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DarkHorse: Dec 13, 2006; Nap Ghost

I loved that, and about cutting 700,000 NPR's it would take to fill that 700 billion dollar hole.

http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/thu-august-18-2011/world-of-class-warfare---the-poor-s-free-ride-is-over

"So what we do is, we take half of everything they own. Oh hey, 700 billion dollars."

"I see what the problem is. We need to take it all."

I saw an interesting article in Fortune that might be more palatable to conservatives: have Wall Street bail out Main Street. Specifically, refinance all the people that are current on their mortgages but underwater.

http://finance.fortune.cnn.com/2012/01/18/mortgage-refis-assistance/

Now, in a sane world they would have already done that (and the other stimulus I thought was explicitly to loosen up credit, but apparently the law didn't actually require it to be spent that way so the banks just pocketed it and spent it on bonuses). Can anyone tell me whether this is a good idea, or if this is some kind of astroturfing from CNN, Fortune, or big finance?

EDIT:

Bubbacub posted:

In my experience that graph never really changes anybody's mind. Conservatives (no matter what their actual income level is) just handwave it away by saying that the people on the bottom of the distribution don't work as hard as the people on the top. Seriously, when you try to argue with somebody who says "this is the essence of American Exceptionalism over dismal places like the European Union" without any irony, it's pretty much a lost cause.

Definitely, but I have had some success with mentioning relatives I have that work two (or more!) part time jobs and are destroying their health because of it. Then I remind them of "banker's hours" and ask them who is actually working harder. Keep relating it to things in their personal experience. Anecdotes, while a crummy source of evidence, work best if you use events the other person experienced, and it's a sad fact that most people know someone that works their hands to the bone with little to show for it.

DarkHorse fucked around with this message at 16:08 on Feb 17, 2012

# ¿ Feb 17, 2012 16:05

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# ¿ May 12, 2024 02:46

DarkHorse: Dec 13, 2006; Nap Ghost

What gets me is the instant accusation of envy. I only want enough money to be able to live comfortably, and I'm seriously considering a huge pay cut to switch careers just because I think I'd like the work more. Sure, having a million dollars and being free to do whatever I want whenever I want would be nice, but I'm not begrudging anyone that has that much money. I don't even care about the billionaires of the world having more money than a person could reasonably spend in a lifetime.

But the moment I suggest that maybe capital gains should be taxed at a similar rate as income, or that the country wouldn't implode on itself if we returned to 50's or 60's era tax rates, and suddenly I'm part of the politics and economics of envy :rolleyes:

# ¿ Feb 17, 2012 18:07

DarkHorse: Dec 13, 2006; Nap Ghost

Didn't that one disgusting youtube video guy (Firewall?) say that Moore didn't hire union employees and was thus a terrible hypocrite? I also remember something similar to the phrase, "Set that mendacious quivering mountain of hypocrisy to the side" if that helps

# ¿ Feb 20, 2012 02:59

DarkHorse: Dec 13, 2006; Nap Ghost

zeroprime posted:

Agent provocateur! The players, janitors, food workers, and ticket sellers are all producers. Do not set the laborers against each other while there is still an ownership class.

Agreed. A much better example would be the team and venue owners, who (using the NBA as an example) collect hundreds of millions in rights from ticket sales, concession revenues, merchandise, and so forth. Certainly they deserve some money for negotiating business deals and contracts, but it's the players that people are coming to see and the players who are abusing their bodies during their peak physical years.

# ¿ Feb 21, 2012 00:08

DarkHorse: Dec 13, 2006; Nap Ghost

I'm not sure if this is the correct place for this, if I'm in error please point me in the right direction. It's not funny or especially crazy, except for the usual ignorance of evidence.

Someone on facebook posted this old gem, and I felt like enough of a masochist to respond.

DarkHorse posted:

The assertion that "half of all Americans don't pay income taxes" is completely disingenuous. The correct statement would be "Federal income taxes," as sales tax, property taxes, and state income taxes are not included in that figure, among others. There's also unemployment insurance, social security, and medicare taken out of paychecks. These deductions can be an enormous fraction of your pay when you're working a minimum wage job.

And before anyone is tempted to think that you're one of the folks paying Federal income tax and supporting all the other slackers, there's a better than even chance that you are one of them. Just because Federal income tax is deducted from your paycheck doesn't mean you don't get it back with your tax return. This is courtesy of President Ronald Reagan and the Earned Income Tax Credit.

There were two responses, one from a stranger and the second from the original acquaintance of mine:

quote:

Sales taxes (in Fl) and property taxes are all state and local taxes. The federal government has payroll taxes that are supposed to pay for Medicare and Social Security INSURANCE. Meaning you are supposed to get it back. Now I know it all goes into the general fund and they misspend all of it, but they have a ceiling on how much each person can pay. I think it's only taxed up to the first $85,000. Income taxes punish those who are high achievers. The top 10% of income earners pay pay 70% of all income taxes. That is redistribution of wealth. The bottom 50% of people pay very little in taxes and receive most of the benefits. That's a problem. When people think government is free, they will never vote to shrink it. Meaning we have a government that will grow unsustainable large and we spend our way into oblivion.

Next time you are in the grocery store look at all the people that use EBT cards (food stamps). They get beer and cigs and candy. Then they get into their new car. If they had to pay income taxes, they would understand there is a cost to their "Free Stuff."

quote:

The article is about federal level affairs, so I wouldn't say it is disingenuous. The point in any matter is that there seems to be a continuous push for the FEDERAL Government to do more to support people through social welfare programs when it is not constitutionally a federal power to do so. Any powers not specifically delineated in the constitution to the Federal Government are reserved for the States. If people want social welfare it should be a state program run by the state and financed through state taxes. The federal government needs to significantly slim down its operating budget, and given the fact that so few people pay into one of the major support systems of the Federal Government's operating budget (the federal income tax), there is even more reason to not support Federal Social Welfare Programs. Lets also not forget the Federal Income tax didn't exist until the early 1900's and was only necessitated through fractional reserve banking and expansion of Federal powers beyond what they were meant to be. (which requires additional funding) This article only highlights the pitfalls of continually pushing Federal Government where it shouldn't go. I.E. jobs decrease, income decreases and as a result less people pay the federal government which results in a financial black hole to the tune of 1.2 trillion dollars per year. This is pushing our Federal Government to the point of default in the same way that many Eurozone countries are on the verge of defaulting now. There are 2 ways to solve the Federal Budget black hole: 1. draw additional revenue through taxes or other programs, or 2. drastically reduce Federal Programs. Increasing taxes (or even widening the range of who has to pay them) will only bring about the default of the nation as increased taxes ironically bring in less revenue due to the additional strain placed on the economy.

Here is my response - is there anything I could have said better, some home-run evidence I could have used, or something that's definitely wrong or inaccurate? One thing I do wish I had addressed was the whole Bigger Government thing, with this analogy: Businesses benefit from getting bigger because they benefit from economies of scale - why does this rule not also apply to government?

In case anyone is wondering, I do this to beef up my rhetoric and provide evidence for those on the sidelines, not because I'm expecting to actually change minds (though that would be nice, of course.)

------------------------------------------------------------------

DarkHorse posted:

Okay, I apologize for the length, but there are a lot of points I want to hit upon.

How are taxes considered "punishment"? Taxes pay for more than just those freeloading poors; they pay for roads, and clean water, and safe food, and our military, on which we spend as much as the rest of the entire world combined. My point was that though high income earners pay the lion's share of *Federal income tax, all the people at the bottom are contributing too, and effectively a larger share of their income. 20% of your income is HUGE when you're right around poverty level, whereas a millionaire taxed $200,000 still has $800k with which to buy everything he/she needs to survive and then some.

Current Social Security taxable income limits are set to $110,100 for 2012; considering we have around 250,000 people with million dollar tax returns or more, I don't think they're terribly oppressed. I think it's far more effective that people with lower incomes get a hand, because they actually SPEND that money, creating demand (which creates jobs to serve that demand.) According to Moody's, every dollar spent on food stamps returned $1.73 to the economy; unemployment benefits $1.63; tax cuts, in contrast, returned around $0.63 because they preferentially favor the rich, who save their money. Consider, too, that half of food stamp beneficiaries are children, and another 8% are the elderly.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/print/2010-09-13/rich-americans-save-money-from-tax-cuts-instead-of-spending-moody-s-says.html

http://www.triplepundit.com/2011/08/will-surprising-economic-value-food-stamps-save-future-cuts/

I am of the opinion that the many should not be penalized for the fraud of the few (which is why I also don't want to abolish all corporations for the fraud of a few.) Making children starve because someone somewhere bought beer and cigarettes one time is reprehensible - except, you can't buy those things with food stamps!

http://www.fns.usda.gov/snap/retailers/eligible.htm

Now, they may have bought those things with their own money after buying food with stamps, but that just demonstrates my point that poor people will spend money. They have food to survive another day, and Marlboro and Budweiser make a profit on the sales they may not have had otherwise. But that's a very unusual case, because food stamps only work out to about $4.50 a day of food, and beer and cigs are expensive.

http://www.saljournal.com/news/story/food-stamp-challenge-21712-FOR-MONDAY

Before you cry "redistribution of wealth," realize that wealth already gets redistributed up. A company makes a profit on each sale, so over time the money that was in consumers' pockets filters up and concentrates in a few very rich hands. Even if government did what people imply and steal their money to give to the poor, it would eventually find its way back. As an added benefit, people at the bottom would have more opportunities to start their own businesses as failure carries a cost less than bankruptcy, starvation, and death. Norway, despite its "socialism," has one of the highest start-up rates in the world, and small businesses are of course one of the largest contributors to taxes (big ones have the clout to make their rates zero or even negative.)

http://www.inc.com/magazine/20110201/in-norway-start-ups-say-ja-to-socialism.html

It's true there wasn't an income tax until the 1900's, but we didn't have a standing combat-ready military until the 1940's and 50's! If we're applying the same logic about social security and food stamps, the Constituion says nothing about maintaining an army, merely that the President is Commander in Chief and Congress has the power to declare war. That's a direct way to restore around 4.8% of domestic GDP, compared to social security's 4.2%. Or, we could raise taxes back to they way they were then, when the highest income tax bracket was 90% (compared to 35% now) - but really, I think increasing it to just 50% would be an easy way to see if it has the effect the doomsayers predict, with the bonus that it would be the same rate as during Reagan's tenure.

Despite what it might seem, I'm not seriously advocating abolishing the military or anything like that, and I hope it doesn't seem like I'm lecturing a serving member of the military on it. I just wanted to highlight the double standards, and that a lot of assumptions about food stamps, and taxes, and spending, are demonstrably false in the history of the US and in other countries of modern times. After 30 years of Reaganomics I have serious doubts about its ability to make things better and quite a bit of evidence for it making things worse.

Hopefully you will seriously consider my points, because I have seriously considered all of yours and have done a lot of thinking on them.

# ¿ Feb 22, 2012 18:16

DarkHorse: Dec 13, 2006; Nap Ghost

jojoinnit posted:

"Beer, cigs and candy"? I was on EBT for a few months when I was inbetween jobs and you can't buy alcohol or cigs on an EBT card, the checkout system won't let you. You can theoretically spend it all on candy but then you'd have no money for real food seeing as EBT is around $40 a week.

Also I was one of those people on EBT while wearing nice clothes and using an iPhone. Y'know, things I bought before I was laid off.

Yep, I pointed that out with a link. I doubt this person has actually ever used an EBT card, though I wouldn't be surprised if he'd met a few and didn't realize.

There was another response, I'm typing up a reply that I'll edit in later - I'm going with the 100 cookies, 1 guy takes 40, 4 of them split 27, etc. etc. using this link: http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2011/10/03/334156/top-five-wealthiest-one-percent/

quote:

Have you ever been hired by a poor person?

The American economy isn't a "Zero Sum" game. Example "Zero Sum"- Let's say there is a sandwich cut into 10 slices in a room with 10 people. If one person takes 2 slices, that person has robbed someone of a chance at having a slice. That is how you view the economy. In reality using the same example people bring their own sandwiches to the party. The sandwich can be grown or made bigger. That is how the American economy works. Just because someone has a lot doesn't mean that someone else can't have something.

And Moody's Mark Zandi also said that Obama's stimulus package would boost the economy. We know how that turned out. Moody's can say food stamps boost the economy but they don't. Just like unemployment benefits don't. Take away the food stamps and those people will figure out a way to support themselves without robbing from me. Take away the unemployment benefits and people will find a job.

People who make a million dollars a year employ other people. Either by directly hiring them or investing in business that wants to expand. You have shown that you don't understand how capitalism or our American Economy is supposed to work. An example of your economic model played out can be seen in places like Greece, Italy, and Spain. Government is supposed to insure equality of opportunity not equality of outcomes. The only outcome we can all equally have is misery. The government can't make everyone equally happy or make everybody rich.

And one more question: What is a fair share for someone making a million dollars?? 40%? 50%? 60%? 70%? Just tell me. You can't because it's never going to be enough. Liberals need the argument because class warfare keeps them in power.

Liberalism doesn't work!!

# ¿ Feb 22, 2012 19:00

DarkHorse: Dec 13, 2006; Nap Ghost

There've been a bunch of replies to this thread, so I'll just post my (tentative) response here:

quote:

I am well aware of zero-sum game theory and how it is inappropriate for the economy. I'd also like to respond to the sandwich allegory with one of my own, based on economic data:

There is a plate with 1000 sandwich slices for 100 people. The first person takes 420 of them. The next four take 270 to split among themselves, the next five take 110, and the next ten take 120. The remaining 80 people have 70 slices remaining. The first person points to one of the 80 and says to the rest, "He's trying to take your sandwiches." That's essentially what is being said when the poor are called out for being a drain on the system.

http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2009/oct/01/michael-moore/moore-says-top-1-percent-owns-more-financial-wealt/

http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2011/10/03/334156/top-five-wealthiest-one-percent/

I recognize your point that this is a silly way to look at things, but is it really that crazy to think that the first person could give up twenty of those sandwiches so the bottom 80 have enough to eat? Your assertion to the contrary, I don't expect everyone to be happy or everyone to be equally rich. What I object to is someone saying they need another $100 million to add to their billion-dollar bank statement when people are literally starving to death, in America!

Regarding the assertion that the stimulus didn't do anything, this summary of nine studies show that the majority think it had a positive effect, in a ratio of 2:1, though we are at risk of falling into another recession.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs...hbibJ_blog.html

http://money.cnn.com/2011/09/30/news/economy/double_dip_recession/index.htm

That we are still in a recession shows the enormity of the financial collapse and how many trillions of dollars were destroyed in the process. I think a far more valid target would be the bank bailouts and the million-dollar bonuses that bank executives get. How are these millionaires creating jobs?

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/31/business/31pay.html

Now, to address your point that people with millions employ other people: what, exactly, have the Bush tax cuts done to promote business hiring? Companies have been hoarding money because it is currently more profitable to hold onto it rather than hire workers or open plants. They put the money saved from tax cuts and increase their cash on hand, hoping to boost their stocks; they are not employing people. Banks specifically have been hoarding money from the interest rate cuts intended to loosen credit and allow consumer spending to resume.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424053111903927204576574720017009568.html

An example of my model can be found in Denmark, Norway, Sweden, and Germany. Germany in particular handled the crisis well, largely due to union protection with a willingness to cut hours but keep people employed and partial unemployment to keep up the difference:

http://www.cepr.net/documents/publications/labor-2011-05.pdf

Spain, Greece, and Italy are mixed capitalist societies. In reality, just about every modern democratic society (including the ones I mentioned previously) can be described as mixed socialist-capitalist, including the US. In reality, socialism/capitalism has little to do with how a country fared during the economic crisis:

http://openleft.com/diary/12706/just-how-socialist-a-survey-of-major-countries

I do not understand what your question is for "fair share" for millionaires. I stated earlier that a tax rate of 50% on the highest income bracket (not of all income, just income over $390,000!) seems like a reasonable rate to me, in line with what things were like during the Reagan years. Considering it has been higher than 90% in the past (and during some of the most productive years in our history) I do not think it terribly egregious. Considering that the wealthy benefit the most from infrastructure (roads to transport raw materials, employees, finished goods, and generally make commerce easier; airports and air transportation, for similar reasons; telephone lines to conduct business; municipal water, etc. to supply factories; military to protect the wealth they generate) it is reasonable that they should share the cost.

EDIT: fixed a few things.

DarkHorse fucked around with this message at 19:49 on Feb 22, 2012

# ¿ Feb 22, 2012 19:33

DarkHorse: Dec 13, 2006; Nap Ghost

My friend responded, and of course it's in a completely different direction than my tentative response. I don't have the intellectual energy to respond now, but I'd appreciate input on these views.

Once again, if this is inappropriate or off-topic please tell me and I'll remove it.

EDIT: HAHAHA, now this is more in line with the thread topic. See the last quotes, supplied by the stranger.

quote:

Keeping away from the earlier political/emotional jargon discussed in two of the posts above (such as "punishment" and rich vs. poor, etc) I will try to stick strictly to a systems and constitution response. The government as it stands has veered so far from its original design that we as Americans should not be surprised that we are in the situation we are in.

The purpose of the constitution is to establish checks and balances on power distribution and to prevent outside interference with the government. The idea that the Federal Government should be responsible for social welfare at any level is an ill-fated concept. The idea behind our Federal Government, which makes it remarkably different from other nations, is that the Federal Government is designed to provide a safe environment for individuals, businesses, and State Governments. As a result, most new powers granted at the FEDERAL level should not exist.

Hitting primarily on your point of the Federal Military� The Federal Government does have the power to assemble a military when it deems it to be necessary. As a result the Federal Military is funded on a yearly basis and in theory could be dissolved at a moment's notice. The Federal Military is far different than the National Guard however, as the National Guard reflects the State's right to raise and maintain a militia. (which when necessary can be called into Federal Service) One of the biggest problems with funding of the Federal Military comes from our country's complete lack of understand about how our foreign policy is not only failing us abroad, it is bankrupting us! We are literally dumping our taxpayer�s money into other nations that either don't want us there, won�t return any significant benefit for our money spent, or both. Military interventionism is one of the biggest problems facing Federal Budget issues. (along with all of the Federal social welfare programs) With this being said however, one does have to understand that a Federal Military is necessary (and can keep running under a constitutional premise) to keep our country safe because there are other countries with large standing armies. We need to learn to speak softly and carry a big stick rather than yell a lot while whacking with the stick.

Now on to the other stuff.

Going back to social welfare, this is entirely a State problem. It is a power not delineated to the Federal Government, and on paper is not a Federal right. Here is why that makes sense though� Have you ever had to teach a class? If so, then you understand the basic principle that you can always solve student learning problems better in a smaller class. (really, everything except mass production is solved more appropriately in smaller groups) Trying to teach and tutor 500 students and make them all as equally proficient as a student that was taught in a class size of 5 is simply unattainable. Because of this logical fact in human nature, it is always best to solve problems on smaller scales. Welfare (and essentially all other social problems to include drug problems) is a perfect example of this. When a state figures out how to best implement a policy to solve an issue, it can do so in a manner that is most applicable to its population, climate, culture, etc. A perfect example of this policy in action is the general difference of California from the rest of the United States. They have a large number of liberal policies, but guess what� that is their right as a state! If you don�t like it you can always move to another state. That is also another benefit of actually enforcing the Constitution: more people would be happy. You can have states that are liberal to the point of communism and states that are libertarian to the point of anarchy. Think about it, you could live in whichever state�s laws and policies best fit your beliefs. As long as their rules stay within the limits of protecting life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness (for ALL people) then they will not be overturned in a Federal Court. (Check and balance for the win)

By kicking all of these issues that we try to solve at a Federal level back to the states and the people, not only will it reduce the Federal Budget requirements by larger numbers than our current deficit, it will facilitate the reduction of Federal Income Tax to near zero and allow states to take in more money as a result (in taxes) and solve more issues at the state level.

Long story short: If you fully support the constitution you could live in a state where the state provides everything for you, or you could live in a state where you are on your own to solve your own problems. Everyone is happy, everybody wins. The nation as a whole will benefit economically as well. There is one thing that is certain about large governments and bureaucracies: any problem they try to solve will be solved less efficiently and at a much higher cost than a problem solved at a lower level. Believe me, I see it every day.

quote:

Addendum: We should also not allow governments (Federal or State) to delve into the matter of bailing out any business or corporation, no matter the size. (Think about the bank bailouts of over $700 billion dollars... we could have financed a war that lasted 10 years for that amount) This is unfair to all taxpayers, State and Federal, and undermines the idea behind competition. The economic benefit that would have come about as the nation picked apart the decayed bones of companies like AIG and Goldman Sachs would have ended up making everyone more prosperous in the end, even if it would have meant a little pain up front. This is a perfect example of how we have deviated from the stated intention of government in my above post "The purpose of the constitution is to establish checks and balances on power distribution and to PREVENT OUTSIDE INTERFERENCE with the government." This applies to lobbyists, the military industrial complex et al. A check that was supposed to enforce this prevention of interference was to allow State Senates to APPOINT their Federal Senators so that lobbyists could not influence a congressman's vote without having to influence the entire State Senate first. We completely undermined this check by allowing Federal Congressman to be elected by popular vote, now they are beholden to the individual companies (and their voting employees) in their congressional district rather than to the nation as a whole. End rant.

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The Other Guy posted:

There aren't just 1000 sandwiches. There are unlimited sandwiches. We can make more. Rich bankers aren't the only people that make a million dollars a year. A tax increase on people making more than $250,000 a year effects all most all small businesses. And why are people hoarding their money?... Because they are affraid of what Obama has coming down the pipe. We don't know what Obamacare, Dodd-Frank, or Obama's EPA will be like. The regulations are still being written. Uncertainty is the biggest problem with the Obama administration. All we see is a President that wants to raise taxes and create more regulations at every turn. I'm a contractor. We spend a lot of time and money just compling with EPA and DOT rules and regulations. We got find $13,000 last year because we didn't have every little piece of paper work for our 3 DOT drivers. Each driver has about 50 pages of paper work on file. We have an outside firm come in to insure we are in compliance, yet they still found something wrong. "Here's a giant fine!" We've never had an accident but the paper wasn't just right. 1

quote:

Back when the tax rate was super high the effective tax rate due to deductions was still only about 30%. All of our countries problems can be traced back to liberalism. And liberals get voted in by people like you. Therefore you are at least partially responsible for our country's problems. Please stop hurting our country.

quote:

Lol... Didn't mean to sound so mean. I gotta say you are one of the more informed liberals I've come across. Most of them are only emotional and don't have any real argument. I've enjoyed it.

Glad I'm not one of those emotional, bleeding-heart liberals? :v:

DarkHorse fucked around with this message at 20:36 on Feb 22, 2012

# ¿ Feb 22, 2012 20:09

DarkHorse: Dec 13, 2006; Nap Ghost

My friend continues with an... interesting position :psyduck:

quote:

Referring to my post (6 posts above this one) and the ensuing discussion, this is exactly why the republican(not the party, the style) system of government in the United States was so brilliant in its original conception. [Friend name] and [my name] can live in different states with different taxation and welfare laws, both can be happy, and both can be 'Merican! Win for republicanism, fail for democracy & socialism. That is kind of the idea behind freedom. It makes the U.S. a multi-cellular organism and not an amoeba. Nations with power centralized at the Federal level can never appease as many people as a republican government with the power in the hands of the people and their states. And with 50 states, there can be a lot of diversity to appease a wide range of ethical and monetary tastes.

# ¿ Feb 22, 2012 22:01

DarkHorse: Dec 13, 2006; Nap Ghost

Would you guys mind looking over my argument? I get the feeling this response was a little schizophrenic and I may have been arguing out both sides of my mouth :ohdear:

quote:

It sounds like we are mostly in agreement with military and international policy! I simply included it to show that the large standing military was a much newer development than the federal income tax and that following the logic "powers not explicitly granted by the Constitution should be forbidden" is fallacious. Besides, Article 1, Section 8 of the Constitution states, "The Congress shall have power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and *provide for the common defence and general Welfare of the United States;*" (emphasis mine).

I'd also like to point out Article 1, section 8, clause 18, where "The Congress shall have Power - To make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into Execution the foregoing Powers, and all other Powers vested by this Constitution in the Government of the United States, or in any Department or Officer thereof." The Necessary and Proper clause has been approved by the system of checks and balances when the Supreme Court has upheld it and cited it multiple times in our country's history for a variety of legal challenges. The founders were cognizant of the fact that things would change and there may be situations for which the document wasn't prepared and gave Congress the responsibility to address those needs. What worked for an 18th century agrarian society where 50 miles was a day's travel and individual cities were isolated may not be appropriate for a modern one connected by highways and fiber-optic lines that allow instant communication.

It would do well to point out that Medicare and Social Security are the only "social welfare" programs that exist at the Federal level. TANF ("welfare"), SNAP ("food stamps"), and Medicaid are all managed at the state level, and as you recommend they are all managed slightly differently depending on the state. Now, there is some funding from the Federal level, but it's usually just contingent on adhering to anti-discrimination law or other criteria. Each state has authority over how these social welfare programs are run, so they already operate precisely how you suggest they should.

If running a deficit is the concern, it's important to note that Social Security and Medicare are not paid for from Income Tax but rather FICA; the income tax pays primarily for the military, with "welfare" being a fractional portion of what is called "discretionary spending." Eliminating them will not really change the Federal budget requirements in the least, except by pushing them onto the states. This may seem an attractive solution, but states are prevented from running a budgetary deficit. In cases like the current fiscal crisis, this means that funding and help would be unavailable precisely when it was needed most! Even in good times, those states with the least revenues also tend to have the most people in trouble. How can states like South Carolina and Alabama deal with their poor when most of the people don't earn enough to be taxed to help the people that are REALLY in trouble?

Those people don't have the option of moving to another state - the poor are the least able to vote with their feet. To be workable there would first have to be perfect labor mobility - that a person could pick up sticks at any time and move to another state without any complication. Forget familial ties, or ties to property, what about practical issues like the cost of moving and feeding yourself across potentially hundreds of miles? Are we assuming the states will not take any measures restricting movement and will be providing support while people relocate? If not, it will be little consolation to a person trying to move somewhere with social welfare if they starve before they can leave.

The national Federal Income tax was enacted precisely for the general welfare of the entire United States. Money from prosperous regions of the country goes to suffering ones, and the nation as a whole benefits because those regions have access to better education, better health, and better living conditions. How people live, learn, and grow in Texas influences every other state, because some of those people will move to other states and become coworkers. On a more practical level, those receiving assistance still generate demand for products and will generate increased demand if their basic needs for survival are met. For this to be at all practicable, however, requires interstate oversight - basically, Federal oversight.

I disagree with your analogy using students; as a counterexample, you may have experienced large lectures with hundreds of students in a hall. The reason they have such large classes is precisely because of efficiency - a professor's time is limited and valuable, and it is important that information be consistent across the entire class. This information is then supplemented by smaller, personal instruction by TAs. In this analogy, the Federal government would be the professor providing general oversight and direction, while the TAs would be the individual state programs. While I agree that trying to teach 500 students to the capability of those tutored individually would be impossible, it also doesn't take into account that the 495 students that aren't tutored by the professor are likely receiving inadequate instruction and getting information that is contradictory between groups.

Regarding your addendum: I agree that the bank bailouts were a waste, especially in light of how J.P. Morgan Chase, Bank of America, and several other institutions have treated the money and their abuse of arbitrage for lending rates to profit instead of passing it along to consumers. However, the bailout for GM seems to have worked well. In their case, letting them go under would have displaced 200,000 employees immediately as well as the many thousands of derivative jobs like ACDelco and other parts suppliers AND all the machine shops that supply them. By keeping them solvent, GM was able to retain all those employees and prevent them from landing on the social safety net and stressing it further, and for who knows how long.

One last detail: the terms "liberalism" and "republicanism" have been misused in a few posts. From wikipedia, "Liberalism is the belief in the importance of liberty and equal rights... generally liberals support ideas such as constitutionalism, liberal democracy, free and fair elections, human rights, capitalism, and freedom of religion." "Republicanism is the ideology of governing a nation as a republic, where the head of state is appointed by means other than heredity, often elections." I believe the appropriate term for what you were describing would be federalism: "a political concept in which a *group of memebrs are bound together by a covenant with a governing representative head. The term "federalism" is also used to describe a system of the government in which sovereignty is constitutionally divided between a central governing authority and constituent political units (like states or provinces). Federalism is a system based upon democratic rules and institutions in which the power to govern is shared between national and provincial/state governments, creating what is often called a federation. Proponents are often called federalists."

To summarize: liberalism favors equal rights, republicanism is a means of appointing leadership, and federalism is a particular means of organizing division of power over and between separate polities. Another term I've heard used is "Confederation."

# ¿ Feb 23, 2012 00:44

DarkHorse: Dec 13, 2006; Nap Ghost

Dickeye posted:

At one point I think mom and I had a conversation that went "Hey you know how to have safe sex right?" "Yes." "Talk over, then."

I remember riding with my mom in the car, and I'm pretty sure I was already in college at that point so at least 19 years old, probably 20 or more. Our talk went something like, "So, uh, you know about sex, right?" "Yeah...?" "Any questions?" "Not really, I'm pretty sure I've figured most of it out by now." "Oh. Well, good."

It was a very surreal ten seconds.

Funnier, and more ironic, is that after my first wet dream a pamphlet appeared on my bed. The pamphlet's intent was to teach my religion's stance on nocturnal emission and masturbation, as well as to help parents talk about/avoid discussion about puberty. Its effect was that I learned, "You mean I can control it?! :fap:

# ¿ Feb 24, 2012 19:43

DarkHorse: Dec 13, 2006; Nap Ghost

Bombadilillo posted:

1. That is hilarious.
2. What is the religious stance on nocturnal emissions? Wastin sperms there.

It's been so long I can't even remember, but I'm pretty sure they're fine since they're involuntary. It's when it becomes voluntary that you enter a morally grey area, like if you try to facilitate NE somehow. Jerkin' it is of course an instant ticket to the fricassee.

# ¿ Feb 24, 2012 20:02

DarkHorse: Dec 13, 2006; Nap Ghost

This seems to be a great, comprehensive, and mostly unbiased primer on the history of oil and what we can expect. I haven't read through it all, but it has a lot of the information I've picked up from other places.

http://oildepletion.blogspot.com/

It doesn't address that one crazy dude's adherence to supply and demand curves and gold, but those should be pretty easy to refute. Is there a convenient way to find data on gold price and oil prices? It should be easy to import them into excel and divide one by the other.

EDIT - Might as well add my own crazy political rant:

The US consumes around 19 million barrels of oil a day. http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/ene_oil_con-energy-oil-consumption

The Alaska National Wildlife Refuge, the most likely untapped source for a productive source for oil in the US, may have as much as 9.2 barrels of extractable oil or as little as 600 million barrels, with a probable average of 3.5 billion. That works out to 484 days of oil, 31 days of oil, but probably around 184 days of oil at current consumption rates. That's predicting absolutely no growth in demand for energy in the US for a country just barely pulling out of a massive recession. http://www.anwr.org/Background/How-much-oil-is-in-ANWR.php

As of 2006, Chevron (yes that Chevron) was saying that the world consumed two barrels of oil for each new barrel that was discovered. The source I have quoted it from Financial Times, Feb 2006, but I can't access it directly. The May 15, 2006 edition of Business Week repeats that statistic, 2:1. Exxon Mobil has made similar statements, and Goldman Sachs has this to say about the future of oil companies:

quote:

The great merger mania is nothing more
than a scaling down of a dying industry in
recognition that 90% of global conventional
oil has already been found.

Goldman Sachs in Energy Weekly

We've already hit peak oil, we are just currently eating into the massive surplus we accumulated in the years when discovery outpaced consumption. We've been eating into that reserve for the past 40 years - new oil discoveries are in smaller amounts of of lower quality than previous discoveries, and they're fewer in number too. Consider that we as a species have burned through 4 billion years worth of crude in the course of two centuries... it will take hundreds of millions of years for new oil deposits to form, sink into the earth, get liquified by heat and pressure, and percolate up into oil traps that we can get at easily. Whatever the source of oil may be, it is not "renewable" in any reasonable sense of the word.

:rant:

DarkHorse fucked around with this message at 23:23 on Mar 1, 2012

# ¿ Mar 1, 2012 23:03

DarkHorse: Dec 13, 2006; Nap Ghost

Ugh. This is the link they're discussing, which is gross for other reasons.

# ¿ Mar 2, 2012 01:58

DarkHorse: Dec 13, 2006; Nap Ghost

myron cope posted:

I looked at that for a long time and finally decided that was max/min/probable amounts of oil. Maybe I'm wrong though.

Sorry for the confusion, that's exactly what I meant. I knew it was a poor sentence when I wrote it, but was in a rush at the time. I just took the range of possible extractible oil (high, low, and the likely mean) and converted that to days at current consumption. The point was that even the pie-in-the-sky amount meant a year and a third of oil at most, assuming that was our only source for oil. In reality it would be spread out much longer, but the point is that drilling in Alaska would do little to help us long-term, nor would it significantly reduce gas prices for very long.

# ¿ Mar 2, 2012 15:43

DarkHorse: Dec 13, 2006; Nap Ghost

I wouldn't use this link as part of your arguments, but Maddow did a good segment on energy policy including oil.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26315908/ns/msnbc_tv-rachel_maddow_show/#46598364

# ¿ Mar 2, 2012 17:33

DarkHorse: Dec 13, 2006; Nap Ghost

I've found these charts useful too:

I think that the US has temporarily become a net exporter of oil because we have a ton of refineries. Note that the last one stops at July of 2010. The current spot price of oil as of this post is around $106

# ¿ Mar 2, 2012 18:38

DarkHorse: Dec 13, 2006; Nap Ghost

There are so many problems with that analogy it's hard to know where to start.

For example, they're presumably using beer in place of income, and the representative rates for taxation for the latter in terms of splitting the bill. But that's idiotic, because A) You're using consumption as an analogy for income, which doesn't work, and B) they're implying that each person in the group gets an equal share of the beer available, i.e. 10% of the population has 10% of the ~~beer~~ benefits of taxation, which is manifestly untrue.

Second, using this taxation analogy, it's clear that they're only talking about federal income taxes what with 40% not paying anything. In the world of the parable, it wouldn't be accounting for the bus ticket the poorest members would have to pay, or the door charge, or paying some money for a dinner jacket to be presentable, etc. I of course mean the state, sales, property, and other miscellaneous taxes that the poorest members are still paying anyway.

Third, their analysis is stupid as hell as soon as you hit

quote:

The group still wanted to pay their bill the way we pay our taxes. So the
first four men were unaffected. They would still drink for free. But what
about the other six men ? How could they divide the $20 windfall so that
everyone would get his fair share?

... and just gets more idiotic from there. The first part reminds me of the Missing Dollar Riddle, while later parts have a weird use of percentages and savings to obfuscate the issue.

There's more I could elaborate on, but I'm feeling the bile rise in my throat.

# ¿ Mar 4, 2012 22:07

DarkHorse: Dec 13, 2006; Nap Ghost

jojoinnit posted:

Thanks to this thread I've gotten better at keeping up with political issues and I just finished a Facebook conversation with somebody who was defending Rush Limbaugh for calling Fluke a slut and saying liberal are hypocrites because Bill Maher was mean to Sarah Palin. If it copy and paste it here can I get feedback on how well I did and how correct I was? I have a lot of Republican friends who operate in an echo chamber and I'd love to challenge their beliefs. I assume it's over because he hasn't responded since the last time I shot him down (when he couldn't respond he redirected).

People in the thread were gracious enough to do it for me; while I can't speak for everyone, I'm willing to look over others' arguments.

Just got a friend urging people to vote for and defending the gay-bashing, God-gifted rape-baby, and possibly literal 6000 year old earth Santorum. Thankfully a bunch of other people jumped on him, both conservative and liberal, so he ducked out while he writes up a longer response. This should be entertaining :allears:

# ¿ Mar 6, 2012 22:55

DarkHorse: Dec 13, 2006; Nap Ghost

jojoinnit posted:

So this conversation went really long and is actually still going on, but I screencapped and censored the first bit so if any kind goons want to do a lot of reading I'd appreciate knowing if my style is wrong or if my facts are wrong.

http://imgur.com/XeLDa

I just linked the image, because it'd be a whole page if I posted it.

A quick scan shows that you've done a pretty good job, in my opinion. You address his points, redirect the discussion when it starts wandering, are assertive without being combative, and provide sources for many of your points. While there are things that I, personally, would have done differently, you know the people involved better and probably targeted things properly.

It may be a good time for a summary of arguments thus far and a repetition of the salient facts.

# ¿ Mar 7, 2012 04:03

DarkHorse: Dec 13, 2006; Nap Ghost

Yeah, it's almost like it's a drug-fueled rant, a mania-induced episode, or he is typing so furiously he's wearing his fingers to nubs. I've dealt with the persecution complex by coming down just as hard on Olbermann Matthews et al for their opinion pieces, though it's been only occasionally effective. When you're so dead set on being persecuted it's almost impossible to be convinced otherwise; by that point you'll fabricate evidence rather than face facts.

I don't know that there's any way to get through this sort of obstinate ignorance, but if you want to continue the argument:

A woman has a personal insurance policy that she pays for, out of her salary/tuition. That policy covers, among other things, contraceptives prescribed by a doctor. The institution objects on moral grounds and blocks her prescription and the medicine that she has paid for as part of that insurance. That is not religious freedom, that is interference. The fact that government is stepping in is not a Freedom of Religion issue, because freedom of religion doesn't permit you to harm others.

If we followed the logic that what they did was permissible, places run by Jehovah's Witnesses would be permitted to deny blood transfusions even if such procedures were covered by the private insurance that she'd purchased.

You may say that she has the option to purchase other insurance, but that option is prohibitively expensive for poorer coverage, and employees rarely have much choice in company-provided plans. It's a red herring besides, because the policy already covered it anyway.

EDIT: Missed that more discussion came up while I was typing.

jojoinnit posted:

I did this, from the beginning and every time he brought it up. I was patient and polite. I learned people already know what they want to think and apparently work backwards from there.

Which makes me wonder if I'm broken that I don't seem to work like that.

Also, since when was the BBC considered "the liberal media"? I thought pretty much everyone respected the BBC.

I blame it on the trend of anti-intellectualism and that argumentation and debate aren't part of learning. Students are usually taught a "correct" answer without the reasoning and testing that went to find that answer, which leaves them unprepared to deal with contentious or ambiguous problems. They are taught the correct answer by their authorities, and anything that contradicts that was manufactured as an attack (instead of simply being evidence that disagrees).

DarkHorse fucked around with this message at 05:19 on Mar 7, 2012

# ¿ Mar 7, 2012 05:14

DarkHorse: Dec 13, 2006; Nap Ghost

jojoinnit posted:

I did all that. Every single point. We're up to 138 comments between us now. I even tried to use his own sources to illustrate where he's reading into it wrong:

Oh yes, I knew that, but it mostly comes down to how hard and how often you want to keep banging your head against that wall. While repeating arguments over and over isn't a good argumentative strategy, you can try one last summary before giving him up as a lost cause. I think the old chestnut, "Don't argue with an idiot, they will drag you down to their level and then beat you with experience" is apropos.

# ¿ Mar 7, 2012 05:51

DarkHorse: Dec 13, 2006; Nap Ghost

I found this amusing tidbit on my facebook wall

Female acquaintance posted:

What ever happened to the idea of men trying to be a "good man"...? Do those even exist anymore...and I mean someone somewhat within my age range..you know, give 15 years or take a few...?

quote:

THE BAD ARE USUALLY DEMOCRATS

Female acquaintance posted:

I don't know, I've dated a couple Republicans...and only one Democrat...And the Republicans were by far the worst, somehow. I don' t get it!

DEMOCRATS

# ¿ Mar 8, 2012 21:29

DarkHorse: Dec 13, 2006; Nap Ghost

Kim Jong III posted:

People who are thinking like this have immediately decided that Zimmerman's shooting was justified - maybe because the kid was black, maybe because he "was acting suspicious" (in other words, because he was black), or maybe even because The Other Side thinks it's wrong so we think it's right. Now their brains are hard at work picking out anything they can to reinforce their He Got His narrative.

Making a decision and then looking for evidence to justify it isn't limited to the right, it's pretty much the human condition. It takes a lot of learning and training to consciously overcome that habit, and even then people will rarely act in a purely rational manner. Think of all the people that buy a Prius or other hybrid without accounting for the heavy metal processing required for the batteries, or the people that spend $10,000 on solar panels when $1,000 of better insulation would save them more money (and do more for the environment), or people skipping Reduce and Reuse to go straight towards the least-beneficial Recycle.

The difference comes once a person realizes they are prone to that sort of thinking and when they can have it pointed out to them by others. It comes from a willingness to consider that you and your opinions might be wrong.

I won't argue that higher education and exposure (and acceptance) of different cultures tends to instill that sort of mindset, something that seems much rarer with conservatives as a whole and almost universally with regressives.

# ¿ Mar 26, 2012 15:08

DarkHorse: Dec 13, 2006; Nap Ghost

Not to mention the disparity between "white girl kidnapped" vs. "black girl kidnapped"

Here's an example that actually did get pointed out: http://www.cbsnews.com/2100-201_162-512915.html

# ¿ Mar 28, 2012 17:28

DarkHorse: Dec 13, 2006; Nap Ghost

Doesn't that image even argue against the premise? That is, an illegal immigrant without identification can't do any of the things listed, and thus more likely to be living a lovely borderline existence anyway?

# ¿ Mar 30, 2012 16:10

DarkHorse: Dec 13, 2006; Nap Ghost

Vagina Jones posted:

Sorry if I'm being as dumb as Obama (and non American), but how would you pronounce 'corps' because I see it as being 'corpse'. Is it supposed to be core or something?

Interestingly enough, the words share a common meaning, along with "corporeal" and "incorporate." The word stem "corp" comes from "corpus" meaning body. In each of the above words, it means a body of some sort; corpse is a dead body, a corps is an organized body of soldiers, corporeal means "having a body" or physical presence, and incorporate means "to create a body [for legal means]" i.e. as a single entity to whom laws can refer. Business, Inc. means that Business meets the legal requirements to be a person before the law.

But yeah, "corps" comes from French and sounds like "core."

# ¿ Apr 15, 2012 01:14

DarkHorse: Dec 13, 2006; Nap Ghost

Bruce Leroy posted:

The best part is when you pull a Daily Show-style clip juxtaposition showing conservative pundits defending Bush for something identical to what Obama is doing or, even better, a congressional voting record for conservative politicians.

E.g. Paul Ryan. If deficit spending is so terrible and the National Debt is so "immoral" to leave to future generations, then why did he vote for tax cuts while at the same time voting for two wars and a completely unfunded Medicare Part D expansion?

There have been flyers posted on bulletin boards advertising College Republicans with the tagline "Tired of Being Broke?" with Obama's symbol replacing the 'o' in Broke.

Two massive wars concurrent with enormous tax cuts, the original TARP bailout, and all the other spending/cuts - and the Republicans are the party of fiscal responsibility? :crossarms:

# ¿ Apr 17, 2012 15:05

DarkHorse: Dec 13, 2006; Nap Ghost

After seeing all these dumb and spurious images comparing household finances to national budgets I started wonder if you could make one that scales the US down to a town of 1,000 or maybe 10,000 people and how evocative that would be.

It's clear that these people find the household budget argument compelling, so maybe scaling things to a small town will be too? I'm probably relying too much on my faith in them giving equal weight to the same type of arguments and not what the conclusion to those arguments is.

# ¿ Apr 27, 2012 16:22

DarkHorse: Dec 13, 2006; Nap Ghost

Whoops, I left out a sentence, I meant using it to represent the distribution of wealth and income in the country. I don't doubt it would still be wrong for the same reasons their images are wrong, but I kept coming back to the image of a town of 1,000 where fifty guys literally owned half of the buildings and 3/4 of the money and spent their time hanging out in each others' mansions planning how to get more money, and 800 were barely scraping by... some of whom are saying the fifty need more money.

# ¿ Apr 27, 2012 17:16

DarkHorse: Dec 13, 2006; Nap Ghost

I love, too, how they objected to applying the same rules to the Chamber of Commerce, specifically that people could join and gain its benefits without paying dues, and suddenly that was unconscionable and unfair because people would be getting things for free! :allears:

Re: teachers getting paid more than $10/hr - Oh great, I'm glad a bunch of Master's degree earners are making a little more than minimum wage!

# ¿ Apr 27, 2012 19:26

DarkHorse: Dec 13, 2006; Nap Ghost

One of my professors had parents that were strict observers, to the point that they left their gas stove on all day. Either it was because they couldn't flip the switch but still wanted to cook, or that they had been cooking when Shabbat started and couldn't turn it off.

Odder still, they were atheists; they did all this stuff just because it was their culture and those were the rules :psyduck:

# ¿ May 1, 2012 05:22

DarkHorse: Dec 13, 2006; Nap Ghost

Five point tongue exploding rear end technique?

I find mental illness terrifying. It makes me paranoid that I'm actually only barely intelligible and that I sound like that lady to everybody I know.

# ¿ May 13, 2012 05:16

DarkHorse: Dec 13, 2006; Nap Ghost

Augster posted:

Seems to be going around on Facebook:

What I love most is that this quote:

quote:

WHO killed Bin Laden?
Here's a Marine's answer

"America is not at war, the US Marines are at war; America is at the mall."

...seems more like it's condemning the minimal effect being at war has on the general populace rather than anything to do Obama. Maybe people wouldn't treat going to war so casually if it was something that actually required the country to work for it. The past two wars are definitely like something out of Fahrenheit 451.

# ¿ May 14, 2012 15:20

DarkHorse: Dec 13, 2006; Nap Ghost

bairfanx posted:

Second Law

Though I think I broke a religious acquaintance's mind when I pointed out that we constantly get energy in the form of sunlight, making his argument unbelievably worthless.

It always amazes me how it never crosses these peoples' minds that maybe, maybe these theory-shattering examples have been considered by scientists and perhaps they themselves are the ones that have things wrong.

Nope, it's always "IF A SYSTEM CAN'T GO FROM DISORDER TO ORDER EVER HOW DO YOU EXPLAIN FREEZERS :smuggo:

take that athetist"

# ¿ May 16, 2012 23:35

DarkHorse: Dec 13, 2006; Nap Ghost

But then those scientists must have a really low opinion of people if only the simplest examples can prove their conspiracy wrong :psyduck:

# ¿ May 17, 2012 00:27

DarkHorse: Dec 13, 2006; Nap Ghost

While that response is funny enough for its complete misunderstanding of thermodynamics, biology, chemistry, and a few other sciences, and its abuse of moving the goalposts is rage-inducing, the best part is this line:

quote:

You were born perfect, now I don't mean perfect like muscly body and everything is the "normal" conditions. I mean perfect as in you haven't sinned. I doubt that anybody has come out of their mother and shouted the f word.

This is wrong by every form of Christian theology and eschatology I know of. Adam and Eve were "born" perfect, but every human since then has been born with the taint of original sin - at least according to Christianity. It's only through Christ's sacrifice, the sacrifice of an innocent lamb, that the corruption of humanity is redeemed in God's eyes.

The closest it comes to something I'm aware of is modern psychology and the idea of children each being a tabula rasa, a blank slate that is only corrupted later by the influence of the world. Moron can't get his own religion right. (Edit: by "modern" I meant a comparatively recent development, not that it's a tenet of actual psychology in modern practice. The blank slate theory has been disproven in so many ways it doesn't really get discussed much)

Really though, I'm having trouble not dissolving into a puddle of spleen when the guy goes from "If 2nd Law, then how order from evolution? :viggo:

" When it's pointed out that 2nd Law doesn't apply unless you include the entire sun and the unfathomable amount of entropy generated by it, suddenly the argument is "If sun, then how death?" I hate moving goalposts! :argh:

DarkHorse fucked around with this message at 19:52 on May 20, 2012

# ¿ May 20, 2012 19:16

DarkHorse: Dec 13, 2006; Nap Ghost

The reason for it is to solve the problem of theodicy: why bad things happen to good people when there's an omnipotent, omniscient, and omnibenevolent god.

I'm not really a fan of the explanation, but when you're starting from the point that God exists and has those three qualities you have to come up for some reason why things suck.

# ¿ May 21, 2012 01:57

DarkHorse: Dec 13, 2006; Nap Ghost

miscellaneous14 posted:

His response was something to the likes of "most recordings of temperatures rising in the US, Russia, and Western Europe are made in heat sinks like parking lots or behind buildings. My point of linking this was to illustrate how global climate changed is often erroneously based on local results".

What infuriates me the most about this argument is the implication that the scientists involved were too ignorant to account for the effect.

I'm not sure if this is specifically the argument your uncle was using, but the idea is that someone builds a remote weather monitoring station, the city grows, and eventually envelops it. So you have a predicted increase in temperature at that station because it's gone from semi-wilderness to being in a heat island. Voila, "global warming" explained :smuggo:

...except they've accounted for that effect, and even after removing the expected temperature increase temperatures are still rising. If I remember right, this was the principle argument of one of climate change's biggest opponents, but once he actually looked at the data and did his own analysis he was convinced it was a real phenomenon. Fancy that!

# ¿ May 30, 2012 17:44

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# ¿ May 12, 2024 02:46

DarkHorse: Dec 13, 2006; Nap Ghost

I can only attribute it to rampant anti-intellectualism, the idea that "anything you can do I can do better, despite never studied or trained in the subject" plus a healthy dose of prideful ignorance.

They're self-reinforcing; I don't need to learn, I know everything - [other] people don't know anything, I can learn it based on what I already know!

# ¿ May 31, 2012 05:01

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

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