Got a crazy forwarded political email from your family? Post them here.

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > Got a crazy forwarded political email from your family? Post them here.

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Sub-Actuality: Apr 17, 2007

Leon Einstein posted:

So apparently things were SO much better back in her day, yet the reason things are so bad now is because younger people have it so much better now than they did back in her day. That makes perfect sense.

I just hope that our children will forgive us for the terrible mistakes we've made (while we spit venom at them for being lazy and stupid).

# ? Sep 26, 2012 20:20

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# ? Jun 12, 2024 20:26

pokchu: Aug 22, 2007; D:

yay facebook!

# ? Sep 26, 2012 20:39

andrew smash: Jun 26, 2006; smooth soul

Mo_Steel posted:

Does anybody have the original version of this that had the text saying "states have the right to suck it"? I like that one better but apparently I never saved it.

# ? Sep 26, 2012 20:56

Sarion: Dec 24, 2003

Does he not realize that the cost of hiring someone comes out BEFORE what the owner pays taxes on? The small business owner only pays taxes on what he personally takes home, just like the rest of us. Giving him an extra $1200 a year by cutting his tax rate isn't going to make him go, "oh hey I should hire someone!"

a foolish pianist posted:

Significantly more progressive tax structure, with marginal rates as high as 90%, for one thing. For another, much larger government employment, with more public works projects, putting together the highway system and other infrastructure (which is now crumbling, what with the drastic reduction in government spending on these sorts of things). There was the GI bill, as well, with huge numbers of people going to college for free.

To add to the list:

- Stronger Unions
- Growth of the biggest social programs we all know and love today occurred between 1932-1970. Social Security (and its expansions), Food Stamps, Medicare, Medicaid, Welfare, etc. They were supported by the public and often received support from both sides, despite being government-centric. Compare that to Obamacare, which is private business centered, and the poo poo storm it received.
- It also seems to me like both parties were more willing to use the Government to solve problems through things like regulations; whereas today "regulations" have become a bad word.

Then Reagan came along and told everyone that the Government was the problem, not the solution; and people ate it up.

# ? Sep 26, 2012 21:12

Mistaken For Bacon: Apr 26, 2003

andrew smash posted:

Does anybody have the original version of this that had the text saying "states have the right to suck it"? I like that one better but apparently I never saved it.

Here ya go.

# ? Sep 26, 2012 21:20

sweart gliwere: Jul 5, 2005; _{better to die an evil wizard,

than to live as a grand one.}; Pillbug

RC and Moon Pie posted:

I've managed to avoid emails (Facebook is another matter), but this morning my mother decided that I needed to share in her torture. By some unexplained miracle, she's actually politically sane. The rest of the crew on her side, save for a cousin, are as nutty as the email below.

Your uncle comes off like a sack of poo poo for pushing anything with this part alone:

Uncle's article from Austin Miles posted:

It is ironic that this day, in the shadow of that Islamic prayer event, we commemorate the greatest tragedy in American History, when Muslims attacked America on September 11, 2001, brutally killing thousands.of innocent people.

Good job never reading a drat thing about slavery or the trail of tears or bullshit wars, or anything that didn't get covered on cable news.

I know your family didn't write that bit, but it'd be a useful way to corner someone who promotes that article.

# ? Sep 26, 2012 22:41

Sarion: Dec 24, 2003

swarthmeister posted:

Your uncle comes off like a sack of poo poo for pushing anything with this part alone:
Good job never reading a drat thing about slavery or the trail of tears or bullshit wars, or anything that didn't get covered on cable news.

I know your family didn't write that bit, but it'd be a useful way to corner someone who promotes that article.

Slavery and the Trail of Tears and Japanese Internment Camps didn't happen to ~~white~~ real ~~people~~ Americans.

# ? Sep 26, 2012 23:54

Mitchicon: Nov 3, 2006

Gray Haired Brigade Email posted:

...We won World War II, fought in Korea and Viet Nam. We can quote The Pledge of Allegiance, and know where to place our hand while doing so. We wore the uniform of our country with pride and lost many friends on the battlefield. We didn't fight for the Socialist States of America; we fought for the "Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave."

Yea...because if you've worn the uniform you can't possibly support social equity! Believe it or not, you can believe in fighting for your country AND the disenfranchised.

And since when do people not know where to put their hands during the pledge...? Oh yea, since Obama took office.

# ? Sep 27, 2012 00:25

vyelkin: Jan 2, 2011

RagnarokAngel posted:

Can I ask by what metric? I hear this a lot but I havent seen anyone back it up.

Some details have already been given by other posters. The short answer is "Politicians from both sides of the aisle saw the terrible destruction caused by political extremism that followed on the heels of economic instability (WWII) which was in turn caused by an unregulated market, and so they resolved to regulate the market and care for the poor and unemployed to prevent them from turning to radicalism."

The long version is better provided by Tony Judt than by me:

Tony Judt posted:

...since the experience of the interwar years had clearly revealed the inability of capitalists to protect their own best interests, the liberal state would have to do it for them whether they liked it or not.

It is thus an intriguing paradox that capitalism was to be saved--indeed, was to thrive in the coming decades--thanks to changes identified at the time (and since) with socialism. This, in turn, reminds us just how very desperate circumstances were. Intelligent conservatives--like the many Christian Democrats who found themselves in office after 1945 for the first time--offered little objection to state control of the 'commanding heights' of the economy; along with steeply progressive taxation, they welcomed it enthusiastically.

There was a moralized quality to policy debates in those early postwar years. Unemployment (the biggest issue in the UK, the US or Belgium); inflation (the greatest fear in central Europe, where it had ravaged private savings for decades); and agricultural prices so low (in Italy and France) that peasants were driven off the land and into extremist parties out of despair; these were not just economic issues, they were regarded by everyone from priests to secular intellectuals as tests of the ethical coherence of the community.

The consensus was unusually broad. From the New Dealers to West German 'social market' theoriests, from Britain's governing Labour Party to the 'indicative' economic planning that shaped public policy in France (and Czechoslovakia, until the 1948 Communist coup); everyone believed in the state. In part, this was because almost everyone feared the implications of a return to the terrors of the recent past and was happy to constrain the freedom of the market in the name of the public interest. Just as the world was now to be regulated and protected by a bevy of international institutions and agreements, from the United Nations to the World Bank, so a well-run democracy would likewise maintain consensus around comparable domestic arrangements.

...

[Judt talks a lot about Europe here]

...

Even in the United States, where Republicans were in power throughout the '50s and aging New Dealers found themselves in the wilderness for the first time in a generation, the transition to conservative administrations--while it had significant consequences for foreign affairs and even free speech--made little difference to domestic policy. Taxation was not a contentious issue and it was a Republican president, Dwight Eisenhower, who authorized the massive, federally-overseen project of the interstate highway system. For all the lip service paid to competition and free markets, the American economy in those years depended heavily upon protection from foreign competition, as well as standardization, regulation, subsidies, price supports, and government guarantees.

The natural inequities of capitalism were softened by the assurance of present well-being and future prosperity. In the mid-'60s, Lyndon Johnson pushed through a series of path-breaking social and cultural changes; he was able to do so in part because of the residual consensus favoring New Deal-style investments, all-inclusive programs and government initiatives. Significantly, it was civil rights and race relation legislation that divided the country, not social policy.

The years 1945-1975 were widely acknowledged as something of a miracle, giving birth to the 'American way of life'. Two generations of Americans--the men and women who went through WWII and their children who were to celebrate the '60s--experienced job security and upward social mobility on an unprecedented (and never to be repeated) scale.

...

In some countries (Scandinavia being the best-known case) the postwar welfare states were the work of social democrats; elsewhere--in Great Britain, for example--the 'social security state' amounted in practice to little more than a series of pragmatic policies aimed at alleviating disadvantage and reducing extremes of wealth and indigence. Their common accomplishment was a remarkable success in curbing inequality. If we compare the gap separating rich and poor, whether measured by overall assets or annual income, we find that in every continental European country as well as in Great Britain and the US, the gap shrunk dramatically in the generation following 1945.

With greater equality there came other benefits. Over time, the fear of a return to extremist politics abated. The 'West' entered a halcyon era of prosperous security: a bubble, perhaps, but a comforting bubble in which most people did far better than they could ever have hoped in the past and had good reason to anticipate the future with confidence.

Moreover, it was social democracy and the welfare state that bound the professional and commercial middle classes to liberal institutions in the wake of World War II. This was a matter of some consequences: it was the fear and disaffection of the middle class which had given rise to fascism. Bonding the middle classes back to the democracies was by far the most important task facing postwar politicians--and by no means an easy one.

In most cases it was achieved by the magic of 'universalism'. Instead of having their benefits keyed to income--in which case well-paid professionals or thriving shopkeepers might have complained bitterly at being taxed for social services from which they did not derive much advantage--the educated 'middling sort' were offered the same social assistance and public services as the working population and the poor: free education, cheap or free medical treatment, public pensions and unemployment insurance. As a consequence, now that so many of life's necessities were covered by their taxes, the European middle class found itself by the 1960s with far greater disposable income than at any time since 1914.

...

... This was 'meritocracy': the opening up of elite institutions to mass applicants at public expense--or at least underwritten by public assistance. It began the process of replacing selection by inheritance or wealth with upward mobility through education. And it produced a few years later a generation for whom all of this seemed self-evident and who thus took it for granted.

Source: Tony Judy, Ill Fares The Land (New York: Penguin, 2010), 46-54.

And later in the same work:

Tony Judt posted:

What did trust, cooperation, progressive taxation and the interventionist state bequeath to western societies in the decades following 1945? The short answer is, in varying degrees, security, prosperity, social services and greater equality. We have grown accustomed in recent years to the assertion that the price paid for the benefits--in economic inefficiency, insufficient innovation, stifled entrepreneurship, public debt and a loss of private initiative--was too high.

Most of these criticisms are demonstrably false. Measured by the quality and quantity of the social legislation passed in the US between 1932 and 1971, America was unquestionably one of those 'good societies'; but few would wish to claim that the USA lacked initiative or entrepreneurship in those high, halcyon years of the American Century. But even if it were true that the European social democratic and social service states of the mid-20th century were economically unsustainable, this would not in itself vitiate their claims upon our attention.

...

Moreover, social democrats were not uniquely or even primarily interested in economics (in contrast to communists, who always emphasized economics as the measure of Marxist orthodoxy). Socialism for social democrats, especially in Scandinavia, was a distributive concept. It was about making sure that wealth and assets were not disproportionately gathered into the hands of a privileged few. And this, as we have seen, was in essence a moral matter: social democrats, like the 18th century critics of 'commercial society', were offended at the consequences of unregulated competition. They were seeking not so much a radical future as a return to the values of a better way of life.

Thus we should not be surprised to learn that an English social democrat like Beatrice Webb took it for granted that the 'socialism' she sought could be parsed as public education, the provision of health services and medical insurance, public parks and playgrounds, collective provision for the aged, infirm and unemployed and so on. The unity of the pre-modern world, its 'moral economy' as E.P. Thompson called it, was thus very much on her mind: people should cooperate, they should work together for the common good and no one should be left out.

Welfare states were not necessarily socialist in origin or purpose. They were the product of another sea change in public affairs that overtook the West between the '30s and the '60s: one that drew experts and scholars, intellectuals and technocrats into the business of administration. The result, at its best, was the American Social Security system, or Britain's National Health Service. Both were extraordinarily expensive innovations, breaking with the piecemeal reforms and repairs of the past.

The importance of such welfare undertakings did not lie in the ideas themselves--the thought that it would be good to guarantee all Americans a secure old age, or to make available to every British citizen first-class medical treatment at no point-of-service cost, was hardly original. But the thought that such things were best done by the government and that therefore they should be done by the government: this was unprecedented.

...

... Not only did social democrats and welfare governments sustain full employment for nearly three decades, they also maintained growth rates more than competitive with those of the untrammeled market economies of the past. And on the backs of these economic successes they introduced radically disjunctive social changes that came to seem, within a short span of years, quite normal. When Lyndon Johnson spoke of building a 'great society' on the basis of massive public expenditure on a variety of government-supported programs and agencies, few objected and fewer still thought the proposition odd.

By the early '70s it would have appeared unthinkable to contemplate unraveling the social services, welfare provisions, state-funded cultural and educational resources and much else that people had come to take for granted....

Source: Ibid, 72-79.

Basically, if you believe Judt's argument, socialism built the enormous postwar economic boom. Then the baby boomers, who had grown up during this era of unprecedented economic achievement and opportunity, took it for granted and allowed it to first decline, then began eviscerating it for personal gain:

Tony Judt posted:

But the greatest gulf was now the one separating generations. For anyone born after 1945, the welfare state and its institutions were not a solution to earlier dilemmas: they were simply the normal conditions of life--and more than a little dull. The baby boomers, entering university in the mid-'60s, had only ever known a world of improving life chances, generous medical and educational services, optimistic propsects of upward social mobility and--perhaps above all--an indefinable but ubiquitous sense of security. The goals of an earlier generation of reformers were no longer of interest to their successors. On the contrary, they were increasingly perceived as restrictions upon the self-expression and freedom of the individual.

Source: Ibid, 84.

# ? Sep 27, 2012 00:51

VideoTapir: Oct 18, 2005; He'll tire eventually.

Sarion posted:

Does he not realize that the cost of hiring someone comes out BEFORE what the owner pays taxes on? The small business owner only pays taxes on what he personally takes home, just like the rest of us. Giving him an extra $1200 a year by cutting his tax rate isn't going to make him go, "oh hey I should hire someone!"

While the answer to this question will probably be "no" either way, he could be referring to payroll taxes.

# ? Sep 27, 2012 03:27

Sarion: Dec 24, 2003

VideoTapir posted:

While the answer to this question will probably be "no" either way, he could be referring to payroll taxes.

True, but relative to the total cost of hiring someone they are pretty small. If it costs you $60,000 to hire someone between wages, benefits, insurance, payroll tax, supplies, etc; dropping the $3000 in payroll tax isn't going to lead to a hiring frenzy.

# ? Sep 27, 2012 03:41

VideoTapir: Oct 18, 2005; He'll tire eventually.

Sarion posted:

True, but relative to the total cost of hiring someone they are pretty small. If it costs you $60,000 to hire someone between wages, benefits, insurance, payroll tax, supplies, etc; dropping the $3000 in payroll tax isn't going to lead to a hiring frenzy.

Hahahahahah

# ? Sep 27, 2012 04:35

Kro-Bar: Jul 24, 2004; USPOL May

Ugh, I just had nightmare Facebook "conversation" with a libertarian friend-of-a-friend who kept calling me a collectivist every time I suggested that LGBT people/minorities should have equal rights ("What about INDIVIDUAL freedoms?!?!?!")
What's the easiest way to blur our usernames/photos from facebook screenshots?

The guy literally has a YouTube channel where he posts 10-20 minute rants about how the parties are TOTALLY THE SAME, man ( :420:

) and Ron Paul/Gary Johnson is our only hope for the future. Each video, hilariously, has only about 100 views.

# ? Sep 27, 2012 06:20

HFX: Nov 29, 2004

Kro-Bar posted:

Ugh, I just had nightmare Facebook "conversation" with a libertarian friend-of-a-friend who kept calling me a collectivist every time I suggested that LGBT people/minorities should have equal rights ("What about INDIVIDUAL freedoms?!?!?!")
What's the easiest way to blur our usernames/photos from facebook screenshots?

The guy literally has a YouTube channel where he posts 10-20 minute rants about how the parties are TOTALLY THE SAME, man () and Ron Paul/Gary Johnson is our only hope for the future. Each video, hilariously, has only about 100 views.

Get social fixer for Chrome or Mozilla.

# ? Sep 27, 2012 07:40

Ghost of Reagan Past: Oct 7, 2003; rock and roll fun

"if wanting equal rights for everyone is collectivist/socialist/communist, then I guess I'm a collectivist/socialist/communist!"

# ? Sep 27, 2012 13:27

Sarion: Dec 24, 2003

VideoTapir posted:

Hahahahahah

Well, I only said $60k total, so not much benefits. And the insurance I meant was the insurance the business carries in case something happens to the employee at work, and unemployment insurance the business has to pay into by law. Not health insurance, I mean, I'm not that crazy!

# ? Sep 27, 2012 13:30

P_T_S: Aug 28, 2009

I got another one from my grandma yesterday, which is described (and debunked) in the snopes link:
http://www.snopes.com/politics/obama/foxvideo.asp

I replied all with the link and a request for her to stop sending me low effort garbage. How sad is it that the only ammunition crazy conservatives have is three year old doctored YouTube videos?

# ? Sep 27, 2012 14:26

Kro-Bar: Jul 24, 2004; USPOL May

Kro-Bar posted:

Ugh, I just had nightmare Facebook "conversation" with a libertarian friend-of-a-friend who kept calling me a collectivist every time I suggested that LGBT people/minorities should have equal rights ("What about INDIVIDUAL freedoms?!?!?!")
What's the easiest way to blur our usernames/photos from facebook screenshots?

The guy literally has a YouTube channel where he posts 10-20 minute rants about how the parties are TOTALLY THE SAME, man () and Ron Paul/Gary Johnson is our only hope for the future. Each video, hilariously, has only about 100 views.

Here's these guys. I'm blue, my actual facebook friend is in red, RonPaulLuvr420 is in pink. I took a quick look at his YouTube channel but I can't stomach actually watching any of his videos. I did notice that his swords are visible in the background of at least two of them.

After I took this screenshot one of them called me a sheep and the other one said his ideal world is how the Native Americans lived--which was apparently taking care of each other without the help of a big government--and then posted a Penn Gillette video. :tinfoil:

Is being "collectivist" an insulting ideological term I don't understand? I don't see how thinking that communities can work together for the common good is antithetical to individual freedom, let alone how it's a bad thing.

VVV Won't he take that as a compliment?

Kro-Bar fucked around with this message at 15:03 on Sep 27, 2012

# ? Sep 27, 2012 14:50

rscott: Dec 10, 2009

Every time he calls you a collectivist call him a profiteer.

# ? Sep 27, 2012 15:00

Effectronica: May 31, 2011; Fallen Rib

Kro-Bar posted:

Here's these guys. I'm blue, my actual facebook friend is in red, RonPaulLuvr420 is in pink. I took a quick look at his YouTube channel but I can't stomach actually watching any of his videos. I did notice that his swords are visible in the background of at least two of them.

After I took this screenshot one of them called me a sheep and the other one said his ideal world is how the Native Americans lived--which was apparently taking care of each other without the help of a big government--and then posted a Penn Gillette video.

Is being "collectivist" an insulting ideological term I don't understand? I don't see how thinking that communities can work together for the common good is antithetical to individual freedom, let alone how it's a bad thing.

It's insulting because "collectivism" generally is understood to mean "communism" in American discourse, but hardcore libertarians like your friend simply reject any idea of group effort- for them all men are islands. I would just quote John Donne in that sort of situation, but if you want a serious response, you could reply that most Native Americans in the USA lived in the very definition of a collective society- decisionmaking was based on consensus, land was carefully shared out between families, and so therefore either "collectivism" doesn't mean what he thinks it means, or he's simply wrong. He won't believe you, of course, but don't sweat it too much.

# ? Sep 27, 2012 15:04

Amused to Death: Aug 10, 2009; google "The Night Witches", and prepare for

Yes, collectivist is a bad word these days, which is weird given the fact the referenced native American tribes as some past utopia that once existed when they are essentially in most cultures the ultimate collectivism.

# ? Sep 27, 2012 15:05

VideoTapir: Oct 18, 2005; He'll tire eventually.

Kro-Bar posted:

Is being "collectivist" an insulting ideological term I don't understand? I don't see how thinking that communities can work together for the common good is antithetical to individual freedom, let alone how it's a bad thing.

VVV Won't he take that as a compliment?

I think you understand it just fine, you just don't understand how it's insulting.

It would be insulting if you were a Randroid.

# ? Sep 27, 2012 15:12

NatasDog: Feb 9, 2009

HFX posted:

Get social fixer for Chrome or Mozilla.

I know it's been posted here before, but I just got around to downloading it and holy poo poo it's awesome. Previously I'd just copy/pasted into notepad and use find/replace to swap names and it could be tedious on longer debates.

# ? Sep 27, 2012 15:16

Ratmtattat: Mar 10, 2004; the hairdryer

The Paulbot honestly sounds like anarchy would be a better system for him. Specifically the part about wanting small collectives.

# ? Sep 27, 2012 15:44

jmzero: Jul 24, 2007

quote:

Is being "collectivist" an insulting ideological term I don't understand?

It's funny, because most of his kind of thinking is the result of a weird collective perspective. It's from a pockets of group-think where the most extreme views are the ones confirmed and re-affirmed, and people lose sight of how crazy things have got. Very few people would arrive at this kind of extreme individualist perspective by themselves.

# ? Sep 27, 2012 16:34

vyelkin: Jan 2, 2011

P_T_S posted:

I got another one from my grandma yesterday, which is described (and debunked) in the snopes link:
http://www.snopes.com/politics/obama/foxvideo.asp

I replied all with the link and a request for her to stop sending me low effort garbage. How sad is it that the only ammunition crazy conservatives have is three year old doctored YouTube videos?

I think any video that begins with a disclaimer that says

"Legal Disclaimer: The writers, producers, editors, and publishers of this video are not stating, claiming, or implying that Barack Hussein Obama is a Muslim, or that Obama himself claimed or admitted to being a Muslim. Rather the writers, producers, editors, and publishers of this video are only examining the evidence surrounding the rumor that Barack Hussein Obama might be a secret Muslim."

can be safely ignored. Of course it flashes by quickly enough and with small enough writing that a techno-illiterate grandma with possibly poor eyesight won't see it.

# ? Sep 27, 2012 16:44

Grimdude: Sep 25, 2006; It was a shame how he carried on

>
> >
> >
> The next time you hear a politician use the
> Word 'billion' in a casual manner, think about
> whether you want the 'politicians' spending
> YOUR tax money.
>
> A billion is a difficult number to comprehend,
> But one advertising agency did a good job of
> Putting that figure into some perspective in
> One of its releases.
>
> A.
> A billion seconds ago it was 1959.
>
> B.
> A billion minutes ago Jesus was alive.
>
> C.
> A billion hours ago our ancestors were
> living in the Stone Age.
>
> D.
> A billion days ago no-one walked on the earth on two feet.
>
> E.
> A billion dollars ago was only
> 8 hours and 20 minutes,
> at the rate our government
> is spending it.
>
> While this thought is still fresh in our brain...
> let's take a look at New Orleans ...
> It's amazing what you can learn with some simple division.
>
> Louisiana Senator,
> Mary Landrieu (D)
> was asking Congress for
> 250 BILLION DOLLARS
> To rebuild New Orleans . Interesting number...
> What does it mean?
>
> A.
> Well .. If you are one of the 484,674 residents of New Orleans
> (every man, woman and child)
> You each get $516,528
>
> B.
> Or... If you have one of the 188,251 homes in
> New Orleans , your home gets
>
> $1,329,787
>
> C.
>
>
> Or... If you are a family of four...
> Your family gets
>
> $2,066,012
>
> Washington , D.C.
> ..HELLO!
> Are all the calculators broken??
>
> Building Permit Tax
> CDL License Tax
> Cigarette Tax
> Corporate Income Tax
> Dog License Tax
> Federal Income Tax (Fed)
> Federal Unemployment Tax (FU TA)
> Fishing License Tax
> Food License Tax
> Fuel Permit Tax
> Gasoline Tax
> Hunting License Tax
> Inheritance Tax
> Inventory Tax
> IRS Interest Charges (tax on top of tax)
> IRS Penalties (tax on top of tax)
> Liquor Tax
> Luxury Tax
> Marriage License Tax
> Medicare Tax
> Property Tax
> Real Estate Tax
> Service charge Taxes
> Social Security Tax
> Road Usage Tax (Truckers)
> Sales Taxes
> Recreational Vehicle Tax
> School Tax
> State Income Tax
> State Unemployment Tax (SUTA)
> Telephone Federal Excise Tax
> Telephone Federal Universal Service Fee Tax
> Telephone Federal, State and Local Surcharge Tax
> Telephone Minimum Usage Surcharge Tax
> Telephone Recurring and Non-recurring Charges Tax
> Telephone State and Local Tax
> Telephone Usage ChargeTax
> Utility Tax
> Vehicle License Registration Tax
> Vehicle Sales Tax
> Watercraft Registration Tax
> Well Permit Tax
> Workers Compensation Tax
> (And to think, we left British Rule to avoid so many taxes)
>
> STILL THINK THIS IS FUNNY?
>
> Not one of these taxes existed 100 years ago...
> And our nation was the most prosperous in the world.
>
> We had absolutely no national debt...
> We had the largest middle class in the world...
> And Mom stayed home to raise the kids.
>
> What happened?
> Can you spell 'politicians'!
>
> And I still have to
> Press '1'
> For English.
>
> I hope this goes around the
> USA
> At least 100 times.
>
> What has happened to our country?????
>
>
>
>
>

My grandma told me about this one during dinner before she sent it to me. What I'm curious of though, is if people like her actually think that the governor asking for that much money means that it will be just divided up among the people; none of it will be spent on infrastructure or anything.

Although, part of me wants to say its probably bullshit to begin with.

# ? Sep 27, 2012 17:54

vyelkin: Jan 2, 2011

Grimdude posted:

> STILL THINK THIS IS FUNNY?
>
> Not one of these taxes existed 100 years ago...
> And our nation was the most prosperous in the world.
>
> We had absolutely no national debt...
> We had the largest middle class in the world...
> And Mom stayed home to raise the kids.
>
> What happened?
> Can you spell 'politicians'!
>
> And I still have to
> Press '1'
> For English.

For some reason this killed me. I think it was the combination of misunderstanding economic development, wallpapering over the horrific inequality and working conditions that existed at the turn of the century, blatant misogyny and implication that the disenfranchisement of women made America better in the past than it is today.

# ? Sep 27, 2012 18:01

Leon Einstein: Feb 6, 2012; I must win every thread in GBS. I don't care how much banal semantic quibbling and shitty posts it takes.

100 years ago mother's didn't all stay home to raise the kids; many of the kids were working in factories!

# ? Sep 27, 2012 18:03

HFX: Nov 29, 2004

vyelkin posted:

For some reason this killed me. I think it was the combination of misunderstanding economic development, wallpapering over the horrific inequality and working conditions that existed at the turn of the century, blatant misogyny and implication that the disenfranchisement of women made America better in the past than it is today.

America being the most prosperous nation in the world 100 years ago is a very much debatable at the least.

We also didn't have a military eating roughly 1/4 of the budget every year. Infrastructure was mostly non existent. People were dying because of lack of food / healthcare / infrastructure to keep diseases born from waste down.

But by all means, lets go back 100+ years to them good old days!

# ? Sep 27, 2012 18:27

seigfox: Dec 2, 2005; Just an average guy who serves as an average hero.

I thought a billion seconds was about 31 years? Maybe I did the math wrong on that.

I don't know why I would think that they would bother to check theirs though.

EDIT: Yup, 31 years, 252 days, 1 hour, 46 minutes, and 40 seconds.

# ? Sep 27, 2012 18:37

Defenestration: Aug 10, 2006; "It wasn't my fault that my first unconscious thought turned out to be-"
"Jesus, kid, what?"
"That something smelled delicious!"; Grimey Drawer

Grimdude posted:

> And I still have to
> Press '1'
> For English.
>

They just could not resist

# ? Sep 27, 2012 18:40

Kro-Bar: Jul 24, 2004; USPOL May

Defenestration posted:

They just could not resist

That's like a William Carlos Williams poem.

# ? Sep 27, 2012 18:41

HFX: Nov 29, 2004

seigfox posted:

I thought a billion seconds was about 31 years? Maybe I did the math wrong on that.

I don't know why I would think that they would bother to check theirs though.

EDIT: Yup, 31 years, 252 days, 1 hour, 46 minutes, and 40 seconds.

Maybe this chain mail has been circulating since the early 90's?

# ? Sep 27, 2012 18:43

Sub-Actuality: Apr 17, 2007

Defenestration posted:

They just could not resist

Just think of all the precious American seconds that are wasted thanks to people being forced to dial '1'. Literally billions of seconds that could be better spent on things like oversimplifying the economics of rebuilding New Orleans, or convincing people that we left British rule to avoid paying taxes. Can you spell 'politicians'!

# ? Sep 27, 2012 18:46

DarkHorse: Dec 13, 2006; Vroom vroom, BEEP BEEP!; Nap Ghost

Mitchicon posted:

Yea...because if you've worn the uniform you can't possibly support social equity! Believe it or not, you can believe in fighting for your country AND the disenfranchised.

And since when do people not know where to put their hands during the pledge...? Oh yea, since Obama took office.

(To be clear, this is just as dumb as criticizing Obama for these imagined slights)

seigfox posted:

I thought a billion seconds was about 31 years? Maybe I did the math wrong on that.

I don't know why I would think that they would bother to check theirs though.

EDIT: Yup, 31 years, 252 days, 1 hour, 46 minutes, and 40 seconds.

Yeah, and a billion days ago is about 2.7 million years, smack dab in the middle of when Australopithecus showed up, the first bipedal of genus homo.

Simple fact-checking seems to be beyond email forwarders

EDIT: A billion minutes ago is about 109 A.D., which I guess is close enough to the time of Jesus for a simple analogy.

DarkHorse fucked around with this message at 19:01 on Sep 27, 2012

# ? Sep 27, 2012 18:54

seigfox: Dec 2, 2005; Just an average guy who serves as an average hero.

HFX posted:

Maybe this chain mail has been circulating since the early 90's?

That would put it at 1990-91.

If it was, then a billion minutes is around 1901 years which would put us at 90CE. Jesus has been dead for 60 years, depending on who you believe. A billion hours puts us back when Homo sapiens and Neanderthals were hanging out, and it's technically in the stone age so I'll give them that (the stone age lasted millions of years so it's not exactly difficult to hit).

I'm not sure why that part of the email annoys me so much, but it does.

seigfox fucked around with this message at 19:05 on Sep 27, 2012

# ? Sep 27, 2012 19:03

rscott: Dec 10, 2009

Maybe if those drat Republicans knew all the songs to Rent they would know that there's 525,600 minutes in a year and go from there. :colbert:

# ? Sep 27, 2012 19:12

prom candy: Dec 16, 2005; Only I may dance

Ah yes, a musical about poor people, gay people, and HIV, surely the Republicans will love it!

# ? Sep 27, 2012 19:16

Adbot: ADBOT LOVES YOU

# ? Jun 12, 2024 20:26

Grimdude: Sep 25, 2006; It was a shame how he carried on

What annoys me the most about these emails, as well as hearing about them in person beforehand; is that I personally don't know a way to convince the person how absurd it is.

Maybe I just don't retain enough information to spew off against talking points, but when my grandmother was reading the list of taxes and talking about how prosperous we used to be; I couldn't think of a logical response.

What do you do in these situations? Sure, give me a computer with internet access and I could come up with academic sources that prove how stupid these chain emails are; but that doesn't work in every day conversation.

Is this just the plight of being someone who relies on factual information versus someone who just parrots Fox News?

# ? Sep 27, 2012 19:17

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > Got a crazy forwarded political email from your family? Post them here.

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