if you believe Obama is an actual minority representative, you've just lost all credibility
What are you talking about - skin color majority/minority, or idealogical majority/minority?
He's a minority in the first case, and (as of the election that put him in that job) in the majority in the second case. There's only one president. Are you really saying that the person with the less popular views should get the job?
Regardless, let's look at legislative elections, shall we? We've got people from all sorts of genetic, cosmetic, and philosophical backgrounds in the national congress and the senate. Likewise at the state levels. We've got avowed socialists, libertarians, middle-lefties, right-wing kooks, far-left kooks, business men, big-labor sycophants, PTA-mom-types, military people, pacifists - take your pick. People of African, Asian, Native American, Central/South American, Middle-Eastern, Mediterranean, Easter/Northern/You-Name-It European Heritage... so even someone who is quota-minded like you should be happy.
Nah, it's the name for something that runs directly counter to the constitution, and is called for by people who cannot persuade their fellow citizens to vote for their own pet single-cause crusades. You know, because people actually are more nuanced than that.
You're right. No votes are actually involved in picking city, county, and state legislators, muncipal, county, and state executives, congresssional representatives and senators, and president. When we count them, they're all fake, and aren't actually related to humans casting votes. Your congressman is actually picked by secret members of the Trilateral Commission as they fly over in black helicopters deploying mind-control devices made by Haliburton on specs from the Rothschilds.
No. I do not want to wake up and work part of every day to provide campaign cash to someone who says I'm evil for thinking that it's not government's role to make sure everyone gets the same stuff regardless of whether or how they work. I do not want to be forced to support a candidate that says I'm inherently wrong for being, say, male. Or that I'm evil for thinking that people who break the law by sneaking into the country and lying on federal paperwork should get free stuff that I spend other parts of my day working to pay for. You're welcome to give such people campaign cash, but don't force me to.
some form of preference voting
We have it. It's called "voting."
a "no confidence" option
Also called "voting." You get to participate in such events every couple of years.
You may want to run your state or your country like a PTA meeting, but the founders had a much better grip on the tyrrany and foolishness of the simple majority and capricious elections. You do sound like someone who would like California, though. That's working out really well, isn't it?
So, answer the question. How much should be done to the people above the person who knew-about/carried-out the wrong act? Should their immediate boss be responsible? That person's boss? That person's boss? People make sweeping statements about something being unacceptable, but never quite follow through and say what they really, in practical terms, mean by that.
Everyone in the company above the highest person who knew about or did the evil deed? The entire company? All of the people who have invested their retirement money in the company, because of a low-on-the-food-chain person acting against policy? How do you define this?
Except that each those is often exactly true. In the "just following orders" situation, you go up the food chain until you find out who issued them. In the "I was out of the loop" scenario, you go down the food chain until you find out where the loop's boundaries are.
What does "unacceptable" mean to you? If someone subordinate to you does something of which you would not approve, and about which you did not know... what, should your entire organization, all the way to the top of the org chart be destroyed? Really?
why is my $15 Walgreens watch waterproof to a depth of 20 meters, but if I sneeze on my $400 Android / iPhone it's ruined and I voided the warranty?
A couple of thoughts, here.
1) How do the microphone, micro SD slot, speakers, and charging/data port on your watch work after you've taken it down to 20 meters?
2) Has it ever occured to you that the makers and retailers of your $15 watch are simply banking (literally) on the fact that essentially nobody will every submit that cheap watch to 20 meters of water? And if someone does do so, and the watch inevitably fails, what percentage of that already tiny percentage are going to actually bother to pursue warranty service/replacement on something that costs less than a decent pizza? They could simply replace that costs-them-$3 watch every time all three people in that group take a shower, and they'll still make more money than they would have by not saying "Waterproof to 20 meters!" on the packaging and not having to service such claims.
This attempt to squeeze free work out of employees is nothing short of abuse
Which attempt? I've worked in various industries and capacities for thirty years or so now, mostly in technology. I've never seen the squeeze to which you're alluding. And if I thought an employer was abusive I'd take what I do somewhere else. Of course, I've never seen this "abuse," and have never in thirty years encountered a single counter-part, client, prospect, manager, subordinate, or friend - all numbering in the hundreds, likely thousands - who have. Of course, I have encountered some people who procrastinate, over-sell (and under-deliver), get themselves in the wrong job, generally prefer to slack, and who will call anything that attempts to point that out or correct it as "abuse." They are whiny idiots, but they're the ones we generally hear from on this subject.
How about... medical or other emergency supplies to accidents, natural disasters, etc.?
You mean, the way the US military regularly and directly does all around the world, and likewise supports/provides security as others do?
The technology of endless wars
All the technology does is make conflict less capriciously deadly in ways that don't get the job done. What you're really bitching about is the fact that the world isn't entirely done, yet, with having conflicts like those in the Balkans or the middle east impact the rest of the world. You're annoyed that places like North Korea would, in fact, immediately roll their special kind of socialist paradise right over South Korea if they weren't sure that Really Bad Military Things would happen to them. I'm sorry that annoys you. Do you have another proposal for containing them? Would you prefer a lower-tech approach, and just line up more troops on the ground, and perhaps some mounted cavalry, to confront their long-range artillery? Maybe some a nice four-mast wooden ship or two to confront the sub they used to sink a South Korean naval vessel?
Ask them to describe American culture and you'll get a blank stare.
How would you describe European culture? Thousands of years of war, there. Perhaps African culture? Eons of tribal butchery. The Far East? Central Asia? Please, do go on.
I work with hundreds of white collar techie co-workers, and we all work with thousands of clients. None of what you're saying applies. We work to get the job done, and work to set expectations that allow that job to be done at a sane pace spread out over a reasonable number of hours.
The important thing that has happened is that we're now in a global economy where actual competition has narrowed margins and altered the nature of getting things done at the prices that CUSTOMERS want to pay.
Your nostalgia for the post-war US economy is nostalgia for when most of the rest of the world was still a train wreck.
Do any politicians run campaigns that cost money? If someone you truly think is the right person for the job is trying to get elected, are you prevented from supporting their campaign, or the political actions of their party/organization?
You seem to be confusing the legislative and executive branches.
and feel betrayed that our current President has done nothing to fix the problem
Twice!
More than they can fit on any plane!!!
You're also completely misunderstanding who the audience is for such attacks. It's for the would-be Jihaddists back home. The militant Islamists thugs in the middle east have a lot of people around them who don't want to be ruled by retrograde, mysoginistic, medieval-minded theocrats. That only works at the point of a sword. Telegenic attacks (like flaming towers and destroyed aircraft - think of what would have happened in Detroit if that clown hadn't damaged his underwear bomb with sweat) are part of their theater for the home-boys who need to feel attached to a powerful militant movement. Just blowing up a bunch of people standing in line is every-day stuff in that part of the world. Street cred comes with doing something unusual and more web recruitment video worthy.
Umm, isn't that exactly what the USA has done since WW2?
Funny you should ask. "No" would be the correct answer to that question.
But I'll check with our colonies in what used to be Germany and Japan, just to be sure. Our viceroy in South Korea or our Puppet Leaders in eastern Europe may also have some comments, of course. Oh, righ, none of that's actually the case.
You're confusing "the USA" with "everyone who didn't want to live under totalitarian regimes."
Well, obviously the GP means that you don't need a gun to live well because if you've been killed by two thugs in a home invasion, you'll be dead, and not living poorly.
but they never denied anybody access to the places they were occupying
So, while Occupy was (literally) occupying public spaces, there would have been no problem at all with another group holding a large assembly or march that went right through the same space? How would that work, exactly? Would Occupy agree to tear down their tents, food stations, and the rest, because a city official told them that another group had a permit to use the space? No, they didn't listen at all, along those lines, because they wanted the theater of being forced to move. Two large groups can't use the same space. Squatting on that space is an action explicitly meant to show ownership and control of it. That was the entire point of squatting.
you might as well argue that the 2 square feet my body occupies in space means that I'm denying that space to others. Of course that's true, but there's no real option to mitigate that.
Sure there is. You show some manners, and move. OWS has repeatedly demonstrated that they don't think manners apply to them.
Wow, you need a permit to make a political point?
You do if you want to take over public property while you're making it.
Not to mention that permits do nothing to raise money to cover municipal expenses for the demonstration?
Why is it that you suppose permits in many/most places involve fees? Why do you suppose that the Tea Party people, for example, got a little miffed when they realized that they'd been charged thousands of dollars for a few hours' assembly (to cover traffic management, emergency services coordination, etc) when the Occupy people who squatted in the same place ad nauseum were not?
They seem to mostly just make up stuff
You say that, but you're not mentioning anything that's made up. Why is that? Never mind, that's pretty obvious. You're the one, rather, that's asserting an alternate reality and ignoring inconvenient facts about things like permit fees and police OT invoices.
so that they can be outraged at others disrupting their quiet little life
Hysterical. The whole point of these groups squatting in plublic places, banging drums 24x7, blocking business entrances, marching into museums, taking craps in the street and on police cars, etc., is to disrupt. Many people find that to be obnoxious, to erode - rather then support - whatever credibility these people think they should have, and to be eventually worth ignoring, and later still, cleaning up after. Would you like it if a bunch of people who say you're evil were blocking the door to your place of work, blocking traffic, preventing your use of public spaces at no cost to them (though you would, should you hold an event there, have to pay), and such? No? You really think that public discourse should just be a who-squats-first free for all and perpetual traffic management problem? I don't think you're capable of applying the same standards to anyone but the people you idealogically support.
A depressingly no-win situation because of the generally poor reasoning level of the public.
And you seem to be banking on that poor reasoning/attention-span in hopes that nobody will notice you're ignoring the fact that Democrats do exactly the same thing, for the same reasons.
Where in the First Amendment does it say you can only protest for two months
It doesn't say that, and it doesn't need to. When a group of people decides that they, and nobody else, are the new owners of a public space, they no longer care about the freedom of speech. They only care about having that venue for themselves, and denying it to others.
Would the Occupy people have had a place to stand around and beat drums about their hatred of rich people if PETA or NARAL or Ladies Against Garden Gnome Abuse had already had the place squatted-in with a permanent encampment? What would OWS do, fight them for the turf?
I know! Let's consider some sort of sensible arrangement that involves something like... permits! You know, arrangements by which your large group of people get to have their large organized event (and take care of things like sanitation, traffic management, etc) in a way that doesn't impact their fellow citizens' taxes or shut down their places of work in random, obnoxious ways. The OWS clowns were given extensive latitude that most groups never get, because it's abusive to everyone else to let it go on like that. They (OWS) know that. But they wanted to be made to give up those public spaces back to the public, because - having no coherent point to make - they rely on Outrage Theater as their street cred currency, and that's how they keep their Facebook groups going and attract hot young college freshmen.
Technically they don't define themselves as a democracy either, its a republic at best
That's not a bug, that's a feature. Straight democracies are a big mistake. A constitutionally defined republic, with representatives and executives elected under very specific circumstances, is a good thing.
The rest of your breathless lefty whining is just the usual case of complaining about people having influence, and (indirectly) insisting that it's you that should have control over your fellow citizens (you know, the ones who do things like run businesses) instead. You don't dislike power, you just want it for yourself.
There's nothing at all stopping you from having a lucid, cogent point to make, making it to enough people that you, too, can do what it takes to convince millions of people to vote according to your own wishes. All you have to do is make a valid point. Which, of course, you're not. Whining about what other people do is the classic refuge of the have-no-initiative, produce-nothing, want-a-Nanny-State-please types. Grow a pair and produce something yourself. Say clearly what you want, rather than just complaining that other people say - loudly, because they think it's important to them, their employees, their investors and their customers - what they want.
You really think that "lobbyinng" should be illegal? Do you even understand what the hell you're talking about? Don't answer - that was a rhetorical question. You obviously don't.
The right to speak to your elected representatives, and to speak (say, via advertising) what's on your mind, is very appropriately defended by the constitution. You don't like what other people say to politicians, so you think it should be illegal for them to talk. And you're the one bitching about influence? You want the power to influence elections and polity by shutting up your fellow citizens. That's pretty classy of you.
No Google searches, no Facebook statuses, No buying on Amazon/eBay
It's not that simple. There are contractual issues in play, with third parties who pay places like Amazon and eBay to provide services that are part of their businesses. I doubt that those agreements have clauses in them that say things like "We retain the right to fail to provide you with these contracted-for services while we participate in a political protest." Lots of moving parts involved, here.
Thank you for providing such specific details in your exposé of this practice.
Oh, right, you're making it up. Sorry, didn't mean to confuse your post with reality.
Those large, publicly traded companies about which you're having these feverish fantasies? Their books are subject to intense scrutiny by everyone from the SEC to the State Department when it comes to dealings with foreign governments. Of course you know that, but that doesn't stop you from trolling along with this disingenuous bit of toxic memery. What's it like having no intellectual integrity? Seems painful.
The ultra rich don't really pay income tax either.
In fact, they pay the vast majority of the nation's income taxes. It's a simple matter of record. The IRS is happy to report that info to you, and do so every year.
Income tax is a silly thing to hunker down on.
Not while it's the main thing used to fund the operations of our government, it's not.
comparing issues in the relatively distant past
I only invoke the relatively recent past (many Progressives alive and voting today were very much alive and kicking fifty or seventy years ago) because the person to whom I replied explicitly made a (laughably ill-informed, or speciously disingenuous) historical assertion. I am providing some much needed perspective. As for how politicians vote... nah, I'm more interested in stated principles. The Progressives loudly and actively support a welfare state, today. Now. They (today, now) are the source of speech-squashing political correctness movements in schools.
They (today) are the primary source of intransigence in the retention of demonstrably poor teachers in failing schools.
They (right now) are the prime backers of skin-color-based policy making and the message that some skin colors equal the permanent need for lower expectations.
I mention history to show that these current bits of toxic thinking have their roots in the Progressive Movement, and the only thing that's changed is the tamping down of the more aggressively ugly stuff on the surface (like eugenics as an overt feature of the movement's vision for a better world).
Slashdot Mirror
if you believe Obama is an actual minority representative, you've just lost all credibility
What are you talking about - skin color majority/minority, or idealogical majority/minority?
... so even someone who is quota-minded like you should be happy.
He's a minority in the first case, and (as of the election that put him in that job) in the majority in the second case. There's only one president. Are you really saying that the person with the less popular views should get the job?
Regardless, let's look at legislative elections, shall we? We've got people from all sorts of genetic, cosmetic, and philosophical backgrounds in the national congress and the senate. Likewise at the state levels. We've got avowed socialists, libertarians, middle-lefties, right-wing kooks, far-left kooks, business men, big-labor sycophants, PTA-mom-types, military people, pacifists - take your pick. People of African, Asian, Native American, Central/South American, Middle-Eastern, Mediterranean, Easter/Northern/You-Name-It European Heritage
leader ... minority representation
Are you even listening to yourself, and did you sleep through 2008?
Nah, it must just be a synonym for voting.
Nah, it's the name for something that runs directly counter to the constitution, and is called for by people who cannot persuade their fellow citizens to vote for their own pet single-cause crusades. You know, because people actually are more nuanced than that.
you vote counts! ... oh be serious
You're right. No votes are actually involved in picking city, county, and state legislators, muncipal, county, and state executives, congresssional representatives and senators, and president. When we count them, they're all fake, and aren't actually related to humans casting votes. Your congressman is actually picked by secret members of the Trilateral Commission as they fly over in black helicopters deploying mind-control devices made by Haliburton on specs from the Rothschilds.
We need publicly financed elections
No. I do not want to wake up and work part of every day to provide campaign cash to someone who says I'm evil for thinking that it's not government's role to make sure everyone gets the same stuff regardless of whether or how they work. I do not want to be forced to support a candidate that says I'm inherently wrong for being, say, male. Or that I'm evil for thinking that people who break the law by sneaking into the country and lying on federal paperwork should get free stuff that I spend other parts of my day working to pay for. You're welcome to give such people campaign cash, but don't force me to.
some form of preference voting
We have it. It's called "voting."
a "no confidence" option
Also called "voting." You get to participate in such events every couple of years.
You may want to run your state or your country like a PTA meeting, but the founders had a much better grip on the tyrrany and foolishness of the simple majority and capricious elections. You do sound like someone who would like California, though. That's working out really well, isn't it?
So, answer the question. How much should be done to the people above the person who knew-about/carried-out the wrong act? Should their immediate boss be responsible? That person's boss? That person's boss? People make sweeping statements about something being unacceptable, but never quite follow through and say what they really, in practical terms, mean by that.
punished, retrained, or replaced, yes
Everyone in the company above the highest person who knew about or did the evil deed? The entire company? All of the people who have invested their retirement money in the company, because of a low-on-the-food-chain person acting against policy? How do you define this?
Neither is acceptable
Except that each those is often exactly true. In the "just following orders" situation, you go up the food chain until you find out who issued them. In the "I was out of the loop" scenario, you go down the food chain until you find out where the loop's boundaries are.
... what, should your entire organization, all the way to the top of the org chart be destroyed? Really?
What does "unacceptable" mean to you? If someone subordinate to you does something of which you would not approve, and about which you did not know
why is my $15 Walgreens watch waterproof to a depth of 20 meters, but if I sneeze on my $400 Android / iPhone it's ruined and I voided the warranty?
A couple of thoughts, here.
1) How do the microphone, micro SD slot, speakers, and charging/data port on your watch work after you've taken it down to 20 meters?
2) Has it ever occured to you that the makers and retailers of your $15 watch are simply banking (literally) on the fact that essentially nobody will every submit that cheap watch to 20 meters of water? And if someone does do so, and the watch inevitably fails, what percentage of that already tiny percentage are going to actually bother to pursue warranty service/replacement on something that costs less than a decent pizza? They could simply replace that costs-them-$3 watch every time all three people in that group take a shower, and they'll still make more money than they would have by not saying "Waterproof to 20 meters!" on the packaging and not having to service such claims.
This attempt to squeeze free work out of employees is nothing short of abuse
Which attempt? I've worked in various industries and capacities for thirty years or so now, mostly in technology. I've never seen the squeeze to which you're alluding. And if I thought an employer was abusive I'd take what I do somewhere else. Of course, I've never seen this "abuse," and have never in thirty years encountered a single counter-part, client, prospect, manager, subordinate, or friend - all numbering in the hundreds, likely thousands - who have. Of course, I have encountered some people who procrastinate, over-sell (and under-deliver), get themselves in the wrong job, generally prefer to slack, and who will call anything that attempts to point that out or correct it as "abuse." They are whiny idiots, but they're the ones we generally hear from on this subject.
How about ... medical or other emergency supplies to accidents, natural disasters, etc.?
You mean, the way the US military regularly and directly does all around the world, and likewise supports/provides security as others do?
The technology of endless wars
All the technology does is make conflict less capriciously deadly in ways that don't get the job done. What you're really bitching about is the fact that the world isn't entirely done, yet, with having conflicts like those in the Balkans or the middle east impact the rest of the world. You're annoyed that places like North Korea would, in fact, immediately roll their special kind of socialist paradise right over South Korea if they weren't sure that Really Bad Military Things would happen to them. I'm sorry that annoys you. Do you have another proposal for containing them? Would you prefer a lower-tech approach, and just line up more troops on the ground, and perhaps some mounted cavalry, to confront their long-range artillery? Maybe some a nice four-mast wooden ship or two to confront the sub they used to sink a South Korean naval vessel?
Ask them to describe American culture and you'll get a blank stare.
How would you describe European culture? Thousands of years of war, there. Perhaps African culture? Eons of tribal butchery. The Far East? Central Asia? Please, do go on.
I work with hundreds of white collar techie co-workers, and we all work with thousands of clients. None of what you're saying applies. We work to get the job done, and work to set expectations that allow that job to be done at a sane pace spread out over a reasonable number of hours. The important thing that has happened is that we're now in a global economy where actual competition has narrowed margins and altered the nature of getting things done at the prices that CUSTOMERS want to pay. Your nostalgia for the post-war US economy is nostalgia for when most of the rest of the world was still a train wreck.
Do any politicians run campaigns that cost money? If someone you truly think is the right person for the job is trying to get elected, are you prevented from supporting their campaign, or the political actions of their party/organization?
I despised "W" ...
You seem to be confusing the legislative and executive branches.
and feel betrayed that our current President has done nothing to fix the problem
Twice!
More than they can fit on any plane!!!
You're also completely misunderstanding who the audience is for such attacks. It's for the would-be Jihaddists back home. The militant Islamists thugs in the middle east have a lot of people around them who don't want to be ruled by retrograde, mysoginistic, medieval-minded theocrats. That only works at the point of a sword. Telegenic attacks (like flaming towers and destroyed aircraft - think of what would have happened in Detroit if that clown hadn't damaged his underwear bomb with sweat) are part of their theater for the home-boys who need to feel attached to a powerful militant movement. Just blowing up a bunch of people standing in line is every-day stuff in that part of the world. Street cred comes with doing something unusual and more web recruitment video worthy.
Umm, isn't that exactly what the USA has done since WW2?
Funny you should ask. "No" would be the correct answer to that question.
But I'll check with our colonies in what used to be Germany and Japan, just to be sure. Our viceroy in South Korea or our Puppet Leaders in eastern Europe may also have some comments, of course. Oh, righ, none of that's actually the case.
You're confusing "the USA" with "everyone who didn't want to live under totalitarian regimes."
Wow. You are a fine, fine troll. Or a moron. Either way, thanks for the entertainment.
Well, obviously the GP means that you don't need a gun to live well because if you've been killed by two thugs in a home invasion, you'll be dead, and not living poorly.
will reinstall Windows 8, but keep your documents and installed Metro apps in tact
I've traced almost all of my Windows desktop performance problems back to the registry getting out of tact.
Are there any actual human editors involved in the publishing process, here?
but they never denied anybody access to the places they were occupying
So, while Occupy was (literally) occupying public spaces, there would have been no problem at all with another group holding a large assembly or march that went right through the same space? How would that work, exactly? Would Occupy agree to tear down their tents, food stations, and the rest, because a city official told them that another group had a permit to use the space? No, they didn't listen at all, along those lines, because they wanted the theater of being forced to move. Two large groups can't use the same space. Squatting on that space is an action explicitly meant to show ownership and control of it. That was the entire point of squatting.
you might as well argue that the 2 square feet my body occupies in space means that I'm denying that space to others. Of course that's true, but there's no real option to mitigate that.
Sure there is. You show some manners, and move. OWS has repeatedly demonstrated that they don't think manners apply to them.
Wow, you need a permit to make a political point?
You do if you want to take over public property while you're making it.
Not to mention that permits do nothing to raise money to cover municipal expenses for the demonstration?
Why is it that you suppose permits in many/most places involve fees? Why do you suppose that the Tea Party people, for example, got a little miffed when they realized that they'd been charged thousands of dollars for a few hours' assembly (to cover traffic management, emergency services coordination, etc) when the Occupy people who squatted in the same place ad nauseum were not?
They seem to mostly just make up stuff
You say that, but you're not mentioning anything that's made up. Why is that? Never mind, that's pretty obvious. You're the one, rather, that's asserting an alternate reality and ignoring inconvenient facts about things like permit fees and police OT invoices.
so that they can be outraged at others disrupting their quiet little life
Hysterical. The whole point of these groups squatting in plublic places, banging drums 24x7, blocking business entrances, marching into museums, taking craps in the street and on police cars, etc., is to disrupt. Many people find that to be obnoxious, to erode - rather then support - whatever credibility these people think they should have, and to be eventually worth ignoring, and later still, cleaning up after. Would you like it if a bunch of people who say you're evil were blocking the door to your place of work, blocking traffic, preventing your use of public spaces at no cost to them (though you would, should you hold an event there, have to pay), and such? No? You really think that public discourse should just be a who-squats-first free for all and perpetual traffic management problem? I don't think you're capable of applying the same standards to anyone but the people you idealogically support.
A depressingly no-win situation because of the generally poor reasoning level of the public.
And you seem to be banking on that poor reasoning/attention-span in hopes that nobody will notice you're ignoring the fact that Democrats do exactly the same thing, for the same reasons.
Where in the First Amendment does it say you can only protest for two months
It doesn't say that, and it doesn't need to. When a group of people decides that they, and nobody else, are the new owners of a public space, they no longer care about the freedom of speech. They only care about having that venue for themselves, and denying it to others.
... permits! You know, arrangements by which your large group of people get to have their large organized event (and take care of things like sanitation, traffic management, etc) in a way that doesn't impact their fellow citizens' taxes or shut down their places of work in random, obnoxious ways. The OWS clowns were given extensive latitude that most groups never get, because it's abusive to everyone else to let it go on like that. They (OWS) know that. But they wanted to be made to give up those public spaces back to the public, because - having no coherent point to make - they rely on Outrage Theater as their street cred currency, and that's how they keep their Facebook groups going and attract hot young college freshmen.
Would the Occupy people have had a place to stand around and beat drums about their hatred of rich people if PETA or NARAL or Ladies Against Garden Gnome Abuse had already had the place squatted-in with a permanent encampment? What would OWS do, fight them for the turf?
I know! Let's consider some sort of sensible arrangement that involves something like
Technically they don't define themselves as a democracy either, its a republic at best
That's not a bug, that's a feature. Straight democracies are a big mistake. A constitutionally defined republic, with representatives and executives elected under very specific circumstances, is a good thing.
The rest of your breathless lefty whining is just the usual case of complaining about people having influence, and (indirectly) insisting that it's you that should have control over your fellow citizens (you know, the ones who do things like run businesses) instead. You don't dislike power, you just want it for yourself.
There's nothing at all stopping you from having a lucid, cogent point to make, making it to enough people that you, too, can do what it takes to convince millions of people to vote according to your own wishes. All you have to do is make a valid point. Which, of course, you're not. Whining about what other people do is the classic refuge of the have-no-initiative, produce-nothing, want-a-Nanny-State-please types. Grow a pair and produce something yourself. Say clearly what you want, rather than just complaining that other people say - loudly, because they think it's important to them, their employees, their investors and their customers - what they want.
You really think that "lobbyinng" should be illegal? Do you even understand what the hell you're talking about? Don't answer - that was a rhetorical question. You obviously don't.
The right to speak to your elected representatives, and to speak (say, via advertising) what's on your mind, is very appropriately defended by the constitution. You don't like what other people say to politicians, so you think it should be illegal for them to talk. And you're the one bitching about influence? You want the power to influence elections and polity by shutting up your fellow citizens. That's pretty classy of you.
No Google searches, no Facebook statuses, No buying on Amazon/eBay
It's not that simple. There are contractual issues in play, with third parties who pay places like Amazon and eBay to provide services that are part of their businesses. I doubt that those agreements have clauses in them that say things like "We retain the right to fail to provide you with these contracted-for services while we participate in a political protest." Lots of moving parts involved, here.
Thank you for providing such specific details in your exposé of this practice.
Oh, right, you're making it up. Sorry, didn't mean to confuse your post with reality.
Those large, publicly traded companies about which you're having these feverish fantasies? Their books are subject to intense scrutiny by everyone from the SEC to the State Department when it comes to dealings with foreign governments. Of course you know that, but that doesn't stop you from trolling along with this disingenuous bit of toxic memery. What's it like having no intellectual integrity? Seems painful.
The ultra rich don't really pay income tax either.
In fact, they pay the vast majority of the nation's income taxes. It's a simple matter of record. The IRS is happy to report that info to you, and do so every year.
Income tax is a silly thing to hunker down on.
Not while it's the main thing used to fund the operations of our government, it's not.
comparing issues in the relatively distant past
I only invoke the relatively recent past (many Progressives alive and voting today were very much alive and kicking fifty or seventy years ago) because the person to whom I replied explicitly made a (laughably ill-informed, or speciously disingenuous) historical assertion. I am providing some much needed perspective. As for how politicians vote ... nah, I'm more interested in stated principles. The Progressives loudly and actively support a welfare state, today. Now. They (today, now) are the source of speech-squashing political correctness movements in schools.
They (today) are the primary source of intransigence in the retention of demonstrably poor teachers in failing schools.
They (right now) are the prime backers of skin-color-based policy making and the message that some skin colors equal the permanent need for lower expectations.
I mention history to show that these current bits of toxic thinking have their roots in the Progressive Movement, and the only thing that's changed is the tamping down of the more aggressively ugly stuff on the surface (like eugenics as an overt feature of the movement's vision for a better world).