[aflurry]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('holmes', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('aflurry', 'I') am thankful I don't have to spend a single minute inside your head.

Must be awful.

[gnm]

Oh, ok, now I see you are just a socialist so I won't bother trying to enlighten you. I suppose you think reparations are a good thing. See how far redistribution will get you in a declining society. I worked my way to where I am and I don't owe jack shit to someone who hasn't. And what exactly is a Mexican if they are not a citizen of Mexico? You never did give me a percentage for how your weird little racist definitions would define who gets to be special....

-G

[PenultimateManStanding]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('I_Like_Plants', 'a')t one time the US public schools were among the best in the world and very good preparation for college

[Zentric]

You are astute, aflurry. Good for you to hang in there. It's sad how, when you challenge someone's angry, unreasoned views - such that they should show gratitude for exposing their fallacies - they instead turn on you, label you inappropriately, and kick up so much dust that no one can then learn anything. It bodes badly for our future, assuming that such a future exists.

I ask everyone:

1) Who is the more socially-destructive, the modern sweet sweeper or the modern CEO?

2) Who of them has the better compensation package, and do you think that the disparity in pay of, say, 1000:1 is fair?

3) Do you figure that the CEO is 1000 times as smart, 1000 times the benefit to society, or works 1000 times as hard?

4) What is that special quality that a CEO possesses that makes him worth his pay? Is it blue blood breeding and education? Or ruthlessness (bottom line sensibility)?

5) Do you feel that a disadvantaged black, brown or white boy growing up in a bad neighborhood has as much chance of being successful as the son of the CEO? And is this fair?

6) If affirmative action were enacted temporarily to help significantly close this opportunity gap, would this, automatically, be a bad thing?

7) Who is more grevously harmed by the lack of progressive taxation in this country - the CEO's son or the street sweeper's son?

8 ) Is the street sweeper's son an animal?

9) Is the CEO's son a prince?

Good for you, aflurry. Those with whom you are arguing only understand 3/8th of the argument. And for the remaining 5/8th of it, they're badly winging it.

Hey, what's up PMS?

[gnm]

Ok, I'll bite - first of all I don't blame anything on Mexicans - heck we buy a lot of oil from em - so if you referring to a "hispanic" or sufficently percentaged one who happens to be a US citizen, well then you are talking to one.

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Zentric', 'Y')ou are astute, aflurry. Good for you to hang in there. It's sad how, when you challenge someone's angry, unreasoned views - such that they should show gratitude for exposing their fallacies - they instead turn on you, label you inappropriately, and kick up so much dust that no one can then learn anything. It bodes badly for our future, assuming that such a future exists.

I ask everyone:

1) Who is the more socially-destructive, the modern sweet sweeper or the modern CEO?

depends - The CEO might be hugely supportive to social causes and give according to his wealth.

2) Who of them has the better compensation package, and do you think that the disparity in pay of, say, 1000:1 is fair?

NO - the modern CEO wages are patently insane - and smack of "Golden parachute" they really have no intention of benifitting anyone (including the company)

3) Do you figure that the CEO is 1000 times as smart, 1000 times the benefit to society, or works 1000 times as hard?

NO - but would you say that someone who has invested 12 years of thier life getting a PHd is say 6 times as smart or provides 6 times the benifit? Who gonna invent fusion, or for that matter who invented solar panels? A street sweeper?

4) What is that special quality that a CEO possesses that makes him worth his pay? Is it blue blood breeding and education? Or ruthlessness (bottom line sensibility)?

they take thier pay through ruthlessness - and should be exposed and reviled.

5) Do you feel that a disadvantaged black, brown or white boy growing up in a bad neighborhood has as much chance of being successful as the son of the CEO? And is this fair?

probably not - what about a disadvantaged white? Do they count? because the original post seemed to think it was ok to get said benefits but only if you were the right color...

6) If affirmative action were enacted temporarily to help significantly close this opportunity gap, would this, automatically, be a bad thing?

OK, so its ok to discriminate against disadvantaged whites but not other colors? hmmmm.

7) Who is more grevously harmed by the lack of progressive taxation in this country - the CEO's son or the street sweeper's son?

Duh - what we really need is equal political power for the street sweeper - like no kickbacks, soft money, or lobbyists...

8 ) Is the street sweeper's son an animal?

depends on whether or not you think humans are animals (c'mon thats gratuitous and doesn't help your argument)

9) Is the CEO's son a prince?

nope - just a trust fund baby who (if he doesn't learn how to work for himself) will probably end up snorting coke and playing golf...

-G

Good for you, aflurry. Those with whom you are arguing only understand 3/8th of the argument. And for the remaining 5/8th of it, they're badly winging it.

Hey, what's up PMS?

[gnm]

Hmm well I kind of screwed that quote response up - but you can read between the lines on the quote to see my response.

Oh btw if libertarians are irellevant then what are greens? Libertarians are the 3rd largest party.

-G

[Budmeister]

I'm a Libertarian myself and don't a problem with legal immigrants. After all wasn't it, "give me your poor, your needy, your hungry"? What I have a problem with is the immigrant that lives and works in the community and sends every dollar he can get his hands on out of the country. Therebye robbing the community he lives and works in. Thats nearly as bad as the welfare leeches that lay on thier asses all day hollering, "You owe me, you owe me". From a Libertarian standpoint, thats fine, you don't want to work, don't work. But don't expect me to feed your lazy ass.

[dmtu]

And that Bud, is why GMNs Libertarian argument isn't against the Libertarian belief system. Point is that we have worked the crap jobs are better for it and moved up the ladder because we were successful at it. I've never had anything handed to me and I don't particularly care to let someone hand what I have earned to another entity that is not of my choice.

[aflurry]

but see there's the rub dmtu:

you didn't earn what you have. if it weren't for the other people in your society you would be rummaging around in the swamps chewing on bark. you give back to the people you live with. it is the price you pay for the roads you drive on, the couch you sit in, even the conversations you have. If you don't then you are the one trying to get a free ride, not them.

I think it goes without saying that you want to prevent abuse in any system. But that is a point of technicalities. And it is a problem that does not deserve the amount of complaining it gets, when compared to the large scale institutional theft perpetrated by these so-called self-made CEO's.


gnm, call me what you want. I used to be interested in that libertarian blather. It has a sort of macho swagger appeal that I liked when I was a teenager and insecure about my own worth. But it is a very abstracted belief system describing some fictional parallel universe where rules and beliefs gain merit based on the intensity with which they are felt, rather than on their relevance to the real world. It now just sounds like alot high rhetoric to justify selfishness. i don't trust the motivations. "Enlightened self-interest" has another name: "self-interest."

I don't even really consider it a belief system anymore, so much as an attempt to repsychologize a general irritability and feeling of resentment. Better to look at why you personally feel so wronged.


now this:

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'Y')ou know, those old Dick and Jane elementary schol books were once a pretty accurate depiction of reality. They really were, why do you think they wrote them the way they did and illustrated them the way they did? They reflected reality and they needed to do that, to show American kids how to read in the context of their own reality and neighborhoods.

[gnm]

I don't feel personally wronged... As a matter of fact I feel personally successful.

Funny, I used to be an ignorant socialist who believed that the state would fix everything when I was in college, but then I grew up....

What makes you think that those doing the redistribution (translation - THEFT) are worthy of doing it?

Oh and what he said - I would consider the libertarian postion on open borders considerably more tenable if we first implemented the other tenets and deconstructed the welfare state... Then we'll see who still wants in...

Did you know the second biggest contributer to Mexican GDP is dollars being sent back? Yeah thats really supporting the local community.

-G

[aflurry]

I would scrap welfare altogether if I thought it hurt more than it helped. I have no particular allegience to socialism. I like the whatever works method where solutions are contingent and judged by their effectiveness. And clinging to an imaginary meritocracy just don't work. It's a fiction. Just like the Wisdom of the Market, and Karma, and Communism.

Now there's a whole nother debate about whether race-based affirmative action works. It may well not. And you can always be a politician and concoct some anecdote of a counterexample, but on the whole I'm inclined to believe it helps for now. And i'd like to figure out a way to provide healthcare, education, and a decent standard of living to those poor whites too. (Progressive taxation, spending on social programs.) But this isn't even that debate because people are so in love with the justice built into their theories, and the justice of people getting what they deserve, and this purposefully ahistorical rhetoric about what's right rather than what is.

And this is why I say we aren't engaged in good faith discussion about the effects and merits of real policy in the current day. rather, we have reverted to cheap justifications of a refusal to participate. only, you are participating. you were born into it. you're soaking in it.

[gnm]

Ok, I'm not sure what your main points there are but I will state mine very simply.

1. "race" is a construct... basing policy on "race" is inherently flawed.

2. Giving special preference to a particular "race" is discrimination pure and simple, no matter how good the intention is. The fallout from such policy can only be "racial" tension.

That being said I would be happy to debate real world policy. But I find policies constructed on the above points as totally reprehensible.

economic divisions are a whole other animal - and a lot tougher problem to tackle. Some of the "leg up" policies seem to work, some of the time... financial assistance for the recently laid off low income single mother for instance...

But I'll tell ya, after seeing how well beuracrats have handled things, I am not real motivated to give them one iota more power or money!

-G

[aflurry]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'T')he fallout from such policy can only be "racial" tension.

[I_Like_Plants]

Yeah good point. "Race" is going to go away for most people after PO. You may get some groups of, frankly, assholes like the Holnists in the movie The Postman, but for most people it's going to be a nonissue. It's going to come down to individuals - PO will do what years and years of legislation have not been able to.