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At 10/16/12 04:59 PM, Camarohusky wrote: The Fed interest rates should have been increased about a decade ago. + Stuff

I can't believe we agree on something.

My guess is that tax hikes are always going to be more noticeable than tax cuts, especially if people end up taking whatever monetary gains they get from the taxes and end up losing it on other things, like gasoline and health care.

At 11/27/12 09:19 PM, poxpower wrote:

At 11/27/12 04:46 PM, SmilezRoyale wrote:

Depends on the Anarchist.

Yeah I know, neither philosophy / movement is really that well-defined but if I took the smartest people with the best arguments from each side, they'd basically be the same as far as I can tell.

Noam Compsky Calls himself an anarchist, yet as far as I can tell he defends most of the sacred cows of government, at least the ones not associated with neoconservatism.

At 11/18/12 11:05 AM, Camarohusky wrote:

At 11/18/12 10:17 AM, Ericho wrote: that movie was more about freeing the slaves instead of preserving the Union, which is actually what Lincoln was more concerned about.

I've read that Lincoln was very reluctant to free the slaves and only did so as a political boost for the Civil War.

And you would be correct. Lincoln adhered to a view that was common among many Americans that while slavery was a moral evil there was a serious problem about having free blacks live among whites, his idea was to deport them to a free colony in Africa, and by modern standards his views about the races would constitute as being racist; [his sins are forgiven for having emancipated the slaves out of expediency]

I actually think a separate State, perhaps an independent country either within or without the US, where emancipated slaves would be subsidized to immigrate to, would probably have saved the US a great deal of trouble. Of course America's civil rights legacy is of MLK, not Malcom X.

But a Hollywood film about a political figure like Lincoln is not going to be anything other than an exercise in Hagiography, it can't afford not to be.

At 11/25/12 07:35 PM, Camarohusky wrote:

At 11/25/12 08:53 AM, SmilezRoyale wrote: I think the main factor behind unusually high CEO pay is the fact that the conventional methods for Shareholders reigning in CEO excess do not exist. The principle method for regulating CEOs in the past was the corporate takeover.

Nah, they definitely exist, they're just horrifically impractical.

The practice of corporate raids and corporate mergers was much more common in the days of yore. With the new laws in place these measures are either illegal or impractical and while I don't have any numbers on this I'm fairly certain that CEO pay would have been more in line then with what it is today in Europe.

Now that was how it was done in the past, there may be other ways which are still legally viable, but are impractical and hence are not attempted. So what you are saying and what I am saying are not mutually exclusive.

At 11/26/12 08:53 PM, poxpower wrote:

At 11/26/12 08:25 PM, LemonCrush wrote:

At 11/26/12 08:16 PM, poxpower wrote:

moderate anarchists

Oxymoron

No, an anarchist isn't someone bend on violently destroying the government.
It can just be living in a stateless society. Many of them think this is possible without requiring violence. I think they even wanted to buy an island where they could go live without a government, under the theory that if they self-organize they will succeed better.

Depends on the Anarchist. I'm inclined to think that many, perhaps most, of the people that use that label for themselves in the present want to 'smash the state' --> Of course some self described anarchists are just Social democrats that wear black and don't want to admit that their views are incredibly mainstream. But it's hard to know what the actual percentages of the distributions of self-described anarchists are with respect to views...

But anyway. I still think what you said was correct and Golf claps for what what an insightful clarification.

At 11/20/12 08:25 PM, SenatorJohnDean wrote:

At 11/17/12 02:33 PM, SmilezRoyale wrote:

In practice, color does in fact equal race. Become blind to that and any conclusions that you draw become useless in any practical way.

Self identified races correlates with more than mere skin color.

Dawkins isn't the end of biology and as a matter of fact, that is a fairly antiquated viewpoint. It is actually the opinion of modern biology that the homogeny of physical and mental characteristics have much more to do with adaptation to similar circumstances over a period of time.

I am saying "Differences exist between the groups classified as races, beyond mere skin color" -- I don't see how what you said contradicts what was said by me or Dawkins.

I'll also add another voice to my side.

http://www.jonentine.com/reviews/straw_man_of_race.htm

We are referring to subgroups of humans that have lived in different areas of the world and have thus evolved to have different attributes. The fact that these attributes are not merely related to skin color is what matters.

The fact that thousands of years of evolution could change one group or another is not proof that the groups are not real. It is believed that dogs evolved from wolves, is this evidence that there are no objective differences between dogs and wolves?

If you were literally color blind, you could still classify races by height, bone density, resistance to or lack of resistance to certain kinds of diseases etc.

:By that viewpoint, race is not biologically intrinsic in the least, which makes a great deal more sense when you think about the adaptive powers of the human animal.

Instrinsic and mutable are mutually exclusive categories.

The fact that thousands of years of evolution could change one group or another is not proof that the groups are not real. The very notion of CHANGE implies natural difference.

It is believed that dogs evolved from wolves, is this evidence that there are no objective differences between dogs and wolves? Liquid, Solid, and Gas are classifications of matter that deal with the nature of a substance at a given place in a given time, and it is not denied by any respectable person that even the same substances in different states have different characteristics that go beyond superficial perception of them. That something could go from being solid to liquid to gas and

No one as far as I know is making the claim that the groups classified as races are eternal, only that as they exist at this time and place in history biological differences exist between them.

At 11/23/12 05:36 PM, morefngdbs wrote:

At 11/23/12 02:30 PM, SmilezRoyale wrote: I can hold a very specific notion of Fascism in my head but it will likely find itself at odds with what other people imagine when they throw the word about carelessly.

;;;;
Facism doesn't mean you have Hitler or as in history in 30's Italy ...Mussolini's facist government.

That is what many people get confused by, they believe you have to be ruled by a dictator ... when that doesn't necessarily have to be the case.

Yes but you see if you deconstruct fascism in to its core components, and then present them piecemeal to the average american, do you think he would or would not approve of them as much as calling it all, collectively, 'Fascism'

I am of the opinion that the majority of Americans support, or in 10 years will come to support everything that people like you and I are aware USFG is doing at this very moment.

I think the main factor behind unusually high CEO pay is the fact that the conventional methods for Shareholders reigning in CEO excess do not exist. The principle method for regulating CEOs in the past was the corporate takeover.

At 11/23/12 02:19 PM, leanlifter1 wrote:

At 11/23/12 12:52 PM, SmilezRoyale wrote: Frankly it should be illegal to call anything or anyone fascist. For one simple reason, if any word fits the following category;

"We can't agree what [Word] actually means ...

If you have a hard time understanding just what Fascism is then just close your eyes and think of the Fascist Adolf Hitler.

Fascism - A system of government marked by centralization of authority under a dictator, stringent socioeconomic controls, suppression of the opposition through terror, censorship, and propaganda and typically a policy of belligerent nationalism and racism.

There's a difference between being confused about what an idea means and noting the fact that people have trouble agreeing on what does and does not constitute fascism, even if they can point to Italy and Germany in the 1930's as examples.

I can hold a very specific notion of Fascism in my head but it will likely find itself at odds with what other people imagine when they throw the word about carelessly.

At 11/22/12 10:49 PM, leanlifter1 wrote:

At 11/22/12 10:41 PM, SmilezRoyale wrote:

At 11/22/12 10:39 PM, leanlifter1 wrote:

At 11/22/12 02:11 AM, theburningliberal wrote:

You can easily find a good Unionized factory jobs that pay even a subordinate entry level peon more money in a week than a Wal mart manager makes in a month.

If you can easily find it, then the Union isn't doing a very good job.

WHAT ? LOL

In other words, if ANYONE can find and have a given job, there's no reason to suspect the compensation will be abnormally high. I.e. supply and demand of labor.

Jobs [at least in private sector employment] get higher pay if the number of people that can perform them is small. This smallness can be imposed by "natural" factors; such as the danger associated with the job, or the level of prior knowledge needed to complete the job. It can also be imposed by artificial factors, i.e. restricting the number of people who are able to perform a given job by having all businesses agree to run closed shop, and then restricting the number of people who can join the Union.

This is the rationale behind, for example, why a union might act in favor of efforts to curtail illegal immigration.

Frankly it should be illegal to call anything or anyone fascist. For one simple reason, if any word fits the following category;

"We can't agree what [Word] actually means, but we all agree that [word] is [Good / Bad]"

The word is essentially useless, it's basically a tool either to slander or praise something without just cause.

Fascism fits that label, the term is used to slander someone or some thing.

That doesn't mean that you can generate a functional definition of fascism and then identify something as fascist because it has the essential elements of fascism, but if this is the case, why not simply say that that something has certain elements.

In theory, identifying the elements of a given descriptive term, and showing how they apply to an object, should for any half-decent intelligent individual, evoke the same feelings as if they used the short-hand term.

X is a murderer
X intentionally takes the life of others without a valid justification.

If the feelings don't match, you know the word has taken on a life of its own.

At 11/22/12 10:47 PM, leanlifter1 wrote: The question is how many times can our previous generations pass the buck onto the next ? Is this it as mathematically speaking it is impossible to continue on in this fashion of debt based currency and credit.

The ability of a state to borrow is predicated on the willingness of the creditors to lend. If the lending is coerced or the state is lending money to itself, then its printing money, which is not the same as inter generational debt; the effects of that money printing will be far more immediate.

Although in theory if the money printing [and to be clear I'm using money printing as a metaphor for any kind of TRADITIONAL non-debt based money creation, OR debt monetization] is offset by a larger economy the inflation tax will be disguised. But the kind of money printing needed to plug a gap in a Greek, Italian, Spanish government budget deficit would be significant.

Also does anyone find it interesting that google chrome spellcheck has a word for demonetization but not for monetization?

At 11/22/12 10:39 PM, leanlifter1 wrote:

At 11/22/12 02:11 AM, theburningliberal wrote:

You can easily find a good Unionized factory jobs that pay even a subordinate entry level peon more money in a week than a Wal mart manager makes in a month.

If you can easily find it, then the Union isn't doing a very good job.

Let me add one afterthought.

A final advantage to this system is that, say, in the case of a country like Greece, the citizens of the country have much less of an excuse to complain about austerity; since such austerity will likely be necessary if a sovereign default occurs ALTHOUGH the austerity requirements will necessarily be lower.

They couldn't honestly complain that they are being exploited by the creditors who they just told would not be getting any of their money, because those same creditors now refuse to lend them more money.

And again if they tried solving this problem by printing money they'd just get very heavy inflation.

I've been thinking. With all of these countries in so much debt, Sovereign default seems like the most efficient way to go about 'solving' the debt crisis.

By my understanding, the ability of a State to spend more than it taxes is predicated on its ability to borrow. No politician in a modern democracy can win an election by promising to raise taxes or cut spending if borrowing can be gotten away with, nor can any politician run on a platform that involves any kind of deleveraging, i.e. payment of existing debts. Nothing short of a crisis could force a government to do otherwise, and by then you have a situation where one generation would end up footing a massive bill; the society at that point has likely become so dependent on government spending that the austerity period would be unbearable.

Sovereign default rids that state of the obligation to pay its previous debts. So the typical unpopular tax increases or spending cuts are no longer necessary. Also, having defaulted, it would become either impossible or practically impossible for that state to continue to engage in a habit of spending borrowed money; no one except their own central bank would loan money to them, they would have to resort to de-facto money printing to allow the situation to continue, which by my understanding would result in a more immediate and putative kind of inflation than normally occurs.

Don't think I haven't forgotten about the creditor. I'm well aware that the big losers in sovereign default are them, and I do not support the idea of the state simply creating money to pay back the existing creditors. To be honest, I don't particularly sympathize with creditors, be they private or public. For one thing it is their function to ensure that the behaviors of the borrowers do not go out of control. I'm inclined to think that most borrowers are incredibly reckless and the only thing that keeps them from getting their hands on lent money is the unwillingness of creditors to give it to them. This is less of a problem with public than private debts, because in most cases with private debts, the person doing the borrowing is the same person who ends up doing the paying.

I'm also not very fond of the idea of people actually making money off of the governments taxation of future generations.

Considering that certain public employees unions, as well as "Private businesses", whose livelihood is based upon increasing the level of incarcerations of citizens by the Government are allowed to vote, I see little logic in denying the vote to criminals if THOSE sorts of people, with their glaring conflict of interest with what can reasonably be called the common good, are allowed to vote.

Of course I take a much simpler position; abolish elections.

At 11/22/12 11:21 AM, Jmayer20 wrote: My people seem to think that Communism and Socialism are the same thing. I shall now tell you what the difference is between Communism, Capitalism, and Socialism. I shall explain the difference economically.

At least you're offering definitions. While there's no such thing a a correct definition, only the definition held as correct by a sufficient majority of people, I would like to offer an alternative definition.

Communism - A Stateless classless society founded on common ownership of the means of production.
Socialism - All property owned by the State

This is the definition that Karl Marx used as well as the definition used by the Communists themselves.

The trick is that while what they called themselves was Communists, because that was ostensibly their primary goal, they were not actually practicing communism when they subjected their citizens to what is today called Totalitarian rule by a party elite; this was referred to as Socialism and it was treated as an intermediate stage between the revolution and a communistic Utopia. This is also why, I believe, the government was referred to as the Union of Soviet Socialist republics rather than the Union of Soviet Communist republics.

Capitalism has multiple conflicting definitions and in my mind is more of an attitude about things than a description of anything. The term free market is more descriptive, but in order to have a working definition of free market you need a working definition of 'private' property and 'public' property; most people do not have such a clear conception of property. If you lack a definition of public and private property, you won't actually be able to identify whether an entity is public or private at all.

But definitions of any of these terms are only relevant in the context of debates about them. When the words are used to mean such a wide variety of things you don't stand a chance of getting people to agree to apply it consistently to one thing and one thing only. But you can get people to at least understand what you mean when you use the term in a sentence.

At 11/22/12 12:59 AM, Jmayer20 wrote: To SmilezRoyale

Lets say you were the president. If a state decided to secede would you try to stop them or just let them go?

If I were operating purely on material self interest I would probably try to stop them. If I were motivated purely by ideology I would let them go.

At 11/6/12 08:27 PM, Camarohusky wrote: As has been said in my bad voting thread, an uninformed vote does nothing but cancel out an informed vote.

But paradoxically, assuming votes 'count' [which often times they don't] Anyone who decides not to vote on grounds of being uninformed is PROBABLY more informed than those who do vote. As in Socratic style there is wisdom in knowing that you know nothing.

At 11/21/12 09:43 PM, theburningliberal wrote:

At 11/21/12 08:40 PM, leanlifter1 wrote:

At 11/21/12 08:35 PM, Dimitrilium wrote: What's make China so strong is the fact they have so many expendable slaves... I mean underpaid workers.
And no respect for environment, people, and everything.

Communism is a big joke, there's no country more capitalist right now.

If you think China is capitalist, you need help. They just introduced private property rights in 2004 via an Amendment to their constitution... Maybe in a few years they will vote in blowjobs, too.

I think you're closer to the spirit of the truth but to address this point specifically. Consider the fact that Legal protections of property rights are less important then the de-facto situation regarding the ability of citizens to make economic decisions as they please

To take as an example, I believe in the UK during the 1800's there was never any specific legal guarantee for free speech. Yet de-facto free speech persisted throughout the period. [Now of course you have things like hate speech prevention etc. etc.]

In the United States you have explicit legal protections of free speech yet implicit understandings that it can be abridged under a number of pretenses.

Now I suspect free speech is more prevalent in the US than the UK but it's hard to argue that it being written down is more important than the actual 'understanding' of the situation.

The rest of your stuff I generally agree with.

Enviromentally speaking China has a pretty nasty record, then again, so did the Soviet Union and so does the US Government [US Citizens not so much] It's one of the problems with a 'growth at all costs' model.

The illegality of secession is a red herring.

Legality in the real-world sense, especially when we're dealing with secession, is based entirely on whether or not the "Union" state is both willing and capable of using violent force to prevent the seceding state from seceding.

To quote Thane from Mass Effect 2: "The law is only a protection when everyone agrees to be bound by it. We Don't"

It doesn't matter if the constitution explicitly permitted any state from seceding at will in the United states, or explicitly prevented it. What matters is whether those who command the military chose to allow or disallow the

It only matters to the extent that citizens of that state project legitimacy onto agencies that adhere to written laws, Citizens and soldiers. So if Texas seceded and Obama wanted to firebomb Dallas as punishment for some sort of treason, but every pilot in the air force refused to man the bombers to carry out the order, then in effect Obama can no longer be said to function as a 'commander' of the military.

The unpopularity of trying to suppress a secession could in theory be strong enough to prevent a central government from doing it.

Practical limitations on actions by others are the substance from which laws arise; the normative attitudes people hold in their head about inherent notions of right and wrong, as well as legally prescribed notions of right and wrong, are forces which push practical limitations in one direction or another.

________________

Now if you're confused over the apparent conflict between notions of self determination on one side and the notion of unity on the other; those two only conflict if you adhere to notions of universal moral absolutes.

At 11/21/12 08:24 PM, Ononymous wrote: U.S should become Communist. China's economy is growing very fast, and it should overtake America's economy soon.

Clearly, adopting a Communist economy has made it into a great financial powerhouse.

It'd therefore make sense for the U.S.A to adopt Communism too.

Define Communism and demonstrate that China practices it. Since the word has multiple definitions.

China is ruled by a party that refers to itself as "The Communist Party" <--- or at least that's vaguely what it means in the Chinese to English Translation. In my mind, given my own knowledge of the definition of communism [Note that not even the Communist party in the USSR referred to its own practices as "Communism" -- although they referred to themselves as Communists for reasons I won't get in to]

Also China's growth rates are not really sustainable. And the CCP's obsession with 'growth at all costs' is likely going to result in an "economic correction" occurring in that country.

You didn't put much thought in to your post.

At 11/17/12 02:59 PM, morefngdbs wrote:

At 11/16/12 07:04 PM, SmilezRoyale wrote:

At 11/16/12 12:04 PM, morefngdbs wrote: I believe that ANYONE WHO ISN'T of African Descent, should be held apart from anyone else..

I would say most skinheads are idiots and scum. But this kind of argument is just intellectual masturbation.

;;;; How judgemental of you !
I personally don't hang or know any of those people (& if I do they have never mentioned it) so i am not about to judge "ALL" of them simply based on their ideology.

Maybe I'm being hyperbolic. But there's definitely a subset of people who want forced segregation between whites and blacks and they're not a friendly sort.

1. Common ancestry does not negate the reality of group differences.

Are you kidding me ?

If evolution works the way biologists say it does, Common ancestry isn't limited within the groups classified as races among humans. So do we deny the existence of differences between two groups of life forms because they have a common ancestry?

Or less abstractly. if wolves and foxes have a common ancestors [Idk if they do, but suppose they do] Would we say that there are therefore no differences between wolves and foxes?

I'm not asking if the differences between wolves and foxes are as significant as the differences between races, I'm asking if the knowledge of common ancestry allows you to logically deduce that no differences exist.

I believe it absolutely negates their ability to claim they are somehow better than say... you !

Did I say better? This is the problem with you people [And by 'you people' I mean basically everyone] Your're always dealing in normative terms. Better is either a matter of subjectivity or an 'engineers' question [like whether a CAR X or CAR Y is better for purpose Z] Only stupid people say that X race is better than Y race. Though it isn't stupid to hypothesize that the higher average height of Blacks makes them naturally better than, say, Asians, at Basketball. And the higher average bone density makes them disadvantaged at swimming. Of course those kinds of observations are about average group differences aren't absolute and all binding; these kinds of observations won't tell you much about any individual member of any race but they have explanatory power on the macro-scale.

Yet people attempt to say...

An emotionalistic rant. Very few people think they're superior because of their race, and certainly fewer people can openly formulate it in their heads. Notions of subjective superiority may have nothing to do with reasons

1. A natural preference to be with people of your own race.
2. An acknowledgement that racial composition of areas is an exceptionally accurate indicator of the crime level in a given area, more so than poverty.
3. Knowledge that one's children may be the target of racial hatred in a 'diverse' community.
4. The general lack of social trust that coincides with 'diversity' http://www.abdn.ac.uk/sociology/notes07/Level4/SO4530/Assign ed-Readings/Reading%209%20(new).pdf

Either of those could function for reasons absent any notion of subjective superiority to want to, at least, voluntarily segregate oneself. Or to go even farther and not allow people of different races to live in the same neighborhood.

All of us bleed red !

All Mammals as far as I am aware bleed red.

All of us have a double helix DNa code.

All life forms on the planet have a double helix DNA code as far as I'm aware.

Time for more people to push all* the similarities instead of perceived* differences.

Time for us to acknowledge differences if and where they exist. Whether or not said differences 'justify' anything is a case by case determination.

At 11/17/12 01:02 AM, SenatorJohnDean wrote:

At 11/16/12 07:42 PM, LemonCrush wrote:

At 11/16/12 07:10 PM, TheRipper00 wrote:

So in conclusion, He is charging more, and NOT paying more.

Wow.

He IS charging more and not paying more, and if you can't see that, then you are simply blinded by Fox News ideology. I have seen you post, and it seems like you are unable to take individual situations without being completely partisan about the whole thing.

Papa Johns is using Obamacare as a smokescreen to charge more, and become richer,

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/11/15/papa-johns-obamacar e-ians-pizza_n_2133050.html

Quoting from the Huffpo article.

However, in the case of Papa John's, a portion of its employees are already paid at minimum wage, Gruber pointed out. "So you canâEUTMt reduce wages for those employees, and the firm may have to increase prices a little bit,âEU he said.

Of course I'm somewhat embarrassed since that wasn't the particular reason I gave, and I hadn't thought of it much myself.

There are some dumb things said in the article also but I'm only doing it to provide you with a non-fox-news-source [Sources should not matter per say, there are empirical observations and economic analysis, analysis is something we can do for ourselves] which contests your claim for the reasons behind the price increases.

It seems more likely, as the article suggests, that the price increases are more a political statement than an excuse to raise money. [More likely doesn't mean it's the reason, just that as a reason it is more likely] since, as they said, the price increases will be small.

At 11/17/12 11:16 AM, SenatorJohnDean wrote: In order to speak on racism politically, I have to take this discussion into the realm of quantum physics.

First of all, let me define a racist and then explain why I have defined it that way.
Racist = anyone who defines in any way their perspective of another based upon non-intrinsic optical illusions.

That being said, everyone is a racist. The visual receptors in our brains take up so much more space than other sense receptors that we cannot help but place more gravitas on what we see than on other indications of a person's character, especially at first glance. People could also be defined as racists against themselves if they define their own culture by their skin tone, ie, who they should hang out with, what music they should listen to, how to behave in certain situations.

By my definition, we are all racists, against others and against ourselves, but the human race can transcend this definition of itself by first acknowledging the scientific farce that color truly is.

Color does not equal race. And the idea that race has no biological reality is certainly not a consensus opinion among biologists as far as I know. [Hence my linking to Dawkins]

But this topic wasn't on trying to get people to move past the whole race = color nonsense.

If youâEUTMre two steps ahead of me youâEUTMve probably already thought of a few. So instead of arguing which one is correct [which is not the point of this] letâEUTMs do what we did before with democracy and generate a non-exhaustive list of all possible definitions.

1. People who want to exterminate all others of a given race [Himmler, and âEUoeAmericaâEUTMs Black HitlerâEU comes to mind]
2. People who support enslaving a given race but stop short at extermination [Think typical Antebellum slave owner]
3. People who want to disenfranchise a given race and have them live as second class citizens but stop short at enslavement. [IâEUTMm ignorant about them, but I think the KKK fits in this category, though some members probably just donâEUTMt want Black men having sex with white women]
4. People who intensely despise people of a given race, for their race specifically or by proxy, but do not actually support any form of political disenfranchisement. [David duke perhaps? YouâEUTMd have to ask him.]
5. People who generally have negative feelings about a given race and may not wish to associate with them [John Derbyshire]
6. The guy that gets nervous about people of another race on a bus, mostly subconsciously. [Your average race-sinner]
7. People who recognize the validity of race as a concept rather than a mere social construct. [E.G. Richard Dawkins] But beyond that are normal responsible, tolerant people.

Now even if YOU think that people who could be classified towards the bottom of the list are just as evil as those at the top, I think most people would admit that the distinction matters and that the burden of proof is on YOU to say that, people who are racist #7 are as bad as people who are racist #1, and ought to have the same word be used. In other words, itâEUTMs not an implicit claim youâEUTMre entitled to take as given simply because youâEUTMve found a way to do it linguistically.
Aside: Time to brag again; someone like me who is smart enough to see the meaning hidden behind the rhetoric can call Richard Dawkins, indeed can even call myself a racist whilst laughing about it because theyâEUTMre not taking themselves seriously.

The power, or rather, mystery, behind the word Racist is the ability by intellectuals and second hand intellectuals [journalists] to by subtle inclination link anything that is remotely racially tinged with the racial consciousness [specifically white racial consciousness] with the killing of six million Jews, or the Atlantic slave trade, etc.

There was never an open debate about what kinds of attitudes people have towards race are actually dangerous and which ones are 1. Natural 2. Expected 3. Innocuous 4. Never going to go away short of North Korea style indoctrination or a mass killing of race heretics, both of which are basically âEUoewars for peaceâEU that defeat the whole purpose of the anti-racist crusade.

But enough of that *right wing* hate speech, time for another right wing hate speech.

Education. What the *fuck* does this word even mean? [I try to avoid course words but seriously in this context it is justified] No one can reasonably deny that this thing we call *education* has become the holiest relic in the 21st century pantheon of secular deities.

But enough ranting. LetâEUTMs write our non-exhaustive list.
1) Anything associated with the process of acquiring knowledge/information generally. This is sometimes also called âEUoeLearningâEU
1a.) The Acquiring of knowledge in of itself. Not literally defined as âEUoeAcademicsâEU but often times treated as such. I call it 1a because itâEUTMs a subset of 1.
2) Anything associated with accredited institutions designed to feed information to students in a more or less routine fashion. I.E. âEUoeSchoolsâEU or âEUoeSchoolingâEU
3) The molding of youth into ideal citizens [ideal citizens having a definition relative to the person using this conception]
4) The giving of knowledge and skills to young people to improve their human capital in the work force i.e. âEUoeJob TrainingâEU

Once again to help illustrate the differences.

Another way to understand the difference the way FEELS when used in a sentence;
Common Phrase: âEUoeWe need to invest more in our educationâEU

Now perform the exercise of replacing the last word with - Learning, Academics, Schooling, Civic Virtue, Job Training,
Most people who have reached my level of Cynicism know that people who use the word education REALLY mean #2; their efforts at improving education are almost always and everywhere aimed at funneling greater sums of cash into schools. It didnâEUTMt matter what the students learned and whether that knowledge was useful to them, it didnâEUTMt matter whether they had the mental capacity to ever learn the kinds of knowledge that was expected of them, and it clearly doesnâEUTMt matter whether the funds could be better spent elsewhere, and it doesnâEUTMt matter if young people lose ten to twenty years of their lives.

But the people who think this way donâEUTMt really have to make a case that funneling money into schools is a good in of itself, they can rely on the fact that such a concept shares the same word as other concepts that people could also agree are of value. Like Academics or job training or civic virtue, none of which are necessarily improved by investing in âEUoeEducationâEU as these other people see it.

Education is more akin to democracy than it is to say Racism, where the linguistic trickery lies in the absence of a distinction between outcomes and procedures. Schooling is a procedure, not an outcome. None of these definitions of education [except 1 and 1a] necessitate one another.
âEUoeAmericaâEU

The common feature of a concept bundling is that it typically involves an abstract term. [And most terms in politics are very abstract] Democracy, education, Racism, are all abstract. So is America, Freedom, most ISMS that people throw around frequently. [antidisestablishmentarianism has a pretty concrete definition since it isnâEUTMt debated very much]
You donâEUTMt get more abstract than saying âEUoeAmericaâEU as a thing.

The origin of this concept bundling goes back pretty far but its most recent major usage should be memorable by most people here who were into the whole âEU~politicsâEUTM thing before the ascendancy of Obama, i.e. the Bush years. ItâEUTMs still used a tad bit today but I digressâEU¦ HereâEUTMs an example of how this is commonly used.

âEUoeAre you blaming America for 9/11?âEU
Honestly how could anyone blame a land mass of 300 million people on an event like 9/11? Wait, define America.
1. The mass of individuals who call themselves Americans
2. The US Government
3. The Pentagon more specifically
4. A set of ideals commonly associated with the land mass covered by the borders of the entity that calls itself the USFG.

Admittedly #4 is very uncommon. But itâEUTMs pretty clear the effect this has on peopleâEUTMs heads.

The left has a similar weapon in their arsenal, itâEUTMs called âEUoeSocietyâEU or âEUoeThe PeopleâEU. I wonâEUTMt get into why I think the left rejects one term and uses another when they function so similarly.

In conclusion, concept bundling amounts either to a genuine misunderstanding to an innocent attempt to understand a complex world by finding similarities between unique objects. It is the political equivalent of bait and switch; attracting customers with the promise of one thing but selling an entirely different product.

And we're all the dumber off for it.

Be warned. This is a very VERY long post, even by my standards. If you're the sort of reader that gets most of your political thrill from bashing politicians you dislike, or talking about abortion and gun control. [Seriously what is up with that? Is it because those topics are simple to grasp?] Begone!

"The beginning of wisdom is to call things by their right names" --> Chinese Proverb
Logic and reasoning can only be expressed to other in terms of words, which are basically symbols we emit either phonetically or visually. This is not to say that logic canâEUTMt be arrived at without words, but even if it could be done, conveying that logic to others would be impossible, and since most knowledge is not the product of original deduction but instruction and observation, it stands to reason that words are vital to how we perceive the world.

OrwellâEUTMs 1984 goes so far as to argue that one element of mind control is purging the human vocabulary of all words [i.e. all signifiers of concepts] which could in any way challenge the authority of âEUoeThe PartyâEU Note that I havenâEUTMt read the book and so IâEUTMm taking this at second hand.

Obviously then one way to obscure peopleâEUTMs ability to think about things is to remove a word that provides a needed title to a concept in the world a name. Another way to do it is to head multiple clearly distinct concepts and assigning them the same word.

IâEUTMm inclined to believe that our ability to perceive the world accurately lies not only in the ability to classify something by a word but to know when other objects or concepts do not fit the word, and thus the need for the separation.
I am not certain if this practice has an actual name so IâEUTMve decided to give it one myself, Concept bundling. And it is simply the practice, intentional or not, of using one word to refer to multiple things which at close inspection can be seen to be very different things but generally having a thread that runs through them which allows them to legitimately be bundled in some way.

Concept bundling is fine in every day speech when youâEUTMre dealing with people who think like you. If you as a person say something, people familiar to you will know exactly what you mean because when you use the word youâEUTMre definition of it is less likely to vary than between two individuals.

Concept bundling becomes utterly pernicious in political or philosophical discussions because people can either consciously or subconsciously toggle back and forth between multiple distinct meanings of one word. By doing this he can pass off one concept as being the same as, or essential to, another concept, without stating it explicitly. Yet often when the distinct concepts are identified, and the conflation of the two made apparent, it becomes difficult to impossible to defend the association.

LetâEUTMs take an example. Democracy, here is a non-exhaustive list of all the things which could be referred to as democracy. [I know that I have separate definitions for Government and âEU~StateâEUTM but IâEUTMll treat them as being the same for simplicity sake; since most people do, [Yet another example of concept bundling]]

1. A political system where the majority rules. [Rule being defined as policy making] Sometimes pejoratively called âEU~mob ruleâEUTM
2. A political system where âEUoeThe people control the governmentâEU
3. A political system where representatives with decision making power are elected by a voting majority

If these three things seem the same to you IâEUTMll argue quickly why they are not. The simplest proof for this is to look at any one of these three and ask if it is possible for a given political system to be called one but not be called the other.
If you have trouble doing this yourself, consider #3, which is probably the most accurate description of what exist today as democracies. A voting majority might elect someone to office but that doesnâEUTMt mean that the âEU~majority rulesâEUTM, firstly because voting majority does not mean citizen majority and because politicians [and we know this by experience] are not obligated to follow through on their promises, nor do voting majorities conferred on a given candidate guarantee that a SPECIFIC POLICY has majority blessing. The second definition is also spurious; we canâEUTMt identify the WHOLE people or even a MAJORITY of the people being in control of the Government. If you take the time to REALLY think about it, no government could ever be called democratic by definition 3 if âEUoethe peopleâEU required anything close to a majority.

In general the distinction between PROCEDURE and OUTCOME is ignored when everything under the sun that seems democratic-esque is called a democracy.

There are also semantic debates about what constitutes representation. Adolf Hitler saw himself as representing the German state yet described his movement as anti-democratic. We could infer this is because his definition of democracy corresponded more to the procedures than the actual outcome.

This may sound elitist, but frankly, most people are not smart enough to realize these distinctions without someone smarter pointing them out, and even then they might deny that such distinctions are real.

IâEUTMve shown how words can be used to blur important distinctions. The problem is that this isn't just a matter of mistake; this blurring can be used to manipulate people into believing in ideas which, quite frankly, are idiotic. It isn't always intentional, after all, if people can drink their own Koolaid, they can surely be fooled by their own linguistic tricks [which they inherited from those around them and so forth]

IâEUTMll give two examples of what I think are the absolute worst culprits of Word bundling on the left, and one example of it being used by neoconservatives and American exceptionalists. [I decline to call them the Right for reasons I wonâEUTMt get in to]

Racism.

What is racism? And why do we live in a society that makes calling someone a racist the Salem equivalent of witchcraft?

If youâEUTMre a respectable person who hasnâEUTMt fallen to the darkside of right wing reactionary extremism [like me] You know that racism is bad because racism is responsible for many a number of wars, slavery, the holocaust, [perhaps the whole second world war?] the destruction of the Indians [Amerindians that is], Colonialism, Imperialism, etc. etc. if youâEUTMre a so-called-conservative then you probably hold the same view except you might call it âEUoeTrue racismâEU or âEUoeActual racismâEU or âEUoeextreme racismâEU or âEUoewhite-supremacisimâEU this difference in wording is likely because youâEUTMre more cogniscant of the fact that racism refers to such a broad number of things.

Now IâEUTMm not going to get in the whole debate about whether all forms of essentialism lead to the gates of Auschwitz [which is the fundamental premise of all political correctness], because most people donâEUTMt actually hold this view, at least I donâEUTMt think they do, and if they do they could probably come out of it with very little argumentation on my part - and if you donâEUTMt know what essentialism means please either use Wikipedia or skip this paragraph.

But before we judge whether that assessment is actually fair letâEUTMs start by asking what the definition of a racist is. [That is the exercise after all]

At 11/16/12 07:10 PM, TheRipper00 wrote:

At 11/16/12 12:05 PM, LemonCrush wrote: It literally shocks me how little people understand how businesses operate.

He is raising the price of pizza AND cutting his employees to below the required hours ( 30 Hours ) that would make him have to pay for there heathcare. So in conclusion, He is charging more, and NOT paying more. So where the fuck is your argument valid?

I should have covered this in my previous post but I didn't notice it. You can't have every single one of your employees working part time. for ones remaining that end up having to receive their senselessly expensive health care; This could explain the need to raise prices.

At 11/15/12 05:50 PM, SenatorJohnDean wrote: The idiot who owns Papa Johns says that he is going to cut hours of his employees because of Obamacare. Now he's not the only GOP nutjob CEO who's doing this, but he is the most prominent.

He's a private businessman. He has the right to do whatever he wants. But making a public scene about what should be a private matter and trying to connect it directly to the President is such a loser move... dude, all these old, dying white men are really just mad that their daughters are having sex with non-white people and browning up the country.

Pizza grease and sex. I can't think of a better topic, especially when they are used together. Yum.

I'm boycotting Papa Johns.

I disagree. If a government policy is forcing you to do things that hurt the workers, threatening the ability of your business to operate, you are as close to obligated to let people know about this as possible.

We can't afford to have a public anymore that is continually shocked at every crisis given they'd been told: "One more law and you'll have the Utopia we've been promising"

The other businesses that remain silent for PR reasons are essentially engaged in self-censorship. It's the sort of mentality of the soviet press where the role of the Media is to act as a cheerleader for soviet policy; except there's no central censor and so there's no excuse to remain silent.