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| Author |
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| 25 new of 176 responses total. |
rcurl
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response 69 of 176:
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Mar 13 05:44 UTC 2006 |
Re #57: those liberal concepts have been put forward very strongly by most
Democratic leaders.
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klg
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response 70 of 176:
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Mar 13 11:51 UTC 2006 |
I definitely believe that RW is a "typical liberal" - meaning a person
with good intentions, but who fails to consider his "more government
can just solve the problem" beliefs against (1) the realities of human
nature and (2) the realities of history.
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twenex
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response 71 of 176:
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Mar 13 12:43 UTC 2006 |
Being lectured by a right winger on the "realities of history". Or of anything
else, actually. Now I've seen everything.
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jep
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response 72 of 176:
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Mar 13 13:59 UTC 2006 |
re resp:66: Richard, orthodoxy doesn't do much for me. I know what
most liberals want, in broad outlines, as well as you do. What is more
interesting to me, is why they want it, or better yet, why *I* should
want it.
It can be done that someone presents an argument that's so reasonable
and well thought out that I will change my opinion. I have done so on
several topics, at least in part as a result of things I've discussed
on Grex or M-Net. I changed my position on the death penalty, and all
of my opinions on gay rights, directly because of discussions in which
I participated here. I've gone in the other direction, too. I used to
be wishy-washy about abortion but I'm solidly against it now.
I hope you don't decide to view it as a personal attack, but I haven't
been persuaded that much by any of your arguments as of yet. For one
thing, it is awfully hard to convince me I said (or think) the opposite
of what I wrote. For another, it is almost as hard to just state the
opposite of what I believe -- for example, that conservatives *MUST* be
in favor of minimum wage, or for abortion -- and get much out of it.
And for a third, it's not convincing to me when you ignore even the
most obvious and inevitable circumstances which disagree with your
position. I perceive all three of those things happening quite a bit
when you post on political issues.
I agree that you care a lot about your positions. I think you are
pretty aware of what the current political issues. But I think your
positions seem more like blind orthodoxy than considered positions
based on principles and fact. I have never once seen evidence that
you've considered any possible exception to the position mandated by
your side. All of the rest of us (except I think klg) have some
doubts, and some recognition that the other side has points, too. How
can you ask anyone else to think about what you are saying when you
refuse to think about what they say?
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cyklone
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response 73 of 176:
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Mar 13 14:16 UTC 2006 |
Richard says "cyklone you attack me as not presenting important liberal
ideas." Ummm, no. If you would learn to read, you'd see I said you had a
problem presenting COHERENT liberal ideas. Oh what a difference a word
makes. You have a made "word" mistakes several times this past month.
There's a pattern there you may want to look at. In fact, if you actually
set aside your emotions for a minute and take the time to read what I
wrote, you'd see I was criticizing the FORM of what you say, not the
substance. Do you even recognize that when you botch the form part, the
substance part gets short shrift?
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happyboy
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response 74 of 176:
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Mar 13 19:08 UTC 2006 |
klg: what are the realities of human nature? tell me.
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albaugh
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response 75 of 176:
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Mar 13 22:35 UTC 2006 |
> You want the lower paid workers to make more money while those on the upper
> end of the scale make the same or less.
I don't know who the "you" is there, but this is the typical trick of giving
away other peoples' money. It works so well that there are communist states
all over the world, thriving. Oh wait...
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twenex
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response 76 of 176:
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Mar 13 22:36 UTC 2006 |
That's right. Only rich people deserve to make money.
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twenex
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response 77 of 176:
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Mar 13 22:41 UTC 2006 |
Or be allowed to get sick, then better.
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albaugh
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response 78 of 176:
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Mar 13 22:41 UTC 2006 |
Who said that?
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twenex
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response 79 of 176:
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Mar 13 22:44 UTC 2006 |
That's the logic of drivelly, self-serving whining about "giving away other
people's money."
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albaugh
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response 80 of 176:
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Mar 13 22:51 UTC 2006 |
Maybe to your lack of comprehension. But you've made it clear which way you
lean. Must come from years of having The Dole.
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marcvh
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response 81 of 176:
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Mar 13 22:58 UTC 2006 |
No, it's just a false dilemma of presenting things in extremes. There are
societies, both present and past, that tried too hard to take money away
from the rich to give to the poor, and they ended up not working as a result.
There are also societies that try too hard to let the rich keep everything
and the poor die in the gutter (sometimes literally) and they don't work
either.
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twenex
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response 82 of 176:
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Mar 13 22:58 UTC 2006 |
No, it comes from years of having compassion.
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happyboy
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response 83 of 176:
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Mar 13 23:08 UTC 2006 |
hey, congrats!
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twenex
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response 84 of 176:
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Mar 13 23:08 UTC 2006 |
Marc slipped.
The usual rightwing response to the idea of giving money to the government
to look after the poor and needy is that the responsibility of giving it
should be left to the individual, and the responsibility of distributing it
should be left to charities. Quite obviously, however:
A. If you're going to be giving it away anyway, why shouldn't the money go
from the citizens to the government to the needy, instead of from citizens
to charities to the needy? The government is elected and can be called to
account for misspending money. Charities either can't, or if they can it's
a lot harder to prosecute 1,000 bent charities than 500-odd bent politicians.
B. If the worry is that politicians are immune from prosecution, change the
law so they aren't immune to prosecution for laundering money. Again, a lot
easier than prosecuting an indeterminate number of charities.
C. Given A and B, the obvious conclusion to draw is that those who want the
government "stopped from spending 'their' money" aren't the slightest bit
interested in providing for the poor and the sick, and are just using that
argument, in the full knowledge that it's a pile of crap, in the hope that
some poor, naive devil will buy it and allw the rich to make even MORE money
whilst the poor struggle harder to make even less.
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slynne
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response 85 of 176:
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Mar 14 00:16 UTC 2006 |
resp:75 The "you" in that statement was richard since it was his comment
I was addressing. It has nothing to do with giving away other people's
money. Creating a society where wealth tends to be distributed a bit
more evenly isnt any more artificial than creating a society where
wealth is concentrated in the hands of a few. This country already has
some good laws designed to make things a little more egalitarian (labor
laws, anti-trust laws, etc).
There are a lot of good reasons for this, imho. Societies where most
people have enough money to have decent housing, food on the table, an
education, and a few luxuries tend to be more stable than societies were
the wealth is concentrated into the hands of a few and everyone else is
dirt poor. I was thinking about that while watching the movie The
Constant Gardiner which takes place in Kenya (which by African standards
is pretty stable). One of the characters asks another if his wife had
chosen to drive back from a town on the other side of the country and
his reply is, "I hope not, that is bandit country." Poverty breeds that
kind of crime. When you have a society with a very rich upper class, a
small middle class and a large underclass, crime becomes a big problem
for the rich and middle classes. And crime costs money, probably more
than something like a minimum wage. Because one way or another the
people with money will find themselves paying through the nose to deal
with it. Either with large taxes to pay for police protection and
prisons or by simply dealing with the costs of the crime, eg not being
able to drive home. Never mind the public health costs incurred when
people live in seriously poor conditions. TB breeds in poverty but the
rich are not immune.
FWIW, I think that capitalism and free markets are decent enough systems
but not if they are totally unregulated. Because if you have a free
market, it generally wont stay free for long as large corporations take
the natural path of concentrating wealth and trying to make themselves
monopolies. It isnt just the government that is a danger to free
markets.
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twenex
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response 86 of 176:
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Mar 14 00:31 UTC 2006 |
I agree entirely.
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richard
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response 87 of 176:
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Mar 14 00:48 UTC 2006 |
#73 cyklone, these are casual posts you and I and everyone else are
making. It is a mistake to dissect them as you would dissertations or
something. I'll admit to making word errors, I type fast and sometimes
I forget things I've posted in earlier posts. But who doesn't do that
in casual conversation? What annoys me is when suddenly you can't post
a thing without it being fact checked on google and wikipedia and
analyzed for word format and judged for intonation. These are CASUAL
posts.
Last week I made a casual post where I appeared to misstate jep's
position. Instead of accepting it as at most either a
misinterpretation (which by the way it was) or a simply an honest
misstatement, jep jumps down my throat, calls me liar repeatedly as if
I have committed some cardinal sin against him. I took it out against
him, because I don't like being attacked. But neither his reactions
nore mine were necessary.
These posts aren't becoming pleasant, not when they get overanalyzed
and oversubjected to righteous indigination over the littlest things.
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drew
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response 88 of 176:
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Mar 14 01:25 UTC 2006 |
I shall repost a couple of questions pertinant to dealing with poverty:
* What exactly do people want/need money *for*?
* Why do we have a system of work-a-job-for-money-to-buy-stuff?
("Well DUH!!")
Of course I know the answers, or at least *have* answers, to these. But
I want others to formulate answers of their own. These questions must be taken
into account in any effort to help the poor, or the rich for that matter.
Perhaps it will indicate that a Minimum Wage is a good thing. Perhaps it will
indicate that it's a bad thing. But it must start with a solid idea of what
wealth, and poverty, *are*.
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cyklone
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response 89 of 176:
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Mar 14 02:54 UTC 2006 |
Richard, you may not LIKE that your words are being "analyzed" but they
are. And you can't do anything about it. If you want to be politically
active, you either accept that reality or run the risk of doing lots of
damage to your cause. Unfortunately, you given me no reason to believe you
are any different in real life than you are on Grex. And even if you are,
your posts on grex are still damaging.
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slynne
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response 90 of 176:
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Mar 14 03:00 UTC 2006 |
Money is simply a system for people to more easily trade things. This is
especially true for things like labor. All the other complexities of
money are like icing on the cake. Sometimes I think it is best not to
think too much about how lending institutions increase the money supply
or how a fiat currency works. ;)
Why do we have a system of work-a-job-for-money-to-buy-stuff? Well, the
big idea there is that it tends to be more efficient than the
alternatives. I work for a company that sells books. If they paid me in
books, I would have to spend a considerable amount of my time trading
those books for other things that I need. Never mind that the whole
business I work in wouldnt be possible without money.
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tod
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response 91 of 176:
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Mar 14 04:33 UTC 2006 |
* What exactly do people want/need money *for*?
A blowjob
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naftee
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response 92 of 176:
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Mar 14 05:37 UTC 2006 |
roumanian-style
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keesan
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response 93 of 176:
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Mar 14 14:54 UTC 2006 |
In post-breakup Yugoslavia-that-was, people were being paid in things like
cement blocks by nearly broke factories. It was time consuming trading them
for food to people who needed the cement blocks or were willing to trade them
to someone else.
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