Triggered: James Crowe and the Safe Space

The following includes:
- Political incorrectness
- Inability to recognize you as a unique special snowflake
- Profanity
- Logic
- Critical thinking
- Analysis
- A complete and utter disregard for your feelings

OK well that said, on to things.

Safe spaces today, safe spaces tomorrow, safe spaces forever!

Now why am I paraphrasing an asshole like George Wallace? Well because that's what safe spaces are, it's just a dolled up, prettier version of segregation. You're keeping people you don't like for one superficial reason or another away from your space so you can be comfortable. As Adam and Jamie have demonstrated you CAN polish a turd, but at the end of the day it's still a turd.

But why should I care about this turd? Because it is creating a nasty situation within the society I live in and given that how in any ordered society we're all connected some way or another, this is going to come around and mess with my business as well.

Besides being segregation, safe spaces are also nothing more than echo chambers. I think it's a reasonable statement to say that growth requires one to be challenged, be it physically, or having your ideas challenged. Being an echo chamber, views within will not be challenged, rather quite the opposite. Safe spaces, hence echo chambers, only encourage groupthink.

This is completely anti-thesis to the whole point of going to college. The whole point of going to college is to expand your knowledge and a major part of that is being challenged in your views. Despite what the adult-children might say such as,

It is not about creating an intellectual space, it's about creating a home!

I can't make this shit up, this was really said by a student at Yale. It is about creating an intellectual space, if you want a home, then go back home. Go back to where you grew up, or go back to your apartment if you want to be home. You are there to learn, not to load around at home. Furthermore you're only really supposed to be there (well be in any one given program) for only FOUR years. You're there only temporarily, and hence, it's not supposed to be your home.

Here's the other issue I have with this... the world doesn't give a fuck about your feelings to be blunt about it. It's like Rocky said:

You think the world is going to back off and give you you're safe space?

Why should I care? Because I have to live with people like this, these people are going to vote and they're going to vote with their brains swimming around in their warped and twisted ideology, and I can certainly do without that crap in my life.

Now before any regressive leftist crybully comes in here calling me "privileged" or what ever the hip buzz word of the hour is for someone who isn't drinking the Kool-Aide, I write this as an Asian-American. And as one I call bullshit on safe spaces. When you go to a university you are going to there further your education, as well as widen your world view. I went there and I was challenged, but rather than running to a hugbox and crying like a little bitch expecting the world to give a damn I defended my stance. "This is why I think, and this is why I think that". It wasn't "this is what I think because feelings".

When you live your whole live in a safe space echo chamber where you're never challenged by new ideas, you grow up stunted. You'll never grow up into an fictional adult who can meet the challenges of modern life. You'll forever stay a child running to mommy or daddy every time something bad happens to you, only mommy and daddy inevitably get replaced by the government. You'll never be able to overcome your own challenges and will always demand that other people solve your problems for you. Why? Because you never learned to seize what's yours, rather you demanded that someone hand it to you, just like all those waste basket participation trophies.

Back in the 1950's Eisenhower saw segregation for the bullshit that it was, and what was bullshit back then is still bullshit today. Jim Crow yesterday is still Jim Crow today.

Triggered: The Ballad of Triggly Puff

OK I've largely neglected and forgotten about this whole minor project of mine, until I saw this...

Good God what the hell did I just watch here. I have so many issues with this video.

First issue... Is this what passes for acceptable public behavior these days? No civility what so ever, this is nothing less than a toddler tantrum. How do you expect to be taken seriously when you response to something you disagree with is to scream and rant like a nut case who just pounded three Monsters back to back.

This kind of childish petulent behavior is one of many reasons I vehemently dislike SJWs and those associated with them. You're a goddamned adult are you not? Carry yourself with dignity. You ask me this is what happens when you raise up a generation of kids telling the how special they are and giving them trophies just for showing up. This is the Participation Trophy Generation, be afraid, be very afraid, because these children (yes children, mentally they are still children and I will address them as such) are quite possibly the future.

Second issue... Ms. Summers hasn't been up there long enough to make any kind of real argument, hell she was still doing introductory stuff when our hero starts screaming and going off the rails. "Hate speech"? What Hate Speech, Summers has hardly said anything beyond calling feminism "madness". So obviously Triggly Puff isn't there to make an argument, she's just there to scream. Now here's the thing, it was stated that after the event there would be a Q&A session, but rather than just leave and come back during the Q&A, Triggly here just decides to scream and disrupt the entire event. This tells me that she doesn't even have an argument to back up her ranting, therefore she's only screaming talking points and buzzwords, which itself leads me to wonder if she even has a thought in her head since she obviously isn't forming any sort of analysis in that bloated head of hers.

Here's the thing with this, this is the result of raising up kids to FEEL not to THINK. Throughout childhood they're asked about their feelings, and how something made them feel, but hardly ever are you going to find critical thinking or logic as required courses in high school. So you end up with people like this with an over inflated sense of self-worth thinking that people give a damn and that their feelings matter. It results in narcissistic, self-centered individuals who think it's all about them and their feelings. Sure there are contexts is where feelings matter, but discussions on public policy aren't it. She may as well just be a computer that someone plugged their laptop into and inserted lines of code into, in order to run a specific program or execute specific commands. 

trigglypuff@ubuntu:-$ sudo rant swing arms

[ sudo ] password for hips_ster:

And off your little (well this case not so much "little" and more "giant Japanese mecha") robot goes to do your bidding.

Third issue... "It's free speech!" Heh, slow down a moment. SJWs think the 1st Amendment is carte blanche to say what ever they want, how ever they want, where ever they want, and that's what they get wrong about it. The 1st Amendment was put into place as a check on the government to prevent the government from stiffiling the free flow of information. It was NOT put in place so people can shout louder over someone else and drown out their message because it hurt someone else's feelings. And even THEN the government can still restrict speech based on the time, the place and the manner of the speech. So all the Regressives slapping each other's butts because they railroaded a Trump event, that isn't what free speech is about.

Using your free speech to slience someone else because you have free speech, that is a perversion. There's a term for that, actually there are several, but one term is "tyranny of the mob" and that's exactly what this is, only here in this case Triggly didn't have a mob to back her. 

This whole episode just showcases what is wrong with the whole SJW movement. It's wholly emotionally driven, it's members self centered and narcissistic, and the whole thing is repressive and socially tyrannical. 

And that's all I got to say about that... for now.  

 

Star Wars Episode VII, a post-mortem

Spoilers, spoilers, spoilers are coming!

Ok, so a Lucas-free Star Wars is now a thing and holy shit! Was it good? Hell yeah! Did it live up to all the hype? Yeah I think it did. Prequel movies this is not!

So I talk about the events of the movies, the characters, and the backstory. 

Last chance to close this tab/window before the spoilers...

The events. 

The events very closely mirror Episode IV's events, and in some cases are almost straight up copy pasted. You can essentially think of it as a remake of A New Hope. But even the events that were straight up lifted from E.IV they are done with a twist. The first scene, line in E.IV has Stormtroopers shooting up a place and massacring people, and just like in E.IV we have one person shooting back, Poe, who I'll get to later, but here the difference is it sets up the introduction to Finn, we a classic war film scene in where a soldier's friend dies in his arms. This is followed up by the solider having doubts after participating in an atrocity/war crime. The whole scene wraps up with Poe giving his R2 like droid information vital to the Resistance, to keep safe from the Order. 

Now, while a lot of events were carried over from E.IV, they didn't happen in the same order. The next major event from E.IV, was the jailbreak.The jailbreak was done pretty well, Here instead of the Falcon, we have a TIE Fighter jacking, and they use this also as a way for us to get a good look at this new TIE. It's now a two seater and in the hands of a good pilot, is something to be respected. Overall it was good, it got us a good look at the new TIE and set up a possible friendship/partnership between Finn and Poe, with the two having good chemestry from the start. 

The next big scene from E.VI was the Falcon vs TIE squadron dogfight. And WOW. There's a bit to be said. For one, the "choreography" was just awesome. The Falcon might be big, but if the TIE Fighter is the parallel to the A6M Zero, and thee X-Wing to the F6F Hellcat, the Falcon is either a deHaviland Mosquito or a P-61 Black Widow. We see Rey in the pilot seat and around here is where we start to see there is more to her than meets the eye. She can fly the ship just as good as Han, and she does this without a co-pilot.

Eventually, they're swallowed up by a bigger ship, and we have the two hiding in the same smuggling compartments, that Luke, Han, Chewie and Obi-wan hid in some 33 or so years ago. Only instead of Stormtroopers, the two rightful owners of the ship come to reclaim what's theirs.

Next up we have a well done cantina scene. There isn't really much to say, other than the barkeep and Han go way back.We go spies, we got rouges and other shady people, it was good. 

The next scene was something new. We have a ground battle between Han, Chewie, Rey, and Finn, fighting off the Order. We see Han and Chewie haven't gotten rusty at all in the past 30 years, we see Finn get called a traitor by one Trooper who pulls a tonfa like weapon that seems to use the same technology as the staves that Gen. Grivous's guards do, and the Trooper engages Finn in a melee fight, Finn for his part brings Anakin's old saber with him to the fight. I like this for several reasons. We see Stormtroopers this time are actually pretty bad ass. It also takes away some of the mystique around lightsabers. Several things in the Legends timelime mention that for one reason or another, only a Jedi could use one. Be it torque from the blade being a rotating energy shaft, or some other reason. Here, we got Finn, who very likely had hand-to-hand training as part of his regimen, able to use the weapon. 

Last we have the remake of the Death Star attack, which kind of blended the jailbreak scene (yes we have two jailbreak scenes) with the strike. In that sense it was like Epi. VI in that we have an aerial fight and a ground fight at the same time. Finn and the rest are in the middle of rescuing Rey. while Han and Chewie reprise their roles as demolitions experts and are once again setting up bombs to blow up something protecting the thing that needs to be blown up. Only here, it ends in a re-imagining of Obi-wan's death scene. 

The death of Han. 

Yup, that happened. Was I shocked? Not really, but a lot of people in the theater were. Was it done well, yes it was. We learn earlier that Kylo Ren is really Ben Solo. Where Obi-wan and Anakin had a final, student-master moment in the form of a duel, Han and Kylo/Ben had a final father-son moment, with the son pleading for the father's help to do what he lacked the strength to do, which at this point seems to be to go over completely to the Dark Side, but we've yet to learn his intentions in becoming a Dark Jedi (I won't call him a Sith since he's part of an order called the Knights of Ren, and that goes against the Sith's Rule of Two). After Han tells him he'd do anything, Ben slays his father. 

Now, while a lot of scenes were remade from E.IV, it's doesn't feel like watching E.IV all over again. If you're a fan of anime, specifically Macross, it would be of the same vein as Macross Frontier. 

The characters. 

Everyone seems to be paralleling a character from E.IV in some way or another. Being a direct lifting, or a composite. 

The first of the main characters we meet is actually Poe. He's something of a composite of young Leia and ace pilot Wedge Antilles. He gets captured and becomes the subject of the jailbreak, and later on we see him helming a custom X-wing. Poe is THE resistance/rebel soldier. While his parentage has already been revealed, being the badass ace that he is, I'd love to see it that he learned his skills under Wedge's tutelage.Have him be Wedge's top pupil, and the one pilot to have dogfought the master to a draw at the academy.    

We meet Finn next, and I see him as the "Han" of this movie. In the Legends timeline Han was in the Imperial military before the events of E.IV and like Han, Finn was a former member of the "Imperial" military. Like Han, Finn was a promising solider (we learn this in supplement materials) and proficient with ranged weapons. Where as Han was initially in it for the money, Finn was in it also for selfish reasons, in Finn's case, getting the hell away from his former employers, on that note, Finn also parallels Han in that Han was also having serious issues with a former employer. And, while it still remains to be seen, like Han, Finn doesn't appear to be Force sensitive. 

Then we have Rey. Obviously, she's the "Luke" of this film. We have someone grinding out a living in the middle of a desert planet who happens to have powerful Force abilities. Like Luke, she's kind hearted and wants to do the right thing. But the big question is... who IS she? We're not given a last name and that's stated to be intentional. Is she also Leia's kid? Luke's? I'm of the opinion that she is Luke's daughter. She has a vision and her Force abilities seem to be unlocked when she picks up and holds Anakin's lightsaber. Her relationship to Han is very much like Luke's to Obi-wan's. And lets take a closer look at that. Who was Obi-wan? He was Luke's father's best friend. Who was Han? He was one of Luke's best friends. What was Luke and Obi-wan's relationship? Obi-wan provided guidance to Luke, showed him a larger world (the Force), and they had a connection though their Jedi heritage. Now what was Rey and Han's relationship? Han showed her a larger world (a green planet, when all she knew was a desert), she and Han bonded over her mechanical aptitude. Given those parallels, I'm willing to bet that Han has the same relationship to Rey's father that Obi-wan had to Luke's, and that pretty much narrows down the list of candidates to Luke himself. 

On the baddies side we have Kylo Ren/Ben Solo, who's clearly meant to be the Darth Vader of the series, in more ways than one. His character is literally a Darth Vader wannabe. He idolizes his grandfather, and strives to be just like him. At this point, he isn't so much the analogue to Darth Vader, the way Rey is to Luke, but rather, he's playing the role of Darth Vader. You could almost say he's Vader's phantom. Now the interesting thing is, he idolizes DARTH VADER, not Anakin Skywalker, which leads to the question, did Luke ever tell him what happened that day on the Death Star II? That Anakin overcame Vader and became a Jedi again? It's said that the Empire spun the Battle of Endor as an Imperial victory for propaganda purposes, long after the battle. Did Ben hear Imperial propaganda from the Supreme Leader, where Vader wasn't a traitor to the Empire but rather a martyr?

We also have General Huk, who seems to be a re-imagining of Tarkin, being a top ranking, trusted, and loyal officer of the regime. Like Tarkin, Huk appears to out rank the Dark Side guy. Though where as Tarkin and Vader seemed to be on good terms or at least respected each other, Huk and Kylo appear to have a rivalry. I'm willing to be at some point one will double cross the other, probably Kylo selling out Huk in some form or another. and causing Huk's death. 

Another of the new baddies we have is Captain Phasma, who seems to be in overall command of Starkiller Base and it's supporting ships' Stormtrooper detachments. I can't say much given that she doesn't get much screentime, but she certainly makes her presence felt in her main scene. Some had said she's analogous to Boba Fett, I'd say that still remains to be scene. Fett relentlessly pursued Han and Leia in Epi. V and here Phasma has yet to do anything like that. 

Lastly there's Supreme Leader Snoke, who seems to fill Palpatine's role. He leads the First Order and is the figure who turned Ben into Kylo. We only see a hologram of him, but if that is indeed what he looks like, he appears to be a scarred figure, and if he's a Human, he looks to be someone who suffered severe burns. Some speculate that he's Palpatine, but I don't think so. If he was Palpatine, then the Sith live, and therefore the prophesy is unfulfilled. If anything, my guess is that Snoke, given the theme of the First Order being those who idolized the Empire, was someone who picked up where the Empire left off. Though it would be interesting if he turned out to be a Clone Wars veteran Jedi who turned dark, and saw the Empire's authoritarianism as the way to establish and maintain order, and therefore prevent another war like the Clone Wars. 

Now on to the classic characters. 

Han is certainly the Obi-wan of this film. He plays something of a mentor figure to Rey. Leia is now most definitely the General Dodonna of the movie, and Luke is set up to be the Yoda of the next movie. 

Lastly the setting and backstory. 

It is now 30 years after the Battle of Endor. The rebellion grew into the New Republic and set up it's capital at Chandrilla and later Hosnian Prime... wait what? Not Corusant? In the Legends timeline, the Alliance took Coruscant and officially became the New Republic/Second Galactic Republic and took off where the Old Republic/First Galactic Republic left off where as the Empire was reduced to a backwater nation at the edge of known/civilized space. In this new canon it seems as if the Galactic Empire might still be around and based on Coruscant. 

In an interview with Abrams it was stated that the First Order was based on the idea of what if top Nazis and their loyalists had fled to Argentina to carry on their work. Some Nazis had actually fled to Argentina, so while there was a small, in hiding Nazi presence in Argentina, there was still a separate Germany. Prior to the events in Epi. VII, there was the Galactic Concordance that was signed that ended the Galactic Civil War, and reduced the Galactic Empire to a rump-state. There doesn't seem to be any information indicating that the Empire was absorbed into/conquered by the Republic. Given that, my guess is there still remains a Galactic Empire, with it's capital still at Coruscant under a new regime. With the First Order being remnants, and loyalists of the former Palpatine regime, establishing themselves in some backwater away from the center of galactic events. My guess is that there is a cold war between the New Republic and the Empire, with the Resistance and the Order being proxies of both powers. 

My prediction for Epi. VIII is that this theoretical cold war will erupt into full scale war. In Epi. VII we see the First Order destroy the Republic's capital with their super Death Star. Being a galaxy spanning nation-state, destroying just the capital wouldn't wipe out the entire nation anymore than wiping out Washington DC or Moscow would wipe out the US or Russia as a nation. Supplement information shows that the Republic kept it's military forces on a war footing for some time, so it's likely that the Republic has a NORAD equivalent elsewhere. So my prediction is that things go Attack of the Clones, and the Republic mounts a counter-attack and invades Imperial space from "NORAD", or the Empire sees this as it's chance to regain supremacy and Strikes Back. Or the hypothetical Imperial government on Coruscant may throw the First Order under the bus, only to get overthrown by the FO by popular support.

Either way, E.VIII can't come soon enough. 

Santa Barbara Shooter: The Evil is in the Man, not the Implements

OK now that time has passed for the dust on this to settle I'll put in my input.

Again we got a disturbed individual in Elliot Rodger who went out on a GTA-style rampage. Several people run over, 3 dead from stabbing, 3 dead from gunshot.

Could more laws have prevented this?

In a word... no. California already has some of the strictest gun laws in the country. We have "assault weapon" bans, we have universal background checks, we have 10 day waiting periods, we have magazine limits, and getting a Concealed Carry Licence in this state is next to impossible depending on the county.

The thing with laws is they are a part of the social contract, as such they're only terms of a contract. To enjoy the benefits of a civil society and government benefits (like a fire department) you give up certain things.

Contracts are broken all the time, and the social contract is no exception.

Laws do nothing to physically stop someone from committing crime. Sure laws can set the punishment for violating the social contract, but they do nothing to stop someone from breaking the contract if they decide the punishment is worth it or they can duck the punishment. So ultimately what this means is that laws are only as effective as far as people are willing to obey them.

Words on a piece of paper do nothing to stop someone who decides to go against them no matter how much money or good feelings went into putting those words down. Anything else that happens beyond that becomes damage control. And that's what police are, they're society's damage control agents. They can't act until there is reasonable suspicion, therefore they are a reactionary unit.

Given that condition what can be done? Hide and pray until damage control arrives? Or become proactive in your own defense. Do I think this could have been prevented with more lax laws? Yes I do, this could have been stopped by a law abiding citizen with a gun. The rampage started with a stabbing.

But why won't more control laws prevent this? As I said, once someone decides to ignore those laws, they mean nothing. It's already illegal to drive like a madman and hit people with your car (didn't stop that other lunatic that thought he was the Angel of Death and intentionally plowed his car into a crowed in Santa Barbara). It's already illegal to stab people, it's illegal to carry a loaded weapon on your person in California without a CCL, and it's sure as hell illegal to shoot at people. Even without more laws this guy is already a multiple felon, looking at a life sentence and possibly the death penalty. Another law is not going to do anything.

Cars, knives and guns have no will of their own. They cannot act on their own. A car will not decide to drive into people on its own, a knife will not decide to shank someone on its own, and a gun will not shoot anyone on its own.

The Evil is not in the objects, it's the heart of Man.

Let's take a look at this kid (I refuse to reffed to him as an adult.). He has a 100+ page manifesto you can check out here if you're so inclined.

Going though this tale of sein kampf, nothing really seems out of the ordinary aside from having a rich and privileged background. Though I need to point out, for one reason or another he was a scared kid, every year of school he was scared to go. He was the kid who got bullied in high school is freshman year (yeah but who doesn't get it from the sophmores when you're a high school freshman?). There's really nothing out of the ordinary, for a teenager, though seems to be on a more intense scale. Though he singles out an event where he was bullied by a girl at summer camp.

All the weirdness really started when he was 17. He started to get jealous of people living life. Of people doing what he simply put didn't have the fucking balls to go out and do. His obsession over sex drove him into hating people that were getting laid because he wasn't. He pretty much started turning into Lil Adolf at this point, talking about wanting power just to impose his own warped ideology and what not.

It's just one story of being friendless after another with a generous heaping of sex obsession. Eventually we start to see things like this.

It's not fair. You girls have never been attracted to me. I don't know why you girls have never been attracted to me, but I will punish you all for it. It's an injustice, a crime, because I don't know what you don't see in me. I'm the perfect guy, and yet you throw yourselves at all these obnoxious men, instead of me, the supreme gentleman.

And things like this:

On the day of retribution I will enter the hottest sorority house of UCSB, and I will slaughter every single spoiled stuck up blonde slut I see inside there. All those girls that I've desired so much, they would have all rejected me and looked down upon me as an inferior man if I ever made a sexual advance towards them. While they throw themselves at these obnoxious brutes. I'll take great pleasure in slaughtering all of you. You will finally see that I am in truth the superior one. The true Alpha Male.

To sum it all up he was an entitlement mind little bitch, who essentially shot up a part of Santa Barbara because he couldn't get laid. Why couldn't he get laid? Well as I mentioned this guy was scared of his own shadow. He was scared of going to school, he was scared of interacting with people. He mentions sitting around in a Barns and Noble just hoping people would come and talk to him. He just expected things to just happen to him, and that just ain't life. It also seems his mind was poisoned by images portrayed by the media since he had this idea that he was entitled to sex. He talks about punishing women. Punishing for what? For not sleeping with him. Sorry kiddo but you got to make thing happen.

A good friend of mine had her take on this over a text convo she gave me permissions to post up.

Fuck those guys, who say that they deserve a woman's body, why say that because women deny a man access to our most personal selves we are souless succubuses, who demand that women be tools for their amusement because they want us to be. Fuck those guys so much. And if they do get sex it should be a dildo to the ass.  

********

And you know what drives me nuts about those guys? They have literally nothing appealing about them, but when they aren't appealing to women it's the woman's fault. Instead when women get turned down, they blame themselves, and it's still the woman's fault. What the fuck is that 

And you know what? She's right. What did Rodger have to offer a girl, or to anybody when he isn't even willing to go out and for himself, live the life that he wants to live?

Do I think he's an evil person? Yes I do, not evil as in born with malice, but evil as in corrupted. His own fear is what stopped him from living the life he wanted. This is by his own admission. Sure life as a teenager is hard, I've been there, we've all been there at some point. But for one reason or another (I say upbringing) he never really developed the skills to deal with life after that girl bullied him.

Speaking of fear, considering he claims to be a big Star Wars fan, how did he not take what Yoda said about fear to heart:

Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering.

What happened here is exactly what Yoda cautioned against. His fear of others, lead to anger over his inability to do the same thing. This Anger and envy of people living life lead to hating them for doing what feared to do. And hate lead to this. He went from an insecure kid who became warped and twisted. There was evil here, but that evil was not in the car, millions of cars out that haven't been involved in crime. There are billions of knives out there that haven't been involved in crime. It is said that private gun owners in the U.S. is one of the world's largest standing armies. That's millions of guns that haven't been involved in crime. The evil wasn't in these objects, but in his heart.

Now to bring things full circle.

Do you think this guy, and other like him care about what the laws are? No... hell no, they don't care. So what would passing more laws to do stop this? How can we stop this?

The ones who can stop someone like this are people, not words on a piece of paper. People with the will and the means to stop someone when they go off the rails like this. You can't prevent behavior when a person decides the law doesn't apply to them.

He became a monster when fear corrupted him and he went out and acted out in malice, without giving the laws a thought. And so I'll leave on this quote from Alucard/Vlad Dracula (Hellsing) if you want to know what would prevent this from happening again somewhere:

It takes a man in order to kill a monster!

A tale of two RoboCops

No I don't mean Alex Murphy and John T. Cable.

Just by making that reference I think it can be said I'm a big fan of the franchise. I've seen the three original movies, two of the TV series, and grew up on the cartoon.

And now we have a new one, so how does an old fan like me feel about it?

Well I liked it. Just as you can like both Jack Nicholson and Heath Ledger's Joker, it is possible to like both.

*Spoilers ahead*

The main underlying theme of RoboCop is humanity, what makes us human. Verhoeven and Padilha's RoboCops are essentially two approaches on the same topic. 1987 RoboCop is about a man trying to reclaim his humanity, where as 2014 RoboCop is about a man trying to maintain his humanity.

In a sense when people say "there is only one RoboCop" they're right. While both movies take different paths, the end destination is the same. Alex Murphy is still a man, RoboCop might have a mechanical body, but the man is still there.

Alex Murphy and Alex Murphy

Probably the most obvious difference between Alex Murphy (1987) and Alex Murphy (2014) is that the former is dead and the latter seriously injured. Whereas Murphy (1987) was brought back from the dead, Murphy (2014) was more like Darth Vader in that the mechanical body served as a mobile life-support system.

In RoboCop (1987) for a good portion of the film Murphy is a brain in a case and nothing more than an organic CPU. When he's revived, he isn't reffered to by name, he's called "RoboCop" or rather Crime Prevention Unit 001, as his full designation. As the movie goes on more and more of Murphy's memory and personality emerge. By the end once he has taken his helmet off and the audience sees his face again, his movement has become much more fluid coupled with his facial expressions, he looks less a hulking robot and more a man in an armor suit. At the film's conclusion the OCP CEO asks him "What's your name?" to which Murphy replies simply with "Murphy". By the end of RoboCop 2, his restoration seems complete when he remarks to Lewis "Patience Lewis, we're only human."

Where as in RoboCop (2014) Murphy never has his memory blanked and people still reffed to him by name. His face was never really concealed from the audience. Yes he has the visor but when he was revived as RoboCop, the audience saw Murphy's face, not the iconic red visor. In 1987 Murphy's family had moved on, in contrast in 2014 Murphy's family is still there and they are still trying to hang on to each other, he's trying to keep his family while they're tying to keep their husband and father. In the end he has his true, long awaited reunion with his family.

The Execution

In the execution, Padilha stayed respectful to the source material unlike say, Paul W.S. Anderson with Resident Evil or Uwe Boll in your pick of any of his video game based movies.

From the start there was a lot to be said about Murphy's new black armor. People generally saying "that's not RoboCop" and in a sense they were right. I'm not sure if it was an intentional stroke of script writing genius or a just a fluke, but when Murphy is revived in the re-imagining of the blue-silver armor he asks "What kind of suit is this...?" to which his physician Dr. Norton replies "It's not a suit, it's... you."

One will also notice that when Omni starts to screw directly with Murphy's brain, he is the black armor. In a sense the black armor is not him, it's not Murphy. When he starts acting like a robot because his brain chemistry has been screwed with, to the point where he ignores his wife, child and partner, he's is in the black suit. As with the original, his personalty starts to re-emerge when he starts encountering elements of his own (here attempted) murder. In this case his first act of hanging on to his humanity is to investigate his own attempted murder. At the end when he has over come everything Omni did to try to make him into a robot, and he finally has his reunion with his family, he is back in the blue-silver armor. Another notable thing between the two bodies, is that the black armor bears the logo of OmniCorp while the blue-silver armor only has his badge engraved on.

And of course, he still retained the heavy thumping footsteps, which is about as iconic to RoboCop as Darth Vader's mechanical breathing.

Omni did what they could to suppress Alex Murphy and ultimately failed, the man prevailed.

I also enjoyed the numerous references to the original. There was a subversion of the "I'll buy THAT for a dollar!" tag line. This time around Alex retains an organic hand, a nod towards Bob Morton ordering the surgeons to remove Murphy's left arm in 1987. There were other smaller ones I can't remember off the top of my head without watching it again, but they're there.  

But...

The 2014 isn't exactly perfect. The concept was sound but there were a few things in the execution that could have been better. While a lot of attention was paid to Murphy and Norton, there was less to Murphy's wife and his partner Jack Lewis wasn't any better off.

I can see they wanted to place more emphasis on Murphy's humanity, what they should have done was spend another 30 min to flesh out his relations with his partner before and after becoming a cyborg. For instance when they meet again after Murphy's procedure, they exchange a few words and a joke, no fistbump or secret handshake between the two.

Also 2014 lacks a charismatic villain. While Sellars is obviously the stand in for both the main villain of the original, Dick Jones, and partly for Bob Morton as the initiator of the RoboCop project, a part that was done very well, who's the stand in for Clarence Boddicker? Boddicker seems to have been split of into two, hardly memorable villains, the criminal Antoine Vallon who is cahoots with at least three corrupt officers, and Rick Maddox.

Vallon was almost just a cardboard cut out, the biggest role he played was being responsible for the car bomb that crippled Murphy. His last moments were hardly memorable compared to Boddicker.

Maddox by contrast, arguably isn't even really bad. An asshole, yes, but at the end of the day he was really nothing more than a mercenary on OmniCorp's pay role, just a guy doing his job.

By contrast to both, Clarence Boddicker was a through and though bad guy, and he knew it, not only did he know it, but he loved it. Even the lettering to the billboard advertising his car, the 6000 SUX could be read as GOOD SUX if you squint your eyes a little. He was mean, vicious, violent and had a dark sense of humor, show on one instance when he blew up a member of his own gang's car because he had the audacity to buy a 6000 SUX as well. Boddicker was loud and in your face and you couldn't help but laugh along with some of his twisted humor, he was the sort of villain that the audience loved to hate. Maddox by contrast was really nothing more than, as Murphy put it "...a little asshole..."

All and all, the concept was sound, I liked what they were going for, but in the execution there was more they could have done.

Other thoughts

Both movies were clearly products of their time. Which is one of the reasons why I like the new one. It wasn't just trying to copy the 1987 movie, but instead was it's own narrative on the same themes and topics. Though this time around, I actually found this incarnation of Alex Murphy to be just a tad more likable. Yeah I said it, I liked this Murphy more. 1987 Murphy was just a straight shooting cop doing his job. Nothing wrong with that. Though 2014 Murphy, with police having a more and more negative image due to corruption and police brutality in our modern times, this Murphy refuses to let a case go involving crooked cops, "they're either dumb or dirty!" he says. He is the cop we all want today, the one who'll clean the streets AND clean house.

And being a product of it's time, I actually do like the redesigns. I like Murphy's "it's you" suit. It was sleek but still looked like the original. While it was sleeker and more lean looking, Murphy was still taller than everyone else, he still had a presence. The I liked the black armor as well, not as much as the blue-silver one, but I liked it since it reminded me of an Evangelion unit from the Neon Genesis Evangelion anime series. I liked how it looked different because it wasn't him so to speak. It differentiated Murphy the man, from OmniCorp's efforts to turn the man into a product. The sleek stealthy redesign of the ED-209 was also welcome in my opinion. If ED-209 was made today it would look like that as opposed to the blocky version we saw in 1987.

Watching the fight between Murphy and the ED-209s I couldn't help but think of another cyborg, Jack "Raiden" from Hideo Kojima's Metal Gear Solid video game franchise. Murphy's battle with the ED-209s was a little reminiscent of Raiden's battle with the very ED-209 esque Gekko cyborg anti-infantry units.

At the end of the day, it is a good movie on it's own. And yes, you can like it and the original 1987 film at the same time.

Just because you call him "Your Honor" doesn't mean he's smarter than you.

I think this might help some people feel a bit better if they read this before a pending court appearance. Just because s/he sits up there and everyone reffers to them as "Your Honor" doesn't mean they're smarter than you.

Take the case of Judge Robert O'Neill of the California Court of Appeal, Fourth Appellate District. Basically this guy just doesn't know what he is talking about. 

In his decision here he goes on to talk at length about semi-auto civilian market AKs. He goes on about so called "assault weapons". 

Although James acknowledged the "fully automatic nature of a machine gun renders such a weapon arguably more dangerous and unusual than a semiautomatic assault weapon, that observation does not negate the fact that assault weapons, like machine guns, are not in common use by law-abiding citizens for lawful purposes and likewise fall within the category of dangerous and unusual weapons that the government can prohibit for individual use

I've explained all the technicalities in previous entries already. The technology behind the AK is over 100 years old. Semi-automatic technology has been in use for over 100 years in the civilian market. As I said, there is no such thing as an "assault weapon" meaning that semi-automatic rifles ARE in fact in common use by law-abiding citizens.

This is the Browning 22, it is a semi-auto rifle designed by John Browning, and produced in 1914.

Conceptually they're the same as the semi-auto AKs. A part of the energy used to propel the bullet is used to cycle the action and automatically load in the next bullet. So what does this all mean then? It means that Judge Robert O'Neill is dead wrong when he says these guns are not in common use by law-abiding citizens. They've been in common use for decades before his parents even thought about having him.

So when you walk into a courtroom as a new lawyer, or some other capacity, don't feel intimidated by the judge. Odds are he's probably just as dumb as you.

The Two-Party System: Divided we have Fallen

Partisanship

Polarization

Party-line

We've heard the terms before, and they all relate to the same thing. A toxic political Us against Them mentality that's been poisoning American politics. It's become so inflamed and extreme that people think of themselves as Democrat-Americans and Republican-Americans as opposed to just Americans. They hold to their Party like a religion, with politicians held up as if they were clergy.

The Two-Party System is probably one of the worse, most damaging thing in American politics. It is a system hijacked by special interests, big money, and the two main Parties that play in this sandbox.

For one thing the Two-Party System only serves to divide us. Those at the top use it to pit the rest of us, the middle class, the lower class, the whole 98% of us against each other, while we're all robbed blind. Instead of ganging up as 98% on the politicians and demanding they do something about the economic mess we're in, as Iceland's government had done, we're all distracted with bullshit on TV and when we're not, we're at each others throats instead. All the while the middle class continues to shrink while the rich at the top get more of the pie. Big banks like HSBC get busted for laundering money for criminal organizations and man posing as Attorney General, Eric Holder refuses to press charges, and we as 98% of the people do nothing. Too busy at each others throats playing this rigged partisan game of "my Party can beat up your party!" Our politicians have stopped representing us and are pretty much bent on ramming their special interest agendas up our collective asses. We've been divided and we're being conquered.

"There is no civility, only politics." - Chancellor Palpatine

“The Republic is not what it once was—the Senate is full of greedy, squabbling delegates. There is no interest in the common good.” - Chancellor Palpatine

While referring to the Galactic Republic in it's final days, Palpatine may as well have been referring to the American Republic. In our poisoned political landscape everything is political. Neither side is any better than the other. Democrats will use gun violence to push their political agenda one day, while the next Republicans will use abortion to push their own political agendas. In the end they always win and we always lose.

And the reason these two parties can walk all over us? Well, who else are we going to vote for? Even if one Party were to lose the House, or Congress, or the White House, they'll be the dominant Party again in 10-20 years. There are no other viable parties, so they just need to sit there and wait. It's a rigged system and no matter what the two Parties will ALWAYS win, because they will ALWAYS be in power.

Which goes to the next issue. Because they are always in power, these so-called representatives don't have to represent any of us. They just need to look just slightly better than the other guy and into office they go.

As bad as it sounds this is damaging on an even deeper level. Consider this, there are also the same people the decide what school curriculum are. If I had to pick one class which I valued the most it would be my Logic class taught by Dr. Danny Weil. Logic and Critical Thinking are the classes that will teach you to think and see though all the bullshit. And that's a good thing right?

So why did I have to wait till college to take these classes? Why aren't they offered in high school?

Because the Parties do not want thinkers. They want good wind-up automatons that will parrot and spread the Party Line. They do not want radical thinkers who will question the status quo paradigm and ultimately threaten their power. They want a dumb, dim-witted and easily distracted populace, that shies away from politics, and at most the extent of their involvement serves only to further the Party Line. Do any of you really think that Republicans care about an unborn baby when they couldn't give two shits about a poor underprivileged kid? Do any of you really think Democrats care about gay people when they've hemmed and hawed about it only making a decision when and election was coming up? Sure there are members that are sincere such as Elizabeth Warren, but those are few and far between, And so the Two-Party System continues to perpetuate itself.

On an another level, the whole concept of a Two-Party System in a nation as large and as diverse as the United States, is completely nonviable to begin with. This country was set up as a Republic, a representative democracy. But with such diverse a population as the United States has, it it impossible for only two national parties to represent all the different myriads of views. What Party is someone supposed to vote for when they support gun rights AND gay rights? The result is these people are marginalized and even less inclined to vote. Which of course is what the Parties want, because then it culls the number of potential voters down and the percentage of their automatons, the ones who mindlessly vote down Party lines, increases amongst the population which actually votes. Further cementing their positions.

Maybe in a smaller, more homogeneous society, two parties would be enough. Like in a country like Japan that is very homogeneous and where conformity is desired and rocking the boat is frowned upon. But in a country like the United States where you have people from literally every part of the Earth where there are people, each bringing with them their own values and ideals, how can two parties ever hope to represent even most, let alone all these different diverging groups? It can't, it's impossible. Furthermore, how can you have a representative democracy, when much if not most of the populace isn't represented very well? You can't, the republic won't work. Well ok it might function, but it'll function about as well as a Ford from the '90s will after it passes the 10 year mark.

Lastly, what happens when one of the Parties becomes so weak that the other has a super-majority. The majority becomes empowered to do what ever it wants, IE adopt and even more hardline adherence to the Party Dogma. Until that Party inevitable falls from grace, it in fact becomes a de facto one party state. We can see this happening in California, it is the "tyranny of the majority" that people such as John Adams feared. Had there been a third or fourth "liberal" party to siphon away voters from the Democratic Party, they likely wouldn't have such power in this state.