I watched wrestling (WWF, Hulk Hogan and Rowdy Roddy Piper) as a child. My brothers and I had most of the 10" rubberized action figures. It was lots of fun. Sometime around when I turned 14, though, you could see the lame acting was just that. Yes, picking people up and dropping them on their face without injuring them takes some skill, but it's not one I find culturally acceptable. (The punches and kicks have always looked fake, just watch for when the camera has the "wrong angle.")
Now we've progressed (Oh yes, I've seen WWF Raw and WCW in years of late, while channel surfing, including the very well-built and seemingly couth Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson) into nothing but petty "my woman can maim your woman," Jerry-Springer-outtakes full of censored screaming vulgarity and profanity, stupid stunts, lights, smoke, shiny things, chair-and-cinderblock to the cranium violence-- and, to add insult to injury, corporate-greed-frenzied merchandising! Any physical stamina required to pull off the intricate choreography of "wrestling" is lost in this tripe, and any doubt of the danger involved died with The Anvil when he fell from the roof during a failed stunt.
Ladies and gentlemen, is this what you want the world to identify as "American entertainment?"
That was funny! And since I'm a fan of yours, your post is modded at 4!:)
See, it really does work...
(P.S. I'm not intolerant of others, I'm intolerant of stupid redneck garbage on television, and those who would support it to lower the LCD factor (see The Onion) of American culture.)
No, they think integration is their only key to keeping other vendors off the playing field.
Which is of course why they're in court to begin with.
You're absolutely right; I was thinking from a development manager point of view.
From a marketing standpoint-- yes, absolutely, they want to bundle/integrate everything to further leverage their dominance over other software companies. Which sucks.
They talked about this on NPR on my way to work this morning. Windows XP Embedded ("used for medical devices," amongst other things) is completely modular and can be customized for specific purposes. Gates admitted that he did not know how this might be adapted to x86 machines.
I think it's clear that XP embedded would not be what "the consumers" want for their desktops; but on the other hand, Microsoft clearly CAN engineer an OS on x86 that is modular and customizable for OEMs, as the sanctions seem to be calling for.
I think the issue is that Microsoft doesn't WANT to expend the time, effort, and MONEY to develop such an OS; not that it isn't possible. They apparently think integration is their only key to stability.
Explain to me, then, all the various Linux distros for desktops that allow you pick and choose? And much of those components are developed by what Microsoft would consider "amateurs?"
Imagine if 20 years ago, Compaq had not been allowed to reverse-engineer the IBM PC BIOS. The worldwide economy would probably be a few trillion dollars poorer, and God only knows if we'd even have the WWW or ubiquitous home computers...
You forget, the home computer WAS rapidly becoming ubiquitous, thanks to a little company in Cupertino, California. IBM laughed at the idea of a home computer in the late 70s, until Apple sold a few million units and Big Blue scurried around trying to get their sh!t together. (Dons flame-retardant suit) And hence while Apple was busy fighting Big Blue, Bill Gates came in and stole control of the entire freaking personal computer industry behind IBM and Apple's backs!:D
Of course, without competition from IBM/MS, who knows how Apple would have come out. Microsoft would have done software apps for Apples, maybe eventually went the way of Lotus and been bought out by someone, maybe Apple. Maybe Steve Jobs becomes BillG's boss!
Maybe IBM makes Apple clones and the competetion would have given us a flat-panel iMac in 1999 instead of 2002, as was first rumored!
Maybe Apple would have never gotten the GUI and somebody else (obviously not Xerox) would have marketed it; so they made the OS behind Apple's hardware. Steve wouldn't have left Apple and created NeXT; he would have left the OS up to the "software guys." Linux would come along in the early 90s and created Linux... on the Apple/Motorola 68060 chip and evicted IBM as OS king in 1996???
Can you check the sheer number of comments in the past 12 hours compared with an average of the same time persion for the last four weeks or so? (Probably a rhetorical question, since that would be some extraneous work. I'd love to see it though.)
It looks to me like people are still reading and commenting to some degree, but the usually "very vocal" (5-10 comments per story, +1 Bonus-enabled) people are largely abstaining.
Good or bad; I'm not sure. There have been some really good comments today, but I browse at +3 and so far today I'm seeing about 50% of the usual number of comments per story.
I am participating because I PERCEIVE that Rob, Jeff, et al do not value user comments as "content" to the degree that they should. Yes, it is their site. Yes, moderation is pretty much OK, and I am even OK with most of the editor moderation that goes on-- With the exception of a few BLATANT examples of editors blacklisting users and bitchslapping threads that I felt contributed to Slashdot, as both a revenue-generating site as well as this "community" that many people keep whining about.
The truth may well be different from my perception. Like I said, they run the site. But in the same way I can't possibly know about back-office details, Rob, Jeff, Jamie, etc. are now completely incapable of giving opinions from the perspective of end-users, simply because they don't experience Slashdot in the way we do. That is why I think that they should at least assign some mental value to the discussion and commentary, as opposed to (in my perception) dismissing it as superfluous discussion that hogs their resources. I'm quite sure that in between submitting nodes on e2, and having lunch in Holland, MI, Rob and Jeff are reading the comments behind some of the articles that pique their interest. Knowing that, how can they say (in public, with a stright-face) that comments are an insignificant part of Slashdot? Only in raw unique-IP pageviews as compared to the front page, we know.
But the point of the blackout as I understood it was the assertion that while there are a lot of loads of the front page, what really generates "interest" in slashdot are the comments.
Now I have to post with my name... great, I crossed the picket line. Sorry guys!
I was trying to make scoial commentary, not fiscal. But I have no disagreement with your assertion that "money flows uphill," and that is because of the same basic phenomenon; in this case, a subculture of greedy corporatists, instead of a subculture of lazy social leeches.
I know full well that the welfare-culture opt-ins are only a small part of the government's appropriation of my check. Other things that it has gone to are things like a few billion dollars to the international AIDS relief coalition. When Mr. Bush gave them a few bills, the response from Africa was, "Well, that's a nice START. We look forward to your FUTURE contributions." You can look at that issue two ways: either you view citizens of third-world african countries as undereducated and impoverished, who need to learn sexual responsibility so that the virus stops streading, or you can go up 50,000 feet and look at the situation from above. Go back to the middle ages, there was a plague that hit and spread rapidly largely because of population density and poor hygeine. It killed off a lot of people, the remaining ones found the cause and stopped it by not doing the things that were killing off the rest of the race. You *could* apply the same to Africa; once 60% of the continent has wiped itself out with HIV, the remaining ones will be the ones smart enough to not engage in risky behavior. They will reproduce and a new generation will come forth, (hopefully) smarter. That is Natural Selection, in the same sense that "living the party line" of Republicans with respect to the poor would be an interesting experiment for social Darwinism.
The problem is that in the meantime, Africa needs and wants to treat AIDS patients, so they're buying a billion dollars of medical supplies and pharmaceuticals to keep alive people who 1) are going to die of their disease, and 2) now have more oppotunities to spread the disease. You can call this heartless, and I am not saying I agree, but it is a scenario to consider.
So, in closing, thank you for your service, and your time discussing this with me.
Yes I disagree that the the post was devoid of original thought. Yes I disagree that it was a right-wing rant.
It must be so easy to pigeon-hole people based on instantly-determined stereotypes, and therefore consider them wrong and "just like everyone else." (Which is basically what you accused me of doing.)
I tend to watch individual behavior (Psychology), societal behavior (Sociology), and patterns of human behavior (Anthropology), and try to make observations that fit the individuals I'm talking about in a larger context. Clearly, I am an amateur at each of these things... but weren't some of the best artists of many trades self-taught? And in this case, I stand by my observations as an anthropologist, not as a politician.
I bet I am older then you are,
Age != Maturity; Age != Wisdom. I know a few men twice my age who have less self awareness than I. I know a few younger who have more than I.
I bet I've been to more countries then you have,
Quite probably, since I've never been in the military, nor the peace corps. If I made observations in another country, I know my rant would be completely invalid. I realize that; I was trying to speak to a subculture of Americans.
I bet I have been to more states then you have,
You might be surprised, since I have lived in at least 7 states, and visited about five or so more. And not all in one time zone, either.:P
I bet I speak more languages then you do,
Peut-etre... porquoi?
I bet I make more money then you do.
You make more money than I do and you still don't think that the United States takes too much of your paycheck for questionable services, both military and social?
I can tell you flat out; I'm 26, the step-son (who was later adopted by) of a military officer who moved around a lot and did not make a "a lot" for being responsible for a wife and 7 kids, I moved to Wyoming when I was 19 and now live in an Eastern timezone state. I work for a financial services company and make $49,000 a year, which for someone with "no education" (post-secondary) is pretty respectable, if you asked me. (Which you did.)
I have a younger sibling with multiple young children who is still partially on governmental assistance, mostly because the man she married is the world's laziest man. (His picture is in the Guiness book, I'm pretty sure.) AND she has not made good choices... so when we give her options (out of compassion, concern, and experience) for how she can improve her situation, she tells us to fuck off, cuz it's "her life."
Where the hell did you learn to read dude, the fucking academy of "my fingers are in my ears and I'm screaming 'I can't hear you! I can't hear you!'"
No original ideas? Right wing? Read my other comments in this thread, and elsewhere.
Spend less time fighting and more time educating yourself by listening to other people, absorbing it, finding truth, finding non-truth, and responding in kind.
Trust me, when you turn 23, and put your skateboard in the closet, you may just find that it was a smart decision.
It was not necessarily a slam, as I am a recovering catholic; I'm just drawing an imaginary line between two teachings: Make sure you have lots of kids, and make sure everyone gives x% of the income for church works. I have a very close mormon friend who husband quit the church. True, MUCH of the money goes towards good deeds that the Mormon Church does for its community members... but the dark underbelly is the political side that has a giant beaurocracy and heirarchy of people who are paid handsomely for their service.
And look at the Catholic church! They had me tithing out of my allowance; how much of that money has gone to pay 1) defense funds for clergy accused of pedophilia, and 2) hush money to pay off victims of said pedophilia?
Re:BINGO! New game idea for "Post-9/11"
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While you do make some good points, I find your overtones of "evil American corporate greed" a little disturbing; it's been intoned in a lot of european posts and opinions I've seen as of late.
Also we're not afraid, we have crazy newsmedia who feed of fear and perpetrate FUD (fear, uncertainty and doubt) onto the masses. And unfortunately, what makes it over the pond is that media reporting, which kind of sucks.
Come over and visit sometime, and you will find that many of us more educated americans decry outlandish corporate greed when it surfaces (but it is not yet as pervasive as it outwardly appears), and we are definitely not "afraid" of terrorists. We're a proud, strong country with a majority of good people (if not smart people), and besides, we've got a lot of cool landmarks with nifty gift shops...
I did not say that the poor live in luxury, I am saying that they make choices which they refuse to answer for when they do not work out.
The majority of the poor are minorities - especially single women with children
What kind of racial stereotyping is this? If you tell me it's because of slavery or something, I'm going to barf.
Your mom only made $7000 income with four kids? Where was your dad? He left? Sounds like your mom didn't make a very good decision in who she hopped into bed with, and/or your dad was a bum and didn't think that his kids were worth supporting. (That is not a man, it's a bum.) Or maybe he died, and didn't have any life insurance. That would suck, but again, we all make decisions. If they don't work out, you stand up and improve the situation. Learn from the mistakes and make better decisions.
How many jobs did you work as a teenager to help support your mom? And your siblings, how did they help? My grandfather worked at a store until he was old enough to join the military, and sent 90% of his check back to the farm in Oklahoma in the 30s. I KNOW that they were not living in luxury. But they were working any way they could to keep alive, and keep their pride intact.
My brother is working a minimum wage job, and having a hard time paying rent. I don't give him money, do you know why? He spends about $30 a week on cigarettes, of his own choice. Yes it's an addiction, but believe me, I have seen lesser men than him quit cold turkey. I didn't say it was EASY, I just said you can do it.
I also tried very hard not to stereotype everyone I know on public assistance as trashy Menthol-addicts, but after you see four or five making the exact same choices and having the exact same reactions to the outcome, it's hard not to get jaded.
Fishbowl, that is an insightful remark. I prefer to think "more taxpayers" in lieu of "more soldiers."
Why do you think that the Mormon Church (and to a lesser degree, Catholic Church) encourage us to "be fruitful and multiply?" 10% times eight more wage-earners = shiny new glass temple downtown!!
First of all, Republican is a dirty word. Conservative is more accurate, but also a dirty word. I vote, and I vote for people whose track record and opinions on issues I know; I have voted for Reps, Dems, Libs, and Inds in my short civic career as a taxpayer, er, citizen.
Personally, I'm a Follower of Kant; I embrace logic. And if your dissenting political views tend you to ignore logic, well whee for you. If you fully want to believe that everyone on government assistance is there because of some uncontrollable circumstance that befell them, hey whatever helps you sleep at night my friend. Just get to know some of them some time, and you will find that they are not particularly smart, but what they lack in brains they make up for in laziness. I have never met a person who WANTED to get out of that cycle who didn't accomplish that goal in six months. But those people were motivated, asked for help, learned from others, and used the government for "assistance." which is what it is supposed to be.
And Republicans want to get rid of many many social programs... they would have long ago if they thought that their corporate-funded election war-chests could overcome their voting record of being heartless, greedy bastards.
Democrats would sit around and come up with ways to raise taxes to a 0%, 25%, 50%, 75% scale, and give back the proceeds of the 75% bracket to the the 0% bracket to "even things up" for the "less fortunate." The fact of the matter is, "less fortunate" is a misnomer; most of the "less fortunate" made their own lack of fortune for themselves. Now they have realized that they don't have to take accountability for their decisions, the government is more than happy to do it.
As human beings, it is hard for us to see someone in pain, or unable to have the same things we have. Some of it is compassion, some of it is "money guilt."
But please don't sit there and call me a Republican because I have a decent tech salary and want to keep more of it so I can afford a GeForce4 at the expense of somebody who is eating at a soup kitchen tonight. That is not the truth, that is an illusion of the truth that some people have made for themselves to explain poverty.
I quit college, moved out at 19, and made my own fortune. Worked my way through four years of minimum wage crap and proved to myself, my peers, and my bosses what I was capable of. Got hired based on my skills, my attitude, and the recommendation of people who thought highly of my work. That is what any of us are capable of if we try. Men and women who are on the path of Welfare-To_Work can do the same thing, but they only see working at McDonalds for minimum wage, get mad, and end up right back where they started... instead of working hard, making it to shift manager, jumping ship to manager of the Burger Kinga corss the street... with salary and benefits. They've been convinced by their lazy peers and their parents that this is all there is... minimum wage and public assistance.
I'm diverging too far and this is turning into a stupid political essay, so I'm going to go now. But I know what I have written is the truth for me. If you choose to read it and soak it in, you are free to accept it into your truth, or dismiss it as you please. Just don't stick your nose up and call me a Republican and attack me just because I'm giving a observant, well-reasoned opinion on something. Think about mine, discuss it with me, and give me your opinion-- I know that I don't know everything, and I'm open to read well-thought opinions of others any time, any place. It's called public discourse, and until I found slashdot, I thought it was *COMPLETELY* dead.
Of course I haven't had a baby, you idiot, I'm a MAN.
And I am the oldest of 7 kids, I have "babysat" my sibling, kids of parents' friends, and neices for 13 years. I know what "having a baby" is all about, and it's NOT about WalMart, Food Stamps, and Menthol Lights.
You post on the RANT board don't you!!!? >:) I know you must at least READ the Rant board to pick up the term Crotch-fruit. Glad to see there are other CFers on Slashdot that are tired of the way breeding assholes leech our hard earned money away.
Actually I do not personally RANT on Turtle's page, by my wife does, frequently and often. She reads rants to me every night while I am trying to Quake and most people are watching TeeVee. Sometimes I find it humorous, othertimes I just think people take teh world wayyyy to freaking seriously for their own good.
We are currently CF, but not adverse to having kids after we get a house and feel like we are grown-up people who are mature enough to raise kids. Which probably means never.:)
But I do like the creative, crude, crass ways that RANTers refer to the chil'rens. And some of the names parents pick for their children are just ROFLOL funny!
If we actually had to write out checks each year for the full amount we're *actually* paying, the government realizes there would be a tax revolt that very year. But take out a little each check, and no problem.
When you fill out your 1040, it's BLATANTLY OBVIOUS how much you've paid.
For example, an MD friend of mine paid over 100,000 US Dollars in federal income taxes this year. Plus about $30,000 in property taxes, state and local income taxes.
I don't know much about his spending habits, but let's say he put $20,000 in the bank, and spent his remaining $150,000 on taxable goods and services. That means he also paid $10,500 in sales tax in his county. (In this case, he has no car or mortgage payments.)
So at the end of the year, he's paid almost a full half of his income to "the government." That is not American, my friends, that sounds like something the damn socialist frenchies and poppycockers overseas would do. (I love you guys, but your taxes suck even worse than ours. But not much.)
So when my wife's co-workers quit their jobs to raise babies (five of them in the past 18 months) and get public assistance in medical benefits, food, income, subsidized housing, etc... they tell us "The Government is taking care of me! It is great!" (My sister has also done this, twice.)
Bullshit. My father and I are paying for you to sit on your ass and watch Oprah and smoke Menthol Lights next to your newborn. And to get medical care. And to buy orange juice with food stamps so you can save your baby shower money for important stuff... like another carton of Menthols. These idiots think the government just "makes" the money... the clue train never bothers making a stop between their ears.
Sorry to be such a 20-something curmudgeon. Obviously not all people on public assistance are like this; just most of them. Get knocked up by your cousin's boyfriend and skate it out from there. No marriage, no commitment, no work, no worries. And they are OK with it, because the government is taking care of them. And you and I are paying for it. Yes we need social services, but we have bred an entire generation or subculture of people who can now live by the hard work of others who make btter decisions and handle the consequences to their actions without whining.
If you're in the US, and haven't had the pleasure of dealing with people like this yet, take a couple trips to WalMart at 2:00pm and see if you can apply this tale to the runny-nosed crotch-fruit being dragged around by some "poor, bedraggled" mommy. She has a vacant look on her face, you know why? She doesn't have to care anymore. About anything.
Except how to afford that next box of Menthols.
Re:BINGO! New game idea for "Post-9/11"
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note:mitsubishi built the Zeros that attacked Pearl Harbor.
Not to take away from the interesting historical note here, but how many American companies shut down production to build the giant-ass war machine that we used to help crush Germany, sink enemies in the Pacific, or drop nukes on civilians in Asia?
Not that I'm some huge anti-war hippie, I would have probably made the same decisions if I were president... and for the most part, the ends justified the means for the allies... but you can't draw attention to ItSoShitty without looking at Frod, Gee-Ehm, et al for their "sins" as well.
Slashdot Mirror
I watched wrestling (WWF, Hulk Hogan and Rowdy Roddy Piper) as a child. My brothers and I had most of the 10" rubberized action figures. It was lots of fun. Sometime around when I turned 14, though, you could see the lame acting was just that. Yes, picking people up and dropping them on their face without injuring them takes some skill, but it's not one I find culturally acceptable. (The punches and kicks have always looked fake, just watch for when the camera has the "wrong angle.")
Now we've progressed (Oh yes, I've seen WWF Raw and WCW in years of late, while channel surfing, including the very well-built and seemingly couth Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson) into nothing but petty "my woman can maim your woman," Jerry-Springer-outtakes full of censored screaming vulgarity and profanity, stupid stunts, lights, smoke, shiny things, chair-and-cinderblock to the cranium violence-- and, to add insult to injury, corporate-greed-frenzied merchandising! Any physical stamina required to pull off the intricate choreography of "wrestling" is lost in this tripe, and any doubt of the danger involved died with The Anvil when he fell from the roof during a failed stunt.
Ladies and gentlemen, is this what you want the world to identify as "American entertainment?"
That was funny! And since I'm a fan of yours, your post is modded at 4! :)
See, it really does work...
(P.S. I'm not intolerant of others, I'm intolerant of stupid redneck garbage on television, and those who would support it to lower the LCD factor (see The Onion) of American culture.)
So yes, Anime and Wrestling can live harmoniously together.
I'm sorry, but anyone over the age of twelve who openly admits liking "Professional Wrestling" immediately gets added as a "Foe" in my slashprefs.
Ack.
No, they think integration is their only key to keeping other vendors off the playing field.
Which is of course why they're in court to begin with.
You're absolutely right; I was thinking from a development manager point of view.
From a marketing standpoint-- yes, absolutely, they want to bundle/integrate everything to further leverage their dominance over other software companies. Which sucks.
They talked about this on NPR on my way to work this morning. Windows XP Embedded ("used for medical devices," amongst other things) is completely modular and can be customized for specific purposes. Gates admitted that he did not know how this might be adapted to x86 machines.
I think it's clear that XP embedded would not be what "the consumers" want for their desktops; but on the other hand, Microsoft clearly CAN engineer an OS on x86 that is modular and customizable for OEMs, as the sanctions seem to be calling for.
I think the issue is that Microsoft doesn't WANT to expend the time, effort, and MONEY to develop such an OS; not that it isn't possible. They apparently think integration is their only key to stability.
Explain to me, then, all the various Linux distros for desktops that allow you pick and choose? And much of those components are developed by what Microsoft would consider "amateurs?"
I'm supposed to burn 240GB of mp3's to cd ???
Stop lying, you know 212 gigs of that is pr0n.
Imagine if 20 years ago, Compaq had not been allowed to reverse-engineer the IBM PC BIOS. The worldwide economy would probably be a few trillion dollars poorer, and God only knows if we'd even have the WWW or ubiquitous home computers...
:D
:)
You forget, the home computer WAS rapidly becoming ubiquitous, thanks to a little company in Cupertino, California. IBM laughed at the idea of a home computer in the late 70s, until Apple sold a few million units and Big Blue scurried around trying to get their sh!t together. (Dons flame-retardant suit) And hence while Apple was busy fighting Big Blue, Bill Gates came in and stole control of the entire freaking personal computer industry behind IBM and Apple's backs!
Of course, without competition from IBM/MS, who knows how Apple would have come out. Microsoft would have done software apps for Apples, maybe eventually went the way of Lotus and been bought out by someone, maybe Apple. Maybe Steve Jobs becomes BillG's boss!
Maybe IBM makes Apple clones and the competetion would have given us a flat-panel iMac in 1999 instead of 2002, as was first rumored!
Maybe Apple would have never gotten the GUI and somebody else (obviously not Xerox) would have marketed it; so they made the OS behind Apple's hardware. Steve wouldn't have left Apple and created NeXT; he would have left the OS up to the "software guys." Linux would come along in the early 90s and created Linux... on the Apple/Motorola 68060 chip and evicted IBM as OS king in 1996???
Who knows.
of the same time persion
:)
Where did I come up with that? Time period == time persion ??
Wow, I must really be having a bad Monday. Sorry.
(Waiting for the lameness filter to allow me to post again.
Jeff,
Can you check the sheer number of comments in the past 12 hours compared with an average of the same time persion for the last four weeks or so? (Probably a rhetorical question, since that would be some extraneous work. I'd love to see it though.)
It looks to me like people are still reading and commenting to some degree, but the usually "very vocal" (5-10 comments per story, +1 Bonus-enabled) people are largely abstaining.
Good or bad; I'm not sure. There have been some really good comments today, but I browse at +3 and so far today I'm seeing about 50% of the usual number of comments per story.
I am participating because I PERCEIVE that Rob, Jeff, et al do not value user comments as "content" to the degree that they should. Yes, it is their site. Yes, moderation is pretty much OK, and I am even OK with most of the editor moderation that goes on-- With the exception of a few BLATANT examples of editors blacklisting users and bitchslapping threads that I felt contributed to Slashdot, as both a revenue-generating site as well as this "community" that many people keep whining about.
The truth may well be different from my perception. Like I said, they run the site. But in the same way I can't possibly know about back-office details, Rob, Jeff, Jamie, etc. are now completely incapable of giving opinions from the perspective of end-users, simply because they don't experience Slashdot in the way we do. That is why I think that they should at least assign some mental value to the discussion and commentary, as opposed to (in my perception) dismissing it as superfluous discussion that hogs their resources. I'm quite sure that in between submitting nodes on e2, and having lunch in Holland, MI, Rob and Jeff are reading the comments behind some of the articles that pique their interest. Knowing that, how can they say (in public, with a stright-face) that comments are an insignificant part of Slashdot? Only in raw unique-IP pageviews as compared to the front page, we know.
But the point of the blackout as I understood it was the assertion that while there are a lot of loads of the front page, what really generates "interest" in slashdot are the comments.
Now I have to post with my name... great, I crossed the picket line. Sorry guys!
OK.
I was trying to make scoial commentary, not fiscal. But I have no disagreement with your assertion that "money flows uphill," and that is because of the same basic phenomenon; in this case, a subculture of greedy corporatists, instead of a subculture of lazy social leeches.
I know full well that the welfare-culture opt-ins are only a small part of the government's appropriation of my check. Other things that it has gone to are things like a few billion dollars to the international AIDS relief coalition. When Mr. Bush gave them a few bills, the response from Africa was, "Well, that's a nice START. We look forward to your FUTURE contributions." You can look at that issue two ways: either you view citizens of third-world african countries as undereducated and impoverished, who need to learn sexual responsibility so that the virus stops streading, or you can go up 50,000 feet and look at the situation from above. Go back to the middle ages, there was a plague that hit and spread rapidly largely because of population density and poor hygeine. It killed off a lot of people, the remaining ones found the cause and stopped it by not doing the things that were killing off the rest of the race. You *could* apply the same to Africa; once 60% of the continent has wiped itself out with HIV, the remaining ones will be the ones smart enough to not engage in risky behavior. They will reproduce and a new generation will come forth, (hopefully) smarter. That is Natural Selection, in the same sense that "living the party line" of Republicans with respect to the poor would be an interesting experiment for social Darwinism.
The problem is that in the meantime, Africa needs and wants to treat AIDS patients, so they're buying a billion dollars of medical supplies and pharmaceuticals to keep alive people who 1) are going to die of their disease, and 2) now have more oppotunities to spread the disease. You can call this heartless, and I am not saying I agree, but it is a scenario to consider.
So, in closing, thank you for your service, and your time discussing this with me.
Yes I disagree that the the post was devoid of original thought. Yes I disagree that it was a right-wing rant.
:P
It must be so easy to pigeon-hole people based on instantly-determined stereotypes, and therefore consider them wrong and "just like everyone else." (Which is basically what you accused me of doing.)
I tend to watch individual behavior (Psychology), societal behavior (Sociology), and patterns of human behavior (Anthropology), and try to make observations that fit the individuals I'm talking about in a larger context. Clearly, I am an amateur at each of these things... but weren't some of the best artists of many trades self-taught? And in this case, I stand by my observations as an anthropologist, not as a politician.
I bet I am older then you are,
Age != Maturity; Age != Wisdom. I know a few men twice my age who have less self awareness than I. I know a few younger who have more than I.
I bet I've been to more countries then you have,
Quite probably, since I've never been in the military, nor the peace corps. If I made observations in another country, I know my rant would be completely invalid. I realize that; I was trying to speak to a subculture of Americans.
I bet I have been to more states then you have,
You might be surprised, since I have lived in at least 7 states, and visited about five or so more. And not all in one time zone, either.
I bet I speak more languages then you do,
Peut-etre... porquoi?
I bet I make more money then you do.
You make more money than I do and you still don't think that the United States takes too much of your paycheck for questionable services, both military and social?
I can tell you flat out; I'm 26, the step-son (who was later adopted by) of a military officer who moved around a lot and did not make a "a lot" for being responsible for a wife and 7 kids, I moved to Wyoming when I was 19 and now live in an Eastern timezone state. I work for a financial services company and make $49,000 a year, which for someone with "no education" (post-secondary) is pretty respectable, if you asked me. (Which you did.)
I have a younger sibling with multiple young children who is still partially on governmental assistance, mostly because the man she married is the world's laziest man. (His picture is in the Guiness book, I'm pretty sure.) AND she has not made good choices... so when we give her options (out of compassion, concern, and experience) for how she can improve her situation, she tells us to fuck off, cuz it's "her life."
Well I still say, it's "my paycheck."
Where the hell did you learn to read dude, the fucking academy of "my fingers are in my ears and I'm screaming 'I can't hear you! I can't hear you!'"
No original ideas? Right wing? Read my other comments in this thread, and elsewhere.
Spend less time fighting and more time educating yourself by listening to other people, absorbing it, finding truth, finding non-truth, and responding in kind.
Trust me, when you turn 23, and put your skateboard in the closet, you may just find that it was a smart decision.
It was not necessarily a slam, as I am a recovering catholic; I'm just drawing an imaginary line between two teachings: Make sure you have lots of kids, and make sure everyone gives x% of the income for church works. I have a very close mormon friend who husband quit the church. True, MUCH of the money goes towards good deeds that the Mormon Church does for its community members... but the dark underbelly is the political side that has a giant beaurocracy and heirarchy of people who are paid handsomely for their service.
And look at the Catholic church! They had me tithing out of my allowance; how much of that money has gone to pay 1) defense funds for clergy accused of pedophilia, and 2) hush money to pay off victims of said pedophilia?
While you do make some good points, I find your overtones of "evil American corporate greed" a little disturbing; it's been intoned in a lot of european posts and opinions I've seen as of late.
Also we're not afraid, we have crazy newsmedia who feed of fear and perpetrate FUD (fear, uncertainty and doubt) onto the masses. And unfortunately, what makes it over the pond is that media reporting, which kind of sucks.
Come over and visit sometime, and you will find that many of us more educated americans decry outlandish corporate greed when it surfaces (but it is not yet as pervasive as it outwardly appears), and we are definitely not "afraid" of terrorists. We're a proud, strong country with a majority of good people (if not smart people), and besides, we've got a lot of cool landmarks with nifty gift shops...
;)
I did not say that the poor live in luxury, I am saying that they make choices which they refuse to answer for when they do not work out.
The majority of the poor are minorities - especially single women with children
What kind of racial stereotyping is this? If you tell me it's because of slavery or something, I'm going to barf.
Your mom only made $7000 income with four kids? Where was your dad? He left? Sounds like your mom didn't make a very good decision in who she hopped into bed with, and/or your dad was a bum and didn't think that his kids were worth supporting. (That is not a man, it's a bum.) Or maybe he died, and didn't have any life insurance. That would suck, but again, we all make decisions. If they don't work out, you stand up and improve the situation. Learn from the mistakes and make better decisions.
How many jobs did you work as a teenager to help support your mom? And your siblings, how did they help? My grandfather worked at a store until he was old enough to join the military, and sent 90% of his check back to the farm in Oklahoma in the 30s. I KNOW that they were not living in luxury. But they were working any way they could to keep alive, and keep their pride intact.
My brother is working a minimum wage job, and having a hard time paying rent. I don't give him money, do you know why? He spends about $30 a week on cigarettes, of his own choice. Yes it's an addiction, but believe me, I have seen lesser men than him quit cold turkey. I didn't say it was EASY, I just said you can do it.
I also tried very hard not to stereotype everyone I know on public assistance as trashy Menthol-addicts, but after you see four or five making the exact same choices and having the exact same reactions to the outcome, it's hard not to get jaded.
I am the son
of a self-made man, who was the son
of a self-made man, who was the son
of immigrants to this country,
who had NOTHING when they showed up.
I do not look upon the poor in contempt,
but in compassion. I will give them
assistance in any way they ask of me.
I will give them advice, that if they follow,
they will succeed.
I look upon the LAZY with comtempt.
Those who are LAZY deserve no compassion.
This is MY TRUTH.
Fishbowl, that is an insightful remark. I prefer to think "more taxpayers" in lieu of "more soldiers."
Why do you think that the Mormon Church (and to a lesser degree, Catholic Church) encourage us to "be fruitful and multiply?" 10% times eight more wage-earners = shiny new glass temple downtown!!
*Ahem* Malcontent,
First of all, Republican is a dirty word. Conservative is more accurate, but also a dirty word. I vote, and I vote for people whose track record and opinions on issues I know; I have voted for Reps, Dems, Libs, and Inds in my short civic career as a taxpayer, er, citizen.
Personally, I'm a Follower of Kant; I embrace logic. And if your dissenting political views tend you to ignore logic, well whee for you. If you fully want to believe that everyone on government assistance is there because of some uncontrollable circumstance that befell them, hey whatever helps you sleep at night my friend. Just get to know some of them some time, and you will find that they are not particularly smart, but what they lack in brains they make up for in laziness. I have never met a person who WANTED to get out of that cycle who didn't accomplish that goal in six months. But those people were motivated, asked for help, learned from others, and used the government for "assistance." which is what it is supposed to be.
And Republicans want to get rid of many many social programs... they would have long ago if they thought that their corporate-funded election war-chests could overcome their voting record of being heartless, greedy bastards.
Democrats would sit around and come up with ways to raise taxes to a 0%, 25%, 50%, 75% scale, and give back the proceeds of the 75% bracket to the the 0% bracket to "even things up" for the "less fortunate." The fact of the matter is, "less fortunate" is a misnomer; most of the "less fortunate" made their own lack of fortune for themselves. Now they have realized that they don't have to take accountability for their decisions, the government is more than happy to do it.
As human beings, it is hard for us to see someone in pain, or unable to have the same things we have. Some of it is compassion, some of it is "money guilt."
But please don't sit there and call me a Republican because I have a decent tech salary and want to keep more of it so I can afford a GeForce4 at the expense of somebody who is eating at a soup kitchen tonight. That is not the truth, that is an illusion of the truth that some people have made for themselves to explain poverty.
I quit college, moved out at 19, and made my own fortune. Worked my way through four years of minimum wage crap and proved to myself, my peers, and my bosses what I was capable of. Got hired based on my skills, my attitude, and the recommendation of people who thought highly of my work. That is what any of us are capable of if we try. Men and women who are on the path of Welfare-To_Work can do the same thing, but they only see working at McDonalds for minimum wage, get mad, and end up right back where they started... instead of working hard, making it to shift manager, jumping ship to manager of the Burger Kinga corss the street... with salary and benefits. They've been convinced by their lazy peers and their parents that this is all there is... minimum wage and public assistance.
I'm diverging too far and this is turning into a stupid political essay, so I'm going to go now. But I know what I have written is the truth for me. If you choose to read it and soak it in, you are free to accept it into your truth, or dismiss it as you please. Just don't stick your nose up and call me a Republican and attack me just because I'm giving a observant, well-reasoned opinion on something. Think about mine, discuss it with me, and give me your opinion-- I know that I don't know everything, and I'm open to read well-thought opinions of others any time, any place. It's called public discourse, and until I found slashdot, I thought it was *COMPLETELY* dead.
It wasn't a whine, it was a rant. :)
Thanks though...
Let me guess, you never had a baby.
Of course I haven't had a baby, you idiot, I'm a MAN.
And I am the oldest of 7 kids, I have "babysat" my sibling, kids of parents' friends, and neices for 13 years. I know what "having a baby" is all about, and it's NOT about WalMart, Food Stamps, and Menthol Lights.
You post on the RANT board don't you!!!?
:)
>:)
I know you must at least READ the Rant board to pick up the term Crotch-fruit.
Glad to see there are other CFers on Slashdot that are tired of the way breeding assholes leech our hard earned money away.
Actually I do not personally RANT on Turtle's page, by my wife does, frequently and often. She reads rants to me every night while I am trying to Quake and most people are watching TeeVee. Sometimes I find it humorous, othertimes I just think people take teh world wayyyy to freaking seriously for their own good.
We are currently CF, but not adverse to having kids after we get a house and feel like we are grown-up people who are mature enough to raise kids. Which probably means never.
But I do like the creative, crude, crass ways that RANTers refer to the chil'rens. And some of the names parents pick for their children are just ROFLOL funny!
If we actually had to write out checks each year for the full amount we're *actually* paying, the government realizes there would be a tax revolt that very year. But take out a little each check, and no problem.
When you fill out your 1040, it's BLATANTLY OBVIOUS how much you've paid.
For example, an MD friend of mine paid over 100,000 US Dollars in federal income taxes this year. Plus about $30,000 in property taxes, state and local income taxes.
I don't know much about his spending habits, but let's say he put $20,000 in the bank, and spent his remaining $150,000 on taxable goods and services. That means he also paid $10,500 in sales tax in his county. (In this case, he has no car or mortgage payments.)
So at the end of the year, he's paid almost a full half of his income to "the government." That is not American, my friends, that sounds like something the damn socialist frenchies and poppycockers overseas would do. (I love you guys, but your taxes suck even worse than ours. But not much.)
So when my wife's co-workers quit their jobs to raise babies (five of them in the past 18 months) and get public assistance in medical benefits, food, income, subsidized housing, etc... they tell us "The Government is taking care of me! It is great!" (My sister has also done this, twice.)
Bullshit. My father and I are paying for you to sit on your ass and watch Oprah and smoke Menthol Lights next to your newborn. And to get medical care. And to buy orange juice with food stamps so you can save your baby shower money for important stuff... like another carton of Menthols. These idiots think the government just "makes" the money... the clue train never bothers making a stop between their ears.
Sorry to be such a 20-something curmudgeon. Obviously not all people on public assistance are like this; just most of them. Get knocked up by your cousin's boyfriend and skate it out from there. No marriage, no commitment, no work, no worries. And they are OK with it, because the government is taking care of them. And you and I are paying for it. Yes we need social services, but we have bred an entire generation or subculture of people who can now live by the hard work of others who make btter decisions and handle the consequences to their actions without whining.
If you're in the US, and haven't had the pleasure of dealing with people like this yet, take a couple trips to WalMart at 2:00pm and see if you can apply this tale to the runny-nosed crotch-fruit being dragged around by some "poor, bedraggled" mommy. She has a vacant look on her face, you know why? She doesn't have to care anymore. About anything.
Except how to afford that next box of Menthols.
note:mitsubishi built the Zeros that attacked Pearl Harbor.
Not to take away from the interesting historical note here, but how many American companies shut down production to build the giant-ass war machine that we used to help crush Germany, sink enemies in the Pacific, or drop nukes on civilians in Asia?
Not that I'm some huge anti-war hippie, I would have probably made the same decisions if I were president... and for the most part, the ends justified the means for the allies... but you can't draw attention to ItSoShitty without looking at Frod, Gee-Ehm, et al for their "sins" as well.