Those that you label ‘Bush apologists’ might not be as apologetic as you think. It’s just that the source of debate around here tends to be about the things on which we disagree. For example, this “Bush apologist” dislikes:
Bush’s big spending.
Bush’s deficits.
Bush’s pandering to the religious right.
Bush’s position on stem cells.
Bush’s position on cloning.
Bush’s prescription drug benefit.
Bush’s stupid stategy for debating social security.
Bush’s tariffs.
Many other things about the Bush administration.
In fact, there’s not much about the Bush administration I do like, and if I were an American I would be ready to vote for a credible alternative in a second.
The problem I’d have is that the Democrats aren’t credible. The Democratic party has far too many socialists, anti-globalization fanatics, doves, and general economic illiterates to make them a party I’d be comfortable with at the best of times. Thus, I wind up taking the ‘Bush position’ on this board most of the time, and get labeled a ‘Bush apologist’. Then I can be sneered at by the likes of elucidator.
If I were on a real ‘Bush apologist’ board, I’d be the anti-Bush guy in the crowd. I only look like a ‘Bush apologist’ here because some of the main posters on the board are so far over in the left-wing fringes. I can disagree with certain details of the Guantanamo Bay prison, but when someone comes along and calls it a ‘Gulag’, guess which side I’m going to be on? I can admit that the evidence for WMD was flawed, but when someone like Charlie Rangel says that the Bush Administration’s WMD arguments were exactly the same as the Holocaust, guess which side I’m going to be on? I’m perfectly willing to admit that the Bush administration is flawed, but when debating with someone who continually screams, “BUSHITLER!”, guess which side I’m going to be on?
In short, if you don’t want some of us to behave like ‘Bush apologists’, you might want to stop behaving like anti-Bush wild-eyed fanatics. Then we might be able to find some common ground.
I go now to the river, to perform the Ancient Tasmanian Rite of Self-Abasement, accompanied by a Chorus of Bitter Virgins, intoning dirges of Woe and Humiliation…
Bah. I swore to myself that I wouldn’t get involved in this debate. Too late now, I guess…
Well, maybe not. This is mostly a debate about facts, so if you don’t get that the question is about intent rather than objective reality, it could be confusing. Observe for example his response to me.
Philosophically I’m inclined to agree, but how would this work in practice? The money should only reach those whose incomes are below some level, and who are also working. Easy so far, but should the amount be a flat sum per hours worked, or should it scale by income? In the former case, there’s a zone above the poverty line where workers benefit from lower wages; in the latter, employers can lower wages and trust the government to pick up the slack. The second is spiritually similar to the minimum wage, but the government ends up directly paying the entire wage, instead of indirectly paying the difference between the wage and the local market value of common labor.
Is there a way out of this?
Post-preview on-topic aside: I’ve found this board sharply libertarian compared to the rest of the internet, and sharply anti-Bush. These two tendencies seem to feed on each other. As Sam Stone points out, Bush is about as anti-libertarian as it’s possible to be without vanishing entirely from US politics, so an extra helping of outrage is natural. On the other side, I think some dyed-in-the-wool Democrats (including me) are discovering that they could live with some cuts to their favorite social programs if only the government would quit doing stupid ideological shit, and so have spent the last five years listing libertarian.
Oh, I see, Sam, it’s really all our fault. When led into a war under false circumstances, we should place our tea cups down firmly onto the table and restrain ourselves to a polite “tsk, tsk!”. When they wrap a flag around a turd and tell us its chocolate, we are obliged to salute and eat, with a respectul “Yummy, yummy, please, sir, can I have another?”
Besides which, did anyone mention your name? You come out with guns blazing, to piss and moan about being “sneered at by the likes of elucidator”. Seems to me, first person to make this personal is you.
Making a big hairy-ass whoopity whoop about the use of the word “gulag” is nothing but a diversionary tactic. Who cares about semantic correctness? What is happening in Gitmo is wrong, whether I refer to it as a “gulag” or a “happy fun time permanent summer camp”.
I don’t care how rudely you tell me the truth, I got my faults, and its a long list, but “delicate” ain’t on it. And I don’t care how politely you defend the men who wipe their ass with my flag. I will not pretend that such positions are worthy of respectful consideration, that would degrade the value of such respect.
If I tell a lie, Sam, Pit me. Failing that, bite me.
To be fair luc, you suggested that there weren’t intelligent sensible conservatives on the board lately. That pretty much means that you were calling out any and all recent conservative posters.
On the contrary, they were utterly dependent on government suppression (either directly or via selective non-enforcement of the usual laws against violence) of the nascent labor union movement.
Aaaaaw, ya poor thang, you. Quaint to see all that righteous indignation pouring forth from an avowed chikenhawk such as yourself.
How about you quit spouting platitutes and building strawmen and put your ass on the line? Not like they could use the help of any number of members from the 101st Keyboard Brigade U.S. Army slips further behind recruiting goals
It’s based on the same principle - “everyone deserves $5.15 per hour regardless of their productivity” is an example of the same kind of thinking as “he deserves a job, so hire him regardless of if he will do anything or not”.
It is an attempt to get you to address Bricker’s question, which you have consistently declined to do.
Well, since I haven’t said this, and don’t believe it, you are apparently setting up a strawman.
Because, as above, it is an example of the same kind of thinking that you seem to be espousing. And also a further attempt to get you to address the point that Bricker brings up, and which you would apparently like to avoid.
I suspect your nonsense about not knowing the difference between coerced wealth redistribution and wages is an instance of your pretending to be more stupid than you are.
Since you stated clearly
you apparently do understand the difference, and are attempting an argument from ignorance.
No, I had mentioned wages as an exchange of value, but again, you seem to be attempting the “your argument is invalid because I refuse to understand it” line of reasoning.
Nope, your later quote shows that you are being (apparently deliberately) obtuse. Wages are an exchange of value - both parties benefit. Both parties do not benefit from MW laws.
Well, no, you are basing your analysis at least in part on the remarkably silly idea that businesses cannot possibly adjust their labor demands to the cost of hiring workers. Which comes, frankly, under the heading “Too Ridiculous To Require Much Refutation”.
I know. These are difficult, often counter-intuitive ideas.
The great mistake in economics is similar to the great mistake in ecological biology - the hope that you can do just one thing. You can’t. Actions have reactions. People adjust to the changes in the market. And you can’t force them not to.
Again, here you are just making shit up.
I said, not that the market ought to be amoral, but that it is. Remember the part about gravity? Same idea - it matters not at all that I am a wonderful human being; if I jump out of a fifth-story window, the law of gravity dictates (all other things being equal) that I will fall. Maybe I really deserve to live. Maybe I am a week away from curing cancer. It doesn’t matter. The law of gravity is amoral.
Same thing with the market. Maybe I really deserve a job. If my labor is worth less than the going rate, anyone who hires me is going to lose money in the long run.
Not really. I mentioned earlier that only a tiny minority of US workers earn MW. Practically everyone makes more than that. If you think eliminating the minimum wage is going to cause demand for most workers in the US to collapse, I suspect you know as little about economics as you are demonstrating in this thread.
“For themselves” in the sense of “the people most directly affected, on their own behalf, and without external coercion”.
No, in the case of the open market you do get to decide individually, and it is hardly anarchic.
Unless you are expecting your Congressman to decide where you will do your shopping, find you a job, fix your salary by legislation, and generally decide everything for you.
This is mere hand-waving, dismissing arguments you cannot otherwise counter.
I have already mentioned more than once that no one argues this. Your restatement of it as if nothing had been said is more evidence of willful ignorance.
Back to this crap again, are we?
Put it this way - what factors do you believe will affect “the supply of workers”? Is this also something that never changes, no matter what?
So is it your contention that the run-up to war IS exactly the same as the Holocaust? That Guantanamo bay IS the same as the Gulag? If so, then you’re freaking nuts. If not, then your whole point is a non-sequitur. I was talking about extreme characterizations on your side, and you managed to turn it around into yet another tedious anti-war rant. You’re a boring one-trick pony, you are.
Oh, no. You were quite clever in your rhetoric. By claiming there are a only a couple of intelligent conservatives here, you can smear everyone, but if anyone in particular calls you on your cheap shot, you get to play the, “don’t make this personal - I wasn’t talking about YOU” game. Your shabby rhetoric is just too transparent.
Yeah, it’s just semantics. No harm done. As I was saying, the left-wing people that oppose Guantanamo Bay are just like Jeffrey Dahmer. I’ll bet you eat people, don’t you? Your cannibalistic, mass-murdering ways make me want to puke. And besides, since you oppose war you probably would have appeased Hitler, you Nazi-Loving, people-eating, mass-murdering monster.
Oh, and if you don’t agree with me, you’re a Saddam apologist. I’ll bet you like gassing minorities for kicks.
Really? You sure took offense quickly to my one-line comment.
Nah, I’d rather just not consider your opinion at all.
Nostalgia? Is the war over? Seems like the military could, now more than ever, use the physical help of many of those who fomented support for the war, yet remain comfortably at keyboards, in front of cameras or behind desks now. Never too late, and all that.
What’s this, the Chewbacca Defense? Heads, I win, tails, you suck?
Well, maybe you should go pound burdocks, that way, even if you’re not entertained, your mind will be occupied.
Point of fact, I was called on it. I bought it, “misdemeanor snark”, being the phrase. “It’s a fair cop, but Society is to blame.”
Well, I wasn’t. See the word “Sam” anywhere? Take your time, pull your thumb out and scratch your head, if it will help you concentrate.
If I speak ill of an undefined group, say, the set of all pink and puckered, and you choose to include yourself as a member of that set, that’s no skin off my green binach. You know, the Lakota have a saying: you throw a rock at a pack of dogs in the dark, the one that’s hit, barks.
Can something be both shabby and transparent? Other than that lacy teddy you wear when you want to pick up an extra $20 at the Motel 6?
Yes, it is. Harm done? Perhaps, but a trivial matter, of puny consequence. The evil done is significant, the labels applied to it is chickenshit. Tell you what, when the stench of this debacle is finally washed away from our honor, then we can argue about the precisely correct phrase. Because then it will be over, and such piddling concerns can be addressed as if they mattered.
I fear it will not be soon. I know it won’t be soon enough.
Well, yeah, Sam, tres duh! That’s my name, you called me out by name, it makes a difference. You do grasp that, right?
You keep saying this shit. What, is it Cher’s Farewell Tour XVIII? Well, listen, Sam, ya know, a man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do whacka do. If you feel compelled to such an extreme, I can only hope to find the strength to go on. It will be hard, at first, but someday, perhaps……cue karaoke version of “Don’t Cry for Me, Argentina”…
Shodan, I’d like to continue the discussion, but the arrogant sniping by xtisme is really getting annoying, and the whole thread seems to be breaking down anyway. (Plus, you seem to be getting a little angry) So thanks - enjoyed hearing your opinion. Bye.