I suppose I could have named the school after Diana Moon Glampers, but I feared the reference would be too obscure. Yes, very true – in the short story, Bergeron is the one who throws off his socially-imposed weights… but he’s also the one killed for doing it. So in the end, if you will, Bergeron does represent compliance with the social directive to not exalt ability, since his reward for doing so was a lethal shotgun blast.
In real life, leftists avoid shotguns; they stick with social pressure to reward mediocrity and punish success.
You left out the part where he proclaimed himself Emperor and manhandled people into doing what he wanted.
Only in the fevered minds of pussy conservatives.
How so? Can you give me an example where a high tax code hindered success? During the period of the highest marginal income tax rate, the US economy experienced its greatest success ever. Under Democratic presidents, the average household income at every income level has been higher than under Republicans (except for the very highest group, which experienced equally high income under Democrats as Republicans).
In short, all you have is fantasies about a scary world of leftists out to get you, and a longing for a Harrison Bergeron at whose feet you can prostrate yourself. Pussy.
Yes, he proclaimed himself Emperor. I don’t know about the manhandling – as I recall the story, he simply offered the dancers the chance to join him. And his “reign” as Emperor was simply an exhibition of what he could accomplish without artificial restraints.
Somehow, I am not in the least surprised that you are on the side of the people that wanted to keep Harrison shackled and handicapped.
Please. The top 1% of income earners pay about 37% of all federal tax dollars, and the bottom 50% of income earners pay less than 3% of all federal tax dollars.
And your reaction to this is to demand that the top earners carry your lazy ass along even more.
I can’t speak for anyone else, but my reaction to this is that, seeing as the top 1% of wealthy Americans hold 34.5% of our collective net worth, while the bottom 50% hold only 1.1% of our net worth, that the top earners could probably stand to pay a little more in taxes, yeah. And I say that as someone who probably squeaks into the top 5% these days; I think my taxes could go up a bit and I’d still consider them perfectly fair.
Also, your quote about tax rates didn’t actually answer Hentor’s question.
And I will, if you promise to continue monitoring this thread and advising, in a neutral way, when one poster doesn’t answer another’s question. You’ll be like, a referee.
No deal. There’s no way I have time for that. After skimming through the last couple pages of this thread, I just found your quote about wealth stats to be annoying, because I’m always annoyed to find someone quoting only half of the “who pays the taxes vs. who has the wealth” equation. Then I was curious about the question that led you to make that comment, and realized that your half-quote-of-the-stats didn’t actually answer it. It was a throwaway line; think nothing of it, if you wish.
But hey, while I’m here: now that the government of Pennsylvania has not only admitted that they have no evidence of voter fraud, but that they have no reason to think that their proposed voter ID laws will affect the frequency of Voter ID crimes, by what mechanism do you think Mike Turzai expects the those laws to win Pennsylvania for Romney?
A stipulation at trial is not a general-purpose admission. At trial, their point is to say, even if there is no evidence of voter fraud, and no reason to think that their proposed voter ID laws will affect the frequency of Voter ID crimes, the law is still permissible, as outlined in Crawford v Marion County.
“The government of Pennsylvania” is not synonymous with “Mike Tarzai.” Perhaps Mike doesn’t agree with the facts in that stipulation.
And it’s a shame you don’t have time. I can think of plenty of posts pointed at me that have utterly failed to address the issues I offered up. Pure bad luck that the one you focused on was one of mine doing the same thing.
Actually, as a person of at least moderate intellect, I was able to read the story as the presentation of two extremes and consider why Vonnegut chose to present them that way. You, apparently, felt compelled to take sides between them. And of course, you fantasized about fellating Harrison, and hoped you would have done it well enough to please him.
I mean, my 17 year old son read the story last year, and was able to recognize that it did not present Harrison Bergeron as a hero. He realized that it may be no more desirable to have a dictator using force to please his own whims. I wonder why you weren’t able to do the same?
Why don’t you just admit you never really read the story? You only heard others talk about the dystopian world of enforced equality. What, did you read the Cliff’s notes to Harrison Bergeron or something.
So you admit that your comment was designed to deceive people?
I’m just checking, because it sounds like you’re admitting that. I want to be sure.
What does this have to do with anything. You think that someone calling your out on your utter bullshit lies and misinformation somehow levies upon them a arbiter tax? “Call Bricker out and you are sentenced to five hours community service.”
That doesn’t seem sane. You’re spouting horseshit lies and people call you on them. If you think someone else is lying, call them on that. It’s a simple process. And pretending you’re being oppressed by the evil liberals who are picking on you just makes you look even weaker than you are.
You know, I have my doubts as to whether you actually laughed like that. I think you might be trying to employ an empty dramatic device.
Who is acting like a Republican? Stupak? Well he was pushing for an absolutely insane government restriction on abortion.
I guess that’s like something a Republican would do. I’m not sure how you’re making a case for hypocrisy when I find actions wrong when both Democrats and Republicans do them.
Do you see how your very stance is stupid and illogical? You’re floundering Bricker. Just because you don’t always get called on your shit, doesn’t mean it isn’t drivel. You’re advocating a position that I’m rigidly partisan based on posts I didn’t make. That’s just stupid and dishonest. But coming from you, it’s hardly unexpected.
The posts I actually make are what you should judge. And unlike you, I don’t craft posts to give me plausible deniability. You constantly point to your disavowing of Republicans who are caught red-handed. But you do it because they are going down anyway, and it gives the illusion that you’re a fair person. If you were actually even-handed, maybe you wouldn’t bring up those few disavowals every time you’re questioned about your motives.
I’ve shown that you’re a liar in this very thread. There is simply no question. I’ve shown that you want to deceive people with nonsense.
You know, that everyone here can see that right? You’re screaming and hoping that volume will make up for content. But this isn’t a Def Leppard concert.
And, once again, you evade the direct question. I asked you about illegal voters. Your answer may very well apply to people who were, until this time, legal and registered voters for years. They aren’t illegal voters, and least not yet.
So, one more time? Are the Democrats currently benefiting from illegal voters? Simple enough question, it would seem. Yet you seem to have such difficulty answering it…
Evidence? Or is this one of those intuitive things?
You’re giving them props for not doing what they couldn’t get away with, but only hampering and hindering voters in ways that are not directly connected to money? Damned white of you!
What? I’m not getting this, unless you are saying that our testimony is rock solid when you find it agreeable, but to be dismissed otherwise? Perhaps you could clarify.
Its what is known as a principled objection. You could look it up. I quite agree, this could very well rebound to their disadvantage. Its still wrong, and not to be accepted by a person of democratic principle. Such as myself.
I was actually asking what you think. Do you think Tarzai disagrees, and actually thinks that the number of fraudulent votes prevented is likely to be greater than the margin between between candidates?
I’ll stare past your misplaced sarcasm for a minute and say straight up: of course it’s not “bad luck.” I focused on the post at the end of the thread I had got around to skimming, and which pinged a particular peeve of mine. And I’m only in this thread at all, because I find the current voter-ID-laws brou-ha-has to be of particular interest. (And, yes, I see things in the same light as most of your debate opponents in this thread, though I’m less apt to levy insults, Pit though this is. I’m a left-leaning moderate who used to be a right-leaning moderate, and whose movement, I believe, is the result of the political landscape lurching to the right in the past decade or so. That makes it even more likely that when I post, I’ll post in defense of left-leaning ideas.)
I don’t have huge amounts of time to read the Dope, let alone post in it, as you can see by my blazing pace of 40 posts per year over the past decade. It’s fairly arbitrary when I decide to post, especially in GD or the Pit. I actually like you as a poster, Bricker, certainly more than most other folks posting here. I request you aim your persecuted-sarcasm gun at more worthy targets.
That is a rather obscure term, as defined by me. If I don’t know what it means, its obscure. For about a second there, I thought it had something to do with lady parts.
You pop in to a shouting match between me and a bunch of liars, shameless assholes, and filthy unprincipled lunatics, and appeal to me to provide an honest opinion. “Yes, let me lace up my gloves, ref; I know the chap on in the other corner is keen for a fair fight. I can’t imagine why he’s rolling his gloves in glue and broken glass.”
In more straightforward terms: you must know Lobohan and Hentor won’t stoop to honesty unless it, purely by happenstance, will help them. Why must I be the only one who is following Queensbury?
No comment on your question. I say only that Tarzai could have thought what I proposed. I’m no mind reader. I don’t know what he thought.
Bricker, that’s not an honest description of this thread. I haven’t lied that I know of in it, and you’ve done little but be dishonest.
And you’ve openly lied about my position on gerrymandering, and when called on it, you invented some bizarre test where I have to prove I’m not partisan… for some reason.
You are capable of telling the truth, so it isn’t something pathological in you, you just choose not to.
Even if Hentor and I were lying, it wouldn’t make you a better person for doing so.
The fact that Hentor and I aren’t lying, makes it even worse. You cry like a child about how you’re being oppressed, but you don’t have the adult dignity to comport yourself in an honest and clear manner.
Yet you presume to know what I think. Funny that.
You lost the debate because you didn’t have the arguments to support it.