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On October 27 2015 02:09 corumjhaelen wrote:
"This is a terrible idea, it already exists."
Between that and your blogs on personal finance, if I didn't knew better, I'd think you're trying to preach marxism without being caught KwarK.
This only makes me think you don't understand what communism is. And the rich in the US have enough power. Kwark is correct on that front.
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United States43298 Posts
I'm a cynic. I plan to play the rigged system as well as I can to find myself near the top but I'd rather the ship doesn't get so top heavy it capsizes before I get there. Wealth inequality, limited access to necessities for a functioning society (in which I include healthcare, employment and education) and decreasing social mobility are cancers that will erode both society and also the idea of a functioning society. A dysfunctional society can get by if it retains the idea of a functioning society, in the same way that a fiat currency works if people believe it has value, and that's probably about as good as we can hope for. But if enough of the population becomes so disillusioned with the idea that some people can have so much and they can have so little while all somehow being equal because society then suddenly the emperor has no clothes. And I'll be there trying to explain that my pieces of paper that denote ownership of the means of production entitle me to the labour of others.
It seems like quite a lot of work.
Hell, our resident "Ask a black guy", GreenHorizons can probably speak up a little about the disillusionment that I refer to. Race is a classic example of there being a privileged group and a disadvantaged group and it's very useful for people in the privileged group when the people in the disadvantaged group buy into the idea that really there aren't two groups at all and we're all somehow equal because of this idea of a collective society. However if the disadvantaged group take a look at how society works, realize the system was always rigged and start marching then suddenly life gets much harder.
It turns out I am somewhat more Marxist than I thought I was, it's just also that I'd quite like to be rich.
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On October 27 2015 02:17 Plansix wrote:Show nested quote +On October 27 2015 02:09 corumjhaelen wrote:
"This is a terrible idea, it already exists."
Between that and your blogs on personal finance, if I didn't knew better, I'd think you're trying to preach marxism without being caught KwarK. This only makes me think you don't understand what communism is. And the rich in the US have enough power. Kwark is correct on that front.
Please, Plansix... I am a communist. I'm just joking, questionning or maybe even stating my disagreement with the way KwarK chooses to express his beliefs.
That's how I pictured you Kwark  Personnally, I try to be in peace with myself, not to do too much, and get the extra fun kick you get when you call yourself a communist or a marxist.
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Like KwarK I have every intention of getting as high as I can on the socioeconomic pyramid while ensuring it doesn't collapse.
On the other hand, I don't see how it is "unfair" if for example people who pay like 60% of their income get a smidgen more representation semi-proportional to their increased contribution to our nation's infrastructure. The effect would be very minimal I think, but be some sort of perk to having to pay much higher taxes. I guess at the heart of my philosophy is the idea of fairness, not necessarily equality.
I'm not advocating creating various classes of voters. I'm suggesting an add-on to tax reform that might lessen the sting for those who we expect to pick up more of the tab by giving them a little more say. Heck, I'd say we kill SuperPAC's and end unlimited contributions (which was an experiment that can be called a failure) while we're at it. Money is going to play a role in politics, but this way we can severely curtail it. Even if we double the voting power of the top 1%, that's a tiny, tiny impact.
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As if the rich don't have enough control of our country.
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it would also just be old wine in new bottles. census suffrage anyone?
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I am sort of over worrying about super rich people's feelings when it comes to tax reform. Really, in the strata of my concerns in this world, its was pretty much at the bottom next to my feelings on flair jeans really just being bell-bottoms.
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Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-OK) may travel to Paris in an effort to derail the global climate deal scheduled to be negotiated there in December, The Hill reported Monday.
Inhofe, who chairs the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, openly rejects mainstream climate science. He told The Hill that he may “go over and be the bad guy, the one-man truth squad, and tell the truth, that they’re going to be lied to by the Obama administration.”
The senator may be best known for bringing a snowball—made of real DC snow—onto the Senate floor to try to prove that the threat of global warming is exaggerated. Inhofe also wrote a book about global warming called “The Greatest Hoax.”
As he told The Hill, he has tried “several times before” to publicize his views on climate change on an international stage. In 2009, Inhofe traveled to the international climate conference in Copenhagen, Denmark to spread the message that global warming is a “hoax” and condemn cap-and-trade policies.
Other Republicans, including Rep. Ed Whitfield (R-KY), have suggested that they may send a delegation to Paris to present an opposing view on President Obama’s proposed climate efforts. The administration’s Clean Power Plan promises to cut carbon dioxide emissions by 32 percent from 2005 levels by 2030—a goal that the GOP has deemed unrealistic.
“We may send a group over to Paris, just to let them know that there’s another branch of government, in addition to the executive branch, on these issues,” Whitfield told The Hill.
These efforts to publicly undermine Obama recall a stunt used by Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) to disrupt negotiations over the Iran nuclear deal. In March, Cotton and 46 other GOP senators sent a letter to the Iranian government warning that any nuclear agreement struck with the Obama administration would not last past the end of his presidency.
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When you can't undermine the president using traditional channels, you gotta do crazy shit
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On October 27 2015 03:22 {CC}StealthBlue wrote:Show nested quote +Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-OK) may travel to Paris in an effort to derail the global climate deal scheduled to be negotiated there in December, The Hill reported Monday.
Inhofe, who chairs the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, openly rejects mainstream climate science. He told The Hill that he may “go over and be the bad guy, the one-man truth squad, and tell the truth, that they’re going to be lied to by the Obama administration.”
The senator may be best known for bringing a snowball—made of real DC snow—onto the Senate floor to try to prove that the threat of global warming is exaggerated. Inhofe also wrote a book about global warming called “The Greatest Hoax.”
As he told The Hill, he has tried “several times before” to publicize his views on climate change on an international stage. In 2009, Inhofe traveled to the international climate conference in Copenhagen, Denmark to spread the message that global warming is a “hoax” and condemn cap-and-trade policies.
Other Republicans, including Rep. Ed Whitfield (R-KY), have suggested that they may send a delegation to Paris to present an opposing view on President Obama’s proposed climate efforts. The administration’s Clean Power Plan promises to cut carbon dioxide emissions by 32 percent from 2005 levels by 2030—a goal that the GOP has deemed unrealistic.
“We may send a group over to Paris, just to let them know that there’s another branch of government, in addition to the executive branch, on these issues,” Whitfield told The Hill.
These efforts to publicly undermine Obama recall a stunt used by Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) to disrupt negotiations over the Iran nuclear deal. In March, Cotton and 46 other GOP senators sent a letter to the Iranian government warning that any nuclear agreement struck with the Obama administration would not last past the end of his presidency. Source
What a silly man.
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On October 27 2015 03:22 {CC}StealthBlue wrote:Show nested quote +Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-OK) may travel to Paris in an effort to derail the global climate deal scheduled to be negotiated there in December, The Hill reported Monday.
Inhofe, who chairs the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, openly rejects mainstream climate science. He told The Hill that he may “go over and be the bad guy, the one-man truth squad, and tell the truth, that they’re going to be lied to by the Obama administration.”
The senator may be best known for bringing a snowball—made of real DC snow—onto the Senate floor to try to prove that the threat of global warming is exaggerated. Inhofe also wrote a book about global warming called “The Greatest Hoax.”
As he told The Hill, he has tried “several times before” to publicize his views on climate change on an international stage. In 2009, Inhofe traveled to the international climate conference in Copenhagen, Denmark to spread the message that global warming is a “hoax” and condemn cap-and-trade policies.
Other Republicans, including Rep. Ed Whitfield (R-KY), have suggested that they may send a delegation to Paris to present an opposing view on President Obama’s proposed climate efforts. The administration’s Clean Power Plan promises to cut carbon dioxide emissions by 32 percent from 2005 levels by 2030—a goal that the GOP has deemed unrealistic.
“We may send a group over to Paris, just to let them know that there’s another branch of government, in addition to the executive branch, on these issues,” Whitfield told The Hill.
These efforts to publicly undermine Obama recall a stunt used by Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) to disrupt negotiations over the Iran nuclear deal. In March, Cotton and 46 other GOP senators sent a letter to the Iranian government warning that any nuclear agreement struck with the Obama administration would not last past the end of his presidency. Source
I'm curious how he expects that conversation to go.
Inhofe - "Obama is lying to you."
All of Europe - "You're an idiot."
What was the response to him trying the same in 2009 in Denmark?
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United States43298 Posts
What we give the rich in exchange for their taxes is all going along with the idea that anyone anywhere deserves that much money. We pretend the system isn't insane and we don't burn it all down and they pay a little more in taxes. An awful lot of people will disagree and say private property is sacrosanct and that the rich earned all they have but if you trace those arguments back you typically find yourself looking at someone who has an awful lot of private property and yet the labour is almost exclusively someone else's. Now don't get me wrong, private property works. It motivates people. It generates production. I like it, I just don't worship it as natural law.
The rich don't need more votes to offset more taxes. What they get is to live in a world where the concept of rich exists.
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This just in, Republicans continue their effort to prove the America Education system is failing everyone. They are currently taking the campaign abroad to Paris, France.
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Well actually, they are showing that our education system is working. You don't need to learn anything meaningful, and you can spout bullshit, and still climb their way to the top to be a senator!
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is this the guy with the snowball?
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On October 27 2015 04:22 Nyxisto wrote:
is this the guy with the snowball?
Yes, that he hasn't been shamed out of politics speaks volumes about the people who have elected him.
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The U.S. Navy plans to send the destroyer USS Lassen within 12 nautical miles of artificial islands built by China in the South China Sea within 24 hours, in the first of a series of challenges to China's territorial claims, a U.S. defense official said on Monday.
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It makes one wonder if these people are actually that detached from reality that they believe that bullshit, which as a logical conclusion means that the US president has the power to mislead pretty much the rest of the world, or if they just go along with what they have been bribed to say to make the people bribing them happy and get them more "campaign donations" or "lobbying money".
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FBI director James Comey conceded on Monday that he had little evidence to support his theory that a recent increase in crime was caused by heightened scrutiny of the police, as the White House appeared to distance itself from his remarks.
Addressing police chiefs at a conference in Chicago, Comey said he could not be certain that the so-called “Ferguson effect”, following unrest in the Missouri city after the fatal police shooting of an unarmed black 18-year-old last year, had led to a retreat by officers, but said this was “common sense”.
“The question is, are these kinds of things changing police behavior around the country?” said Comey. “The honest answer is I don’t know for sure whether that’s the case … but I do have a strong sense.”
Barack Obama’s press secretary, however, said at a White House briefing on Monday that available evidence “does not support the notion that law enforcement officers around the country are shying away from fulfilling their responsibilities.”
Law enforcement leaders were “on the contrary” reporting that officers were “dedicated public servants, who on a daily basis are putting their lives on the line to serve and protect the communities that they’re assigned to”, said Josh Earnest.
Earnest declined to explicitly say he was disagreeing with Comey’s comments and simply reiterated that law enforcement leaders across the country have indicated otherwise.
Source
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On October 27 2015 04:53 Simberto wrote:
It makes one wonder if these people are actually that detached from reality that they believe that bullshit, which as a logical conclusion means that the US president has the power to mislead pretty much the rest of the world, or if they just go along with what they have been bribed to say to make the people bribing them happy and get them more "campaign donations" or "lobbying money".
I think a lot of it comes down to the fact that, if you assume global warming is real, it necessitates further government intervention, regulation etc. Some of the crazies on the right see that as a no matter what bad thing. They are starting from the conclusion that government regulation is a bad thing and must be prevented. If something changes that conclusion, that thing must therefore be wrong and discarded.
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EPT
