I believe that the philosopher Karl Popper put it best, when addressing the issue of “tolerating the intolerant”:
One thing people need to understand before arguing policy is that your particular anecdotes are meaningless to a large question.
There are currently 4.6 job seekers for each available job. Think about that for a second. Does that suggest to you that some number of out of work people are going to be out of work for a long time to come?
Attacking the out of work as lazy or indigent is a profoundly ignorant thing to do. We’re in a terrible recession. Just because you’re okay, doesn’t mean that everyone who is doing less well than you is lazier than you.
Villa, I was thinking that every company along the food chain has an HR department, and accountants, and IT people, and salesmen, and CEOs, etc etc. Many of these people would be unnecessary if everything were owned by the government.
How about you actually state your ideas instead of handing out homework? You advocate a fringe view. Policy should be based on what mainstream economists believe. Not some ideological types throwing shit from the sidelines.
And one thing other people need to understand before they argue policy is that day-to-day experiences matter far more than policy papers.
That may be the disconnect in our views.
Maybe you are using “force” in a different sense than I think. But I am not aware that we fought any wars over gender equality, or that suffragettes got the vote by beating people up.
I disagree. I would say that many of the gains made in the civil rights movement of the 60s came about because people realized that black people were really being treated badly, and that Jim Crow was indeed a horror. And ISTM that the non-violent MLK Jr. did more to bring this about than any number of Black Panthers or the Nation of Islam. Sure, there were riots, but not race wars, nor would a race war have done the trick. YMMV.
This, I think, is rather badly overblown. Your side lost an election - nobody beat you up. And frankly, this stuff about how Republicans will do anything to win and are so corrupt and all that is just bullshit, and based on the fallacy of attribution.
It is unpopular to say it on the SDMB, but it is dead on true - Democrats are no better, no less corrupt on average, no more committed to altruistic principle, than Republicans.
You’ve been reading too many threads in the Pit, where the high-minded and noble liberals are wishing that I die in a fire because I voted for a Republican. :rolleyes:
Sure - any number of things. Say for instance - abortion.
I want Roe v. Wade overturned, because it is an unwarranted power grab by the Court. So, we overturn it, and put the power of determining whether or not abortion should be allowed into the hands of the states. Those states who want to keep abortion legal can do so - those that don’t, don’t have to.
Are you willing to compromise on that? If not, what are you willing to give up?
And if the answer is 'Nothing, we don’t have to give anything up" maybe the unwillingness to compromise isn’t all on one side.
Regards,
Shodan
You owe it to the board to educate yourself a bit before you make these kinds of false statements.
Regards,
Shodan
Will the aftermath of a terrible recession make my good buddy Shodan stop picking nits and start addressing the meat of the thread?
This is why I think the left should use the term “disparity” instead of “inequality.” We know what a disparity is, & it can be greater or lesser.
That would be more accurate, but since we are now in GD, I would prefer to discuss the OP with less joking around.
Regards,
Shodan
And now that we’re in GD, I really don’t want to participate. It always ends just like Sam Stone said it does. No matter what’s said, the liberals will dress it up like a caricature they have in their heads and then proceed to beat down that straw man.
Take, for example, davidm’s comments in the Pit thread that spawned this one. I say I don’t want to give my money to other people. He calls me a total sociopath. So I ask for some of his money. He then claims that has nothing to do with what he said. It should be painfully obvious to any honest, mentally functional adult reading this that, yes, I’ll pull you out of a river if you’re drowning. Sure, I’ll help you pick up something you dropped or hold the door for you. But I’m not going to give you any of my money.
That exchange is a perfect microcosm of why it’s pointless to answer OPs like this one. I’ll lay out a simple, sane viewpoint and I’ll get called a “totally self-centered sociopath”. When called on the hypocrisy of such a statement, it’s meant with feigned ignorance (“doesn’t have anything to do with what I said”) and insults (“is that what you call proper debating technique?”).
Maybe it’s skewed because it started in the Pit. But you are probably right.
Maybe after the rancor over the elections dies down.
Regards,
Shodan
You demonstrate a misunderstanding of the term, “per se.” If economic growth were good in itself, axiomatically, then constant inflation through the printing of money would be ideal. But if economic growth is good because of some other purpose, such as increasing the general standard of material culture, than growth as such can be slowed for the sake of other processes that work in the interest of that other purpose.
So you’re saying that you don’t believe in any statistics, or just this one?
Why should one’s state of residence determine whether one has the right to get an early-term abortion? Why do you invest the amateur politicians in Albany, Austin, Little Rock, Sacramento, & Oklahoma City with the right to say when life begins?
It doesn’t matter, of course. If abortion is outlawed, it will be violence that does it; the murders of abortion providers are the greatest power your side has going for you. Political power flows from the barrel of a gun. Even M. Gandhi & M. L. King used violence, they just used the violence against them instead of their own.
But of course you don’t believe that. You’re a conservative, you believe in tradition. But Confucius would have been nothing without someone to kill in his name.
IOW, “exposed to the light”. Don’t kid yourself.
I have to strongly disagree with that notion. You are only one person, out of 300 million in this country. You might be very smart, and very observant, but what you do observe is only a very tiny fraction of what is actually going on. The entire purpose of statistics is to pool together as much information as possible, to get a look at the bigger picture.
Imagine a neighbor who is pondering whether to start smoking tobacco, and is asking for your advice about whether that’s a good idea. He tells you that he believes smoking is harmless, because his grandfather lived to be 100 while smoking two packs a day. Would you believe that he drew the correct conclusion just from his personal experience about the health risks of smoking, or would you point him to the thousands of scientific studies showing a link between smoking and lung cancer?
I find it amusing that you’ll argue when it suits you that government control cuts down on the administration costs of something.
How far back will you go on this? Is Marbury v. Madison an unwarranted power grab by the Court? Are you in favor of that being overturned?
Oy, this is the kind of statement that takes us away from rationality. I don’t know anyone who is against abortion because doctors are being killed (for abortion to become illegal it will require votes). I’d love to see a cite that says otherwise. How many abortion providers are killed each year?
Binarydrone, you might want to read the above before you decide that the only people who won’t compromise are conservatives.
Regards,
Shodan
The pro-choice position is the one of compromise. If you think abortions are okay, you can have one. If you think abortions are bad, you are free to not have one.
The pro-life side seeks to utterly rob people of the option.