India Becomes First Nation To Recognize Individual Right Of Self Ownership

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The day we have waited for has finally arrived somewhere. Hopefully it will soon spread much farther.

India Has Just Enacted The Following Governing Declaration:

1. Every individual has the right to life.
2. No individual should be held in captivity or servitude; be subject to cruel treatment; or be removed from their natural environment.
3. All individuals have the right to freedom of movement and residence within their natural environment.
4. No individual is the property of any State, corporation, group or individual.
5. Individuals have the right to the protection of their natural environment.
6. Individuals have the right not to be subject to the disruption of their cultures.
7. The rights, freedoms and norms set forth in this Declaration should be protected under international and domestic law.

And what does it mean to say an all Indians have such “rights”?
Unlike former positive rights, such as the ‘right’ to education or health care, these rights are, at bottom, a right to be left alone.

This new declaration does not call for a government to tax others in order to provide people with food, shelter, and veterinary care. It only requires each of us to stop killing each other and making each other suffer.

– – – –

Wait a minute. I got the text of the declaration wrong. Wherever you see the word individual, substitute the word cetacean.

India is still as oppressive for human sentient beings as anywhere else in the world.

It is only its dolphins, porpoises, and whales who enjoy these simple rights we’ve been seeking to obtain for so long now.

Details:

Cetacean Rights. Fostering Moral and Legal Change.
http://www.cetaceanrights.org

Related:

Bottlenose dolphin in Hawaii asks human to rescue it from a fishing line it had become entangled in.

24 COMMENTS

  1. You misunderstood, but I do apologize for my mixed up message.

    I was just letting you know we had already done what you’d suggested.

    And thanking your mother for raising such an articulate and challenging rhetorician.
    https://i.imgflip.com/t7xko.jpg

    – – –

    You sure did come in here guns’a’blazing, and that’s admirable. I’d be very interested in a discussion of the use of force.
    http://www.thefirearmsforum.com/attachments/liberals-gun-moral-poster-liberal-demotivational-poster-view-jpg.25215/

    You’re a hare, They’re the tortoise. I’m a wandering squirrel. Maybe they might make us all race. But it will all be a con. It won’t be what they say it was. We won’t be who they say they we are. The coward’s way is to sincerely compete in their rigged contests that provide them legitimacy, which nobody wins. We can Hogans Heroes it as a diversion, while the wingnut brigade surrounds the perimeter lays down some covering fire, and you all make your escape while I kipe their nuts then its off to the redoubts to roast their nuts on the campfire and live and fight another day.
    https://i.imgflip.com/t7yeo.jpg

  2. Train in Vain – The Clash

    You say you stand by your man
    Tell me something I don’t understand

    You said you love me and that’s a fact
    And then you left me, said you felt trapped

    Well some things you can explain away
    But the heartache’s in me till this day

    Did you stand by me
    No, not at all
    Did you stand by me
    No way

    All the times
    When we were close
    I’ll remember these things the most

    I see all my dreams come tumbling down
    I can’t be happy without you around
    So all alone I keep the wolves at bay
    And there is only one thing that I can say

    You must explain why this must be
    Did you lie when you spoke to me

    Now I got a job
    But it don’t pay
    I need new clothes
    I need somewhere to stay

    But without all these things I can do
    But without your love I won’t make it through

    But you don’t understand my point of view
    I suppose there’s nothing I can do

    Did you stand by me
    No, not at all
    Did you stand by me
    No way

    Mick Jones – Train in Vain
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3wU65Ka0Lq8

    Love In Vain – Rolling Stones Cover of Robert Johnson

    I followed her to the station with a suitcase in my hand
    And I followed her to the station with a suitcase in my hand
    Well it’s hard to tell, it’s hard to tell, when all your love’s in vain

    When the train rolled up to the station, I looked her in the eye
    When the train rolled up to the station, and I looked her in the eye
    Well I was lonesome I felt so lonesome, and I could not help but cry

    The train it left the station, was two lights on behind
    When the train it left the station, was two lights on behind
    Well the blue light was my blues and the red light was my mind

    The Rolling Stones – Love In Vain (Live Texas 1972)
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ryRDcE2sB2A

  3. Security Check – Han Song

    My wife and I are celebrating our twentieth anniversary today. After work, I walk to the mall and pick out a necklace for her; then I walk to the subway station in the mall to take the train home.

    Subway stations are everywhere in New York City, and I do mean everywhere. The lines connect the most expensive neighborhoods with the poorest slums, and stations can be found in every shopping center, office building, theater, restaurant, nightclub, bar, church . . .

    A group of security agents, dressed in black uniforms with red armbands, are stationed at the entrance. They stand with their arms held behind their backs, their feet planted firmly apart, and survey the crowd with cold gazes. I try to go by them nonchalantly, but my legs start going rubbery as soon as I meet their gaze. I take off my jacket without prompting and place it—the necklace nestled in a pocket—and my briefcase into the yawning, dark maw of the x-ray machine.

    After the security check, they place a “safe” sticker on my chest.
    Dazed and numb, I get on the subway. All the other passengers are also wearing “safe” stickers. Preoccupied, none of us say a word.

    We’re at my stop. I walk home. My wife is already there. Trembling, I take out the necklace and hand it to her. She forces a smile and tries on the necklace once before putting it away. We eat dinner in silence, as is our habit. And then we go to bed, lying back to back, both of us quickly falling asleep.

    We first met twenty years ago, also at a subway stop. Back then, everything was falling apart, and lawlessness reigned. One day, someone shouted that a killer was slashing at people in the subway, and we all panicked and stampeded. A woman in front of me fell; I rushed to help her up . . .

    Later, she said to me, “No matter how chaotic the world becomes, as long as you’re with me, I’ll feel safe.”

    Twenty years have passed, and life has been rendered one hundred percent safe, cleansed of all risks, dangers, and perils. It seems we’re left with nothing.
    The loudspeakers installed in our neighborhood wake me up at four in the morning by blaring out the security briefing for the day. Only half awake, I fumble for my phone.

    Old habits die hard. Phones had been abandoned a long time ago, after all the telecom companies ceased operations and the Internet was cut off. All of it had been done to make us safe.

    My wife and I get up and leave separately to take the subway to work. She’s not wearing the necklace I gave her, and I pretend not to notice.

    I walk by myself quietly. Under the dim streetlamps, pedestrians on the sidewalk scurry like a dull, gray swarm of rats, each clutching a briefcase, completely silent. Soon, I reach the station, where long lines of people wait to enter. Although advancing technology has sped up security checks, there are just too many people who must be processed. In this day and age, the subway is the only means of transportation left in the United States of America, all other modes having been outlawed.

    More than an hour later, I finally reach the x-ray machine. Once again, I clench my teeth, and, though I’m fantasizing about striding into the station right past the security checkpoint, I do not even try to step out of line. One time, I did see someone try that stunt, and the security agents seized him right away and dragged him into a small cell next to the platform where they beat him to death as we all listened.

    The train arrives in Manhattan. From the station I enter the office building through a tunnel. One by one, my colleagues arrive, their faces numb with exhaustion. How many of them have entertained the same fantasy of getting on the subway without going through security check?

    In the restroom, Hoffman whispers to me, “Did you try it today?”
    I shake my head. “Why do we suffer from this peculiar yearning?”
    “Freedom.”
    Every time Hoffman utters the word it sounds strange and chilling, even though I’ve heard it countless times.
    He continues, “I want to live a life in which I am trusted, not watched and controlled . . . what about you, Louis?”
    “I want to give my wife a gift. We’ve been married for twenty years.” Once again, I feel terrible. I ask, “When would I ever get a chance to give her a gift that hasn’t been changed?”
    “Women don’t care about that,” Hoffman says; he means to comfort me. “She knows you’ve done your best.”
    “No, she does care. If we keep on going like this, we’re headed for divorce. She and I don’t live in a vacuum. The bond between us—the bond between everyone—requires the sustenance of the ordinary objects of daily life. But whatever we buy ends up passing through the security checkpoints: the food we eat, the water we drink, cups, books, televisions, refrigerators, computers, the beds we sleep on, even wedding bands and condoms . . . you understand.”

    Tears crawl down my face.

    One time, Hoffman told me that the machine they use at security checkpoints isn’t really an x-ray machine. The government confiscates everything you put in; whatever emerges from the machine may look indistinguishable from what went in, but it has in fact been reconstituted. Atom by atom, the new objects are assembled, printed, and returned to the passenger. The process takes but an instant because our technology is so advanced. The new objects conform perfectly to the new American national security standards, with all elements deemed dangerous removed. If the objects contained any gasoline, it would be turned into water; if there were a gun, the bullets would be turned into rubber; if a computer contained harmful knowledge, it would be deleted and replaced with sanitized information.

    Hoffman and I both dream of a day when we can ride the subway without going through security checks, but every time we tried to realize the dream, at the last minute, both of us would lose our courage and our legs would turn to rubber.

    One time, Hoffman told me that some people did enter the subway without being checked.

    “I saw it with my own eyes. One morning, a woman in front of me walked right past the security agents with her purse, bold as you please. The agents stood frozen in place like mannequins.”

    “How was that possible? I saw someone try to do the same thing, but he was beaten to death right then and there,” I said. Was Hoffman hallucinating?
    “It was true,” Hoffman said solemnly.
    “What sort of woman was she?”
    “I only saw that she was young and beautiful. After she went through, she looked back at all of us standing in line and smiled triumphantly.” Hoffman clicked his tongue in admiration.
    “She must have used magic.”
    “Magic, indeed. Perhaps an invisibility cloak . . . or some machine that jammed electromagnetic waves?”

    I can’t remember much about the way things were twenty years ago, only that the country was very unsafe back then. I’ve watched special educational documentaries: the terrible explosions, gunshots, slashing knives, protest marches, petitions to the government, conflicts . . . everyone lived in terror, thinking danger was around every corner. Several times, a random shout or even a single shocked facial expression was enough to cause the crowd on Fifth Avenue to panic and stampede, trampling and injuring hundreds. Security threats were everywhere, as were hidden enemies. The 911 call centers were constantly swamped.

    The White House had to mobilize a great deal of resources to enhance and expand the security system. The federal government took the lead, but the big companies on Wall Street and in Silicon Valley all participated. Through a public-private partnership, they invested money and technology to rebuild the entire city’s infrastructure into a system of security checkpoints. This was extremely important: buffeted by civil unrest and foreign threats, America was sliding down from its peak. It was no longer the hegemon of the world.

    Those old enough to remember say that the nation almost collapsed overnight, barely avoided the fate of becoming a ward under the guardianship of those Chinese coming from over the Pacific. Thank God for the subway, for the security checks. They saved America.

    Not only does the system guarantee safety, but the government is also able to gather all information contained in the objects taken onto the subway by passengers. Now, no one dares to make trouble. Even corruption has been eliminated—not just corruption, but also anything else destabilizing. Even so, the substitution of objects in the machines continues each day. The country still feels insecure. Security and insecurity: the two concepts were sometimes different, but often the same.

    Hoffman tells me that this is fighting terror with terror. The terror produced by the security check mechanism is even more terrible, sufficiently powerful to shatter all other terrors. The price we pay is freedom.

    But . . . the system obviously has holes. Hoffman saw someone enter the subway without going through security check. This was undoubtedly a miracle. Who was that woman who managed to bypass security so easily? Hoffman wanted to find her, but she has never reappeared.

    After work, I go to the supermarket for groceries and then take the subway home, dejected. At the completely silent dinner table, I eat my food, ashamed and with sweat beading on my back like a man who has done something wrong. I think maybe things would be better if we had a child, but my wife and I have lost all interest in sex . . .

    We finish dinner quickly and get into bed. In the middle of the night my wife wakes up abruptly and says, “Louis, we shouldn’t be together anymore.”
    It has been a long time since we’ve really talked. I understand that she’s disappointed in my weakness, my lack of courage. For twenty years I haven’t been able to bring her a single, true, unaltered gift. Because the objects that connect us have grown more and more unfamiliar, the two of us have been drifting ever further apart.

    Hoping against hope, I say, “A colleague mentioned that someone managed to bypass the security check and get into the subway. I want to try it, too.”
    She looks at me as though I’m a stranger, her eyes full of tears. She doesn’t know that I’ve already tried—and failed to carry through—many times.
    The next day, I’m arrested. My wife reported me by calling 911, telling them that I was about to try to break through a checkpoint. She said she suspected that I was a terrorist in disguise.

    Three years later, I’m released from prison.

    The world remains the same, except that my wife has divorced me. I find Hoffman. Like before, he tries to comfort me. “It’s not a big deal. I’ve figured something out during the last few years: life is a long security check, and not everyone passes. You just have bad luck.”

    I ask him whether he’s found that mysterious woman. He shakes his head. Then he suggests that I leave the country.
    “What? Leave America?” Surprise made my voice louder than normal. Very few people ever think of leaving America.

    He shrugs. “If you can’t get through security check, you might as well leave. I’ve heard that some countries don’t require so much security on their subways.”

    I find the very concept absurd. Deep down, I’ve never thought of leaving America—it’s not that I’m very patriotic, just that I’ve grown used to my country. Life is just surviving one day after the other.

    “You’re divorced and you’ve been to prison,” says Hoffman. “Even if you try to break through security check again it will be a meaningless gesture.”
    “What about you? Will you leave as well?” I ask helplessly, having lost my goal in life.

    “No, I’m going to stick it out. Maybe a day will come when I can bypass security check and win freedom in my own country through my own efforts.” He sounds like a stubborn child.

    I lack Hoffman’s courage and tenacity, and my body and spirit are on the verge of collapse. So I start the paperwork for leaving the country. Though I fear that it will be difficult, it turns out to be simple. They actually really like it when you leave, and it’s best if you never return. Of course, they want the departure to be voluntary. They’ve never forcefully exiled an American citizen.
    I choose to go to the People’s Republic of China.

    Judging by official statistics, this is the world’s most secure country. I obtain a temporary residence permit in Shanghai and live on government subsidies. The Chinese subway does not require security checks; they really are that confident. But I’ve lost all interest in the subway. When I’m bored, I go to an Internet cafe and browse for news about America. In China, anyone is free to use the Internet. China is the freest country in the world.

    There’s lots of news about America on the Web. I find out that my motherland, though it still appears familiar, is in fact changing every day. It isn’t just the goods carried by the passengers that are being replaced. To ensure security to the greatest extent possible, each day the entire United States is remade. The Chinese observe and analyze America with great interest. They’ve discovered that the entire territory of the United States is filled with nanomachines: from the rural countryside to the big cities, from the broad rivers to the majestic mountains, everything is renewed daily. Harmful things have no safe harbor in that land.

    But this phenomenon can only be observed from the outside and at a distance because no outsiders are allowed to enter the United States. Theoretically, no one can pass through the American border security check system. Americans who are inside its borders cannot detect the changes because they think every day is the same as the day before.

    Sometimes I wonder if the Chinese are observing and analyzing this because they are worried that America might one day deploy this technology to replace another country, or even the whole world.

    But my worries are unfounded. America is focusing its security checks inwards, replacing itself. The effort has occupied all of its energy, with nothing left for other countries.

    Gazing back from the other shore of the Pacific, I see a truly wondrous sight. The self-substituting America churns in constant transformation: one moment it’s like a wild flower—blossoming with a pop, collapsing, wilting, changing color from red to black, from yellow to white—and the next moment it’s like a dying star. Caught up in the changes are my compatriots. They are replaced and remade daily: from blood to muscle, from life to thought, becoming new people without knowing it themselves. From inside America, nothing is seen to change—every day people ride the subway to work like rats. But from China, the changes cannot be more obvious. I suppose this is a difference in frames of reference.

    • Also transforming is the wildlife, including the brown bear and the bald eagle, the sequoia and other plants, the fungi and bacteria, and every bit of soil, every drop of water. Sometimes the country displays the layered appearance of a tropical forest, and sometimes it looks like an ice crystal. Murky blood flows in the northeast, and the western deserts glow with a ghostly blue light. Sometimes the whole country is silent, save for the powerful rumbling of the subway system, the strangest sound on the planet. America has become distinct from all other countries in the world.

      From China, I can see all these changes clearly, and after shock and astonishment, I’m left with sorrow, my face drenched by tears.

      New research indicates that as the security system itself evolves, America has developed even more advanced technology. Now the security system not only consists of nanorobots and 3D printers, not only big-data-based distributed reassembly devices, but also self-organizing technologies and artificial world collage machines. Countless cellular automata toil away with the aid of quantum teleportation, engaging in mass-scale atomic exchange from second to second.

      The White House has been rebuilt into a gigantic machine to take over from the millions of engineers who oversee and control every aspect of the process. The United States has become a giant, intelligent, churning vat.

      But then, one day, the self-transformation of America suddenly halts. Instead of constantly replacing itself, the country vanishes completely. The Chinese manage to record the phenomenon, and their analysis concludes that America’s security check technology has achieved a major breakthrough.

      The time when something is completely secure is not when it has been replaced, but when it no longer exists. No one can find it, ever. This is not only science, but also a kind of profound philosophy capable of being understood only by a few elite individuals on the whole planet. Thus, in this sense, America has finally returned to being the mightiest of nations.

      I remember my ex-wife. Has she disappeared along with America? I hope she’s in another world, a happily-ever-after one. She will not have any mental baggage, and she won’t hate me.

      I’ve left my country, never able to return. I wish her freedom and happiness in a powerful United States of America.

      One day, as I stroll through the People’s Square, I meet a beautiful Caucasian girl. She had also left America and came to China. Sitting down on a lawn together, we begin to chat. This is the first conversation I’ve had in twenty years where I feel no pressure.

      “You’re the first American I’ve seen overseas,” I say.
      The girl, whose name is Lisa, says, “There aren’t many Americans left in the world. The nation of America has long been substituted away.”

      “What about you?” I ask, suddenly remembering the story Hoffman told me about the mysterious young woman who got into the subway station without going through security check.
      “I’m not like the rest of you,” she says. “I’m a real American. I’ve never been replaced. From the very start, I bypassed security checks.”

      “How were you able to do it?” My heartbeat speeds up.
      “I don’t have an invisibility cloak or an anti-electromagnetic-wave device. All I had to do was to walk calmly past the security agents. If you don’t acknowledge their existence, they don’t exist.”
      “But didn’t you say that everyone has been replaced? The entire country has been replaced!”

      “That’s right. At first, I was confused as well, but it’s the truth. Anyone who dared to defy the security checks, however, was not replaced. We were sent to a protected area, which was somewhere near the coast of Florida, about three hundred meters under the sea.”

      “It sounds like you were chosen by God—”
      “—not God. The Chinese.”

      The girl tells me that there were about a thousand people like her from all over America. Before the disappearance of America, the Chinese helped with their evacuation.

      “The Chinese?” I ask.
      “They’ve been part of this business all along, including the security machines. Without the support of the Chinese, America couldn’t have produced those machines by itself. Chinese technicians even helped the American government to design and plan all those terrorist attacks from twenty years ago. If those events hadn’t shifted public opinion and increased the cohesiveness of the population, America might have collapsed a long time ago. Have you heard of the Huawei-Alibaba-ICBC Conglomerate and the Tencent-Baidu-Xiaomi-ZTE Corporation? They had the world’s best scientists and engineers. The White House and Zhongnanhai were extremely close partners, though superficially they pretended not to like each other—it was just a show to fool regular folks. If you look behind the scenes, China helped America design the neo-crony-capitalism of the twenty-first century so that America could act as a reference system . . . ”

      Impossible! I can’t believe any of this. I stop thinking. Lisa takes me to Xintiandi district to enjoy myself. The Museum of the First National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party was turned, some time ago, into a national laboratory. Many young women from America, like Lisa, now live here as volunteer subjects for experiments. A middle-aged Chinese man in a white lab coat welcomes us. The Chinese are trying to confirm an amazing discovery: they’ve discovered that the Earth is passing through a security checkpoint in space, which has something to do with the ultimate secret of the universe. The galaxy, it turns out, is a super security check machine.

      “Is the universe . . . not safe?” I ask, astonished.
      “That’s right. It’s not safe at all. We’ve only figured this out now. The purpose for life developing on Earth and evolving intelligence is to maintain the security of the universe.” As he explains, he leans into the eyepiece of a giant telescope and makes careful observations.

      Later, I find out that as the sole surviving major socialist nation, China is the only country concerned with the security of the universe. America, in fact, was nothing more than an experiment set up by China to help with this mission of protecting the universe’s security. The experiment that China carried out in America is about to be promoted across the whole globe, although there are still many mysteries related to this endeavor that I don’t fully understand, and the Chinese won’t explain the details to us.

      Impulsively, I tell Lisa, “I want to be a volunteer subject for the experiments, too!”
      She looks at me with pity. “I’m sorry. The Chinese don’t want you for now. You and I are different. You asked to come to China, seeking asylum. You had already been replaced in America during earlier experiments. You’re no longer a standard American—to be more precise, you are no longer an American, or even a person. What you really are and what you can do are matters that the Chinese haven’t decided yet. You’ll have to wait.”

      When the security of the universe is the most urgent question, what role will the thousand or so real Americans like Lisa preserved by the Chinese play? That is the greater mystery.

      Ashamed and confused, I lower my head.
      Was Lisa designed by the Chinese? Who designed China then? I’ve heard that a long time ago, China was also torn by terrible disasters, both natural and man-made—how did they happen? If the rumor I heard was real, then China was once the most insecure country in the whole world. What conclusions can I draw? Oh, the universe is too mysterious. Who designed it?

      “It doesn’t matter,” Lisa says to comfort me. “You don’t need to go through security checks anymore. At least superficially, you could pass for a Chinese. You even get government welfare checks, right?”

      “But had the Chinese already experienced what we experienced?” I blurt out. “How do you know they’re still Chinese?” Sweat soaks the back of my shirt. Sadly, I think of my ex-wife again. Yes, many countries in the world have survived, and they’re about to pass through the universe’s security check. But my country and family are gone. And Lisa and I aren’t even the same kind of human beings.

      Lisa smiles awkwardly. Holding my hand, she takes me away from Xintiandi. We get on the subway. The Shanghai subway is far more crowded than the subway in New York. Squeezed in among the throng, she and I are temporarily pressed against each other as though we’re trying to fuse into one. The subway car is filled with every race from every continent. The multitude of passengers presses against and flows over our bodies like an underground river, directionless but melding into one another with every fresh encounter.

    • All information is sanitized. I was grinding my teeth, trying to drive through the fuckin clovers today, hustling 40 tons and wanting some diversion. I have a new smart phone. It’s so fuckin smart it won’t print fuckin, just ******. It asks me what I want and I tell it. I want to call Frank. You want to call Frank? Confirm to call Frank. And then the rub, I have to actually look at the thing, taking my eyes off the road and touch a spot that will light up and then say confirm. This is the second phone that would query me with bullshit.

      You want to call Gail? No you piece of shit, I said Dale. So it comes up with a list, Allan, Brandon, Matt? You stupid SOB, how do you come up with two syllable words for a clearly single syllable? I’m sorry, I didn’t understand your request. Yes, I know you piece of shit. I don’t find piece of **** in contacts.

      I could stand it if it didn’t censor what I say. It will never show in print anything that’s programmed to not show, about 90% of my vocabulary when I talk to “it”. it’s a goddamn clover and I wish clover had it stuck up her ass.

  4. The dominant mainstream majoritarian Clover Sapiens demand nothing less than your complete subjugation until your eventual extinction.

    4 year old in NM killed as expected given the actions taken
    http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/girl-killed-road-rage_56278ba8e4b08589ef49d060

    To Clover Sapiens, life is a matter of creating the best system to control everyone and then constantly tweaking it. That is the meaning of life and only allowable answer.

    Try anything else, and they’ll swerve across the double yellow lines and put you into the barditch.

    Check these article comments out:

    Rod Haney · Burnaby, British Columbia
    I can just hear Wayne LaPierre and the NRA now,,,
    “If the child had a gun, she could have defended herself,,,”
    Like · Reply · 86 · 6 hrs

    Sol Garling-Squire · Chair, Division of Pre-senility Cantankerism at Imperial College of Experiential Diversity
    And the reason the shooter has a gun is what? The reason we do not require a license of a gun just as we do for driving a car is what? How many more unbalanced people with firearms have to kill us before we do something about this. Guns are not about freedom. They are about death. We need to get some sanity in the equation of public safety, responsible gun ownership, and end the extremist blither that makes a rational and reasonable solution possible.
    Like · Reply · 40 · 6 hrs

    Allison Clough Goodwin
    Conservatives love to say places like Sweden give out guns. They always fail to follow that up with – places like Sweden provide EDUCATION and TRAINING on how to use a firearm.

    There is no sanity with the NRA. I couldn’t agree with your post more…
    Like · Reply · 19 · 6 hrs

    Sol Garling-Squire · Chair, Division of Pre-senility Cantankerism at Imperial College of Experiential Diversity
    Allison Clough Goodwin, Switzerland, actually, and what you say is correct. The Swiss actually have strict gun laws on both ownership and use. The NRA blither makes it sound like a bit of Texas in the middle of Europe, which it is absolutely not.
    Like · Reply · 16 · 5 hrs

    Victor Jay · Teacher at Orange County Public Schools
    20-1st graders were shot in the face and we did nothing as a country to put tighter restrictions on guns. This will not change anything. Not until politician’s kids start being murdered will they do anything about this.
    Like · Reply · 27 · 6 hrs

    Allison Clough Goodwin
    Craig Schultz – The Manchin Toomey Amendment was a common sense approach to improving laws that were all ready on the books and even then the NRA supporters couldn’t get behind that!
    Like · Reply · 15 · 6 hrs

    Lee Naylor · University of Minnesota-St. Paul
    Craig Schultz Outlaw open carry, Cut Concealed carry to only those who can prove a need (almost no one). I believe you will see this 4-year old would still be alive.
    Like · Reply · 12 · 5 hrs

    Clay Coleman ·
    Because, you know, a f’ing gun solves everything!
    Like · Reply · 23 · 6 hrs

    Laura Burris
    But but, the GUN didn’t kill her, the person who had the gun killed her. SMDH *conservative logic*
    Like · Reply · 15 · 6 hrs

    Liz Gonzales
    This is so very tragic. Wonder if Mr. Big Stuff is feeling okay with himself today knowing he brutally took the life of a 4 yr.old.

    I long for the day when guns are just as taboo as cigarettes. They said the tobacco lobby was too big to take down but it was. The same can be done to the gun lobby.
    Like · Reply · 9 · 5 hrs

    Genna Flecter · My Private Siesta at Self-Employed
    I’m sorry to say, it will never be that way. If the cigarette companies stopped producing cigarettes, all cigarettes would be gone in a year. If the gun makers stopped making guns, there would still be billions of guns on this planet until each and every one is destroyed. That may never happen. Pandora’s box has been thrown wide open by the NRA and the military industrial complex. Guns are here to stay for the next several hundred years, even if we closed down gun makers today.
    Like · Reply · 2 · 5 hrs · Edited

    Tim Smith
    The Big Tobacco lobby was taken down? I don’t know who told ya, but they’re bigger and badder than ever. Now they’re investing millions in shutting down the vaping community; they want the control AND the $2Billion in vaping revenue from 2014.
    Like · Reply · 1 · 4 hrs

    Hank Cunningham
    Guns, guns, guns, guns, guns, guns, we are living in the wild west, thanks NRA.
    Like · Reply · 8 · 6 hrs

    Barbara Zilz · Fairborn, Ohio
    How much more awful does it have to get?
    Like · Reply · 8 · 6 hrs

    Debra Moore
    Oh, much, much more awful. Until we grow some courage and stand up to the NRA and ALL the nutters with guns, this will get worse.
    Like · Reply · 15 · 6 hrs

    Genna Flecter · My Private Siesta at Self-Employed
    I wonder what we humans would think if we came across an animal that built weapons to kill its fellow species members. We’d say that species was biologically crazy, wouldn’t we?
    Like · Reply · 8 · 5 hrs

    Cesar De La Rosa · 3D Generalist, Compositor at Reveal 42
    I am sure his freedom to do as he pleases on the road was in danger therefore he needed to protect his constitutional rights…Another responsible gun owner.
    Like · Reply · 5 · 6 hrs

    Richard S Kurtz · NOVA Community College
    The fact of the matter is that gun owners are law abiding citizens… right up to the day they’re not.
    Like · Reply · 6 · 5 hrs

    Fred DeCicco
    why wasn’t that toddler armed so she could have shot back. The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a toddler with a gun
    Like · Reply · 2 · 5 hrs

    Debra Moore
    TOO MANY GUNS AND TOO MANY NUTTERS!!!

    And that is all I have to say to this one.
    Like · Reply · 5 · 6 hrs

    Christopher Laieta
    Pew pew pew
    Like · Reply · 2 · 6 hrs

    Colleen Nakamura · University of Hawaii
    Police chief this kind of violence is happening too often….well this innocent life would not be lost if no GUN was used. Guns for defense? Please give me a break….
    Like · Reply · 1 · 4 hrs

    Ann Dash
    Yep – the gun-happy west – what else is new. Sickening.
    Like · Reply · 1 · 6 hrs

    Pat Paliotti Mulrath
    Hey, hey, NRA another child died today
    Like · Reply · 1 · 3 hrs

    Scott Goold
    Hilarious!!! Live by the gun, die by the gun. Gun lovers want guns everywhere. This is the result. Now, people cry crocodile tears. This is what Americans get when they listen to the NRA and the pro-gun industry. Maybe after a few million more kids are murdered, America will wake up to the Second Amendment deception.
    Like · Reply · 3 · 5 hrs

    Snappy McMartin · Wordsmith at Marketing Drone
    “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.”

    Still waiting for the “well regulated” part. This tragedy just turns my stomach.

    And people need to chill the f out while driving. Trust me, you’ll arrive at your destination. Roads are for sharing.
    Like · Reply · 1 · 4 hrs

    Charles Stewart
    At least you’re preserving the 2nd Amendment America!! Good luck with this…
    Like · Reply · 1 · 3 hrs

    Anna Luhman · Ks Wesleyan University
    This is what happens when we have guns everywhere held by anyone, with no ability to determine whether a person should have a gun or not.
    Like · Reply · 1 · 4 hrs

    Mary Corder · Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI)
    Yeah we need more people with hot heads who ride around in their cars with guns. Oh, that’s right, guns don’t kill people, people do. He would have had some trouble throwing a knife through the window of a moving car.
    Like · Reply · 2 hrs

  5. Young raging clover throws a basketball at a girl on a bike
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XIpFQPPElls

    The clover exists only to the extent he interferes with other people trying to mind their own business and enjoy their life.

    He is a vessel of negation, and of arresting others to pay him attention using any trick of violence or inconvenience he can muster.
    No one would willingly spend a second with him otherwise, of course.

    At this point in his maturation, the clover interloper predator mindset is fully formed, and nothing human can be salvaged.

    The best thing now, is to segregate and isolate him from natural productive humanity, so he no longer interferes and infects the useful population.

    And just what the hell is that adult-sized manatee thing on the left. Yeesh.

    That genderless blob of metrosexual jelly is most likely the culprit of this budding young malevolence, he should also be avoided like a leper as well as his demonic little clover spawn.

    • That’s a heartbreaking sight. I often wonder if my donating organs(hard to believe they’ll be good for anything)or not donating makes any difference. When young I’d check that box on the DL but as I grew older and more jaded I had a great many misgivings. It seemed the old and rich got the organs for the most part and the young and poor got crap. Am I that jaded? Well, no worry now, no doctor would go through the process to use my organs. Oh, ohhhh, that pain in my side. I’d best have another beer, another hydrocodone, another Aleve, another toke, a shot of bourbon, etc……2,4, D, glyphosate, pre-emergent herbicide, naptha, Moroso octane booster, cocaine, meth, Ethyl, mercury, amalgam fillings, all the crap in the water and the list goes on and on.

  6. Things are bigger in Texas, sure…

    But only in China, is there a 50 lane traffic jam
    http://www.autoblog.com/2015/10/08/traffic-jam-china-drone-video/

    Watch: China’s traffic jam makes India’s road troubles seem trivial
    http://www.firstpost.com/world/highway-to-hell-chinas-traffic-jam-makes-indias-traffic-trouble-seem-trivial-2465896.html

    China holds the title of having the worst traffic jam to date. In 2010, the China National Highway 110, which runs from Beijing to Yinchuan was clogged for an astounding 12 days over a 100-kilometer stretch of road. Travelers were stuck in their cars for up to five days, and a mini-economy of overpriced food, water, and cigarettes sprang up instantly.

    Great Crawl of China: Vendors cash in on 60-mile traffic jam that’s lasted 11 days – with no end in sight
    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1306058/China-traffic-jam-enters-11th-day-officials-admit-weeks.html

  7. Everyone loves the cetacean.

    But who has love for the libertarian cat?

    The Cat Who Walked By Himself – R. Kipling
    http://www.boop.org/jan/justso/cat.htm

    Flesch–Kincaid Level of Readability: 6.4
    Word Count: 4,108. Genre: Fantasy.

    O my Enemy and Wife of my Enemy and Mother of my Enemy, said the Cat, ‘it is I; for you have spoken three words in my praise, and now I can drink the warm white milk three times a day for always and always and always.

    But still I am the Cat who walks by himself, and all places are alike to me.’

    Then the Woman laughed and set the Cat a bowl of the warm white milk and said, ‘O Cat, you are as clever as a man, but remember that your bargain was not made with the Man or the Dog, and I do not know what they will do when they come home.’

    ‘What is that to me?’ said the Cat. ‘If I have my place in the Cave by the fire and my warm white milk three times a day I do not care what the Man or the Dog can do.’

    That evening when the Man and the Dog came into the Cave, the Woman told them all the story of the bargain while the Cat sat by the fire and smiled.

    Then the Man said, ‘Yes, but he has not made a bargain with me or with all proper Men after me.’ Then he took off his two leather boots and he took up his little stone axe – that makes three – and he fetched a piece of wood and a hatchet -that is five altogether -, and he set them out in a row and he said, ‘Now we will make our bargain.

    If you do not catch mice when you are in the Cave for always and always and always, I will throw these five things at you whenever I see you, and so shall all proper Men do after me.’

    ‘Ah,’ said the Woman, listening, ‘this is a very clever Cat, but he is not so clever as my Man.’

    The Cat counted the five things – and they looked very knobby – and he said, ‘I will catch mice when I am in the Cave for always and always and always; but still I am the Cat who walks by himself, and all places are alike to me.’

    ‘Not when I am near,’ said the Man. ‘If you had not said that last I would have put all these things away for always and always and always; but I am now going to throw my two boots and my little stone axe – that makes three – at you whenever I meet you. And so shall all proper Men do after me!’

    Then the Man threw his two boots and his little stone axe – that makes three – at the Cat, and the Cat ran out of the Cave and the Dog chased him up a tree; and from that day to this, Best Beloved, three proper Men out of five will always throw things at a Cat whenever they meet him, and all proper Dogs will chase him up a tree.

    But the Cat keeps his side of the bargain too. He will kill mice and he will be kind to Babies when he is in the house, just as long as they do not pull his tail too hard.

    But when he has done that, and between times, and when the moon gets up and night comes, he is the Cat that walks by himself, and all places are alike to him.

    Then he goes out to the Wet Wild Woods or up the Wet Wild Trees or on the Wet Wild Roofs, waving his wild tail and walking by his wild lone.

    PUSSY can sit by the fire and sing, Pussy can climb a tree,
    Or play with a silly old cork and string, To’muse herself, not me.

    But I like Binkie my dog, because, He knows how to behave;
    So, Binkie’s the same as the First Friend was, And I am the Man in the Cave.

    Pussy will play man-Friday till, It’s time to wet her paw
    And make her walk on the window-sill, For the footprint Crusoe saw;

    Then she fluffles her tail and mews, And scratches and won’t attend. But Binkie will play whatever I choose, And he is my true First Friend.

    Pussy will rub my knees with her head, Pretending she loves me hard; But the very minute I go to my bed, Pussy runs out in the yard,

    And there she stays till the morning-light; So I know it is only pretend; But Binkie, he snores at my feet all night, And he is my Firstest Friend!

  8. Cato is the party behind the state freedom index resource. It is one of the top think tanks anywhere, and the highest ranked libertarian institute.

    Top 30 Think Tanks Worldwide
    http://guides.library.upenn.edu/content.php?pid=323076&sid=2644795

    So who is this Cato Cat?

    Libertarian Cato is number the 14th highest ranked think tank in the world. It was founded by Crane, Koch, and Rothbard in 1974.

    Cato’s Mission; To originate, disseminate, and increase understanding of public policies based on the principles of individual liberty, limited government, free markets, and peace.

    Who is John Galt. Allison. New Captain of Cato’s Think Tank Gulch?
    http://www.forbes.com/sites/ralphbenko/2012/07/02/who-is-john-allison-a-randian-libertarian-business-icon-takes-over-the-cato-institute/

    “The Cato Institute is the foremost upholder of the idea of liberty in the nation that is the foremost upholder of the idea of liberty,” – George Will.

    Cato, is the bellwether of the libertarian school. And libertarians often cast the deciding “swing vote” in policy matters.

    When the libertarian movement sided with conservatives on foreign and tax policy, that united front set the stage for the defeat of international communism.

    Libertarians helped set the stage for the push to reduce the top U.S. federal tax rate from 70% to 28%, and for nation after nation to adopt far lower rates on their own.

    Libertarians’ efforts helped enable world prosperity to blossom and skyrocket.

    When most libertarians sided with liberals on cultural issues such as abortion and gay marriage, the liberals prevailed.

    Cato is “the cat who walks by himself and all places are alike to him.”

    When the libertarian cat throws her weight around, she turns out to be a tiger. Cato weighs in on economic issues far more often than on social issues.

    Hence Cato, in practice, is counted as more of an asset of the Right than the Left. A potential implosion of the bellwether of the libertarian faction is a matter of grave civic import, more so than many outsiders understand. The Authoritarian Left certainly has been hoping that Cato would somehow implode.

    The head of Cato has said: “One of the things that I really want to do is make this a moral fight instead of a fight around the technical aspects of economics.

    The libertarian vision is a moral vision and we own the moral high ground. A free society is the only society in which people can think for themselves and pursue their rational self-interest.”
    – – –

    Russia launching rocket strikes on Islamic State targets from warships in the Caspian Sea 930 miles away.
    http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-34465425

  9. Once humans have the rights of dolphins there………but they aren’t likely to. As I understand it, most of the land is owned by big corporations, very rich people or govt. of some sort. But you’re free to stand in the Ganges, one of the most polluted streams in the world, and take your morning “bath”……if you can find elbow room.

    • It’s a good start.

      Recognizing that forcing dolphins into dolphinariums to perform for humans is wrong. And that the reason it is wrong is its involuntary.

      Now if only it is likewise recognized that forcing humans into humanitariums to perform and produce is also wrong.

      It should be obvious, that it would not be progress, to breed and encourage capitalist societal dolphins that are forced to perform and then enjoy a more comfortable lifestyle to rule the older societies of dolphins.

      It would be tragic, were dolphins schooled and then mandated to work in vast ocean factories, where the dolphins earn themselves and their kin trillions of dollars, by doing all kinds of underwater assembly work for sentient being economies.

      And then that wealthy humans own these factories and tax the dolphins, and enforce laws for the dolphins. And decide the politics of these submerged dolphin company towns.

      Dolphins already create wealth, joy, and prosperity for many, some animal politics professor might object.

      This is true, but is it right, making dolphins do unnatural things, not in their longterm interest. Obviously the argument should be about dolphin’s having a choice. And what the cost benefit is for them.

      It is not helpful to bring about a new socialist utopia for dolphins still held captive in tanks.

      It’s not about founding a new dolphins republic with high minded dolphin ideals, and far more advanced and luxurious tanks.

      It’s not about founding free schools for dolphins, where they learn local common languages and culture. Perhaps one day the dolphins create technology that allows them to come ashore. Maybe even to launch each other into space and to other planets.

      It’s not about giving dolphins the right to vote, and all the other rights of humanitarium enslaved men.

      All that need be done, is put a gate on the existing dolphinariums. And let each dolphin come and go as they please. It’s that simple really.

      If you build it, and the dolphins come. Great.

      Every sentient being deserves to make his own choice of how he lives. And the right to his property and fruit of his labors and efforts.

      That’s really all there is to self-ownership for cetaceans and man alike.

        • I also thought of that film, while initially reading the original article about the depth charge heard round the oceans, from the Dolphin Declaration of Independence.

          Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home
          Stardate: 8390.0. Airdate: 1987.

          http://www.chakoteya.net/movies/movie4.html

          – – –

          Whales Weep Not!
          David Herbert Lawrence

          NSFW – Not Safe For young Whales. Cetacean Erotic Trigger Warning.

          They say the sea is cold, but the sea contains
          the hottest blood of all, and the wildest, the most urgent.

          All the whales in the wider deeps, hot are they, as they urge on and on, and dive beneath the icebergs.
          The right whales, the sperm-whales, the hammer-heads, the killers, there they blow, there they blow, hot wild white breath out of the sea!

          And they rock, and they rock, through the sensual ageless ages on the depths of the seven seas,
          and through the salt they reel with drunk delight
          and in the tropics tremble they with love, and roll with massive, strong desire, like gods.

          Then the great bull lies up against his bride in the blue deep bed of the sea, as mountain pressing on mountain, in the zest of life: and out of the inward roaring of the inner red ocean of whale-blood the long tip reaches strong, intense, like the maelstrom-tip, and comes to rest in the clasp and the soft, wild clutch of a she-whale’s fathomless body.

          And over the bridge of the whale’s strong phallus, linking the wonder of whales the burning archangels under the sea keep passing, back and forth, keep passing, archangels of bliss from him to her, from her to him, great Cherubim that wait on whales in mid-ocean, suspended in the waves of the sea
          great heaven of whales in the waters, old hierarchies.

          And enormous mother whales lie dreaming suckling their whale-tender young and dreaming with strange whale eyes wide open in the waters of the beginning and the end.

          And bull-whales gather their women and whale-calves in a ring when danger threatens, on the surface of the ceaseless flood and range themselves like great fierce Seraphim facing the threat encircling their huddled monsters of love.

          And all this happens in the sea, in the salt where God is also love, but without words: and Aphrodite is the wife of whales most happy, happy she!

          and Venus among the fishes skips and is a she-dolphin she is the gay, delighted porpoise sporting with love and the sea she is the female tunny-fish, round and happy among the males and dense with happy blood, dark rainbow bliss in the sea.

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