Penn & Teller Bullshit debunks circumcision

Sabln7

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And just as a side note and a little more on topic:

The far right in control of our country right now would love to get rid of forums like this one. The left is more open and less interested in censorship.

Back on topic, I am circumsized, and I regret the decision having been made FOR me. I wish that I had not been and that the choice could have been mine later in life.

That's that.
 
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carolinacurious: Well, I'm not so sure that I made you into a straw man, I did try to give you some interesting things to think about while answering my questions and hoped that by doing so we could get to the crux of the matter quicker.

I do apologize for calling you "kiddo".

But, if you would prefer:

First, I would like to know how the "right" is being "marginalized".

Second, Can you come up with anything about the Soviet Union that was actually Communistic except for the name?
 

madame_zora

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Originally posted by madame_zora+Apr 11 2005, 06:23 PM--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(madame_zora &#064; Apr 11 2005, 06:23 PM)</div><div class='quotemain'>
Originally posted by ChimeraTX@Apr 11 2005, 05:41 PM
<!--QuoteBegin-madame_zora
@Apr 11 2005, 12:23 PM
America has become the land of exremeists, and those are very scary people.
[post=299600]Quoted post[/post]​


Compared to who? Europe is a breeding ground for outrageous far-left ideologies. I wonder if you consider marxism, communism, and socialism forms of extremism. Does the word extremism only get applied to far-right ideologies?
[post=299604]Quoted post[/post]​


Gee Chimera, is that the best you can do? Do you see Marxists and Socialists bombing abortion clinics? Threatening the safety of Americans? Burning torches in people&#39;s front yards? NO&#33; They might be picketing, writing books and the like, but I haven&#39;t heard of a violent demonstration of Socialists in our country in ages&#33; Meanwhile, back at the ranch, the KKK are still mutilating and killing, the right-wingers (Pro-lifers, HA&#33;) are bombing abortion clinics, Gays are being beat up in the street by homophobes and "god fearing" people, we are at war with people who we formerly had friendly relations with simply because we want to control the flow of oil. Yes, I think right wing extremists are more dangerous at the present time. They are far more large-scale and organised. Show me examples of widespread violence being committed by the leftists and I&#39;ll be glad to listen, only make sure it&#39;s not ancient history&#33; Extremists in opinion are very different from extremists who feel free to carry out their messages of hatred. I might hate some of the things the Republican party stands for, but would NEVER consider using an act of violence against them to make my point. It is my view that when this line is crossed, extremism becomes dangerous. It&#39;s most ly a battle of the brain vs. braun. Brute strength will win out in the short term, but eventually I believe in the power of love to heal all the wounds we are creating. This war we are in brings shame upon us all.
[post=299618]Quoted post[/post]​
[/b][/quote]


Okay, follow along carefully, this may be tough for you. In this short paragraph are a few sentences you may want to read. I am being purposely insulting because you have ignored me too many times.

1). Do you see Marxists and Socialists bombing abortion clinics? Threatening the safety of Americans? Burning torches in people&#39;s front yards? NO&#33; They might be picketing, writing books and the like, but I haven&#39;t heard of a violent demonstration of Socialists in our country in ages&#33;

2). Meanwhile, back at the ranch, the KKK are still mutilating and killing, the right-wingers (Pro-lifers, HA&#33;) are bombing abortion clinics, Gays are being beat up in the street by homophobes and "god fearing" people, we are at war with people who we formerly had friendly relations with simply because we want to control the flow of oil.

3). Yes, I think right wing extremists are more dangerous at the present time. They are far more large-scale and organised. Show me examples of widespread violence being committed by the leftists and I&#39;ll be glad to listen, only make sure it&#39;s not ancient history&#33;

4). Extremists in opinion are very different from extremists who feel free to carry out their messages of hatred. I might hate some of the things the Republican party stands for, but would NEVER consider using an act of violence against them to make my point. It is my view that when this line is crossed, extremism becomes dangerous.

5). It&#39;s most ly a battle of the brain vs. braun. Brute strength will win out in the short term, but eventually I believe in the power of love to heal all the wounds we are creating. This war we are in brings shame upon us all.


Okay, now that it&#39;s broken up into smaller chunks you can respond. In section 1 I bring up the violence being committed by right-wingers currently, in this country. To assert that the right is being marginalised is absurd, they are in power everywhere. I am beginning to doubt your intelligence to even try to pass off such an obviously untrue statement. I haven&#39;t heard of a violent socialist action here, ever, but if it ever happened, it wasn&#39;t the norm as the examples I gave.

In section 2 I listed violent acts that are being done currently HERE by right wing groups.

In section 3 I refered to the previous examples as reasons for asserting that right wing groups are more dangerous because of their violence here and now. I asked you to cite examples of left-wing violence that corresponds without using ancient history, because I am already aware of your debate style of pulling up irrelevant info to stack against current info. You couldn&#39;t do it. You immediately went for the safety of the past.

In section 4 I explained how extreme thinking is different from extreme behavior. I feel this is the most important point. Thinking should be unlimited, but violent behavior invalidates the point, even if there ever was one. Once a person or group turns to violence to carry out their plan, they have given up using their intelligence to make their case. Violence = stupidity. If a group is too stupid to amke a valid case, they just strike out, and that&#39;s when they become dangerous. It&#39;s because they&#39;ve run out of ideas and become disassociative, no longer thinking of the opposition as fellows, just "the enemy".

I complete the post by saying in the battle of brain vs. braun, I hope that love will win out in the end. Particularly when I talk about morals, you are conspicuously quiet. It was the same in the racism "debates". You never responded to any question I asked that said "where is your heart?" You want to separate your narrow thinking from any sort of application into the broader picture, which I find incredibly immature. This is not a comment on your age, many who are far older use the same tactics, but I don&#39;t have any respect for them either.

In our discussions, you have stood up for racism and right-wing control. Even if you are only playing devil&#39;s advocate (which I doubt is wholly true) you have chosen to represent much that is ugly in our culture. I have stood up for equality for all, tolerance for different ways of life (even yours), an end to racism and hatred, and made impassioned pleas to find ways to love each other instead of hate. I feel good about my time spent here.

I resent having to re-post every sentence just because you want to make things difficult for me, if you don&#39;t want to be treated like a child, try not acting like one.
 

madame_zora

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Thanks, Chimera, I was pretty sure you had no way of defending your supposed point. That&#39;s the last time I&#39;ll ever respond to anything you say, you are not the great debator you think you are, you&#39;re just a malcontent who can spell. I took one paragraph and broke it into five parts, you could have responded to any point, instead you just dismissed the whole thing, as you characteristically do to me. I just wanted to point it out publicly in case anyone had missed the fact that that&#39;s how you "debate" me. I have no further interest in conversing with you. Jana
 
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carolinacurious:
The right is being marginalized by political correctness, critical theory, and the association of far-right ideas to Hitler&#39;s extermination of the Jews in World War II.

Well I don&#39;t buy it. That "political correctness" just blew Bush right out the White House didn&#39;t it. Tom Delay had to go back to being an exterminator. Alberto Gonzales got creamed for ok&#39;ing torture. That "political correctness" is just a fucking steamroller ain&#39;t it?

More seriously: Yeah, I&#39;ve heard a few well publicized examples of "political correctness" getting out of hand, but in MY life the only people who have EVER told me that I wasn&#39;t being &#39;politically correct&#39; were conservatives. I&#39;d rather be called "non-politically correct" than a traitor anyday BTW. Political Correctness just hasn&#39;t been an issue for me in South Carolina and I have to wonder how much it&#39;s really affected you down in Texas.

critical theory: Yeah, I read the article. The world&#39;s going to be taken over by Lesbians and Hispanics who are following a JEWISH (?*) organization that no ones ever heard of, run by people no one&#39;s ever heard of who are influential in "small ivy covered North Koreas" (And I&#39;m the one making "straw men"? yuh-huh.) Got it.

I wish you&#39;d answered my question as it was originally written because the rebuttal to the points has essentially already been covered.

Oh, JEWISH (?*): And do you still wonder why, " the association of far-right ideas to Hitler&#39;s extermination of the Jews in World War II" happens?

Personally, I DON&#39;T make that exact association but you&#39;re blind if you can&#39;t see the similarities between the "Right&#39;s" and Hitler&#39;s RISE TO POWER. What they&#39;ll actually DO with that power is another matter.

It probably seems that I&#39;ve made a off the cuff dismissal of your article, but look, it&#39;s an opinion piece and it&#39;s exactly what I was talking about when I wrote, "you keep accumulating more and more power all the while telling your followers that those nasty Jews are still coming for them&#33;, the quickest way to unite a group of people is to convince them that they are all victims of the same aggressor."

"Nasty Jews" was just an example to remind you of the tactic I don&#39;t think the &#39;right&#39; is after the Jews again but hey, " The members of the Frankfurt School are Marxist, they are also, to a man, Jewish" comes from YOUR article.


Ok, let&#39;s look at the European issue for just a second: So you would prefer that they were more "politically correct" in Europe and banned even more symbols? I&#39;m on the left and I don&#39;t think EITHER symbol should be banned. I think people who want to wear swastichas(sp) should have every right to display their "Oh I want an ass-kicking so, so bad" symbols proudly.

But wait, Hitler was a &#39;Socialist&#39;, so aren&#39;t they both symbols of the left? Oh, you can see that Hitler really was just a socialist in name only and correctly place him on the &#39;right&#39; side of the political spectrum.

(look, you may call the above sentence "constructing a straw man", I call it moving the argument along- if you have a problem with what I&#39;ve said just state it.)

In any event, the "hammer and sickle" just doesn&#39;t have the same connotation as the swasticha and there is more going on than just that one is a &#39;left symbol&#39; and the other is a &#39;right symbol&#39;. BTW: I have a lot of friends who are on the left and I don&#39;t know any of them that are in favor of totalitarian despotic regimes (or that would display a "hammer and sickle".)

Just a quick aside about the "radical homosexual agenda". Recently, thanks to the Supreme Court, I can worry a little less about being arrested for something I do in the privacy of my own bedroom. I have high hopes that one day I may not be able to be fired just for being gay. That&#39;s MY "radical homosexual agenda".

As for the second question, yes, but not very much. It began as a communistic state, but relapsed into perhaps a worse despotism than was seen under the Czars.

I don&#39;t want to bore you with a lot of links on communism, because you already know what it is. It appears though that Lenin actually had communism in mind during the Russian Revolution, but later individuals corrupted it.

But yet you still see it as "Communist". Why?

If Communism is such a terrible system, then why can&#39;t we let it collapse under it&#39;s own weight? Why do we have to do everything possible to make sure that any communistic system fails? Can you not see that &#39;Communism&#39; was a convienient label to put on anything the USA didn&#39;t like? Can&#39;t you see that &#39;terrorism&#39; is being used the same way?


C&#39;mon Chimera, correct me if I&#39;m wrong but aren&#39;t you 15? You&#39;re obviously intelligent (and the &#39;left&#39; isn&#39;t the perfect answer for everything) but at 15 and in Texas and with all the problems in the World why is it stuff like the article you posted that you&#39;re drawn to? Do you really think that "Political Correctness" is that big of a problem on college campuses? I mean, what is it? How have you become convinced that the problems quoted by Bill Lind are the "really big" problems?
 

jonb

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Originally posted by ChimeraTX@Apr 11 2005, 09:41 AM
Compared to who? Europe is a breeding ground for outrageous far-left ideologies. I wonder if you consider marxism, communism, and socialism forms of extremism. Does the word extremism only get applied to far-right ideologies?
[post=299604]Quoted post[/post]​
Just because Europe actually punishes members of the haute bourgeoisie and lumpenproletariat who break the law doesn&#39;t make them extremists.

@Jana:
I&#39;ve seen animal rights activists engage in extreme activities. But they aren&#39;t left or right, just delusional.
 

madame_zora

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Originally posted by jonb+Apr 11 2005, 11:48 PM--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(jonb &#064; Apr 11 2005, 11:48 PM)</div><div class='quotemain'><!--QuoteBegin-ChimeraTX@Apr 11 2005, 09:41 AM
Compared to who? Europe is a breeding ground for outrageous far-left ideologies. I wonder if you consider marxism, communism, and socialism forms of extremism. Does the word extremism only get applied to far-right ideologies?
[post=299604]Quoted post[/post]​
Just because Europe actually punishes members of the haute bourgeoisie and lumpenproletariat who break the law doesn&#39;t make them extremists.

@Jana:
I&#39;ve seen animal rights activists engage in extreme activities. But they aren&#39;t left or right, just delusional.
[post=299780]Quoted post[/post]​
[/b][/quote]


Yeah, most animal rights activists are probably "leftist nutjobs" and those extremist activities certainly qualify, they&#39;re just pretty easy to identify and avoid.

Europe&#39;s had more years to get it right, and they&#39;ve survived Hitler, so they know the damage a dictator can and will do. Maybe we&#39;re about to find that out here, I&#39;m just not sure I care to participate. If Europe&#39;s calmed down a bit, it might be a more viable option. Somewhere in the rural hills of Spain I could settle in quite easily, I just have to figure out a way to support myself, and I&#39;m there.
 

Dr Rock

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Originally posted by ChimeraTX+Apr 11 2005, 05:30 PM--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(ChimeraTX &#064; Apr 11 2005, 05:30 PM)</div><div class='quotemain'> I assume you haven&#39;t heard of the British National Party. :eyes:
[post=299601]Quoted post[/post]​
[/b]

everybody&#39;s heard of them; it&#39;s just that everybody laughs.

Originally posted by ChimeraTX@Apr 11 2005, 06:36 PM
Far-left ideologies are not currently being marginalized, so why would they use violence? It is the marginalized groups that resort to the most drastic deeds.
[post=299622]Quoted post[/post]​
I don&#39;t see the far right being "marginalized" considering they&#39;re the most powerful government in the world.

Originally posted by ChimeraTX@Apr 11 2005, 09:42 PM
There is a bias in Europe of the far-left being chosen over the far-right
[post=299686]Quoted post[/post]​
well, no shit. you already explained that one yourself - 60 years ago a far-right-wing government was directly responsible for the biggest war in human history. of course there&#39;s gonna be a knee-jerk reaction against any similar kind of ideology. it will be generations yet in europe before right-wing politics will be able to regain any kind of credibility. it&#39;s no use getting upset about it; it&#39;s just the way people are.

<!--QuoteBegin-carolinacurious
@Apr 11 2005, 09:09 PM
I do apologize for calling you "kiddo".
[post=299675]Quoted post[/post]​
[/quote]
it would be easier to take him seriously if he quit acting like the stereotypical-dorky-kid-from-the-high-school-debate-club-who-disagrees-with-everything-everyone-else-says-just-for-the-sake-of-it-because-he-has-no-friends-and-his-father-beats-him.
 

madame_zora

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I really never liked their magic act, but I&#39;ve heard better things about their debunking shows, probably worth a watch if I&#39;m around someone who has cable.
 

lapdog2001

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The last time I saw Penn and Teller do an act, they had an 18-wheeler run over Teller on the David Letterman show. Of course they had cameras that filmed it from every angle and showed everybody how it was done right afterwards. It was still cool to see the little guy &#39;apparently&#39; getting crushed by 9 of those 18 wheels&#33;

LapDog :p
 

surferboy

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Originally posted by lapdog2001@Apr 13 2005, 01:13 PM
The last time I saw Penn and Teller do an act, they had an 18-wheeler run over Teller on the David Letterman show. Of course they had cameras that filmed it from every angle and showed everybody how it was done right afterwards. It was still cool to see the little guy &#39;apparently&#39; getting crushed by 9 of those 18 wheels&#33;

LapDog :p
[post=300339]Quoted post[/post]​


How did they do it?
 

jonb

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Oh, as for political correctness, it&#39;s all about language. Kinda silly the idea that saying "no AFRICAN-AMERICANS allowed" is better than "no niggers allowed". (This is also something the right&#39;s known for. Ignoring ketchup as a vegetable, we now have "homicide bomber" and "freedom fries".) No one in academia believes in it anymore, but that doesn&#39;t stop the media.

You can even get branded a racist these days for saying someone else said nigger and other unoriginal taunts. It&#39;s kinda like the old Monty Python Jehovah sketch. He said it again&#33;
 

lapdog2001

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Originally posted by surferboy+Apr 13 2005, 03:41 PM--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(surferboy &#064; Apr 13 2005, 03:41 PM)</div><div class='quotemain'><!--QuoteBegin-lapdog2001@Apr 13 2005, 01:13 PM
The last time I saw Penn and Teller do an act, they had an 18-wheeler run over Teller on the David Letterman show. Of course they had cameras that filmed it from every angle and showed everybody how it was done right afterwards. It was still cool to see the little guy &#39;apparently&#39; getting crushed by 9 of those 18 wheels&#33;

LapDog :p
[post=300339]Quoted post[/post]​


How did they do it?
[post=300370]Quoted post[/post]​
[/b][/quote]

Nix,

When they showed the replay from the opposite side of the truck, you could see a huge framework, loaded with weights, welded/bolted to the side of the truck. What they did was counterweight the truck so there was no real weight on the tires that rolled over Teller. Of course real tires would still do some damage, so they had foam rubber tires created and installled on the right side (sidewalk) of the truck. Only in super slow motion, could you tell that the tires &#39;gave&#39; too much when they went over Teller&#39;s body.

It was a very cool trick to watch.

LapDog :p