... because of how they self-identified ...

and...

Breivik does identify himself as Christian, but ...

Auuughaaah! Warning! Warning! Cognitive dissonance alert! Auuughaaah!

FYI, that "but" is what makes your argument into a classic manifestation of the "no true Scotsman" fallacy. Wikipedia could append it to the official example list.

I understand "sobbery" to mean "using one's experience or preferences as an excuse to abuse or patronize". There is no excuse; hence, I despise snobbery.*

The worst kinds of snobbery exist in things where the experience cannot be proven; i.e., it relies solely on taking the person's word and social proof. The number one candidate for this kind of behavior would be wine. There have been many scientific experiments performed on wine drinkers and even wine tasters and it proves that what people taste is money, not the "subtle nuances of crushed fruit". The "art" of "coffee appreciation" is still in its infancy when compared to that of wine, but it exists nonetheless.

The most important aspect of coffee is that it simply not taste bad. I drink it black, so I cannot tolerate any flavors of like dirt, mold, gym sock, or charcoal. But beyond that, I think most of the good flavors that people "detect", "get", or "pick up" are indistinguishable from the purely imaginary flavors that people "detect", "get", or "pick up". Expresso? French press? Whatever, as long as it doesn't taste bad.

* I have to own up to one kind of snobbery of which I am very proud: I am a snob snob. That is, I am a snob of other snobs. A snobboisseur, if you will. So far, I have found all other snobs deficient. Not a single one of them is good enough for the likes of me.

Its only "paranoia" if the fear is irrational and unjustified.

Unfortunately recent history is full of examples of abuse of governmental power and the "civilized" ways for the governed (courts, elections) to obtain justice for which have been rendered largely useless for a large portion of the victims.

The court system is not only guaranteed to bankrupt one being persecuted (not to mention that when facing a group of thuggish government officials on a power trip the first step is usually freezing/confiscation of all assets of the victim) but the courts themsevles have proven to be easily manipulated by the government bureaucrats and officials and are consistently siding with various three letter agencies. Even if they are not, their rulings are ignored (such as the recent TSA rulings), until such time when a new, more favourable ruling can be managed or in more extreme cases where the "law" can be reworked post-facto to the power-holder's advantage (such as the "legality" of torture and indefinite detention without trial of Guantanamo detainees).

Similarly, elections are largely meaningless since the US (and increasingly all the other "Western democracies") feature gigantic 2-way, gaudy sporting matches where the spectacle of personality cults and insane exaggerations of minutia differences between two or three facets of the ruling elite are meant to hide the fact that no real (in practical terms) differences exist between the team "red" and team "blue" and they are all working with/for the same elite and its ideology. You are just supposed to paint your face one of these colours and go screeching - spittle flying - at the supporters of the other team, a model successfully borrowed from the Football (or Soccer) scene. Just make sure you do not actually pause to think what you are doing and who benefits from this madness.

Now top it with the obvious trend of the governments expanding their power by leaps and bounds (TSA, extra-judiciary powers of the President to drone-assassinate American citizens he deems "enemies", etc and so on) and instead of making the poster you are replying to look like a paranoiac, you are making yourself look to be - at best - an uncurious, inattentive, "it can't happen here", "I can't hear anything lalalalalala", individual so desperate to believe that everything is "all right" that he is willing to ignore every second news item for a decade or so, or - at worst - an autocratic shill who actually likes the idea of "putting the malcontents in their place" and who worships naked, raw power and believes those who wield it deserve it and therefore can do no wrong.

Incidentally, 3D printed guns are not even a factor in the equations of power and constitute a negligeable "threat", but never the less will be dealt with harshly using hugely overreaching, draconian powers because even a tiny "threat" to the power-holders has to be neutralized immediately or else in can blossom into a much larger one and an unthinkable situation of a significant untraceable group of citizenry capable of physically resisting their government (to however a small degree) would possibly result. And thus the rulers would have to start actually be wary of the ruled, instead of just the other way around. And so "at 3am came balaclava-clad ATF knocking, with battering rams and bags to put on our heads, one for me, one for my wife and two wee ones for our kids, for I was guilty of an Unlicensed Possession of a 3D Printing Device and Printing an Unapproved Object".

I purchased a dell laptop (m1530) with Ubuntu several years ago, with extended tech support. I had a harder time getting it to run properly than any other laptop in the last few years. Whenever I tried calling the tech-support, I had to transfer several times because they couldn't be bothered creating prompts for it in their phone support menus. I was actually told by their tech-support that my laptop stopped working because I did updates. With 12.04 I was finally able to get the sound working. Their website used to say "the most important thing you need to know about linux is that you don't get Windows". Look at their ubuntu website now. It has a underpowered laptop with a 15 month-old version of Ubuntu that you can't customize at all.

If you do something stupid, such as leave your laptop in an unsecured location, then will your best friends steal it?

If you just change a few specifics, but not the tenor, in your argument, you'll get a drastically different result. To wit:

"Leaving her hotel room dressed like such a slut was a stupid and idiotic move on *her* part. And yes, I know that this sounds like blaming the victim, but there is a point where you have to take responsibility for your own actions."

Only slightly different from Curt Shillings first industry, professional sports, where they take taxpayer money, stay in business, then demand more. Had the state just given him the money, he could have stuck around for a while, then went back for more a few years later by threatening to take jobs elsewhere.

America is the hope for the better world.

If America is truly the "hope" for "the better world" then we are all fucked beyond help.

I for one want nothing to do with all the self-serving hypocrisy, proud, smug celebration of ignorance, barely veiled supremacist philosophy, ever-expanding authoritarianism backed by ever-more byzantine laws that is slowly evolving into something resembling Fascism and mindless worship of greed that America represents.

Libya. 2011. Not just the everyday people of Libya, but the Arab League of Nations.

You guys crack me up. Libya's "revolution" is was driven by a bunch of Al-Queda affiliated radical islamists hell bent on overthrowing the secular thug whom they despised in order to establish Sharia law and put uppity women back in burkas (see also: Egypt where the Muslim Brotherhood is about to win the first-and-last "elections").

You and NATO helped in (absolutely misplaced) hopes of getting on their "good side" and getting access to Libyan oil fields. But that was just a long-odds gamble, the real profit was to be had in spent munitions, military gear donated and other ways to transfer money from your taxes to the members of the 1%.

Also, I am not sure if you are aware, but Arab League is composed of a bunch of absolute monarchs with a decided Islamist bent whose sole concern is to have more influence on countries previously run by secular dictators, hence their support only for "revolutions" in places where such a secular dictator is under threat from the Islamists: Egypt, Libya, Syria etc.

You can also very accurately claim that the people of Syria are at this very moment asking for the same action, but have not yet been successful in convincing the United States (and/or others) to do so.

You can't be that naive, can you? You surely jest. Radical, vicious Islamists are the foreign-sponsored "revolutionaries" in Syria and are set to take power if Asad falls. They already have an impressive record of persecution and murder of anyone who is not them in the areas they managed, however briefly, to control. Go help them, the great exporters of "freedom" that you are! I am sure that you will find some way for your 1% to profit from it, whichever way it goes.

Libya last year. Serbia before, Kuwait, Korea,

You gotta be kidding. This is why I asked for anyone who is not a self-serving jackal asking you for "help". And so you list prime examples of the very thing I pointed out!

Libya: a bunch of radical islamists trying to overthrow a secular thug in order to establish Sharia law and persecute everyone who is not them. You and NATO helped in hopes of gaining preferential access to Libyan oil fields. Next.

Serbia: a bunch of power-hungry "separatists" who would exploit any possible division to split their country into a buch of city-states if they could get away with it as long as it put them in charge. Not to mention that some of them used a clever strategy of breeding like rabbits to gain control of territory of their neighbours, which you and NATO whole-heartedly endorsed. So you stepped in and gave them "freedom" to be dependent on you and your allies! And oppress the Serbs. Then there is a whole litany of fabricated "war crimes" that you try to pin on the Serbs to bring them to heel (never you mind that NATO killed far more civilians in far more criminal fashion, like bombing passenger trains, etc). An exercise in disgusting, self-serving "righteousness" for profit. Next.

Kuwait: an absolute monarchy invaded by a next door thug over them syphoning his oil using lateral oil wells running under Iraq's border built by US corporations (you knew the reason for the invasion, didn't you?) and so you went and ... restored absolute, oppressive monarchy back into its "rightful" place, the great purveyors of "freedom" and "democracy" that you are! Oh and the lies and propaganda that went along with it! The tear inducing (and totally fake) "eye witness" testimony by an incognito daughter of the Kuwaiti ambassador before the Senate about babies murdered in their incubators... just priceless. Next.

Korea: you propped up a dictator so bloody and corrupt that half of his country preferred Soviet-style thuggery to his exploits! Or did you think that all these North Koreans who fought against you did it just for kicks? It was not until the 1990s when the last South Korean dictator was ousted, all the previous ones having been untouchable due to your whole-hearted support, the great lovers of "freedom" and "democracy" that you are. Next.

WW2: you ignored all the pleas for help while trying to profit from the war by strategically supplying both sides until you were outright attacked by the Axis, Japan having bombed Pearl Harbour and 4 days later Nazi Germany having declared war on you. You did not join out of any good will. Next.

WW1: a bunch of blood-thirsty empires fighting over which royal dick is going to be sucked by whom. There were no "good guys" in this war and so you cannot count it as "helping" anyone (other then yourself). Next.

the list goes on.

Indeed, the Spanish American war, the subjugation of Philippines, etc etc. A long list of selfish, self-centered exploits of a greedy empire.

Some US military actions are deplorable and indefensible, but some of them are legitimate attempts to help defend freedom and democracy

Actually the distinction is quite different. All of the military actions of the US are (with the possible exception of WW2) self-centered profit and expansion of power seeking excercises but because of the chosen "national narrative" and "national mythos" of the USA, i.e. "brave defenders of freedom and democracy" that your power elites use to hold the thing together, they are forced to pretend that the actions are to give liberties of the oppressed etc and so on to keep the populace appropriately opiated. Sometimes the mirage thus formed is more successful then other times. This is what is confusing you.

US = Imperialist and Everyone Else = Innocent Victims is a naive way of viewing the problem.

That is not the view. The view is far more straightforward: empires = imperialist, be they Roman, British, French, Russian or American.

What makes the difference however is all the hypocrisy of the US empire trying to paint itself as a peddler of "freedom" which makes it a particularly odious specimen.

So you agree. Most of the 100,000 deserved to die. They were already our enemies. Deluded too.

I will quote you to anyone who has ever expressed any sympathy for the US after 9/11. That will cure them of any misconceptions rather quick.

Come to think of it, your logic of "the uppity foreigners actually want to hold us to all the bullshit we've been spewing and then refuse to lick our boots worshipfully and to cower in fear before us - kill these ingrates all!" expresses a world-view straight out of Mein Kampf. You know, that book so revered by your other supremacist ideological brothers of yesteryear. Same ideas, different übermenschen. They sported more bloody results of their insane lust for global domination, but the hour is young yet. Then, on the other hand, they did not have Internet and so they all had to go and be belligerent jackasses in the real world, instead of being online "tough guys" - like you - who cower in their basements while cheering on the mercenaries in foreign lands.

Settled.

Agreed! Your medication has indeed settled at the bottom of your stomach ... where it unfortunately failed to dissolve and thus has no effect. Probably too much alcohol in the surrounding contents.

You might try stopping chewing on the furniture for a bit and try lying down instead - at least until this episode of yours passes. To put you to sleep you can count bloody corpses of all the "enemies" you are going to kill! Since there are at least a good 5 billion of them, you are not likely to run out before midnight...

For everyone 1 person that hates the US there's 5 that wish we'd come in and fix whatever crap is going on in their community.

This is a perfect example of the root cause of everything that is wrong with the USA: supremely arrogant, utterly self-deluded, smugly imbecillic and profoundly ignorant feeling of the Universe revolving around your ass.

From what I've seen traveling around the world (something that I am sure you did not deem necessary to form your opinion) is that if anything, your numbers are actually reversed: for every naive goofus who sees USA as a potential saviour, 5 see it for what it is: a self-important empire whose distinguishing feature is hypocritical pontification about "freedom" and "democracy" while depriving anyone who has something it wants of freedom, property and frequently life all the while propping up convenient dictators and absolute monarchs (see also: Saudi Arabia) all over the world.

And your general attitude just illustrates the point gloriously.

America isn't perfect but we're the best hope for the World and everyone knows it, that's why they loan us money until they're starving because they know if there's ever a problem we're the ones they can call.

Comedy gold. What was the last time anyone other than thieves and would-be robber barons hoping to profit from misery of their fellows actually asked you to show up and blow their country to smithereens in the name of "saving" it?

Or were you trying to be sarcastic by pointing out how USA rigged the world financial markets for its own benefit? Or more precisely for the benefit of its top 1%, who - amusingly enough - are these days busy abandoning what they sense is soon to be a rotting corpse of a has-been empire for some greener pastures...

Lawyers in modern society fulfill the same role as the various priests and shamans fulfilled in the societies of old: control of access to the "deity" in fashion (in this case the fabled, never seen, mythical "Justice"). Overtly it is to "help" the sheep to access the deity in question, but in reality it is of course merely to satisfy avarice of the priests and their hunger to wield power over others. That is also the reason why priests are always attempting to control politics - in the old days by manipulating pharaohs, kings, emperors and the like or even becoming kings themselves (also see under "The Pope") - but in the modern times they dispensed with intermediaries and half measures and simply took the power directly, in the so called "republics" and "democracies" in which invariably at least two thirds of the power structure consists of the pries ... err ... lawyers.

And no lawyer has any real stake in simplifying or reducing the input of lawyers.

Which is of course the golden rule of all parasitic priesthoods.

Also note that, just like lawyers, all the priests and shamans in history always claimed to only want to "help" their victims and thus always argue themselves "indispensable" to whatever society they happen to prey on.

Why do you think priests always insist on making the rules of the interaction with the "deity" as arcane as possible? As an example: most of history the Christian priests insisted on having their Bible in a language that common people could not read and which had to be "interpreted" for them, just as modern lawyers insist on "legalese" for the same very reasons. Unlike the Catholic priests however, modern lawyers resort to the methods of other, older, priesthoods by ever expanding and complicating (never simplifying, as you noticed) their arcane manuscripts and rituals. This is because the Judeo-Christians have essentially hobbled themselves with the idea of a "Holy Book", which offers limited room for expansion (although several of the "one, only and 100% true" improvements and revisions have been produced). Fortunately for the Christian priests, the original writers made the thing ambiguous, self-contradictory and - most importantly - voluminous enough to satisfy the purpose it was intended for.

As to "justice", the very first test to see if a society has any is to see if making offerings to and groveling before a priest, i.e. a "lawyer", is a pre-requisite for its supposed dispensation.

Note also how promise of "justice" is a key element in most religions and how much emphasis is placed on it by the religion's priests.

Meanwhile, in Greece...