Gov. Rick Perry Indicted On Felony Charges

If that's what you got from my comment, trust me it's not what my intention was. I just like how those two go at it.

lol, you must seriously be so unaware of yourself and of others to think that the most important thing to a person's life is themselves.

Let me ask you this: If you and I were working at the same job, at the same position, and our boss came up to us and said that we both deserve a promotion, but there was only one available spot and you get to decide who it was, you would not automatically say that you will get the promotion?

Don't be unreasonable, K. I'm sure Jesus cares about you.

I don't believe in him.

Just because I'm a conservative doesn't make me a Christian.

being entirely selfish/self centered/a ***, etc is vastly different from giving yourself top priority, while still doing what you can for others, then there's the people that are indeed self sacrificing (they do exist).

So your statement was that everyone is only looking after themselves, which everyone else knows isn't true.

If it were you and me? yeah: *** you, I'll take it. But there's a few others that I've worked with that I'd promote over myself, and no I'm not lying when I say that.

Well do you have any friends that care about you?

You were the one who connected self-caring to selfishness, not me.

I didn't say that everyone is going to go out of their way to make them number #1 in the world, I said that people only care about themselves. You were the one who added the element of harm to others in my definition.

My example proved it too.

While people can momentarily preserve other's needs over themselves, it is a temporary event. The vast majority of the time involves actions that can be deemed self-preserving.

Or are you going to say that most people would give their lunches to complete strangers, help old women across the street 100% of the time, and offer their services free of charge their entire lifetimes?

If you were truly self-aware and did not want to look selfish, your answer would have been the following:

My friends? I wouldn't care if they cared about themselves more than me.

That's not what friendship is for.

I know you are trying to back me into an argument that would either make me look bad or invalidate my previous argument, and that's not going to work.

Well good thing you're such a smart guy, you won't have to rely on anyone but yourself.

You couldn't be more wrong on every single point, but it really shows something about you, thanks.

Depending on how much you believe in Orwellian philosophy, eliminating the middle class is a critical step to a Libertarian utopia.

The working, or lower class, is too concerned with just eking out a living, while the upper class is comfortable, in control and fiercely conservative.

It's the middle class that has both the resources and financial security to create social mobility and thus upheaval in the establishment. Not that I want to go full tin-foil hat in here, but the rising cost and economic irrelevance of higher education, the push towards privatizing all education by conservatives (Monopolizing it to the wealthy), and the professional decay of both the fourth and fifth estates of information kind of point in that direction.

Guess you would have been on the Brits side at the start of the American Revolution.

Dismissing an entire movement because some asshats take advantage is short sighted. There will always be some humans who will take advantage of a situation.

However, the history of US protests are not violence free, going back to the founding fathers who actively set out to damage property.

Edited~

I dunno, that sounds pretty "full tin-foil hat" to me.

1. The middle class tends to vote Republican. Conservatives would want to eliminate that why?
2. Higher education, from what I've found, tends to be dominantly liberal. So, let's blame the higher costs on the conservatives for your conspiracy theory. Sounds legit.
3. You'll have to explain this "economic irrelevance" of higher education to me, especially in an era where businesses demand degrees.

Could you provide a source?

I looked up class voting trends but couldn't find any historical data except for the 2004 election, which defined middle class as household incomes 30,000-75,000 and it is very much a propaganda piece.
http://content.thirdway.org/publications/339/Unreqited_Love_-_Middle_Class_Voters_Reject_Democrats_at_the_Ballot_Box.pdf

I'd really like to see several elections if you could give me a link.

If you go down the hypothetical rabbit hole, it kinda makes sense. That doesn't mean it's true, just an interesting thought exercise.

The ultra wealthy see progressive ideas as a threat to their empires, so the first step would be to get puppets into elected positions where they could exact their goals directly. There would be 3 main ways they could influence the results of elections, since you wouldn't need a majority of votes, only the right votes:
1. buy the election with campaign advertising
2. appeal to popular beliefs, like exploiting people's religious beliefs
3. change the rules by excluding the oppositions' votes

So far it's still pretty plausible. Eliminating the middle class is the next step, hypothetically they pose the largest threat because in numbers they still wield power. Using your political pawns to systematically strip their wealth (which is largely in real estate and stocks), a temporary collapse of the banking system would do it. Now millions are out of work and the labor market is rife with people willing to take peanuts over starving to death. If they wanted to retain political influence, they'd need a way to appeal to the now much larger lower class. An ideological grassroots movement that empowers the poor to believe they can change the course of government fits the bill. You now have the lower class fighting with each other over stupid social politics, the voting districts hopelessly gridlocked with gerrymandering, and the shrinking middle class afraid to rattle the cage for fear of losing their grip.

It's obviously not the only way for the oligarchy to retain/increase their control, but it's one way that is shocking similar to recent history. It's not that far fetched that people have those suspicions. I personally don't buy it. A hallmark of oligarchies is that the nobility believe themselves untouchable right up until the revolution.

I said Libertarian, not conservative (They just happen to be viciously conservative in their own brand). Unless you are saying the TEA party and the Republican Party are the same entity. Also, you're just wrong but let's at least get details right.

Exactly, Higher education swings liberal (Education = Liberal, speaks volumes don't it?), therefore push the economic strain to keep the liberal factor out of order. Make it as difficult as possible for people to get higher education so only the top tier can afford it.

As for economic irrelevance, it's been my personal experience that businesses don't demand degrees, they demand references. A college degree is just an arbitrary excuse to demand more wages on its own. Connections go way further than degrees. Varies with your career path of course, but I'm sure that admission won't stop you from doing the old black-or-white kindergarten argument of "Well, this one time... therefore R WRONG!"

It's been a while since I've seen information on it, and I'm not finding anything in my searches. Regardless, if the upper class is a minority, and the lower class tends to vote Democrat, then where does that leave the middle class? If the middle class tended to vote Democrat too, there wouldn't be many Republicans in office.

I posted this in another thread way back when, but although higher education swings liberal, so does lower education. Again, I'm going to have to find my source although I included it previously. Nice attempt at a zinger though.


Yeah, my experience has shown that degrees make a big difference so that's a wash, so in the absence of any more evidence from you I'll just disregard what you said.

Eh, I'd rather see the numbers.

Since union members used to be considered middle class, lower class does vote republican (poor Red areas), and it really depends on how middle class is defined

And both parties gerrymander districts, which screws up everything

I've actually had a lot of criticism about the liberal monopoly on education, so in that context my "Zinger" as you call it cast in a different light. But if you've ever proven yourself capable of anything, it's forming a conclusion and then finding evidence for the conclusion. Trickle down economics meets intellectual discourse, am I right?

The definition of the Middle Class changes on a daily basis it seems, I don't think it's something as arbirary as how much money you make. At the very least, it has to be a ratio of your income and the cost of living in your area.

My niece bought her first house in South Dakota, 4 bedroom 2 bath. Mortgage payments of 492/mo. Rent in Southern California for a 1 bedroom apartment is around $750.



I so called that hand you just played.


Which is what you do anywhere when evidence or perspectives don't support your personal narrative. It's the poison of the conservative mind. Only your perspective is a valid world view.

You're right. There are a number of factors that could screw things up. I'd love to see the numbers too, and it's frustrating that I can't find more info.

Is this a serious question?

No, I would not automatically accept any offer for promotion. What are the responsibilities? Is there an increase in pay commiserate with responsibilities? Does it entail significantly more days of travel than my current position? Does it entail significantly more hours than my current position? Is it an advancement in the one of the directions I wish to go in my career?

If you have a spouse/family, answers to the above questions will likely trigger discussions with them as well, as it will also impact them.

Also? If your boss does this, that's a fairly good indicator you should be looking for a different boss, or you are at a company with a rather toxic culture. A proper way of offering a promotion is to offer it to the individual, without adding such caveats. It is fairly well understood that when such an offer is made, a refusal means that it will be offered to someone else (because there is a need for someone in that position). In almost all cases, a period for review and negotiation before providing a response is acceptable.

The only evidence you put forth is that it costs more to live in the city than it does in the country. Very insightful.

It's sad that rent around here isn't much lower than SoCA, that's saying something about the jacked up prices here.

You're looking at $550+ for a single that doesn't have roaches.

Wait, what? That's not even evidence, and I wasn't trying to pass it off as any kind of evidence.

I was just saying class division isn't as simple as "I make this much money" and just using an anecdotal example.

Does anyone actually disagree that class division isn't as simple as a single income?

Exactly what the democrats have done and are continuing to do.

I won't disagree with you on that.

I said in the absence of any more evidence I will disregard what you said. As in, you provided a claim and proceeded to not back it up with any real info, therefore why should I give credence to it?


ftfy

Rent for a apartment in the towns around me is 400-500 for decent accommodations. A house with 4 bed, 2 bath is like 700-900 though.

He was being facetious...

edit: quoting out of context ftw.