StrangeSox

QUOTE (Y2HH @ Jan 13, 2012 -> 12:05 PM) The reason why this angers SS and Balta so much is because they're hateful terrorists. I'm angry with the terrible arguments you guys are making itt.

QUOTE (Milkman delivers @ Jan 13, 2012 -> 11:56 AM) Did anybody watch it last night? I thought it was brilliant. We don't have cable so I catch it on Hulu later in the week. Probably will watch it tomorrow.

QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ Jan 13, 2012 -> 11:51 AM) Are you just not thinking this through? How is it logical that you would accept your countrymen being BLOWN TO PIECES without some sort of negative reaction (from actually signing up to fight to just deciding not to help the US with information) but the additional step BEYOND that is somehow going to cause some kind of reaction? That makes no sense at all. Desecrating corpses tends to trigger a pretty strong response from people in every culture I'm aware of. Are you really trying to contend that this will illicit no response in Afghanis or other people across the world who will see this story? That it won't damage US reputations? Hypothetical: Maybe you hated the Taliban and were happy to see them driven out, but now this foreign army has shown itself to have no more respect for human decency than the Taliban. Why continue to help? edit: you basically ignored the rest of the post after that bolded part to ask a question I already answered. Have you tried putting yourself in the shoes of someone who doesn't support the old, terrible regime (taliban), the current terrible regime (karzai) or the foreign army occupying your homeland?

that was more anti-common people

QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ Jan 13, 2012 -> 11:32 AM) Different war, different people. Who in the world thinks it was wrong for the US to go after the Taliban? No one, not even the locals in Afghanistan. I don't see who this imaginary almost-extremist Balta created will come from. The point is that no one is making those two arguments you laid out together. Plenty of people opposed and still oppose the Afghan war, and that is one of the justifications for opposition. And I'm not sure how many Afghans greeted us in the streets as liberators (who doesn't love a foreign occupation?!), but that's not really directly relevant. Your scenarios don't make any sense and, thankfully, no one is arguing them. American troops rely on local support to stay safe. Again, this isn't about pushing an individual to violence necessarily, but to a position of supporting that violence or at least not opposing it. Hiding weapons. Hiding people. Not tipping off US soldiers at risk to their own lives. These are all more likely scenarios when you see your countrymen being pissed on by foreign soldiers. Even if you may not agree with them or support their ideology, you're not exactly going to be rushing to support the foreign occupiers who don't even have the decency to respect the dead. It's Abu Gharib all over again.

QUOTE (Y2HH @ Jan 13, 2012 -> 11:31 AM) Because it's ALL based on stupid. Getting mad at all Muslims because a few are stupid is...well, stupid. Getting mad at all US citizens or military personal because a few are stupid is...well, stupid. How you CAN'T connect such dots is beyond me. It's stupidity begetting stupidity. You're missing the disconnect between explaining likely emotional reactions and justifying those reaction. Nothing Balta or I said condones Alpha's proposed bigotry.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Jan 13, 2012 -> 11:27 AM) The sad thing is now the Republicans will paint Obama as anti-jobs and common people, just like Obama did to them, and we will all switch sides in the endless circle-jerk. But republicans are anti-jobs and common people! you can throw in blaming the housing crisis and the resulting financial securities collapse on poor minorities instead of the people who made billions off of the scam, too.

QUOTE (Y2HH @ Jan 13, 2012 -> 11:10 AM) Fixed. But he needs congressional authority to do it. Good luck with that. With this and his proposal to combine a few departments (commerce and something trade related), he's daring Congressional Republicans to block "common sense reforms" to make government "more efficient and more effective." right now the re-election strategy appears to be pitting him against a do-nothing Congress.

QUOTE (Alpha Dog @ Jan 13, 2012 -> 10:58 AM) So maybe we should hate all Muslims every time they cut off someone's head, or beat a woman, or marry a 12 year old. That seems to fit the logic. QUOTE (Y2HH @ Jan 13, 2012 -> 11:00 AM) It fits their logic 100%, actually. But of course they'll deny it. Queue up goal post move in 3...2...1... Please detail how "really stupid bigotry" follows from "videos of US soldiers pissing on corpses will damage opinions of US soldiers and likely increase dangers in the region."

QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ Jan 13, 2012 -> 11:07 AM) I don't get the logic behind (1) US bombing/killing Taliban soldiers =/= more terrorists and increased risk but (2) US bombing/killing Taliban soldiers and then pissing on their remains = more terrorists and increased risk Is the extremist on the edge of joining the fight really going to be pushed over the edge by this? "I'm acceptable of Americans killing these soldiers, but pissing on them? THIS WILL NOT STAND!" One of the common arguments against why Iraq was such a dumb war was that it increased antagonism towards the US, so I'm not sure whose logic you're presenting. How can you claim that it will have zero effect? This is going to be played repeatedly. It will lower opinions of the US military in the region, decreasing support. Will it push someone into killing? Maybe, maybe not. Will it push someone who might have turned over some information to keeping quiet? I think there's a very good probably of something like that.

I don't think you can compare "a member of a racial minority murdered someone" to "members of a foreign military who have been occupying a country for more than a decade now and who the native population is not exactly thrilled with pissing on the corpses of their countrymen." I'm not saying that the violent reactions would be rational or reasonable. What I find absurd is the idea that it literally does not matter at all what US soldiers do, that policy and actions have zero impact because those crazy Afghans are just going to blow something up. That they are innately "hateful people" and that there's nothing that drives them to this hate.

huh.

QUOTE (Y2HH @ Jan 13, 2012 -> 10:31 AM) That 1 would have become that anyway, didn't need this as an excuse. That's what you seem to keep pretending, though. So nothing the US ever does could possibly incite violent reaction? It's all deterministic? Whether we pass out food or piss on corpses, the responses will be the exact same?

Yeah maybe Congress shouldn't have delegated its powers to the Executive if it wanted to hold on to them! But there's good reasons shield some agencies from routine politics since politicians would opportunistically cripple agencies that they cannot manage to change legislatively. See: CFPB.

QUOTE (Soxbadger @ Jan 13, 2012 -> 10:40 AM) Sounds like Colbert may try and get on the SC ticket. I got an email this morning from his SuperPAC announcing that he's handing it over to Stewart. Not sure what he'd have to do with his show, or if he'd even be able to get on the ballot in time. The whole point is to mock Citizens United and SuperPACs, though, so it still works even if he ultimately doesn't run.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Jan 12, 2012 -> 04:00 PM) So how did we manage to for decades have much smaller levels of corporate profits as a share of the economy, higher wages, better living standards, and yet still have plenty of increases in innovation/investment/productivity? We pulled that off for decades. Then, at about 1980, we stopped. We have a much bigger investor class, and what we've seen as a result is much more inefficient allocation of investable resources (I have $8 trillion in houses to sell you if you don't believe me).

QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ Jan 13, 2012 -> 09:41 AM) And progressives would be telling us to ignore it as merely the "fringe" terrorists performing those types of acts, and that any hatred/animosity towards the citizens of X country generally would be wrong. They'd be correct in saying that. I said the outrage towards those acts would be justified, because they are deplorable.

QUOTE (Milkman delivers @ Jan 13, 2012 -> 08:45 AM) I have no problem with it either, strangely and possibly hypocritically. It's just an interesting aspect that needs to be considered. this is pretty much where I'm at, too.

QUOTE (Soxbadger @ Jan 12, 2012 -> 04:23 PM) Since when are taxes criminal? Adam Smith understood that taxes were necessary and I believe even suggested graduated taxes. "The necessaries of life occasion the great expense of the poor. They find it difficult to get food, and the greater part of their little revenue is spent in getting it. The luxuries and vanities of life occasion the principal expense of the rich, and a magnificent house embellishes and sets off to the best advantage all the other luxuries and vanities which they possess. A tax upon house-rents, therefore, would in general fall heaviest upon the rich; and in this sort of inequality there would not, perhaps, be anything very unreasonable. It is not very unreasonable that the rich should contribute to the public expense, not only in proportion to their revenue, but something more than in that proportion"

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Jan 12, 2012 -> 03:57 PM) More than a few people in Iraq admitted they were inflamed by the Abu Ghraib videos. This kind of stuff really, really matters, at the street level, in turning people who don't like us into people who are trying to kill us. Americans would be justifiably outraged if videos of the reverse appeared.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Jan 12, 2012 -> 03:14 PM) Point one. In order to have labor, you have to have an investor class willing to invest. Criminalizing profits isn't going to create jobs. So, how does this support your contention that unions are hypocrites for decrying gross inequality while not accepting paycuts that would have the effect of increasing said equality? For your claim to work, you have to exclude the people who would actual benefit from those cuts from the picture and only focus on dragging down union jobs to non-union levels in the name of "equality." Also lol "criminalizing profits." No class warfare in that rhetoric.

Two points: cutting wage costs to ensure profitability for ownership who might otherwise move labor overseas is a large source of current inequality, not a solution to it. second, support for the claim that the reason most companies are going under is labor cost?

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Jan 12, 2012 -> 01:58 PM) Denied. Drugs: decriminalized, partial legalization, total legalization, current laws or even stricter laws?

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Jan 12, 2012 -> 01:59 PM) I forgot. No companies have gone bankrupt with union labor. That doesn't actually answer the question. If they currently aren't profitable, how does cutting the union laborer's wages by 50% so that profits for ownership can be maintained result in an additional position being filled? Or, assuming an additional position, Balta's point that ownership now has 2x production for the same cost means that you've just class-warfared yourself decreased wages for workers and increased profitability. How does this result in across-the-board equality instead of increased inequality?

People found to be using drugs during testing: simply denied benefits or prosecuted?