|
He's right, it's absurd that the Air Force should be forced to pay to set up areas and time off on holidays for everyone's bullshit religions. Religion should be practiced on your own time. I vote for no more pagan altars. Of course that also means no chapel as well.
|
#
¿
Jun 3, 2011 06:03
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ May 10, 2024 06:07 |
|
|
Borneo Jimmy posted:http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-partisan/post/anthony-weiners-odd-reality/2011/06/02/AGCEBEHH_blog.html LOL. That read like a masterful troll. I don't understand why he chose Xanadu though. I understand it has connotations of a strange and far away land given its orientalist beginnings in the western consciousness but doesn't it also carry connotations of bucolic yet highly ordered bliss? It doesn't fit the metaphor.
|
|
#
¿
Jun 5, 2011 05:03
|
|
|
Saint Sputnik posted:I'm not gonna post Jay Ambrose's whole column from my paper today but this right here is a loving gem: If your bills are millions, pretty much the smallest denomination used in the federal budget, your stack won't be nearly as high. 
|
|
#
¿
Jul 14, 2011 11:20
|
|
|
OatBoy posted:I know which way WSJ leans, but I still find it hard to believe that a mainstream publication would publish this. WSJ is no longer mainstream. This is exactly the kind of bullshit I was afraid of when Murdoch bought the drat thing. Anything he buys quickly becomes a mouthpiece for his private interests. He's still riding out the publication's previous reputation but that won't last forever.
|
|
#
¿
Aug 20, 2011 23:46
|
|
|
Good luck finding a place to live that has a 0% chance of being effected by a natural disaster.
|
|
#
¿
Aug 26, 2011 21:47
|
|
|
Goatman Sacks posted:http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/313251/olympic-political-correctness-john-fund?pg=1 Your synopsis is worse than the article. No one is defended for being a Nazi. Papachristou was defended, but on the grounds that the writer didn't consider the mosquito joke was bad enough for expulsion, not because he's cool with her Golden Dawn ties. The other person who was defended, Nadja Drygalla; was defended on the grounds that she wasn't even associated with the far right group people were moaning about. The author makes a pretty reasonable argument that she was nearly found guilty of guilt by association via her boyfriend. He also makes another reasonable argument: it's not OK to kick people out of the Olympics just because of their political ties. If a person were to come out flat in support of Golden Dawn or whatever, that should be accepted, given we let countries with much worse political parties in charge participate, even ones where membership to a single party is mandatory. You don't see the NK team getting kicked out because they (have to) support a regime that's been raping their people for decades.
|
|
#
¿
Aug 7, 2012 15:38
|
|
|
VideoTapir posted:Foreigners get their ideas about American life from TV and movies. I usually recommend they watch Breaking Bad and Squidbillies for a more accurate portrayal. Your life is like Breaking Bad? I am so loving sorry, you might want to consider moving. I can't particularly think of any movie my life has been like. An even less funny Kevin Smith movie where less happens than usual and the cast is a shade more socially acceptable? IDK. Or perhaps Ferris Bueller's day off except middle income and Ferris plus the wild adventures are just a fantasy of his whitebread best friend. Actually I lie. Just thought of one. Though it was meant for a generation previous to mine, Stand By Me evokes the feeling of childhood where I grew up in the 80s. Anyway I had a point before I started rambling. A big problem with the views foreigners who have never been here have of America is that they think it can be easily encapsulated. Breaking Bad might be like some peoples lives... a very small minority. America is so vast and diverse, it's hard to imagine what it's like unless you live somewhere similarly vast and diverse. India and China come to mind. My state, Texas, often gets vilified for dumb poo poo people out in the boonies do. While I've visited small East Texas towns and have a bit of experience with that kind of behavior, having grown up in big cities; I can't identify with it. In many cases I have more in common with people from a city a thousand miles away than people from a small town a few hundred miles away. But the gulf in culture of cities where I live, deep South metropolises, East and West Coast, etc. are similarly vast.
|
|
#
¿
Sep 30, 2012 22:16
|
|
|
Bruce Leroy posted:I'm continually annoyed and confused by the need for the media and people in general to quantify measurements, numbers, etc. in odd terms, as if the public was completely retarded and couldn't understand quantities like billions of miles and trillions of dollars. We are completely retarded when it comes to quantifying large numbers. We can't count to a million. Forget about imagining what a billion of anything would look like from a gut level with any accuracy. The implication of numbers that large are simply beyond us without significant education, and even then there are limits to our number sense. Dollars to the moon and back is still idiotic though. It's not useful in any way.
|
|
#
¿
Nov 2, 2012 01:28
|
|
|
The thing that pisses me off about people who argue against diversity is that it is provably a good thing in almost every aspect of life. Biologically, a diverse species is far more likely to survive and flourish. To me there's enough evidence of this that it's an inarguable physical reality. Diversity is also useful socially to us humans. I enjoy loving around with computers, am squeamish, and completely opposed to fighting in any war. Lucky for me then that there are people who are not squeamish, so we can have some doctors, and others who are willing to fight in wars. I'm not naive enough to think that I would have the security and quality of life I do without some good old fashioned government sanctioned murder for the sake of power and control. And it's lucky for them people like me are around, because while we need doctors and soldiers we also need IT stooges. Finally, on a philosophical/metaphysical level, diversity is still good. Diversity of thought and experience makes the whole human race stronger. There is room here for all kinds of people, whether they are black, white, creative, or determinedly rational. Yeah, I'd consider a firm filled with only white engineers deficient and I wouldn't invest in it. Engineers aren't good at doing the books. Engineers aren't good at creating advertising campaigns. In fact I know some engineers so I don't trust them with much except the actual engineering and then cleaning out my whiskey shelf in a remarkably short period of time. Similarly, if I were investing in a all-white firm I'd be very nervous. I'd wonder if the firm had the experience to understand what markets other than white people want out of the product or service and whether they know how to market to people with various cultural sensibilities. Today's business world is multi-cultural and white people aren't the biggest market for almost anything, after all. Change the scope from a business to the whole of humanity and I still see this as true. Our diversity in ways of thinking, physical resistances, cultures, traditions, beliefs, ways of framing and communicating issues are all strengths of humanity, not weaknesses. It would be a very sad day in my opinion if we eventually became a completely heterogeneous group and lost some of that uniqueness. On the other hand, calling for different kinds of people to not interact with others and for everyone to stay in their little ethnic/cultural boxes is pure madness. There's only one hard and fast rule of nature: continue to change or die. I know it can be intimidating to step out of your comfort zone, but stasis is literally death. There is no alternative.
|
|
#
¿
Nov 30, 2012 06:02
|
|
|
CrushedB posted:So I guess we really are just dropping the dog whistles now and letting it all out. This was so silly I just feel the need to respond point by point. Thanks for posting it, it really crystallizes a few of my issues with this kind of voter. Feel free not to read any of this. I'm sure I'm preaching to the choir, and at the end of the day I'm only responding for my own amusement and maybe a little practice formulating counter-arguments against this kind of drivel. quote:quote: They are correct. America is one of the richest nations in the world and yet we spend far less money per capita on helping our less fortunate citizens than the average first world country. This is not some philosophical point about teaching someone to fend for themselves vs coddling them. People are starving and homeless in America at this very moment, full stop. It is not academic. If you feel like you can't afford a couple grand out of your 40-50k+ annual salary so that no one is starving on the streets, perhaps you should read some Jesus. Whether you like to admit it or not, you reap the advantages of America having a massive broke underclass, so yes it is partially your social responsibility to help take care of them, even if you don't buy the simple humanitarian argument. quote:I’ve been outvoted by high school and college teenagers, most of whom have yet to develop common sense, let alone the wisdom to direct a great nation. You have not been outvoted by high-schoolers. Most of them are ineligible to vote, dumbass. And the ones that are eligible generally don't. While most college students do not in fact have the life experience that would enable them to lead the US personally, the same is true of the vast majority of the US population. That doesn't make their votes any less valid. It's called Representative Democracy. quote:I’ve been outvoted by women who feel grown-up enough to have sex with their boyfriends and husbands, but want me to pay to prevent the reproductive consequences of their pleasurable activities. Congrats on being sexist. The whole personal responsibility argument is the sole domain of people who feel entitled to tell women how they should treat their own bodies. Reasonable people realize that in caring for the reproductive health of our less fortunate citizens, we help everyone. quote:I’ve been outvoted by Hispanic citizens who want American citizenship granted to their illegal family, while asking me to ignore the fact that their first act as a prospective American was to break the law. How often do you break a law? I would guess once or more a day, and your transgressions are probably less understandable than someone who is simply living and working somewhere without permission. These immigrants are social conservatives BTW. If your party didn't treat them like human garbage because of their nationalities and skin color they'd be a great boon for your social agenda. As it is, you are right to fear their growing influence. It's completely your own fault and the fault of others like you that they are disenfranchised from your movement. quote:I’ve been outvoted by the Obama-phone crowd, who’ve changed Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.’s refrain to, “Free at last. Free at last. Thank God, Obama, life’s free at last.” Yes you have! And speaking as a white dude who is SO loving SICK of you racist, dog whistling assholes who think it's cool to hate on a President for being an uppity negro; I think that's awesome. Did you seriously just use one of the rallying cries of the civil rights movement to make fun of Obama (because he's black)? See, that's really racist and hosed up. quote:I’ve been outvoted by Americans who desire a president that values charisma over character, celebrity over competence, image over integrity and symbolism over substance. Uh, Reagan happened a while ago now.  quote:I’ve been outvoted by people desperate for jobs, but foolishly choosing a president that despises capitalism and the free enterprise system that creates them. Wanting to regulate capitalism does not equal hating it. It's a provable truth that right now the relationship between labor and capital in the US is seriously warped. There have been giant leaps in productivity and profitability and the workers aren't getting a fair slice. This hurts everyone in the long term. Unregulated capitalism is a horrible idea that we've tried before, and anything BUT free enterprise. It's unstable and full of abuses. For example, look at the labor situation in the 1890s, the populist movement of the turn of the 20th century that it inspired, the prosperity of the decades after that, and the great depression, caused in part by a counter-reaction to that. quote:I’ve been outvoted by Americans willing to accept a divided nation under man’s government, rather than a united nation under God. The division is purely of your own making. The whole Liberal values no please don't gently caress the poor and minorities perspective is not just rooted in empathy and humanism. It is also informed by self interest, the understanding that we as a nation are going to sink or swim together. You only acknowledge the personal consequences of these issues. I have to pay for abortions, I don't like women or black people issues, I I I. There's no understanding of societal consequences here, although we are talking about a societal stage. You don't get that in helping the less fortunate members of our society at least meet basic housing/food/healthcare/liberty needs, you are doing a favor for yourself and your children as well. Someone who is not starving, homeless, ill and too poor to receive treatment, or disenfranchised is much less likely to resort to armed robbery, for example. Many of our problems, from crime rates to economic issues, are solely caused by our massive neglected underclass. It turns out, and we know this from experience now; that if you tax the ever loving poo poo out of a population and use that money for massive entitlements so that even your poorest can receive healthcare, good education, and otherwise be comfortable; that crime rates and drug abuse rates drop, productivity rises, and you get a happier, more stable society. If you're not comfortable with the idea of having the ever loving poo poo taxed out of you, that's fine. We could still at least afford to feed, house, clothe, and provide for the healthcare/education of our needy citizens with only moderate tax increases and some cuts to the military industrial complex. It's more than wealth redistribution and more than even a responsibility, whether you consider that responsibility societal, religious, or humanitarian. It is an investment in our future. We are only where we are at today because previous generations were willing to make sacrifices to build up our infrastructure and ease of living. Success does not happen in a vacuum. We need roads to move goods, legislation to ensure businesses treat consumers and workers fairly, a legal system to arbitrate serious disputes. We need to ensure wealth is distributed fairly enough that a large portion of it is in the hands of the people that buy goods, instead of only serving to reinforce the fluctuations of our capital markets.
|
|
#
¿
Nov 30, 2012 20:06
|
|
|
Leon Einstein posted:What the gently caress is wrong with America?! We shouldn't have ANYBODY suffering the streets. I agree. It's completely unconscionable.
|
|
#
¿
Dec 1, 2012 00:19
|
|
|
I don't buy the argument that money is speech. Money is money, and its effects can be quite different from speech. If I give an impassioned speech to my congressman on behalf of some pet issue, I may or may not convince him to help me. If I give him money for support of that pet issue, it's called bribery. Still, if not for the distorting effects of large amounts of money, I'd be cool with people giving it to whomever they want. On principle I respect peoples' right to uphold causes in whatever way they deem fit, whether that be spending a resource like time and effort or something like cash. We just can't ignore the distortions that cash causes when you allow democracy to go up for sale. Basically, whoever has more money gets more speech. It's not only grossly unfair, it threatens the very principles that are the foundation of our country: that each qualified citizen gets a roughly equal say in terms of electing government officials. If I had my say in the matter, people would be allowed to print up as many flyers and signs as they wanted. Blogs or whatever are fine too. That could still cause some distortions, but it's well within the line of individual speech. Hiring ad firms on behalf of a candidate though, or millions of dollars worth of ad time? No. No no no. When you start allowing a small minority with vast resources to have a massively overstated effect on the public discourse, you are harming all those who can or will not do the same.
|
|
#
¿
Dec 19, 2012 22:56
|
|
|
MaxxBot posted:I feel sort of petty as this was written by an eighth grader (more accurately by an eighth grader's parents) but this has to be the most egregious example of talking out of both sides of one's mouth I have ever seen. This chick could show even Mitt Romney a thing or two about how it's done. Huh, there is an argument I've never seen before. Particularly the part where it acknowledges that there are both a baby and bathwater here, then moving that they both need to be thrown out. I assume that is the reason talking out of both sides of your mouth like this is rare. It actually weakens the argument. This person acknowledges that Most Gay People Are Fine then still argues they need to be discriminated against. It opens the reasoning up to a lot of pot-shots. Should men not be allowed women? Sometimes men rape women. Should non-parental adults not be allowed around children? Heck even parents abuse children sometimes. No adults at all maybe?
|
|
#
¿
Feb 27, 2013 16:05
|
|
|
Bruce Leroy posted:So, I guess she's also in favor of preventing the elderly, the physically disabled, and the intentionally (i.e. vasectomy or tubal ligation) or unintentionally (e.g. hysterectomy, testicular cancer, etc.) infertile from marrying, right? Because bigots are logically consistent and totally not hypocrites, right? Besides that, the whole 'institution' that is being so vigorously defended is a fiction and a modern one at that. Love only became a convincing factor very recently, for example. And even then it was Godless for a white dude to marry a Negro.
|
|
#
¿
Mar 11, 2013 01:14
|
|
|
I'm such a nerd. My first instinct upon reading that is to type up about a dozen huge paragraphs about how she is completely missing the point and perverting a much more subtle and nuanced sense of faith than her own.
|
|
#
¿
Jun 3, 2013 02:07
|
|
|
OneThousandMonkeys posted:Where do you start there? I have seriously considered this question for several minutes now, since that sentence is impressively tortured. After careful consideration, I've decided that the only winning move is not to play. That sentence might seem like a remarkable if ugly blacksmith's knot of language, but I'm pretty sure that the intricacy is an illusion and that it's actually just a bunch of crap welded together.
|
|
#
¿
Jul 30, 2013 05:47
|
|
|
I'v always wondered if you can sue someone for slander or otherwise stick it to them for falsely claiming you are an adherent of a certain religion, like Satanism. It's pure and simple character assassination by falsehood: almost no one actually worships the devil. I mean, even BIG CAPITAL S LaVeyan Satanism isn't about worshiping the devil.
|
|
#
¿
Aug 24, 2013 15:35
|
|
|
Patrick Spens posted:One of the key parts of a libel charge is that you need to prove that the person making the libel is knowingly making false statements. Also, you have to show that other people could potentially believe the lie being told. So a libel prosecution against this women would hinge upon her being smarter then she seems, and everyone else being stupid. I figured there was some sort of arcane legal reason why it isn't possible, since you never see it happen. Thanks for the clarification. Honestly, it seems like a pretty good threshold to me, even if it omits this kind of obvious rumor-mongering. Eventually, I think we're going to come to have different values about the value of communication and information, such that pissing in the well as it were will be much more highly frowned upon. It's not a very brave prediction, since the last 200 or so years have been a case study in our advancement when it comes to this sphere. We still have a long way to go though, there's still a lot of tolerated snake oil and quackery out there, to say nothing of all the flat out malicious untruths that get spread around.
|
|
#
¿
Aug 24, 2013 17:30
|
|
|
Yup, that sure is unmitigated tripe that manages to be offensive in every way the author claimed Zinn's opinions are offensive.
|
|
#
¿
Sep 9, 2013 13:34
|
|
|
Bel_Canto posted:Tom Lehrer did once quip that "Political satire became obsolete when Henry Kissinger was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize." Satire still exists, it's just that when the crazies are running the asylum, you cease being able to tell who REALLY wants to eat children. Stick around SA enough and similar things will happen to your sarcasm detection, in my experience.
|
|
#
¿
Sep 18, 2013 21:55
|
|
|
That snowden opinion piece is so off base that you have to laugh. The government was doing hella unconstitutional domestic surveillance among other things that all US citizens had a clear right to know about. Snowden is a hero and a patriot for selflessly exposing the programs at risk to his own life and liberty.
|
|
#
¿
Jun 1, 2014 05:24
|
|
|
I don't object to that lady calling herself a lesbian. I'd probably feel the same way about calling myself bi if some dude happened to worm his way into my heart and pants. At some point you have to be self-aware enough to realize that such a situation starts sounding like really bad fic material though!
|
|
#
¿
Aug 20, 2014 01:32
|
|
|
VideoTapir posted:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=results At a guess I'd say its just an extremely modest proposal. If they are serious, then I'd suggest they need to kill themselves for the same goal of minimizing suffering. Along with every other form of life.
|
|
#
¿
Sep 11, 2015 08:30
|
|
|
Tatum Girlparts posted:I'd love to hear you define second-wave feminism. I tried to write a post disagreeing with this on the grounds that art shouldn't be criminalized as long as no one is getting hurt because it's a dangerous free expression precident and edging really close to thoughtcrime. But then I read what I had written and was horrified. Probably since the particular subject at hand is drawn child porn. So yeah you get this point for free. Because if first they go for the lolis, I for one will be completely silent with absolutely no compunctions.
|
|
#
¿
Nov 1, 2015 12:57
|
|
|
fishmech posted:Also Christian Socialists wrote the original Pledge Of Allegiance This probably belongs more in the rwm thread but I legit find how we program kids with the pledge really loving bad and creepy. It's very minitru-like. It's one thing for an adult to voluntarily utter a pledge of allegiance but forcibly indoctrinating a child to repeat it every morning is super hosed up and an entirely different matter. Do you remember looking around at other kids and seeing blank eyes and blank faces during the pledge? Do you remember how everyone said it exactly the same and put no thought or emotion behind it? We're not building robots for christ's sake. We're (supposed) to be teaching those little people to think critically. I never had an issue saying it as a kid and surely wouldn't as an adult either if the opportunity presented itself but I've come to be really wary of straight up brainwashing and disapprove of doing it to kids.
|
|
#
¿
Nov 17, 2015 00:37
|
|
|
Deport The Irish posted:I remember saying it pretty often as a kid (boy scouts maybe?) but the blank expressions weren't ELITE GOVERNMENT MEMETIC CHEMTRAIL MIND CONTROL. It was a bunch of kids being bored and wanting to get this bullshit over with. Forcing kids to recite a pledge that they are totally uninterested in to the point it becomes reflexive: not creepy or bad at all! It's good to hear a lot of schools don't do this anymore. My public school in the 80s sure as hell had us stand and psuedo-nazi-rally every morning.
|
|
#
¿
Nov 18, 2015 03:40
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ May 10, 2024 06:07 |
|
|
VitalSigns posted:Why would indoctrinating kids in some weird nationalist ritual be any less creepy based on where those kids live I'm pretty sure that was a "libruls" joke. The joke answer is it's because we're hand rubbing jew libruls who love keeping the WASPs down.
|
|
#
¿
Nov 18, 2015 10:57
|
|