Iraq Veterans are terrorists - Janet Napolitano


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Re: Iraq Veterans are terrorists - Janet Napolitano

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Freak, PM me with you prefer but i'd like to know the full extent of the reasons for your discontent. I want to hear you out because the US suffered 8 years under the Bush Administration but you wont bite the bullet for one year of Obama's.
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Re: Iraq Veterans are terrorists - Janet Napolitano

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Seraphan wrote:Freak, PM me with you prefer but i'd like to know the full extent of the reasons for your discontent. I want to hear you out because the US suffered 8 years under the Bush Administration but you wont bite the bullet for one year of Obama's.
How is my complaining any different?
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Re: Iraq Veterans are terrorists - Janet Napolitano

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Yeah, that's what I don't get. Why should either side be quiet and go along with things they don't agree with? Free speech is a bitch! :)
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Re: Iraq Veterans are terrorists - Janet Napolitano

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That's not what i meant, before the elections i dont remember you being this pissed off and the bush administration did a ton of shit.
Ok maybe the expression "bite the bullet" was wrongly used, i wasnt trying to say for you to simply cope with things, it's just that you're obviously ticked and i wanted to know your specific reasons. No harm meant on either of my posts.
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Re: Iraq Veterans are terrorists - Janet Napolitano

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Taxing and spending to get out of debt is insane. He's already spent more than all US presidents combined.

He's a socialist/marxist.

His career began in the living room of a man who is a known terrorist. I don't trust him.

He sat in the pews of a pastor who preaches anti-american sentiment. I trust him even less.

The only campaign promise he's kept so far is "spreading the wealth".

How often do you ever hear him talk about liberty or freedom?

Y'all elected him on rhetoric. "Yes we can!" "Change!" Not to mention the outright bullshit like tax cuts for 95% of americans when half of americans don't even pay taxes.

There's more but I'm not in the mood right now, I've had a nice Sunday with my family. I don't want to think about the future he's making for my children.
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Re: Iraq Veterans are terrorists - Janet Napolitano

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I though he hung out with shady characters until I saw this, the most damning of all:

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:shock:

That picture scares the Resse's Peanutbutter Eggs out of me!
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Re: Iraq Veterans are terrorists - Janet Napolitano

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SR will probably yell at me for quoting Lincoln but:

"You cannot help the poor by destroying the rich. You cannot strengthen the weak by weakening the strong. You cannot bring about prosperity by discouraging thrift. You cannot lift the wage earner up by pulling the wage payer down. You cannot further the brotherhood of man by inciting class hatred. You cannot build character and courage by taking away people's initiative and independence. You cannot help people permanently by doing for them, what they could and should do for themselves."

~Abraham Lincoln
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Re: Iraq Veterans are terrorists - Janet Napolitano

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Baraka Bryan wrote:abstaining is definitely a valid vote. it is too bad that there isn't an abstention option on ballots to differentiate those who have a valid opinion and choose to abstain from those who are just too lazy to get out to the ballot box, or even formulate an opinion.
the first have a right to bitch about government when it fails them. the latter don't.
Word, word, and word again. Fuck, I wish our government would get on the easy shit like this.
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Re: Iraq Veterans are terrorists - Janet Napolitano

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If we did have a choice like that more people jsut might vote and then the government might just realize how many people or feed up with the bull....
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Re: Iraq Veterans are terrorists - Janet Napolitano

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Eyes High wrote:If we did have a choice like that more people jsut might vote and then the government might just realize how many people or feed up with the bull....
I'd go one step further, I think voting should be manditory - but obviously there would be this kind of option on the ballot. I'd actually like 2 boxes, 1 for "don't know enough to vote" and 1 for "hate all them loosers". :wink:
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Re: Iraq Veterans are terrorists - Janet Napolitano

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Baraka Bryan wrote:
A Thing of Eternity wrote:
Eyes High wrote:If we did have a choice like that more people jsut might vote and then the government might just realize how many people or feed up with the bull....
I'd go one step further, I think voting should be manditory - but obviously there would be this kind of option on the ballot. I'd actually like 2 boxes, 1 for "don't know enough to vote" and 1 for "hate all them loosers". :wink:

i agree with mandatory voting and an abstention option, but only in the context of a proportional representation electoral system. in a single-member plurality like we have in Canada, mandatory voting would just fuck up results badly.
How so?
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Re: Iraq Veterans are terrorists - Janet Napolitano

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Baraka Bryan wrote:
A Thing of Eternity wrote:
Baraka Bryan wrote:
A Thing of Eternity wrote:
Eyes High wrote:If we did have a choice like that more people jsut might vote and then the government might just realize how many people or feed up with the bull....
I'd go one step further, I think voting should be manditory - but obviously there would be this kind of option on the ballot. I'd actually like 2 boxes, 1 for "don't know enough to vote" and 1 for "hate all them loosers". :wink:

i agree with mandatory voting and an abstention option, but only in the context of a proportional representation electoral system. in a single-member plurality like we have in Canada, mandatory voting would just fuck up results badly.
How so?

because in SMP since a candidate only need win a plurality of votes, a bunch of uninformed people only voting because they have to can more easily sway the results of the election. it gives the normally non-voting public much more control over the election results than a MMP or PR system would.

yes I'm biased here because I'm pretty sure the uninformed wouldn't automatically vote for the Conservatives as soon as they would for the Liberals due to the media bias.
I'd argue against that totally, the uninformed people I know all vote Conservative. I am from the prairies though.
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Re: Iraq Veterans are terrorists - Janet Napolitano

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Freakzilla wrote:Taxing and spending to get out of debt is insane. He's already spent more than all US presidents combined.
Actually, it's purely sensible economics. Government spending results in lots of money circulating in the economy, which is what you want when you're in a recession.
He's a socialist/marxist.
No, he's not. I'm a socialist/marxist, Obama is a capitalist who doesn't hate poor people. There IS a difference. There are no Marxist millionaires.
His career began in the living room of a man who is a known terrorist. I don't trust him.

He sat in the pews of a pastor who preaches anti-american sentiment. I trust him even less.
Worthless propaganda bullshit, everyone rubs shoulders with some questionable characters.
The only campaign promise he's kept so far is "spreading the wealth".

How often do you ever hear him talk about liberty or freedom?

Y'all elected him on rhetoric. "Yes we can!" "Change!" Not to mention the outright bullshit like tax cuts for 95% of americans when half of americans don't even pay taxes.
I pay taxes every time I buy anything. It's called the sales tax, and in Alabama, it pays for over 50% of our state's spending. Plus, I smoke and drink, and the federal and state taxes on cigarettes and alcohol are ridiculous. My bad habits pay for my state's roads. Saying I don't pay taxes just because I don't make enough money to pay income tax or property tax is horribly misleading.
There's more but I'm not in the mood right now, I've had a nice Sunday with my family. I don't want to think about the future he's making for my children.
Bah. Your children will won't be paying for this, MY generation will be. And most of us are OK with that. What we're not OK with is the bullshit we've been putting up with for years, like corporate welfare while people are starving in the streets unable to get jobs. If my generation fucks up, your children will have to deal with that, but I can assure you that each generation will have its own problems inherited from the previous one, and will pass on new problems to the next. If Obama's policies get some socioeconomic equality going, I'd be glad to help fix the debt problem when that comes around.

Of course, I say we should just nationalize everything and give the rich bastards who got us into this mess a tour of the projects, maybe let them live there while we try to find a way to fix this goddamned mess. I'll never understand why the engineers who design a car, and the workers who build it, get less of the proceeds than the guy telling them to design and build the cars. Organization and management aren't so difficult that you deserve billions of dollars, and if you think it is, take a business class, then take an engineering class, and get back to me. CEOs don't deserve shit for pay, and when you can justify their ridiculous greed and the divide between the rich and the poor in terms of anything that makes sense, I'll give capitalism another chance. Until then, I'm unconcerned with free market bullshit and senseless exploitation.

Edit: Also, in regards to the original topic: yeah, I'd say anyone who's advocating violent overthrow of the legitimately elected president is probably a terrorist of sorts. I dislike the word, I dislike the war on terror, and I dislike the idea that people should be classified by the way they think about politics. But in context, what they're saying makes sense. I still think this is ridiculous. Bush didn't even get legitimately elected(the first time), and us evil liberals never considered violent overthrow of his rule. Not even when he and his evil comrades-in-arms violated the constitution like it was a 14-year old girl. Not even when he fucked everything up. Some of us called for impeachment or trials, but we never got to the point of marching on Washington to throw bullets at the White House. We didn't even talk about it. But a couple bills and a little money thrown at a huge problem, and you people are talking about revolution?

Wait for the next goddamned election, like we did. If you're right, people will be flocking to your cause, and you'll get a president who will cut the taxes for your rich bourgeois heroes again.
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Re: Iraq Veterans are terrorists - Janet Napolitano

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Phaedrus wrote:
Freakzilla wrote:Taxing and spending to get out of debt is insane. He's already spent more than all US presidents combined.
Actually, it's purely sensible economics. Government spending results in lots of money circulating in the economy, which is what you want when you're in a recession.
He's a socialist/marxist.
No, he's not. I'm a socialist/marxist, Obama is a capitalist who doesn't hate poor people. There IS a difference. There are no Marxist millionaires.
His career began in the living room of a man who is a known terrorist. I don't trust him.

He sat in the pews of a pastor who preaches anti-american sentiment. I trust him even less.
Worthless propaganda bullshit, everyone rubs shoulders with some questionable characters.
The only campaign promise he's kept so far is "spreading the wealth".

How often do you ever hear him talk about liberty or freedom?

Y'all elected him on rhetoric. "Yes we can!" "Change!" Not to mention the outright bullshit like tax cuts for 95% of americans when half of americans don't even pay taxes.
I pay taxes every time I buy anything. It's called the sales tax, and in Alabama, it pays for over 50% of our state's spending. Plus, I smoke and drink, and the federal and state taxes on cigarettes and alcohol are ridiculous. My bad habits pay for my state's roads. Saying I don't pay taxes just because I don't make enough money to pay income tax or property tax is horribly misleading.
There's more but I'm not in the mood right now, I've had a nice Sunday with my family. I don't want to think about the future he's making for my children.
Bah. Your children will won't be paying for this, MY generation will be. And most of us are OK with that. What we're not OK with is the bullshit we've been putting up with for years, like corporate welfare while people are starving in the streets unable to get jobs. If my generation fucks up, your children will have to deal with that, but I can assure you that each generation will have its own problems inherited from the previous one, and will pass on new problems to the next. If Obama's policies get some socioeconomic equality going, I'd be glad to help fix the debt problem when that comes around.

Of course, I say we should just nationalize everything and give the rich bastards who got us into this mess a tour of the projects, maybe let them live there while we try to find a way to fix this goddamned mess. I'll never understand why the engineers who design a car, and the workers who build it, get less of the proceeds than the guy telling them to design and build the cars. Organization and management aren't so difficult that you deserve billions of dollars, and if you think it is, take a business class, then take an engineering class, and get back to me. CEOs don't deserve shit for pay, and when you can justify their ridiculous greed and the divide between the rich and the poor in terms of anything that makes sense, I'll give capitalism another chance. Until then, I'm unconcerned with free market bullshit and senseless exploitation.

Edit: Also, in regards to the original topic: yeah, I'd say anyone who's advocating violent overthrow of the legitimately elected president is probably a terrorist of sorts. I dislike the word, I dislike the war on terror, and I dislike the idea that people should be classified by the way they think about politics. But in context, what they're saying makes sense. I still think this is ridiculous. Bush didn't even get legitimately elected(the first time), and us evil liberals never considered violent overthrow of his rule. Not even when he and his evil comrades-in-arms violated the constitution like it was a 14-year old girl. Not even when he fucked everything up. Some of us called for impeachment or trials, but we never got to the point of marching on Washington to throw bullets at the White House. We didn't even talk about it. But a couple bills and a little money thrown at a huge problem, and you people are talking about revolution?

Wait for the next goddamned election, like we did. If you're right, people will be flocking to your cause, and you'll get a president who will cut the taxes for your rich bourgeois heroes again.
Waaaaaayyy left wing for me (my father is an entrepreneur/CEO who deserves every penny he makes more than his employees and worked 12 hours a day 7days a week for 25 years, risked everything and sacrificed a lot to get where he is, and because of him over 100 people have fun jobs at a music retail store making at least fair wages, some of them actually raking in serious cash) - buuuuuuuttttt: fantastic post anyways! I agree with everything else you said, especially the bit about Obama not being even remotely marxist. I almost laughed out loud. :D
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Re: Iraq Veterans are terrorists - Janet Napolitano

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A Thing of Eternity wrote:Waaaaaayyy left wing for me (my father is an entrepreneur/CEO who deserves every penny he makes more than his employees and worked 12 hours a day 7days a week for 25 years, risked everything and sacrificed a lot to get where he is, and because of him over 100 people have fun jobs at a music retail store making at least fair wages, some of them actually raking in serious cash) - buuuuuuuttttt: fantastic post anyways! I agree with everything else you said, especially the bit about Obama not being even remotely marxist. I almost laughed out loud. :D
Thanks. I'm probably being a little harsh, but I think the discrepancies in rewards are way too large.

Of course, the problem of desert is always difficult. I'm not certain that anyone "deserves" anything, so much as there are cause/effect relationships that may not be set up in a fair and just way. I know people who work just as much, just as hard, and get absolute shit in return, simply because they aren't running a corporation, but are working on the lower end of the food chain. That different kinds of work, regardless of quality or difficulty, have such massive discrepancies in reward is something I don't think a sane person can accept. There's absolutely no philosophical justification for it, and I'm all about philosophical justification.
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Re: Iraq Veterans are terrorists - Janet Napolitano

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Phaedrus wrote:
A Thing of Eternity wrote:Waaaaaayyy left wing for me (my father is an entrepreneur/CEO who deserves every penny he makes more than his employees and worked 12 hours a day 7days a week for 25 years, risked everything and sacrificed a lot to get where he is, and because of him over 100 people have fun jobs at a music retail store making at least fair wages, some of them actually raking in serious cash) - buuuuuuuttttt: fantastic post anyways! I agree with everything else you said, especially the bit about Obama not being even remotely marxist. I almost laughed out loud. :D
Thanks. I'm probably being a little harsh, but I think the discrepancies in rewards are way too large.

Of course, the problem of desert is always difficult. I'm not certain that anyone "deserves" anything, so much as there are cause/effect relationships that may not be set up in a fair and just way. I know people who work just as much, just as hard, and get absolute shit in return, simply because they aren't running a corporation, but are working on the lower end of the food chain. That different kinds of work, regardless of quality or difficulty, have such massive discrepancies in reward is something I don't think a sane person can accept. There's absolutely no philosophical justification for it, and I'm all about philosophical justification.

Things are worth only what you get out of them, not what you put into them. I see where you're coming from, but there has to be differences in rewards based on result, not just effort.

I could work 12 hours a day breaking rocks in half - that work is worth nothing. If I work 12 hours a day fixing cars, it's worth quite a bit more. If I risk my personal well being + work 12 hours a day to start an auto repair company, that’s worth more because it provides more service to more people and probably employs more than just myself. If I keep working hard even after that location is doing well enough that I could relax and only work 8 hour days, and risk even more and expand my company, that is worth even more - the key here is that each step is not only worth more to the person doing the work, but to everyone in the community. This is the kind of thing capitalism excels at.

BUT - I agree with you that everyone needs to be taken care of, no one should get left behind. I want to see the minimum standard of living increase dramatically, and that is where capitalism fails, because it seems to tend towards greater and greater disparity. So obviously we need to mix in some socialist idea and set a minumum wage, and work safety standards and so on. The difference between me and Donald Trump (wage wise) is not unjust - because I have everything I need to live happily and healthily (more than I need actually). The difference between him and some poor guy working labour 12 hours a day to barely support his family in a social system that won't even heal his children on public dime, now that is unjust. I think the injustice isn't in how rich the rich are, let people get as rich a they can as long as they do it morally (which yes, will have to be heavily enforced because people are not moral), the injustice is in how poor the poor are.

Baraka Bryan wrote:
Phaedrus wrote:
A Thing of Eternity wrote:Waaaaaayyy left wing for me (my father is an entrepreneur/CEO who deserves every penny he makes more than his employees and worked 12 hours a day 7days a week for 25 years, risked everything and sacrificed a lot to get where he is, and because of him over 100 people have fun jobs at a music retail store making at least fair wages, some of them actually raking in serious cash) - buuuuuuuttttt: fantastic post anyways! I agree with everything else you said, especially the bit about Obama not being even remotely marxist. I almost laughed out loud. :D
Thanks. I'm probably being a little harsh, but I think the discrepancies in rewards are way too large.

Of course, the problem of desert is always difficult. I'm not certain that anyone "deserves" anything, so much as there are cause/effect relationships that may not be set up in a fair and just way. I know people who work just as much, just as hard, and get absolute shit in return, simply because they aren't running a corporation, but are working on the lower end of the food chain. That different kinds of work, regardless of quality or difficulty, have such massive discrepancies in reward is something I don't think a sane person can accept. There's absolutely no philosophical justification for it, and I'm all about philosophical justification.
there is absolutely an element of 'getting what you deserve' involved. sure some people work hard and don't get what they deserve; that doesn't mean the person who gets rewarded for their hard work doesnt deserve the benefits their efforts reap.

the dead-beat who does no work and uses their welfare cheque to buy a lottery ticket every week and one day wins $30M doesn't deserve that money.

capitalism at least tries to reward those who work hard, while taking care of those who can't take care of themselves. socialism is a failed experiment.
Wrong wrong wrong. Capitalism is a failure as well, and that whole "taking care of those who can't" is a pure socialist value/idea. We've blended it into our version of "capitalism," but don't think for a minute that capitalism is to thank for it.

Capitalism does help pay for it, but that's not at all the same as what you're saying here.
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Re: Iraq Veterans are terrorists - Janet Napolitano

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Baraka Bryan wrote:there is absolutely an element of 'getting what you deserve' involved. sure some people work hard and don't get what they deserve; that doesn't mean the person who gets rewarded for their hard work doesnt deserve the benefits their efforts reap.

the dead-beat who does no work and uses their welfare cheque to buy a lottery ticket every week and one day wins $30M doesn't deserve that money.
It's never that simple. Reward outputs are never entirely equivalent to whatever inputs are involved. You can't eliminate the problem of luck, whether it's the genetic dice, the economic dice, or the lotto ticket. Some people are born with ridiculous talents, or with parents that force them to practice something until they're amazing at it, and those people are then rewarded. Someone else may work just as hard, but due to natural limits, will never be able to make as much money. If you're born as the son of a billionaire, do you deserve the money you'll inherit? If you say yes, how is that at all different from the guy who buys a lotto ticket on welfare? Both were just a matter of sheer luck of circumstances. Circumstances have so much more to do with monetary success than any effort put forth, I can't see how you can say that anyone actually deserves anything. It makes sense if you don't think about it, but the reality is that the processes involves are too complex to measure out deserts in any rational way.

To steal an example from a political philosophy book, Tiger Woods was pretty naturally talented at golf from a very young age. He's used that to make a lot of money. However, there are probably social workers who have worked just as hard, if not harder than Tiger Woods, but they didn't happen to be born with immense talent in golf. So they're rewarded much less than Tiger Woods. Does Tiger Woods deserve all the money he made? Does the social worker deserve more? How do you justify that difference? It's completely and totally unfair, yet I've never met a capitalist who didn't say that Tiger Woods doesn't deserve to have more money than the social worker. The only difference is luck of birth!
capitalism at least tries to reward those who work hard, while taking care of those who can't take care of themselves. socialism is a failed experiment.
Capitalism doesn't try at all. It allows ridiculous discrepancies in reward for completely irrational reasons, to the point of allowing people to work themselves to death. If not for socialist restraints, workers would practically be unrewarded slaves.
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Re: Iraq Veterans are terrorists - Janet Napolitano

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Baraka Bryan wrote:good point. There has to be a blend of the two in order to make it work.

However, the big difference is socialism is based on equality of result which is impossible and a flawed perspective. I don't see our version of capitalism as a blend of pure capitalism and pure socialism. I see it as a non-pure capitalist system that I'll call "Compassionate Capitalism." This is what I was referring to.

I liked what you said about the discrepancies being based on output not input. Very well said and I wholeheartedly agree. The entrepreneur deserves more out of his 12 hour work day than does his worker's 12 hour workday. Both involve lots of hard work, but one incorporates an element of high risk that deserves a high reward.
You can call it whatever helps you sleep at night but it's still part socialist. :lol: Deal with the reality my friend, you like and believe ina socialist/capitalist mix.
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Re: Iraq Veterans are terrorists - Janet Napolitano

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A Thing of Eternity wrote:Things are worth only what you get out of them, not what you put into them. I see where you're coming from, but there has to be differences in rewards based on result, not just effort.

I could work 12 hours a day breaking rocks in half - that work is worth nothing. If I work 12 hours a day fixing cars, it's worth quite a bit more. If I risk my personal well being + work 12 hours a day to start an auto repair company, that’s worth more because it provides more service to more people and probably employs more than just myself. If I keep working hard even after that location is doing well enough that I could relax and only work 8 hour days, and risk even more and expand my company, that is worth even more - the key here is that each step is not only worth more to the person doing the work, but to everyone in the community. This is the kind of thing capitalism excels at.
Now you're getting into market forces determining value. The problem with that is that market forces aren't always right. Look at the entertainment industries for examples of ridiculous and impossibly high values placed arbitrarily on the production of entertainment, which isn't that helpful to the community, and, in fact, can be extremely damaging to the community. America is a perfect example of this phenomenon.

As for the whole entrepreneur deal, that's only an issue in a capitalist country. Using capital to produce more capital is how capitalism works. Such situations would never arise in any but a capitalist system. Using capitalism to justify capitalistic reward systems is quite the circular argument.

Capitalism can be useful in certain contexts, and it's quite the spur for individual innovations, especially in industry, but I don't think that's worth the injustices that will never be entirely corrected by borrowing from socialism.
I liked what you said about the discrepancies being based on output not input. Very well said and I wholeheartedly agree. The entrepreneur deserves more out of his 12 hour work day than does his worker's 12 hour workday. Both involve lots of hard work, but one incorporates an element of high risk that deserves a high reward
I disagree entirely. The capitalist usually has some fallback, in that he had some capital with which to start his corporation, and if all else fails, that can usually be liquidated for money. The worker has to sell his labor just to be able to live, which entails much more risk and sacrifice than you seem to be willing to give credit for. What happens if a worker is injured on the job? He has nothing to sell other than his labor, and if his injury renders him unable to work, he can't support himself. Socialist remedies only go so far to balance that risk, but the reality is that the capitalist voluntarily enters into the risk of starting a business, while the worker is forced to risk his time and his labor in order to live. This is the kind of imbalance that is truly unfair, and no amount of welfare or taxation will remove this kind of discrepancy from the system.
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Re: Iraq Veterans are terrorists - Janet Napolitano

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I guess we need people on the extremes to remind people in the middle to stay there... it's so tiring trying to un-black and white people's opinions. I should just give up. :roll:

No one is ever going to find any solutions in pure socialism or capitalism. People are shitty creatures who need to be rewarded for their work, and need to be regulated to prevent exploitation. I honestly cannot understand how someone could think either system is justice. Capitalism makes the unlucky and weak slaves to the strong, and socialism makes the strong slaves to the weak and unlucky.


Canada is a perfect example of somewhere towards the middle working pretty damned well (even if the right wing wants to pretend we're capitalists :wink: ), or at least better than most attempts so far at either extreme. Some think we should lean a little right, or a little left, but few are foolish enough to think we should go all out (or even close to all out) either way. We're no where near perfect, but we're a hell of a lot closer than most countries in the world.
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Re: Iraq Veterans are terrorists - Janet Napolitano

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Baraka Bryan wrote:
A Thing of Eternity wrote:I guess we need people on the extremes to remind people in the middle to stay there... it's so tiring trying to un-black and white people's opinions. I should just give up. :roll:

No one is ever going to find any solutions in pure socialism or capitalism. People are shitty creatures who need to be rewarded for their work, and need to be regulated to prevent exploitation. I honestly cannot understand how someone could think either system is justice. Capitalism makes the unlucky and weak slaves to the strong, and socialism makes the strong slaves to the weak and unlucky.


Canada is a perfect example of somewhere towards the middle working pretty damned well (even if the right wing wants to pretend we're capitalists :wink: ), or at least better than most attempts so far at either extreme. Some think we should lean a little right, or a little left, but few are foolish enough to think we should go all out (or even close to all out) either way. We're no where near perfect, but we're a hell of a lot closer than most countries in the world.

I'll admit there are elements of socialist thought in Canada. I just hate the idea of liking any system that incorporates it at all :P

I'll keep calling it Compassionate Capitalism though :) I like the term
You do that...
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Re: Iraq Veterans are terrorists - Janet Napolitano

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A Thing of Eternity wrote:I guess we need people on the extremes to remind people in the middle to stay there... it's so tiring trying to un-black and white people's opinions. I should just give up. :roll:

No one is ever going to find any solutions in pure socialism or capitalism. People are shitty creatures who need to be rewarded for their work, and need to be regulated to prevent exploitation. I honestly cannot understand how someone could think either system is justice. Capitalism makes the unlucky and weak slaves to the strong, and socialism makes the strong slaves to the weak and unlucky.


Canada is a perfect example of somewhere towards the middle working pretty damned well (even if the right wing wants to pretend we're capitalists :wink: ), or at least better than most attempts so far at either extreme. Some think we should lean a little right, or a little left, but few are foolish enough to think we should go all out (or even close to all out) either way. We're no where near perfect, but we're a hell of a lot closer than most countries in the world.
It doesn't have to be that way. I see Marxism as a criticism of capitalism. Was Marx right about everything? Obviously not, or we'd have a viable communist country that doesn't treat its citizenry like shit. Does that mean that we should regress to saying, "Well, capitalism works well enough, I guess we'll do that."? I don't think so. I think Marx can be improved upon, and I think that the Left as a whole is mostly guilty of spending the last 150 years twiddling their thumbs with minor variations instead of actually picking up and trying to figure out the problem. There are a few obscure European philosophers who had some interesting ideas in the 70s and 80s, but their ideas remained confined to intellectual circles in Europe, which does just about jack shit towards changing anything.

Of course, I ultimately think the problem lies with people, but I don't think it's human nature that's the problem. I think it's our culture that tends towards fascism and blind devotion to ideologies and leaders, regardless of economic structure. Add in the momentum of an already ingrained power structure that has the tools to self-perpetuate, and you need a massively powerful counterculture that's against the entire concepts of power and hierarchy. What would really solve all the problems is a brilliant manifesto that is instantly enlightening, and for that manifesto to memetically overcome the ridiculous philosophical preconceptions that have been ingrained into our culture since John Locke.

Wow, that's a wonderful thought, but that shit's never happening. I guess the best we can hope for is some balance between socialism and capitalism that'll barely get us through until we can go colonize other planets and hopefully figure out a less complicated way to live.
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Re: Iraq Veterans are terrorists - Janet Napolitano

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Phaedrus wrote:
A Thing of Eternity wrote:I guess we need people on the extremes to remind people in the middle to stay there... it's so tiring trying to un-black and white people's opinions. I should just give up. :roll:

No one is ever going to find any solutions in pure socialism or capitalism. People are shitty creatures who need to be rewarded for their work, and need to be regulated to prevent exploitation. I honestly cannot understand how someone could think either system is justice. Capitalism makes the unlucky and weak slaves to the strong, and socialism makes the strong slaves to the weak and unlucky.


Canada is a perfect example of somewhere towards the middle working pretty damned well (even if the right wing wants to pretend we're capitalists :wink: ), or at least better than most attempts so far at either extreme. Some think we should lean a little right, or a little left, but few are foolish enough to think we should go all out (or even close to all out) either way. We're no where near perfect, but we're a hell of a lot closer than most countries in the world.
It doesn't have to be that way. I see Marxism as a criticism of capitalism. Was Marx right about everything? Obviously not, or we'd have a viable communist country that doesn't treat its citizenry like shit. Does that mean that we should regress to saying, "Well, capitalism works well enough, I guess we'll do that."? I don't think so. I think Marx can be improved upon, and I think that the Left as a whole is mostly guilty of spending the last 150 years twiddling their thumbs with minor variations instead of actually picking up and trying to figure out the problem. There are a few obscure European philosophers who had some interesting ideas in the 70s and 80s, but their ideas remained confined to intellectual circles in Europe, which does just about jack shit towards changing anything.

Of course, I ultimately think the problem lies with people, but I don't think it's human nature that's the problem. I think it's our culture that tends towards fascism and blind devotion to ideologies and leaders, regardless of economic structure. Add in the momentum of an already ingrained power structure that has the tools to self-perpetuate, and you need a massively powerful counterculture that's against the entire concepts of power and hierarchy. What would really solve all the problems is a brilliant manifesto that is instantly enlightening, and for that manifesto to memetically overcome the ridiculous philosophical preconceptions that have been ingrained into our culture since John Locke.

Wow, that's a wonderful thought, but that shit's never happening. I guess the best we can hope for is some balance between socialism and capitalism that'll barely get us through until we can go colonize other planets and hopefully figure out a less complicated way to live.
That's actually pretty much how I look at it, but I don't think there is an "until" I think we just struggle to keep the balance forever.
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Re: Iraq Veterans are terrorists - Janet Napolitano

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I consider that solution to be incredibly subpar, but the only realistic solution we currently have...which is really not a good sign. It's more like a signifier that we aren't a very good candidate for survival.
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Re: Iraq Veterans are terrorists - Janet Napolitano

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Freakzilla wrote:SR will probably yell at me for quoting Lincoln but:

"You cannot help the poor by destroying the rich. You cannot strengthen the weak by weakening the strong. You cannot bring about prosperity by discouraging thrift. You cannot lift the wage earner up by pulling the wage payer down. You cannot further the brotherhood of man by inciting class hatred. You cannot build character and courage by taking away people's initiative and independence. You cannot help people permanently by doing for them, what they could and should do for themselves."

~Abraham Lincoln

:angry-cussingblack: :angry-cussingwhite:

:angry-banghead:


but if the Democrats or the President were actually doing any of these things,
you'd have a point. I know you think they are, but, well, you're just wrong.

and now, I'm getting on the Chigger-wagon, and ignoring this forum from now on.

I'm only here to hate on Keith J. Blanderson. :twisted:
................ I exist only to amuse myself ................
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