1,920 Forum Posts by "Ranger2"
Statistics like these are misleading. 60% of Russians want communism back? Well there are two facts that make this less-than-decisive:
-The USSR ended over 20 years ago. How many of those interviewed were not only alive during that time, but old enough to understand communism and its role in the USSR?
-Different people were affected by communism in different ways. My family lived under communism in Poland, and even today there are two types of people who lived under it: those who were oppressed by communism and are glad it's dead, and those who were Party members and want it to return.
I think 60% is a biased estimate, and I mean biased in the statistical sense. If they were to take multiple random samples and then find out the answer through the sample mean, that would be the best way. But you can't get an accurate account from one survey.
At 10/2/13 07:50 PM, Camarohusky wrote:
So you would risk a higher amount of innocent people being put to death because you want to cut corners?
Would you risk a higher amount of guilty people to escape or be released to kill again?
I support the death penalty, because I believe there are some crimes that are unforgivable, and if you commit them you forfeit your right to life.
We need to reform the appeals system which makes free food, shelter, medicine, and recreation for life cheaper than a lethal injection.
The President is, to a degree, to blame for the government shutdown.
Now before a lot of you start clamoring about the GOP, let me say this: What the GOP did is inexcusable. They have no right to hijack the government and pass a bill knowing it would lead to a shutdown. The shutdown was started by the GOP. But there's enough talk giving the Republicans the blame they so richly deserve. I don't want to preach to the choir.
What disappointed me most was the lack of communication between Obama and Boehner. Reagan and Tip O'Neill were hugely ideological enemies, yet they spent hours talking and negotiating deals. (Although the government did shut down every other year during their terms). Clinton and Gingrich spent hours long into the night negotiating budget deals.
I'm no fan of Gingrich, but he's right when he said that he and Clinton spent more days together than Obama and Boehner spent hours.
I understand that the Republicans didn't want to negotiate, and they were acting like little babies. But it's still Obama's responsibility to call Boehner for as many meetings as possible to resolve the crisis. And he is the President of the United States; if he wants to talk to the Speaker, he will talk to the Speaker.
I didn't expect Obama to solve the crisis by striking a grand bargain or letting Obamacare be slashed. I did expect him, to be meeting with Boehner for hours and hours and hours so that if the shutdown did happen, the President could at least say that he was in the fight, that he was doing what he was elected to do.
He hasn't. Instead he spoke at the White House blaming the Republicans (rightly so) for the mess, when he should have been beside closed doors with Boehner. He should have spent every waking moment he could with Boehner, with both parties of Congress. Instead, he surrounded himself with Democrats who urged him to let the government shutdown because the GOP would be blamed. And of course, Boehner's aides were telling him not to meet with Obama because they believed the Democrats could be blamed.
Obama is the President of the United States. He needs to take responsibilities for all the government's problems, even if they're not his fault. That's what a leader does. He takes control of the situation and deals with it, no matter who's to blame.
Have you been in a restaurant or on a plane with a screaming baby whose parents don't even try to calm him down, but instead ignore him? It's not the parents' fault the baby is crying, but it's their responsibility to at least try to get him to be quiet.
This reminds me of the 2010 BP Oil Spill incident. Remember how the CEO, Tony Heyward, was asked to step down because of the incident? He wasn't on the oil rig when it blew up. He didn't press the wrong button to cause the explosion. But he was the leader, and like it or not the buck stopped with him. He took the fall for something that wasn't his fault because he was in charge and that's what happens.
So while I despise the Republicans for acting the way they did, I'm irritated at Obama for not acting like the leader he was elected to be. Yes, the GOP is crazy and unwilling to negotiate. Fine. But Obama should've gotten into the fight as soon as possible and at the very least, prove that he did everything in his power to try to avert a shutdown.
What's strange is that the government shut down every other year in the 80s, albeit for rarely more than a few days. The most recent one was in 1995-6.
At 9/25/13 10:10 PM, aviewaskewed wrote: Actions speak louder then words...but the words are encouraging.
Only time will tell. It all depends on the Ayatollah. Just because Rouhani's fresh face doesn't mean too much.
President Rouhani of Iran recently gave a speech, and news outlets have been calling it revolutionary. Is it possible that a self-proclaimed moderate like Rouhani, new to his office, could set Iran on a new course? Does this mean Iran will seriously stop pursuing nuclear weapons, and try to open up to the West?
I don't think so. It sounds encouraging to say that Iran's new leadership will take them on a new course, but Iran's leadership is still old. If Rouhani wants to do anything at all, the Ayatollah must be on board. This is the same Ayatollah who has been in power since 1989, has told America "the hell with you" during Iran's elections, and supported Ahmadinejad throughout most of his presidency.
Even if Rouhani seriously wanted to make peace, the Ayatollah won't play ball. Rouhani is only the face of Iran. The Ayatollah actually runs things, and if there hasn't been any change in his rhetoric since 1989, it's unlikely there will be a change now.
At 9/22/13 10:25 PM, aviewaskewed wrote: You realize you just put up two similar, but not comparable statements right? Saying "my country is the greatest in the world" is a statement of fact, or intended as such to be. To make such a statement, one would then need to prove the assertion.
What criteria do you use to say that a country is the greatest in the world? They're all opinions. When people say that America is the greatest country in the world, we all know it's opinion. Things like that can't be proven without defined criteria. "My country is the best in the world" and "I love my country" all both opinions.
You take the idea of "American Excellence" too far. I don't see why it's wrong for people to say "my country is the greatest in the world." If someone in France were to say "I love France and I wouldn't live anywhere else," that'd be fine with me.
You're from Croatia; I wouldn't care one bit if you said "Croatia is #1, I love Croatia," so why should you take offense to when Americans do it?
If it were any other country you wouldn't care.
At 9/12/13 10:16 PM, GameChild214 wrote:
Communism must be slow and systematic. You have to give them bits of socialism until they wake up and find they have communism, then they will accept it.
You need to brush up on your Marx, then. He advocated violent revolution. Haven't you ever heard the phrase, "Workingmen of all countries, unite!"?
And let's not forget that in a Marxist utopia we would all be agrarian farmers and we would abolish all technology-he said that industrialization helps the capitalists.
So, comrade, get off of your computer then. Newgrounds is too capitalist for you.
People never respond well to simply being part of a cog. People want more than anything else to provide for themselves and their families. If you force communal living upon them and discourage them from improving themselves, not only will you have a bad economic system, but you will force upon them a system that they don't want. Most people could not care less about the government or participating in democracy, but if you take away their property they will turn radical and unstable on you.
At 9/9/13 07:58 PM, GameChild214 wrote:
It's a shame that a great idea such as communism has been abused and perversed by corrupt dictators like Stalin and Kim Ill-Sung, but some day proper communism will be put in order. A utopian society.
Marxism does have a point where it says you need a strong government to keep order and ensure some economic standards, and then focus on liberalism, but he goes off into craziness when he talks about the proletariat and making everybody completely 100% equal. Communism as an economic system does not work well enough to ensure a good enough standard of living to accommodate liberty, and it calls for violent upheaval and revolution-something that doesn't sit well with leaders trying to establish a state.
At 8/25/13 09:52 PM, Elitistinen wrote: NSA is worse than the Soviet KGB.
Wrong. If that were true then NG would be shut down and Tom would be in a gulag for hosting a site that allows counter-revolutionary thought.
It's a noble idea, but the reason we have representative democracy is because at least on paper, you can send those who care most about an issue (and know the most about it) to help legislate. While politicians of all countries get often well-deserved crap, would they do any better than Joe Six-pack?
I'm looking for either an online program or a virtual machine so that I can play a Windows 95 game on my mac. I'd like to make a Let's Play of it, and I have the recording equipment, but it's on my mac so I need that.
Any ideas would be appreciated!
I agree! I was also by a roadside doing some performance art and some cops came up and told me to put my pants on and go home.
I'm sick of people who don't understand the creative process.
At 8/6/13 07:08 PM, FlakJaketPro wrote: A News organization that actually delivers news without the "THE EU AND TEH USA R00LZ!" sugar coat.
As far as Western news media goes, it's pretty self-critical. I think RT is at the opposite end of the spectrum of Fox News. One says America does no wrong, the other says America does no right. They're both equally bad. I prefer the Wall Street Journal or local news stations, because they are blessedly neutral.
Recently, the Syrian Electronic Army, a branch of the Syrian government, hacked a US Marines recruiting website and posted this message:
Message to the United States Marine corps:
Dear US Marines,
This is a message written by your brothers in the Syrian Army, who have been fighting Al Qaeda for the last 3 years. We understand your patriotism and love for your country so please understand our love for ours. Obama is a traitor who wants to put your lives in danger to rescue Al Qaeda insurgents. Marines, please take a look at what your comrades think about Obama's alliance with Al Qaeda against Syria.
There are 5 pictures of soldiers holding up the following messages:
"I didn't join the navy to fight for Al Qaeda in a Syrian civil war"
"I did not join the military to get involved in other countries' civil wars. STAY OUT OF SYRIA."
"Obama, I will not deploy to fight for your Al-Qaeda rebels in Syria. WAKE UP PEOPLE."
"I will not fight for Al Qaeda in Syria."
"I didn't join the Marine Corps. to fight for Al Qaeda in a Syrian Civl War."
Your officer in charge probably has no qualms about sending you to die against soldiers just like you, fighting a vile common enemy. The Syrian army should be your ally not your enemy. Refuse your orders and concentrate on the real reason every soldier joins their military, to defend their homeland. You're more than welcome to fight alongside our army rather than against it. Your brothers, the Syrian army soldiers. A message delivered by the SEA.
It ends with a picture of Syrian soldiers standing in formation.
I like full details, so that's why I gave you the entire message, word for word, with what is said on the pictures.
Let's start with the obvious question: Is this a valid message? Could US action against Syria potentially help Al-Qaeda, or is the SEA full of crap?
This is not meant to be a discussion of rhetoric on the situation (i.e. the Syrian "red line" phrase, or what the United States has done to deal with what's going on.) And let's not get into conspiracy theories- Obama is not secretly allied with Al-Qaeda or anything ridiculous like that.
I'm staying completely neutral in this. I want to hear what YOU have to say. Let's just focus on this question: what validity is there to the claim that attacking al-Assad is helping Al-Qaeda? And is there a form of action that the US could take that could hurt al-Assad without helping Al-Qaeda? Or should we stay out of this entirely?
At 9/1/13 11:51 AM, Ranger2 wrote:
Police
These are people that should be trusted, and educated in a way that understands the mentality of Human perception. More often than not, police officers arrest a wrongdoer but do not know why that person did what he or she did. Arrests should only be warranted to people who are clear threats to society, and not the general person who makes that same mistake too often because of their mental issues. Perception is a big problem in society, and police officers should have a neutral perception to every walking character, no matter how wrong it is.
I misread that; I thought you said they arrest people not knowing what they did. But still, it doesn't matter WHY somebody is stealing something or killing someone. You don't take the law into your own hands, nor do you break the law. That's that.
At 8/16/13 09:43 PM, brutalexcess wrote: Community of Contributions
The heart of the community, and any community at that within a particular region, country or state. The idea is to involve everyone in contributing to the better future, have only people who specialise in specific fields to contribute to the laws surrounding those fields and returning the favour with services that serve the purposes of simple survival requirements. We do not need computers or any technology to survive, these are all merely setbacks to keep us distracted while the government takes away your rights one by one (not that I can say much, I'm typing on a computer).
We don't need computers or any technology? Have fun in a country that's stuck in the Stone Age. Don't ever expect to trade with any other country ever. Besides requiring technology, your methods would stall production and drive your prices sky-high. So you'd have to be self-sufficient. Hope you have everything (although no country does, so why should you?)
Legal Standards
As far as I know, there are few legal standards, and that is mainly in writing the laws, not in the content. New legal standards would be put in place to ensure that priorities to certain laws a higher than others - Natural Rights being at the very top, while Policies being at the very bottom. At the end of the day, all of our laws must comply with Natural Law.
That's sort of the idea now. All of our laws are based around what we see as morals. What do you see as moral?
Educational Standards
Education should be dynamic, and change according to the demands in particular industries. You should not take away education, you should embrace any and all useful subjects that are viable for contributions. Giving children choices earlier will make education a lot more fun than it is now, tightening up the general grading system to ensure it is easier to read for employers in particular, and involve Law, History and the Business side of all viable subjects.
That is all so incredibly vague. You sound like a politician: "I believe we need to educate our children!"-who doesn't? And good luck changing or making education better without technology. I'm sure there are some surplus textbooks from the '50s you can use in your one-room schoolhouse.
Medical Standards
There is a lot of elderly, people who are incapable of working because they are disabled or retired. Restricting access to man-made substances will reduce the life expectancy of Humans, which will help developed countries to sustain themselves in the current economic climate. Bring more natural remedies and prioritise education to ensure more biology and alchemy is accounted for, the more natural remedies are the better our bodies become.
You say that restricting access to man-made substances will reduce the life expectancy of humans. Do you mean it the other way around? But whatever, I agree, who needs chemo for cancer when you have ginger root tea?
Reputation versus Money
The economy in a democracy favours business, and I disagree with it. I prefer communism, others may not, but mix in the Community of Contributions, and the idea of reputation earning you money, you have maybe a commacracy? Basically the voting system of a democracy and the economic system of communism. Reputation is earned by your education and employment status, while it is negated by your criminal record and poor practices. Reputation is what earns you the money, even if you are the owner of a business.
Reputation doesn't put food on the table; money does. And money is one hell of a good incentive for people to work hard and improve the lives of their clients through their work. And you earn money through your reputation and nothing else? Yeah, that won't be corrupt at all, since people are always honest when it comes to their and other's reputations. It's not a popularity contest at all.
Don't make your community angry, your reputation is your earner as well as your weight in this society.
In your dream world, but not in real life.
Ideas should be shared
Most companies treat ideas as a policy or a law, esp. when it is patented. Copyright theft is no longer an economic issue with the reputation system enacted, and so ideas are more freely shared, as they should be in the natural world.
Wrong again. I'd get a much better reputation if I stole someone's idea and made it look like I myself invented something instead of the other guy. That actually encourages me to steal.
Police
These are people that should be trusted, and educated in a way that understands the mentality of Human perception. More often than not, police officers arrest a wrongdoer but do not know why that person did what he or she did. Arrests should only be warranted to people who are clear threats to society, and not the general person who makes that same mistake too often because of their mental issues. Perception is a big problem in society, and police officers should have a neutral perception to every walking character, no matter how wrong it is.
More often than not? Any studies to back that up? What about someone who is caught driving drunk or robbing a house? The police have no clue what they did? You must think that police see a guy walking across the street and have arrest him for the hell of it. Police do have a neutral perception of people, unless they're caught doing something wrong.
Education should be prioritised to ensure that police know how to approach suspects in the most neutral way and also to not perceive things in such negative tone.
It's the police's job to expect a negative tone. Would you scold a soldier for learning how to use a gun?
Conclusion
Honestly, I have not much else to say. As for where I want to live - in nature, where I belong. I want nature to bring me up, just as I was brought up through nature. Living on a tropical island in the middle of the ocean would be a dream come true for me, and I will practice spirituality there. For now, I will continue meditating.
Great, just don't run for office.
One day, Joe and hopeless87 are flying through space when they crashland on a planet. Their nuclear reactor falls off a mile away from their spaceship, but they have a tracking device on it. They travel to it so that they can fix it to power their ship and get off the planet.
Unfortunately, a bunch of aliens are at the crash site of the reactor, staring in awe.
"Oh no, Joe," said hopless87. "We can't let these silly, curious aliens take our machine! They may get hurt or blow it up! We'll have to kill some of them to scare them away."
Joe smiled and handed hopeless87 his medication. "You're not thinking straght," he said. "Why do we have to kill them? Why not simply guard it ourselves? We have to fix it anyway? And if anybody comes to try to sneak around, we can threaten them with spears and bare our teeth. That should make them nervous and leave us alone!"
"But Joe," hopeless87 whined. "But what about their apparent absolute curiousity? We should slaughter the women and children in the tribe and hang their bodies around the area to deter the aliens!"
Joe sighed, smacked hopeless87 in the face and said "and that would cause them to rebel against us and we'd really be screwed. No, let's just work on fixing it, and if some aliens come along, we nudge them away or yell and shout and act angry.
So they followed Joe's plan, and they got the ship read y to go.
"Hold it, I have to take a leak," hopeless87 said.
Joe waited 5, 10, 15 minutes for hopeless87 to finish. Where was he? He looked outside and saw hopeless87 running from a crowd of aliens, with a bloody alien head clenched in his right hand. His killing instinct had gone unchecked.
Realizing that he didn't want to spend the next few weeks with a homicidal maniac, Joe left hopeless87 to his fate and returned to Earth. Wow, was he glad that he didn't listen to hopeless87.
The end.
Animation takes a LONG time. Writing takes a long time. Why would anybody do this for free, let alone to a 14 year old? Writing a script even, is useless becuase that's easy compared to animating.
There's a fine line between poetry and writing non sequitor things that sound pretty. A poem needs to tell a story, not just talk about your emotions.
At 8/27/13 06:08 PM, Poniiboi wrote: After I survive and revive Newgrounds I will find some new mods for the board that don't suck so much ass and I will only let in people with less idiotic political views.
Why stop there? Why not start your own website (remember, Newgrounds is American) where you can talk about the evils of freedom of speech?
I'm not surprised a lot of people here will score in the extremes. I scored moderate.
At 8/20/13 04:00 PM, Feoric wrote: The military likes us just as much as the Brotherhood does.
I see your point, at this time you can only pick the lesser of two evils. I never expected the military to be best buddies with the US but they are less likely to finance terrorist groups that may attack the US or its allies.
Keep in mind, I think that Morsi's Muslim Brotherhood was moderate and could be worked with. This is not the same Muslim Brotherhood we dealt with in 2012. This is a more radical brand, as shown by the new rhetoric. I talk about this in my original post.
At 8/20/13 08:48 AM, 24901miles wrote: Just a quick point for clarity:
"Death To America" is a mistranslation of Marg bar Amrika. It means "Down with America" in terms of our foreign policy, and not mass murder.
Who are you to translate for people who say that? There are plenty who mean it in the literal term.
And it's illegal for the US to finance coups and military regimes. So there's that, too.
Would you prefer a radical Islamist government or a military government? It's the lesser of two evils. Welcome to the 21st century, where there is rarely a classic good vs evil battle.
At 8/20/13 01:21 AM, Feoric wrote:
I don't know if "trust" is the right word, considering the massive powergrab that just transpired. But I think I understand what you're saying here.
The military is easier to trust because we've worked with it in the past and because it has no Islamist ideology. It's always easier to work with a group whose ideology can't be interpreted as "Death to America!"
At 8/19/13 09:08 PM, Feoric wrote:
Why does it suck that we have to condemn the military? We might lose the respect of a murderous junta?
It sucks to condemn a powerful group in Egypt that the West can trust more easily than the Brotherhood.
At 8/18/13 01:28 AM, Warforger wrote: Wait a minute, before the military ousted him people were condemning him for trying to rewrite the Constitution so that it wasn't a Democracy and now people are complaining that he's been removed? Christ make up your minds already.
Very true. This also shows the lose-lose situation that the US is in with Egypt. We've had a relationship with the military for decades, but when Morsi came in, we tried to work with him even if it wasn't ideal to work with an Islamist. Now the pro-military Egyptians are angry that we tried to work with Morsi, but had we intervened and ousted him, those same people would scream "Imperialism!" It sucks to have to condemn the military, although we'd still be getting crap had we condoned their actions.
