Jingus

The most recent update in that doctrine was fifteen years ago... in which they said that cross-burning was perfectly legal.

I really don't understand the scorn here, or the mischaracterizing of what I've said. I never once said that any of the crackers in this were in the right, or that racism is acceptable, or that any of this makes sense. I just don't see how it's a good idea for a minority to attack the majority in an illegal manner where there's nothing to gain and lots to lose. I'm sure emotions were running high, I'm sure the prick was throwing around the n-word like Tarantino, but there's still no good reason for them to have beaten the dude when others were watching and there's no possible way they could've gotten away with it.

I'm saying if they'd never committed felonious assault in the first place, this particular issue wouldn't exist. Were they provoked? Absolutely. Is it a miscarriage of justice? Absolutely. Are the people in charge here racist? Absolutely. Is racism bad? Absolutely. Are the sentences excessive? Absolutely. Do they deserve to be appealed and overturned? Absolutely. Do the people involved deserve to be fired for corruption and incompetence? Absolutely. Should there be crowds of protestors screaming against this travesty? Absolutely. Does the town deserve to be lambasted in the media? Absolutely. Does all that make it a good idea for a black person to beat up a white one in a town controlled by white racists? Absolutely not.

Not saying that the SHOULD try to expand to national status. Just saying that they can't, at least not now. As to the regional thing, part of that is just personal geographic bias. I've lived in three different states now, and not only has ROH never run any of them, they've never run any of the states bordering them. I don't understand why they refuse to ever run any shows in Red State territory.

Smart? Maybe. I don't know if they went into it with the premeditated notion that "he's black, we're white, we shouldn't see jail time". Right? Absolutely not. In moral terms, they had every "right" to whip that guy's ass, but was it worth getting an inevitably draconian prison sentence over it? I'm not saying either the guy who got beaten, the white guys who did the previous beating, or any of the people involved in the trials are in the right. They're not. They've obviously racist shitheels who are manipulating a corrupt system for their own purpose. My point here is that in this town, laws and ethics obviously are only on a nodding relationship, and right doesn't equal smart. Okay, bad example. Yes, this should absolutely receive a ton of media coverage (even though that doesn't always work, West Memphis Three...) Yes, this town should be covered in protestors like an Ani Difranco concert is covered in lesbians. But obviously if you break the law within city limits and you're black, the good ol' boys down at the po-lice station are gonna give you some good ol' fashioned Southern "justice". So don't break the law. You already know that if you give them any excuse, they're gonna fuck you up.

And they lost control, acted emotionally, and are now being fucked over as a direct result. It may have been the natural response, but it sure as hell wasn't the smart one. As to the white guy: of course it's stupid to shout slurs at a group of other-raced people. The difference is, it's not illegal. He technically had a constitutional right to do it. Of course nobody should just go "oh well, dems da breaks boss" and forget about this. But don't break the law, especially when your enemies are the ones in power to enforce those laws. Do it like MLK, not like Malcolm X.

Just grab Bentley Little's short story collection. Don't remember the name of it offhand, but it should be in any standard bookstore.

Show me where I ever once said that Saddam did anything to America and you might have a point there.

How about just not breaking the law and giving their persecutors the excuse they wanted? They sure as hell shouldn't answer that stuff in the form of beating a dude six-on-one in front of a shitload of witnesses. What, they didn't think they'd be arrested? The town is obviously run by racist motherfuckers, they didn't think they'd be convicted and have the book thrown at them in sentencing? Like I ALREADY said, they certainly don't deserve the ludicrously disproportionate penalties that they're now suffering, but they were dumb to place themselves in such a position at all. You can't just take the law into your own hands vigilante-styles, period.

Are you kidding? ROH isn't going to be a national fed anytime soon, if ever. For that you need national TV, and a real PPV, not just a glorified informercial that is pretaped, airs on different dates on different cable providers, and has the end goal of selling more DVDs off the website. Plus, to run nationally, you'd have to Run Nationally, a problem ROH has always had with refusing to run shows outside of their Northeastern stonghold (and no, the England/Japan/Cali shows don't count, they're rare exceptions). Danielson is a goddamned idiot for going back into the ring with the same guy who hurt him just a mere three weeks after suffering a crushed orbital bone and a detached retina. I've got one buddy who suffered a detached retina two years ago that kept him from wrestling because one bad impact, one wayward strike, and he'd be blind in that eye permanently.

Not saying it's fair, at all. Just saying you shouldn't expect to be able to beat someone up and get away with it. Especially if you're black and live in a racist town, how dumb do you have to be to attack a white guy in front of witnesses when you know most likely that they're going to lock you up and throw away the key? It's sort of like being a hot girl walking around dark alleys at night in a bad part of town. Morally you've done nothing wrong, but don't be surprised if you turn up assaulted.

Rawk, we've found our new "the room is spinning/I froze/when I was a dog/how come did" catchphrase. Bingo.

Nation building: taking a devastated post-war nation, throwing out its former leadership, and rebuilding the infrastructure and political process. What's your definition? And c'mon, don't duck the question like that, do you really think I'm some kind of right-winger kkkonservative who think the sun shines out of GWB's asshole?

Are you serious? The Allies blew the shit out of those countries, destroying the vast majority of the infrastructure. We had to literally rebuild them from the ground up. And it worked. Do you really think I'm a Bush cheerleader? Really? Here's a question: from what you believe you know about me, describe my actions on election day 2000.

Yeah, those poor innocent kids who got suckered into gang-beating the shit out of one guy til he was hospitalized, we need to help the real victims in this case, RODNEY KING DAMMIT. Of course the sentences were unfair and out of proportion to their crime, but but it's not like they're innocent bystanders being framed for something they didn't do.

Bullshit. Germany and Japan are two big examples. And no, Iraq isn't like Vietnam. When the Iraq casualties have become more than a small fraction of Vietnam's, when we're pushed out of the region and retreat like we did in Saigon, and most especially when the draft is reinstated, then you might have an argument. Til then? No, they're quite different.

I want a medal for everything. And gold stars, lots of 'em.

To be fair, it wasn't just that match, Danielson and especially Morishima are both guys who tend to work snug at damn near all times.

Some far more than others. For example, I love my cats. But if I was in one of those Madman With A Gun situations where I ran into a dude with a gun in each hand, one aimed at a kitty, and the other pointed at a human, and he stopped babbling in tongues long enough to demand me to choose which one he shot, guess what? Bye-bye pussy. The interests of humans supercede the interests of lower lifeforms. We are more important than them. And even if we weren't, shit, they can't stop us anyway.

Oh yeah, if you can establish a pattern of dickishness, that's one thing. I was thinking more about the types of marks who met Benoit once at an autograph signing and proclaimed him an all-around nice guy, or similar situations.

Or maybe he's one of those incredibly rare human beings who have different moods at different times, and might not react the same way from one time and place to the next? Sorry for being snarky, but I've seen so many online discussions where someone definitively stated that another person was either a great guy or an asshole based on one brief meeting.

I'm a human. I care about humans. I don't give a fuck about nonsentient lower life forms if they don't affect us.

Congratulations, Douche, you just guaranteed that I'm gonna pay good money to see this movie.

Oh boy, how I love me some mindless Bush cheerleading! Please try to pay attention here, Eric.

That's my bad, I read it wrong. Miscounted the zeroes and thought 1000000 was 10000000. But even though my numbers were flagrantly off, my original point was right: the Baathists killed way more people than the civil war has. Iraq is doing better. Not because it's doing all that GOOD, but because of how bad it was before, I really think you're strongly underestimating just how much of an evil mass-murderer Hussein was.