Pretty much, yes. Tilting at windmills.Originally Posted by tom444
So all these people are actually protesting in the name of "fake liberal equality" and everything is actually hunky dory?
Pretty much, yes. Tilting at windmills.So all these people are actually protesting in the name of "fake liberal equality" and everything is actually hunky dory?
See you Space Cowboy ...
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Give a lib a fish--he eats for a day
Teach a lib to fish--he is back the next day asking for more free fish.
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So much for social distancing and COVID-19 guidelinesSo all these people are actually protesting in the name of "fake liberal equality" and everything is actually hunky dory?
No, no, you see - the virus is not so dangerous that it should override your right to free assembly. Political protests are ok. Shame on any bigot who says they will spread COVID-19.
Unless you are assembling for reasons we don't like, such as protesting the lockdowns violating your rights. Then it is not ok, and you are dangerously irresponsible. You just killed grandma, you selfish bigot. Now we ALL have to go on lockdown longer because of you.
See you Space Cowboy ...
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At least the vast majority of the protestors in that pic ARE wearing masks of some type.
Ah, the "game is rigged" excuse that is so popular among the younger, dumber generation. Never mind that the United States is by far the easiest place in the world to get rich if you have a good idea, or even a normal idea and some persistence. Or that the standard of living is ridiculously high and only increases. Hell, if you took the poorest 20% of Americans and made them into their own country, it would be in the 15 wealthiest countries in the world.
But no, I can't hack it, so let's change the system so that I can just give up and live off of government programs. What an ambition. Just really - shoot for the stars there, folks. Might as well just come out and say what you mean: "Let's make our parents pay for everything forever - only THIS time, we'll write it into law." That's not embarrassing at all.
I could go on and on about what piss-poor people milennials are, but this guy beat me to it, so I'll defer to him:
See you Space Cowboy ...
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The mass,okay we'll call it "protesting",has nothing to do with the dramatic rise in discovered cases of covid 19. The time frame just does't fit. Or does it ?
Two bags are guarenteed to fit all sizes ,or your money back. If you are not completely satisfied call 1-800-GOO-DHELL We show 5 bags to choose from,most problems only need 2 bags
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Give a lib a fish--he eats for a day
Teach a lib to fish--he is back the next day asking for more free fish.
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Yeah, It is totally a non-rigged game.
"In fact, in real terms average hourly earnings peaked more than 45 years ago: The $4.03-an-hour rate recorded in January 1973 had the same purchasing power that $23.68 would today." -- https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tan...d-for-decades/
https://academic.oup.com/cje/article.../4/921/1712745
"The wealth of American families is currently no higher than its level two decades ago" -- https://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2020...th-inequality/
"middle-income families saw their median net worth shrink by 20% and lower-income families experienced a loss of 45%." -- https://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2020...th-inequality/
People are broke and getting broker. Since the mid 2000's there has been a consistent slide down the economic ladder for most not already in the upper tiers. We have about 15 years of young adults entering a workplace where it is not always possible to earn enough money to pay all their bills. That tends to piss people off and they start looking around for solutions -- good or bad.
Just because you don't like the ideas or think it is funny, clever, and shows how smart you are to throw around "millennial" and "lazy" a whole bunch doesn't change the stark reality for many people. Most of the students I teach work their asses off. Have 2+ jobs, go to school at least half time, and many have a family as well. They struggle to find career track jobs, because no one wants to hire a long-term full time employee when the labor market is saturated with options of desperate folks who will take a less than full-time and low paying gig over nothing. It is not possible for many to pay rent, pay for school, and save for long-term durable goods (like a house) despite working full time.
For much of the baby boom and a bit beyond generation it was possible to work a summer job full time and pay for a year of education. You can't even make the initial payment at many large schools with that now. We can talk extensively about how broken and poorly led uni's are -- but it is what it is right now. Employers want the degree so students have to pay for it. They see that they work and still can't get by. So why would they want to sign up for 6+ more decades of that?
Vote Democrat if you want all of the US to be CHAZ.
Hater = Realist
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We need more government (tax payer) funded programs like the ACA to makes things affordable for everyone.
Give a lib a fish--he eats for a day
Teach a lib to fish--he is back the next day asking for more free fish.
ΜΟΛΩΝ ΛΑΒΕ
Ah, the plight of the poor, downtrodden millennial. I was told I could show up with my Communications degree and I'd be a tech billionaire within a few years, by putting in a solid two hours of work a day in between tapping on my iPhone. Wait, what -- that's not what's happening? Well, it isn't FAIR. I bought a new $40,000 car and I can't afford it on a barista's paycheck. This is just like the Homestead Strike. This is just like the Pullman Strike. Black people have it the same as Birmingham 1963. It isn't FAIR.
The world is changing and I don't like it. So instead of changing my approach, I'll blame it on a bunch of old white guys who are afraid of change -- er, I mean, who are evil racist bigots! Yeah, that's it!
I can't get a good job! So let's vote to mass import people by the millions who will do the same job I want for less money, and work harder at it too. Hey, wait -- the job I wanted is gone! It's not FAIR!
Pfft. Screw engineering or computer science or physics, who needs that? All I have to do is show up, and people will give me money because I am SO SMART. Hey! Where's my money? What? The engineers and computer scientists got it all? Screw them! Those are male-dominated fields anyway! It's not FAIR. What'd Elon Musk ever do for anyone? He doesn't really NEED a billion dollars. Teachers should be paid like pro athletes. I bet if Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos didn't have a billion dollars, I'D be able to retire comfortably at age 30. It's my RIGHT.
...
The millennial college graduate shares a lot in common with the California Gold Rush mentality, where everyone thought they were going to simply show up and strike it rich, and went to great trouble and expense to spin the wheel, and guess what, that's not what happened.
Yeah, I get it - a bachelor's degree today is the same as a high school diploma 40 years ago, and an MBA is the same as a bachelor's degree 40 years ago. Figure it out and plan accordingly. There are also a lot more choices in life than either working in an office building in the big city or waiting tables in the big city, and then being pissed when one way gets you a 4-bedroom house in the suburbs of that same big city and the other one doesn't. Plenty of ways to live your life comfortably and make a decent living that aren't just that. Figure it out and plan accordingly.
But no, I want this and only this. I can't just walk into a good situation, so make the government help. Can't somebody else do it for me? It isn't FAIR.
See you Space Cowboy ...
That's a cool rant that I bet goes over really well in the cool kid edge lord internet spots you likely hang out. I also suspect that all your friends tell you how smart you are and what great takes you have on the issues.
But based on a decade of working with college students across multiple universities of a wide range of backgrounds, what you are describing applies to almost none of them.
Most work and pay for their own education, rent, food, etc. Many have children. Many have a detailed plan for launching their careers. Most are mercenary and ruthless about what they choose to study. Almost universally they select being nurses, engineers, computer somethings, accountants, lawyers, doctors, cops, etc. rather than underwater poetry weaving liberal studies. While in school, they are often working 20-40 hours a week and in their chosen industry whenever possible. And they still struggle to make it work. If you ask them if they will ever own a home (much less a 4 bedroom in the burbs), have a new car, retire, etc. They just laugh.
But you have never been interested in learning something (anything really) unless it supports your existing opinion and outlook. Bonus if it helps you feel smugly superior to everyone else.
Well, I have been through that exact same process and seen nothing like the miserable picture you are describing. I see plenty of former college classmates struggling to muddle their way through life, and almost without exception, do you know why the ones who are that way have problems? Because they kind of suck at things. The ones who don't? Far fewer problems.
Doctors and lawyers and accountants all living in poverty and laughing at the notion of ever affording a house. The fuck out of here.
Guess what the price of a house is? Whatever someone can afford to pay for it. No one can afford it, the price goes down until someone can. With literally every dwelling that exists across the entire country, that is how it works. But no, let's make up some magical dream scenario where basic economic principles don't exist or are stood on their head - it must be the damn 1% buying them all and leaving them vacant so they can laugh at us. That sounds more like it, because I'm MAD. It isn't FAIR.
So what you are left with is not a case of "No one can afford the necessities, everyone is barely getting by," but "I can't afford what I WANT."
The issue is not that I am some internet edge lord who is too cool for you (one of your favorite go-to arguments) - it is that you have a completely ass-backward concept of the state of things that is predicated on unfairness and misery. I am not interested in "learning" that because it is not learning. It is ignoring observed evidence in order to take up a narrative that, based on those observations, appears not only to be laughably incorrect, but also would require solutions that are terrible ideas. Things are bad, let's all be miserable together, vote Democrat. That's the plan. Fuck THAT shit.
See you Space Cowboy ...
Oh for christ sake stop crying about everything will ya? You're crying about the virus, crying about the protests, crying about Democrats, good lord. If everything's going so well for you than shut the f*** up and enjoy your life.
Reading comprehension is clearly not a strong suite round these parts.
Oh for christ sake stop crying about everything will ya? You're crying about the virus, crying about the protests, crying about Democrats, good lord. If everything's going so well for you than shut the f*** up and enjoy your life.
This is what some say about HOF basketball coach Larry (Harvey ) Brown. 'Harv's not happy unless he's unhappy.' https://www.nydailynews.com/sports/b...icle-1.1050346
I think that applies to more people than Larry Brown.
"These people have a right to complain about everything! Quit complaining about their constant complaining!"
See you Space Cowboy ...
Smugly superior sums it up perfectly.
Attaboy, keep complaining. Don't try to get anywhere now because then what would you have to complain about?
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You must have forgot all your whining in this thread.
http://www.steelersuniverse.com/foru...se-of-COVID-19
Give a lib a fish--he eats for a day
Teach a lib to fish--he is back the next day asking for more free fish.
ΜΟΛΩΝ ΛΑΒΕ
Aww, poor baby, you feel a need to get some complaining in to do you?
I'm doing fine, thanks, I don't need to "get anywhere."
However, when other people are constantly bitching - with the stated intention of creating problems and implementing bad ideas that will eventually affect everyone else including me - then I do not appreciate it, and many others do not appreciate it also.
See you Space Cowboy ...
I just don't see any point in elaborating.
Last edited by tom444; 06-26-2020 at 08:35 PM.
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You're defending what you thought I wrote instead of what I actually wrote. What I actually wrote has nothing to do with "the ship of state" listing or "taking on water." Instead, what I wrote concerned political discourse. The 24-hour news cycle meant narratives became entrenched in a matter of hours, say, up to 48 hours, rather than days or even weeks when the news was a small, repeating cycle in the mornings for people going to work, and a half-hour at night when they returned home, plus a couple of hour-long news programs once a week.
Carville's response was to make sure any narrative that cast his candidate in a bad light was immediately challenged before it became the set narrative. It was a brilliant response, makes perfect sense, and probably what pushed Clinton past the finish line first (just four years before, Gary Hart lost his bid because of an affair).
However, the results of that decision was that anyone who opposed Clinton and/or the Democrats in an election cycle now had to do the same thing. Moreover, anyone who wanted to push a narrative on an opponent now had to set it, then be ready to respond within the first 24 hour news cycle after the opponent's response. That quickly devolved into nothing more than a bunch of noise.
The question then, was, how do you make your voice heard above noise? There are two ways. First, shout louder. More and more people took up the mantle of their candidate. Congressmen and women, partisan spokesmen and women on news channels (in special half-hour or hour long shows that were based on commentary rather than delivering the news) all did so. Additionally, AM radio came into their own. Of course, AM radio started with Rush Limbaugh in the very late 1980s, but he wasn't a national phenomenon until the early-mid 1990s, primarily because of the election of Clinton. He was the only game in town on the Republican side that could respond to Carville's method, and he could do so in an 3-hour time slot. (There were others, but they were not national and were pretty unknown. G. Gordon Liddy was one of them). The Right recognized Limbaugh could be used to help set narratives, which they did to the tune of winning the house for the first time in 40 years in 1994.
So, yes, in my opinion, Carville's decision to counter the 24 hour news cycle is the political singularity we now find ourselves in. That doesn't mean there weren't precursors to it. There were, two of which are already mentioned: the 24-hour news cycle and the start of conservative AM radio. I'd argue the onset of postmodernity in the early-mid 90's and recognition of multiple local narratives rather than large metanarratives also set the stage. But again, those are precursors. The spark that created the political singularity was Carville's decision not to allow a 24-hour news cycle to go by without responding to an accusation or negative story.
Don't read this as "blaming" Carville. Again, I applaud the political astuteness, and if I were in his place, I would have done the exact same thing. I'm simply discussing "what is" without value statements attached.
No, what we find ourselves in started decades before Carville, AM radio, Rush Limbaugh, Clinton, the 24-hour news cycle, etc. While those elements have acted as speakers to amplify it, they aren't the cause of the "political singularity" we find ourselves in now. You have to have something to be amplified first.
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How'd he get in here?Oh for christ sake stop crying about everything will ya? You're crying about the virus, crying about the protests, crying about Democrats, good lord. If everything's going so well for you than shut the f*** up and enjoy your life.
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The GOP helped get Nixon out of office. In 91, the Dems crossed lines and voted for the war with an agreement that he'd allow taxes to be raised without Bush vetoing the bill. Four years later, the political landscape had changed too much. And, it's never returned.
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See previous entry for my response.
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