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DeMarquis (4 Score & 7 Years Ago)
#182626: Apr 12th 2017 at 11:33:26 AM

"No" isnt a very informative answer.

Some degree of inequality is inevitable because people compete over scarce resources, and the nature of Capitalism is such that once someone gains an advantage and accumulates some capital, it becomes increasingly easy to accumulate more, because the accumulation of capital itself confers an advantage in the competition for scarce resources. That why the rich get richer.

I'm done trying to sound smart. "Clear" is the new smart.
Wildcard Since: Jun, 2012
#182627: Apr 12th 2017 at 11:33:47 AM

While I agree it wasn't anywhere near as bad, doing that to the Water in Flint Michigan and using tear gas on protesters is still awful.

[up]That and we have a top brass who pulls out the ladder from under them. Made mostly by the hypocritical baby boomers who still make up most of the voting public.

edited 12th Apr '17 11:34:56 AM by Wildcard

megaeliz Since: Mar, 2017
#182628: Apr 12th 2017 at 11:41:45 AM

I think economic equality could be called economic equity. You need to have a Place to go up to encourage people to work hard. The problem is when the distraction of wealth is skewed in one way or the other. This video does a really good job of explaining it.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?feature=youtu.be&v=vttbhl_kDoo

Fighteer Lost in Space from The Time Vortex (Time Abyss) Relationship Status: TV Tropes ruined my love life
Lost in Space
#182629: Apr 12th 2017 at 11:43:49 AM

Again:

  • The question was whether it is inevitable, not whether it is politically feasible to eliminate.
  • The question properly belongs in the General Economics topic, not here.

edited 12th Apr '17 11:44:22 AM by Fighteer

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"
megaeliz Since: Mar, 2017
AmbarSonofDeshar Since: Jan, 2010
#182631: Apr 12th 2017 at 11:56:17 AM

While I agree it wasn't anywhere near as bad, doing that to the Water in Flint Michigan and using tear gas on protesters is still awful.

Nobody disputes that it is awful. The problem is, for a certain element on the crazy left*, anything less than an admission that they are identical is evidence that you are a racist or hate poor people or something. The amount of "you hate Natives" or "you need to check your privilege" that's been thrown at my fiancee by some of these morons would be genuinely funny if they weren't serious.

The irony, of course, being that to view protestors getting hit with tear gas and Syrians dying to weapons of mass destruction as being identical, is itself a gigantic act of privilege. It requires being so far removed from the reality of both crimes that, from your remote and luxurious viewpoint, they appear equally alien and therefore equally terrible. It's probably not a coincidence that most of those pushing this narrative are (at least in our experience) white, upper class college kids who made themselves feel better about their own privileged position in society by posting on Facebook about Standing Rock, and who don't like being reminded that there are, in fact, worse things in the world that they remain ignorant of.

  • I say "crazy left" in this case because this isn't a "far left" or even a "fringe left" position. It's not even a Unicorn Brigade position. It's just a stupid one.

Fighteer Lost in Space from The Time Vortex (Time Abyss) Relationship Status: TV Tropes ruined my love life
Lost in Space
#182632: Apr 12th 2017 at 12:01:45 PM

Of course, those same folks are the ones that the right likes to point to as evidence that liberals have no understanding of reality.

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"
MadSkillz Destroyer of Worlds Since: Mar, 2013 Relationship Status: I only want you gone
Destroyer of Worlds
#182633: Apr 12th 2017 at 12:02:30 PM

I think you guys are taking memes a little too seriously. I wouldn't be surprised if this was peddled by teenagers. I think the same thing of the memes on the right and center.

edited 12th Apr '17 12:07:02 PM by MadSkillz

MadSkillz Destroyer of Worlds Since: Mar, 2013 Relationship Status: I only want you gone
Destroyer of Worlds
#182634: Apr 12th 2017 at 12:14:47 PM

President Trump and a top adviser on Wednesday pushed back plans to overhaul the tax code, saying they wanted to prioritize first a renewed effort to repeal the Affordable Care Act.

The comments from Trump and Office of Management and Budget Director Mick Mulvaney mark a sharp reversal from the administration’s approach just a few weeks ago. After they were dealt a stinging defeat when conservative Republicans refused to vote for a GOP health-care plan, Trump angrily said he was pivoting to tax reform and has been peppering his top economic adviser, Gary Cohn, for details of their tax timeline ever since.

Cohn and his team — as well as top officials at the Treasury Department — have been hard at work trying to put together a tax overhaul blueprint that they believe would lower rates and create more jobs. But Trump — in an interview with Fox Business that aired Wednesday — said the tax effort would now have to wait.

“Health care is going to happen at some point,” Trump said. “Now, if it doesn't happen fast enough, I'll start the taxes. But the tax reform and the tax cuts are better if I can do health care first.”

tldr; Trump just went back to trying to repeal health-care again before tax reform. He only has 3 days left.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2017/04/12/trump-changes-course-again-says-health-care-repeal-must-happen-before-tax-overhaul/?hpid=hp_hp-top-table-main_trumpfickle-1144am%3Ahomepage%2Fstory&utm_term=.df4b0f4edd4e

Ramidel Since: Jan, 2001
#182635: Apr 12th 2017 at 12:17:36 PM

That trend's been around since the Soviet Union. There's been a strong lefty trend of hating American evils in the world while justifying or ignoring Soviet aggression, and now the Soviets are gone but the America-hatred remains.

That, and it's too much energy for most people to hate everyone like I do. grin

DeMarquis (4 Score & 7 Years Ago)
#182637: Apr 12th 2017 at 12:24:41 PM

Delaying tax reform is a tacit admission that they dont think they have the votes.

I'm done trying to sound smart. "Clear" is the new smart.
MadSkillz Destroyer of Worlds Since: Mar, 2013 Relationship Status: I only want you gone
Destroyer of Worlds
#182638: Apr 12th 2017 at 12:28:01 PM

Note that economic migration is always a more powerful force than political migration, absent some kind of catastrophe. I recently saw an article, which I'll have to dig up (was it over in the Econ topic?) saying that the South is benefiting enormously from the global supply chain, attracting educated workers away from the Rust Belt states. As more educated workers tend to be more liberal, this means that the South is getting bluer over time as a natural consequence of economic change. This is the sort of organic movement that is way more powerful in the long run than any organized political effort.

That's actually a problem. It's making the Rust Belt states redder. It's also one of the contributing factors for the Blue Wall crumbling.

edited 12th Apr '17 12:28:32 PM by MadSkillz

Lanceleoghauni Cyborg Helmsman from Z or R Twice Since: Jan, 2001 Relationship Status: In my bunk
#182639: Apr 12th 2017 at 12:35:48 PM

I think part of it ramidel, is that WE LIVE HERE. The stuff that the USSR/Russia is doing is often terrible (looking at you right now, chechnya) and while we should deal with that, we have a lot of bullshit here too. Something Something We Should Be Better. At least in my view, it's injustice that should, hypothetically, be easier to address.

"Coffee! Coffeecoffeecoffee! Coffee! Not as strong as Meth-amphetamine, but it lets you keep your teeth!"
AceofSpades Since: Apr, 2009 Relationship Status: Showing feelings of an almost human nature
#182640: Apr 12th 2017 at 12:44:28 PM

[up]Yes, we live here, but it's a bit difficult to take some things seriously when they're assuming all crimes are equal both in levels of deliberate malice and lethality of the tools being used to achieve various ends.

Sarin gas only has one use; kill and terrorize. Tear gas is meant only to disperse crowds, not inflict lasting or intentionally deadly harm. People who equate the two aren't even making the slippery slope argument that tear gas can lead to the sarin gas, they're just flat out not realizing that neurotoxins are meant to kill people when used and tear gas isn't.

Lanceleoghauni Cyborg Helmsman from Z or R Twice Since: Jan, 2001 Relationship Status: In my bunk
#182641: Apr 12th 2017 at 12:45:17 PM

Oh yeah, they're not on the same page at all!

I just worry that it's a case of Argumentum ad Starving Children In Africa.

edited 12th Apr '17 12:48:41 PM by Lanceleoghauni

"Coffee! Coffeecoffeecoffee! Coffee! Not as strong as Meth-amphetamine, but it lets you keep your teeth!"
CenturyEye Tell Me, Have You Seen the Yellow Sign? from I don't know where the Yith sent me this time... Since: Jan, 2017 Relationship Status: Having tea with Cthulhu
Tell Me, Have You Seen the Yellow Sign?
#182642: Apr 12th 2017 at 12:51:52 PM

Making Waves in GA: In the final week, Karen Handel becomes a target for GOP rivals

In the final week of a congressional contest that has drawn national attention, the knives are out. Not for the surprisingly well-funded Democrat in the special election, but for Republican Karen Handel.

One of her top GOP adversaries, former state senator Dan Moody, on Tuesday unleashed a searing new TV ad that highlight’s Handel’s electoral track record:

From the script:

  • “Here she comes again. Over the last 15 years, Karen Handel has run six times for five different offices. She usually loses, and she didn’t even finish the jobs we did give her. Always running for the next office, with higher pay or a nice new Lexus on the taxpayer dime. Karen Handel isn’t running for you. She’s running for herself.”

Bob Gray also got in on the action by Tweeting out a digital (and somewhat low-production) video that super-imposes Handel’s head next to a wind-surfing John Kerry. It’s one of the strangest we’ve seen this cycle:

  • Just like John Kerry, career politician #Karen Handel changes her positions based on political winds. It's time for an Outsider. #gapol #MAGA pic.twitter.com/ADRTEKS 2 UX

— Bob Gray (@Bob Gray GA) April 11, 2017


Demonstrators keep the heat on Perdue to hold town halls
For 12 straight weeks, dozens of protesters have gathered outside U.S. Sen. David Perdue’s downtown Atlanta office to demand that he hold an in-person town hall meeting. This week, however, they decamped to a grassy strip outside a Brookhaven hotel where he was speaking to make a more personal appeal.

The crowd of more than 50, frustrated by Donald Trump’s young presidency and attempts to overhaul health policy, was part of an ongoing wave of civic activism targeted at Perdue and other Republicans as they returned home for a two-week recess after another tumultuous stretch in Congress.

“We need to hold our elected officials accountable, and this is his job,” Ellen Williams, one of the protesters, said outside Perdue’s event. “This is his job, and he can’t be afraid to meet with his constituents. If you don’t want to work with us, then you’ve got the wrong boss in mind.”

Perdue is far from the only Republican under fire from restless Trump critics. Demonstrations at other events across the state were aimed at embarrassing other GOP members of Congress. But as perhaps Georgia’s most influential politician — and its most outspoken high-profile supporter of Trump — Perdue is squarely at the center of the tide of protests.

And he’s largely taken the criticism in stride, saying he held “impromptu” town hall meetings during the last recess while making an unannounced visit to the state Capitol. And, he added, he and his deputies often meet with constituents in Washington and in Georgia to hear their concerns.

“Right now, it’s a question of method more than anything,” Perdue said. “I’m quite happy that we’re getting the input I need to have.”

Look with century eyes... With our backs to the arch And the wreck of our kind We will stare straight ahead For the rest of our lives
PolarPhantom Since: Jun, 2012
#182643: Apr 12th 2017 at 12:56:50 PM

You know, a month or so ago I badmouthed UKIP, Trump, Putin and Brexit on Twitter. A couple people, a man and woman, said I was entitled to my opinion but I’m an idiot and that I was a “Snowflake with a backbone of jelly” respectively. I’m still trying to get my head around the second one for how comical it is, but I looked at their other Tweets.

Shit.

The guy had stuff saying it was “undemocratic” to criticise and defy Trump because he won. There are, like, 587 things wrong with that sentiment, least of all that it is every citizen’s right and duty to dissent. I don’t care if I’m in the minority for Trump (which I’m not) or Brexit (which I dunno anymore), I am going to complain, I am going to say it’s all stupid, and that, my friend, is my right.

The woman may have been worse. She was saying that Liberal media (or just the media, since it’s all the same, right?) was brainwashing people and that if Trump was assassinated it would be CNN’s et al’s fault.

I do not know how people can have her views and be considered neurologically sound.

Luigisan98 A wandering user from Venezuelan Muscat Since: Oct, 2013 Relationship Status: I <3 love!
A wandering user
#182644: Apr 12th 2017 at 1:02:09 PM

Would it be OK if we start calling reactionary Alt-Right as Lava Rivers as a contrast to the snowflake comment?

The only good fanboy, is a redeemed fanboy.
danime91 Since: Jan, 2012 Relationship Status: Above such petty unnecessities
#182645: Apr 12th 2017 at 1:06:02 PM

[up]No, because a river of lava could be harnessed for clean thermal energy, which alt-righters are firmly against.

Luigisan98 A wandering user from Venezuelan Muscat Since: Oct, 2013 Relationship Status: I <3 love!
A wandering user
#182646: Apr 12th 2017 at 1:08:08 PM

Hmm, then light fuses instead.

The only good fanboy, is a redeemed fanboy.
TobiasDrake (•̀⤙•́) (Edited uphill both ways) Relationship Status: Arm chopping is not a love language!
(•̀⤙•́)
#182647: Apr 12th 2017 at 1:14:30 PM

Never try to scream louder than an idiot. The idiot always wins because he can't even fathom the concept of losing, so all you accomplish is embarrassing yourself in front of the passersby who have to deal with two idiots shouting at each other.

My Tumblr. Currently side-by-side liveblogging Digimon Adventure, sub vs dub.
TacticalFox88 from USA Since: Nov, 2010 Relationship Status: Dating the Doctor
#182648: Apr 12th 2017 at 1:40:26 PM

Trump says dollar is too strong in interview

Ironically, he's not wrong.

A strong dollar hurts America's exports.

Ask Europe a few years back.

New Survey coming this weekend!
Fighteer Lost in Space from The Time Vortex (Time Abyss) Relationship Status: TV Tropes ruined my love life
Lost in Space
#182649: Apr 12th 2017 at 1:41:32 PM

The strength of the dollar is largely out of Trump's control unless he intends to crash the U.S. economy or default on our bonds.

edited 12th Apr '17 1:41:46 PM by Fighteer

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"
megaeliz Since: Mar, 2017
#182650: Apr 12th 2017 at 1:57:35 PM

[up][up][up]What about smogers because of there obsession with coal?

edited 12th Apr '17 1:58:01 PM by megaeliz


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