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On October 29 2015 20:31 Gorsameth wrote: I'm convinced Carson's popularity is based solely on ignorance. Sure there are some people (crazy) who actually stand by his points. Who think a tithe is a good idea, that medicare should be abolished entirely but most, I suspect, simply look at the lineup and go "hey, isn't that guy a neurosurgeon? I bet he is smart".
I refuse to believe a large selection of Americans hears Carson speak and make ridiculous statement after statement and say "Yes, he should be president".
You think too highly of people. Remember how they went nuts for Palin's "you betcha" nonsense? Took them a couple years to catch up to the rest of us in realizing what a dolt she is. It was blatantly obvious that she was in it for personal gain from the get go but that didn't stop many from being staunch supporters.
On October 29 2015 16:53 Cush wrote: I understand that people dislike Cruz, every politician has lovers/haters. I want to ask why do so many people have a hatred towards him? Can someone who doesn't like him explain this to me? From what I've seen, he looks like a solid contender so far, but I don't know much about his past.
He's such a colossal dick that you just want to punch him in the face. He comes across as incredibly fake, is astoundingly hypocritical, spouts total BS about most issues being the end of the world, and, just like the rest of his Tea Party fellows, acts like a 6-year-old throwing a tantrum when he doesn't get precisely the legislation that he wants.
He is the embodiment of everything that is wrong with our political system right now.
On October 29 2015 20:40 farvacola wrote: I don't know about a "large selection" but there is most certainly an appreciable number of people who legitimately think both Trump and Carson are presidential material. Of those I know personally, this is unsurprising to me given their overall perspective on life.
For example, here's a quote from one such fan, a fellow law student:
Bernie's mad because he's falling by the wayside. Billionaires have one vote, like anyone else. What's so bad about having money? Being successful by your own ability and work, and maybe some help from family, - things liberals (or in this case, socialists) hate.
Keep in mind that a lot of Carson's good press and good numbers are coming from Iowa and they will vote for anyone who praises Jesus. Rick Santorum won Iowa in 2012 on the back of nothing but disliking gay marriage as far as I can tell.
I love the morons who are laughing at and applauding when he jokes about the French work week, when people like him are responsible for the sad fact that Americans work more hours than people in other developed nations.
Like it's a point of pride to work 10 hours more per week to afford the same standard of living as in the 80s, despite being about 2,5 times as productive.
And why do I follow this shit so religiously? I'm not even an American, I can't vote anyway.
On October 29 2015 16:53 Cush wrote: I understand that people dislike Cruz, every politician has lovers/haters. I want to ask why do so many people have a hatred towards him? Can someone who doesn't like him explain this to me? From what I've seen, he looks like a solid contender so far, but I don't know much about his past.
He's just a huge, hypocritical, grandstanding asshole. He's built up his base on the far right by "fighting" against the establishment, which to him means making a big screaming deal about routine legislation.
At the same time, he takes a ton of money from corporations, and the policies he actually supports are designed to help them instead of the people who vote for him. For example, Comcast has given him a lot of money, which in my opinion explains his opposition to net neutrality (which he hilariously called Obamacare for the internet).
His tax plan is another good example. It creates a flat tax of 10%, which is a huge benefit to corporations and the top 0.1% of Americans. Adopting this plan would cause the deficit to expand massively, even if social services are cut to the bare minimum.
tldr: basically he gets votes by pretending to be anti-establishment, but then he supports the same policies favored by the establishment (pro-corporation, pro-super rich people) except more so.
On October 29 2015 22:43 DickMcFanny wrote: I love the morons who are laughing at and applauding when he jokes about the French work week, when people like him are responsible for the sad fact that Americans work more hours than people in other developed nations.
Like it's a point of pride to work 10 hours more per week to afford the same standard of living as in the 80s, despite being about 2,5 times as productive.
The default pride in the US and its culture is one of the more annoying parts of being American. That we can be excited about working more and “being more productive” than our EU counter parts just illogical. And then we look to other countries with even more rigorous work ethics and want to emulate them, ignoring the social pitfalls those countries have.
The same goes for education. May of the systems in EU have a lot of merit and help people find careers. And they score higher than the US in most categories. But talk about emulating it and people accuse you of wanting to run entire classes in French or Spanish(which wouldn’t be bad at all, but lets not talk about that).
Edit: Cruz survives on the populism that a lot of people accuse Sanders of.
On October 29 2015 23:06 DickMcFanny wrote: I'm kind of with the US there. There are far more important things to learn in school than a second language if your first language is English.
Expect that in the US, you can make BANK being able to speak other languages. It is such as asset to getting employed and paid well, cultural enrichment aside.
First question is a lame "What's your biggest weakness?" Kasich first: "Thank you, and I'd like to take this time to talk about something completely irrelevant to this question, to get the ball rolling." Huckabee next: "None." I can't wait for the next two hours of this trainwreck.
On October 29 2015 23:06 DickMcFanny wrote: I'm kind of with the US there. There are far more important things to learn in school than a second language if your first language is English.
Expect that in the US, you can make BANK being able to speak other languages. It is such as asset to getting employed and paid well, cultural enrichment aside.
As a native German and semi-fluent Spanish speaker, I should take advantage of that.
So many candidates are talking about fixing the infrastructure, so work should be easy to come by for structural engineers.
I can't wait for the next two hours of this trainwreck.
To be fair, it's a trainwreck mostly due to the stupid questions first and the moronic candidates second.
I agree so far (40 minutes in atm), although I have to say:
At 29 minutes, Ted Cruz gets asked a very legitimate question... and he goes off to strawman half of the decent questions asked so far (Ben Carson's tax plan doesn't add up... it's not just an arbitrary math quiz!), and makes somewhat-fair points about some of the other crappy questions. I have two issues with his response though: 1. It's a complete dodge to the actual, good question he's asked; 2. All the Republicans do is hurl insults and ad hominems and dodge anyway, so it's not entirely the moderators'/ media's fault that there's no good discussion coming from Republican candidates.
On October 29 2015 23:06 DickMcFanny wrote: I'm kind of with the US there. There are far more important things to learn in school than a second language if your first language is English.
Expect that in the US, you can make BANK being able to speak other languages. It is such as asset to getting employed and paid well, cultural enrichment aside.
Maybe if you work at a Multi-National. Maybe. Probably not though. We English speakers have it pretty easy since the whole world pretty much conducts business in English.
On October 29 2015 23:06 DickMcFanny wrote: I'm kind of with the US there. There are far more important things to learn in school than a second language if your first language is English.
Expect that in the US, you can make BANK being able to speak other languages. It is such as asset to getting employed and paid well, cultural enrichment aside.
Maybe if you work at a Multi-National. Maybe. Probably not though. We English speakers have it pretty easy since the whole world pretty much conducts business in English.
I work in the legal field, which is conducted entirely in English, and speaking Spanish is always a huge plus. Same with any EU language. The simple fact speaking more languages is valuable and allows you to get jobs that you wouldn’t normally be able to apply for. Literally zero flaws to speaking and reading more languages.
On October 29 2015 16:53 Cush wrote: I understand that people dislike Cruz, every politician has lovers/haters. I want to ask why do so many people have a hatred towards him? Can someone who doesn't like him explain this to me? From what I've seen, he looks like a solid contender so far, but I don't know much about his past.
seeing this post makes me realize how much the norm has shifted to make a guy like cruz seem acceptable.
On October 29 2015 16:53 Cush wrote: I understand that people dislike Cruz, every politician has lovers/haters. I want to ask why do so many people have a hatred towards him? Can someone who doesn't like him explain this to me? From what I've seen, he looks like a solid contender so far, but I don't know much about his past.
seeing this post makes me realize how much the norm has shifted to make a guy like cruz seem acceptable.
I know Mandarin, though it's gotten a lot worse since I rarely use it. It's mentioned on my resume, but I doubt it got me my job (I got that cuz I'm awesome). We had a prospective investor from HK come visit and obviously they had impeccable English, but they were super excited to see that there was an Asian guy in the room (all our execs are white, I'm an analyst) and talked to me a ton about the company and how I liked working there. We landed a few million dollars just from that.
There's a reason Zuckerburg is learning Mandarin, and it's not just to make his wife happy.
On October 29 2015 16:53 Cush wrote: I understand that people dislike Cruz, every politician has lovers/haters. I want to ask why do so many people have a hatred towards him? Can someone who doesn't like him explain this to me? From what I've seen, he looks like a solid contender so far, but I don't know much about his past.
seeing this post makes me realize how much the norm has shifted to make a guy like cruz seem acceptable.
EPT
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/PJ08S0M.png)
