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HiroProtagonist posted:It's a Heinlein quote taken way out of context. What book?
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Jun 17, 2013 21:26
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Mitchicon posted:What book? Beyond This Horizon
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Jun 17, 2013 21:38
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Pead posted:Beyond This Horizon I would have guessed Time Enough for Love.
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Jun 17, 2013 21:41
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Beyond this Horizon had a bunch of genetically advanced supermen who duel each other to resolve any disputes. Libertopia, really.
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Jun 17, 2013 21:45
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Pead posted:Beyond this Horizon had a bunch of genetically advanced supermen who duel each other to resolve any disputes. Libertopia, really. I looked up a synopsis on wikipedia because despite having read a bunch of Heinlein in my youth, I'd never even heard of Beyond this Horizon. One of the highlights of the economic systems in the book is the outlawing of fractional reserve banking. Some things are eternal.
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Jun 17, 2013 21:53
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I always preferred Robert E. Howard's formulation of "An armed society is a polite society:"The Tower of the Elephant posted:Civilized men are more discourteous than savages because they know they can be impolite without having their skulls split, as a general thing.
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Jun 17, 2013 22:06
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LtStorm posted:It's kind of a chicken-egg thing, but, Prosperity Theology being embraced by American evangelical Christians had a horrible amplifying effect on (or was caused by the amplifying effect of believing in) failure to succeed being a personal issue. It's not that I'm lazy...God just hates me.
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Jun 18, 2013 00:23
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You know, I remember being in high school, and saying loudly to anyone who listened that anyone on welfare needed to keep their drat legs closed, and stop having babies. I remember saying that anyone on welfare shouldn't have kids, and if they have more kids, they need to be taken away, AND the parents sterilized permanently. My mom did a drat good job of keeping my dad's racism from me, but she was no match for the True Love of high school. Mine was a year younger than me and was so conservative even Bush might have told him to tone it down. He was all about the Christian love, except for retards, and whores, and a ton of people who weren't, in his view, good enough, and shouldn't ever reproduce. He hated gays, but was fine with blacks (mostly) and insisted that anyone who had a mental disorder, ranging from bipolar to Downs Syndrome to autistic, should be put down. Like you do a rabid dog. But it was True Love! I didn't like the things he'd say, but hell, you're 16, 17, you believe your True Love because you're going to finally have sex on prom night and then go to the same college and get married and yay! The best thing happened then: I was dumped, over the phone, on Labor Day weekend. Yes, everyone remembers that first dump, but it took me a little time to realize what an rear end in a top hat he really was; that he hated 'the handicapped' because his mom had worked with special needs kids once, and one of them broke his pencil. Seriously. That was what he always talked about. And how all the whores couldn't keep their legs closed and had tons of babies and WE paid for them. Me getting away from that toxic fucker is probably what turned me into a liberal. It might have also been pure spite; anything he loved and adored I would hate forever, and that included all the cute terms he used for special ed kids and 'not the good kind of blacks, THOSE kinds' and the like. The difference, between the emails circulating around about sterilizing the poor, is that when I said it, I was 16 or 17. gently caress, at that time I was convinced that if I didn't make him wear a condom, that showed ultimate trust! My excuse is that I was a stupid kid. And now I'm one of the biggest liberals out there. So Jeff, if you're reading this, it was all done to spite your pasty white rear end! Thank you!
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Jun 18, 2013 00:46
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Cowslips Warren posted:You know, I remember being in high school, and saying loudly to anyone who listened that anyone on welfare needed to keep their drat legs closed, and stop having babies. I remember saying that anyone on welfare shouldn't have kids, and if they have more kids, they need to be taken away, AND the parents sterilized permanently. I don't have a breakup or 'conservative boyfriend/girlfriend' story like you do, but I'm definitely a member of the 'used to be a conservative shithead in high school' crowd. Specifically, I was a hardcore, Ayn Rand-reading, Ron Paul-worshiping,  -level libertarian. I brought Rand's books to school and read them in public in the vain hope someone would ask me about them (no one ever did), and would talk at every opportunity about what I thought at the time was really sophisticated philosophy, about the virtue of selfishness and the evil of altruism and all that bullshit. I argued in defense of Social Darwinism in history class and quoted Rand, Rothbard, and Mises like it was scripture of my secular religion - which, in hindsight, I'm realizing that's exactly what it was; I was born and raised Mormon and, after realizing the Church was bullshit, clung to Rand's sociopathic, childish philosophy as a sort of religion-surrogate.Fortunately, my AP History teacher was a very, very smart, very hard-headed person who actually called me on my bullshit, engaged me critically, and made me sit and think about what I was actually saying. He had counter-arguments to every regurgitated quote I could pull up and they made more sense than the stuff I was saying. My arguments got weaker and weaker every class period and eventually I was just straight-up agreeing with him; at the end of the year he gave me a copy of Howard Zinn's 'A Peoples' History of the United States' and my conversion to liberalism was complete. That conversion didn't last long, though. I went to college and over the next four years shot straight left, past liberalism to social democracy to democratic socialism to syndicalism, and I've stayed at syndicalism ever since.
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Jun 18, 2013 02:02
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So I posted the Costco article from the other page, since I generally liked it, on facebook, to nothing extremely crazy for responses:
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Jun 18, 2013 03:18
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But then I noticed this post in my timeline like 30 minutes later. From the same guy who called me "liberal scum" when his team scored a goal on me during a hockey game (that we won). I want to post a smarmy response, but I dunno if I wanna open the can of worms. Its amost certainly directed at me.
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Jun 18, 2013 03:19
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UnmaskedGremlin posted:But then I noticed this post in my timeline like 30 minutes later. From the same guy who called me "liberal scum" when his team scored a goal on me during a hockey game (that we won). I want to post a smarmy response, but I dunno if I wanna open the can of worms. Its amost certainly directed at me. If he has time to post on facebook (from mobile no less!) then he hasn't sacrificed all that he has 
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Jun 18, 2013 03:28
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UnmaskedGremlin posted:But then I noticed this post in my timeline like 30 minutes later. From the same guy who called me "liberal scum" when his team scored a goal on me during a hockey game (that we won). I want to post a smarmy response, but I dunno if I wanna open the can of worms. Its amost certainly directed at me. "Your employees make you money you asshat otherwise you wouldn't hire them. Apparently you think firing them all to save that payroll part of your expenses so your business will then collapse would be less painful. Behold small business owners, the driver of our economy"
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Jun 18, 2013 04:06
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UnmaskedGremlin posted:But then I noticed this post in my timeline like 30 minutes later. From the same guy who called me "liberal scum" when his team scored a goal on me during a hockey game (that we won). I want to post a smarmy response, but I dunno if I wanna open the can of worms. Its amost certainly directed at me. Until you have worked a lovely minimum-wage job (or two!) to survive, put all of your strength and your effort into your work, been poo poo on by your boss and your customers alike, come home dirty and stinking and exhausted, been paid so little money that you have to choose which of your bills to pay, received government assistance that still isn't enough to cover all of your expenses, ended the month with six dollars and change to your name and bill collectors on your rear end, and then had to put up with right-wing shitlords calling you lazy and a parasite, then I don't think you have any place to say 'what's fair'.
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Jun 18, 2013 04:07
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Jesus Christ, what a martyr. If the great Tea Party Revolution is going to be led by these sorts of whiners, I know I can sleep easy.
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Jun 18, 2013 04:10
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UnmaskedGremlin posted:But then I noticed this post in my timeline like 30 minutes later. From the same guy who called me "liberal scum" when his team scored a goal on me during a hockey game (that we won). I want to post a smarmy response, but I dunno if I wanna open the can of worms. Its amost certainly directed at me. Can't manage to run a profitable business? What a lazy poor.
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Jun 18, 2013 04:14
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UnmaskedGremlin posted:But then I noticed this post in my timeline like 30 minutes later. From the same guy who called me "liberal scum" when his team scored a goal on me during a hockey game (that we won). I want to post a smarmy response, but I dunno if I wanna open the can of worms. Its amost certainly directed at me. Just point out that it's literally impossible to run a small business without some form of government aid. That usually shuts up people for a while.
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Jun 18, 2013 05:17
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prahanormal posted:Just point out that it's literally impossible to run a small business without some form of government aid. That usually shuts up people for a while. "Tax breaks?! That money's mine already, am I supposed to be happy the government is graciously deigning to let me keep it?"
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Jun 18, 2013 05:24
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Can't we just start TELLING them that taxes are the only thing that keep us from going all 1790's France on the ten guys who would end up owning all our food?
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Jun 18, 2013 12:14
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Nevvy Z posted:Can't we just start TELLING them that taxes are the only thing that keep us from going all 1790's France on the ten guys who would end up owning all our food? I've done this, and I've gotten a few variations of "That's ok, we have the second amendment for a reason.  " as a response. Whatever dumbshits, pretty sure guns didn't stop the same crowds from storming a loving prison either but yeah, you're gonna totally show those poors whose boss 
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Jun 18, 2013 13:04
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Hey, didn't the NRA start supporting gun control when the Black Panthers began openly carrying firearms?
Mitchicon fucked around with this message at 13:33 on Jun 18, 2013 |
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Jun 18, 2013 13:30
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Mitchicon posted:Hey, didn't the NRA start supporting gun control when the Black Panthers began openly carrying firearms? Yes
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Jun 18, 2013 14:09
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Mitchicon posted:Hey, didn't the NRA start supporting gun control when the Black Panthers began openly carrying firearms? The NRA supported gun control most of its existence until the mid 70s.
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Jun 18, 2013 14:12
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Mitchicon posted:Hey, didn't the NRA start supporting gun control when the Black Panthers began openly carrying firearms? As did saint Reagan.
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Jun 18, 2013 14:14
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Mitchicon posted:Hey, didn't the NRA start supporting gun control when the Black Panthers began openly carrying firearms? The only moral gun ownership is my gun ownership.
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Jun 18, 2013 14:47
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Handsome Ralph posted:I've done this, and I've gotten a few variations of "That's ok, we have the second amendment for a reason.
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Jun 18, 2013 15:21
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Ghost of Reagan Past posted:They'll just shoot all the parasites and with the power of Job Creation become richer. See, Job Creators can make workers and people to buy their products appear out of thin air. Step 1: Create Jobs Step 2: Step 3: Profit!
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Jun 18, 2013 15:30
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Handsome Ralph posted:As did saint Reagan. Reagan supported gun control right up to the 1991 op-ed he wrote in the NYT asking for the passage of the Brady bill.
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Jun 18, 2013 15:56
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Amused to Death posted:Reagan supported gun control right up to the 1991 op-ed he wrote in the NYT asking for the passage of the Brady bill. He also started to push against open carry specifically because Black Panthers would openly carry weapons to protect themselves back in the late 60's.
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Jun 18, 2013 16:18
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The NRA has gone so far off the deep end that even a lot of firearm manufactures disagree with them.The Washington Post posted:The trade group for the nation’s leading firearm manufacturers said it will not actively oppose the expansion of background checks, which are designed to prevent guns from reaching criminals or the seriously mentally ill. TerminalSaint fucked around with this message at 17:14 on Jun 18, 2013 |
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Jun 18, 2013 17:00
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I thought the NRA was the de facto lobbying arm of the gun manufacturers industry.
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Jun 18, 2013 17:05
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TerminalSaint posted:The NRA has gone so far off the deep end that even a lot of firearm manufactures disagree with them. Unfortunately the NRA is dominated by the worst types of gun owners and they market a narrative that appeals to the paranoia that is so pervasive among the American right. This fits into the situation the Republicans are facing with the Tea Party. I think (hope) you're going to see a high water mark of conservatism soon and then a subsequent shift to the left. Their extremism is making them increasingly unpopular.
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Jun 18, 2013 17:10
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zoux posted:I thought the NRA was the de facto lobbying arm of the gun manufacturers industry. They are in the broad sense that they're pro-gun, and no doubt plenty of manufacturers are right there with them. But if a manufacturer steps out of line with the NRA's ideals, the NRA has no qualms with shutting them down rather than adjusting their own position to reflect the businesses they claim to represent. In practice the NRA is more the lobbying arm of crazy far-right gun nuts. I've encountered more than a few people who like guns, but agree that the NRA is one of the shittiest pro-gun organizations. Edit: the National Shooting Sports Foundation is an actual trade association for manufacturers, while the NRA "promotes firearm ownership, as well as police training, firearm safety, marksmanship, hunting and self-defense training in the United States". TerminalSaint fucked around with this message at 17:22 on Jun 18, 2013 |
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Jun 18, 2013 17:13
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I would love to punch the guy in the face that replied to this guy's post. Especially since I have kids that will be needing to go to school.
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Jun 18, 2013 17:19
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Have you seen my apex seals? I seem to have lost them.
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Mister Bates posted:Until you have worked a lovely minimum-wage job (or two!) to survive, put all of your strength and your effort into your work, been poo poo on by your boss and your customers alike, come home dirty and stinking and exhausted, been paid so little money that you have to choose which of your bills to pay, received government assistance that still isn't enough to cover all of your expenses, ended the month with six dollars and change to your name and bill collectors on your rear end, and then had to put up with right-wing shitlords calling you lazy and a parasite, then I don't think you have any place to say 'what's fair'.
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Jun 18, 2013 17:43
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Aeka 2.0 posted:I would love to punch the guy in the face that replied to this guy's post. Especially since I have kids that will be needing to go to school. Teachers have been a great new punching bag for conservatives, especially when you start to tie them to the unions that represent their interests. Edit: There was a great douchey email by some Wall St. guy that was circulating a few years ago about how easy it was to be a teacher, and how he and his buddies could do it in their sleep. Does anyone have a copy? I tried to find it with snopes and google but had no luck. Foyes36 fucked around with this message at 18:28 on Jun 18, 2013 |
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Jun 18, 2013 18:13
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Interlude posted:That sounds snazzy but you're more likely than not to run into small business owners who have done all of that, got lucky, and now use their past as a badge of entitlement. For every person who gets their lovely paycheck and blames capitalism, there are a hundred more who blame the government for taking so much out in taxes. One article I like to share in situations like this is this GQ bit from Jon Ronson where he profiles six people at different levels of the income spectrum (i.e. he starts with the lowest paid guy and then keeps multiplying his income by five til he reaches a billionaire). I'm especially fond of the contrast between the guy who earns $10-20 million a year and the billionaire: Nick Hanauer (Amazon investor) posted:There's something unusual about Nick. For a multimillionaire, he doesn't have your average multimillionaire view. In fact, he's come to believe that the system he benefits so richly from is built on nonsense—specifically, the idea that "the markets are perfectly efficient and allocate benefits and burdens perfectly efficiently, based on talent and merit. So by that definition, the rich deserve to be rich and the poor deserve to be poor. We believe this because we have an almost insanely powerful need to self-justify." B. Wayne Hughes (creator of the self-storage concept) posted:Wayne's avuncular manner deserted him when he talked about what to do about the have-nots. "I remember an advertisement with an Indian in a canoe in a river," he said, "and tears are running down his face because he sees all the trash in the water, and he sees what's happening. That's how I feel about America. It's an emotional thing for me." He paused, and that's when he said, "I'm a little surprised to find out that I'm an enemy of the state at this time in my life. They talk about your 'fair share.' 'Are you paying your fair share?' Fair is in the eyes of the beholder." He paused. "I hope I don't come off like some big person...so conservative.... I believe in spreading it around, but I believe in doing it myself."
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Jun 18, 2013 18:23
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It's almost as if the mega rich guy doesn't know how to check his privilege.
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Jun 18, 2013 18:39
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Phone posted:It's almost as if the mega rich guy doesn't know how to check his privilege. It's not like attitude gets better down the income chain. Just replace not realizing privilege to just massive rationalization. quote:Dennis says he wishes they were better off, but there are positives about being poor. It makes people community-spirited, he says. Plus, money can turn a man wayward. He runs a church support group for sex and drug and alcohol addicts. Why did some of those men fall into a hedonistic abyss? "Because they could afford to," he says. Amused to Death fucked around with this message at 18:45 on Jun 18, 2013 |
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Jun 18, 2013 18:41
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Cowslips Warren posted:
That's how I feel a lot of the time. I had awful political opinions when I was 15 and uninformed. Then I grew up and started paying attention, and I steadily became more liberal. I worked at a local grocery story chain known for their Christian values and I probably ended up being the most liberal person there by the time I left. I had a coworker who didn't think the races should mix, numerous who were not fond of gay people, a guy who told me he had a mathematical formula to prove the existence of God (which was like Faith / Prayer = God or something similarly asinine), and a couple people who told me I'd learn to be more conservative as I got older. Thankfully, I've only gotten more and more outgoingly liberal. Some of my early opinions on events in general were shaped by an online friend sending me these Paul Shanklin song parody MP3s around 2000 or so. He and I had so many interests in common and he was older and smarter than me, so I figured I'd agree with him politically too. I listened to the songs and thought they were hilarious. Oh man Clinton's so awful and should've been kicked out of office and Al Gore is such a whiner about losing the 2000 election! I had gay friends in high school and considered myself an atheist so I really didn't fit in the mold and I totally did not realize it. I think I started knowing better by the time I was a Senior.
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Jun 18, 2013 20:33
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about having awful opinions in high school