You want to make it so that if Google goes to a new city and builds an awesome new fiber network, that AT&T gets to least that network from them? Why should AT&T upgrade anything if they can just wait for Google? But why would Google upgrade anything if they're doing all the investment and then AT&T gets equal benefit?
Then Bush II was elected, the Republicans continued to control Congress, and the deficit soared.
Yes, the dot com crash and 9/11 happened. I don't blame Democrats for that. Do you blame Republicans?
Obama stepped into the worst national economy of my lifetime, and was unable to keep the deficit down.
There's no doubt that most of the increased deficit under Obama was due to economic factors beyond his control. At the same time, the recovery was also beyond his control. Much of it was IN SPITE of Obama's policies. Did you see the widely covered "letter to the editor" from a Canadian who is confused about why we voted in so many Republicans even though under Obama we have all these great things? It's all over Facebook and the news. Here: https://ca.news.yahoo.com/blog...
It's hilarious. Everything the guy talks about is stuff Obama has fought AGAINST. Record corporate profits... Democrats feel pain and start crying when corporations make record profits. Remember all the "windfall tax" crap? And "clawing back" bank bonuses, etc? Oil production... Democrats are against offshore drilling, fracking, shale oil, exploration in Alaska and the arctic, Keystone XL (oh, and putting tighter regulations on trains carrying oil, which is only being done because there's no pipeline..), all the talk of killing subsidies for oil and gas, etc.
I mean it's really a joke how Democrats like to give Obama credit for things he had nothing to do with or actively fought against. I don't get it. I wouldn't do that for a Republican because I have at least a smidgen of intellectual honesty.
Right, right, because the man taking his wife's last name is soooo common in black culture, Hispanic culture, and Asian culture. Must be because of whitey! idiot
If you read the article about the poll question, it was designed to measure racism. So of course the questions are probing racist sentiments. It's not racist to find out if someone is racist, that doesn't make sense.
Also, I didn't bring up affirmative action in response to the article. I responded to your comment about "how dare someone question whether racism exists" -- that's much more general than the article, where racism against black IT pros is the subject.
I think what I said could apply to any country, not just the US. But regardless, I agree with your main point that small businesses are hurt by this. I think corporate taxes should be abolished completely. Charge taxes to the people who make up the corporation. That can be income tax, sales tax, capital gains tax, etc. Each country does it however they want. If you live in America, you pay taxes in America regardless of where you earned the money. If you buy something in China, you pay Chinese sales tax regardless of where you live.
It simplifies stuff a lot, and that's effectively what happens anyway. Only people pay taxes, corporations just pass them on.
If you get a shorter workweek with the same pay, it's an effective pay rise (which I recommended). If you don't, how will that help? Same total wages = same total demand.
I was assuming there would be massive deflation in the parts of the economy that have been hyper-optimized. Kind of like what has happened with computers in the last 30 years... a $300 computer that outperforms a 1980s supercomputer, etc.
the issue is that they can't afford them. If human labour is near worthless, how will you get money to pay for such luxuries?
Essentially all of our costs for necessities today comes down to human labor. There is no real cost to uranium if it were mined and refined by self-replicating, self-repairing robots -- you don't pay robots. There is no real cost to building a nuclear power plant. There is no real cost, therefore, to electricity. Except that people are involved. If no people were involved and it just happened magically in the background, electricity would be completely free.
When labor becomes worthless, what that means is that everything we have today that is a product of human labor is essentially free, or close to free.
But there are some things that can't be replaced, because as humans we innately value other humans. If I'm at a bar, I would rather hear the original band instead of a cover band (there are exceptions). But I would rather hear a cover band than a CD of the original band.
That's the backbone of the service economy I'm talking about in your vision of the future. When human labor is worthless, that means we don't have to waste our time working on stuff we don't like doing -- because that stuff is worthless.
I'm proposing that there will never be a time when a person, any person, is completely without value just because their labor is worthless when it comes to producing physical goods. There are some really broad services, like sex and beauty and companionship, that ensure that as long as we have tokens that represent value, you'll be able to earn them in some way if you want, and you'll have things to spend them on if you want. Even begging provides value.
In this society, money still serves a purpose. We'd still use it to let people know who the winners and losers are. The winners can spend their money on other winners... if I have lots of money, I'll hire the most beautiful dancers to entertain me at my free dinner in my free house. If I'm poor, then I eat with my poor friends at my free dinner in my free house.
Yes, because affirmative action is an overtly racist government program. You're linking to a bunch of individual racist incidents, like a political exit poll that asks questions that offended some people. Considering that the poll was designed to *measure racism*, it's kind of stupid to even count that as being racist in and of itself, don't you think?
So, let me get this straight, pre jesus Christianity doesn't matter and what jesus said doesn't matter?
What??
Are you being deliberately dense? I actually feel sorry for you because I think you have a problem.
To Christians, what Jesus said matters more than what the Old Testament said. That's what we're talking about, remember?
which didn't really have anything to do with what I said. So did no one pre jesus got forgiven for anything?
Pre-Jesus, many sins had physical, temporal punishments prescribed for them. So if you did X, you got Y. Example: if you commit adultery, you get stoned.
Post-Jesus, it's "Let he who is without sin cast the first stone." Jesus changed it up so that punishments for sins are meted out by God himself, after you die. So yeah, basically there's no punishment. And yeah, in post-Jesus times, Christians believe you can live a life of 100% sin and be completely evil, and then at the last minute you truly repent and ask forgiveness, and you are actually forgiven by God and nothing bad happens to you! As long as the repentance and stuff is real... but don't worry, only God knows if it's real. It doesn't matter if other people believe you or not.
This stuff is really basic. You clearly know jack squat about Christianity, or you have an actual mental problem like I said above.
How do you not know this stuff? Do you not live in a Western culture?
You're making the classic mistake (perhaps deliberate) of attributing the budget solely to the president. Sure, Obama has brought down the deficit.. but the only reason we had a sequester and a slowing of government spending was Republican obstruction in the House.
Look at Obama's accomplishments from when Democrats controlled the House and Senate.. Obamacare, huge expansion of Medicaid, massive increases in food stamps (by removing eligibility requirements like having children). We saw a tremendous increase in the national debt from those years.
Republicans spend money for war, but wars end and the money stops flowing. They also like tax cuts, which "cost" more long term, but at least a huge part of the population gets something tangible for it... and let's be honest, it's easy for Democrats to raise taxes again when they regain control, or just let the cuts expire.
Social programs like Medicaid don't end, or even shrink, without intervention. And it's politically difficult to cut them because due to their nature, lots of people become dependent on them once they're in place. Even with Republicans controlling Congress, we're not going to see big changes in social programs.
Racism certainly exists. Look at racist programs like affirmative action in university admissions. Thankfully, popular support for such programs is low and the courts are slowly but surely striking down the more overtly racist programs throughout the country.
There is an element of racism in western society and in general white people benefit from it.
That's incredibly vague. You know, there is also an element of black racism in western society and in general black people benefit from it. Also, there is an element of Asian racism in western society and in general Asian people benefit from it. But of course, we can't forget that there is an element of Native American racism in western society and in general Native Americans benefit from it.
Seriously, every group has "an element" of racism that goes to help other members of that group. Not just based on race, but religion, alma mater, sports team allegiance, etc.
The people who talk about "white male supremacy in society" though are not talking about "an element" -- they generally see it as pervasive and responsible for most or all of the problems faced by minorities and women.
This is another example where it would be incredibly useful and beneficial to society for everybody to have an understanding of statistics. I really wish it would become a requirement for high school graduation, in place of geometry perhaps if we have to sacrifice another math topic.
Examples of systemic practices include: discriminatory barriers in recruitment and hiring; discriminatorily restricted access to management trainee programs and to high level jobs; exclusion of qualified women from traditionally male dominated fields of work; disability discrimination such as unlawful pre-employment inquiries; age discrimination in reductions in force and retirement benefits; and compliance with customer preferences that result in discriminatory placement or assignments.
A special "fast track to management" program for newly hired college grads is an example of systemic discrimination because it's restricted (e.g. discriminatory) to something that correlates strongly with age, putting older workers at a disadvantage for promotion to management.
If you changed your example so that ONLY word of mouth was used for hiring, and you COULD NOT be hired without a recommendation from an existing person, that would be systemic.
The whole point of "systemic" discrimination is that there's a system in place to enforce it.
Fair enough, I think there's a varied level of law and order within ISIS. The things you're posting are bad but lawful. But I've also read reports of things like forcing people to convert and then proving they have really converted by doing things like giving their daughters or sisters to fighters.
Regardless, look back at what you said: "As long as you muslims stay oppressed and nomadic, Christians are cool with you. Try to settle down and you'll be run out of town. Try to demand to have the same rights and you'll be called jihadists.
Gotta say, you sure sound a lot like IS."
Now contrast that message with what ISIS is doing (convert, pay tax, or flee/die). Christians were already oppressed in Iraq and Syria. They are not nomadic because that's their culture. They did not demand the same rights as Muslims. They just wanted to be left alone. But ISIS is not "cool with them" over that barebones existence.
And that was in response to "I personally think the Muslim religion is a crock of shit but as long as they go bow toward Mecca and pray to Allah without trying to force me to I'm fine with it. When they start with the jihad crap I'm fine with killing the hell out of them too."
I just don't see how you are reconciling what that person said with what ISIS actually does. They are very far from being fine with things as long as the Christians don't try to impose their religion on them... they are seeking out Christians and putting extreme pressure on them to drop their religion.
Who is doing that to Muslims, either in comments here or in reality?
No, it doesn't, I was just replying to GP's kind of silly point that "Gee whiz, Romney is conservative so everything he does in every situation in his entire life must be part of the conservative identity!"
No blocking. If a consumer requests access to a website or service, and the content is legal, your ISP should not be permitted to block it.
Maybe someone will have to preemptively decide whether the content is legal, including international content I guess. Sounds like a job for the government!
No one cared when Romney rolled out Romneycare in his own state.
Considering Massachusetts is a liberal state, that should tell you how "conservative" Romneycare was, and why conservatives in actual conservative parts of the country may not like it.
Of course nobody cared that someone was rolling out a liberal health care plan in a liberal state.
Politics aside, how is it that republicans want to fuck over everyone but the privileged and corporate
What makes you think that? There are things that lots of people support, and the Republicans also support. Less gun control is an example.
yet get such widespread support from the people who will suffer most from their policies?
I think "suffer" is a bit subjective here. One issue I've seen is short term vs long term. People often say "Republicans oppose welfare and unemployment benefits, and the states that vote Republican use welfare and unemployment benefits disproportionately. What?!?!??!" But someone who uses welfare might also be smart enough to realize that the national debt has to be kept under control, otherwise long term it's going to be more dire than having some cuts in welfare.
You don't have to say "thank you" for it, but you have to weigh your options. Two options are making a new tax treaty with the country involved to get rid of the shielding, and sanctioning the country to prevent Americans and American companies from dealing with them.
But you have to ask yourself, is it worth it? What burden does Amazon really put on the US? When they make more sales in Australia, does that somehow increase their burden in the US? If not, then why require them to pay more than they already do?
Would you want to sanction Luxembourg so that you can squeeze a few more dollars out of Amazon, when in reality the burden imposed by Amazon has nothing to do with those extra dollars?
If you think Amazon already pays enough because of their high paying jobs, property taxes, taxes on investors, etc, then the answer could legitimately be "no" without being a shill for Amazon.
I think that's a really interesting take on things, but I disagree that it means the twilight of capitalism. It sounds more like the end of long work weeks. We'll still need a way to choose economic winners and losers, a way to vote that product A fills our needs at a given price better than product B. That's true even if 100% of the population is on welfare and robots do all the work.
I also think it's a mistake to leave out the service economy. There may well come a time when human labor is entirely worthless, but human conversation is still nice. Won't the most entertaining people still have something worth charging for? Or the prettiest people? Or the most philosophical?
I think your expectations are too high. SJW is not a well-defined term, it's an evolving term, just like civil rights, achievement gaps, and employment figures are evolving. If many different people are calling a person or organization an SJW then that's probably valid. If a few people or one person is calling a person or organization an SJW then you'd compare it to other cases and make a judgment call.
The thing I've noticed is that SJW's, like I said, take up the mantle of the most extreme positions on social justice, where not just equal opportunity but equal outcome are the goal. They rely on things like disparate impact to "prove" that something is discriminatory or racist, because they have lost touch with or outright rejected the dictionary definition of the words. They often in one breath readily admit that overt racism and discrimination are extremely rare, but in another claim that society is racist, institutional racism is rampant, and white male supremacy is woven throughout society and is causing all the problems for minorities and women.
There are many attributes and subtleties, which is why there isn't a clear definition of SJW. It's something you recognize when you see it, but can't define, like love or beauty (only bad).
I think you're the one who hasn't kept up, because while that was the initial message, it changed. Even Christians who paid the tax and tried to stay were eventually threatened with death.
IS also said "If you don't want to pay the tax you can leave." Remember that? Yeah that also changed, and they tried to prevent people from leaving or kill them as they left.
Seriously, it's like you read some press releases about IS initially and then turned off your brain. You really have not kept up.
That's all so well and good but rapes, murders, slavery, beheadings for any one of a number of reasons were never sins to begin with and in some places are encouraged.
Sounds like Old Testament stories of barbaric pre-Jesus cultures.
I'm not even sure what your point is?
Oh okay, let me remind you. You said, "How about showing you the part where jesus says it all counts and can't be changed?"
I said, "That doesn't matter anyway, and here's why" and explained.
All caught up?
Either follow this so called holy book or don't, you can't pick and choose which bits you like
We've already done that, so you're demonstrably wrong. I guess you don't even know the story of how the Bible was created. You're stewing in your own ignorance.
because that's somewhere between blasphemy and heresy and to be frank, the rest of us are bored of it.
This is so funny. You are a religious extremist! No wonder you think things like "Christianity says to behead people." You're a bag of mixed nuts.
Argumentum ad hominem is an informal fallacy. That is, whether or not a person that comes to this conclusion is an idiot is irrelevant to the validity of the conclusion.
My use of an ad hominem was not a fallacy because my conclusion is not based on it. I.e. I did not say "Only an idiot would say that, so it's wrong."
As you noted, my observation was irrelevant to the conclusion. However, I'm sure you realize that being irrelevant and being incorrect are two different things.
Here are some statements of fact. Both the Balaka and the US Armed Forces are groups of individuals that have a religious majority among them. Both the Balaka and the US Armed Forces engage in conduct that is contrary to the values professed by the religion of their respective majority.
Those are not all statements of fact, particularly the latter statement. Jihad for the purpose of establishing an Islamic state is in keeping with Islamic values. If you're talking about other behaviors, you'll have to be more explicit. It's a fallacy to depend on abstractions too much because it leads to false equivalences, which I think you may have done.
If the US Armed Forces are "not true Christians" because their conduct is contrary to the values professed by Christianity
I would never say people in the US Armed Forces are not Christians. That wasn't the question though.
The claim was that the US Armed Forces is as much a Christian group as Balaka is a Muslim group. That is a different matter. You have to look at the aims of each group, not merely the composition.
Remember, you said that some could argue that Balaka was merely paying lip service to Islam, just like some groups in America may pay lip service to Christianity.
Comparing the goals and methods of the groups, you'll see that supposedly Christian-dominated groups in the US, which are called Christian groups, do very little to promote Christianity within the armed forces or government. In fact if you have done any research on the subject you'll know how careful the US Army is to refrain from appearing "too Christian" by dint of its membership, going so far as to ban people from sending Bibles to troops in Muslim countries.
Muslim groups like Seleka in CAR, on the other hand, have a stated goal of establishing Muslim rule and sharia law over the territory they conquer.
So what evidence do you have that the USAF is as Christian in method, structure, and goals as Seleka is Muslim?
Did you really forget that? It's pretty well established.
Yes show me where Jesus says it all counts and can't be changed. Then I'll tell you why it doesn't matter. Oh heck I'll just tell you now. The point of Jesus wasn't to make things that used to be sins not sins anymore. The point of Jesus was that he died for the sins of man so that we could be forgiven even though we sin.
I guess you didn't get the message that Jesus transformed Christianity from a temporal religion to a spiritual, personal religion.
Slashdot Mirror
You want to make it so that if Google goes to a new city and builds an awesome new fiber network, that AT&T gets to least that network from them? Why should AT&T upgrade anything if they can just wait for Google? But why would Google upgrade anything if they're doing all the investment and then AT&T gets equal benefit?
Then Bush II was elected, the Republicans continued to control Congress, and the deficit soared.
Yes, the dot com crash and 9/11 happened. I don't blame Democrats for that. Do you blame Republicans?
Obama stepped into the worst national economy of my lifetime, and was unable to keep the deficit down.
There's no doubt that most of the increased deficit under Obama was due to economic factors beyond his control. At the same time, the recovery was also beyond his control. Much of it was IN SPITE of Obama's policies. Did you see the widely covered "letter to the editor" from a Canadian who is confused about why we voted in so many Republicans even though under Obama we have all these great things? It's all over Facebook and the news. Here: https://ca.news.yahoo.com/blog...
It's hilarious. Everything the guy talks about is stuff Obama has fought AGAINST. Record corporate profits... Democrats feel pain and start crying when corporations make record profits. Remember all the "windfall tax" crap? And "clawing back" bank bonuses, etc? Oil production... Democrats are against offshore drilling, fracking, shale oil, exploration in Alaska and the arctic, Keystone XL (oh, and putting tighter regulations on trains carrying oil, which is only being done because there's no pipeline..), all the talk of killing subsidies for oil and gas, etc.
I mean it's really a joke how Democrats like to give Obama credit for things he had nothing to do with or actively fought against. I don't get it. I wouldn't do that for a Republican because I have at least a smidgen of intellectual honesty.
Right, right, because the man taking his wife's last name is soooo common in black culture, Hispanic culture, and Asian culture. Must be because of whitey! idiot
If you read the article about the poll question, it was designed to measure racism. So of course the questions are probing racist sentiments. It's not racist to find out if someone is racist, that doesn't make sense.
Also, I didn't bring up affirmative action in response to the article. I responded to your comment about "how dare someone question whether racism exists" -- that's much more general than the article, where racism against black IT pros is the subject.
I think what I said could apply to any country, not just the US. But regardless, I agree with your main point that small businesses are hurt by this. I think corporate taxes should be abolished completely. Charge taxes to the people who make up the corporation. That can be income tax, sales tax, capital gains tax, etc. Each country does it however they want. If you live in America, you pay taxes in America regardless of where you earned the money. If you buy something in China, you pay Chinese sales tax regardless of where you live.
It simplifies stuff a lot, and that's effectively what happens anyway. Only people pay taxes, corporations just pass them on.
If you get a shorter workweek with the same pay, it's an effective pay rise (which I recommended). If you don't, how will that help? Same total wages = same total demand.
I was assuming there would be massive deflation in the parts of the economy that have been hyper-optimized. Kind of like what has happened with computers in the last 30 years... a $300 computer that outperforms a 1980s supercomputer, etc.
the issue is that they can't afford them. If human labour is near worthless, how will you get money to pay for such luxuries?
Essentially all of our costs for necessities today comes down to human labor. There is no real cost to uranium if it were mined and refined by self-replicating, self-repairing robots -- you don't pay robots. There is no real cost to building a nuclear power plant. There is no real cost, therefore, to electricity. Except that people are involved. If no people were involved and it just happened magically in the background, electricity would be completely free.
When labor becomes worthless, what that means is that everything we have today that is a product of human labor is essentially free, or close to free.
But there are some things that can't be replaced, because as humans we innately value other humans. If I'm at a bar, I would rather hear the original band instead of a cover band (there are exceptions). But I would rather hear a cover band than a CD of the original band.
That's the backbone of the service economy I'm talking about in your vision of the future. When human labor is worthless, that means we don't have to waste our time working on stuff we don't like doing -- because that stuff is worthless.
I'm proposing that there will never be a time when a person, any person, is completely without value just because their labor is worthless when it comes to producing physical goods. There are some really broad services, like sex and beauty and companionship, that ensure that as long as we have tokens that represent value, you'll be able to earn them in some way if you want, and you'll have things to spend them on if you want. Even begging provides value.
In this society, money still serves a purpose. We'd still use it to let people know who the winners and losers are. The winners can spend their money on other winners... if I have lots of money, I'll hire the most beautiful dancers to entertain me at my free dinner in my free house. If I'm poor, then I eat with my poor friends at my free dinner in my free house.
Yes, because affirmative action is an overtly racist government program. You're linking to a bunch of individual racist incidents, like a political exit poll that asks questions that offended some people. Considering that the poll was designed to *measure racism*, it's kind of stupid to even count that as being racist in and of itself, don't you think?
So, let me get this straight, pre jesus Christianity doesn't matter and what jesus said doesn't matter?
What??
Are you being deliberately dense? I actually feel sorry for you because I think you have a problem.
To Christians, what Jesus said matters more than what the Old Testament said. That's what we're talking about, remember?
which didn't really have anything to do with what I said. So did no one pre jesus got forgiven for anything?
Pre-Jesus, many sins had physical, temporal punishments prescribed for them. So if you did X, you got Y. Example: if you commit adultery, you get stoned.
Post-Jesus, it's "Let he who is without sin cast the first stone." Jesus changed it up so that punishments for sins are meted out by God himself, after you die. So yeah, basically there's no punishment. And yeah, in post-Jesus times, Christians believe you can live a life of 100% sin and be completely evil, and then at the last minute you truly repent and ask forgiveness, and you are actually forgiven by God and nothing bad happens to you! As long as the repentance and stuff is real... but don't worry, only God knows if it's real. It doesn't matter if other people believe you or not.
This stuff is really basic. You clearly know jack squat about Christianity, or you have an actual mental problem like I said above.
How do you not know this stuff? Do you not live in a Western culture?
You're making the classic mistake (perhaps deliberate) of attributing the budget solely to the president. Sure, Obama has brought down the deficit.. but the only reason we had a sequester and a slowing of government spending was Republican obstruction in the House.
Look at Obama's accomplishments from when Democrats controlled the House and Senate.. Obamacare, huge expansion of Medicaid, massive increases in food stamps (by removing eligibility requirements like having children). We saw a tremendous increase in the national debt from those years.
Republicans spend money for war, but wars end and the money stops flowing. They also like tax cuts, which "cost" more long term, but at least a huge part of the population gets something tangible for it... and let's be honest, it's easy for Democrats to raise taxes again when they regain control, or just let the cuts expire.
Social programs like Medicaid don't end, or even shrink, without intervention. And it's politically difficult to cut them because due to their nature, lots of people become dependent on them once they're in place. Even with Republicans controlling Congress, we're not going to see big changes in social programs.
Racism certainly exists. Look at racist programs like affirmative action in university admissions. Thankfully, popular support for such programs is low and the courts are slowly but surely striking down the more overtly racist programs throughout the country.
There is an element of racism in western society and in general white people benefit from it.
That's incredibly vague. You know, there is also an element of black racism in western society and in general black people benefit from it. Also, there is an element of Asian racism in western society and in general Asian people benefit from it. But of course, we can't forget that there is an element of Native American racism in western society and in general Native Americans benefit from it.
Seriously, every group has "an element" of racism that goes to help other members of that group. Not just based on race, but religion, alma mater, sports team allegiance, etc.
The people who talk about "white male supremacy in society" though are not talking about "an element" -- they generally see it as pervasive and responsible for most or all of the problems faced by minorities and women.
Nice citation of actual data.
This is another example where it would be incredibly useful and beneficial to society for everybody to have an understanding of statistics. I really wish it would become a requirement for high school graduation, in place of geometry perhaps if we have to sacrifice another math topic.
I don't think your example is overt enough to be considered discrimination.
http://www.eeoc.gov/eeoc/syste...
Examples of systemic practices include: discriminatory barriers in recruitment and hiring; discriminatorily restricted access to management trainee programs and to high level jobs; exclusion of qualified women from traditionally male dominated fields of work; disability discrimination such as unlawful pre-employment inquiries; age discrimination in reductions in force and retirement benefits; and compliance with customer preferences that result in discriminatory placement or assignments.
A special "fast track to management" program for newly hired college grads is an example of systemic discrimination because it's restricted (e.g. discriminatory) to something that correlates strongly with age, putting older workers at a disadvantage for promotion to management.
If you changed your example so that ONLY word of mouth was used for hiring, and you COULD NOT be hired without a recommendation from an existing person, that would be systemic.
The whole point of "systemic" discrimination is that there's a system in place to enforce it.
Fair enough, I think there's a varied level of law and order within ISIS. The things you're posting are bad but lawful. But I've also read reports of things like forcing people to convert and then proving they have really converted by doing things like giving their daughters or sisters to fighters.
Regardless, look back at what you said: "As long as you muslims stay oppressed and nomadic, Christians are cool with you. Try to settle down and you'll be run out of town. Try to demand to have the same rights and you'll be called jihadists.
Gotta say, you sure sound a lot like IS."
Now contrast that message with what ISIS is doing (convert, pay tax, or flee/die). Christians were already oppressed in Iraq and Syria. They are not nomadic because that's their culture. They did not demand the same rights as Muslims. They just wanted to be left alone. But ISIS is not "cool with them" over that barebones existence.
And that was in response to "I personally think the Muslim religion is a crock of shit but as long as they go bow toward Mecca and pray to Allah without trying to force me to I'm fine with it. When they start with the jihad crap I'm fine with killing the hell out of them too."
I just don't see how you are reconciling what that person said with what ISIS actually does. They are very far from being fine with things as long as the Christians don't try to impose their religion on them... they are seeking out Christians and putting extreme pressure on them to drop their religion.
Who is doing that to Muslims, either in comments here or in reality?
No, it doesn't, I was just replying to GP's kind of silly point that "Gee whiz, Romney is conservative so everything he does in every situation in his entire life must be part of the conservative identity!"
The most insidious part may be from point 1:
No blocking. If a consumer requests access to a website or service, and the content is legal, your ISP should not be permitted to block it.
Maybe someone will have to preemptively decide whether the content is legal, including international content I guess. Sounds like a job for the government!
No one cared when Romney rolled out Romneycare in his own state.
Considering Massachusetts is a liberal state, that should tell you how "conservative" Romneycare was, and why conservatives in actual conservative parts of the country may not like it.
Of course nobody cared that someone was rolling out a liberal health care plan in a liberal state.
Politics aside, how is it that republicans want to fuck over everyone but the privileged and corporate
What makes you think that? There are things that lots of people support, and the Republicans also support. Less gun control is an example.
yet get such widespread support from the people who will suffer most from their policies?
I think "suffer" is a bit subjective here. One issue I've seen is short term vs long term. People often say "Republicans oppose welfare and unemployment benefits, and the states that vote Republican use welfare and unemployment benefits disproportionately. What?!?!??!" But someone who uses welfare might also be smart enough to realize that the national debt has to be kept under control, otherwise long term it's going to be more dire than having some cuts in welfare.
You don't have to say "thank you" for it, but you have to weigh your options. Two options are making a new tax treaty with the country involved to get rid of the shielding, and sanctioning the country to prevent Americans and American companies from dealing with them.
But you have to ask yourself, is it worth it? What burden does Amazon really put on the US? When they make more sales in Australia, does that somehow increase their burden in the US? If not, then why require them to pay more than they already do?
Would you want to sanction Luxembourg so that you can squeeze a few more dollars out of Amazon, when in reality the burden imposed by Amazon has nothing to do with those extra dollars?
If you think Amazon already pays enough because of their high paying jobs, property taxes, taxes on investors, etc, then the answer could legitimately be "no" without being a shill for Amazon.
I think that's a really interesting take on things, but I disagree that it means the twilight of capitalism. It sounds more like the end of long work weeks. We'll still need a way to choose economic winners and losers, a way to vote that product A fills our needs at a given price better than product B. That's true even if 100% of the population is on welfare and robots do all the work.
I also think it's a mistake to leave out the service economy. There may well come a time when human labor is entirely worthless, but human conversation is still nice. Won't the most entertaining people still have something worth charging for? Or the prettiest people? Or the most philosophical?
I think your expectations are too high. SJW is not a well-defined term, it's an evolving term, just like civil rights, achievement gaps, and employment figures are evolving. If many different people are calling a person or organization an SJW then that's probably valid. If a few people or one person is calling a person or organization an SJW then you'd compare it to other cases and make a judgment call.
The thing I've noticed is that SJW's, like I said, take up the mantle of the most extreme positions on social justice, where not just equal opportunity but equal outcome are the goal. They rely on things like disparate impact to "prove" that something is discriminatory or racist, because they have lost touch with or outright rejected the dictionary definition of the words. They often in one breath readily admit that overt racism and discrimination are extremely rare, but in another claim that society is racist, institutional racism is rampant, and white male supremacy is woven throughout society and is causing all the problems for minorities and women.
There are many attributes and subtleties, which is why there isn't a clear definition of SJW. It's something you recognize when you see it, but can't define, like love or beauty (only bad).
I think you're the one who hasn't kept up, because while that was the initial message, it changed. Even Christians who paid the tax and tried to stay were eventually threatened with death.
IS also said "If you don't want to pay the tax you can leave." Remember that? Yeah that also changed, and they tried to prevent people from leaving or kill them as they left.
Seriously, it's like you read some press releases about IS initially and then turned off your brain. You really have not kept up.
That's all so well and good but rapes, murders, slavery, beheadings for any one of a number of reasons were never sins to begin with and in some places are encouraged.
Sounds like Old Testament stories of barbaric pre-Jesus cultures.
I'm not even sure what your point is?
Oh okay, let me remind you. You said, "How about showing you the part where jesus says it all counts and can't be changed?"
I said, "That doesn't matter anyway, and here's why" and explained.
All caught up?
Either follow this so called holy book or don't, you can't pick and choose which bits you like
We've already done that, so you're demonstrably wrong. I guess you don't even know the story of how the Bible was created. You're stewing in your own ignorance.
because that's somewhere between blasphemy and heresy and to be frank, the rest of us are bored of it.
This is so funny. You are a religious extremist! No wonder you think things like "Christianity says to behead people." You're a bag of mixed nuts.
Argumentum ad hominem is an informal fallacy. That is, whether or not a person that comes to this conclusion is an idiot is irrelevant to the validity of the conclusion.
My use of an ad hominem was not a fallacy because my conclusion is not based on it. I.e. I did not say "Only an idiot would say that, so it's wrong."
As you noted, my observation was irrelevant to the conclusion. However, I'm sure you realize that being irrelevant and being incorrect are two different things.
Here are some statements of fact. Both the Balaka and the US Armed Forces are groups of individuals that have a religious majority among them. Both the Balaka and the US Armed Forces engage in conduct that is contrary to the values professed by the religion of their respective majority.
Those are not all statements of fact, particularly the latter statement. Jihad for the purpose of establishing an Islamic state is in keeping with Islamic values. If you're talking about other behaviors, you'll have to be more explicit. It's a fallacy to depend on abstractions too much because it leads to false equivalences, which I think you may have done.
If the US Armed Forces are "not true Christians" because their conduct is contrary to the values professed by Christianity
I would never say people in the US Armed Forces are not Christians. That wasn't the question though.
The claim was that the US Armed Forces is as much a Christian group as Balaka is a Muslim group. That is a different matter. You have to look at the aims of each group, not merely the composition.
Remember, you said that some could argue that Balaka was merely paying lip service to Islam, just like some groups in America may pay lip service to Christianity.
Comparing the goals and methods of the groups, you'll see that supposedly Christian-dominated groups in the US, which are called Christian groups, do very little to promote Christianity within the armed forces or government. In fact if you have done any research on the subject you'll know how careful the US Army is to refrain from appearing "too Christian" by dint of its membership, going so far as to ban people from sending Bibles to troops in Muslim countries.
Muslim groups like Seleka in CAR, on the other hand, have a stated goal of establishing Muslim rule and sharia law over the territory they conquer.
So what evidence do you have that the USAF is as Christian in method, structure, and goals as Seleka is Muslim?
Did you really forget that? It's pretty well established.
Yes show me where Jesus says it all counts and can't be changed. Then I'll tell you why it doesn't matter. Oh heck I'll just tell you now. The point of Jesus wasn't to make things that used to be sins not sins anymore. The point of Jesus was that he died for the sins of man so that we could be forgiven even though we sin.
I guess you didn't get the message that Jesus transformed Christianity from a temporal religion to a spiritual, personal religion.