Valsuelm

Not exactly on the first two paragraphs. To sum it part of it, you apparently aren't familiar with what a puppet is, nor the implications of a populace ok with a Monarchy vs. one opposed to one. Your last paragraph fails to make grammatical sense after the first sentence. Review your syntax please.

Yep.... It definitely needs to go. Easier said than done though. J.F.K. was seriously talking about doing so, and look what happened to him. He got shot by a random American commie. There's quite a bit more to it than that. Sorry, I've been indoctrinated by factual evidence. Baaa. So you've been indoctrinated by a proven plagiarist? Someone who has been shown to have lied about his work on numerous occasions? Someone who comes off in interviews as a slimy hack ignorant of many facets of what was going on in the nation/world at the time his works cover? Are you kidding me? Is there anything that has happened in the history of the U.S. that occurred that popular history and official government stories say that you question? Anything? Is there anything in the popular narrative you don't agree with? That you find evidence proves wrong? JFK aside, can you name any head of state in the western world in the past ~150 years that's been assassinated by anyone other than the 'lone gunman'?

HAHAHAAHA And naturally this power can only be held by those with magical royal blood and can only be exercised provided she and her spawn live lavishly at the expense of others. No you're just delusional. Worth noting is that my post was tongue and cheek and directed at an entirely different type of opponent. I honestly didn’t expect someone to come in and defend ****ing “royalism” but I shouldn’t be surprised. Nice argument. You going to actually back up any of these assertions, or just be confident in your ignorance? I have no idea about you or where you're from or where you've got your ideas from, I wouldn't presume to judge. However, suggesting that (and I'm speaking purely about the British monarchy here, not some general notion of royalty) the British monarchy have any power at all is absolute rubbish. That is fact. They exist for the reasons Walsingham and myself have already stated. As a figurehead, as a tourist attraction, as diplomats and as a final check on any evil genius schemes a British Vladimir Putin might have. Even that is a one shot weapon as the first time she tried to use it, you can bet it'd be taken away from her. In conclusion, British constitutional monarchistic democracy is a vastly different beast to other forms of government and I'd suggest you not make wild statements based on a foundation of apparently no knowledge whatsoever. You're incredibly naive about the nature of your own monarchy. No power? By virtue of their wealth, notoriety, and the fact they have legions of defenders such as yourself alone they have power. For one example of modern royal power in the age of the tourist attraction myth you should familiarize yourself with the story of Gough Whitlam, though I imagine you'll make excuses and ignore the implications of that story, or pretend it's a lone example, which it isn't. At no point in the history of the last ~100 years was the British Monarchy overthrown, and Edward VII's heirs, incompetent though some of them were, did not give up power out of the kindness of their hearts. One of the biggest myths in this world is that your queen is just a tourist attraction.

It's rarely the same people...

Yep.... It definitely needs to go. Easier said than done though. J.F.K. was seriously talking about doing so, and look what happened to him. He got shot by a random American commie. There's quite a bit more to it than that.

Yep.... It definitely needs to go. Easier said than done though. J.F.K. was seriously talking about doing so, and look what happened to him.

It's anything but funny, and if you think this stuff is limited to the U.S. government you're naive. In fact, if your government is a part of NATO, chances are that they directly supported some of this evil, and definitely indirectly did if not directly. Other nations outside of NATO were (and I'm sure still are) complicit in these evils as well, notably China (since you mentioned them) for one.

There is no evidence of this. But regardless of whether he was guilty of such a thing or not: Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted. and... and, if they happen to be working for the U.S. Federal government they should be fired/impeached and if in a part of the executive very likely tried for crimes associated with violating the 8th amendment with a likelihood of others as well.

"Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun." - Mao Zedong A lot of people fail to realize just what this means... Vals can you respond to my question so you don't keep making accusations against me " do you think Al-Qaeda committed 9/11" ? Ha! All in good time. I've had more important things to do, but worry not, I shall respond to your insincere question. Might be another day or three though before I have time to compose a proper response.

And my question to you is who you'd rather have at the apex of the legal pyramid. A career liar? A sociopath who wants to kill people who wear glasses for asking too many questions? I, sir, am an ardent Royalist. Not sure if you guys are really Royalists but I'm going to be honest. As an outsider who visits the UK, and can see how much the Royal family does for the UK generally on numerous levels, it always amazes me that there are people who live in the UK yet who don't appreciate the Royal family or treats them with disdain Royalists are the bane of freedom, the epitome of serf minded, the poster boys of the brainwashed.

Yep.... There are a lot of psychopaths out there if you haven't noticed. Your prince is one of them. "In the event that I am reincarnated, I would like to return as a deadly virus, in order to contribute something to solve overpopulation." - Prince Charles of Wales Off his head already, and his mum's too. Then perhaps the nation you live in will cease to be a nation of serfs. Oh, and don't forget his kids. They're a head too tall as well.

"Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun." - Mao Zedong A lot of people fail to realize just what this means...

I Origins 8/10

I'm genuinely intrigued. Do you get drunk before these posts, or do they get you high in their own right? Eric Garner was killed for not paying his protection money. He simply wasn't paying his dues. NYC government considers itself head of the cigarette cartel in the city, and killed this man while enforcing that cartel's position. One has to be intoxicated on koolaide to not see that for what it is. I'm sorry but that's nonsense, Garner wasn't assassinated by the police for not paying protection money. You are starting to sound like Vals, next thing you will be expecting us to believe that 9/11 wasn't committed by Al-Qaeda He died while resisting arrest, you do know that arresting arrest is illegal right? Grossly misinterpreting someone else and in putting words they never wrote or uttered in your post as if they stated them. as usual. He didn't say anyone was assassinated. He said: "NYC government considers itself head of the cigarette cartel in the city, and killed this man while enforcing that cartel's position." [bolding mine for emphasis on what he stated in contrast to what you stated he said.] You're essentially a socialist. If there's anyone that I've seen post on this board that is a card carrying Marxist, knowing or unknowing, it's you. Coincidentally (or not), if there's one person I've see on this forum spout mainstream marxist narrative BS as if it's the truth again and again, it's you. You slurp up mainstream western propaganda like a starving pig slurps at his trough and then gleefully plops into your pile of poo slinging it everywhere, as to you the world looks better covered that way, and nevermind if the other creatures in it don't want it that way. You think you know better for people on the other side of the world what is good for them than they do. You support all sorts of evil BS that oppresses, ruins, and quite literally destroys lives. In your mind you probably actually think you're doing good, but the reality is you've been seduced by evil that appeals to your base emotions and superficial thinking at the expense of reason, logic, immediate and long term realities. I certainly do not expect you to see the forest through the trees you've surrounded yourself with and correctly see the situation for what it is. You support all sorts of laws, and fail to realize (or just don't really care) that every law that's ever passed is ultimately enforced at the end of a barrel of a gun if it's enforced. Even the ridiculous ones than many ignoramuses think are nothing but helpful such as an excessive tax on cigarettes, or a must wear seat belt law. Sometimes, that gun is fired, literally or figuratively, but it is always aimed during enforcement, if not literally then figuratively as threat is there. Unfortunately for Eric Garner, he was killed during the enforcement a law that people such as yourself wanted enacted and enforced. People who think they know better for others what's good for them than they do and would deprive such people of the basic freedoms to decide for themselves, as well as wants the state to enforce your ideas upon others. And with force, as that's the only way it's done. The State is force. "Government is not reason; it is not eloquent; it is force. Like fire, it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master." - Washington You would burn the world with the oppressive fire of your ideal government if you could, knowingly or unknowningly. As for 9/11. You're the one who keeps bringing that up, not I. I'm pretty positive I've never actually directly discussed 9/11 on these forums. Some time back I did make a couple of posts about cognitive dissonance and linked a video discussing it, in part in the context of 9/11. You suffer so much from cognitive dissonance that you failed to see the entire point of the video. Instead suffering a knee-jerk reaction because something in it went against a fragile world view that you need to preserve for yourself so much you close your eyes to various truths all around you, and would marginalize or 'kill the messenger' rather than receive the message.

I'm genuinely intrigued. Do you get drunk before these posts, or do they get you high in their own right? Eric Garner was killed for not paying his protection money. He simply wasn't paying his dues. NYC government considers itself head of the cigarette cartel in the city, and killed this man while enforcing that cartel's position. One has to be intoxicated on koolaide to not see that for what it is. I'd call it indoctrinated brainwashing rather than koolaid intoxication, as they're just thinking what they've been trained to think sine they were little kids if they don't see it for what it is, but you're 100% right on. Very few of us grow up in an environment where we are taught to question everything, including authority. On the contrary, one of the major purposes of public education is to teach people to mindlessly subject themselves to authority. The validity of the police and many other established institutions are not to be questioned. The fact of the matter is, that if you don't question everything at some point, you're not truly thinking or truly aware of the world around you, you're in a box.

Lucky him. Most of the rest of us would go blind.

In Finland public spending in our school system and culture is 6.6 billion euros (8.1 billion dollars), which includes schooling for everyone from kindergartens to universities and public support for arts, sports and research, if we multiply it with proportional population difference between Finland and USA (about 60) we get about 490 billion dollars, which is less than what they say USA uses to public elementary and secondary schools. http://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id=66 So I would guess that it is not just government aid in higher education that makes things more expensive. The amount of spending on something does not mean whatever it is, is necessarily expensive. This is certainly not the case with K-12 in the U.S., as the actual expenses paid by the public school systems are generally the same as what a private K-12 school's would be. The public school systems tend to spend a lot more though, but in general they do not need to. The reason for the amount of spending on K-12 in the U.S. varies by locale, but in most of them the biggest reasons so much money is spent comes down to two things. 1. Pure waste. ie: buying crap that's totally unnecessary for the classroom (like a plethora of state of the art computers at government high prices to teach history), remodeling old or building new buildings far far more often than they need to be, spending stupid amounts of $$$ on high salaries for educational bureaucrats, spending millions on a 'state of the art' sports facility, the list goes on..... 2. People who think throwing money at something will solve problem X. There are a lot of people out there deluded with the idea that education is underfunded, that the various problems in the education system can be solved with $$$. And no matter how many times that budget has gone up, it's still underfunded in many people's minds (these people are not well grounded in reality and facts). #2 leads to more #1. Now, there are certainly some places in the U.S. that could use some better funding (most notably some inner city areas), but even there it's likely more a situation of misallocation of funds (See #1 vs decent salaries for teachers and the basics like good books). That said, the big problems plaguing your average inner city are such that no amount of money is going to solve them, as many fundamental issues grow out of societal and cultural problems that transcend education. ie: sh*tty parents. There is a world of difference in how public K-12 is funded in the U.S. vs how 'higher education' is funded. Comparing them as you wish to is comparing apples and oranges. And without a doubt for anyone who understands and is familiar with the issue, the #1 driver for how expensive higher education has become in the U.S. is the Federal Student Loan programs.

Just because all facets of a society/government/bureaucracy are not X, doesn't mean that some of aspects of it are not. Note that I said 'drift towards communism and fascism'. The U.S. is not a communist state yet, nor do I think it will ever be fully. An amalgamation of communism and fascism however is definitely on the horizon and in large part already here. And yea... much of Europe is largely communist. They're turning into soviets of the EU over there. Many have argued they already have, notably including Mikhail Gorbachev. I call spades spades. I don't refer to fascism as 'crony capitalism' and I generally don't call communism/Marxism 'socialism' or anything other than what it is, nor do I make excuses for either. People who do have been deluded or have evil intent. The former far outnumbers the latter. As ever: 'None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free.' - Geothe

Eric Garner's daughter gets it:

If I was to draw a conclusion from that it would be that the 90% of those not in the elite, don't work? Because they aren't all first generation immigrants. Besides, that isn't really relevant to the question I was asking. The US is a large economy and some individuals, like Schwarzenegger, come a long way from nothing. But an individual should not have to be as rich as he is to be able to afford good education (that would not send a family into debt), health care, etc. for his children? Or even necessarily in the middle class, let alone the 1%? If there is so much wealth to go around (and there is, many times more so than in France, Germany, UK etc.) then why are some of the basic services a government should provide on the level of a third world country? The last official comparisons placed US health care in the same category as Cuba. And Cuba has been living under a US enforced embargo and in poverty for over 50 years. You don't need to be rich to afford a good education in the US. What is wrong with taking on debt to pay for school? It's part of a social contract, they are offered at extremely low interest rates, and you are given a long time to pay them back. I certainly don't regret the $40,000 I spent on college and grad school, I've been paying it off slowly over the last decade and now only have $7k left on the loan. That's without my parents help. My parents paid for my first year of school, which came out to about $10k. After that I got a part time job and managed my debt carefully. Some people make dumb decisions about how much debt they take on, but there are plenty of chances to succeed without drowning yourself. I'll agree with out health care being screwed. I've got insurance and I still have a pile of ridiculous medical bills sitting on my desk right now. Why take on a debt when the state can provide it for free, or close to it? Why take on large amounts of debt when if the state isn't involved the price of education is affordable to the average person. Prior to Department of Education getting involved in student loans paying for even the most prestigious schools in the U.S. was feasible for anyone who was willing to work and go to school at the same time. It's how it was done by a great many people up until the mid 80s or so. While the Federal student loan programs started sooner, it took a little while (as it always does) for the negative affects to be seen and those college prices, set by greedy and irresponsible trustees and college bureaucracies, began skyrocketing due to guaranteed funding by the Feds. (Note: that college prices are only one of the negative affects of the Federal Student Loan programs) It's largely the same reason a lot of medical prices in the U.S. are ridiculous, Near unlimited federal money begets corruption and price inflation, and a whole heckuvalot of it. One shouldn't have to take out loans equivalent to a very nice house mortgage in order to get a good higher education. Hurlshot is a happy debt slave with $40k in loans for something that wasn't needed a few generations ago to do his job but is required by his beloved state now, and something that cost a fraction of what it does now just a generation ago. He thinks he signed a social contract at some point and that everyone else did too, even though no such thing exists. Lucky for him he was actually able to find a job in his field. A very large number of college grads with 5 or 6 figures of debt cannot. Hurlshot chooses to be ignorant of that problem though because his life is good and he believes in the mythic socialist utopian 'social contract' Also, one should be able to dispose of those loans in the same manner as any other in bankruptcy court if need be, but one cannot and millions of people are shackled as debt slaves in the U.S. as a result. The federal student loan program is very arguably the greatest evil the U.S. government has perpetrated on it's populace. Perhaps even moreso than the income tax. Hmmmm... both of those evils benefit the same people! Wonder why.....

It was manslaughter if not murder. What would I have done? What any reasonable person would have and not assaulted the guy to begin with. And if I'd somehow lost my mind temporarily and felt the need to tackle the guy I'd have let up when the guy said he couldn't breathe. I certainly wouldn't have put him in a choke hold unless the guy had made and obvious attempt on my life, as I'm well aware (as anyone should be; especially anyone who has training/experience in any kind of hand to hand combat) just how dangerous and potentially deadly those are. Had I been one of the other people there and seen the whole thing unfold, I'd have been screaming at the police to get the bleep off the guy. Had I been one of the other police there, I'd have told my fellow officers to step off, and if necessary physically forced them to after the guy indicated he couldn't breathe. Unfortunately things are so @#(!ed up now that as a citizen I likely wouldn't physically get involved as the police would have likely shot me and people like yourself would have justified it. No. Once upon a time it was that way. But for the better part of a century now it's not been that simple, and the more and more we drift towards communism and fascism that is less and less the case. The U.S. is still one of the best places to live, and it's still one of the best places on earth to go from near nothing to something, but that avenue has gotten a lot harder to find and travel. And to say that the U.S. is still one of the best places is not as much saying the U.S. is a good place now, it's just that near everywhere else is worse. Compared to what it once was, the modern U.S. has a nightmarishly oppressive government. What the U.S. still has over more other nations though is better tools to become what it once was, and a larger portion of the populace than pretty much anywhere else on earth that appreciates real freedom. The bad thing is, as large as that portion of the populace is, it's become dwarfed by legions of zombies sucking the teet of the state or mindlessly supporting the state in the various evils it perpetrates home and abroad. A lot of people have unwittingly come to support fascism and communism in the U.S., and near as many if not more are just mindlessly watching snookie or 'professional sports' game X and couldn't even name the three major branches of government.

They aren't running around harassing, assaulting, or killing people and getting away with it on a daily basis.... It's hard to have a reasonable conversation when you throw out hyperbole like this. I support law enforcement reform, I want to see way more accountability, I want a dramatic shift in the way police interact with their communities. Do you support these things? How do you expect to achieve any of them if you treat every police officer as some thug who goes around harassing, assaulting, and killing people on a daily basis? Do you recognize how hostile (and frankly unrealistic) that sounds? It's weird to me that the same people that want to yell at the police for not respecting the ideals of innocent until proven guilty are so fast to condemn an entire police force without evidence. There is no hyperbole here. You choose to be ignorant of what is common amongst police, and what their job actually is. You choose to buy into the propaganda that we need law X, need police, and that they are the good guys. Hey.. I once thought that way too. It's hard not too.. that's the BS we're fed in this nation of ours as we grow up. But then I saw and experienced some things that opened my eyes and changed my mind. I never said every police officer is a thug. You did. Nearly every police officer (the ones on the streets anyways) do go around harassing people every day. Some may do it politely, but they do it just the same. People are indeed assaulted on a daily basis in this nation, and killed on an almost daily basis. Most of the assaults go unreported, and a great many of them are ignored. Some of those killings (like Michael Brown) were justified, but a great many of them are not. And of the latter, it is extremely rare for the offending officer to be held accountable for their actions. And that's because of people such as yourself who think the cops are the good guys, and because of that 'bro' code mentioned in this thread where even otherwise good police cover, condone, or don't speak out against evil action X taken by their fellow policemen. And that makes them bad police. You speak of reform? Well... that's feasible in some departments, unneeded in others (there are some well run police departments out there), and impossible with some (ie: LA, Albuquerque). You can't reform what is rotten to the core. You need to throw it out and find something new or nothing at all. It's something to be handled on a local/state basis however. Unfortunately there are far too many people such as yourself right now that assume the system works and that we need much of the system at all. The truth is that system is a bleeping nightmare for tens of millions of people.

They aren't running around harassing, assaulting, or killing people and getting away with it on a daily basis....

No way that's not due to corruption. Police aside, it's way too easy to get disability retirement in states like New York or California. I personally know numerous people who have such retirement, and those who really truly are permanently disabled vs those who are gaming the system are in the minority. I also worked i the disability department of a large insurance company for awhile... some of the things I saw (corruption by those insured as well as by the insurance company) would outrage a lot of people.