why do so many americans ...

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auntblabby
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28 Jan 2013, 9:40 pm

nobody likes pofolk. even pofolk despise other pofolk.

Misslizard
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28 Jan 2013, 10:02 pm

There wasn't just Oakies, there were Arkies that suffered in the dust bowl.

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ruveyn
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29 Jan 2013, 9:16 am

Misslizard wrote:

There wasn't just Oakies, there were Arkies that suffered in the dust bowl.

True. In any case these troubled folks didn't simply whine and bemoan their fate. Let any Americans, they got up off their collective asses and went elsewhere to make a life.

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29 Jan 2013, 9:19 am

thomas81 wrote:

would you rather society is led by people who have to work for your votes or by businessmen who are motivated only by profit and the interests of spending power?

every dollar freely spent to purchase a good or service is a kind of vote for that brand of good or service. Rightful businessmen in a competitive market work for our "vote" every single day of the year, not just on election day.

By the way, the computer you are tapping away on is produced by businessmen motivated by profit and the interests of spending power. Without such people we would still be living in caves.

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Last edited by ruveyn on 29 Jan 2013, 2:08 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Tequila
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29 Jan 2013, 11:36 am

I know a few of these small businessman types. They're very interested in bragging about all they have and wanting you to feel jealous of what they have. I don't feel envious at all. Not in the very slightest. I don't feel envious of people with big feck-off BMWs or Rolls Royces. What would I do with one of them? I can't drive.

What would I do with an indoor swimming pool, a tasty wife and a home cinema? You can have all that without paying for the upkeep. It's the same rationale about not wanting a bloody massive RV. Just book a cheap hotel instead.

ruveyn
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29 Jan 2013, 2:09 pm

Tequila wrote:

There are millions of people with small businesses. How many of those millions have you met?

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AgentPalpatine
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29 Jan 2013, 2:21 pm

Tequila wrote:

To confirm, you're not attacking small businesses here, you're attacking rampant consumerism, correct?

I never understood the RV thing, unless you're traveling somewhere they don't have hotels. Supposedly, the cost works out if you have kids with you, but that might have something to do with lower fuel and higher hotel costs here than the UK.

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Tequila
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29 Jan 2013, 2:22 pm

ruveyn wrote:

There are millions of people with small businesses. How many of those millions have you met?

You have me impaled on a pike there.

I've met quite a number of them. I was just thinking of the most obnoxious ones. The others didn't actually feed into my imagination.

It's quite amazing, when you think about it, how much the bad is remembered and the ordinary or the good is forgotten.

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29 Jan 2013, 3:56 pm

Tequila wrote:

ruveyn wrote:

There are millions of people with small businesses. How many of those millions have you met?

Piece of friendly advice: Beware Observer Bias. The natural tendency is to remember those observations with reenforce your beliefs and to ignore or forget those observations which contradict your beliefs.

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Tequila
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29 Jan 2013, 4:03 pm

I think a bit of it is to trying to fit it into the "Considerably Richer Than Yow" mould.

Dillogic
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29 Jan 2013, 4:14 pm

Probably to do with the teaching -- the US was founded on the principle that "governments overstep their bounds and remove liberty", so we'll put checks and balances on such so they will never do that here (hasn't always worked).

Governments have been the ones to historically go insane with power and destruction too. It happening now. It happened yesterday. It happened a decade ago. Two decades ago. More times than one can care for in the past century. The century before that. And so on and so forth.

If you're the sort to go by statistics regarding fear, you should fear the government in some way.

ruveyn
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29 Jan 2013, 4:16 pm

Dillogic wrote:

Actually it has never worked.

In the U.S. government has always over extended itself beyond the bounds envisioned by the Founders.

Even Jefferson transgressed. He had no Presidential authority to buy the Louisianna Territory from Napoleon, but he bought it anyway and Congress approved the expenditure.

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ColdDish
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29 Jan 2013, 8:54 pm

:lol: Every country is more special than everyone else, or so a bigot thinks in public, I see.

Sweetleaf
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30 Jan 2013, 11:13 am

ColdDish wrote:

:lol: Every country is more special than everyone else, or so a bigot thinks in public, I see.

Indeed, every bigot lives in the most specialist, bestest superior country at least in their minds.

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0_equals_true
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30 Jan 2013, 11:37 am

The idea that we are that different is not the case.

We express it in different ways.

If there is a policy we don't like we complain, same principle but different ways of expressing it.

Substitute the word 'politicians' for 'government', and we are the same, and of course we say government also, just like you say politician.

We don't have an executive presidential system, but even so the word government comes up often in complaints.

Of course there is always going to be cultural differences.

I think where you get less educated people it becomes difficult for them to differentiate different aspects of politics and be specific, so the result is a general paranoia.

Last edited by 0_equals_true on 30 Jan 2013, 12:39 pm, edited 2 times in total.

Tequila
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30 Jan 2013, 12:24 pm

ColdDish wrote:

:lol: Every country is more special than everyone else, or so a bigot thinks in public, I see.

I don't know; I think some countries are better than others. I'd rather live in Britain, France, Germany, Canada or New Zealand than, say, Afghanistan, Burundi, Somalia, Burma or the Democratic Republic of Congo.

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