Scary Devil Monastery (profile), 10 Nov 2021 @ 6:54am
Re: Re: Whooosh....
"China is willfully violating an international treaty it made with the United Kingdom about the return of Hong Kong."
As Tanner Andrews had it, the time stamps on the sino-british treaty might as well have been written in disappearing ink. Everyone knew this. At least one british attache at the time spent his time desperately trying to warn HK residents. The "one nation, two systems" thing has worked only insofar as that China respects it as long as the territory under 'alternative' system doesn't do a single thing contrary to Beijing's wishes.
The british signed that treaty as a face-saving exercise because they did not fancy having to fight a land war in China.
"The current developments in China increasing reveal the hidden costs of "cheap" Chinese products."
Nothing "cheap" about Chinese products. That was way back when. these days manufacturing is done in China because western corporations have managed to abolish their nations skill pool required for at scale manufacturing over these last decades.
If the US, for instance, tried to bring its industries back from China the economy would tank for somewhere upwards of thirty years while they were playing catch-up. No western nation will voluntarily go through that and so China has a lot of leeway before they hit the border where the west decides it needs to start imposing sanctions on its business.
And we have only ourselves to blame. The current hostage situation of every western market and industry being beholden to chinese goodwill is the result decades of western corporations falling over themselves trying to rid themselves of the inconvenience of owning factories. The market has spoken and what it said is ; "China 0wns U all n4o, l0s3rs"
Scary Devil Monastery (profile), 10 Nov 2021 @ 6:20am
Re: Re: Re: Re:
"Nice strawman, got any more?"
He says, showing everyone what a genuine strawman is.
Fact is most european countries use tax money funneled into trusts separated from the political chain of command to fund independent news. Which has more often than not worked out quite well.
better by far than in the US where every "news" channel has an owner with a political angle.
"...and then ask yourself how many stories critical of the US Techdirt would have publish, if publishing meant risking that revenue."
You mean like the tax-funded BBC, well known for attacking the ruling party in its own government so mercilessly its sometimes made headlines in the private media?
Or the scandinavian equivalents?
"Or that Germany suppresses freedom of speech in an attempt to appease China..."
He says, quoting a case where China pressured a private publisher into cancelling a book and China-funded Confucius Institutes were shutting their doors.
"Or the United States converting its own state-funded, but independent media services, into state-run US propaganda generators..."
So in other words, a media service over which the state actually had the power to appoint staff?
I think I have to tell you something here; If you want to back an argument up, dropping links which prove the opposite of what you assert aren't really the way to do it.
But thank you for showing us all some good examples of the Red Herring, False Equivalence, and Flawed Assumption tricks of troll rhetoric.
Scary Devil Monastery (profile), 10 Nov 2021 @ 6:09am
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
"It’s a cornerstone of our existence."
There have been plenty of nations founded over the course of human history - the ones valuing readiness to violence as a cornerstone of their national charter, however, rarely end well.
I mean, I've read my Jeffersson - it's pretty clear the founding fathers at the time envisioned a continuation of history up to the point in time they lived in - where violence was considered a normal part of society and killing someone in the street could be justified by dueling rules. I don't think any of them ever imagined a society where it would be considered strange or newsworthy for people to kill one another in the street.
And that's a problem. In many ways the US is emulating the old roman republic. And the thing with that is, that republic - and the civilization it tempered its addiction to violence with - didn't last. When political polarization between the various factions became extreme the damn thing fell into the hands of a strongman who then converted it into an empire instead.
I keep saying it's a good thing Trump was inept. More a Claudius Nero than a Julius Caesar. Even so the rumblings among the neocons under GWB of an "american hegemony" are still alive and kicking among the less intellectual alt-right republicans today.
"The difference in this country compared with o modern Europe, is we’ve created this country not once but twice at the barrel of a long gun in the hands of the residents."
Err...you do realize, I hope, that Europe has been shaped by wars for about ten times the time the US has existed? Our aversion to guns in the hands of every citizen has reasons. Insofar as I know only the swiss retain their love of guns - but unlike you guys they take pride in surrounding the gun-owners privilege with rules of both common sense and law.
Scary Devil Monastery (profile), 10 Nov 2021 @ 2:59am
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
"This was his moment to die for his belief."
I think what bugs me the most in this, the most stupidest of times, is that some people are driven to the brink so much they'll die over not letting their lawn get mowed.
Sure, there's probably a deeper reason and this may have been suicide by cop by a person already way past any reason or rationale, but still...
Scary Devil Monastery (profile), 10 Nov 2021 @ 2:57am
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
"But we deploy the taser with it’s even lower numbers. "
Different points of failure. Tasers fail mainly when the darts don't both make the connection. This is readily solved by multiple officers firing. After that it's just a game of high-volt, low-amperage battle versus nervous system - always won by the taser.
Meanwhile salt causes pain which unfortunately is tolerated by the people you absolutely want to down the most. The ones riding an endorphin or drug high.
Rubber bullets remains the equivalent of beating someone with a hammer until they drop. Same issue as with salt.
Pepper spray/mace can be tolerated by some but the impaired vision caused by tearing up and involuntary blinking does make them far less effective combatants.
The unfortunate truth is that the human body developed in a way to act in aggression with a do-or-die response of flooding the system with natural painkillers and performance enhancers. By the time trauma and pain starts shutting the system down...the system is shutting down.
Electricity serves the purpose of incapacitation by direct interference in muscle reaction. You can't just bypass it by being tough or pain tolerant.
This is why the taser and pepper spray are currently the best we've got in less lethal hardware. Everything else just relies on trauma and/or pain being incentives for surrender which - unfortunately - isn't relevant to exactly those you really need downed.
Your concept of the first few rounds being salt is laudable. Problem is that if a gun has already been drawn and fired, walking down from that precipice isn't easy. You're relying on the intimidation value of a drawn and presumably loaded gun and the opposition not being similarly armed. And the salt round, should they draw theirs, dropping them in one go.
Laudable, as I said. But in a nation where every hopeless loser is taught the way to get respect is to buy a sleek S&W or Glock 9 mm with a quickdraw holster and a case of whatever the guns & ammo porn catalog billed as most deadliest of the week...this is no longer the game of yesteryear where even in the US the gun wasn't considered a damn toy.
The case in the OP...I can only state that if the surroundings had been cleared of bystanders and all other personnel was in cover, the SWAT agent might have had the leisure to aim low, putting a FMJ through a shin or thigh rather than center body mass.
I don't see salt, tasers, or pepper gas helping much in that case. Not with the suspect setting their building ablaze and coming out with guns drawn.
Scary Devil Monastery (profile), 10 Nov 2021 @ 2:27am
Re:
"This sort of thing is why I’ve been saying for years that people - especially the victim - should be making arrests when public officials violate rights."
Although I do applaud the sentiment the reality of it is that attempting to make a citizen's arrest on a US lawman is likely to end with you dead.
This game is rigged, from the start, to favor the police. Unless there's a DA and judge who for some reason aren't fully on the side of the cops this will not end well. Today less so than ever.
Scary Devil Monastery (profile), 10 Nov 2021 @ 1:53am
Re: And?>
"Hong Kong is China. It was literally stolen under force by the British so they could deal Opium to China."
Oh, look. A strawman argument!
Yes on both assertions, none of which is relevant to criticism of government censorship. I guess we should be flattered pro-china trolls have found their way here?
"Do you take into account China's opinion of how America treats minorities? "
Plenty to be said about how the US treats minorities. That's wrong too. Meanwhile I'd advise you to inform your handlers that even small children are routinely taught to recognize the inherent dishonesty in the argument of "But <insert bully name> did it, that must mean it's OK!!"
The one and only thing your argument showed was that you are a troll arguing in bad faith.
Scary Devil Monastery (profile), 10 Nov 2021 @ 1:47am
Re:
"...this is what happens when governments keep adding onerous manipulative bullshit demands on certain types of commercial (or even open-source and/or non-commercial) services and software for communications."
Although that's true enough in China's case there's another spin to it - China only added the screws properly on foreign actors once their own equivalents of social platforms and search engines were fully functional.
Why give a market of 1,4 billion people to foreigners if you could let that money go to Baidu, RenRen, Tencent or Weibo? Platforms which work just as well as the foreign equivalents but are a little less burdened with the enforcement of the censorship and surveillance laws.
And backed by the fiscal base of China's enormous market those platforms can later on be extended in more foreign-friendly format to compete with the western offers in other countries. This is how you win business wars when the corporations are in total lockstep with government.
Scary Devil Monastery (profile), 10 Nov 2021 @ 1:31am
Re: Re:
"Nobody ever lost their home or froze to death because of Facebook!"
No, it's far worse than that. Racists and bigots are denied the ability to say the N-word in front of a large audience because of Facebook. THAT is the republican grievance.
The democrat grievance is at least rooted in good intentions even if the end result - government compelling speech - is just as bad.
The fact that alt-right trolls come crawling out of the woodworks to prop up that exact suggestion from democrats they've lambasted for everything else speaks volumes.
Scary Devil Monastery (profile), 10 Nov 2021 @ 1:16am
Re: Re: Re: But They're Doing It Too!
"They are not moderating in good faith. Just as techdirt also engages in bad faith moderation, as evidenced above."
No such thing exists. If the bar owner wants you gone from his bar he really doesn't have to give you a reason.
No one needs to provide good faith when it comes to showing an asshole the door out of THEIR PERSONAL PROPERTY
You have been told this again and again, Koby, and the fact that you don't grok something this simple just implies to me that you're in the wrong country. Maybe North Korea would suit your tastes better.
Scary Devil Monastery (profile), 10 Nov 2021 @ 1:05am
Re:
"It doesn't matter if there's a war on men because we Americans don't know how to win wars."
Not quite right. The US tends to win wars just fine. Or at least battles. You guys truly suck at winning the peace though, which is why every time you hit a nation with a history of guerilla resistance it ends with you leaving with egg on your faces.
Part of it no doubt has to do with the way where you install a puppet government whose army then gets trained to depend on US resources completely, making it dependent on the US remaining and utterly ineffective at actually safeguarding itself. As in Afghanistan.
At least the british, in their time, encouraged their protectorates to learn how to fend for themselves, making their withdrawal much less of a shit-show. Even if it meant risking their protectorates and colonies telling the british crown to sod off.
Scary Devil Monastery (profile), 10 Nov 2021 @ 12:54am
Re:
...or when he finds out women make up some 35% of the online porn market - as consumers - these days.
Or he'll stay true to form, make an instant 180, and come out braying about the moral decay in society misleading 'the fine women of the american heartland', yadda yadda.
But as I keep saying, we shouldn't be surprised at Hawley, Marjorie Taylor-Greene or Lindsey Graham. They perfectly well represent the base which elected them. That base - the 66% of US republicans thinking it's time to secede from the union - is the issue here.
And in my humble opinion the saner part of the US would do better to just let them go. Have the northern and western border of North Carolina, Tennessee, Arkansas and Louisiana become the boundaries of this new Flustercuck Confederacy. Give everyone who wants to move there a solid wad of cash and transportation, then close and seal those borders.
I mean, sure, with all the liberals on the other side of that border they'll turn on each other to find new groups to sate their grievance addiction with. It'll collapse into a congregation of warring cannibal tribes within ten years when only the dumbest and most willfully ignorant and the religious fanatics get to govern - but that's the way they want it.
Scary Devil Monastery (profile), 10 Nov 2021 @ 12:15am
Re: Re: Re:
"The condition I was trying to portray was more of a eunuch scenario. No fucking balls (and that's the 'guts' kind of 'balls' rather than actual testicles :) )."
Yeah, that's fair. Although both Hawley and his base are big on talking about how they'll be the first in line to defend the glories of whatever they think the constitution and america is all about, I'm also real sure any sign of actual risk will have both of them competing to throw one another under the bus and scurry off in hiding, whimpering and bleating.
In fact, that appears to be exactly what the representatives are doing to their 'friends and allies' among the 6th of jan insurrection right now.
Scary Devil Monastery (profile), 9 Nov 2021 @ 6:48am
Re: Re: Re:
"...that it's now a measure of justice to treat men with less respect than women."
I don't. It IS, however, unsurprising that benefit of doubt is not extended to those of us who keep demonstrating that we really don't give a shit because life is very much more convenient for us that way.
"...or notice the number of snide comments in the media about "old white men," simultaneously agist, racist, and sexist."
While ignoring the fact that statistics show that "old white man" along with "racist and sexist" correlates to a frightening degree. Yes, we can certainly see a few very vocal women exposing misandrist sentiment...but compared to the vast mass of white middle-aged men either casually accepting a highly unfair status quo or actively contributing to upholding it those women are about as rare as black people with KKK sympathies.
To put both sides on the same scale is just plain gaslighting when you've got a hundred on one side and maybe one, screaming very loudly, on the other.
"For people who feel that perhaps men deserve some mistreatment, that's fine..."
Ah, the old "Think of the poor plantation owners. Why must you drag the fine old south down with the few bad apples" argument?
No. There is no publicly accepted misandry around. More gaslighting and strawman analogies, I see.
Please point to the glass ceiling we men suffer?
Wage gap?
When was the last time you had a bunch of middle-aged politicians from the other gender making decisions about what surgical procedures you were or were not able to take?
Are 25% of men, statistically undergoing some form of sexual abuse before the age of 20?
The odd feminist extremist may be screaming imprecations loudly but her, I can easily ignore. Perhaps because I'm not an entitled shitwit who sees fit to ignore that in daily conversation any man will get to hear the same implications aimed at women, coming from men in reasoned tones, in conversations considered normal.
"You should ask yourself when this anti-male bias will no longer be appropriate, when justice will have been done."
Well, we could start by calling your red pill troll rhetoric out for the bullshit it is. I mean, this "anti-male bias" seems to be a solid fail when you look at how the world still works. I'm sure that in whatever echo chamber you picked up the idea that the dominant sex is persecuted it sounded great. Empirical observation, however, begs to differ with you on that score.
"For example, the ratio of female:male college students is approaching 3:2 -- how far does this need to get out-of-balance..."
So your only example is...one which has no bearing what so ever, given that college admissions tend to not be gender biased? Or, well, at least not here in Europe. In the US, I'm sure, there's more pressure the "man in the house" needs to hit the ground working come age 18 - which isn't exactly debunking the gender role bullshit so prevalent in that place.
I suggest - cordially - that you take your flawed assumptions, false analogies, straw men and red herrings elsewhere. Around here people tend to be a bit more critical when it comes to not accepting a bullshit sandwich wrapped in wordwall.
Scary Devil Monastery (profile), 9 Nov 2021 @ 6:23am
Re: Re: Re: Re: 'All men not on my side that is.'
"...he'd resign from the senate and turn himself over to the FBI."
As David has it, why? Hawley is the symptom, not the problem.
The problem is that there are enough deplorable people addicted to hating people of color, gays, trans, women, liberals, anyone not them...that it suffices to provide Hawley with an office.
There are, in the US, between 70 and 90 million people who suffer from grievance addiction and are willing to send any monster into office who provides them a new or present target to denigrate and hate. Hawley is just faithful to the majority opinion of the district he represents.
Scary Devil Monastery (profile), 9 Nov 2021 @ 6:18am
Re:
"You can’t trust government agencies—not completely, anyway."
Although that's true anywhere...last time I was held up in a random police check a few years back all they did was ask my name, tell me to blow into a breathalyzer and inform me one of my front lights was on the blink. They did not rob me. And I would have been surprised if they tried.
In the US, however, I would have had non-insignificant reason to fear at the approach of a police officer, both for my life and for my wallet. And not due to any malfeasance on my part.
Scary Devil Monastery (profile), 9 Nov 2021 @ 5:05am
Re: Re: Re: Re:
"...well thanks for doing his research for him, though I'd prefer if the person making an argument provides their own basis for doing so..."
What can I say, I got curious?
"Whoever decided this could only be solved with guns, it's a damn shame."
True enough that it's a solid flustercuck, but...it has to be said the city did warn him a number of times and did mow his lawn for him when he refused to comply, as noted (and sent him the bill). This time around, though, he decided to open fire on the guys mowing his lawn and police officers.
I'm not normally used to having to defend US police but in this case I really don't have a leg to stand on in that regard.
"If the SWAT team were reacting to an active shooting situation, I can understand why such force was used."
Which is sort of what happened. Swat was only called after the homeowner started shooting at people. There was a classic standoff, negotiator present, hours of trying to coax him outside. Finally they sent in a robot to view the house and found it to be on fire. Then they tried to approach and he opened up on them again, finally emerging from the house on fire wielding guns. That is when a SWAT officer took a shot.
"But there appear to have been months where that could have been avoided."
In any nation in europe, sure. But this was the US. The man was armed and apparently dedicated to using those guns in some sort of final stand against the nefarious government entities hell-bent on...mowing his lawn.
I honestly can't see a way to de-escalate this except getting him a proper therapist. Who would then be the one fired on.
I have no good answers for so many problems which seem so readily solvable in nations where the right to own a firearm isn't held in higher regard than voting rights and a driver's license...😟
Scary Devil Monastery (profile), 9 Nov 2021 @ 4:53am
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
"I’ve advocated for salt rounds locally. They do work more often than not."
I mean it isn't a bad alternative. In general most people prefer not to be in agony no matter how brief.
It just won't incapacitate someone who is desperate enough, drunk enough, high enough, or determined enough from aiming that gun your way and pulling a spray'n'pray. Salt rounds is what you use if someone comes at you with a knife or bat but you want to, you know, just intimidate or drive the guy off.
The good thing about a taser is that it doesn't matter if you can ignore pain sufficient to drop an elephant.
"And I’m still not sure what they didn’t just gas the guy with the happy little robot. "
Probably something about using gas meant to incapacitate and blind on a suspect in a burning building. Other than that, not a bad idea to fit a robot with tear gas launcher.
"But the only stun weapon that would have worked is still experimental. Battery charged micro capacitor based tasers aren’t an approved thing (yet?)."
Not yet, no. They're as far off as the electrolaser, really. One of the issues with them being that even if you manage to hit the guy and the darts get stuck good and solid, there's no real way to get it to stop tasing the guy except using a rubber glove to pull it out. Making it...a bit more than less lethal. A manually activated taser you can stop using once the suspect drops.
On the post: Hong Kong Government Now Directly Censoring Films In Hopes Of Shutting Down Protest-Related Documentaries
Re: Re: Whooosh....
"China is willfully violating an international treaty it made with the United Kingdom about the return of Hong Kong."
As Tanner Andrews had it, the time stamps on the sino-british treaty might as well have been written in disappearing ink. Everyone knew this. At least one british attache at the time spent his time desperately trying to warn HK residents. The "one nation, two systems" thing has worked only insofar as that China respects it as long as the territory under 'alternative' system doesn't do a single thing contrary to Beijing's wishes.
The british signed that treaty as a face-saving exercise because they did not fancy having to fight a land war in China.
"The current developments in China increasing reveal the hidden costs of "cheap" Chinese products."
Nothing "cheap" about Chinese products. That was way back when. these days manufacturing is done in China because western corporations have managed to abolish their nations skill pool required for at scale manufacturing over these last decades.
If the US, for instance, tried to bring its industries back from China the economy would tank for somewhere upwards of thirty years while they were playing catch-up. No western nation will voluntarily go through that and so China has a lot of leeway before they hit the border where the west decides it needs to start imposing sanctions on its business.
And we have only ourselves to blame. The current hostage situation of every western market and industry being beholden to chinese goodwill is the result decades of western corporations falling over themselves trying to rid themselves of the inconvenience of owning factories. The market has spoken and what it said is ; "China 0wns U all n4o, l0s3rs"
On the post: Killing Website Comment Sections Wasn't The Brilliant Move Many Newsroom Leaders Assumed
Re: Re: Re: Re:
"Nice strawman, got any more?"
He says, showing everyone what a genuine strawman is.
Fact is most european countries use tax money funneled into trusts separated from the political chain of command to fund independent news. Which has more often than not worked out quite well.
better by far than in the US where every "news" channel has an owner with a political angle.
"...and then ask yourself how many stories critical of the US Techdirt would have publish, if publishing meant risking that revenue."
You mean like the tax-funded BBC, well known for attacking the ruling party in its own government so mercilessly its sometimes made headlines in the private media?
Or the scandinavian equivalents?
"Or that Germany suppresses freedom of speech in an attempt to appease China..."
He says, quoting a case where China pressured a private publisher into cancelling a book and China-funded Confucius Institutes were shutting their doors.
"Or the United States converting its own state-funded, but independent media services, into state-run US propaganda generators..."
So in other words, a media service over which the state actually had the power to appoint staff?
I think I have to tell you something here; If you want to back an argument up, dropping links which prove the opposite of what you assert aren't really the way to do it.
But thank you for showing us all some good examples of the Red Herring, False Equivalence, and Flawed Assumption tricks of troll rhetoric.
On the post: Austin Homeowners Association Pitches In To Help Cops Kill A Guy Over Uncut Grass
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
"It’s a cornerstone of our existence."
There have been plenty of nations founded over the course of human history - the ones valuing readiness to violence as a cornerstone of their national charter, however, rarely end well.
I mean, I've read my Jeffersson - it's pretty clear the founding fathers at the time envisioned a continuation of history up to the point in time they lived in - where violence was considered a normal part of society and killing someone in the street could be justified by dueling rules. I don't think any of them ever imagined a society where it would be considered strange or newsworthy for people to kill one another in the street.
And that's a problem. In many ways the US is emulating the old roman republic. And the thing with that is, that republic - and the civilization it tempered its addiction to violence with - didn't last. When political polarization between the various factions became extreme the damn thing fell into the hands of a strongman who then converted it into an empire instead.
I keep saying it's a good thing Trump was inept. More a Claudius Nero than a Julius Caesar. Even so the rumblings among the neocons under GWB of an "american hegemony" are still alive and kicking among the less intellectual alt-right republicans today.
"The difference in this country compared with o modern Europe, is we’ve created this country not once but twice at the barrel of a long gun in the hands of the residents."
Err...you do realize, I hope, that Europe has been shaped by wars for about ten times the time the US has existed? Our aversion to guns in the hands of every citizen has reasons. Insofar as I know only the swiss retain their love of guns - but unlike you guys they take pride in surrounding the gun-owners privilege with rules of both common sense and law.
On the post: Austin Homeowners Association Pitches In To Help Cops Kill A Guy Over Uncut Grass
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
"This was his moment to die for his belief."
I think what bugs me the most in this, the most stupidest of times, is that some people are driven to the brink so much they'll die over not letting their lawn get mowed.
Sure, there's probably a deeper reason and this may have been suicide by cop by a person already way past any reason or rationale, but still...
On the post: Austin Homeowners Association Pitches In To Help Cops Kill A Guy Over Uncut Grass
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
"But we deploy the taser with it’s even lower numbers. "
Different points of failure. Tasers fail mainly when the darts don't both make the connection. This is readily solved by multiple officers firing. After that it's just a game of high-volt, low-amperage battle versus nervous system - always won by the taser.
Meanwhile salt causes pain which unfortunately is tolerated by the people you absolutely want to down the most. The ones riding an endorphin or drug high.
Rubber bullets remains the equivalent of beating someone with a hammer until they drop. Same issue as with salt.
Pepper spray/mace can be tolerated by some but the impaired vision caused by tearing up and involuntary blinking does make them far less effective combatants.
The unfortunate truth is that the human body developed in a way to act in aggression with a do-or-die response of flooding the system with natural painkillers and performance enhancers. By the time trauma and pain starts shutting the system down...the system is shutting down.
Electricity serves the purpose of incapacitation by direct interference in muscle reaction. You can't just bypass it by being tough or pain tolerant.
This is why the taser and pepper spray are currently the best we've got in less lethal hardware. Everything else just relies on trauma and/or pain being incentives for surrender which - unfortunately - isn't relevant to exactly those you really need downed.
Your concept of the first few rounds being salt is laudable. Problem is that if a gun has already been drawn and fired, walking down from that precipice isn't easy. You're relying on the intimidation value of a drawn and presumably loaded gun and the opposition not being similarly armed. And the salt round, should they draw theirs, dropping them in one go.
Laudable, as I said. But in a nation where every hopeless loser is taught the way to get respect is to buy a sleek S&W or Glock 9 mm with a quickdraw holster and a case of whatever the guns & ammo porn catalog billed as most deadliest of the week...this is no longer the game of yesteryear where even in the US the gun wasn't considered a damn toy.
The case in the OP...I can only state that if the surroundings had been cleared of bystanders and all other personnel was in cover, the SWAT agent might have had the leisure to aim low, putting a FMJ through a shin or thigh rather than center body mass.
I don't see salt, tasers, or pepper gas helping much in that case. Not with the suspect setting their building ablaze and coming out with guns drawn.
On the post: Students Have Rights: Court Dumps Evidence After Cops Rely On A Month-Old Anonymous Tip To Search A Minor
Re:
"This sort of thing is why I’ve been saying for years that people - especially the victim - should be making arrests when public officials violate rights."
Although I do applaud the sentiment the reality of it is that attempting to make a citizen's arrest on a US lawman is likely to end with you dead.
This game is rigged, from the start, to favor the police. Unless there's a DA and judge who for some reason aren't fully on the side of the cops this will not end well. Today less so than ever.
On the post: Hong Kong Government Now Directly Censoring Films In Hopes Of Shutting Down Protest-Related Documentaries
Re: And?>
"Hong Kong is China. It was literally stolen under force by the British so they could deal Opium to China."
Oh, look. A strawman argument!
Yes on both assertions, none of which is relevant to criticism of government censorship. I guess we should be flattered pro-china trolls have found their way here?
"Do you take into account China's opinion of how America treats minorities? "
Plenty to be said about how the US treats minorities. That's wrong too. Meanwhile I'd advise you to inform your handlers that even small children are routinely taught to recognize the inherent dishonesty in the argument of "But <insert bully name> did it, that must mean it's OK!!"
The one and only thing your argument showed was that you are a troll arguing in bad faith.
On the post: Yahoo Reminds Everyone It Still Exists By Formally Announcing Its Exit From China
Re:
"...this is what happens when governments keep adding onerous manipulative bullshit demands on certain types of commercial (or even open-source and/or non-commercial) services and software for communications."
Although that's true enough in China's case there's another spin to it - China only added the screws properly on foreign actors once their own equivalents of social platforms and search engines were fully functional.
Why give a market of 1,4 billion people to foreigners if you could let that money go to Baidu, RenRen, Tencent or Weibo? Platforms which work just as well as the foreign equivalents but are a little less burdened with the enforcement of the censorship and surveillance laws.
And backed by the fiscal base of China's enormous market those platforms can later on be extended in more foreign-friendly format to compete with the western offers in other countries. This is how you win business wars when the corporations are in total lockstep with government.
On the post: Klobuchar, Cotton Competition Bill Latest To Pretend 'Big Tech' Is The Only Industry With Problems
Re: Re:
"Nobody ever lost their home or froze to death because of Facebook!"
No, it's far worse than that. Racists and bigots are denied the ability to say the N-word in front of a large audience because of Facebook. THAT is the republican grievance.
The democrat grievance is at least rooted in good intentions even if the end result - government compelling speech - is just as bad.
The fact that alt-right trolls come crawling out of the woodworks to prop up that exact suggestion from democrats they've lambasted for everything else speaks volumes.
On the post: Klobuchar, Cotton Competition Bill Latest To Pretend 'Big Tech' Is The Only Industry With Problems
Re: Re: Re: But They're Doing It Too!
"They are not moderating in good faith. Just as techdirt also engages in bad faith moderation, as evidenced above."
No such thing exists. If the bar owner wants you gone from his bar he really doesn't have to give you a reason.
No one needs to provide good faith when it comes to showing an asshole the door out of THEIR PERSONAL PROPERTY
You have been told this again and again, Koby, and the fact that you don't grok something this simple just implies to me that you're in the wrong country. Maybe North Korea would suit your tastes better.
On the post: Klobuchar, Cotton Competition Bill Latest To Pretend 'Big Tech' Is The Only Industry With Problems
Re: Re: Re: But They're Doing It Too!
"But where will we find another commenter of his caliber?"
Among the 70-90 million americans still believing in The Big Lie I'm sure we can find at least a few dozen literate enough to replace Koby.
On the post: Josh Hawley: The War On Men (?) Is Driving Them To Porn And Video Games (Things Many Men Like?)
Re:
"It doesn't matter if there's a war on men because we Americans don't know how to win wars."
Not quite right. The US tends to win wars just fine. Or at least battles. You guys truly suck at winning the peace though, which is why every time you hit a nation with a history of guerilla resistance it ends with you leaving with egg on your faces.
Part of it no doubt has to do with the way where you install a puppet government whose army then gets trained to depend on US resources completely, making it dependent on the US remaining and utterly ineffective at actually safeguarding itself. As in Afghanistan.
At least the british, in their time, encouraged their protectorates to learn how to fend for themselves, making their withdrawal much less of a shit-show. Even if it meant risking their protectorates and colonies telling the british crown to sod off.
On the post: Josh Hawley: The War On Men (?) Is Driving Them To Porn And Video Games (Things Many Men Like?)
Re:
...or when he finds out women make up some 35% of the online porn market - as consumers - these days.
Or he'll stay true to form, make an instant 180, and come out braying about the moral decay in society misleading 'the fine women of the american heartland', yadda yadda.
But as I keep saying, we shouldn't be surprised at Hawley, Marjorie Taylor-Greene or Lindsey Graham. They perfectly well represent the base which elected them. That base - the 66% of US republicans thinking it's time to secede from the union - is the issue here.
And in my humble opinion the saner part of the US would do better to just let them go. Have the northern and western border of North Carolina, Tennessee, Arkansas and Louisiana become the boundaries of this new Flustercuck Confederacy. Give everyone who wants to move there a solid wad of cash and transportation, then close and seal those borders.
I mean, sure, with all the liberals on the other side of that border they'll turn on each other to find new groups to sate their grievance addiction with. It'll collapse into a congregation of warring cannibal tribes within ten years when only the dumbest and most willfully ignorant and the religious fanatics get to govern - but that's the way they want it.
On the post: Josh Hawley: The War On Men (?) Is Driving Them To Porn And Video Games (Things Many Men Like?)
Re: Re: Re:
"The condition I was trying to portray was more of a eunuch scenario. No fucking balls (and that's the 'guts' kind of 'balls' rather than actual testicles :) )."
Yeah, that's fair. Although both Hawley and his base are big on talking about how they'll be the first in line to defend the glories of whatever they think the constitution and america is all about, I'm also real sure any sign of actual risk will have both of them competing to throw one another under the bus and scurry off in hiding, whimpering and bleating.
In fact, that appears to be exactly what the representatives are doing to their 'friends and allies' among the 6th of jan insurrection right now.
On the post: Josh Hawley: The War On Men (?) Is Driving Them To Porn And Video Games (Things Many Men Like?)
Re: Re: Re:
"...that it's now a measure of justice to treat men with less respect than women."
I don't. It IS, however, unsurprising that benefit of doubt is not extended to those of us who keep demonstrating that we really don't give a shit because life is very much more convenient for us that way.
"...or notice the number of snide comments in the media about "old white men," simultaneously agist, racist, and sexist."
While ignoring the fact that statistics show that "old white man" along with "racist and sexist" correlates to a frightening degree. Yes, we can certainly see a few very vocal women exposing misandrist sentiment...but compared to the vast mass of white middle-aged men either casually accepting a highly unfair status quo or actively contributing to upholding it those women are about as rare as black people with KKK sympathies.
To put both sides on the same scale is just plain gaslighting when you've got a hundred on one side and maybe one, screaming very loudly, on the other.
"For people who feel that perhaps men deserve some mistreatment, that's fine..."
Ah, the old "Think of the poor plantation owners. Why must you drag the fine old south down with the few bad apples" argument?
No. There is no publicly accepted misandry around. More gaslighting and strawman analogies, I see.
Please point to the glass ceiling we men suffer?
Wage gap?
When was the last time you had a bunch of middle-aged politicians from the other gender making decisions about what surgical procedures you were or were not able to take?
Are 25% of men, statistically undergoing some form of sexual abuse before the age of 20?
The odd feminist extremist may be screaming imprecations loudly but her, I can easily ignore. Perhaps because I'm not an entitled shitwit who sees fit to ignore that in daily conversation any man will get to hear the same implications aimed at women, coming from men in reasoned tones, in conversations considered normal.
"You should ask yourself when this anti-male bias will no longer be appropriate, when justice will have been done."
Well, we could start by calling your red pill troll rhetoric out for the bullshit it is. I mean, this "anti-male bias" seems to be a solid fail when you look at how the world still works. I'm sure that in whatever echo chamber you picked up the idea that the dominant sex is persecuted it sounded great. Empirical observation, however, begs to differ with you on that score.
"For example, the ratio of female:male college students is approaching 3:2 -- how far does this need to get out-of-balance..."
So your only example is...one which has no bearing what so ever, given that college admissions tend to not be gender biased? Or, well, at least not here in Europe. In the US, I'm sure, there's more pressure the "man in the house" needs to hit the ground working come age 18 - which isn't exactly debunking the gender role bullshit so prevalent in that place.
I suggest - cordially - that you take your flawed assumptions, false analogies, straw men and red herrings elsewhere. Around here people tend to be a bit more critical when it comes to not accepting a bullshit sandwich wrapped in wordwall.
On the post: Josh Hawley: The War On Men (?) Is Driving Them To Porn And Video Games (Things Many Men Like?)
Re: Re: Re: Re: 'All men not on my side that is.'
"...he'd resign from the senate and turn himself over to the FBI."
As David has it, why? Hawley is the symptom, not the problem.
The problem is that there are enough deplorable people addicted to hating people of color, gays, trans, women, liberals, anyone not them...that it suffices to provide Hawley with an office.
There are, in the US, between 70 and 90 million people who suffer from grievance addiction and are willing to send any monster into office who provides them a new or present target to denigrate and hate. Hawley is just faithful to the majority opinion of the district he represents.
That's the horrifying truth here.
On the post: Institute For Justice Survey Shows How Philadelphia's Forfeiture Program Preyed On Poor Minorities
Re:
"You can’t trust government agencies—not completely, anyway."
Although that's true anywhere...last time I was held up in a random police check a few years back all they did was ask my name, tell me to blow into a breathalyzer and inform me one of my front lights was on the blink. They did not rob me. And I would have been surprised if they tried.
In the US, however, I would have had non-insignificant reason to fear at the approach of a police officer, both for my life and for my wallet. And not due to any malfeasance on my part.
On the post: Austin Homeowners Association Pitches In To Help Cops Kill A Guy Over Uncut Grass
Re: Re: Re: Re:
"...well thanks for doing his research for him, though I'd prefer if the person making an argument provides their own basis for doing so..."
What can I say, I got curious?
"Whoever decided this could only be solved with guns, it's a damn shame."
True enough that it's a solid flustercuck, but...it has to be said the city did warn him a number of times and did mow his lawn for him when he refused to comply, as noted (and sent him the bill). This time around, though, he decided to open fire on the guys mowing his lawn and police officers.
I'm not normally used to having to defend US police but in this case I really don't have a leg to stand on in that regard.
"If the SWAT team were reacting to an active shooting situation, I can understand why such force was used."
Which is sort of what happened. Swat was only called after the homeowner started shooting at people. There was a classic standoff, negotiator present, hours of trying to coax him outside. Finally they sent in a robot to view the house and found it to be on fire. Then they tried to approach and he opened up on them again, finally emerging from the house on fire wielding guns. That is when a SWAT officer took a shot.
"But there appear to have been months where that could have been avoided."
In any nation in europe, sure. But this was the US. The man was armed and apparently dedicated to using those guns in some sort of final stand against the nefarious government entities hell-bent on...mowing his lawn.
I honestly can't see a way to de-escalate this except getting him a proper therapist. Who would then be the one fired on.
I have no good answers for so many problems which seem so readily solvable in nations where the right to own a firearm isn't held in higher regard than voting rights and a driver's license...😟
On the post: Austin Homeowners Association Pitches In To Help Cops Kill A Guy Over Uncut Grass
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
"I’ve advocated for salt rounds locally. They do work more often than not."
I mean it isn't a bad alternative. In general most people prefer not to be in agony no matter how brief.
It just won't incapacitate someone who is desperate enough, drunk enough, high enough, or determined enough from aiming that gun your way and pulling a spray'n'pray. Salt rounds is what you use if someone comes at you with a knife or bat but you want to, you know, just intimidate or drive the guy off.
The good thing about a taser is that it doesn't matter if you can ignore pain sufficient to drop an elephant.
"And I’m still not sure what they didn’t just gas the guy with the happy little robot. "
Probably something about using gas meant to incapacitate and blind on a suspect in a burning building. Other than that, not a bad idea to fit a robot with tear gas launcher.
"But the only stun weapon that would have worked is still experimental. Battery charged micro capacitor based tasers aren’t an approved thing (yet?)."
Not yet, no. They're as far off as the electrolaser, really. One of the issues with them being that even if you manage to hit the guy and the darts get stuck good and solid, there's no real way to get it to stop tasing the guy except using a rubber glove to pull it out. Making it...a bit more than less lethal. A manually activated taser you can stop using once the suspect drops.
On the post: Austin Homeowners Association Pitches In To Help Cops Kill A Guy Over Uncut Grass
Re: Re: Re:
"Again, I personally choose, and recommend, salt."
Painful as hell, yet not incapacitating. Which is the issue when what you're dealing with is a non-lethal takedown model.
A drunk, high, or sufficiently angry man with a gun won't stop firing just because he got another reason to be really riled up.
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