"Well you have to wonder what motive he had for even bringing the device to school in the first place...So if it was obvious to anyone who looked that the device was not invented by the student, what caused him to want to show it off at school?"
I feel like what should be the very obvious answer is that he's a kid and he wanted to show off something he did. He literally said as such. Also, if i remeber correctly, the clock became a problem for him only after it made a noise in his bag and a specific teacher asked to see it and freaked out.
Really, what's more likely? A kid known for tinkering inocently brought in something to show off or some crazy conspiracy theory about the Dad trying to further some poorly defined goals by having his kid bring into school a taken apart clock?
And so because his Dad was all these things that means this had to be a setup? Do you come from some place were the rules of logic dont apply or do you choose to ignore them?
"His Dad was involved in this completely unrelated stuff so he HAS to be some sort of evil mastermind behind this brilliant plot involving a string of events no one could predict"
Yes, Republicans never force their own ideology "down people's throats", right?
This culture you speak of has been building for decades and was most certainly heavily contributed to during the Bush years. This is not a partisan issue
Did you really tell a BBC correspondent that you had "the black vote" because you bave a black wife and the "Americans with tattoos vote" (one in five Americans, apperently) because you're the only candidtate with tatoos?
"If you look back, I specifically referred to "European-style classes". There was never any ambiguity.
When i look back i do not in fact see that. Was that in a different thread? Also, are you now back pedalling and saying America does have classes just not "European style ones" (whatever that means)?
The rest of your post is a tangent and i dont feel like having a side debate right now. The whole class debate is a distraction used by the Right anyways. Anyone who mentions the huge and growing wealth inequality problem this country is experiencing gets accused of classism. It's basically just name calling rather then addressing the actual issue being brought up.
Man am i tired of conservatives making the case that Europe has social classes because of a long dead feudal nobility and so America cant have them because of that. It doesnt even hold up logically.
Europe had nobility which caused classes to form so because America didnt have nobility it can't have classes.
That's text book false anology.
Here's a more obvious example of the bad logic
Mold forms on bread so because cheese contains no bread mold cant form on it.
We've gone off topic with very generic "feel-goodery". The facts is, if an organised group of people are doing something you find objectionable there is nothing inherintly wrong with pointing it out.
And under the Libertarian dream of small government the very wealthy would have all the power and they answer to no one but themselves. At least with our current government the individual sort of has a tiny voice in what happens in this country. What use is a government that represents its people if it cant do anything?
There's always someone to mouth off about how sciency their religious opinion is.
So I'm the one engaged in "sciency"-uping my "faith" when I'm qouting mainstream academic thought that is about as controversial as the Earth revolving around the sun? Meanwhile you point to recent small economic advances in some third world countries, why? Their democracy's are still almost universally currupt and their people still quite poor. If you've kept up with the news for the last 10 years then you've seen massive curruption scandals in every BRIC, MINT, and MIST country (or any other acronym that is being tossed around for groups of developing countries) that dwarf anything in the West. You also see highly undemocratic practices accuring in every one of these countries that again dwarf anything happening in the West.
"I guess that depends on what is "Right" or not. I've dropped that term for the most part because it just makes you dumb to think in that limited way."
Oh what a brave enlightened soul you are dropping near univerally accepted conventions that make communication easier! Or maybe you're thinking dumb because there is an incredibly large body of people in this country that self describe themselves as belonging on the "Right". Sure, just like in every catagory, what makes up the catagory is far more complex that the simplicity the catagory name implies but there are certain things that can most certainly be generally applied to them. As an example that applies to this case, every Republican presidential (the party in our politics associated with Right) who has laid our their vision of tax reform has laid out plans that would disproportionately favor the wealthy and has laid out no plans on how do revive a 50 year shrinking middle class aside from some strange voodoo where shoveling even more money at the wealthy somehow makes us all better off. Thus, the Right has no mainstream economic plans that involve helping anyone other then our most wealthy.
As for your "it's not free cause some one has to pay", you're not being insitefull at all. It's free because the people using the service get it for free. This is literally how the word "free" is used. Of course it's being payed for by other means, exactly like virtually everything else in this world that is described as free.
"Actually, this is typical class warfare rhetoric. The thing to remember here is that wealth inequality is not a significant threat to successful democracy.
"Actually" it is and your comment reflects a poor understanding of the topic which has near universal acceptance from both liberal and conservative academics on the subject. A simple look at first world democracies and third world ones clearly illustrates this point. This point is about as non controversial as they come in political science.
"Once you adjust for inflation, you find this assertion is patently false. Here's a typical list [cnn.com] with the richest living US citizen, Bill Gates at 12th place. "
Of course we're in no way, shape, or form talking about individuals. That topic literally has no bearing on what we're talking about. BUT you do have a vaguely correct point i that we did have a brief point in the 20's where the situation was a slight bit worse. That doesnt really change anything though as that was just before a catalysmic economic slow down.
"But I think we should expect it to be in the face of intense labor competition from the developing world"
Which is harnessed by the very wealthy to the determent of our middle class. I don't all see why we should just roll over and accept a slide into third world wealth inequality.
"maybe we should concern ourselves with stuff that actually matters, like making US labor more competitive with the rest of the world."
Of course our Right does nothing to do this while the Left's advocating for things like affordable pre school and what equates to free associate degree educations does exactly that.
The wealthy today are clearly wealthy at the expence of society, not the benefit. No one is saying no one should be wealthy but what an ever increasing number of people are saying is that we need a prosperous middle class to maintain our culture and to avoid massive instability (third world wealth inequality doesnt work so well in a Republic)
There's nothing nebulous about it. Dividing people into groups, and encouraging and widening the divisions, hyping up the hostility to gain power organizing one group against the other is almost the definition of evil.
It's human nature for people to group around common beliefs. It's been donw for all of human history and you're literally doing so yourself, labeling yourself a "non divider" (which is pure arrogance as there's not such thing) and me as "part of the problem".
"For someone not intending evil, that should indicate more thoughtfulness might be in order."
So i should have said something completely in line with what you think is right and then i wouldnt be evil or hatefull? First you put words in my mouth and then you tell me because what i said wasnt what you believe that the words you put in my mouth are correct. You're literally ingaging in the very acts you're denouncing and in a very silly way.
What you describe could really be applied to any group formed around ideology. Ideas are formed and acted upon and some of them are good and some of them only seem good at the time. The hope is the bad ones dont become too entretched at the expence of future good ones.
Really what you're describing is not so much the Left but more human history in general
So we cant point to problems anymore because then we're succumbing to some nebulous evil? The fact is, people form groups around certain beliefs. They always have and likely always will. Acknowledging that is just acknowleding human nature.
And i said absolutly nothing about "hating" others for having contrary opinions or belonging to different groups. Those are your words, not mine
I love the "class warfare" narrative for the Left that has become fashionable amoung the Right. Pointing out that for the last half century that wealth inequality has increased while the middle class has shrunk and that maybe we should do something about that is not class warfare. Anyone who has received half a political science education can tell you that massive wealth inequality is one of the most significant threats to successful republican governance.
The Left points to this and says "hey, this threatens not only our way of life but the stability of the republic" and then advocates policies that actually make a small difference. Our Right just keeps advocating policy that will heep even more money onto a wealthy class of citizens who are wealthier then they have ever been in American history.
In fact, I think one might be able to make the case that it is our conservatives who are engaged in class warfare.
I was literally just reading a neat little story in my local newspaper about the history of the second amendment and the redefining of meaning it's gone through in the last 50 years. There was about 100 period where the courts didnt ignore the "well regulated militia" part and properly saw that the second amendment was meant to protect state militias not mass firearm ownership in general and there were a ton of court cases all the way up to the supreme court that agreed on this interpretation. In the last few decades however, a very focused minorty has managed to get the first part of the second amendment essentially dropped.
Went over to Sprint from Verizon recently because they were offering cheaper unlimited data then my limited data plan with Verizon. When i was signing up the sales person mentioned that they used Verizon's towers as backup for their network with no roaming charges. So far I havent seen a spec of difference between the two carriers in terms of quality (spotty areas near where I live are spotty for both carriers) but I have yet to travel out to any real rural areas or do any real travel with it.
Of course Sprint's even more recent financial issues have me a tad worried in regards to how long I'll be able to get unlimited data from Sprint but i can always change carriers again when my contract ends.
Alright, I'll be honest. I posted before I RTFA. This poll is garbage although I'll stick to my guns that anyone who thinks the movie is real life is one of my above mentioned catagories
Really what the poll was asking was "How many of you people are idiots". I'll give a pass to the elderly and mentally infirm who modern polling disproportionally represents but these numbers are too high to not represent a good number of complete idiots.
Slashdot Mirror
"Well you have to wonder what motive he had for even bringing the device to school in the first place...So if it was obvious to anyone who looked that the device was not invented by the student, what caused him to want to show it off at school?"
I feel like what should be the very obvious answer is that he's a kid and he wanted to show off something he did. He literally said as such. Also, if i remeber correctly, the clock became a problem for him only after it made a noise in his bag and a specific teacher asked to see it and freaked out.
Really, what's more likely? A kid known for tinkering inocently brought in something to show off or some crazy conspiracy theory about the Dad trying to further some poorly defined goals by having his kid bring into school a taken apart clock?
And so because his Dad was all these things that means this had to be a setup? Do you come from some place were the rules of logic dont apply or do you choose to ignore them?
"His Dad was involved in this completely unrelated stuff so he HAS to be some sort of evil mastermind behind this brilliant plot involving a string of events no one could predict"
Of course everything you mention is not at all what the person i replied to was talking about.
If you explain your point and site sources then people don't think you're making things up.
Yes, Republicans never force their own ideology "down people's throats", right?
This culture you speak of has been building for decades and was most certainly heavily contributed to during the Bush years. This is not a partisan issue
Did you really tell a BBC correspondent that you had "the black vote" because you bave a black wife and the "Americans with tattoos vote" (one in five Americans, apperently) because you're the only candidtate with tatoos?
Http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-34321191
What if my children are ugly? Is it okay then?
"If you look back, I specifically referred to "European-style classes". There was never any ambiguity.
When i look back i do not in fact see that. Was that in a different thread? Also, are you now back pedalling and saying America does have classes just not "European style ones" (whatever that means)?
The rest of your post is a tangent and i dont feel like having a side debate right now. The whole class debate is a distraction used by the Right anyways. Anyone who mentions the huge and growing wealth inequality problem this country is experiencing gets accused of classism. It's basically just name calling rather then addressing the actual issue being brought up.
So Paul's is out as referenced to another's post. Where's this laughable "plenty" at?
Man am i tired of conservatives making the case that Europe has social classes because of a long dead feudal nobility and so America cant have them because of that. It doesnt even hold up logically.
Europe had nobility which caused classes to form so because America didnt have nobility it can't have classes.
That's text book false anology.
Here's a more obvious example of the bad logic
Mold forms on bread so because cheese contains no bread mold cant form on it.
We've gone off topic with very generic "feel-goodery". The facts is, if an organised group of people are doing something you find objectionable there is nothing inherintly wrong with pointing it out.
And under the Libertarian dream of small government the very wealthy would have all the power and they answer to no one but themselves. At least with our current government the individual sort of has a tiny voice in what happens in this country. What use is a government that represents its people if it cant do anything?
There's always someone to mouth off about how sciency their religious opinion is.
So I'm the one engaged in "sciency"-uping my "faith" when I'm qouting mainstream academic thought that is about as controversial as the Earth revolving around the sun? Meanwhile you point to recent small economic advances in some third world countries, why? Their democracy's are still almost universally currupt and their people still quite poor. If you've kept up with the news for the last 10 years then you've seen massive curruption scandals in every BRIC, MINT, and MIST country (or any other acronym that is being tossed around for groups of developing countries) that dwarf anything in the West. You also see highly undemocratic practices accuring in every one of these countries that again dwarf anything happening in the West.
"I guess that depends on what is "Right" or not. I've dropped that term for the most part because it just makes you dumb to think in that limited way."
Oh what a brave enlightened soul you are dropping near univerally accepted conventions that make communication easier! Or maybe you're thinking dumb because there is an incredibly large body of people in this country that self describe themselves as belonging on the "Right". Sure, just like in every catagory, what makes up the catagory is far more complex that the simplicity the catagory name implies but there are certain things that can most certainly be generally applied to them. As an example that applies to this case, every Republican presidential (the party in our politics associated with Right) who has laid our their vision of tax reform has laid out plans that would disproportionately favor the wealthy and has laid out no plans on how do revive a 50 year shrinking middle class aside from some strange voodoo where shoveling even more money at the wealthy somehow makes us all better off. Thus, the Right has no mainstream economic plans that involve helping anyone other then our most wealthy.
As for your "it's not free cause some one has to pay", you're not being insitefull at all. It's free because the people using the service get it for free. This is literally how the word "free" is used. Of course it's being payed for by other means, exactly like virtually everything else in this world that is described as free.
"Actually, this is typical class warfare rhetoric. The thing to remember here is that wealth inequality is not a significant threat to successful democracy.
"Actually" it is and your comment reflects a poor understanding of the topic which has near universal acceptance from both liberal and conservative academics on the subject. A simple look at first world democracies and third world ones clearly illustrates this point. This point is about as non controversial as they come in political science.
"Once you adjust for inflation, you find this assertion is patently false. Here's a typical list [cnn.com] with the richest living US citizen, Bill Gates at 12th place. "
Of course we're in no way, shape, or form talking about individuals. That topic literally has no bearing on what we're talking about. BUT you do have a vaguely correct point i that we did have a brief point in the 20's where the situation was a slight bit worse. That doesnt really change anything though as that was just before a catalysmic economic slow down.
"But I think we should expect it to be in the face of intense labor competition from the developing world"
Which is harnessed by the very wealthy to the determent of our middle class. I don't all see why we should just roll over and accept a slide into third world wealth inequality.
"maybe we should concern ourselves with stuff that actually matters, like making US labor more competitive with the rest of the world."
Of course our Right does nothing to do this while the Left's advocating for things like affordable pre school and what equates to free associate degree educations does exactly that.
I have yet to see an "anti-tax" conservative who advocated policies whose most prominent beneficiary wasnt the very wealthy.
The wealthy today are clearly wealthy at the expence of society, not the benefit. No one is saying no one should be wealthy but what an ever increasing number of people are saying is that we need a prosperous middle class to maintain our culture and to avoid massive instability (third world wealth inequality doesnt work so well in a Republic)
There's nothing nebulous about it. Dividing people into groups, and encouraging and widening the divisions, hyping up the hostility to gain power organizing one group against the other is almost the definition of evil.
It's human nature for people to group around common beliefs. It's been donw for all of human history and you're literally doing so yourself, labeling yourself a "non divider" (which is pure arrogance as there's not such thing) and me as "part of the problem".
"For someone not intending evil, that should indicate more thoughtfulness might be in order."
So i should have said something completely in line with what you think is right and then i wouldnt be evil or hatefull? First you put words in my mouth and then you tell me because what i said wasnt what you believe that the words you put in my mouth are correct. You're literally ingaging in the very acts you're denouncing and in a very silly way.
What you describe could really be applied to any group formed around ideology. Ideas are formed and acted upon and some of them are good and some of them only seem good at the time. The hope is the bad ones dont become too entretched at the expence of future good ones.
Really what you're describing is not so much the Left but more human history in general
So we cant point to problems anymore because then we're succumbing to some nebulous evil? The fact is, people form groups around certain beliefs. They always have and likely always will. Acknowledging that is just acknowleding human nature.
And i said absolutly nothing about "hating" others for having contrary opinions or belonging to different groups. Those are your words, not mine
I love the "class warfare" narrative for the Left that has become fashionable amoung the Right. Pointing out that for the last half century that wealth inequality has increased while the middle class has shrunk and that maybe we should do something about that is not class warfare. Anyone who has received half a political science education can tell you that massive wealth inequality is one of the most significant threats to successful republican governance.
The Left points to this and says "hey, this threatens not only our way of life but the stability of the republic" and then advocates policies that actually make a small difference. Our Right just keeps advocating policy that will heep even more money onto a wealthy class of citizens who are wealthier then they have ever been in American history.
In fact, I think one might be able to make the case that it is our conservatives who are engaged in class warfare.
Your post amounts to a "not-uh", which is to say not at all insitefull.
I was literally just reading a neat little story in my local newspaper about the history of the second amendment and the redefining of meaning it's gone through in the last 50 years. There was about 100 period where the courts didnt ignore the "well regulated militia" part and properly saw that the second amendment was meant to protect state militias not mass firearm ownership in general and there were a ton of court cases all the way up to the supreme court that agreed on this interpretation. In the last few decades however, a very focused minorty has managed to get the first part of the second amendment essentially dropped.
Went over to Sprint from Verizon recently because they were offering cheaper unlimited data then my limited data plan with Verizon. When i was signing up the sales person mentioned that they used Verizon's towers as backup for their network with no roaming charges. So far I havent seen a spec of difference between the two carriers in terms of quality (spotty areas near where I live are spotty for both carriers) but I have yet to travel out to any real rural areas or do any real travel with it.
Of course Sprint's even more recent financial issues have me a tad worried in regards to how long I'll be able to get unlimited data from Sprint but i can always change carriers again when my contract ends.
Alright, I'll be honest. I posted before I RTFA. This poll is garbage although I'll stick to my guns that anyone who thinks the movie is real life is one of my above mentioned catagories
Really what the poll was asking was "How many of you people are idiots". I'll give a pass to the elderly and mentally infirm who modern polling disproportionally represents but these numbers are too high to not represent a good number of complete idiots.