THANK YOU DECEMBER! I knew that one of the enlightenment biggies had come up with it. I’m going to have to brush up on my Acton. For the record, I’m a Hobbesian, Thomas, not the Tiger, and a Calvinist, predestination, not the boyish friend of the Tiger. I think if you folks read Leviathan by Thomas Hobbes, you will discover that there is a consistent philosophy that matches my posts exactly.
As for liking the bluesy Eric Clapton, Grateful Dead and Allman Brothers (live albums), there is no law against that, and it isn’t that Satanistic rock crap or hip hop. There is nothing inconsistent there, if that was what you were going for **Minty Green[/]. I presume, counsellor, that you were attempting impeachment by past prior inconsistent statement. (Not bad for a carpenter, huh? My fiance went to law school and I heard no end of this). But let’s go for the second year trifecta, shall we: impeachment must not be on a collateral matter, so not only are you not correct on electric blues being rock, but the matter is ruled entirely inadmissible and potentially confusing to the jury as not on the subject of politics at all. Sustained! Move on counsel!
I hate these pesky people who try to fool me with their absurd positions. It’s really annoying when I post a blistering half-page screed about his fallacious conservative nonsense, only to be told I’m a poor reader and a knee-jerk poster! I’d prefer to keep that kind of thing under wraps – It’s like a sting for morons! All I want is a little protection from this board, we’re I pay my sweat and toil – all I have is my opinion. Who is taggert to come in with his crafted, erudite posts and make my opinions look bad!
I say, keep the SDMB safe for the witless. Here’s my chocolate for the $20.
It’s about compassionate conservatism and character Alessan. Conservatives don’t have fundamental changes in who they are because they are already good people. And unless I was “whooshed”, Scylla’s was a statement of support for talking about the issues and not making ad hominem’s, n’est pas?
Hey! Ace0Spades word up from your mother’s uncle *****r! Your post looks suspiciuosly like sarcasm to me. That isn’t allowed around here. No troll posts!
They suspect me of sarcasm and have been trying to martyr me all day over it. But as you noticed, I am erudite, crafted, etc., and well read. Some of them right now are dusting off their copies of Leviathan and finding out that I am dead serious and are about to have the political awakening of their lives. See, these guys spend all day posting here on the SDMB and don’t get out in the real world and realize that America is filled to the brim with Hobbesians, not Lockians or Rousseauians. Then they will decide whether to be with us or against us. And you know what? I think they will decide to be with us. MMMMmm chocolate. Single malt. Liberals frightened by Ann Coulter. America is a great country.
More Potty Mouth Counsellor? I didn’t testify that I’m a lying son of a bitch, that is your argument and apparently all of your argument. Impeachment for purposes of showing that someone is lying and a son of a bitch must be on something directly relevant. Sustained, and your exception is noted (do they still do exceptions? I haven’t seen this since Perry Mason).
And now for lawyer jokes:
A: How can you tell when a lawyer is dead?
Q: They are lying still.
Q: Why do they bury lawyers 20 feet deep?
A: Because deep down they are really good.
Having bested the serpent creature at its own game (again), the humble wood smith takes a bow.
When the ban sarcasm – only criminals will have sarcasm. We’ll have drive by sarcasm in your kids’ school – and the security guard? Unarmed with sarcasm. I say arm kids with sarcasm, as young as 13. Hell, my dad taught me how to wield hot irony when I was 12. Put one hell of a hole in his Ford.
You know what I recommend for martyrnizing yourself, taggert, is to tell 'em to back off with this line: ‘stop whaling on the injun, white devils!’ That always calms the argument, I’ve noticed.
Oh, and what do you call a bus half full of lawyers going off a cliff?
I’ve treated no one here “like an asshole” with the possible exception of Minty Green, whom I have treated very gently by comparison to how Minty Green has treated me.
As for a bit full of myself, I am guilty as charged and I repent. I’ve been on a sick day and defending myself and at least holding my own against all comers and for the viewing benefit of those who have pulled up lawn chairs, so I kinda let it go to my head. We’ve just got to take it day by day, post to each thread one at a time and play for the conservative team like my heroin Ann Coulter.
Please, please, moderators, don’t ban Taggert. He’s as funny as Dave Barry, and the way he gets all the selfrighteous venom flowing on both political sides is even funnier. Jeeze, if you people can’t tell when you are being whooshed, and whooshed by a worldclass expert, I dunno what this board will come to.
Anybody who thinks that you have to put up a big sign saying "BEWARE OF THE SATIRIST! " deserves to be made fun of, which Taggert is doing a beautiful job of.
Is a thread in Great Debates where I have participated, and I’m sorry I don’t know how to correctly link threads, I’ll try below, but I think you will see from there that not only do I post a consistent position with myself, but a number of other posters agree with the same general proposition that innocent people will be locked up. Now they don’t take it to its logical conclusion the way I do, but one must have the courage of one’s convictions or one really is just a superficial poser.
While I will admit my own ambivalence about Taggert (as far as the satire/ earnest comments), posts like the above are simply so blatantly untrue that believing otherwise is almost incomprehensible to me.
Anyone who has been to Mexico, for example, (there are states that are worse than others, like Jalisco or Michoacan) has seen billboards set up by American companies (like IBP) with open work offers. The companies have buses that run back and forth across the border, and promise potential ‘illegal immigrants’ a good wage, health care, schooling for their children, and a place to live. To repeat: American companies solicit undocumented workers to come and work in America.
Of course, once the person/ family arrives in Storm Lake, Iowa, or any other small (usually industrial or agriculturally-based) town, they find that the promises of health care, a fair wage, healthy work environment and schooling do not materialize; the small towns are not prepared to fulfill their needs; they may not have the means to provide their children with schooling. The company has no reason to fulfill their own promises; they have no obligation to provide them with standard work benefits (40-hour work weeks, fair pay…)
Of course, not all ‘illegal immigrants’ come here because of the advertising of American companies; but as of the last time I did research on such figures (about 4 years ago) about 95% of illegal immigrants enter this country on (work) visas, visits, etc., and simply stay. The idea of building a wall along the border would stop a tiny fraction of immigration at best.
In addition, with such a harsh economic perspective, Taggert, I would think you would be aware that just because the US has a minimum wage (5.15, yes?) does not mean that all employees receive it. Many migrant farm workers, factory and sweatshop workers simply do not, and Americans benefit with lower costs for said goods. For example, if all the workers who harvest fruits and vegetables were paid the minimum wage (and, incidentally, were eligible for the benefits of social security, unemployment, etc… that other tax-payers are - and often illegal immigrants do indeed pay taxes) a trip to the grocery store would be more costly.
In my own experience, most companies, while claiming that they would never hire undocumented workers, often do, especially in the food service/ hotel industries (again, in my job experience). I have worked at several hotels; without exception, all of the line chefs, dishwashers and housekeepers were of Hispanic descent. The bosses, the head chefs, the head housekeeper, were not. Because these workers have a constant fear of losing their jobs (being discovered as undocumented, though the businesses often know as much), they are willing to put themselves in danger without complaint. One line chef gashed his hand while chopping vegetables, but he refused to go to the hospital, saying that if the head chef found out he had missed work, he would be fired.
The idea that illegal immigration would cease, or greatly decrease if the minimum wage were eliminated is simply delusional. There are people, both illegal and otherwise, that continue to work in the US without earning the minimum wage.
Prove me wrong if I’m a crazy [insert hyperbolic description]. Prove to me that American companies don’t recruit undocumented workers to increase their profit margins. Prove to me that all illegal immigrants earn the minimum wage and would therefore be dissuaded to come to America were they to no longer. Rather than decry and tattle on those who ‘personally attack you,’ back up what you say.
How does my fiance going to law school make me a “girl”? First of all, let’s be a little PC here. Girls do not get engaged, women do. Second, “women” (she who “woos” the man) are allowed to go to law school.
I’m a man!
Da da da da DA!
Well over the age of 21
Dum dum dum dum DUM! …
I think that you make some good points. I had adopted the argument that one of my detractors made about illegal immigrants without researching the back up on it because it made sense, and I wanted to respond with a “yeah, what of it” argument. I admittedly do not have the figures to back that up. But here is how I am going to wiggle out of it: (and this is worthy of the Master himself)
This thread isn’t a free for all debate for all comers to challenge me on any subject, but was a response to a moderator who accused me of being a trolling satirist early this morning (I hope not to devote tomorrow to this thread), and the subject of the thread is whether I am a big bad troll satirist. Many here have argued that I am and as such I should be banned into the outer void with Melkor who is called Morgoth (stolen from Tolkien, not a poster if there is one by such a name), but those with opinions closest to mine (such as the insightful december have accepted me as their own. Other posters have insisted that even though they believe I am a parodist, that I should be kept because I am so wonderfully funny that they have “spit their drinks onto their monitors” and been the victim of “raining shits and giggles” (points for imagery there). Many just find me annoying and wish I would stop: these posters keep repeating themselves over and over, sometimes amassing four to six thousand of these drive by posts, looking on like rubber neckers at a bloody motorway collision while professing to abhor blood and gore. I personally abhor Gore (couldn’t resist). The truth is that I represent the silent majority of Americans in my unqualified support of my President, and that I am serious about my conservatism.