RobinReborn

That explains a lot. Do you consider intentional self harm to attract compassion an act of Chutzpuh?

Is anybody familiar with the concept of Chutzpah? I've heard the word several times but my favorite description was in By Way of Deception (a book by a Mossad defector). He said Chutzpah was taking a shit on your enemies doorstep then ringing the bell and asking for toilet paper.

I'm not a holocaust denier but saying 6 million jews were rounded up and exterminated strikes me as an exaggeration of history.

Plenty of jewish people got out of Germany before the holocaust started... So I'd be careful, there are probably some Muslims in the US that are preparing to leave because they're afraid of Trump. Of course, you can be too paranoid.

Depending on how the code is written, the 'guests' could be bots.

It's not an easy question to answer. The practical advice to be gained from this question is 'prevent yourself from being in a situation where you're starving!'.

??? There is no slander, there's plenty of evidence that there's systemic racism within the police, your ignorance of that does not make me foolish. Do you actually know the definition of the word slander? I'd suggest you mean libel but if your views on who is the victim in the conflict between African Americans and the police are any indication of your views on reality, you have a tendency to distort the meanings of concepts.

Not to reject a compliment, but at age 32 I'm not sure if the word 'kid' describes me (I could easily have kids of my own, and conceivably have grandkids as well). I do acknowledge that I have a long life ahead of me (especially since I take good care of my health). It's interesting how you define terrorism, I would say most terrorists spend a lot of time planning their attacks, then either die or spend the rest of their life on the run or in prison. Innocent lives are an abstraction for them in the conflict between their ideology (usually a religion) and some hypothetical opposing ideology. If they're just committing pedestrian acts of violence I'd call them rebels, or agents of a tyrannical government or gang members. FWIW my attitude is partly inspired by members of my family who are far older than you. You're never so old that you're trapped in your past.

Not sure I follow you. I believe most gang conflicts would end if the drug war ended, you might need to end the war on prostitution and the war on gambling as well... Obviously racist cops don't help alleviate the racial tensions between Blacks and Mexicans... My views on the Black Lives Matter movement are nuanced. I think the important thing to keep in mind about Ferguson is that it's a mainly black area, the police are mainly white, it's a poor area and the police are very incompetent and abusive and are largely funded through BS parking-ticket type violations that most residents can't afford. The police there are much worse than the police in most other parts of the USA.

Not sure what you mean by real violence... in many ways I am privileged and have not witnessed much violence directly (and I've barely perpetuated it, other than a few childhood fights and sports accidents my only acts of violence have been against a bird's egg and accidentally hitting a deer). That doesn't mean I don't understand it and that I don't know people who have been victims of it. I'm not sure that victims/perpetrators/witnesses of violence have much more insight into violence than observers, I certainly do not have PTSD and do not believe that having PTSD would help my judgement. I have not watched much TV (I have watched what I consider to be the best TV shows of the last few decades, The Wire, Breaking Bad and part of The Sopranos), I haven't seen that many movies either and generally prefer nonviolent movies.

What does immigration have to do with murder in Chicago? Immigration is not the initiation of force. As Rand said, the initiation of force is immoral. In some cases, these murders may a form of retaliation, if the justice system can't adequately deal with the murder problem in Chicago the city may enter a feedback loop of increasing murders where nobody trusts the police and murder is de facto legal.

I believe the most effective way to change the legal system is through nonviolent civil disobedience. This is what Mexicans are doing, it's also what Americans who hire Mexicans are doing. I haven't followed that Trump thread that I started and I do not trust politicians to keep their campaign promises. Especially not Trump. Partly because of his flip-flops from his past and partly because I expect he will face lots of resistance.

How do you expect the legal system to change? Immigration is a controversial issue like abortion, politicians usually stay away from it. The borders between the US and Mexico were changed in the Mexican American War (I am not an expert on that War, but I do not believe it was just though I acknowledge it was one of the few wars in US history which was actually declared by congress). Mexican students are told where the borders used to be and they generally stay within the old borders. Do you have a problem with people who consume illegal drugs? How do you expect illegal drugs to be made legal unless people consume them? As for the Mexican Drug Cartels, I must admit I'm almost completely ignorant of the details of their violence (I watched Breaking Bad...) However I place the responsibility of that violence mainly on the US government, specifically the DEA and other organizations involved with suppressing the free trade of substances most people can consume responsibly. Those people are enemies of capitalism.

It's a hypothesis, but let's just say I have more experience with terrorists than the average American. I hope you understand why I'm reluctant to share details. Obedience may be important to organized terrorists, but not to lone wolf terrorists.

Regardless of the effectiveness of waterboarding, it does cause potential terrorists to fear what will happen to them if they are caught alive. Thus they are more likely to perform more dangerous suicide attacks.

I believe that Mexico isn't nearly as bad as most conservatives think. A lot of the problems with Mexico are directly related to the drug war, end the drug war and you end a lot of violence because selling drugs is the only pathway to wealth in the minds of many poor Mexicans (same is true of some Americans). I'm not sure what problems you anticipate these Mexicans creating when they get here, I'm not aware of any terrorist acts by Mexicans. The states in the US with large numbers of Mexican immigrants all have good economies (especially California and Texas). I lived in California for a while and a source of cheap labor for cleaning, gardening and cooking definitely improves the economy. I met some Mexicans who were involved in more skilled labor as well, one was a computer programmer who got deported. I do not believe in completely open borders, but I think the borders should be more open then they are now. I believe we aren't allowing enough Mexican immigrants in right now, the line for legal admission is too long so people are breaking the law and entering illegally (just like people do drugs illegally even though there are frequently legal alternatives). This article supports my point: http://www.foxnews.com/us/2015/05/18/immigrants-applying-to-enter-us-legally-facing-longer-waits.html

I like some of what I see at Cordair Art but it's too pricey for me.

Maybe Trump will send in Ted Cruz to take over Cuba ;)

Because if the US violates human rights we can't claim the moral high ground and should expect our enemies to do the same, possibly worse. And it's a waste of money, if the prisoners there have been there for a decade or more and haven't been accused of a crime we've got to consider the possibility that they might be completely innocent and just getting free food and shelter.

We didn't exactly beat England, we never sent troops their to conquer them. My point applies to war but it also applies to many of the aggressive violent actions that the US (generally through the CIA) has done since the end of WWII As for your point about refugees, I'd encourage you to distinguish the USA and Europe more. The US is further from Syria than Europe, so less refugees would come to the US and the ones that did come would have more money because they could afford a plane ticket. The US also has less of a social welfare system than most European countries so there'd be less refugees just looking to cash in on welfare benefits. And as I said earlier, Europe has a longer history of conflict with Islam than the US does. I do think there is value in Europe, I'd certainly rather live there than in an Islamic country. But I don't think it's worth it for the US to stick it's neck out for Europe, especially since the Brexit vote. Europe is the intellectual center and prime exporter of both fascism and socialism and I believe those are bigger threats to the US than radical islam.

I don't know exactly how to measure primitiveness but the Spanish did destroy lots of culture. Disease wiped out a large percentage of Natives. Ultimately I do not think there's much evidence that Europeans were much more civilized than Native Americans before Columbus. Europeans became more civilized after the conquest of the Americas, but they were pretty savage before it. I also believe that Native Americans were less destructive towards the land than Europeans (Europeans cut down a lot of trees to build ships to come to the Americas, then they fought each other and sunk lots of these ships so they had to cut down more trees in the America to build more ships... pretty destructive!)

Well... kicking ass isn't exactly a technical term, but I imagine you're aware of the CIA actions in Iran around the 1950s. I also believe the US tried to isolate Iran and supported Saddam Hussein when he invaded their country in the 1980s. There's also some vaguely conspiracy theory stuff I've read about several underseas internet cables being cut around 2008 when Iran was trying to sell oil in Euros.

I do not believe this is true. I think Rand's interpretation of Native American culture was very misinformed. They were not as primitive as some biased historians would have you believe.

Yes, and it lasted longer than the Barbary Wars. And after the crusades the Turks seized Constantinople and tried to seize Vienna... Do you not get the point I'm trying to make? There's a difference between a war which is resolved peacefully with coexistence between the beligerents and wars that continually reoccur. The USA has a history of reestablishing good relations with countries it has been at war with, it has clearly done so with England after its foundation. The same is true for Germany and Japan after WWII. There are plenty of other examples... fundamentally there is no reason why we can't establish good relations with Muslim nations. We are in the process of doing so with Iran.

I have no idea what you mean by 6 out of 10... Did Catholic immigrants find out their roots of killing Protestants when they came to the USA (my reading of history suggests that the Protestant Reformation led to more violence between Christians than there was violence between Christians and Muslims)?