News/Current Events, discussion (Bullets, Ballots & Bombs)

[bels]

Bricking it over the concept of an in out EU referendum x scotland seceding collab

[areo]

What an awful day.

[Bobbin.Threadbare]

I'm bummed because everyone at work is too caught up with the election to congratulate me on the bottle of Procecco I was gifted for presenting at our forum.

So selfish.

[chilljin]

the north remembers

[chilljin]

also FUCK theresa may

[maj]

Trying not to engage with people on Facebook when they're posting some of the most fucking awful pandering right wing "journalism", while avoiding the UKIP 1 seat x million votes fallout and that shitty "that's how tax works" about beer is making me tear my hair out.i have no problem you sharing your views but 5 real your links suck and they're all so flawed a 20 year old guy ranting on a fashion forum can see through them.

[starfox64]

[LelandJ]

Probably new to most members here. Where we're at with climate and where we're headed:



Q&A afterwards:

[mc-lunar]

boston marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev has been sentenced to death

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/16/us/dz ... tence.html

i can't say im really ever in favor of the state having the ability to enforce death sentences but i can see why in this case

[ramseames]

Agreed about the death penalty in general but yeah no one is going to take his case up in 15 years and try to exonerate him

There are so many bad examples of the death penalty being used wrongly but this is like the one time I think it's justified

If I paid taxes in Massachusetts I would not want to spend a penny of my own money on the $3 mil it would cost to keep him in max security for the next 60+ years or whatever

[sknss]

[thephfactor]

I'm strongly opposed to the death penalty in any case, including this one. And framing it as a financial question? In my opinion that's a bit gross, to be frank. It's all about outrage and revenge, neither of which have anything to do with justice or rationality.

[Bobbin.Threadbare]

I agree. It's gross.

[ramseames]

It's not actually about the money ($3 million is nothing), it's about the principle of it.

This case doesn't have any of the normal issues that potentially come up with the death penalty. It was entirely ideological and he regrets nothing, there are essentially unlimited eyewitnesses, etc.

Saying its only about revenge and that theyre not doing the rational thing is pretty self righteous. If you read some of the news that's come out about it a lot of the people who were actually involved, who were victims/emts/family have used the word justice to describe the verdict.

[maj]

While I can't imagine what it's like to have someone ripped from your family or friends in such a tragic incident, I think the idea that those involved are calling it justice is nothing unusual, many families or friends of those victims of "lesser" crimes resulting in death would call anything less than the death penalty injustice. The principle of "eye for an eye" is what fuels most death sentence debate, why should they get to live at all, incarcerated or not when they killed one or many people? That in itself is pretty vengeful thinking, although I can see the sense it makes to those affected. On the other hand If a person is being tried for taking the life of another, then why should the state have the authority to take a life and call it justice?

The job of the judiciary system isn't there to appease families of the victims in a direct sense, as harsh and saddening as that may be to them. It's to be a unbiased 3rd party to sentence crimes in a humane, rational and democratic way, even if the crime itself is far from that as hard as it may be.

I'm personally against the death penalty in any form, but I see why many call for it.

[LelandJ]

[Bobbin.Threadbare]

Killing someone who has killed doesn't make you the same as them, but I think we can be much better than they are.

Then again I don't advocate any kind of murder. At all. Of any animal.

[wiggly--woo]

i think the death penalty is quite interesting as an exercise of power. at the end of the day, states create laws to discourage people from killing and they use prison (or indeed death) as a punishment for the people who break those laws. so they (the state) make themselves the exception to the very laws that they impose upon others, which emphasises/produces the power they have over their own citizens. in the case of the death penalty, the suspension of the law helps to maintain the state's power/control through fear/force (i.e. "you can't kill each other but we can kill you.")

regardless, it's state-led murder and for me there's no possible justification for that.

[ramseames]

The government is the people's collective representation, not a separate entity that exists above them. governments do thousands of things every day that if citizens did would be illegal, that's not a legitimate argument against them doing it. We give the government the ability to do things we can't/won't trust individuals to do themselves because we are better off for it. The idea that a government should have no more rights/abilities than its people is really incredibly conservative.

The death penalty is not "you can't kill each other but we can kill you", its "you can't kill each other but if you do anyway and/or commit other atrocities we might be forced to kill you for it, as a consequence of your actions and not in any way because of an arbitrary usage of power"

[wiggly--woo]

[ramseames]

[bobo77]

Who the hell is Martin O'Malley trying to appeal to? Who's annoyed enough with Clinton that they won't support her, but is also enough of a partisan Democrat (in the sense that they want a more "electable" candidate) that they won't support Sanders? Like who's his demographic? I have no clue why he's running. He's so boring. I'm so confused. Was he the DNC's choice of a "liberal alternative" to make it look like there was gonna be an actual primary before Sanders jumped in? Is he just being set up to be given a cabinet position if he drops out? Trying to build him a national brand if they wanna give him the VP candidacy?

[frogosaurus]

My guess is middle-aged liberals who aren't ready to commit to Sanders' agenda because he's too openly aggressive towards business interests but are "disillusioned" with Hillary. A lot of middle class white folks who voted for Obama the past two times around. But yeah, he has very little to offer in terms of an alternative to the current options.

American leftists of c-t: how do you feel about Bernie? While I will in all likelihood support his campaign and vote for him, I can't help but feel he's the more cynical version of what Obama meant to progressives 8 years ago. My biggest issue with him is that he doesn't seem to offer any plan to meaningfully curb American imperialism, and his "middle class" vs "billionaire class" rhetoric seems very simplistic and it's shit we've all heard before. In any event he'll likely get walloped in the primary, and we can all watch the dynastic shitshow play out. But who knows, if McGovern could do it in '72 maybe Sanders can today.

[Cowboy]

http://pastebin.com/raw.php?i=QkKjKxWm

Fucking hell. This is the manifesto for the Charleston shooter. Absolutely insane

It's just crazy. Can't pin it on mental illness either this is just delusion IMO. Haven't kept up but if they diagnose him with something I'll be very disappointed.

The gun was bought illegally, and the kid said something about almost not being able to do it because they were so nice to him at the bible study.

Edit: by saying pin it on MI I don't mean like "MI is an excuse". The manifesto just doesn't point to mental illness. It's like self induced brainwash. Lots of Internet influence for sure, so he just drowned himself in the content until it was true.

[ballast]

gay marriage is legal in all 50 states now. congrats!

relevant youtube video:

[hooplah]

i feel simultaneously like i can't believe it has taken this long and i can't believe it happened this soon

yay

[bobo77]

Did Cameron actually fuck a dead pig? Not familiar enough with British politics to know how legit this is.

[Cowboy]

Hey Europe

Can you all let me know about how the Paris events are being perceived and what's happening?

This is a very very bad incident, and it's not really hitting close to home for a lot of people around here that I've been conversing with.

This is crazy...

[Syeknom]

It's really scary - I've spent a lot of time on the streets of the Bataclan (used to eat at a place a few buildings down from it) and Petit Cambodge and it's really horrific to picture this happening somewhere that you can see in your mind's eye.

A lot of young people in the attack too, the restaurants are in a hip area just off St Martin and Eagles Of Death Metal were playing at the theatre (they're ok from what I gather).

The slaughter of hostages is especially horrific - so calculated and inhumane.

Stayed up watching the updates last night. Extremely sad.

[evilfriends]

Didn't get much sleep last night... I was so shocked when I heard that 17 people died and the number just kept rising and rising it was so insane and sad.

Really can't find the words to express my anger towards this senseless violence