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pillsburysoldier posted:Don't normally post on D&D, but the making a fake chain letter seems like a fun project. I didn't spot the part about you making this up and thought this was legit until after I read it a second time. This is a great and horrible thing. Suggestion though, change the wikipedia link to conservapedia.
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Aug 31, 2009 15:16
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I hope the birther stuff never stops. It's nice to be able to tell immediately who the people are that I never want to talk to.Taerkar posted:The law passed in 1961 that specifically stated that Barack "The Islam Sensation" Obama wasn't a naturally-born citizen of the US, of course. I'm fairly certain you mean B-rock "The Islamic Shock" Hussein Superallah Obama.
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May 21, 2010 04:41
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Dradien posted:Just got this gem in my email. "Here's my sketchy, unfactual anecdote about why illegal immigration is a problem. It's from a school teacher, like Airborne!"  Wow that's bad.
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May 23, 2010 22:08
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I almost skimmed over the part where he apparently makes inmates pay for their own meals.  What the gently caress man.
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May 28, 2010 22:57
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jonjonaug posted:(2). We will immediately go into a two year isolationist attitude in order to straighten out the greedy big business posture in this country.... America will allow NO imports, and we'll do no exports.. We will use the 'Wal-Mart 's policy, 'If we ain't got it, you don't need it.' We'll make it here and sell it here! What the gently caress? Why would you suddenly allow imports after making an assertion that the country has no need for imports whatsoever?
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Jun 10, 2010 19:01
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El Boot posted:My aunt just posted about that India nonsense on Facebook. Just heard the first of this India poo poo at work today, and the conversation went pretty much like this:  "Did you hear Obama is taking like 10 planes with him on a trip for $200 million a day for ten days!?" "No?" "It's absurd, you see what I'm saying." "Well where is he going? Who's going with him?" "I don't know but it's wrong!"Wish I would've noticed this poo poo earlier. Does Snopes have an RSS feed of some sort so I can keep updated on this sort of bullshit? e: Oh thank god they do have an RSS Feed on their What's New page: http://www.snopes.com/info/whatsnew.asp
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Nov 5, 2010 23:45
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CornHolio posted:I don't even know where to begin with this. Can somebody explain it to me so I know how to even retort? Well, you can tell him he's ignorant and to get hosed, but here's about how I would respond: quote:Jake, did you know that govt-supplied healthcare in Canada, England, Germany and most other first world countries sucks? And all of those countries are moving away from govt control because they are saddled with.... deficit! Now you do! Yeah Germany's health care sucks so bad that they have better waiting times, lower mortality amenable to health care, lower infant mortality, more doctors per capita, and are ranked better by the WHO than the U.S.    And it's bankrupting them, just look how much they pay compared to the U.S. (they pay less per capita than we do).  quote:Jake, did you know that if everyone had free and equal access to healthcare, people would live worse than they do right now and would go to doctors for frivolous issues. Doctors would provide inferior care to keep up with the increased demand and decreased pay. Now you do! See above, there are more doctors per capita in Germany and the quality of care is better and they pay less and cover everyone. quote:Jake, did you know that the USA is technically a capitalist republic of 50 democracies? We share a common infrastructure and security at all levels of community as defined by the respective level of govt. Now you do! This is a meaningless bullshit statement that says nothing and you can tell him the guy from the Internet thinks he is a dumb gently caress who relies on red herrings. quote:Jake, did you know our govt's job is to secure life, liberty and an individual's pursuit of happiness; and nothing else? Where is this in the Constitution again? (It's not and is thus wholly irrelevant to the powers of the government because the Constitution is the Supreme Law of the Land.) quote:The govt should step in to secure equal access to healthcare, not pay for it. And that was the case prior to Obamacare. Now you do! Except for all those people that couldn't afford to go to the doctor or get medicine and thus had no choice but to be sick until they either died or wound up in a hospital costing taxpayers more money than if we would've just taken care of everyone in the first place. Hurrrr. quote:Jake, did you know all govt is corrupt and extremely inefficient? Medicare has a vastly smaller overhead than private insurance companies. quote:Show me one govt program that is sustainable, met initial expectations and doesn't need constant govt intervention to stay afloat. Wait - you can't! The United States Post Office turned a profit up until 2007 when mail volume dropped; the current financial problems are partly due to the recession and partly due to the mail volume drop, but won't be permanent and they receive no government intervention to stay afloat. Not only is it sustainable, it provides mail service to the entire country for a low cost. quote:Obamacare is wealth distribution in that is forces people to join regardless of need, applicability or intent. Those who make money have to pay extra for those who don't. Any person is free to not work, become obese, sit at home all day, contribute little to society and yet get more care than others. I say more care because that lifestyle will certainly cause more aliments than many others. I take it you intend to get in on this gravy train by quitting your job right? quote:It is a worthless analogy to compare air and highly skilled healthcare workers. Here's one for you - human rights should not compel effort from others. Nor does does irresponsible spending save money or boost economies. Even Europe knows this. Responsible spending like the kind in the New Deal brought the nation back from the Great Depression. Funding for things like unemployment and foodstamps have a stimulative effect on the economy greater than tax cuts. quote:I suspect every one of your cited articles are bias and worthless. Makes sense - it goes with everything you say. You suspect but don't know because you prefer ignorance to checking your information you troglodyte. quote:Even China is moving towards capitalism and free markets. Maybe you should try to figure out why? Now you want to be like China, comrade?  ----------------------- Granted it's not really crazy political email though. Waiting to hear more about Obama bowing to India and letting them on the Security Council myself.
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Nov 8, 2010 21:26
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the posted:I always ask people that, if it's such a sweet life being an illegal immigrant, why don't they renounce their citizenship? gently caress, I would if it meant I get all the free poo poo. I never even thought of this, thank you.
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Nov 12, 2010 22:53
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Grem posted:I understand your position, but I truly believe some addicts won't get help unless there is real incentive to be helped. Why? What supports this belief you truly hold? A study on behavioral patterns with regards to drug addiction? Personal experience? Your gut?
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Nov 20, 2010 08:42
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RagnarokAngel posted:The middle class buying houses beyond their means is what got us in this mess, for example. Point of order here, but the deregulation of financial industries and products coupled with extraordinary short sightedness and lack of self-regulation within the industry (surprise surprise) leading to what pretty much amounts to fraud is what got us in this mess. That's not to say that middle class families weren't buying houses, but banks were all too happy to offer them loans that the banks knew in advance they couldn't pay because they were betting that by the time the homeowner's defaulted they'd have thrown the hot potato off to someone else for a nice fee. As it turns out for a lot of people that someone else was their pension plans, who were assured these lovely home loans and derivatives that were cut up into triple A rated slices were safe as could be. After all, they had the highest rating of any product on the market! They had no idea the ratings were garbage, and that even the banks couldn't keep track of how much risk they were exposed to but kept piling it on anyway until, when the housing bubble finally burst, everyone got hosed. Well, not everyone. The banks which made money hand over fist for years might have collapsed, but some got bailed out, and the people running the banks sure seem to be living comfortably still.
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Mar 24, 2011 21:34
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Diseased Yak posted:My dad was rather quick on the draw, shotgunning this out less than an hour after Obama's press conference. No idea where he got it. My conclusion is based on his real birth certificate I saw released here a while back.   Looks official to me.
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Apr 27, 2011 22:48
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Kubrick posted:It's story time guys... I can't find it anymore, but I distinctly recall a remake of this where instead the ant enjoyed a leisurely winter being entertained by the grasshopper's music in exchange for food and shelter for the winter as they agreed upon.
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May 10, 2011 02:54
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Not a political email but I can see them coming very soon, can anyone help me out with this "Waterboarding led to finding and killing Osama Bin Laden" thing? I can't find anything on Snopes about it because their search engine is terrible, and I'm seeing conflicting information online. How did this get started and what's the reality?
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May 11, 2011 20:03
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RagnarokAngel posted:Because they miss that second part. They assume this is a regular thing actually and not that he just blew his entire food budget on a week's worth of food. What's important when deciding whether or not things are a problem worth looking into has a lot to do with pervasiveness. I was talking with a coworker the other day about EBT and I asked him how much money he thought most EBT recipients got in a month to spend. He admitted he wasn't sure, but figured it was "like $800". So I decided to look into it (and a few other associated bits of information): Average EBT payout? $101 per person, and $227 per household. Maximum Payout for a Family of Four? $668 per month [payout varies depending on earnings etc.] Benefits DO carry over into the next month [many complain about EBT spending because they think "if they don't spend it it goes away so they just waste my tax money"]. Average Gross Income of Families on EBT? $673 / month  70% of participants in EBT are expected to buy some of their food with their own money.49% of people who benefit from EBT are children under age 18. Requirements for EBT: Less than $2,000 in countable resources, income below $2,389 per month for a family of four, and most able adults must meet work requirements. Hoooo boy, living the good life. So good that if you and your significant other make more than $7.47 an hour and both work 40 hour work weeks you'll be making too much money to qualify. Or $9.95 an hour with part time 30 hour work weeks. Oh and you can't save up more than $2,000 in the bank. Save up to buy a used car? Good luck. Health insurance? You probably can't make enough money in the month to pay for your rent and health insurance premiums. The info is important because it means trying to restrict what people can buy on foodstamps is a stupid waste of money for the most part. If 2 in 3 recipients are going to spend their own money on food already and you suddenly say that people can't use EBT on soda or candy they'll just use their cash portion of their earnings instead on that. Meanwhile enforcing such a ban and restrictions costs money to implement, track and prosecute. Not to mention that there is no strong research to indicate that recipients of EBT benefits choose worse than the average consumer (actually less likely to buy sweets [61.6% vs. 72.1% avg] and salty snacks [29.6% vs. 36.5% avg] than the average consumer). But hey, don't want someone living at poverty level to have a loving snickers bar.
Mo_Steel fucked around with this message at 03:48 on Jun 16, 2011 |
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Jun 16, 2011 03:44
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Enjoy posted:The Flesch–Kincaid Grade Level is an algorithm that arbitrarily measures word length. Hahahaha that's fantastic. From Wikipedia: "The sentence, "The Australian platypus is seemingly a hybrid of a mammal and reptilian creature" is a 13.1." 
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Jun 18, 2011 02:54
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Huge Liability posted:
Tell your friend of a friend: NASA employs thousands of highly trained individuals providing an economic boon to the country and U.S. industry and supports U.S. advancement in science, technology and knowledge and has done so for over 50 years for roughly half the cost of funding the Department of Defense in just 2010. Space is awesome, exploring space is awesome, the people who explore space or enable the exploration of space are awesome.  Be awesome, support space exploration and discovery.
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Jul 11, 2011 00:39
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JerkyBunion posted:His response: Roads should be privatized. Holy poo poo I want to see how far this rabbit hole goes. Ask him if he thinks we should privatize water treatment facilities so that people who want free water should have to pay a fee. Or police departments. Or the fire department. Actually, show him this:  e: Looks like it's related to the Ford Pinto: http://180.151.36.4/quality/QulandRelTools%5CQuality%20Cost%20Analysis%20Benefits%20and%20Risks.htm Mo_Steel fucked around with this message at 03:34 on Jul 29, 2011 |
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Jul 29, 2011 03:32
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ArchRanger posted:I remember seeing statistics that a huge portion of those on welfare work full-time, in the order of 90%, but I can't find a source on anything along those lines right now. Don't suppose anyone has one handy? I'm probably going to be wasting my time beating my head against a wall, and fully expect to have my comment deleted, but I still feel like it needs the effort. Depends on what sort of Welfare you are talking about; most people when they think of welfare think food stamps (SNAP). A few facts about SNAP: Requirements to Qualify: Own less than $2,000 in countable resources (home is not countable, primary vehicle value varies by state), have a gross monthly income below $2,422 for a family of four, and most able bodied adults must have employment or actively seek and accept employment opportunities. Benefit: The maximum benefit for a family of four is $668, but the actual received benefit is reduced by 30% of the families net income. Example: If your family of four makes $1,500 in net income, you receive only $218 in monthly benefits ($668 - 450 = 218). Benefits do carry over into the following month if not spent, however 47% of recipients exhaust all their benefits by the end of each month. Who Benefits How Much: 49% of participants are children. The average household size is 2.3 persons. The average gross income of recipients is $673 per month. The average amount of monthly benefits is $101 per person or $227 per household. 28.4 million people are covered at a cost of $34.6 billion. Additional Information: 70% of benefits receivers are expected to buy some of their food with their own money (this is why restricting food stamp usage on sugary drinks is stupid as hell because they will just spend their cash on it and now you have more rules to enforce through administrative overhead). There is no strong research to suggest that recipients choose worse foods than other consumers; in fact they are less likely to buy sweets (61.6% vs. 72.1% publicly) or salty snacks (29.6% vs. 36.5% publicly). From 2004 to 2006, half of all new SNAP recipients got benefits for 10 months or less, and 58% left the program within one year. Of those that left, 42% returned within a year. ---- This shits all publicly available information gathered in like an hour of searching Google (a search I did prompted by one of my coworkers saying people on food stamps got $500 per individual ). If people want to rail against a program great, but if they can't spend an hour to search for basic information tell them to blow it out their rear end because they are literally against feeding children, a number of which are probably among the 1.5 million children who are homeless in the United States. Not even to mention the disabled and elderly. And the plain old destitute.The really mind boggling part for me is the $2,000 in countable assets limit. It's a huge gently caress you to struggling families: we'll help you out, but only to the point where you are barely surviving, then you are on your own again so good luck and hope you don't get sick because you probably don't have health insurance. Mo_Steel fucked around with this message at 02:49 on Oct 31, 2011 |
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Oct 31, 2011 02:31
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Countblanc posted:This is all cool, though I wish you'd posted the sources just to save me some legwork. Do you know if there's any info out there on when benefits of welfare programs get "extended"? My mother agrees with most of the things you said but has some weird belief that people constantly get extensions and that people are using these to live for years and years on welfare. She also simply didn't believe that other countries have more progressive welfare systems ("Maybe on paper, but they don't constantly cave and extend benefits for people like we do."). General sources from memory: https://www.fns.usda.gov/snap/applicant_recipients/eligibility.htm http://www.fns.usda.gov/pd/snapmain.htm http://www.fns.usda.gov/ora/MENU/Published/snap/snap.htm
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Oct 31, 2011 23:28
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the yellow dart posted:Edit: I deserve this. You deserve this. America deserves this, and much hilarity from relatives will come from it: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/compost/post/donald-trump-moderates-the-newsmax-gop-debate-we-deserve/2011/12/02/gIQAuMyrLO_blog.html There is a Santa, and he's bringing the greatest gift of all. 
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Dec 4, 2011 19:34
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Asnorban posted:Thanks for all the replies. Still debating whether to respond or not since it is family and not friends / acquaintances. Respond calmly and with facts. Anecdotes and ignorance of facts loves an oppositionless echo-chamber more than anything. You might not convince anyone off the bat, but responding to mistruths with facts in a calm manner consistently seems to work best for me. It takes time though, people ingrain this stuff into themselves pretty deep.
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Dec 8, 2011 00:26
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baw posted:Just tell them 97% of publishing climatologists, 36 national science academies and NASA all agree that global warming is anthropogenic. Yeah but everyone used to think the world was flat too.  Checkmate scientists.Or one that I've actually heard: "Well when I went to school everyone was concerned about global cooling so why should I listen to scientists now if they were wrong then."
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Jan 5, 2012 19:02
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baw posted:Wasn't the global cooling thing literally one scientist?  Source: http://scienceblogs.com/stoat/Myth-1970-Global-Cooling-BAMS-2008.pdf Basically even in the 1970s when global cooling is now purported as having been portrayed as a scientific consensus about doom it wasn't. In fact global warming held more influence then within scientific literature and among polling of scientists working in the field. Were there disagreements in the field? Sure. As science goes along it works out those problems though, which is the core aspect of science being ignored when someone says "well scientists were wrong before in their hypotheses therefore why ever listen to them". But who needs to look this poo poo up I remember it being one way so that's how it was. Mo_Steel fucked around with this message at 19:49 on Jan 5, 2012 |
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Jan 5, 2012 19:47
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andrew smash posted:I've tried to explain to my family the stupidity of the idea of a conspiracy to suppress the truth between academic scientists, who are some of the most viciously and gleefully competitive people in the entire world. If global warming was actuallly a bogus conspiracy, for every scientist that could keep a lid on it (for whatever hypothetical reason) there would be ten who would fall all over themselves to blow it open, humiliate their colleagues, and roll in piles of grant money. This also holds for things like evolution, or really all of science. Can you even fathom how famous a scientist would be if they could demonstrate through evidence and testing that they have a better explanatory theory for the variety of life on the planet? Who wouldn't want to be the next Charles Darwin or Einstein or Newton?
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Jan 6, 2012 00:04
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Beelzebub posted:I got this doozy on facebook today. It's completely made up and BS, but I bet she took it as parable. There are so many obvious lines of attack on this particular often reused parable (socialism is improperly used in the example, Obama has presented a mostly center-right administration particularly where economics is concerned, etc.), but the most obvious one is that the structure and distribution of grades is nowhere close to analogous to money. To get a more apt example, you need to limit the amount of possible points available to the entire class. We'll set the student number at 100 for simplicity and the limit at 7,000 points per test so that if it was evenly distributed among all 100 students everyone would get a C on each 100 point test. Let's assume that the distribution of all points follows the current U.S. distribution of income. Here's how we end up: Top 20: 4,137 points, average grade: A+ (206 points out of 100) Second 20: 1,323 points, average grade: D (66 points out of 100) Third 20: 812 points, average grade: F (41 points out of 100) Fourth 20: 497 points, average grade: F (25 points out of 100) Bottom 20: 245 points, average grade: F (12 points out of 100) Congratulations, 3/5ths of the class flunked and 1/5th barely passed while 1/5th got more points than they will ever need to pass. None of this accounts for the amount of studying each quintile did by the way; some of the bottom 20 students worked their asses off doing 80 hours of studying just to scrape by with their 12 points each. Why did the top 20 do so well? They own the pencils and sharpeners and only agreed to let the other students use the pencils and sharpeners if they gave up some points to do so. Welcome to capitalism.
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Jan 6, 2012 20:11
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Well, warm weather is not particularly indicative of global warming just like cool weather is not particularly indicative of global cooling; weather within a given region fluctuates year to year. That said, the rising amount of extreme weather variances is a possible outcome of a global warming trend because the amount of water vapor in the atmosphere rises; I'm not sure how well researched that is yet though. It's one of the reasons the more appropriate term is Human Caused Global Climate Change; we're less concerned with short term weather discrepancies and more concerned with climate shifts that will disrupt ecosystems including the ones we rely upon. Seasons shifting by a month sounds like bullshit though as I'm pretty sure seasons are linked to the location of Earth in orbit around the Sun over the course of the year; a season can be warmer or colder than average (based on weather patterns for example), but Winter is Winter whether it's -20 F or 20 F. The concern is the average is shifting up due to our actions, not that any one particular year is warmer or colder than the last. Mo_Steel fucked around with this message at 21:01 on Jan 6, 2012 |
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Jan 6, 2012 20:57
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Blinkman987 posted:No, it's totally cool that someone believes that a college classroom is an adequate and equal arena to fairly compare our current economic and taxation system. http://www2.ucsc.edu/whorulesamerica/power/wealth.html Every graph on that page, but especially this one: Figure 4: The actual United States wealth distribution plotted against the estimated and ideal distributions.  People are being hosed, and they don't know how badly they are being hosed, but even compared to how badly they think they are being hosed they think it's already uneven. In reality it's much worse than they think and most people would be goddamn appalled by our distribution of wealth. Look at how much the lowest quintile would gain from the top bar graph to the bottom bar graph. They would own more wealth in the ideal distribution according to respondents than all three bottom quintiles own right now combined. Fathom that for a second.
Mo_Steel fucked around with this message at 22:59 on Jan 6, 2012 |
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Jan 6, 2012 22:54
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khysanth posted:Here's a crazy one my wife just received from her aunt - I hope it hasn't been posted here before but either SA search sucks or I do. I was going to write up a big long line by line reply but instead just this right here:  e: That said, an Italian Pride Day would be awesome. 
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Jan 9, 2012 21:51
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Sarion posted:That's awesome, where is it from? Also, isn't Columbus Day already considered Italian Pride Day or something? Kind of like St. Patrick's Day is an Irish Pride day, sort of. From here apparently, though someone else colored it and I saw it posted here some time ago.
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Jan 9, 2012 22:00
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Sarion posted:Besides, its not like things would have been no different under McCain than Obama, or that 2013-2016 will be no different under Romney than it would be under Obama. Obama may not be as liberal as I'd like, but I'd still rather have Obama than McCain/Romney. If only to block the Republicans in Congress from being completely loving insane. You're not going to get anyone truly liberal as President anytime soon, this country's Overton Window has successfully been moved to the Center-Right position. Lesser-of-two-evils isn't really shifting the Overton Window back to the left though, just resigning yourself to watch as it keeps shifting away from your ideals. The democratic party needs to wake up and stop shifting rightward, and that's not going to happen while it's base continues to support it when they are ignored for the most part. And for good reason: why do anything for your base if they won't ever hold you to task? If you know you have their vote because you can scare them with the "greater evil" then you have no reason to listen to them because you already have their vote and you should pander to the middle-right to try and peel off some independent and left leaning Republicans to win the election. Really this sort of discussion probably would go better in the Obama thread or the general election threads though, as it's getting into voting strategy and party influence issues.
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Jan 10, 2012 19:52
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Defenestration posted:Done and done. http://www.fns.usda.gov/snap/applicant_recipients/eligibility.htm Short and to the point; covers everything from countable resources to income eligibility to vehicles to benefit amounts. State level resources will have more specific information as some of it varies state to state. It even covers work requirements: quote:Generally ABAWDS between 18 and 50 who do not have any dependent children can get SNAP benefits only for 3 months in a 36-month period if they do not work or participate in a workfare or employment and training program other than job search. This requirement is waived in some locations. e: Also it's absolutely terrible that the cap on resources is $2,000 in countable assets before you get cut off. Good luck going to school to try and educate yourself out of poverty or keeping an emergency fund or really doing anything but narrowly keeping your head above water on a $2,000 limit. Go over? Sorry no more foodstamps for you, at least until you sink back under that cap again because you couldn't escape poverty. Mo_Steel fucked around with this message at 21:43 on Jan 10, 2012 |
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Jan 10, 2012 21:40
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Countblanc posted:I think the reason people who think welfare is a "sweet gig" in terms of money vs effort don't do it is because they see welfare as a morally corrupt thing. I mean I'm sure there's an element of "well, maybe it's not as good as I think it is," but my experiences with poor individuals (I live in one of the poorest counties in Michigan) tells me that, unless you are literally dying from hunger, it's more important to maintain your "pride" or whatever, lest you be compared to those people. There is a definite stigma attached to poverty, joblessness, and dependence upon government assistance in any form. People have an expectation that so long as you are an able-bodied adult then you shouldn't be in poverty or reliant on any aid and that's simply not the case. Almost no one objects to the idea that a disabled person should receive assistance if they cannot work because it's not their fault they are disabled (in general). But a lot of people view living in poverty to be a choice.
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Jan 10, 2012 22:30
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team overhead smash posted:2 weeks? Thanks to EU regulations all countries in the EU have to give workers 28 days of paid holiday per year. Out of interest, how many days off do you get in the USA?  Source  e: Chart is from 2007 so things may have changed in other countries. Mo_Steel fucked around with this message at 22:54 on Jan 10, 2012 |
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Jan 10, 2012 22:52
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Defenestration posted:
As always, facts are your best means of cracking these sorts of misconceptions; you should really ask him to clarify what specific form of welfare he is concerned about fraud in, but assuming it's food stamps: http://www.fns.usda.gov/ora/MENU/Published/snap/ProgramIntegrity.htm quote:Trafficking diverted an estimated $330 million annually from SNAP benefits, What about incorrectly paid benefits in general? Don't worry, we got facts about those too: quote:The national payment error rate reported for SNAP, which combines states’ overpayments and underpayments to program participants, has declined by 56 percent from 1999 to 2009, from 9.86 percent to a record low of 4.36 percent. This reduction is due, in part, to options made available to states that simplified certain program rules. In addition, FNS and the states GAO reviewed have taken several steps to improve SNAP payment accuracy that are consistent with internal control practices known to reduce improper payments such as providing financial incentives and penalties based on performance. Despite this progress, the amount of SNAP benefits paid in error is substantial, totaling about $2.2 billion in 2009 and necessitating continued top-level attention and commitment to determining the causes of improper payments and taking corrective actions to reduce them. Well poo poo, seems like we're doing better in recent years of ensuring correct payment amounts and lowering SNAP trafficking than ever before.
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Jan 11, 2012 02:26
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Countblanc posted:People see this and just say that any amount of abuse is too much. All systems have some proportion of abuse, and the nearer to zero you get the higher the marginal cost of chasing down that abuse will tend to become until your efforts to stamp out that abuse costs more than the abuse does. This includes everything from tracking office supplies in the private workplace to EBT fraud to tax evasion. If someone can't accept that I'm not sure where to go from there except to point out that ruining a system that benefits millions of children living in poverty because a tiny percentage defraud the system is a pretty unethical decision.
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Jan 11, 2012 02:55
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Deuce posted:Since when is frozen pizza some loving luxury? It's about as luxurious as having that refrigerator that is a sign of wealth these days. 99% of  Poor Households own refrigerators:http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/thu-august-18-2011/world-of-class-warfare---the-poor-s-free-ride-is-over As is often demonstrated, class warfare exists and it's being waged by the rich over the past 30 years to the detriment of the middle class, lower class, and the country.
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Jan 19, 2012 01:50
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Duplicant posted:If these people have $100 owed to them and owe $100, they aren't in debt. This is the important part, not to mention that with stimulus money most of the time it doesn't go solely towards paying off a persons debts. Often it goes to something like buying food or clothes or fixing a car or home or replacing appliances. You know, stuff people put off doing when they can't afford to do it. Some people will put some towards debts they owe but even if they do, that's still money being freed up to be spent elsewhere. Like it or not if I reduce my credit card balance by $100 due to stimulus money I now have an extra $100 I could potentially spend (and in hard economic times I'll probably need to spend it eventually).
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Jan 21, 2012 19:20
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Azuth0667 posted:Looks like my dad has been suckered by the propaganda It's maybe the worst analogy in all existence. The amount of money in an economy at any given point and time is finite. While everyone in a class could potentially get perfect 4.0 GPAs not everyone can be a billionaire. Furthermore the disparity between the top and bottom of the scale of GPAs is far smaller than the disparity between the top and bottom of income or wealth distributions in the U.S. Posted this the last time GPA and classrooms as a metaphor for socialism / redistribution came up, ask your dad if he would prefer this sort of class instead: Mo_Steel posted:There are so many obvious lines of attack on this particular often reused parable (socialism is improperly used in the example, Obama has presented a mostly center-right administration particularly where economics is concerned, etc.), but the most obvious one is that the structure and distribution of grades is nowhere close to analogous to money. Doesn't matter how hard you work, there's not enough GPA to go around and you have to use the top scorers pencils so you are hosed.
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Jan 22, 2012 17:06
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. I like how bad the analogy of GPA redistribution = social programs is.
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The number of times the GPA examples have shown up makes me wonder if just gathering up all the various rebuttals that have been done and putting it in the OP of a new thread on crazy emails when we need one wouldn't help in refuting this poo poo. People could just copy and paste the pages of why the example is a lovely one.
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Jan 23, 2012 22:33
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Soylent Pudding posted:I think that's why creating a common list of rebutles is a good idea. It's one thing to sit down and hammer out something from scratch each time. It's something else if we have a list we can just copy and paste from. Additionally most discussions don't take place in a vacuum. While you may not change someones mind in one given instance, you may give them something that they will consider at a later date when the issue is raised again in their mind. Beyond that, where instances of Facebook and other social media is concerned you are often holding such a discussion before an audience. Even if you don't convince the person opposite your position, you may convince individuals within the audience who hadn't seen a coherent argument against what is being proposed. At times it can feel like you're not making much ground in such discussions, but consider that even then they can be valuable to you. In rebutting such arguments (or reading through rebuttals of arguments) you may increase your understanding of the situation or correct misinterpretations you didn't know you had. You may find your information is dated and newer, more accurate information is available to better serve your argument. The benefit to a source of common rebuttals is that it saves some of the leg work, but the common rebuttals should be revisited and rechecked over time to ensure they still make sense. It's why resources like Snopes are useful: it contains informational rebuttals for common misconceptions or false articles; Snopes tends to focus primarily on attributions to authors that are false rather than political or economic arguments that are simply bad analogies for complex systems.
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Jan 23, 2012 23:44
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