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XyloJW posted:Coburn is the most consistent Senator I've ever seen. He will use anonymous holds to stop any bill if it's unpaid for--Haitian relief, Ugandan relief, Sri Lankan relief, Sandy, Katrina, 9/11 First Responders, he doesn't give one poo poo. On the other hand though in 2008 he voted for hundreds of billions to bail out the financial sector with no oversight so his only real consistency is opposing federal aid for poor people. If it goes to the rich, then budget be damned. VitalSigns fucked around with this message at 17:45 on May 21, 2013 |
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May 21, 2013 17:40
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Hamsalad posted:Religiously - no. Because no other religion is accepted by His Allah except Islam Islam is evil and destructive, and is nothing but a religion of smelly perverts. Also, let me tell you about how un-American it is to disrespect other cultures and religions 
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May 22, 2013 06:12
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zoux posted:Yeah if I called someone a kefir in America they'd have no idea what I was on about. The US has a pretty unique situation w/r/t racial relations, really I'd say only South Africa has a similar history. SA had actual apartheid while the US just had/has de facto apartheid. I'm pretty agnostic on things like Sinterklaas because those countries don't have a 400 year history of systematic oppression of African descended peoples. I don't think it's great, but history and context matter and I don't necessarily think that such portrayals are as explosive because they aren't weighted by years and years of the most horrible and excreable kind of oppression that exists in the US and South Africa. White South Africans will also just drop the n-word in casual conversation to refer to each other because to them it's just a silly foreign word they see in movies or hear in music. Even though they know it's bad, they don't realize it's really really bad, like k-word bad. I had a few seconds of  when my white Capetonian friend asked me "are you ready, my n-----?"I wouldn't expect foreigners to automatically know America's lesser-known stereotypes.
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May 24, 2013 06:08
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I am become death panels, destroyer of worlds
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Jun 5, 2013 03:54
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thegalagakid posted:I was listening to Sean Hannity So Hannity is one of those who is acting like Obama created organ shortages, and there would be plenty for everyone if only the government weren't in charge of health care. I thought I was getting through to one who seemed to accept that in any allocation system, people will die because there tragically just aren't enough organs...but it quickly veered into something about next the AMA will take his guns because of a prescription for anxiety medicine, and suddenly I didn't want to continue the argument anymore. This is literally those Thanks Obama! GIFs.
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Jun 6, 2013 15:42
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Buzkashi posted:gently caress it, just turn organ donation over to the free market, let's make organ donation for profit. Who wants a kidney? No it should be based on who gets the most Facebook likes. A free market in compassion.
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Jun 6, 2013 17:02
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One of my friends posted a good post linking to a letter from one of the many medical associations that explain how terrible Texas' abortion legislation is. And then this happened... I can't wait to see how long the explanation can go before 
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Jul 3, 2013 15:16
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Kro-Bar posted:I believe this is a local Oklahoma group. They try to paint themselves as "abolitionists" and name-drop MLK, Lincoln and other luminaries to try to link their fight to ban abortion as a holy crusade. When I engage someone who is being self-righteous and calling people murderers, baby-killers, etc; rather than trying to argue that zygotes aren't people (it's a religious belief that I'm unlikely to change, and it just gives him more ammunition to call me bloodthirsty) or convince him of women's rights (he'll never accept that a woman has the right to commit what he thinks of as murder), I take him at his word that abortion has killed 50 million people. What a terrible holocaust! Rather than banning abortion and pushing women into illegal back alley places that still kill embryos (and sometimes the mothers too), we need to bend all our efforts to solving the problems that cause unwanted pregnancies. We need comprehensive sex education, free contraceptives, full pre-natal care, WIC, child welfare, etc etc. He'll usually start in on  not with my tax dollars or  those sluts don't deserved it and then I can throw his words back in his face: "But I thought you said this was a modern-day holocaust that kills more Americans than every war we've ever had combined. If it's a crisis, we need to use the most effective remedies available It's curiously convenient that the slaughter is just bad enough for coercion and moralizing, yet somehow not bad enough to spend any money to actually fix."
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Jul 11, 2013 01:31
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 Oooh I know! I know! When a white teenager was murdered, the police didn't need a media blitz to shame them into charging the killer.
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Jul 16, 2013 13:45
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Arabian Jesus posted:Its not very often I get to share things in this thread but this gem appeared on my feed today No one appreciates South African contributions to medicine 
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Jul 23, 2013 02:42
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Kro-Bar posted:I mentioned this point (not as cogently as you did) and got a slippery slope argument back. "Well then why stop at a $10 minimum wage? Why not $50? Why not $100?!" "Why not make all speed limits 100mph? Or 1000mph?" If his argument is $100 minimum would be bad therefore any minimum wage is bad, show him how lovely his reasoning is by turning it around: "Military spending is good? Then why stop at $400billion? Why not $1trillion? Why not the entire GNP?"
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Aug 10, 2013 00:27
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  Well,  are the only way an insurance industry can exist in the first place. Insurance and risk pooling on a large scale literally cannot exist without a framework of regulation and enforcement. The the choice isn't between government and freedom; it's a choice between whether our system should be designed to provide people healthcare and mitigate the damage from catastrophic events, or whether it should enrich private actors who stand to gain by denying care (you can reassure him that PPACA is firmly on the side of the latter as the insurance companies bribed and threatened Congress to make sure the former had no chance of happening).It's interesting how in the last 100 years corporations have managed to pose as bastions of freedom and endear themselves to individualist anti-government types, despite being completely artificial entities with favorable legal treatment created and maintained by force of law. vv Yes, but I didn't want it to be taken facetiously like in my first paragraph because in this case it's actually true VitalSigns fucked around with this message at 17:00 on Aug 16, 2013 |
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Aug 16, 2013 16:21
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Spangly A posted:Mother Theresa was a disgusting vile human being VideoTapir posted:Most people don't believe that and would have no idea what you're talking about when you say that. I have never heard this before. Does anyone have a link to a good source about her?
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Sep 26, 2013 17:14
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Soviet Commubot posted:Literally every person at work today asked me "What the hell is wrong with your country?". Sometimes being the only American around sucks. This is amazing. I hope they apply this reasoning to the rest of their lives.  "That authoritarian mechanic was going on about how I need to change my oil every 7000 miles. Well it's been 7001 miles and nothing exploded so looks like my car doesn't need an oil change ever" 
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Oct 3, 2013 00:21
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The government doesn't pay for things we need like a Good American Family does. 99% of the budget is spent on Obamaphones  e: The ACA is making conservatives stampede so far to the right, they're looping around to attack it from the left.  So right there "Why is Obama forcing the poor to pay for health care while insurance companies take the profit" and "Big companies are all cheats and liars who are above the law" Also, a good dose of 
VitalSigns fucked around with this message at 04:50 on Oct 3, 2013 |
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Oct 3, 2013 04:31
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thatguyclint posted:Facebook says this one is 2 months old (at least, I suppose), but I don't recall seeing it in the thread; reads like shitthatdidnthappen.txt though; That reads like a mash-up of Atlas Shrugged and Stormfront. "You think electing a black President in a country built by white men was a good idea?" asked Francisco d'Anconia, eyes sparkling with a hidden but forceful intelligence as he swept them over the annoyed faces of the customers he was disturbing from their pancake breakfasts at the run-down Denny's, "Well let me inform you of the nature of your health care law and your so-called Voting Rights Act..." *masturbates for 60 pages* VitalSigns fucked around with this message at 16:14 on Oct 3, 2013 |
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Oct 3, 2013 16:11
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ProperGanderPusher posted:Oh, look! It looks like several of my friends are now opposing back pay for furloughed federal employees because it is apparently morally wrong to pay people for not working no matter what the circumstances are. If they wanted to get paid, maybe they should have gone to work anyway despite being told not to...or something. I had this. Occasionally you can get them to put themselves in someone else's shoes. When a friend posted this, we had a good discussion:  Whew. It's good to know that even my conservative friends are decent people who can feel empathy with a bit of prodding. Let's see what else is on my feed...  
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Oct 4, 2013 05:57
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HipGnosis posted:I can't believe people who whine about how they can't change the name of their racist-rear end People today are too sensitive. You can't have a society if everyone just gets all offended at every blatant racist slur and insulting caricature. In my day you called people whatever you wanted and nobody got upset. Now...oh wait hold on there's a fantasy children's movie implying that the Church can be just a tad intolerant sometimes! I won't stand by while Christians are oppressed, not if other faiths think they can insult Christians and get away with it
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Oct 8, 2013 16:10
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SPORTS TEAM
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Apparently this is going around: Literally oppositeofreality.jpg to justify child abuse. Crime rates have been dropping for more than 20 years. I mean, it wouldn't prove anything if they were still going up but at least then the conclusion that spanking reduces crime would at least make some kind of sense, wrong as it is. Thankfully, he has no kids. Double-thankfully, the person who liked my graph is his wife 
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Oct 10, 2013 05:57
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Knight posted:And one person owning 90 of those apples, which they store away and never eat, is good for the economy how? Apples that are going to rot if they just sit there can be actually used to feed the hungry and spread more apple trees with the seeds. Also if agricultural surpluses are so massive that more than enough food can be grown to feed everyone, wealth transfers to the poor are a great way to encourage economic activity as previously fallow orchards can now be farmed to grow those apples. The example assumes that all resources and labor in the economy are fully employed so any transfer can only move goods around. In our economy we have a large amount of idle labor and businesses flush with cash that they cannot profitably invest. Transferring that cash to the unemployed will give businesses a reason to increase production. We end up with more apples. Obviously Republicans prefer to solve that problem by paying farmers not to farm and so reduce surpluses that way because they love wealth transfers when the beneficiaries are the rich. Mornacale posted:The counter-argument to this dumb gently caress example is that now those ten people can loving EAT. Whoa hey now. If I don't get to own slaves because you won't let the free market put a price on human beings, then you don't get to say that saving lives is good for the economy. Poors are worth $0 so saving them does not increase the GDP. And we know they don't increase the GDP because if they were producers they could buy food  VitalSigns fucked around with this message at 00:26 on Oct 11, 2013 |
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Oct 10, 2013 23:43
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U.S. Barryl posted:I just want to yell, but I need something succinct and coherent to say. There are two big problems here: 1) The ACA was passed as a mandatory program. Like Social Security, it is not dependent on annual authorizations to operate. The House isn't "leaving out" funds for the ACA like Sowell claims. It is actively repealing an appropriation that was previously made. The House is adding something to the CR that is not related. The House is trying to change an existing law. 2) The crux of his argument is that appropriations bills must originate in the House*. But he left out that the Constitution gives the Senate the power to amend those bills. Which the Senate did by stripping out the ACA provision. His argument cuts both ways: "If [the House and Boehner] refuse to accept the money required to run the government because it leaves out [repealing Obamacare], that is their right. That is also their responsiblity." Idk if either of those are short enough for you. Thomas Sowell is educated enough that it takes some effort to unpack everything and get to the bullshit sometimes. *Actually the constitution only says bills to raise revenue must originate in the House, but I'm pretty sure the House always originates appropriations bills by custom. Or maybe they contain revenue too.
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Oct 11, 2013 04:15
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vyelkin posted:The Republicans have taken a position of compromise and made further demands, and the only leverage they have is to provide something that both sides [in theory] want--a functioning government that can pay its bills, while what they're demanding is something that only they want, which is to get rid of Obamacare. This is the standard Republican tactic these days too, if you remember the fight over the expiration of the Bush tax cuts. Both parties wanted to make the tax cuts for the poor and middle class permanent but only the Republicans wanted to do that for the top bracket. Of course, they held the whole thing hostage and tried to blame the Democrats for wanting to raise everyone's taxes when really the Republicans would rather hike taxes on everyone if they couldn't cut them for the rich. And just like today, the media coverage at the time was to blame both sides. I'll do something we both want if you do something I want (In theory it's something they both wanted. In practice I doubt the Republicans gave a poo poo about tax cuts for anyone but the top bracket but obviously for political reasons they had to pretend to)
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Oct 11, 2013 04:34
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Fulchrum posted:Anyone have a list of all the states where the GOP has sabotaged the implementation of Obamacare by refusing to let their citizens take money?  from http://www.hemophiliafed.org/news-stories/2013/04/medicaid-expansion-in-your-state/ If you're wondering why it's rejected in the Deep South, Texas, etc, just remember that Medicaid Expansion primarily benefits minorities (as they tend to be poorer) and Rick Perry et al will turn away free money in a heartbeat rather than see it help a black person. My Dad still lives in Oklahoma, is very active in the Tea Party and whenever I see him I get to hear about things like how he has personally gone to the offices of State Legislators who favored establishing exchanges to demand that they not even take one step toward implementing the ACA even when doing so would blearly benefit the state 
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Oct 11, 2013 05:50
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Defenestration posted:The plot hinges on the fact that DNA evidence hadn't been invented yet, so it was impossible to tell if a charred corpse was the victim or not. This seems like an odd criticism. "The plot of Romeo and Juliet hinges on the fact that cell phones hadn't been invented yet so it was impossible for Juliet to text Romeo to say 'Faking my death so don't freak out and do something crazy <3'" VV She wrote the play in the 30s. The structure of DNA wasn't even known until the 50s. VitalSigns fucked around with this message at 21:08 on Oct 11, 2013 |
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Oct 11, 2013 19:09
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Dirt posted:You got your troop worship in my plight of the working poor debate! It's class warfare 101. You need to ceaselessly pound the message that the poor should resent and mock any group who demands a better deal or you risk them standing in solidarity to demand the same thing. One of the guys in my unit posted the same jpeg (not active duty infantry mind, reserve maintenance unit naturally). I commented that both should be paid more then and he agreed with me  Clicking 'post' takes 2 seconds...why would you not think about what you're posting on facebook for at least that much time.
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Oct 14, 2013 19:36
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Mornacale posted:My claim is that attempting to include some dollar value for food/housting/etc as part of a soldier's "real" salary normalizes the idea that it would be okay to provide a worker substandard monetary compensation if you also give room and board. I don't think that anyone here actually supports that, but I wouldn't be surprised to see it coming from "mainstream" newspeople/politicians in the next decade or two, so no reason to not avoid giving it any rhetorical support now. Luckily, the people who would be convinced by that argument are also "Support the Troops " types so by lobbying for better pay and care of enlisted soldiers you're also raising the ceiling of what they'll accept for workers' rights.It takes a special type of cynical cruelty to do a Bush- or McCain-style "gently caress over the soldiers as hard as possible for a minor political benefit" trick. If Democrats push military pay and benefits hard enough, the Republicans will have to cave 2006-style and pass it.
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Oct 15, 2013 04:58
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RagnarokAngel posted:While it's true that the poor starve more than they should I don't think taking advantage of a free meal is something only the hungry would do. What if you're constantly worried about having food to feed your kids? Meanwhile, a major political party has shut down the government and the USDA is unable to guarantee that there will be money for benefits if the situation continues into November. Oh, and that party spent the summer fighting tooth and nail to cut food stamps to the bone. Now suddenly you have a chance to stock up. Do you decide that Wal-Mart needs that food more than your kids? It's easy to moralize about people "taking advantage" when you're comfortable without stealing. Wal-Mart profits from exploitation and sweatshops. Anyone who complains that the poor stole less than a rounding error of their corporate profit worth of food is focusing on the wrong injustices in life.
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Oct 15, 2013 07:52
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This is happening: I'm Reed Iculous  Any suggestions for continuing to troll Scotch Tape here? I feel kind of guilty about it because I was always on him to read Ayn Rand years ago in my Randroid days but he never did until just last year and now he has to work through the usual period of hyperventilating about slavery every time the EPA doesn't let the market sell him contaminated drinking water or whatever. Oh keep in mind we're both white and the OP is a black woman so I'm afraid of making it a "white boys arguing about who totally knows more about being a slave"
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Oct 18, 2013 07:17
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AShamefulDisplay posted:A good way to troll him is bring up quotes from right wingers talking about how slavery was ultimately a good thing for African Americans. Nice try, you scamp, but I'm not going to risk even accidentally looking pro-slavery on a public forum.
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Oct 18, 2013 08:25
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Mornacale posted:Just keep hammering on the fact that the CSA were traitors. The most hilarious thing about the "States' Rights! crowd is that the South had no problem trampling on the laws of Free States with things like the Fugitive Slave Act.The South Carolina Declaration of Secession was mostly endless bitching that the feds weren't going north and rounding up black people to be sold South and that some Northern states were insisting on things like "due process" and "proof that someone is really an escaped slave" before letting bounty hunters kidnap people and take them out of state. Come to think of it, how does secession solve that problem? If the United States is now a foreign abolitionist power, won't they be less likely to return escaped slaves?
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Oct 18, 2013 18:19
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Hamsalad posted:Got this gem yesterday - Mmm American patriots waxing about how terrible democracy is. Maybe the would prefer a monarchy?
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Oct 18, 2013 18:39
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Duke Igthorn posted:I too think empty tracts of land should have the same voting rights as a human being. I love the comparison of the supposed murder rates between counties won by Obama and Romney. Like we're supposed to assume that murderers must have tipped the scale for Obama rather than that people in poor neighborhoods victimized by crime didn't want to vote for a privileged out-of-touch plutocrat who couldn't stop himself from talking poo poo about the working class whenever he thought he was alone with his rich buddies.
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Oct 19, 2013 01:13
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Alkydere posted:Some of it probably stems from the fact that everyone, even the international community, threw way too much love at him just for getting elected the first time. The world was just tired of Bush and the GOP and everyone got a little too happy, which made the right wing nuts retract into their shell even further. Seriously, even the Nobel committee through a Peace Prize at him for "Getting Elected". To be fair, the fact that he hadn't murdered anybody at the time of the award puts him head and shoulders above some other winners. Of course, LL101 criticizes Obama for not wanting to go to war enough (except when he does, and then he's a warmongering dictator).
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Oct 19, 2013 23:43
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toe shoes posted:As a non American I was quite excited to see a black dude win too. There was a genuine feeling that maybe, just maybe, America would go "Hey, if they'll vote for a black dude just to keep a messed up white dude out of office maybe we should probably look in the mirror". As you're non-American, I'll give you a pass for referring to a black man as wearing blackface. It's hard for me to imagine a situation where it would be anything but offensive, and this definitely does not qualify as an appropriate one. Anyway, I too think Obama agrees with the right a disappointing amount, but he's not George W or Mitt Romney. VitalSigns fucked around with this message at 01:49 on Oct 20, 2013 |
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Oct 20, 2013 01:34
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toe shoes posted:That really was a poor choice of words on my behalf sorry. Was just really trying to convey that what makes it around the world about the USA really hasn't changed at all from GWB style stuff. The domestic stuff that does seem to make it out really doesn't make the country look like it's improved at all either. Fair enough, I can certainly understand how people who live outside America don't see much effect, especially if they're in a country where we use drones for spying and assassination. But at least Obama hasn't dragged his allies into invading the wrong country and staying there for 5 years out of pride. Maybe you have a different opinion, but to me it seems like Obama has returned the US to our usual bad policies rather than George W's colossally horrible ones. Of course, my conservative family are Limbaugh lovers, so this Thanksgiving I get to hear about how Obama is a big weenie who won't defend America and is busy surrendering all over the world
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Oct 20, 2013 03:57
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VideoTapir posted:This is what I am going to think of forever when someone brings up Obama and the marines. You can't post that without the awesome rant! quote:We’re Marines, if the President of the loving United States asks you to hold a loving umbrella, you hold a loving umbrella. As well, the day I give a poo poo about a boot Corporal holding an umbrella is the day I’ve forgotten what the Marine Corps is. Honestly, holding an umbrella for the President is probably the least demeaning thing I could imagine doing as a Marine, as opposed to the other bullshit I had to do every day. No one would think twice about asking a boot to police call cigarette butts across the entire base at 5am, but the minute this boot has to hold an umbrella for the Commander in Chief, people get upset. Conservatives didn't give a drat that enlisted soldiers in Iraq had to stir oil drums full of poo poo and gasoline slurries to burn it all away (sooooo glad I arrived in 2004, not 2003, a few months after they'd gotten proper waste treatment up and running) but apparently anytime you pull out a chair from for the black President, he's disrespecting you. Idran posted:I believe that Obama's actually gone on record as saying that he specifically doesn't return salutes because he feels that, having never served, he hasn't earned the right to.  Call Me Charlie posted:Yeah, he just tried to continue the war until the Iraqis refused to grant our troops immunity. What a great guy! Yes, Obama does bad things. GWB was such a catastrophe that saying Obama is not that bad isn't exactly a compliment. This is the same reason I can't discuss Obama with my family, but from the other side. I spend so much time arguing that he's not a Muslim and isn't trying to destroy America on purpose that you can't get to the actual bad things he's done.
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Oct 20, 2013 16:35
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more friedman units posted:One thing you might want to point out about the ratings agency downgrades: Fitch explicitly mentioned our dysfunctional political system undermining confidence in Treasury bonds as the reason for the downgrade watch. I'd rather point out that the rating agencies are complete bullshit. Neither party is stupid enough to default, and if the rating agencies think there's even a chance of that happening...well...they also thought toxic mortgage-backed securities that the issuing banks created in order to bet against were AAA-rated solid enough to survive another Great Depression (or they were willing to say so to keep the sweet, sweet subscriber fees rolling in from the banks that stood to make money when the financial instruments they created blew up)
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Oct 21, 2013 07:19
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MissKeewi posted:This one is so obvious I won't be surprised if it doesn't even get much of a discussion. I just received this from a parent (I love you, Dad, but drat). Ahahaha! Oh man, people burned to death horribly, that's hilarious! That will teach those lazy immigrants to...be places when things happen unexpectedly.
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Oct 21, 2013 14:04
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nyquil hangover posted:They weren't at work because they couldn't get jobs due to institutional racism.  That one is just baffling to me. Even if you agree with the author's bullshit premise that immigrants are all lazy mooches or criminals or terrorists or whatever, not like us hardworking white people, it still doesn't make any sense. What's the moral here? Houses burn down all the time so the more you're away, the safer you are? God punishes the lazy by burning down houses after the good people leave for work because a minivan leaving a driveway is the 21st-century lamb's blood on the door? Are we just supposed to be happy when immigrants die? Answer me, anonymous author! What terrible opinion of mine is this fable supposed to validate? 
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Oct 21, 2013 18:20
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Soviet Commubot posted:
A crime requires an injured party? What? Is your friend pro-DUI or something? Or pro attempted murder for that matter?
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Oct 21, 2013 18:22
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