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Shame and guilt are wonderful checks and balances. If you overindulge and eat too much, you get fat, and then it’s much harder to find an attractive mate, or even breath normally.
I’m saying this after I just ate a bunch of oreos and could stand to do some sit-ups, of course.
Who wants to be a Darth anyway?
A lot of people, apparently.
http://originaltrilogy.com/topic/Too-Many-Darths-on-the-Forum/id/12181/page/1
Sad
Jeebus said:
I don’t think those problems are the fault of porn, they’re the fault of America’s “unenlightened” view of sex.
A recently published study of 434 adult males has linked extensive use of pornography to sexual dysfunction. The research, conducted in Europe…
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-weiss/understanding-porninduced_b_11668932.html
From the UK:
http://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/700371/erectile-dysfunction-porn-sex
I don’t think they are that smart. And the Paul Ryan’s and Mitch McConnell’s of the world aren’t really on their side either.
moviefreakedmind said:
Now this is an example of not separating between cultures and governments. It’d be like saying that having an asshole for a dictator is part of North Korean culture (although the cult-like devotion to him is part of the culture).
So if you live in the United States, particularly in low-income or middle class areas where the average enlisted personnel are drawn from, you would be familiar with the slavish patriotism many of these people and their families possess. The kids are targeted by military recruiters or family members or peers when they are teenagers, then the mindset is cultivated into early adulthood. Some of them believe it’s a noble idea to go over to a foreign country and shoot some “sand people”, or whatever racist epithet is dujour for the day. Their family members are proud that their sons and daughters are “serving their country” and “defending our freedom”, which are high ideals of course, but seldom or never is it brought up that they may simply be used pawns in a global game of kleptocracy. At best, their child is just a cog in a wheel that brings death and destruction and mayhem to all those backwards people you so eagerly criticize, while enriching a small number of politicians and businessmen in the process, and at worst, some of those soldiers and sailors and airmen and marines are actually doing very bad things to innocent civilians in those far away lands.
The culture of war is endemic in the United States. It is in our DNA, considering we evolved from the people who got off the boat and started slaughtering the natives and stealing their land. You might want to consider this part of American history, from a few hundred years ago, up until what we currently do throughout the Middle East, before you continue with your indefensible position.
moviefreakedmind said:
What pornographic companies advertise to youth? As for violence, if you’re talking about violence in media, I don’t care about that at all; there’s no evidence that it is harmful at all.
The ubiquity of porn particularly in the internet age and the ease of its accessibility to youth (and everyone) is the problem. We have an existential porn problem in our western culture, there’s no question about it. On its face, there isn’t anything wrong with adults indulging in a little erotic material, and it’s important for humans to have healthy sex lives. However, without checks and balances, over-indulgence can lead to serious psychological and physical maladies. There is empirical evidence that increased pornography use has lead to sexual dysfunction in a growing number of men. Studies have shown that boys and girls exposed to pornography have very unhealthy views of what constitutes normal sex. There are now record amounts of women who are spending insane amounts of money on things like labiaplasty because they have become addicted to watching pornography, and suddenly don’t think their bits are as attractive as a porn star’s. Meanwhile, when you read a stat that labiaplasties are up 100% in the last two years and it’s suddenly a billion dollar industry, remember those first world problems and compare them to the starvation and disease that often runs rampant in those backward countries you were just complaining about.
moviefreakedmind said:
I doubt that most of the cultures I’ve alluded to have better education systems. Maybe they value education more than in the US, which is certainly good, but I’m still in favor of a lesser education system than widespread acceptance of religious extremism or female genital mutilation. I suspect that you probably are too.
A lot of the things you are complaining about are endemic to poor, politically unstable countries. In many of those countries, their political instability can be traced by to actions taken by western governments. Take Iran, for example. Was a progressive, westernized nation. The British and Americans kicked out its government and installed a puppet regime in order to expropriate all of the oil out of the country cheaply. After a couple decades of repression and theft, they revolted and put a bunch of religious nutcases in charge.
Look at Cuba. Looted by the Mafia and multinationals until Castro came to power. Could have still been an ally but American business interests who wanted back in the country said no, so they turned to the USSR. They then lived in extreme poverty for decades because of American sanctions that were a direct result of, once again, western business interests wanting to loot the country.
Look at most of the poor countries in Africa. Or Central America. And on and on.
There seems to be a common thing here…
Anyone who spends a lot of time traveling around the world comes to realize that while there are many aspects of other cultures that are bad, there are also a number of areas where other cultures are better than ours. In my travels I’ve been struck by some areas where our U.S. culture is really bad compared to others. To wit:
- In most cultures, families care for their elderly relatives. We largely abandon our elderly.
- In most cultures, being uneducated in math or science is considered embarrassing. Here it is often a badge of honor.
- Most cultures know a LOT about what is going on in other countries. Here, we mostly have very little idea what is going on outside of the U.S.
- Most cultures have far less obesity than we do.
- Most cultures revere educators. Here, educators are routinely derided.
- Most cultures eat more vegetables and less sugar than we do.
- Most cultures drive far less than we do.
- In most cultures, everyone knows their neighbors.
- Most cultures revolve around small, local businesses. Here, Wal-Mart rules.
- Most cultures value money less than ours.
- Most cultures value art MUCH more highly than ours.
- Most cultures have less violent crime, and far fewer shootings than ours.
My point is, we may be “great”, but we’re not even close to perfect. We can learn a LOT from other cultures, and would benefit from adopting many aspects of other cultures. Which leads me to my final example - most cultures (with a couple of notable exceptions) aren’t as gol-darn stubbornly insistent that they are better than everyone else!!!
Great post, Puggo. People like to focus on the aspects of other cultures that they feel are inferior to theirs, and sure there are always going to be some things like that. But then, like you said, even cultures we might think are backwards, will be superior to ours in some ways.
Yeah, but I don’t think that having better art or better food makes up for stuff like honor killing, female genital mutilation, and marriage to youth. I doubt you do either.
No, I don’t agree with those things. And I don’t think they necessarily have better art or food, although they could. But do they remote pilot drones across the globe and drop bombs on wedding parties? Do they pedal porn and violence towards youths? Maybe they have a better education system, seeing as how American students are ranked near the bottom of the developed world at reading comprehension and math scores. Maybe they have lower divorce rates and therefore children aren’t being raised by over-worked, single parents.
They may have less inequality and better health care. And on and on it goes.
Who wants to be a Darth anyway?
nickyd47 said:
Alderaan is butt hurt because the Death Star blew him up
We are a peaceful people, we have no weapons.
Looks like she’s getting killed on social media for wasting everyone’s time.
I’ve watched her plenty of times. That’s exactly what she does. She gives the non-thinking left the same thing that Hannity and Limbaugh and O’Reilly and those jokers give the non-thinking right. Just political spew and red meat.
TV’s Frink said:
Those things all helped.
She lost because:
She lost because she was a bad candidate who people didn’t want to vote for. Some Democrats understood this almost immediately after election night, did some self-reflection, and will grow and make positive political contributions in the future. Others cried and blamed other people and looked for every excuse they could find for why they didn’t win. Hillary Clinton, Robby Mook, Rachel Maddow, their fire is going out of the universe I’m afraid.
She also made a fool of herself during and after the election, crying on air and blaming everything from the FBI to Russian spies to racist and homophobic suburbanites for electing Trump and sabotaging poor dear leader Hillary, who was just plain simply one of the most venal, corrupt, and incompetent major candidates in U.S. political history.
TV’s Frink said:
She’d look pretty stupid if she was hyping something that isn’t new.
She looks and sounds stupid all the time. Nothing new for her.
TV’s Frink said:
How so?
She’s the left-wing equivalent of Hannity or Limbaugh. She doesn’t report or give an intelligent take on anything, just plays to the base’s fears that the other side is the deepest darkest nightmare of political spew that they are always caricatured to be.
Can’t stand any of them, regardless of their political beliefs.
That loser Fitzgerald has a history of making provocative statements. He had some controversy before for saying that Christians aren’t allowed to be Democrats. The guy is a nutter.
https://twitter.com/maddow/status/841807273513107456
It’s his 1040 from 2005.
Isn’t that the same one that was leaked during the campaign?
Maddow is such a hack.
Trumpy isn’t a private citizen anymore.
I thought he was entitled to privacy for his records from previous years, and only his years in office would have to be disclosed to the public.
But apparently, that’s false…although not in the way you would expect.
Individual income tax returns–including those of public figures–are private information, according to the IRS.
MSNBC says they have Trump’s tax returns and will air them tonight. Seems like he could sue them for everything they are worth and might even lead to a criminal prosecution. Can’t imagine that’s lawful to obtain and release a private person’s tax returns against their wishes.
Anyone who spends a lot of time traveling around the world comes to realize that while there are many aspects of other cultures that are bad, there are also a number of areas where other cultures are better than ours. In my travels I’ve been struck by some areas where our U.S. culture is really bad compared to others. To wit:
- In most cultures, families care for their elderly relatives. We largely abandon our elderly.
- In most cultures, being uneducated in math or science is considered embarrassing. Here it is often a badge of honor.
- Most cultures know a LOT about what is going on in other countries. Here, we mostly have very little idea what is going on outside of the U.S.
- Most cultures have far less obesity than we do.
- Most cultures revere educators. Here, educators are routinely derided.
- Most cultures eat more vegetables and less sugar than we do.
- Most cultures drive far less than we do.
- In most cultures, everyone knows their neighbors.
- Most cultures revolve around small, local businesses. Here, Wal-Mart rules.
- Most cultures value money less than ours.
- Most cultures value art MUCH more highly than ours.
- Most cultures have less violent crime, and far fewer shootings than ours.
My point is, we may be “great”, but we’re not even close to perfect. We can learn a LOT from other cultures, and would benefit from adopting many aspects of other cultures. Which leads me to my final example - most cultures (with a couple of notable exceptions) aren’t as gol-darn stubbornly insistent that they are better than everyone else!!!
Great post, Puggo. People like to focus on the aspects of other cultures that they feel are inferior to theirs, and sure there are always going to be some things like that. But then, like you said, even cultures we might think are backwards, will be superior to ours in some ways.
That includes the people who claim to like a few cultures which have most assimilated their own.
In this thread we learned that people don’t like cultures different from their own. Great.
Funny, I don’t recall ever defending the '97 SE.
It’s no less worthy of being preserved than anything else with the Star Wars brand on it though.
If someone likes the '97 SE, then I would defend their right to preserve it just as I do the originals. And George absolutely had a right to make a Director’s Cut and release his “true version”, whatever that was.
But he had no right to try and quash the OOT because of his own insecurities as a man and as a filmmaker.
Kellyanne should trademark that fake hair color she has and just call it tinfoil blonde.
I can’t resist: If you could watch episodes 1-6 in order then all the exposition about the Force wouldn’t be in 4!
Great point, Tallguy. More proof that 1-6 is just indulgent rubbernecking, “George Lucas and the Universe of Star Wars” story.
Took down the last video and uploaded a new one. Still need to adjust the luma curve on a few digital shots, and there might be one or two near the end that still need color work, but for the most part I’ve taken the artificial colors out of these first 3+ minutes.
Battle of Yavin edit:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a04fbHf9fT4&feature=youtu.be
It already came out that some of the NSA people were using those programs to spy on their spouses/lovers.
But we already knew that from True Lies.
It’s really bizarre how the Democrats have turned into the police state advocates.
I don’t know how they can even pretend to call themselves liberal and still sleep at night…