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So when does being a 'leftist' become a crime?

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Raptor
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04 Dec 2016, 10:00 pm

Kraichgauer wrote:
Ah, I see you two enjoy talking about me as if I'm either not here, or not worthy of respect. Well, talk away, as it says volumes more about you than me.

Don't play the innocent victim, you've earned whatever you get.


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04 Dec 2016, 10:17 pm

Kraichgauer wrote:
BaalChatzaf wrote:
Kraichgauer wrote:

It's easy to say that when you don't want to help someone else.
And seriously, stealing? Is the military stealing by using taxpayer money? Is fire and police protection stealing for using other people's money to help those few who are victims of fire or crime?


Taxation is theft. It means getting money from someone with the threat of prison for non payment or the seizure by force of a person's assets. In a properly run society police, fire and military service would be available through a market mechanism. In our society we resort to force.


Citizens get services in return for taxation. Getting something after giving something hardly seems like theft. I've never heard of a mugger taking a guy's wallet, then leaving him a roll of cash.
I think the market as a force that rights all wrongs is way overblown. The market had a hundred years to correct racial inequality and failed, whereas the government legalized civil rights in a few decades.


I have no issues with paying taxes for services that we all benefit from.
I have no issues with paying taxes for a social safety net.
I do have issues with bureaucratic red tape wasting the money we pay out in taxes and binding things up from reaching the intended recipients.
I do have issues with the social safety net being used as a hammock by those able but not willing to hold themselves up.


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Dox47
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04 Dec 2016, 10:25 pm

marshall wrote:
I don't believe they intend to help at all. They persist in their ideas even when confronted with the fact that private charity doesn't work as well as government. You're not a traditional conservative so I don't think you can speak for them.


But you and Bill do get to speak for them, or at least claim to know what they think? Persisting in beliefs in the face of contradictory evidence is hardly unique to conservatives, and isn't the sign of some sinister motive so much as it is a basic feature of how we're wired, unfortunate as it may be.


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04 Dec 2016, 10:27 pm

marshall wrote:
I addressed the argument as baloney. If everyone could climb out of poverty who would be doing the minimum wage jobs? I'm not sure I even trust the authenticity of the quote to be honest. If it is true, it just shows that even intelligent people are capable of believing dumb things when it suits their prejudices.


You don't need to believe that the argument is correct, only that the person making it is genuine in their belief, an important distinction. Remember, I'm not arguing that conservatives have the right idea here, only that it's inaccurate and uncharitable to claim that they're motivated by some sort of hatred for the poor.


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04 Dec 2016, 10:44 pm

Raptor wrote:
Kraichgauer wrote:
Ah, I see you two enjoy talking about me as if I'm either not here, or not worthy of respect. Well, talk away, as it says volumes more about you than me.

Don't play the innocent victim, you've earned whatever you get.


Whatever, skippy. Just buy another gun to make up for your (ahem) shortcomings.


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Dox47
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04 Dec 2016, 10:50 pm

Kraichgauer wrote:
The thing is, due to circumstance, disability, or age, not everyone can just pull themselves up by their bootstraps.


I'm going to cut your post there for brevity's sake, and because I'm not trying to argue for or against conservative ideas about helping people, but rather the fact that they are trying to help people, which is what you seem to have so much difficulty understanding. You can argue that they're wrong, but you choose to argue that they're uncaring, which reveals more about you than about them.

Kraichgauer wrote:
And are your liberal friends aware that you said you hate liberals?


If I said that, which I don't particularly remember, I wasn't being serious about it, and my friends are very much aware of my opinions of their politics, as I've been twisting their collective tails about them since high school. You may recall (or not), that I went to an alternative school that was to the left of Marx and highly activist, so I've had a lot of practice getting along with people who's views I think are wrongheaded at best. Of course, things got really surreal when I went off to gunsmithing school and I was suddenly the bleeding heart liberal in the crowd, but I manged to make and keep friends there too, and to be honest, those guys were so much less dickish about politics than the liberals I grew up with that I've retained a lasting fondness for them that you may have noticed.


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04 Dec 2016, 10:51 pm

Kraichgauer wrote:
Ah, I see you two enjoy talking about me as if I'm either not here, or not worthy of respect. Well, talk away, as it says volumes more about you than me.


Do you have actual amnesia concerning your many public conversations with Auntblabby where you don't name names but make it very clear who you're talking about? I can jog your memory if need be.


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Kraichgauer
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04 Dec 2016, 10:54 pm

Dox47 wrote:
Kraichgauer wrote:
Ah, I see you two enjoy talking about me as if I'm either not here, or not worthy of respect. Well, talk away, as it says volumes more about you than me.


Do you have actual amnesia concerning your many public conversations with Auntblabby where you don't name names but make it very clear who you're talking about? I can jog your memory if need be.


Then if you took offence at it, you should have called us out, which was your right.


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04 Dec 2016, 11:02 pm

Kraichgauer wrote:
Raptor wrote:
Kraichgauer wrote:
Ah, I see you two enjoy talking about me as if I'm either not here, or not worthy of respect. Well, talk away, as it says volumes more about you than me.

Don't play the innocent victim, you've earned whatever you get.


Whatever, skippy. Just buy another gun to make up for your (ahem) shortcomings.


Um, you're really not that good at trolling. Are you going to bring up "gun fetishism" for your next act?

Skippy


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04 Dec 2016, 11:04 pm

Dox-

I never said anything against actually helping people empower themselves to find work. My problem is with those conservatives who are contemptuous of the poor for not pulling themselves up by their bootstraps, and don't actually try to help the needy other than shaming them, and cutting off life sustaining benefits.
By the way, the Republican representative who said poverty is a choice is contemptuous of the poor, as was another who likened keeping the poor fed and housed was no different from feeding stray dogs - they'll keep coming back for more. The guys you knew at the gun smithing class I have no doubt were decent people, but those particular conservatives are not all conservatives. Not all conservatives are bad people, but too many not only believe in the myth of pulling yourself up by your own bootstraps, but believe that we are autonomous individuals without owing anything to one another, and in fact believe we should not.


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Last edited by Kraichgauer on 04 Dec 2016, 11:07 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Dox47
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04 Dec 2016, 11:07 pm

Kraichgauer wrote:
Then if you took offence at it, you should have called us out, which was your right.


I have. Repeatedly.


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04 Dec 2016, 11:11 pm

Dox47 wrote:
Kraichgauer wrote:
Then if you took offence at it, you should have called us out, which was your right.


I have. Repeatedly.


Then groovy.


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04 Dec 2016, 11:13 pm

Raptor wrote:
Kraichgauer wrote:
Raptor wrote:
Kraichgauer wrote:
Ah, I see you two enjoy talking about me as if I'm either not here, or not worthy of respect. Well, talk away, as it says volumes more about you than me.

Don't play the innocent victim, you've earned whatever you get.


Whatever, skippy. Just buy another gun to make up for your (ahem) shortcomings.


Um, you're really not that good at trolling. Are you going to bring up "gun fetishism" for your next act?

Skippy


Who says I'm trolling?


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04 Dec 2016, 11:23 pm

Kraichgauer wrote:
The guys you knew at the gun smithing class I have no doubt were decent people, but those particular conservatives are not all conservatives. Not all conservatives are bad people, but too many not only believe in the myth of pulling yourself up by your own bootstraps, but believe that we are autonomous individuals without owing anything to one another, and in fact believe we should not.


I could just as easily make the same point about not all liberals being nanny state supporting gun grabbers, but enough of them actually being that to justify the generalization, and it would be you writing the outraged response. My biggest problem with you, Bill, is that you routinely fail to realize that you do the exact things you complain about other people doing, seemingly without any awareness that you're doing them, and when you're actually called on it, you lash out, make excuses, or move the goalposts, all without any self reflection about what you're doing. You need to take a Post It, write "it's not different when I do it" on it, and stick it on your monitor as a reminder of this.


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Dox47
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04 Dec 2016, 11:25 pm

Kraichgauer wrote:
Who says I'm trolling?


You do, when you'll try to explain away posts like this as trying to get back at people who make you mad; deliberately posting to wind people up is kinda the definition of trolling.


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04 Dec 2016, 11:33 pm

Dox47 wrote:
Kraichgauer wrote:
Who says I'm trolling?


You do, when you'll try to explain away posts like this as trying to get back at people who make you mad; deliberately posting to wind people up is kinda the definition of trolling.


Yeah, yeah, I'm a horrible, petty person. But you seem to have no problem excusing your friend skippy for provoking my friends and me.


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