RobinReborn

I can't think of a horror film that I really like (except for Aliens, but that at least has a relatively happy ending). Calling them psychopathy goes too far, but what's the purpose of making a movie which scares people? I suppose it prepares them for the world, which can be pretty scary sometimes.

Anybody got a strong opinion on this guy? I've barely done any homework on him, but I am inclined to support him more than Donald Trump. What are your thoughts?

Guys... I am pretty sure that's a gorilla, which is an ape not a monkey (it has no tail). They're incredibly strong (can punch harder than the best human boxer) but relatively passive. To oversimplify the traits of some other primates: Bonobos are sex crazed (but intelligent) Chimpanzees are violent and aggressive Not sure exactly how to describe orangutans and baboons...

My theory isn't based on time, it's based on available evidence. American history is well documented, there are birth records, tax records, records of slaves etc There's nowhere near that kind of documentation if you go back 10,000 years. At that level all you have are stone tools and maybe some wooden ones. As for conflicting historical analysis, I look for where there is agreement first. Then I see where there is disagreement and question the motives of the disagreeing parties.

RR, I have a question. Given you think this country sucks, why are you so concerned with getting illegal people here? Why don't you prefer for some of them to stay, for example, in Mexico, which obviously was not "built on breaking rules and irrational justifications of violence against innocent people"? Where have I written anything which indicates this country sucks? Nothing is perfect and anything which is good can sustain criticism. There are many wonderful things about the USA, but this country won't improve unless it is criticized. I'm not concerned about getting illegal people here, I'm concerned with letting people who accept American values come to America. Historically, the laws have been racist and show favoritism to people from European countries (whose values are often less aligned with American values than some other places). Are you concerned with enabling lazy Americans to collect welfare (which are legal for them to collect)? Do you think those people are more worthy of living in the USA than hard working Mexicans? (Who may break the law but help the US economy and would pay taxes if the immigration laws were rational.)

RR, Sure. You're right. The Founding Fathers should have left the United States of America as a perfect government before they came along and screwed it all up. btw - The Mexican racism card is dead and dying. Except for me, maybe. It's obvious I'm a racist. I can't stand Latin Americans. That's why I spent 32 years of my life in Brazil and have two sons with a Brazilian woman. If you wonder why I am against illegal immigration, check a premise or two instead of preaching MSNBC talking points and making silly rhetoric. You might find there are actual ideas to discuss... Michael Of course the US wasn't perfect before the founding fathers came, but it's possible that with this next wave of Latin American immigrants the US will be even better if we accommodate them rather than oppose them. It's not clear to me that all anti-immigrant sentiment is racist, but I don't see why people are complaining about immigration now. One would hope they'd have learned from the USA's long history of assimilating immigrants. I do wonder if you're against illegal immigration or what your ideas might be for immigration reform. I think we should allow for Amnesty for all illegal immigrants due to our immigration policy being so irrational for so long (and because of the Mexican American War as well as other irrational initiations of force by the USA). We shouldn't allow criminals (people who initiated force) in this country, but when we've made millions of entrepreneurial hard working people who have never initiated force criminals, we shouldn't expect them to respect our borders. They are borders based on conquest, not on differing values. There are millions of legal Latin American immigrants in this country that aren't very different from the illegal ones.

Michael, if you're anti-illegal immigration then you're against the founding fathers. They never got visas, greencards or any sort of approval from the indigenous people. They got approval from a corrupt government they'd later declare independence from. They were the descendants of people who forced their way into this country and decimated its original inhabitants (using gun powder powered weapons and diseases which evolved due to their poor hygiene and closeness to animals). The unfortunate truth about America is that it was built on breaking rules and irrational justifications of violence against innocent people. Can somebody besides me do some research on legal pathways for citizens of Mexico to become US citizens? I believe these laws are among the most ridiculous laws we have on record. Completely anti-individualist and racist. They're rooted in the paranoid and irrational notion that if we make it easy for Mexicans to be citizens, Mexico will take over the US. Ever wonder why Canada is so much better off than Mexico? It's because the US initiated war against Mexico for irrational reasons, rather than forming trade relations with Mexico. Probably had something to do with both North and South wanting a distraction from the Slavery debate, those poor and confused stupid bastards were too cowardly to resolve slavery back then and too stupid to learn Spanish. This country has been suffering ever since from the horribly bad decision of going to war with Mexico.

Here's an open question for this thread. What's the quota on the number of Mexicans who can become citizens every year? Is the path to citizenship for immigrants from Mexico and other countries to the south of Mexico based on rational arguments on outdated racism?

Pretty good stuff by O'Reilly but I am not going to agree with everything he says just because he says things that others are afraid to say. Nor do I think he'll convince anybody on the left because they don't watch Fox News. I suppose he did a good job in staying rational and not making an egregious statements that could be taken out of context by somebody like Jon Stewart (except maybe his idea to name his laws after a young white woman... why is naming laws after young attractive white women so popular?). I still disagree with him at a fundamental level, I am pro-immigration and a few criminals getting in isn't enough to change my mind. Let's keep in mind that Ayn Rand was part of a group of people that brought communism into this country (and in some cases provided sensitive information to the USSR like the rosenbergs). It's not about focusing on the worst in the immigrants and trying to bully their host countries into changing their behavior. It's about finding the good things in the immigrants and modifying the country to adapt to them without hurting its non-immigrant population.

@Selene no... there's plenty of documentation of the Mexican American War, it happened less than 200 years ago. The argument we are discussing here relies on 'history' from thousands of years ago.

I'm skeptical of any argument that relies heavily on a reconstruction of the past that can't be verified. We don't have that much knowledge of what life on earth was like before the agricultural revolution. Just like there are limits on predicting the future, there are limits on knowledge of the past.

Michael, overall I don't dislike Trump. But there are certain behaviors and attitudes which are clearly negative and I feel it's worthwhile to point them out. I thought what he's said on foreign policy is immature. Like it or not that borders been open for a long time and many of the people who have crossed it have become good citizens and have grandchildren who speak English and are just like other US citizens besides that they are a victim of a particular kind of racism. Mexico isn't that different from the USA in the grand scheme of things and it's in the interest of the USA to have good relations with Mexico and not bully them into building a fence. His notions of interactions with foreign powers seems completely uninformed by all the horrible mistakes US interventionism has caused in the past decades. It's fairly scary stuff if you're paranoid and think a new World War could happen any year. Though I think it's also a sign that in the (unlikely) event Trump becomes President, he'll get impeached. @Selene not quite, no, yes

I have a vague knowledge of him losing lots of money but somehow making a 'comeback' (as he put it). I don't think that makes him brave. His usage of eminent domain laws bothers me, seems quite a bit like initiating force. He's clearly a smart person, but I'm not sure that he's given much thought to some fundamental philosophical questions.

It's a lot harder to become a citizen in the post 9-11 USA than in the pre 9-11 USA. People from Muslim countries are under extreme scrutiny even if the follow American values. Pre-1965 immigrants had it much easier than people trying to immigrate now, this country has grown more hostile to immigrants in this past decade or so. Yes, mafias are large scale criminal gangs which are based on race/ethnicity. They often hold power because they reflect the values of the people in an area more closely than the local/state/federal government does. There was some effort to brake these huge scale gangs apart (and some violations of constitutional principles to do so, like the RICO laws), but it's nowhere near the amount of pressure to break up any sort of Mexican drug cartel. The DEA is a horribly corrupt agency and they have done horrible things to Mexico as well as other countries near Mexico.

@Selene, there was minimal control of pre-1965 immigrants, almost all of those groups formed their own system of organized crime (Mafias if you will). Assimilation is subjective, the major difference between Latin Americans and European immigrants is physical in nature, they have different physical features because they have genes which originate in Europe as well as other regions where the Europeans are more genetically homogeneous @Brant, maybe you're right that Trump uses presidential campaigns for publicity, but just recently he's suffered major losses because NBC dropped him. A lot of other people dropped him as well. Perhaps he doesn't care because he has enough money and connections that he can afford to lose some. But he's sacrificing a lot to make some statements that many people may think, but which are incredibly offensive to a relatively large portion of the US population. You can't get elected if you alienate too many people, and your business will also suffer. Trump has (cowardly, if you ask me) positioned himself in markets where there is minimal competition so he is relatively insulated from loss of revenue but in the long run his comment (the one Stewart obsesses over) will cost him more business than it gains him.

Stewart is just saying what he knows his audience wants to say. They're very concerned with any sort of expression of negativity. Stewart found the worst thing that Trump said and roasted it from several angles. He's used this tactic on other conservative politicians and journalists before. But I do think Trump's statement was stupid. There's no need for a politician to express such negativity towards a country where more than 10% of the population traces it's origins back to. Furthermore the Mexican-American War was arguably the first unjustified War in US history (there were many other violent conflicts with Native Americans but none of them were declared wars). Mexico's original border went as far north as Oregon, so that influences a lot of people's perspective on the immigration situation. Ultimately Mexicans will integrate themselves into the USA more than they already have in the past. Just like every other group of people that has migrated into the US.

Derek, you might like The Wire. The series definitely does not belong in the Romantic category of art. For the most part the acting isn't great (especially the first episode since the whole story is being set up there, nothing gets resolved), but the story is good and the dialog is good. The story is generally about institutional dysfunction, there are more characters than Atlas Shrugged (not really any main character, the characters are meant to offer a cross section of Baltimore). In some sense it is like a detective show where you try to predict how the events will resolve. It has been critical acclaimed by many. I asked because the show has presented me with a vivid image of Baltimore as a city. So far nothing has contradicted that, but I'm still questioning just how accurate it is.

This guy keeps making the news. Not entirely sure what to make of him, on some level he's a good businessman but there's something off about him. I can't quite put my finger on it.

What negative policies do you think the socialists may implement?

How accurate is The Wire?

Actually, it's because most people are so stupid that they trust the news, and therefore the journalists get to create reality rather than report it.

Just skimmed through this thread, no time to respond to everybody but I generally agree with Derek (though sometimes our reasoning is different I think). The USA would not exist if it weren't able to produce things. The most important thing produced in the USA for its early history was cotton. It's all good and well to claim that the Europeans were the ones who thought of this, but there were laws against teaching slaves to read. When they were brought from Africa they were deliberately mixed in groups where none of them spoke the same language. I could go on about how bad Jim Crow etc were but I won't bother. The general point is, don't justify history just because it's benefited you or your ancestors. It would be difficult to expect the immediate equalization of economic outcomes right after slavery ended. And there have always been racist opportunist, looking to punish black people because they're easier to punish than white people.

Hamilton might have been black! http://robinganemccalla.blogspot.com/2010/08/was-alexander-hamilton-black.html

Yes, it's good to socialize with like minded people, even if some of their views are different from your own.

Not to change the subject, but here's another Key and Peele sketch I thought was hilarious about bullying.