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XyloJW posted:My neighbor, who drives a Ron Paulmobile (covered in bumper stickers and decals) and Sons of Confederate Veterans license plate, posted this lovely thing on Facebook. It's Bing Crosby, singing "Dixie." Just because it's a nice song, that's all. I'm still wondering how these people have resolved the cognitive dissonance created by being some of the most jingoistic, nationalistic Americans while also being such fans of the Confederacy. In almost any country and any war I can think of, the losers shut the gently caress up and stop displaying their side's flag, but somehow the Confederate Flag (a battle flag, no less) is incredibly popular and these people are proud that their ancestors were literally traitors to their own country. The Confederates were not only traitors, but also hinged their entire philosophy and founding documents on owning slaves. How these people aren't ashamed as of this is just confusing to me. Are there many people in Germany who are proud that their ancestors were Nazis? How many Italians are proud of their relatives being Black Shirts?
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Dec 3, 2012 06:05
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While there are people exactly like you quote, this guy doesn't fall for the typical patriotic jingoism--he's a hardcore Ron Paul libertarian, and as such, hates most of what America is, and doesn't give a poo poo about patriotic nonsense. He also insists it's all about state's rights. It's just a total coincidence that he's posting literal blackface videos. I recently read an article about how Germany's modern army faces a huge social stigma--you don't go around and tell people that in Germany. You're also explicitly instructed to question orders, and you're told you will face no consequences if you refuse to obey an order that you have a moral qualm with. The whole structure to the army is supposedly one of atonement. Compare that, with say, 
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Dec 3, 2012 06:11
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XyloJW posted:While there are people exactly like you quote, this guy doesn't fall for the typical patriotic jingoism--he's a hardcore Ron Paul libertarian, and as such, hates most of what America is, and doesn't give a poo poo about patriotic nonsense.  It's a tradition.
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Dec 3, 2012 06:26
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There was a really good post about that on here about a month ago. Something about how Southerners are really gung-ho about the Battle Flag because that's just about the only thing they can be proud of from the South's history. The South has a proud military tradition. They can't really be proud of its poverty, or racism, or history of oppression, or slavery, so they latch onto the military. It's an important point that the flag is the battle flag of Lee's army, not the Confederate flag itself, which is worse anyway.
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Dec 3, 2012 06:28
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RC and Moon Pie posted:Even in my backwoods hometown, this is the only individual who still considers the Tea Party A Thing.
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Dec 3, 2012 06:41
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Ghost of Reagan Past posted:What does this even mean? Obviously, this bit of political satire is far too complex for your simple Lieberal brain, Mr. Liebral. 
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Dec 3, 2012 06:43
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Ghost of Reagan Past posted:What does this even mean? They're tired of liberals bringing facts like "Bush was a lovely president" and "the republican party has a lot of questionable stances on race relations" into their arguments.
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Dec 3, 2012 06:46
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Ghost of Reagan Past posted:What does this even mean? Just pointing out how ridiculous it is that silly liberals still occasionally bring up the Bush presidency, when the fact is that none of the policies or initiatives his administration is responsible for even impact us anymore. Ancient history, man.
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Dec 3, 2012 06:50
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Arglebargle III posted:There was a really good post about that on here about a month ago. Something about how Southerners are really gung-ho about the Battle Flag because that's just about the only thing they can be proud of from the South's history. The South has a proud military tradition. They can't really be proud of its poverty, or racism, or history of oppression, or slavery, so they latch onto the military. It's probably just because the CSA's national flag changed like 8 times over the course of the war, so it's easier to latch onto the battle flag which remained relatively unchanged.
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Dec 3, 2012 06:57
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prahanormal posted:They're tired of liberals bringing facts like "Bush was a lovely president" and "the republican party has a lot of questionable stances on race relations" into their arguments. I literally had a guy complain that Liberals "always bring up some article or source to back up their arguments."
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Dec 3, 2012 07:04
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Armyman25 posted:I literally had a guy complain that Liberals "always bring up some article or source to back up their arguments." This fits in nicely with Colbert's satire on not reading books.
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Dec 3, 2012 07:05
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Xyven posted:It's probably just because the CSA's national flag changed like 8 times over the course of the war, so it's easier to latch onto the battle flag which remained relatively unchanged. I'm not sure why, but horrible racists have a real eye for good looking flags. Between Imperial Japan, Nazi Germany, and the CSA, it's hard to pick the best. I guess if your ideology is too loathsome to think about, having an attractive flag is a substitute.
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Dec 3, 2012 07:22
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I like how South Carolina's flag looks like it could belong to a state in the Middle East:
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Dec 3, 2012 07:26
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Mitchicon posted:I like how South Carolina's flag looks like it could belong to a state in the Middle East: Clearly SC is going to become Dearborn, MI in no time now. What would Glenn Beck do to stop this upcoming tragedy? 
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Dec 3, 2012 07:37
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FanofPortals posted:Clearly SC is going to become Dearborn, MI in no time now. What would Glenn Beck do to stop this upcoming tragedy? Clearly, this is the influence of Sharia Law whatever that he has been warning us about...it just happened in 1775. 
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Dec 3, 2012 07:38
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Actually, SC changed their flag a number of times. E: Not true, not sure what state I was thinking of. E2: Okay, so in 1961, they began to fly the Confederate Battle Flag alongside the state flag, in opposition to integration, and continued to fly the flag there until 2000. XyloJW fucked around with this message at 07:48 on Dec 3, 2012 |
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Dec 3, 2012 07:44
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I've been seeing this article's content circulating in the righty email-o-sphere: http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2012-11-27/when-work-punished-tragedy-americas-welfare-state The lucky ducky in question is a single mother of 3, all of whom are under 13. The cliff-inducing dropoffs are state benefits. The actual punchline is that the bigass yellow benefit, the childcare benefit, is only available if you're working full time and is only usable for daycare. Nevermind, of course, that that whoppng $12.5K won't properly cover childcare for 3 kids, or that the median annual wage is $26K. http://www.dpw.state.pa.us/forchildren/childcareearlylearning/childcareworkssubsidizedchildcareprogram/index.htm The huge 'reward' she gets for not working is that the state pays for childcare while she works full time. Remember the umbrage the right took about Ann Romney and how raising kids is a full time job?
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Dec 3, 2012 08:05
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Welfare traps are a legitimate thing but are a consequence not of having welfare but of having it poorly-designed(i.e. not having it taper off).
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Dec 3, 2012 08:44
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For starters with that chart, housing is the biggest bar of help for low income people, that's all fine and all except for the fact huge numbers of poor people don't live in subsidized housing. Next up is food stamps which for most bars its in seems to look like it's making up almost $5,000 a year. For a single mom who in fact has also just a single child, the max benefit you can get in my state(CT) is $367, which comes out to just over $4,400 a year. Problem there is to actually get that much you'd have to be pretty far down on income. The stop hunger in CT website has a calculator that estimates potential SNAP benefits. I did some with a take home pay after taxes of $380 a week and a rent of $750, while saying I didn't pay for daycare since I'm mooching of the Care 4 Kids program obviously. Calculator estimates $170 a month. Sure, she could hit the $5,000 a year mark just about probably if she had two kids instead of one, but she could also get a lot less if she was a woman with 2 kids who made say a whopping $12 an hour since I used a pretty drat low income for the the one child scenario. Meanwhile childcare isn't a set value in what they pay, and on top of it, they're not getting any benefits for themselves, someone else is getting paid to take care of their child so they can go work for $10.50 a loving hour. Or in fact maybe even $20 an hour. That graph shows a great thing, Care 4 Kids here and it would appear childcare programs in other states is actually open to huge amounts of people because the income limits are so high. This was designed specifically so people could go to work. Poor people wouldn't be able to go to work period if they didn't have a relative to watch their children, and higher income people would have the choice between staying at home, or spending 1/2 their income on daycare. People who are a bit higher and just over the limit are getting screwed. Maybe this would be good reason to expand the program for everyone, hell shoot the income limit up to $500,000 a year. I mean, why wouldn't someone want to do that, why are you punishing people for wanting to work? As for the health care bars, maybe the job creators should provide some healthcare instead. Basically, gently caress that graph. Truly a single mom with 2 kids at $15,000 a year income is living the loving life compared to the $70,000 a year mom she's apparently equal to. e: In fact going on what the poster above said, the only two "cliffs" that happen are from subsidized housing which a lot of poor people don't have to begin with and Care 4 Kids, or whatever it's called there, which is already open to a hell of a lot of people and should be open for everyone. So you know, just taper one, and open the other up to everyone given the huge amounts of people already in it. Plus, the Care 4 Kids bars is disingenuous, those bars can go much further up the income scale depending on how many kids you have, especially if you have more than one young enough to be in daycare at once, at least here anyways. http://www.ctcare4kids.com/care-4-kids-program/income-guidelines/ Here if you have a family of 4, two parents, one child already being covered by the program, and another one about to be enrolled in daycare, income limits can actually reach over $60,000 Also, how many parents at over $60,000 a year are actually on the children's health care program? I mean regardless if they're actually eligible, jobs at that income level usually have employers actually giving their employees insurance. Amused to Death fucked around with this message at 09:39 on Dec 3, 2012 |
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Dec 3, 2012 09:30
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Mitchicon posted:I like how South Carolina's flag looks like it could belong to a state in the Middle East: Welcome to Dubai! I'm actually legitimately surprised someone hasn't tried to get that changed.
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Dec 3, 2012 12:16
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Walter posted:Welcome to Dubai! Reminds me of this. http://wonkette.com/415396/is-there-a-reason-why-terrorist-south-carolina-has-a-muslim-flag South Carolina would never change their flag, almost every South Carolinian I've ever met has been a Texas level state flag fetishist.
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Dec 3, 2012 12:37
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Amused to Death posted:e: I think there are a lot more than just two. Medicaid springs to mind as having a huge dropoff, considering owning $2000 in assets (not income--pawnable assets that you haven't sold off to try to pay for your health) invalidates you, and the average payment for the worst health insurance is $5000/year. Honestly, I'm glad that graph is so complicated--I don't see anyone really forwarding it or defending it.
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Dec 3, 2012 14:57
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XyloJW posted:I think there are a lot more than just two. Medicaid springs to mind as having a huge dropoff, considering owning $2000 in assets (not income--pawnable assets that you haven't sold off to try to pay for your health) invalidates you, and the average payment for the worst health insurance is $5000/year. It was quite a revelation for me to learn that part of entering elder care and qualifying for benefits is "spending down" your assets--in other words, transferring your wealth to the health care industry.
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Dec 3, 2012 15:24
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XyloJW posted:Actually, SC changed their flag a number of times. Now they (I'd say we but I only live here, do not identify with here) only fly it BELOW the state flag. And you know by itself on a dedicated flagpole on the state house grounds.  hurritage not hate you guys seriously come on.
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Dec 3, 2012 15:50
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"Why can't you southerners just assimilate and be Americans like everyone else?"
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Dec 3, 2012 16:11
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I went to a catholic middle school. It's funny to see how most of us have matured, and some of us have moved away from the church, there are a few who have doubled-down on the at any cost pro-life stance of the church. I know these sorts of arguments are made but to see it in meme format is particularly annoying. 
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Dec 3, 2012 18:20
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XyloJW posted:Honestly, I'm glad that graph is so complicated--I don't see anyone really forwarding it or defending it. The problem is the graph is only complicated if you actually want to think about it, at which point you may start to realize it's disingenuous as all hell. Most people will just see however "Look, because of  welfare and my money being taken, someone making $15,000 a year is living better than someone making $65,000 a year."
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Dec 3, 2012 18:35
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Breadallelogram posted:2) Only in America could people claim that the government still NUMBERS. 
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Dec 3, 2012 19:16
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Latest thing on FB seems to be people who are more angry about Bob Costas's comments about the Jovan Belcher incident than about the actual murder itself. Not getting into the gun control debate, but can't these people get some perspective?
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Dec 3, 2012 19:37
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JakBauer posted:Latest thing on FB seems to be people who are more angry about Bob Costas's comments about the Jovan Belcher incident than about the actual murder itself. Not getting into the gun control debate, but can't these people get some perspective? There is no perspective. No horror is too great. No act tragic enough to even question whether the persons involved should have had access to a firearm.
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Dec 3, 2012 20:11
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quote:7) Only in America could you need to present a driver's license to XyloJW posted:America and every other country in the world.
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Dec 3, 2012 20:25
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Herman Merman posted:Huh? I think in most developed nations you need to present some form of ID before voting. The difference is almost all those countries have national ID programs, which are then used as voter IDs. Guess which group of people is also against national IDs in the US?
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Dec 3, 2012 21:27
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Amused to Death posted:The problem is the graph is only complicated if you actually want to think about it, at which point you may start to realize it's disingenuous as all hell. Most people will just see however "Look, because of I was really tired when I looked at it, and it took me a minute to figure out what the different axes represent, and I guarantee you people don't do that to figure out how different positions compare. They look at the title and see which direction the line is going. The title isn't descriptive, and there're like 5 different lines, no one's going to get any info out of that that'll change their mind. Herman Merman posted:Huh? I think in most developed nations you need to present some form of ID before voting. VVV I don't think he was arguing for voter ID, but saying that my statement was inaccurate because every other country does require voter ID. XyloJW fucked around with this message at 01:24 on Dec 4, 2012 |
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Dec 4, 2012 00:51
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Herman Merman posted:Huh? I think in most developed nations you need to present some form of ID before voting. These countries, as far as I know, do not have a deep history of using ID as a means to disenfranchise voters. Combine voter ID with a robust national ID program that was targeted at going through great lengths to ensure everyone has free ID. Then maybe you will see stronger support.
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Dec 4, 2012 01:00
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archangelwar posted:These countries, as far as I know, do not have a deep history of using ID as a means to disenfranchise voters. Combine voter ID with a robust national ID program that was targeted at going through great lengths to ensure everyone has free ID. Then maybe you will see stronger support. Not from Republicans you wouldn't. Protecting the electoral process isn't their goal.
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Dec 4, 2012 01:36
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Herman Merman posted:Huh? I think in most developed nations you need to present some form of ID before voting. You don't need ID in Australia, but then again we have mandatory voting laws.
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Dec 4, 2012 02:37
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TheIllestVillain posted:You don't need ID in Australia, but then again we have mandatory voting laws. And you put your ballot in a Kangaroo's pouch. That would be adorable. 
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Dec 4, 2012 02:43
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Polymerized Cum posted:There is no perspective. No horror is too great. No act tragic enough to even question whether the persons involved should have had access to a firearm. The gun control angle is another drat fool man-bites-dog story that the press jumps all over while blithely and simultaneously ignoring the effects of repeated concussions to school-age boys and and the thousands of "ordinary" preventable firearm homicides.
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Dec 4, 2012 08:29
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My friend on Facebook was all in a tizzy about the Bob Costas NRA=KKK comment and was blovating about how the KKK was originally a gun rights organization so TAKE THAT BOB COSTAS!! When I called him out his posted this hilarious article: Sorry Libs, NRA Was There To Help Blacks Defend Themselves from KKK Democrats Not The Other Way Around quote:On September 28, 1868, a mob of Democrats massacred nearly 300 African-American Republicans in Opelousas, Louisiana. The savagery began when racist Democrats attacked a newspaper editor, a white Republican and schoolteacher for ex-slaves. Several African-Americans rushed to the assistance of their friend, and in response, Democrats went on a “Negro hunt,” killing every African-American (all of whom were Republicans) in the area they could find. (Via Grand Old Partisan) Now correct me if I'm wrong, but there has been a major party switch since 1868, right. So the "democrats" in that story would be modern day republicans and vice versa, right?
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Dec 4, 2012 21:39
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Xarthor posted:Now correct me if I'm wrong, but there has been a major party switch since 1868, right. So the "democrats" in that story would be modern day republicans and vice versa, right? Yes.
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Dec 4, 2012 21:45
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