So, in short, you're not here to have real discourse, you just want to spread viral propaganda. Or, as you might phrase it (as I did earlier), you're here to Troll.
Have fun on that "Yacht" and "Plane," you crafty "38 year old," "self-made," "retired" "conservative Republican American," with your not-so-subtle Ronald Reagan quote signature.
It's a complete package, engineered for the completely gullible.
Well, hopefully after this you'll at least think twice before you accuse some random liberal of wanting to raise the taxes, before you even ask him about his views on economic policy. That was, after all, the entire point of this conversation.
If I meant "I am a Democrat," then I would have said that. Being a liberal != being a Democrat, as much as the media would like you to believe it. Think of it this way -- all Democrats are liberals, but not all liberals are Democrats. Follow?
Liberalism, by itself, has nothing to do with taxing and spending. Adam Smith was a classical liberal.
If you really think liberalism is about taxing and spending, then you need to drag yourself away from Fox News, and read those wiki's I linked you to.
On bipartisanism: it's true that third party candidates are unlikely to win an election in our political climate. But consider this: politicians, as you suggest, are businessmen. They want to win elections over all else -- we'll come back to that in a moment.
Do you remember all of the "a vote for Perot is a vote for Bush" rhetoric during the 2000 election? Well, that may be true -- in the short term. Votes for the Green party are votes that could have been spent on the Democratic party. But if the Democrats notice that they're consistently losing elections because voters are rallying themselves with fringe groups, dividing their numbers, then they'll respond like businessmen: by tweaking their platform to make themselves appealing to the greatest number of voters possible, including those fringe groups. After all, if they don't, they'll keep losing, and businessmen want to win, right?
I don't agree with the entire Democratic platform or the entire Republican platform -- I'd side more with the Democrats on social issues, and more with the Republicans on economic issues. Instead of just rolling over and saying "it's hopeless," I'm taking a stand by voting third party -- even if there isn't short-term change as a result, I'm trying to work on long-term changes by showing other voters that you don't have to vote bipartisan, and showing the two major parties that they haven't earned my vote yet.
You say you're a libertarian, but seriously, *what the hell is that* but some irrelevant intellectualism.
Good and evil are entirely human concepts that just detail the two different paths to achieving our desires -- friendship, and force. There are no truly altruistic acts, we're all motivated entirely by our own desires; the sensations of pain and pleasure. That bit of philosophy aside...
I know you're sincere about what you believe. What I don't understand is why you think that everyone with liberal attitudes, or everyone who calls themselves a liberal, has exactly the same ideas about everything. I don't understand why you insist on insulting me, by saying I want to give money to "welfare queens," when I don't. I don't understand why you think being an idiot who supports welfare is some prerequisite of being a liberal, when "being a liberal" literally just means "believing in personal liberty."
I think that you're trolling because I've repeatedly hammered these statements home to you, and you repeatedly accuse me of having the same beliefs over and over again. It's like you're not even listening.
PS I'm agnostic, so as far as I'm concerned, what Jesus may or may not have said is irrelevant. Keep your religion out of our government, because I don't want anything to do with it.
So the real question then is, why are your political views so polarized? It's more complicated than black vs white, and I'd think that someone who has dealt with complex issues before would see that.
Or are you just trolling for fun?
Congrats on the early retirement, I hope to join you in 20-30 years... of course, I don't have any family with the money to purchase a company for me, I'm planning on finishing up college (human resources major) and then making investments with large portions of my future salary.
Most (or possibly all) banks insure your deposits against that sort of fraud; it would be a huge hassle, sure, but to say that it would be life-ending is just sensationalist.
ALL STORES GET STUFF FROM CHINA AND PAY SIMILAR WAGES THAT WALMART DOES!
The issue is that Wal-Mart categorically opposes labor unions -- they've gone so far as shutting down stores that unionize, putting all of the workers there out of a job.
And what's to say that all of the people trash talking Wal-Mart wouldn't trash talk those other stores?
Let's face it, if you're paying people minimum wage, the least you could do is offer them health insurance.
It's not like the company is hurting for money or anything.
The issue with Walmart is that the company opposes labor unions -- if the workers at a store try to unionize, Walmart shuts down the store and puts them all out of a job. They have the resources to pull that kind of shit.
They launched a campaign targeted at college students, trying to get them to discuss dorm decoration?
That might have worked on grade school kids, but college students aren't so easy to "put one over" on -- they're adults, and they're usually informed about the issues. Wal-Mart's marketing suits should have realized that their terrible reputation would precede them.
Libertarians aren't hippies at all. They're liberals who want to abolish welfare, amongst other economic reforms.
I'm pretty sure that abolishing welfare doesn't fit into your little "hippie" or "liberal" schema.
Have fun on your yacht! I'm assuming you got it as part of a big inheritance or something, you don't seem sharp enough to have a job that requires a lot of critical thinking and pays a large salary.
If you're so smart, then why do we unsophisticated, unschooled, unthoughtful conservatives consistently beat the pants off you in elections?
I never said you were any of that; I was satirizing you from the opposite perspective in an attempt to show how you were being shortsighted in generalizing an entire group of people.
No matter how many dictionary definitions you can quote, it still doesn't change the fact that you libs just want to raise taxes and give the money to welfare queens.
No, I don't want to raise the taxes. I'd rather abolish them, along with welfare, and let the free market reign supreme. That's what libertarianism is.
Did you even bother reading the wiki on liberalism, and seeing the differences between classical and social liberalism?
Elves, dwarfs and halflings in D&D were run as classes because the system only had classes and no rules for races
So every Elf, Dwarf and Halfling in the setting was nearly exactly the same, with the same sort of training and class progression? Just little carbon copies of each other?
I'll take the current system, thanks. e3.5 isn't very "heavy" at all.
You dislike liberal stereotypes and bitch about them. The definition of liberalism is actually quite broad, and as I said before, when you toss any sort of generalizations around, you're being an asshole (you know that, though, don't you?)
It'd be like saying "I hate conservatives because they're all self-centered hipo-christian rednecks who love Nascar, McDonald's, and senseless war."
Ron Paul is liberal, and we're talking about a man who wants to abolish the income tax. Just because he's running for the republican nomination doesn't mean he's "conservative" -- have you ever looked up the libertarian platform?
My political ideas are more similar to classical liberalism than the perverted democratic party platform that you're so used to associating liberals with, since America is filled with idiots who never consider third party candidates.
Also, why do you "dislike their atheism?" Out of curiosity -- I'm agnostic, and while I think atheists can sometimes be foolish, they make the same sort of ridiculous and self-righteous assumptions about the universe that judeo-christians do.
You responded to him far too verbosely. I told him generalizations were ridiculous, gave an example of why his generalization was incorrect, and he responded with a ton of generalizations.
If he isn't pulling our leg, he's literally too stupid for this conversation.
You don't dislike liberals, you dislike big-budget federalists who like to throw money around on social programs, like welfare, that you don't benefit from.
After all, libertarians are liberals, and they don't do any of that, right?
It's impossible to generalize without being a dick. Take heed.
Damn those crazy liberals and their silly idea that the people should have personal freedoms.
It'd be way easier if we could just burn the bill of rights and tell them what to think... oh, and what to do, too!
Okay, that's good now, but they're still always acting like individuals, we need to squelch that before it gets even more out of hand... oh, I know! We can give them government-issue civilian uniforms, and government-issue civilian paychecks! Then they'll all be exactly the same, and think for themselves less!
Yeah, less liberty is definitely what we need right now.
He isn't "reaching" at all, unless you're really just going to nitpick over that one line about the fairy tales.
Sex is a quintessential part of the human experience, and I for one don't understand why it's more acceptable in the media to see a gun being fired than to see a woman taking off her shirt, or more acceptable to see one man stab another man than to see one man kiss another man.
Slashdot Mirror
Point is, if you want the world, you shouldn't expect to get it working at Walmart.
Agreed.
You can't recover the image now, your last two posts were far too transparent.
So, in short, you're not here to have real discourse, you just want to spread viral propaganda. Or, as you might phrase it (as I did earlier), you're here to Troll.
Have fun on that "Yacht" and "Plane," you crafty "38 year old," "self-made," "retired" "conservative Republican American," with your not-so-subtle Ronald Reagan quote signature.
It's a complete package, engineered for the completely gullible.
Well, hopefully after this you'll at least think twice before you accuse some random liberal of wanting to raise the taxes, before you even ask him about his views on economic policy. That was, after all, the entire point of this conversation.
If I meant "I am a Democrat," then I would have said that. Being a liberal != being a Democrat, as much as the media would like you to believe it. Think of it this way -- all Democrats are liberals, but not all liberals are Democrats. Follow?
Liberalism, by itself, has nothing to do with taxing and spending. Adam Smith was a classical liberal.
If you really think liberalism is about taxing and spending, then you need to drag yourself away from Fox News, and read those wiki's I linked you to.
On bipartisanism: it's true that third party candidates are unlikely to win an election in our political climate. But consider this: politicians, as you suggest, are businessmen. They want to win elections over all else -- we'll come back to that in a moment.
Do you remember all of the "a vote for Perot is a vote for Bush" rhetoric during the 2000 election? Well, that may be true -- in the short term. Votes for the Green party are votes that could have been spent on the Democratic party. But if the Democrats notice that they're consistently losing elections because voters are rallying themselves with fringe groups, dividing their numbers, then they'll respond like businessmen: by tweaking their platform to make themselves appealing to the greatest number of voters possible, including those fringe groups. After all, if they don't, they'll keep losing, and businessmen want to win, right?
I don't agree with the entire Democratic platform or the entire Republican platform -- I'd side more with the Democrats on social issues, and more with the Republicans on economic issues. Instead of just rolling over and saying "it's hopeless," I'm taking a stand by voting third party -- even if there isn't short-term change as a result, I'm trying to work on long-term changes by showing other voters that you don't have to vote bipartisan, and showing the two major parties that they haven't earned my vote yet.
You say you're a libertarian, but seriously, *what the hell is that* but some irrelevant intellectualism.
Maybe you're not aware that there actually is a Libertarian party.
Good and evil are entirely human concepts that just detail the two different paths to achieving our desires -- friendship, and force. There are no truly altruistic acts, we're all motivated entirely by our own desires; the sensations of pain and pleasure. That bit of philosophy aside ...
I know you're sincere about what you believe. What I don't understand is why you think that everyone with liberal attitudes, or everyone who calls themselves a liberal, has exactly the same ideas about everything. I don't understand why you insist on insulting me, by saying I want to give money to "welfare queens," when I don't. I don't understand why you think being an idiot who supports welfare is some prerequisite of being a liberal, when "being a liberal" literally just means "believing in personal liberty."
I think that you're trolling because I've repeatedly hammered these statements home to you, and you repeatedly accuse me of having the same beliefs over and over again. It's like you're not even listening.
PS I'm agnostic, so as far as I'm concerned, what Jesus may or may not have said is irrelevant. Keep your religion out of our government, because I don't want anything to do with it.
Wal-mart is entirely within their rights to close a store for any reason or no reason at all.
And it's entirely within our rights to publicize the issue and call for a boycott, because we think the employees deserve better.
So the real question then is, why are your political views so polarized? It's more complicated than black vs white, and I'd think that someone who has dealt with complex issues before would see that.
Or are you just trolling for fun?
Congrats on the early retirement, I hope to join you in 20-30 years ... of course, I don't have any family with the money to purchase a company for me, I'm planning on finishing up college (human resources major) and then making investments with large portions of my future salary.
well, that's Walmart's perogative.
And it's the people's prerogative to criticize them for it.
As far as the health care issue goes, here's some statistics that will at least give you an idea of where I'm coming from.
Most (or possibly all) banks insure your deposits against that sort of fraud; it would be a huge hassle, sure, but to say that it would be life-ending is just sensationalist.
ALL STORES GET STUFF FROM CHINA AND PAY SIMILAR WAGES THAT WALMART DOES!
The issue is that Wal-Mart categorically opposes labor unions -- they've gone so far as shutting down stores that unionize, putting all of the workers there out of a job.
And what's to say that all of the people trash talking Wal-Mart wouldn't trash talk those other stores?
Let's face it, if you're paying people minimum wage, the least you could do is offer them health insurance.
It's not like the company is hurting for money or anything.
The issue with Walmart is that the company opposes labor unions -- if the workers at a store try to unionize, Walmart shuts down the store and puts them all out of a job. They have the resources to pull that kind of shit.
They launched a campaign targeted at college students, trying to get them to discuss dorm decoration?
That might have worked on grade school kids, but college students aren't so easy to "put one over" on -- they're adults, and they're usually informed about the issues. Wal-Mart's marketing suits should have realized that their terrible reputation would precede them.
can compromise your entire life, and ruin your future.
I'm skeptical.
No, I didn't mention anything about bathing.
Libertarians aren't hippies at all. They're liberals who want to abolish welfare, amongst other economic reforms.
I'm pretty sure that abolishing welfare doesn't fit into your little "hippie" or "liberal" schema.
Have fun on your yacht! I'm assuming you got it as part of a big inheritance or something, you don't seem sharp enough to have a job that requires a lot of critical thinking and pays a large salary.
If you're so smart, then why do we unsophisticated, unschooled, unthoughtful conservatives consistently beat the pants off you in elections?
I never said you were any of that; I was satirizing you from the opposite perspective in an attempt to show how you were being shortsighted in generalizing an entire group of people.
No matter how many dictionary definitions you can quote, it still doesn't change the fact that you libs just want to raise taxes and give the money to welfare queens.
No, I don't want to raise the taxes. I'd rather abolish them, along with welfare, and let the free market reign supreme. That's what libertarianism is.
Did you even bother reading the wiki on liberalism, and seeing the differences between classical and social liberalism?
Elves, dwarfs and halflings in D&D were run as classes because the system only had classes and no rules for races
So every Elf, Dwarf and Halfling in the setting was nearly exactly the same, with the same sort of training and class progression? Just little carbon copies of each other?
I'll take the current system, thanks. e3.5 isn't very "heavy" at all.
You don't ... get what I was saying, do you?
You dislike liberal stereotypes and bitch about them. The definition of liberalism is actually quite broad, and as I said before, when you toss any sort of generalizations around, you're being an asshole (you know that, though, don't you?)
It'd be like saying "I hate conservatives because they're all self-centered hipo-christian rednecks who love Nascar, McDonald's, and senseless war."
Ron Paul is liberal, and we're talking about a man who wants to abolish the income tax. Just because he's running for the republican nomination doesn't mean he's "conservative" -- have you ever looked up the libertarian platform?
My political ideas are more similar to classical liberalism than the perverted democratic party platform that you're so used to associating liberals with, since America is filled with idiots who never consider third party candidates.
Also, why do you "dislike their atheism?" Out of curiosity -- I'm agnostic, and while I think atheists can sometimes be foolish, they make the same sort of ridiculous and self-righteous assumptions about the universe that judeo-christians do.
You responded to him far too verbosely. I told him generalizations were ridiculous, gave an example of why his generalization was incorrect, and he responded with a ton of generalizations.
If he isn't pulling our leg, he's literally too stupid for this conversation.
You don't dislike liberals, you dislike big-budget federalists who like to throw money around on social programs, like welfare, that you don't benefit from.
After all, libertarians are liberals, and they don't do any of that, right?
It's impossible to generalize without being a dick. Take heed.
Damn those crazy liberals and their silly idea that the people should have personal freedoms.
It'd be way easier if we could just burn the bill of rights and tell them what to think ... oh, and what to do, too!
Okay, that's good now, but they're still always acting like individuals, we need to squelch that before it gets even more out of hand ... oh, I know! We can give them government-issue civilian uniforms, and government-issue civilian paychecks! Then they'll all be exactly the same, and think for themselves less!
Yeah, less liberty is definitely what we need right now.
But does a fibre network have a level adjustment? We can't assume that it's ECL 3 just because it's level 3!
I think you're really reaching on this one.
He isn't "reaching" at all, unless you're really just going to nitpick over that one line about the fairy tales.
Sex is a quintessential part of the human experience, and I for one don't understand why it's more acceptable in the media to see a gun being fired than to see a woman taking off her shirt, or more acceptable to see one man stab another man than to see one man kiss another man.
IMO, it's expected for "fuck" to be excised from airplay one way or another
I think it's sad that we expect our first amendment rights to get "fucked" by the media.
Well, we're talking about a lot more than $90, once the new versions of the various class splatbooks and other "must have" books are factored in.
See my above comment about downloading.