We must eliminate Chavez.

[mburbank]

Shouldn't you be in school?

Did I say vast right wing conspiracy? All I said was that the filthy rich are for the most part unaware of anyone besides the filthy rich. They don't believe any hard working person ever has a problem making ends meet in a crappy neighborhood because all they know is money. Mooks like you are so certain that filthy richness awaits them they adopt a similarly entitled world view.

I'm glad you find taxation immoral. Don't pay, and while you're at it, stop using roads and when your house catches on fire spit on it. This is America buddy. Love it or leave it. AND I don't think you do find taxation immoral, you just hate it. To find it immoral would be to imply the existance of a moral framework, which you lack.

"If you lived in a third-world environment, I might care."
No you wouldn't. You've already demonstrated that in other threads.

[The One and Only...]

No school today. Snow.

Burbank, it's not that I don't give a crap. I'm a realist, and I get tired of having the same arguments over and over and over again. I will never convince you of anything by using economic theories, so I might as well just say that it's irrelevant because it's the only thing I can get you to understand.

Don't ever lecture me on money. You have no idea what I have seen. My uncle lives in poverty, my grandparents can barely pay their bills. They are 67 years old and cannot afford to retire.

You talk about plight as if I don't know what it is. I've seen it first hand, and I was almost in it. I don't need shit from the likes of you.

[Buffalo Tom]

Originally Posted by The One and Only...

Don't ever lecture me on money. You have no idea what I have seen. My uncle lives in poverty, my grandparents can barely pay their bills. They are 67 years old and cannot afford to retire.

Why the hell should I care about the plight of your relatives? It sounds to me like they can't compete for the any of the opportunities for advancement that are clearly present in North American society. They're either too weak or not skilled enough to pull themselves up. Why should anyone pay for job retraining or affordable medical care for them? Your uncle, grandmother and grandfather can get a job at Walmart or MacDonalds, if they're having trouble making ends meet. They are the losers of history. I say, fuck 'em.

[Buffalo Tom]

Originally Posted by The One and Only...

You talk about plight as if I don't know what it is. I've seen it first hand, and I was almost in it. I don't need shit from the likes of you.

I think we all agree being unable to tie your cummerbund in time for last spring's cotillion can't be described as a plight.

[Anonymous]

Originally Posted by The One and Only...

My uncle lives in poverty, my grandparents can barely pay their bills. They are 67 years old and cannot afford to retire.

This whole statement is inadmissable. You don't care about Your uncle or grandparents because they're poor. Oh, I'm sorry, I mean they're rich.

[mburbank]

" I really don't care about you or any of the poor people in this country."
OAO

"it's not that I don't give a crap. "
OAO

I'm sorry, I must have missed the finely honed nuance of your argument.

"I don't need shit from the likes of you."
Actually, you do. You desperately need mounds of shit from any half way intelligent person you meet. I've rarely met anyone who needed it more and I wouldn't be giving it to you if I didn't think so. Any fifteen year who feels his grasp of economic theory bares at all on the actual existance of real people working and struggling around him and is so calcified, undeveloped and uninterested emotionally is crying out for buckets and barges and tractor trailor loads of shit. Half of the stuff you write could be replaced by a simple sentence saying "I beg you to give me as much shit as you've got time for"

"My uncle lives in poverty, my grandparents can barely pay their bills. They are 67 years old and cannot afford to retire. "

I really don't care about your Uncle or your grandparents. You know why? Hmm? Because they are rich. If they lived in a third-world environment, I might care. But they don't, so take they should take their blessings, and let the private sector do it's work so that everyone will benefit.

Oh, wait. I don't feel like that at all. I don't know your grandparents or uncle, but I don't think he should have to live in poverty and I think your grandparents should retire in decency. I don't have to know anything about them accept that they're people and our country is rich enough that they should have a human level of comfort and dignity. I think the fact that I have more compassion for people I've never met than you do for your own family is instructive. I'm happy that at least some of my immoral taxes go to safety nets instead of weapons and refinancing the national debt. I see that as being part of a decent society. I'm sure that's not Ayn Randian enough for you but giving a crap about people I don't know just because they are humans and shouldn't suffer rarely fits into economic theories.

[Vibecrewangel]

OAO - Theory is great for academia, but it doesn't always hold true in practical application. Can you at least admit that people who have real life experience may know more about how it really works than someone who has read up on theorys about how it MAY work or SHOULD work?

[kellychaos]

Sooooo basically anyone that looks out for the self-interest of their own country and doesn't wish to appease the Bush administration is some kind of degenerate subversive? Have you taken a Venezuelan fact-finding tour of which we're (the forum) is unaware?

P.S. Your mom's still waitin' for her smokes.

[The One and Only...]

You're all missing the point. My family brought it upon themselves. And THAT should NEVER be anyone else's problem, particularly when making it such in incredibly inefficient.

[mburbank]

Like I said. I have more compassion for your family than you do.

Did they commit crimes to 'bring it on themselves'? Are they in the slave trade? Did they kill anybody? Are the in some way so loathesome and repulsive that they deserve punishment? Did they lock you in a closet with a clothespin on your weiner? Or did they just make the normal human mistakes and bad choices people make?

[AChimp]

I agree with OAO. His grandparents brought it on themselves.

It's just too bad that they didn't bring it earlier and not had kids.

[The One and Only...]

Actually, my uncle didn't make any horrible financial mistakes recently. He just got a tech job, as tech is what he does, and was laid off because the company didn't need him anymore. Now he's a paperboy and pizza hut delivery guy who has to live with a roomie because he can't pay the rent alone.

[Pee Wee Herman]

How is that "bringing it on himself?"

[mburbank]

You know, that sucks, and I'm genuinely sorry for your uncle, but that's not even remotely what I'm talking about and the fact you don't know it just demonstrates how out of your depth you are. I hope the economy gets better, I hope he gets good work again and I hope things don't get worse. I'd love it if there were a saftey net for people like him if things do get worse, but as a single, healthy man, he can forget it or go to a homeless shelter or a food pantry if there's room. I think we could do a whole hell of a lot better for folks like your uncle, but there's folks around way worse off right now.

Now if he was married, his wife was also laid off and they had two kids, lived in an overpriced shitty apartment where the rent had almost doubled in the last year, had no health insurance and maxed out credit cards just buying kids clothes and food and were one bad month away from being homeless, THEN you'd be where I'm talking about. And that's where a lot of pople are right now, people who haven't done aanything worse than your uncle. I think as a society we should look out for people like that, and I think as a society we should be required to look out for people like that. Why? Because that's one of the things human beings gather into a society for. Because we know we can't count on each other individually. Left to our own devices too many of us don't care or just don't see. That's human nature. Society is what we've invented to try to protect ourselves from each other.

[The One and Only...]

Originally Posted by Pee Wee Herman

How is that "bringing it on himself?"

He didn't save enough money, although the government didn't mind doing so in the name of "Social Security." Also, he didn't seriously look for a job for quite a while, which made what he did save dwindle away.

He really has the capability to be self-employed, but he can't get his shit together.

He didn't do anything that most Americans wouldn't. That's why we need to teach budgeting in schools.

But all of this is irrelevant. The point is I know what poor living conditions are like. Burbank, I've met a person like that before when I visited my uncle. But you know what? I don't feel any pity for her. All she does is drink and smoke. I'm learning that the majority of people who don't make in this world hurt themselves, and I'm sorry, but that is solely on them.

[Dole]

Has it ever occured to you that there might be a reason those on much lower incomes are more likely to drink and smoke??

". The point is I know what poor living conditions are like. Burbank, I've met a person like that before"

-wow, what an expansive experience of the human condition you have lived through. Let us all bow before your 15 yr old patronising, condescending wisdom you fucking cock.

[The One and Only...]

I've probably seen more than you, fucknut.

[Dole]

Its about time you learned some fucking humility and accepted the fact that you are not some intellectual oracle who knows exactly what it takes to live in the real fucking world and to work for a living.

Come back in 15 years when you have lived through some of the shit you are so ready to dismiss without any fucking tangible life experience beyond high school.

[The One and Only...]

Nice try, but that argument is entirely irrational. Come back when you have something to contribute.

[Dole]

Great Comeback. What intellectual Prowess. what reasoned argument. What stoic, logical beauty.

Go and do your fucking homework. Maybe you might learn something.

[The One and Only...]

So you admit that you argue from emotion? If so, then the debate is purely under my authority. You have no place in it.

My detached nature from reality ensures a higher degree of objectivity.

[mburbank]

Oh my God, you MET a poor person?!? I take it all back. That's like this one time? I went to the zoo? And there was this Elephant there? And now I'm a fully qualified expert on Elephants. I tired to tell them at the zoo that they didn't know what they were doing but they threw me out.

No, seriously, your extensive undertsanding of poverty in america is really impressive as is the indepth case study of this woman you met one time who was drinking and smoking at your Uncles house.

"I've probably seen more than you, fucknut"

See, that's what I like about you, your near solopsistic self absorbtion. Dole is a grown man about whom you know nothing. What in the world would lead you to have any inkling of how your life experiences match up? That's what underlies all your name dropping survey knowldge crap, a gut level certainty that you already know it all that would make the pope blush.

Shouldn't you be in school?

[Buffalo Tom]

Originally Posted by The One and Only...

I've probably seen more than you, fucknut.

Great comeback. It's going to take more than prepubescent verbal ripostes to convince me that you've seen more of life than the likes of Dole and Burbank. Playing 'Where in the world is Carmen San Diego?' on the school library's computer at lunch time does not make you world-weary. You dingbat.

[The One and Only...]

You do realize, of course, that I fundamentally reject experience as any measure by which knowledge can be gained, particularly in the economic fields?

Dole seems like he's always been a member of the middle class. I already pointed out that I've been through bankruptcy before.

I know the person that I'm talking about, and I know what she's gone through.

[Emu]

I'm not much older than OAO, and even I can see the flaws in the shit he spews.