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VideoTapir posted:Steal his ID and burn his house down. Make sure to get pics or it didn't happen  Edit for content: I've had to have this same conversation with guys at work, and when I pointed out to them that there are some rural areas that don't even have a DMV that keeps normal office hours and only showed up in a specific place once/twice a month, they were shocked. Couple that with a person with a low paying job and/or limited mobility and a lack of any public transport options and it becomes pretty much an insurmountable task. They then tried to say that they should extend the hours, so I told them "OK, now fund that in a rural area with little to no revenue to begin with in a state that already gets more back from the fed than it pays in taxes." and they started to realize it just wasn't as black and white as they wanted so hard to believe it was. I should add that it was even funnier because one of the guys involved in the conversation took a full 99 weeks to find himself a job after he got laid off, and sits around bitching about welfare queens to anyone who'll listen. I don't know how he can hear himself talk through the ringing of cognitive dissonance in his head. NatasDog fucked around with this message at 14:00 on Sep 20, 2012 |
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Sep 20, 2012 13:48
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My dad sometimes drops welfare queen stories and such. His older brother told me about how their family was on welfare much of his childhood.
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Sep 20, 2012 14:49
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VideoTapir posted:My dad sometimes drops welfare queen stories and such. This is getting to the level of anti-gay activists who turn out to be deeply in the closet. 
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Sep 20, 2012 15:06
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Golbez posted:This is getting to the level of anti-gay activists who turn out to be deeply in the closet. I have to imagine they're rooted in a similar psychological concept. Is there a name for this kind of behavior?
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Sep 20, 2012 18:20
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NatasDog posted:I have to imagine they're rooted in a similar psychological concept. Is there a name for this kind of behavior? "Othering" would fit in pretty well. In all of these sorts of circumstances, you can guarantee that, when questioned, the point would be made that his family was not like that other family that bought X or Y while on welfare. It has to be kept in mind that these kinds of distinctions are not constructed in a logical, rational way, but in a way that supports the ego by shifting negative characteristics to a made-up group of people which you, yourself, are not a part of.
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Sep 20, 2012 20:32
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Overcompensation. Meanwhile, My debate with "the justice system isn't racist" guy continues. The Decades of Disparity study posted earlier was quite helpful in making my case, especially the 35% arrests / 46% convictions ratio. If only he would acknowledge those numbers in any way. He's using a bunch of points from these two articles, basically saying that blacks are exactly as criminal as the rate they are incarcerated. A few of the numbers don't seem to match up with the study I've been using, like point 2 of the first article, and there appear to be some flat-out lies in the second one. This stood out as particularly dishonest: "Next, critics blame drug enforcement for rising racial disparities in prison. Again, the facts say otherwise. In 2006, blacks were 37.5 percent of the 1,274,600 state prisoners. If you remove drug prisoners from that population, the percentage of black prisoners drops to 37 percent—half of a percentage point, hardly a significant difference." So I need help fact-checking, if anyone can. The second article is pretty long but seems to make far more erroneous claims than it has evidence for (like attributing the drop in crime in the 90s to higher incarceration, rather than, say, economic prosperity). This is an argument I expect to keep having in the future, so I'd really like to know how to address these points from now on.
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Sep 20, 2012 20:39
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NatasDog posted:I have to imagine they're rooted in a similar psychological concept. Is there a name for this kind of behavior? This is pretty good: Vermain posted:"Othering" would fit in pretty well. In all of these sorts of circumstances, you can guarantee that, when questioned, the point would be made that his family was not like that other family that bought X or Y while on welfare. It has to be kept in mind that these kinds of distinctions are not constructed in a logical, rational way, but in a way that supports the ego by shifting negative characteristics to a made-up group of people which you, yourself, are not a part of. Essentially its the "one of the good ones" thing that racists and other bigots use. They hate a strawman of the group they're making GBS threads on. If you point out someone they know fits into that group, or heaven forbid, they themselves...well, that's different! They don't mean Bob My Neighbor, they mean those people. You know. The ones that don't actually exist.
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Sep 20, 2012 20:50
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I looked through the OP here and didn't see anything about this. Do you fine people have any handy links about who was responsible for the housing crisis? Also I'm really not sure how to respond to this guy on my facebook, its like he half gets it then slides back. I'd appreciate any help in making a response to him. My googlefu is pretty weak, so I come to you. "Well. Actually I was working for those dirty capitalists makin my cash money. Oh wait, work for two small businesses who will soon be required to do something in the way of providing me health insurance (just what is it?? Who the hell knows?! We don't know what all is in obamacare). Why are businesses not hiring? Because these new regulations make it unclear as to how much the new employee will cost employers. And new taxes??? Obama said obamacare was a tax, sooo.... Yeah. And by the way, the government didn't deregulate the housing market, they FORCED mortgage companies to make subprime loans so that "everyone could be a home owner." Then the greedy investment packaging people took those subprime loans and packaged them as higher value investments and sold them. THAT was greedy people doing greedy things. Democrats started it, though....... :P " Like, I work for a bank doing foreclosures and he won't accept anything I say about how it goes down. I guess I was just hoping for some help here because its just headslamming in its idiocy. Edit: he also said he is already paying 35 bucks a month in obamacare taxes but I can't seem to find anywhere that said those taxes have already gone into effect, is he lying or insane? Ramadu fucked around with this message at 04:08 on Sep 23, 2012 |
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Sep 23, 2012 00:38
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Ramadu posted:I looked through the OP here and didn't see anything about this. Do you fine people have any handy links about who was responsible for the housing crisis? It wasn't the CRA (relaxed mortage requirements), it was the risky financial instruments built on top of the subprime loans. The OP has a link to a study that shows why it wasn't the CRA that caused the crash: the easiest argument is that Europe, which had no analogous act, had concurrent housing and financial bubbles. It was big banks leveraging themselves to the hilt that caused all the trouble. Further, CRA-backed institutions tended to make loans that were less, rather than more risky, and it was the non-CRA banks that made the majority of sub-prime loans that were the basis for the dangerous mortgage-backed securities. I have a separate question, about media bias. The inforgraphic below has been really useful in showing why this supposed liberal media bias is not as pronounced as it may appear, but I'm getting some pushback about supposed methodological problems (or rather, questioning the methodology because it isn't readily apparent fromt he infographic).  One person quoted this study from UCLA in 2005, which concludes that 'all major media outlets lean left' - and I'm not sure how to respond.
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Sep 23, 2012 05:36
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gaan kak posted:It wasn't the CRA (relaxed mortage requirements), it was the risky financial instruments built on top of the subprime loans. That study's methodology appears to be this: quote:Groseclose and Milyo then directed 21 research assistants — most of them college students — to scour U.S. media coverage of the past 10 years. They tallied the number of times each media outlet referred to think tanks and policy groups, such as the left-leaning NAACP or the right-leaning Heritage Foundation. First off, I don't know what 'referred to' means. They could be referring to them in a negative light or a positive. If they're simply counting the number of times the name of a think tank appears in news articles then it's a ridiculous methodology and that article is pretty much bunk.
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Sep 23, 2012 06:02
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icantfindaname posted:That study's methodology appears to be this: Yea, the study fails to account for a liberal article criticizing a conservative thinktank's position and vice versa; it's interesting but I think incomplete as a whole. Are there are any more methodological details available about the 4th estate infographic?
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Sep 23, 2012 06:21
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I'm trying to convince someone who basically thinks that guns should be freely sold on street corners with no restrictions that his opposition to gun control and his support for Voter ID laws are irreconcilable. Help? (He's the type to take everything that the CATO Institute says as worth its weight in Ron Paul gold, but it looks like most of their analysis is opposed to Voter ID laws on the grounds that they will directly lead to a national ID card and a police state because socialism)
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Sep 23, 2012 18:15
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gaan kak posted:Yea, the study fails to account for a liberal article criticizing a conservative thinktank's position and vice versa; it's interesting but I think incomplete as a whole. Are there are any more methodological details available about the 4th estate infographic? quote:Sentiment of statements is broken down by each candidate. Explicit statements of praise or criticism toward a candidate are marked as Positive or Negative to that candidate, respectively. Statements that affect the reputation or alter the image of a candidate are also marked with sentiment. Other statements that do not contain opinion, or do nothing to help or hurt a candidate are marked as Neutral. If a candidate speaks positively about himself, that can also be marked Positive. A problem that strikes me is that having more coverage overall will result in having more negative sentiment, all other things being equal. If the President is simply mentioned more than Romney, as seems probable, we would expect to see at least slight imbalances in 'negative sentiment.'
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Sep 23, 2012 19:09
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Ramadu posted:I looked through the OP here and didn't see anything about this. Do you fine people have any handy links about who was responsible for the housing crisis? Didn't look hard enough: Davish Krail posted:Poor people didn't cause the financial collapse of 2008: Part 1 Part 2 No worries though, there's a lot of links. That study is fairly exhaustive and academically precise. Odds are anyone you through it at will ignore because they can't argue against it. That's what happened over in the Depression thread. On to your dude: quote:"Well. Actually I was working for those dirty capitalists makin my cash money. Oh wait, work for two small businesses who will soon be required to do something in the way of providing me health insurance (just what is it?? Who the hell knows?! We don't know what all is in obamacare). Why are businesses not hiring? Because these new regulations make it unclear as to how much the new employee will cost employers." No, they really don't. They've even cut the payroll tax to make things easier for companies. If you're a business and you can't figure out how much it costs to have an employee, you're lucky you're not bankrupt already. Regulations always change, that's part of doing business. Either you have the business to justify a new hire, or you don't. quote:And new taxes??? Obama said obamacare was a tax, sooo.... Yeah. To vague, sooo...yeah quote:And by the way, the government didn't deregulate the housing market, they FORCED mortgage companies to make subprime loans so that "everyone could be a home owner." Nope. Completely made up. No law has ever been passed that forces companies to loan money to people who have a high default rate. The law he probably doesn't realize he's referring to is the CRA, a Carter-era law designed to eliminate redlining. Most of the companies making up the sup-prime market, like Countywide, were not subject to the CRA. At all. Additionally, the banks were the people lobbying for lax lending standards, not the government. quote:Then the greedy investment packaging people took those subprime loans and packaged them as higher value investments and sold them. THAT was greedy people doing greedy things. The sub-prime market was actually driven by that, not government legislation. Often the sub-prime places had quotas to meet, from the investment banks. There was a huge demand for lovely mortgages. quote:Democrats started it, though....... :P " Both parties are at fault, but ask him who pushed for Graham-Leech-Bailey(the CFMA) quote:Edit: he also said he is already paying 35 bucks a month in obamacare taxes but I can't seem to find anywhere that said those taxes have already gone into effect, is he lying or insane? Taxes on "cadillac" health plans are not in yet.
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Sep 23, 2012 20:11
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Could anyone comment on the current Rasmussen/Gallop poll thing going on? Every poll I see has Obama with a decent lead but the Righty shows I tune into are all abloo about how this is just a Librul Media Scam and "if you just take a look at how people voted back when it was Kerry vs Bush and no one on the Left really gave a poo poo about Kerry instead of back when it was Obama vs McCain and people wanted to see Obama win, you'll see that Romney has already won this election!"
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Sep 24, 2012 21:26
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Zuhzuhzombie!! posted:Could anyone comment on the current Rasmussen/Gallop poll thing going on? Every poll I see has Obama with a decent lead but the Righty shows I tune into are all abloo about how this is just a Librul Media Scam and "if you just take a look at how people voted back when it was Kerry vs Bush and no one on the Left really gave a poo poo about Kerry instead of back when it was Obama vs McCain and people wanted to see Obama win, you'll see that Romney has already won this election!" They're just doing damage control, since Obama has been built up as an incredibly weak president that Hitler could win against. Since reality isn't reflecting their narrative they're dismissing reality. I don't even like Obama, but he's clearly leading right now. Do you expect them to admit that?
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Sep 24, 2012 22:49
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So basically this is Kerry:Bush::Romney:Obama for them.
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Sep 25, 2012 00:01
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Anyone have a handy source based rebuttal for the tired old Lower Taxes --> Economic Growth --> Increased Revenue at a later date. Essentially "Reagen increased revenue. I need a refresher on this topic after dealing with people who claim "Its not even just the US, all the data ever supports that idea, in every country."
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Sep 25, 2012 22:52
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WoodrowSkillson posted:people who claim "Its not even just the US, all the data ever supports that idea, in every country." Don't do their work for them. Ask them for proof, since apparently it's everywhere, it shouldn't be hard for them to provide some fairly strong evidence. Odds are they can't. Since it's bullshit. Reagan ran huge budget deficits, because he lowered taxes(also increased spending). Eventually he had to increase taxes. And don't forget, he actually doubled the payroll tax during his time in office.
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Sep 25, 2012 23:09
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WoodrowSkillson posted:Anyone have a handy source based rebuttal for the tired old Lower Taxes --> Economic Growth --> Increased Revenue at a later date. Essentially "Reagen increased revenue. I need a refresher on this topic after dealing with people who claim "Its not even just the US, all the data ever supports that idea, in every country." Data is the best source; here's a mashup I put together of net federal individual income tax revenues and top tax rate by year since 1982:  The raw data collated from the sources at the bottom:  Look at all that uncorrelated data. There are many factors that go into net tax revenue and not just the tax rate (and this comparison above also holds up if you want to check average tax rate or median instead of top tax rates), and that just lowering tax rates doesn't imply or even show a striking correlation to increase tax revenues. Historical Top Tax Rate Historical Amount of Revenue by Source Also here are some laffer graphs that are more useful than the actual laffer graph, since it's related to the notion of lower taxes = more revenue.   Very aside from this, but gently caress open office, their chart making stuff in Calc is goddamn terrible and wouldn't catch data points before 2000 on the spreadsheet. Thankfully Google Drive is fantastic.
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Sep 26, 2012 00:06
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WoodrowSkillson posted:Anyone have a handy source based rebuttal for the tired old Lower Taxes --> Economic Growth --> Increased Revenue at a later date. Essentially "Reagen increased revenue. I need a refresher on this topic after dealing with people who claim "Its not even just the US, all the data ever supports that idea, in every country." The other thing you should point out is that tax revenues almost always go up because the size of our economy keeps growing. If the economy grows at 3% a year and you lower taxes by 2.9% a year, you still have "increased revenue". This totally disregards what it actually costs to maintain effective governance though.
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Sep 26, 2012 18:32
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I'm not sure where to ask this question, but it seems to fit best here. What if a politician's salary were equal to the median income for the area he represents? My knowledge of politics and economics comes from public high school so I'm sure there are flaws with the idea, and I'm sure you guys will be able to find them. It would be a performance review for politicians. If your represented district does well, you get a raise. Otherwise, you get a pay cut. To me, it seems like politicians would be forced to bring high-paying, advanced jobs to their districts which would help reduce unemployment and bring in more tax revenue to the district. The only flaws I found are: -This assumes politicians are in the same boat as us, and not millionaires who don't need the salary. A politician would have to have giant balls to say he needs more money than half of the people he represents. But also, if a millionaire becomes president or governor and he cuts jobs, the dozens of politicians below him will lose money. -Is this like a "No Child Left Behind" for towns? Reward the wealthy, punish the poor. But it seems like a representative or governor who has that town in their district, would want to improve the poor towns if it's based on medians. -It doesn't take in to account for people who work and live across borders. Is there some place that I can find a percentage of people who work in one state, but live in another? But could it have a ripple effect where towns near a wealthy town would create more jobs, thus attract more people to nearby areas, which would improve their towns? Would it have the same ripple effect where people would leave poor areas? Now, can you tell me how incredibly wrong I am? I know I'm missing a lot.
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Sep 27, 2012 02:07
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Timo posted:Now, can you tell me how incredibly wrong I am? I know I'm missing a lot.
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Sep 27, 2012 05:05
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FadingChord posted:I'm trying to convince someone who basically thinks that guns should be freely sold on street corners with no restrictions that his opposition to gun control and his support for Voter ID laws are irreconcilable. Help? So, what's his response when you ask something like "Why should one right be harder to exercise than the other?" I think it's unlikely you'll sway him on guns, and it's possible he's truly resistant to having his own contradiction pointed out.
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Sep 27, 2012 05:11
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Does anyone have some good resources for why government spending is necessary to combat poverty? I guess it should be obvious, but a libertarian I'm arguing with thinks that since the US spends X amount of money on social programs and poverty is still high, government spending doesn't work (and should be left to the free market which does everything better).
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Sep 27, 2012 05:11
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Blind Pineapple posted:Does anyone have some good resources for why government spending is necessary to combat poverty? I guess it should be obvious, but a libertarian I'm arguing with thinks that since the US spends X amount of money on social programs and poverty is still high, government spending doesn't work (and should be left to the free market which does everything better). Use his own argument against him. Under unrestricted laissez-faire there would be a market clearing rate for literally every good and service (and this is assuming that competition is preserved). This means that there would be market-determined prices for education, healthcare, food, housing etc. How would we arrive at this price? Supply and demand of course, i.e. the setting of a price which maximizes revenue for providers and which certain people will necessarily not be able to pay. Do you see the problem here? Unrestricted market fundamentalism predestines a certain segment of the population to poverty. It's literally inherent in the system. No matter what there will always be a segment of the population unable to pay the market price for their most basic human needs. What, then, can ameliorate this situation? And if your friend trots out the old canard about private charity for the poor in Libertopia, ask him for a single historical example of poverty being eradicated by private charity.
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Sep 27, 2012 05:38
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Strudel Man posted:The problem I see is that it would be a pretty significant disincentive for anyone to try to represent the areas most in need of improvement. But the next higher-up would have his salary held in peril by towns that don't do well. Say we live in a county with three towns: 1, 2, and 3. 1 and 3 do well right now, 2 is suffering. Does the county improve by further improving 1 and 3, or by helping 2? Do state representatives and governors mind that their salaries are tarnished by more poorer towns or by fewer rich towns? Is it better to improve poor towns or rich towns? Should there be a balancing act where wealthier towns get all socialist and help poorer towns? Or should poorer towns be absorbed by neighboring richer towns? Can a town be swallowed up by a neighboring town? If a town's population decreases enough, could it be absorbed by another town? Again, I know very little about politics and economics.
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Sep 27, 2012 05:53
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They'll shunt all the fringe party members to the poor areas and make all their money through taking jobs with companies that lobbied them when they were in office after their terms are up. Just like now!
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Sep 27, 2012 10:18
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Timo posted:Can a town be swallowed up by a neighboring town? If a town's population decreases enough, could it be absorbed by another town? Yes. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elkhorn,_Nebraska Usually, it happens to unincorporated areas, though. VideoTapir fucked around with this message at 11:18 on Sep 27, 2012 |
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Sep 27, 2012 10:32
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What's the name of the fallacy where someone says "you shouldn't abort; what if your kid becomes the next Beethoven?"
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Sep 27, 2012 11:53
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Blind Pineapple posted:Does anyone have some good resources for why government spending is necessary to combat poverty? I guess it should be obvious, but a libertarian I'm arguing with thinks that since the US spends X amount of money on social programs and poverty is still high, government spending doesn't work (and should be left to the free market which does everything better). In terms of finding common ground, it would be useful to admit that there are many cases where government spending is wasteful and counter-productive. A useful resource might be something like this: http://evidencebasedprograms.org/wordpress/ I'd try to frame government spending as being a necessary, but not sufficient, condition for reducing poverty. Wisdom, and evidence-based policy, are also required to get the desired result.
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Sep 27, 2012 12:03
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Argue posted:What's the name of the fallacy where someone says "you shouldn't abort; what if your kid becomes the next Beethoven?" I don't think there's an explicitly named fallacy but "what if he becomes the next Hitler" is short and sweet (and just as dumb an argument, admittedly)
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Sep 27, 2012 14:47
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quote:Can a town be swallowed up by a neighboring town? If a town's population decreases enough, could it be absorbed by another town? Yup. More and more outlying small towns are being absorbed into Jackson, MS proper. Most of them unwillingly so.
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Sep 27, 2012 16:54
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I had posted this in the Freeper thread, but figured I'd find more help here... I have a friend arguing that we should eliminate welfare/medicare/medicaid/social programs in favor of depending on charity because they come out of his taxes. I know this is wrong, but cannot really generate a good argument against it. What should I say? quote:
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Sep 27, 2012 17:16
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CommieGIR posted:I had posted this in the Freeper thread, but figured I'd find more help here... The simple response is that private charities are not enough and under his approach hundreds of thousands of people would die of starvation and preventable illness, just like they did before the new deal. So his approach is, functionally, a genocide of the poor. But if he cares more about His Tax Dollars that,s his choice.
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Sep 27, 2012 17:20
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:The simple response is that private charities are not enough and under his approach hundreds of thousands of people would die of starvation and preventable illness, just like they did before the new deal. Is there any studies or evidence for this? He would be swayed if I had something solid beyond my words to convince him
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Sep 27, 2012 17:27
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CommieGIR posted:I know this is wrong, but cannot really generate a good argument against it. What should I say? "You are avoiding talking about when it is appropriate for the government to tax and spend by accusing me of preferring taxes to private charity. As you note, government programs do not preclude opportunities for private giving, which preexisted all of our major social spending programs. In light of the circumstances of the time, including extant charities, was their creation appropriate or not, and has that changed?" Your guy may be of some Mises-like slant and simply doesn't think the government can morally tax to solve those problems. Or he may think private charity can solve them more effectively ("people would give more if their taxes weren't so high!" etc). Your response will depend on what his premise is. He's being cute and not telling you.
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Sep 27, 2012 17:49
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CommieGIR posted:I had posted this in the Freeper thread, but figured I'd find more help here... You're not suggesting that to 'prove you care,' you're suggesting that to stop people from dying in easily avoidable ways.
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Sep 27, 2012 18:13
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CommieGIR posted:I had posted this in the Freeper thread, but figured I'd find more help here... History. We had to implement stuff like SS and Medicare because what he says did not work.
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Sep 27, 2012 18:15
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Chantilly Say posted:You're not suggesting that to 'prove you care,' you're suggesting that to stop people from dying in easily avoidable ways. quote:I won't keep OtherDude FB running, suffice it to say that I always find it interesting when people feel they are so right they argue for the right to confiscate others properties to achieve their solution. This was his response to the arguments. He has got to be delusional. CommieGIR fucked around with this message at 21:10 on Sep 27, 2012 |
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Sep 27, 2012 21:06
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