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ForumsDiscussion Forum → Inauguration Day, Inauguration Hooooooraaay!
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Inauguration Day, Inauguration Hooooooraaay!
2018-01-28, 9:12 PM #6961
Originally posted by Jon`C:
As someone in the "rest of the world", I can tell you: it's not funny.


It's not really funny to me, either, but the tying in of Trumpism vs anti-Trumpism with history makes a bunch of sense. You could probably figure out how someone voted based on how they would respond to the question "why was the civil war fought?"
2018-01-28, 9:43 PM #6962
Well if you don't love Old Glory, then why don't you geeeeet out.
2018-01-28, 10:19 PM #6963
Originally posted by Reid:
It's not really funny to me, either, but the tying in of Trumpism vs anti-Trumpism with history makes a bunch of sense. You could probably figure out how someone voted based on how they would respond to the question "why was the civil war fought?"


Or based on whether they thought that dress was white and gold. IT'S BLUE, PEOPLE. COME BACK TO REALITY.
former entrepreneur
2018-01-28, 11:14 PM #6964
Originally posted by Eversor:
Or based on whether they thought that dress was white and gold. IT'S BLUE, PEOPLE. COME BACK TO REALITY.


[https://giphy.com/embed/3o7btPOMufN5FziFWg]
[https://media.giphy.com/media/3o7btPOMufN5FziFWg/giphy.gif]
[https://media.giphy.com/media/3o7btPOMufN5FziFWg/giphy.gif]
URL since apparently GIPHY won't let me embed

I've been able to see both, it just depends on how your brain corrects for the light it's seeing.
2018-01-28, 11:20 PM #6965
Also, for reference, I usually see the dress as white and gold.
2018-01-28, 11:21 PM #6966
[quote=Fox News]Iran spends billions on weapons programs, terrorism while ignoring Iranians' basic needs, report finds[/quote]

Oh no! lol
2018-01-28, 11:26 PM #6967
Fox News respects its viewers exactly as much as they deserve.
2018-01-28, 11:29 PM #6968
If you build whataboutism* into the core of your worldview, hypocrisy ain't exactly high on your list of worries.

*which, in its original Russian form, too was about foreign policy fingerpointing.
2018-01-29, 12:06 AM #6969
I don't how many Fox News viewers would be inclined to call US foreign policy "terrorism". Maybe more now than two years ago. Or maybe fewer. I could see it going either way.
former entrepreneur
2018-01-29, 12:09 AM #6970
Well then there's the crocodile tears in other half of the Fox's statement.

At any rate I think that worrying about a bomb falling on your head is pretty terrifying.
2018-01-29, 12:11 AM #6971
Also, I wouldn't think too hard about what a Fox News viewer thinks. It might actually seriously hurt your head to try and do that.
2018-01-29, 12:13 AM #6972
The Americans that seem most afraid of terrorism also seem like the least likely to ever be affected by it.
2018-01-29, 12:26 AM #6973
Putting a television in everyone's living room in a country where something like deregulation had a chance of gaining currency in Washington might have been one of the bigger mistakes of the 20th century.
2018-01-29, 12:33 AM #6974
If you're gonna blame anybody for how things turned out, blame Ben Franklin.
2018-01-29, 12:37 AM #6975
Well I've tried that a couple times, but then you said that we couldn't have been Canada anyway. (For what it's worth, though, that article was mostly about remaining in the Commonwealth rather than mirroring our Northern neighbours to a tee.)
2018-01-29, 12:39 AM #6976
I think just going around and smashing all the TV sets would be easier. Like they did to that Xerox machine in office space.
2018-01-29, 12:44 AM #6977
You couldn't have been Canada, but you didn't need to experiment with democratic capitalism either.
2018-01-29, 12:50 AM #6978
[quote=The Washington Times]
What is ‘democratic capitalism’ anyway ?

The first thing to understand is that “democracy’ is a system of governance, and “capitalism” is an economic system. The genius of America has been to unite these two elements into a synergistic whole with the goal of providing every American “the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”
[/quote]

:colbert:
2018-01-29, 12:52 AM #6979
synergistic whole. uh huh.
2018-01-29, 12:52 AM #6980
omg he goes on:

Quote:
The early history of capitalism was based on a slightly upgraded form of slavery. Where capitalists had no fear of government — or were in fact the government themselves as kings, oligarchies, or dictators — many forms of abusive behavior prevailed, including child labor, company stores, beatings and actual slavery. All human labor was grounded in despair.

Somehow, by the grace of God, the Founders of America — though many were themselves slaveowners — allowed the ideals of hope to shine brightly in the documents and organizations of the new Nation. Nowhere else in human history to that time had a national constitution been adopted which recognized the fundamental rights of all people “endowed by their Creator” (not by the State or the Church or the King) to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness”. That bias against big government pervades all the American foundation documents. The accompanying bias in favor of personal freedoms was a necessary byproduct of this view, which fit well with the frontier and the agricultural life of most early Americans.

Those early ideals were so firmly imbedded in the American character that we have spent the next 241 years trying to realize in practice the goals set forth by our founders, even to the fighting a war over these ideals, a war which cost 650,000 lives, an entire generation of young men. We have come a long way, but we have still far to go. Our only claim has to be that we never, ever stop striving to achieve for all our citizens life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness in the midst of our ever more complicated national life.


https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2017/apr/30/what-democratic-capitalism-anyway/
2018-01-29, 12:56 AM #6981
Weird to see the Washington Times talk about labor standards like a good thing
2018-01-29, 12:58 AM #6982
I'd've figured their official stance is that labor rights are slavery, of the capitalist by the worker, and the only just recourse is to suspend the 13th amendment for all job creators with more than 200 employees slightly upgraded slaves.
2018-01-29, 1:02 AM #6983
Don't blame me, I'm just a high school student who wanted to understand what democratic capitalism is and clicked on the second Google search result for the phrase (teacher said I couldn't use Wikipedia as a source).
2018-01-29, 1:31 AM #6984


Literally everything conservatives say can be responded to with "government is not the only locus of power". It's really just that simple.
2018-01-29, 1:32 AM #6985
Originally posted by Reverend Jones:
Don't blame me, I'm just a high school student who wanted to understand what democratic capitalism is and clicked on the second Google search result for the phrase (teacher said I couldn't use Wikipedia as a source).


I should become a teacher so I can tell students to use Wikipedia, ****'s far more reliable than any random google link.
2018-01-29, 1:34 AM #6986
Hey, it's a newspaper and it has the word Washington in it. Sounds legit to me.

The weird thing is that I don't even think they are even close to being the most radical right wing rag these days.
2018-01-29, 1:35 AM #6987
Locutus is not the only government of Borg.
2018-01-29, 4:29 AM #6988
Originally posted by Reverend Jones:
Don't blame me, I'm just a high school student who wanted to understand what democratic capitalism is and clicked on the second Google search result for the phrase (teacher said I couldn't use Wikipedia as a source).


Why do they still say this? I continue to run into this in more general classes. Do they really not know that this means the stupid students will think you can't even use it to find sources?
Epstein didn't kill himself.
2018-01-29, 5:10 AM #6989
It's probably the best place to start for most topics.

OTOH if I actually cited it alone, I could just edit it myself to say whatever I want and cite that (admittedly likely short lived) version of the page. :P
2018-01-29, 8:34 AM #6990
Originally posted by Reid:
Literally everything conservatives say can be responded to with "government is not the only locus of power". It's really just that simple.


We should run the government like a business (totalitarian dictatorship)
2018-01-29, 12:28 PM #6991
http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/nafta-montreal-talks-january-28-1.4507990

Quote:
The Trump administration wants the right to opt out of the binding dispute resolution panels, because it views them as an invasion of sovereignty and an incentive for companies to outsource to Mexico by guaranteeing them a forum to sue for unfair treatment.

"We basically said to them, 'If you want to opt out, that's fine — you're gone,'" said an official with knowledge of the talks who described the American reaction. "You can imagine that the U.S. negotiators didn't like it."


Short version, the US wants American investors to be able to use the existing ISDS process against Canada and Mexico, but doesn't want Canadian and Mexican investors to be able to use the same process against the United States. **** off.
2018-01-29, 12:41 PM #6992
Quote:
On two of three contentious issues, Lighthizer slammed Canada’s “presumed compromises” — that is those on the rules around content for North American cars, regulations that determine whether they qualify for duty-free sale.

Lighthizer said Canada’s idea to broaden the list of parts, including intellectual property for the computerized sensors of a modern automobile, would lead to less North American content and fewer jobs. He suggested much of the work would go to China. He called it the “opposite” of what negotiators are trying to do here.

Lighthizer criticized Canada’s proposal on dispute settlement, and blasted Canada’s WTO complaint last month about U.S. trade remedy practices, which was aimed at U.S. softwood lumber tariffs on Canadian wood exports.

“This litigation, essentially, claims that 24 years ago, the U.S. gave away its entire trade regime.” He called it “frivolous” and said it “makes one wonder if all parties are truly committed to mutually beneficial trade.”


Don't worry, we already know the US isn't, Lighthizer.
2018-01-30, 8:10 AM #6993
I know one ways authoritarian regimes try to make people indifferent politics is by instilling in them the idea that politics is so complicated, and there is such an overwhelming array of things that could be going on, that it's ultimately hopeless trying to understand anything at all, and it's better to stay out of politics altogether, to save yourself the headache. That's a tactic that the Russian government uses on its citizens.

But do they also try to make politics seem so petty that it's not worth engaging in? I suspect so, or it wouldn't surprise me, anyway, because that's the thing that's getting to me. I think I could have lived with the complication. But the pettiness, and everything covered with emotional barbs and smug sarcasm, endless charges of hypocrisy, which are themselves hypocritical... that's what's really getting to me and making me want to tune out.
former entrepreneur
2018-01-30, 8:14 AM #6994
That would've been a *great* live journal post in 2005. Very emo. Still, I stand by it.
former entrepreneur
2018-01-30, 9:44 AM #6995
Amazon wants its own health insurance, and aftet the announcement a bunch of pharma stocks tanked.
2018-01-30, 11:36 AM #6996
former entrepreneur
2018-01-30, 11:41 AM #6997
EZ Clap
2018-01-30, 11:47 AM #6998
Amazon is a privately-owned infrastructure monopolist that the media keeps mistakenly calling a retailer, so nationalizing it wouldn't be as extreme a position as it maybe seems.

We always circle back to firms vs. markets even when we don't think we are.
2018-01-30, 12:05 PM #6999
starting at around 34min, thought this was interesting. TL;DR, there's a silver lining to vertical integration in healthcare: https://art19.com/shows/the-weeds/episodes/f5dd5f46-b80b-4677-ac71-d9543647cb10
former entrepreneur
2018-01-30, 12:16 PM #7000
Originally posted by Eversor:
starting at around 34min, thought this was interesting. TL;DR, there's a silver lining to vertical integration in healthcare: https://art19.com/shows/the-weeds/episodes/f5dd5f46-b80b-4677-ac71-d9543647cb10


Is this just about the fact that you can't extract rents when your demand is already perfectly inelastic?
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