature. Hence why every Frontiersman in early America owned at least one firearm, if not multiple ones. In the middle ages, long before firearms, people placed their servitude to Lords and Knights who promised them safety in exchange for their services. It was the destruction of the medieval social contract, when it became evident that the Nobility were not necessary nor would they always strive to keep Peasants safe, or for said Peasants to serve them in exchange, that brought on the Renaissance, in part. Our world has become much more "civilized" since those early days, but the need for safety isn't necessarily gone nor will it ever go away. You have no idea what could happen tomorrow. You HOPE that nothing happens, but if you're smart, you prepare for the eventuality of something happening. For no other reason than you care about your own personal safety, or the safety of your stuff and loved ones. Some hunters or hikers can walk through woods for 20 years, never encounter a bear and never fear them as a result. Others step outside of their trucks and get mauled. Similarly does one ever expect a crime to happen to them? No. But that doesn't mean you don't take precautions. You'd be stupid or naive to do otherwise. But that's my rant on safety. If the ultimate goal of the Far-Right is to "suppress the deviant", then I'd say the Far-Left's ultimate goal is to "overthrow the rulers (maybe not the best equivalent term, but I hope you get what I mean)" which IMO is just as charged an often inaccurately utilized or politically charged a term as "deviant". The Far-Left also desire strong-men, of their kind, so to speak, but they want them for the purposes of social reform in accordance with their senses of righteousness. No, you see a unifying hatred of Christian White people, or more specifically, White Men among more than a few of those on the Left. I certainly have. I've seen stuff where if ANY other racial or cultural group were being referred to, we'd have regarded the statement as bigoted or racist, but because its being said about Whites, nobody says fuck-all, or it may even be applauded. I would also argue that neither trust the common person to do the right thing. Both want to tell them how to live their lives in various respects. Its called virtue-signalling when the Left has done it, and has been seen as preachy when the Right has done it, both are basically the same thing, and I've seen it happening for years. The Far-Right wants to tell you who to fuck, who to marry, and who to associate with, because they don't trust you to think in your own best interests. Why else do you think they were so authoritarian? It would be unnecessary in a system that actively sustained itself without oversight. But the Far-Left can be just as tenacious in the other direction by lecturing us constantly via virtue-signalling all kinds of shit (I've seen it in game press content alone ALL THE TIME.), and just look at how the general Left has treated the idea of Guns, and you have my argument as to how the Left doesn't trust the common person to do the right thing at all. The Left honestly trusts the Government to enforce stricter Gun Laws? A Government which currently is supposedly headed by "Literally Hitler", and is controlled by the one slightly more Pro-Gun party? If they have so much faith in people, why aren't they instead out championing for LESS gun control? Let people own automatics and heavy guns of various types. Let them be outfitted to take out a tank, if need be. Surely if people can be trusted to make the right decisions, there would be no issue here, correct? No, the Left instead seems to want to entrust a small number of people at the top, to keep everyone else safe because they don't trust the average citizen to think sensibly . . . I'll leave that there. Of course the Right may stereo-typically tends to do well in times of chaos and disorder, they represent Conservatism, they naturally promote a more "safe" message in what is "familiar", but that's not always the case that they gain power in such situations all the time. A Leftist regime can promote order through a change in the system or a "decadent" class that has caused the chaos or disorder through their own misdeeds as much as a Right regime can promote order through a "return to normalcy" after a change caused pandemonium in a society. How many Leftists have arisen in times of chaos and disorder into power? Almost every single communist regime did this. The Jacobins did in Revolutionary France (the Right would later regain control under Napoleon after people got fed up of the Jacobins, but still), many regimes of different kinds have taken advantage of situations of chaos or disorder to rise to power. It merely depends on WHO was in power before. I'm not disagreeing with what you're saying necessarily, such tactics have been done, but I'm saying you're only seeing one dimension of a much larger picture. Eh, I'd say it depends on the situation as to who is wary of those in power. That may be, but in the pursuit of dismantling power, they inherently SEEK power, do they not? One without power cannot hope to break the power of others, they seek absolute power in order to do so, if they can. And we both know the old saying about power and how it corrupts people. Its like the Roman Dictators. The system worked while people gave up their power after the crisis situation of their own volition, until Julius Caesar came along and refused to give up his power because he assumed he knew how to run the Republic best. All Leftists have sought some measure of power to make their societal dreams a reality, no different from those on the Right, and it has resulted in an endless tug of war over the public's sympathies. So Stalin rose to power and became the monster his claimed was everywhere. The other more rank and file Communists in the USSR were little better. Satirical writers of the time like Mikhail Bulgakov would agree with me. Yes, Stalin was a particularly bad case, but the ideology itself had many problems even though it strove for that most central of Leftist ideals, the equalization of social standings and power. If you get the chance, read "Heart of a Dog" sometime, its quite short and a fairly good political satire of early communist Russia, it was also blacklisted from there for decades. And I'd say that sentiment is a decent goal. The question is being sure in either case that we don't trend on peoples' liberties, and deal with genuine threats as they reveal themselves, IMO. IDK about that. The stats don't suggest that in regards to gun violence. If anything, the incidents across the country, even on merely non-lethal crimes involving guns have fallen quite substantially since the 90s. Nor do I believe the drive to own them is out of fear of "deviants", as I said earlier. That's an interesting question, especially because I would argue many Leftists do not trust people, or at least no moreso than those on the Right. They feel that they know what is best for others just as much as those on the Right, simply from a different direction. They need to tell people what is right, they need to guide others, they need to put things in place that ensures that the right thing is always done because they do not trust people to do the right thing. They trust SOME people do the right thing, but they have no faith that others will do so unless forced to do so. Why else do they seek to change laws and obtain power via candidates that at least appear to support their initiatives? Granted, neither side starts out forceful. They become so, usually, over time, and as they see that nothing is being given to even try and appease their worries, or concerns, or interests. Notice the change merely from the 1960-70s as the Civil Rights movement, became the Black Power movement and the shifts that very visibly took place in their ideologies and tactics, as they realized that the more peaceful methods were no longer working as effectively as they had been. I would also say that where you say the Right-winger is irrationally fearful (not necessarily disagreeing) to the point where they might deny reality, the Leftist IMO is noxiously optimistic to the point where they will deny reality themselves, or even they themselves can also be irrationally fearful about certain subjects (though I usually find them to be noxiously optimistic). I feel bad for the average CNN viewer, or MSM viewer of any channel in generally, personally. Is it impossible for a Centrist or Moderate to agree with certain arguments or viewpoints which others might consider to be singularly extreme by either side of the aisle? I, for instance, have no problem with how people choose to live their lives or what they call themselves, or who they fuck, so long as they or the government don't shove it in my face and don't harm others. BUT, I can also believe that the White Eurocentric identity IS under erosive attack (whereas you'd think all Cultures would be seeing a melting of their cultures into a more global culture, strangely you don't see many of these phenomena occurring in many other non-Western nations that are instead promoting and cultivating national and ethnic pride, one which is carried into these nations), and is being actively suppressed for no other reason than a perceived social righteousness in doing so, often in irrational ways too. I would put forward the hypothesis that you will gain nothing socially by trying to break such rich magnates when they refuse to give to a society or system they feel no compulsion to give more than they need to, for whatever reason. The Romans tried in their time, along with many others besides in their own times, all failed or brought strife and suffering. Despicable as many of them may be, speaking as someone who is not making much money at all, you will find no lasting satisfaction in their destruction. I do believe that corruption needs to be reigned in, and people should be encouraged not to take advantage of others. But that is vast, and multitudinous, and knows no political alignment, and across many areas that you yourself might not be comfortable in acknowledging. But that's just my opinion.

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