Point 1: If by misquote, you mean substituted a larger term (religion) for a smaller one (churches), I suppose I did. But without religion, there -are- no churches. I don't see any meaningful difference.

Point 2: Texas has worked damned hard to earn its reputation as a major-league collection of wingnuts. I'm not sure how you can justify getting upset when that reputation is assumed to be true. You have a problem with the reputation, maybe you should start blaming the people who are going out of their way to earn it...like Rick Perry, or the Texas Board of Education. As long as the state is trying to rewrite history to eliminate reality's liberal bias, you're going to be stuck with that.

Point 3: Perhaps I should have slowed down and spent more time in the step-by-step logic...I really thought most people who read her could follow the shorthand, but I did indeed jump about a bit.

In many ways, churches are no different than any corporation. They exist as a means to concentrate funds and offer the controller(s) of those funds a method of avoiding personal responsibility for misuse of those funds. On top of that, churches pay no taxes, although they still make liberal use of publicly funded services, -and- in many cases, they keep lobbying for public funds to be handed over to them as well. Now add how many churches are politically active and advising their cult members how to vote, and you might begin to see why I refer to them all as corporate welfare queens. Or maybe not...I don't know if you're even going to try to follow it or not, and don't much care at this point.
>> ^chingalera:

>> ^Stormsinger:
>> ^chingalera:
>> ^Boise_Lib:
Someone just explained separation of church and state to him.

Jeeez dude, you are about a party-liner ain't ya?? Texas would be the first state to "separate" from the diseased political system you so faithfully believe in and, as we observe, believe in as fervently as any bible-thumping proselytizer determined to beat a moot point into oblivion.
As the government of the U.S. continues down her retrograde path, churches will become for many, a last bastion of sanity exempt from a really retarded form of totalitarianism and fascism. Retarded, because folks who talk shit from the comfort of their programming who belie intelligence with their words should have seen the shit coming from miles away but were too comfortable in their delusion to see the boots and badges-

I was gonna...but then decided it's not worth it, then changed my mind one last time.
I suspect aAnyone who can call religion "the last bastion of sanity" is too far gone to make sense, but... Religion supplies a cushy lifestyle for priests...that's the sum total of it's accomplishments. Churches have, if anything, helped push the government down the path you so self-righteously condemn...and they preach and stump political issues all without paying any taxes. Yet more corporate welfare.
It's time for the -real- welfare queens to start paying their share...churches, Wall Street, Defense contractors, big Pharma, etc. Time to either start contributing to the upkeep of society, or be broken up (or strung up, as the case may be).

No, you misquote me and then infer bullshit in that same smug manner that libby there used and that anyone on the receiving end of such smug could expect after reading a gajillion similar quips. I said CHURCHES and meant the members of the same whose communal efforts keep the building's physical plant in order and supports the members in time of want or need. You know...The first places to get raided and ransacked when the jackboots come??
This didn't start about about religion: I started it when Potato-libro there took a jab at Texas and lighted upon another opportunity to bash "them ignernt conservatives, etc.", NOT UNLIKE a shitload of folks with "holier than thou" attitudes concerning politics and government. QUITE laughable really, because the opinions they have and the conclusions they have arrived at, are based on limited and incomplete information or worse, they have been programmed to do so through systematic efforts by do-nothings in colleges or universities.
Stormsinger, YOUR rant began with religion and politics and manically concluded with corporations and Wall Street....WTF??!! By the way, my solution as an anarchistic, soon-to-be expatriate is to use the BIG TEX method on governments and corporations. You hate em so much, be like the Hulk. SMAAAASH! Then burn, repeat.
Can we talk about how fucking progressive IDAHO is now??? Jesus Christ, Allah Mustapha!!
I suspect anyone who can start with anti-religion rants, switch to blaming churches for the state of America's demise, bash tax-exemption and somehow blame corporate welfare (whatever the fuck!??...see where this is going?) and arrive at a total solution by blaming BELTWAY INSIDERS AND THE SENATORS/CONGRESSMEN THEY HAVE BOUGHT for pharma, defense, etc. shifting the blame to people without any power or influence???....I'd have to call them schizophrenic! Which is how most rabid concerning politics ion one side or the other are to me. ALLL OF THEM, conservative or liberal. I could give a fiddler's fist-fuck about working within a failed system. I prefer to keep to the fringes of this broken machine and put as little of my resources or mentations into it.
But some, like stormie and libby here...well, hopeless fiends and junkies for the dance politic. Playing right into the hands of the corporations iffn ya axe me!

@ant...

Silver Tongue badge is hard to earn....

Let's celebrate your Level Two badge since we missed your Level One.

Rock on, ant. Rock on.

First of all, Schiff didn't get schooled, unless you count him appealing to the disbandment of the EPA, FDA, and Board of Education as him schooling himself. The protester he chose to verbsterbate over was not interested in the kind of 'debate' Schiff was looking for. Or, perhaps, that's what it's supposed to look like with the dude in the suit staring down a protester in a keffiyeh, and Schiff got what he wanted, firing up his fellow suit-wearer base. Looks pretty allegorical to me, though.

Anyway marbles, crosswords: Crosswords' post regarding the arguments Schiff is making were more or less in line with the points Schiff spoke. #1 is more in line, @1:25s Schiff makes the argument that corporations 'need' to move their production elsewhere because Americans demand lower prices than corps can profit from if production is in the US. Crossroads' statement of Schiff's position as: "AMERICAN WORKERS ARE DEMANDING MORE MONEY AND LOWER PRICES THAN CORPORATIONS CAN PROFIT FROM" is entirely in line with what Schiff is saying, simply adding that workers in the US want more money than workers elsewhere, which I'm sure Schiff himself wouldn't argue with.

Crossroads' #2 argument is a bit more of an extension of Schiff's ideas however I think it emerges out of the sentiment expressed by Schiff about the CEO of Apple having a right to give people jobs wherever he wants. The point being made by the protester is that Steve has an obligation to the US, from which he has gained so much, to try to keep manufacturing jobs in the US (another argument for another time, please) to which Schiff says @1:05 "The American people don't own those jobs. Steve Jobs has a right to manufacture where he wants." Now Crossroads' "I WORKED HARD TO EARN EVERYTHING I GOT, SO I DESERVE TO KEEP IT ALL AND DO WHATEVER I WANT" certainly echoes that sentiment. Also, I think you can glean that sentiment from virtually all of what Schiff is saying, from the Apple manufacturing to the abolishment of the various gov't agencies (I can explain that specific point more if you'd like, but think it would be beside the point right now).

So I really do feel like Crossroads' paraphrasing of Schiff's statements is entirely within the realm of the reasonable. And even where they're pushing those boundaries to call them 'douchey' arguments certainly seems baseless. So, marbles, do you have any anything to say about the content of Crossroad's rebuttals to the arguments Schiff has presented?

>> ^Crosswords:

I'd like to respond to two of the more douchey arguments made by Mr. Schiff.
1. AMERICAN WORKERS ARE DEMANDING MORE MONEY AND LOWER PRICES THAN CORPORATIONS CAN PROFIT FROM.
This would be more believable if a. Corporate profits weren't at record highs, b. the disparity between worker and executive pay is huge and has been more or less steadily increasing and c. the disparity between the top 20% and everyone else has also been increasing. So essentially the rich are demanding more for less and they're getting it.
2. I WORKED HARD TO EARN EVERYTHING I GOT, SO I DESERVE TO KEEP IT ALL AND DO WHATEVER I WANT.
This is a ridiculous argument designed to make the person who has the most look like a victim. It ignores the tremendous advantages he enjoys in a society that strives to give workers a relatively comfortable wage and keep opportunities for economic advancement open. Had he been born in one of his oh so precious 'competitive' wage countries in all likelihood he'd be living in poverty sewing shoes for a $1 a day till the day he died of poor health at the age of 45. Further more it also ignores his socioeconomic upbringing and make the assumption he's a self-made man who picked himself up from his own boot-straps out of the mud of poverty. In Mr. Schiff's case his father was a well connected political activist, investor, and current tax dodging jail bird. Its probably safe to say Peter Schiff didn't start with nothing, but in fact had a lot more avenues to success open to him than the majority of Americans do. There's also the element of chance, its nice to think that everything you succeed at is purely a result of your own tenacity and personal genius, but I'd argue there is also a good deal of chance involved; being in the right place at the right time and making the right decision. No, I'm not suggesting people have no control over what they do in life, I'm arguing the assertion that they have complete control is false.
I don't think the protester did an awful job, and the fact he gave someone who's job it is to argue on on TV about economic matters a run for his money is a statement to the weakness of Mr. Schiff's position.


Well, I listened to the clip again and somehow I couldn't find these Schiff arguments. The only ones making "douchey arguments" are those framing partisan strawman instead of recognizing there's truth to both sides.

I'd like to respond to two of the more douchey arguments made by Mr. Schiff.

1. AMERICAN WORKERS ARE DEMANDING MORE MONEY AND LOWER PRICES THAN CORPORATIONS CAN PROFIT FROM.
This would be more believable if a. Corporate profits weren't at record highs, b. the disparity between worker and executive pay is huge and has been more or less steadily increasing and c. the disparity between the top 20% and everyone else has also been increasing. So essentially the rich are demanding more for less and they're getting it.

2. I WORKED HARD TO EARN EVERYTHING I GOT, SO I DESERVE TO KEEP IT ALL AND DO WHATEVER I WANT.
This is a ridiculous argument designed to make the person who has the most look like a victim. It ignores the tremendous advantages he enjoys in a society that strives to give workers a relatively comfortable wage and keep opportunities for economic advancement open. Had he been born in one of his oh so precious 'competitive' wage countries in all likelihood he'd be living in poverty sewing shoes for a $1 a day till the day he died of poor health at the age of 45. Further more it also ignores his socioeconomic upbringing and make the assumption he's a self-made man who picked himself up from his own boot-straps out of the mud of poverty. In Mr. Schiff's case his father was a well connected political activist, investor, and current tax dodging jail bird. Its probably safe to say Peter Schiff didn't start with nothing, but in fact had a lot more avenues to success open to him than the majority of Americans do. There's also the element of chance, its nice to think that everything you succeed at is purely a result of your own tenacity and personal genius, but I'd argue there is also a good deal of chance involved; being in the right place at the right time and making the right decision. No, I'm not suggesting people have no control over what they do in life, I'm arguing the assertion that they have complete control is false.

I don't think the protester did an awful job, and the fact he gave someone who's job it is to argue on on TV about economic matters a run for his money is a statement to the weakness of Mr. Schiff's position.

@hpqp. The Elusive and Hard to Earn Goooooolden One. Woof. Woof.

I realize one can't read the tone of my post, but I was being facetious about hating him. I hate him as much as I hate the Nissan Cube - I would never pay for one, I don't understand why anyone likes them and I think the person who designed it should be smacked upside the head but I wouldn't have them all dumped into the middle of the ocean.

That said, worked hard and earned his fame?

He is a mass marketed tool of the recording industry. He won a genetic lottery that makes him physically appealing to preteen girls and has a decent voice. He had the luck to be accidentally seen on YouTube by a marketing executive who arranged for him to sing with Usher one week later. He is a naive teenager being blindly led down a path of fame and riches by people who know how to sell things much more than they know music.

He doesn't deserve to be in the same sentence as The Barenaked Ladies, who seriously worked hard as independent musicians, or Jim Carey, who was/is a comic genius. They are great Canadian entertainers, Justin Bieber is not.>> ^doogle:

>> ^Skeeve:
"I don't know if you seen it but..."
There are so many reasons to hate Justin Bieber - I'm choosing to hate him for his bad grammar and for giving a bad name to us Canadians.

Canadians' extreme modesty pushes us to dislike success and fame of Canadians on top. So they go elsewhere for their fame & success, while Canada pushes them out. Barenaked Ladies, Alanis Morrissette, Jim Carrey, etc.
I'm not at all into Bieber's music, but the kid's got a good head on his shoulders and he's worked hard and earned his fame.
You don't have to like him. But you don't have to hate him either. Or listen to his music. Or watch a video aptly titled "Justin Bieber Walks Into Glass Door"

>> ^Skeeve:

"I don't know if you seen it but..."
There are so many reasons to hate Justin Bieber - I'm choosing to hate him for his bad grammar and for giving a bad name to us Canadians.


Canadians' extreme modesty pushes us to dislike success and fame of Canadians on top. So they go elsewhere for their fame & success, while Canada pushes them out. Barenaked Ladies, Alanis Morrissette, Jim Carrey, etc.

I'm not at all into Bieber's music, but the kid's got a good head on his shoulders and he's worked hard and earned his fame.

You don't have to like him. But you don't have to hate him either. Or listen to his music. Or watch a video aptly titled "Justin Bieber Walks Into Glass Door"

^ Well, who is a better judge when it comes to using the money you earned? You, or someone who takes that money from you effortlessly?

If I handed you US$10,000 for free, no strings attached, would you value that money as much as US$10,000 you worked hard to earn? What if you accidentally lose that money somehow, would you feel as bad as if you lost the 10k you dedicated PRECIOUS TIME out of your life for?

I feel silly having to explain to you that government doesn't value your money as much as you do. They'll waste even more of it if you want Washington to run the healthcare insurance business.

It's pretty naive to assume that politicians are somehow endowed with some special knowledge or skill that allows them to be more productive to society with the effortless sum of a lot of other people's money than the individual spendings every person would have done with their own money otherwise.

If that were the case, the US government wouldn't have a multi-trillion dollar deficit, it would have a surplus, like a profitable business.

He'd worked so hard to earn the nickname "Indiana".

GONE.

Congratulations Mr. Rasch! Quite a lovely achievement that you have worked hard to earn. Thanks for your many contributions to the Sift community.

You can't create equality by enforcing inequality. Way back when I was in college for my CS degree, they were giving full ride scholarships to women just for being a woman to pursue a CS degree. Where as for me, being a white male from a middle class family was subject to no gender or race based perks. You can only have equality of opportunity, not of experience without being massively unfair and unjust.

By that same token, my best friend whom is half black was qualified for a full ride scholarship to the US coast guard but turned it down as he was also qualified because of his grades. In other words, he worked hard and earned it based in merit what would of been just given to him for being (part) black regardless.

Affirmative action is state sponsored racism just like separate but equal facilities was. You can not accomplish gender and race based equality without (duh) gender and race based equality.

@moonsammy:
Ron Paul has said he is not going to just abolish it, you can't do that because of those who are currently dependent on it. But he does want to phase it out. There is a lot of misunderstanding about Social Security. A lot is from an ignorant optimism in our current economic situation, and also from the well-intentioned but flawed socialist ideologies you espouse. Right away, I can see you failed to catch the point about what causes mass poverty in the first place. Your concern is wholly placed in addressing the problem, assuming, erroneously, that poverty is the product of greedy rich people who will stop at nothing to collude and hoard all the wealth in the world, and not the result of government intervention in the free market through the federal reserve's inflationary control over the money supply, high taxes to fund do-good big government agencies and programs like SS, and government intervention via managed trade agreements and acts like Sarbanes Oxley.

Most wealthy people spend or invest their money, either through employing people, philanthropy, or consumption. A yacht or a car are both products produced by workers either in this country or another. It is more likely to be from this country if inflation, taxes, and government regulations are low, because then there will be no incentive for the producer or consumer to go overseas. Much of the time rich people spend their wealth on employing people for their business, buying products themselves, and it generally fuels the production means of the consumption ends. So in the free market system, the money is transferred naturally through production and consumption, which is good for everybody. In the socialist system, someone who has worked hard to earn wealth is getting their wealth stolen from them by the federal government to be redistributed to someone poorer which you claim is more fair. Money that would have ultimately gone towards someone else's income/productive effort is simply taken and transferred. On the most extreme hypothetical scale, everyone's wealth is redistributed to equality, removing most incentive to work harder and get more than the person next to you. So greed and wanting more fuels production and consumption, which inadvertently has the effect of helping everyone far more than stealing and redistributing would have. Social security and the income tax are both in the same destructive boat, because they are taxes on production, not on consumption. That isn't to say the free market is capable of eliminating poverty completely, or addressing the needs of a small percentage which is incapable of working. But in that scenario, you have voluntary stuff easily footing the bill through local churches and non-profit organizations.

That's really the whole point of social security - it isn't to benefit the lazy and the worthless that are such a plague upon us upstanding citizens, but to preserve some degree of dignity and humanity amongst our fellow countrymen who have, totally or at least largely through no fault of their own (none of us are perfect), become unable to adequately maintain themselves.

This shows me how little you actually researched before responding. Social Security is payed and received by everyone. It's a "retirement" program. Even Donald Trump can get an SS check when he retires. Don't pass this guilt trip garbage on people, this is what gets them trusting in the government in the first place.

In terms of your suggested alternative to the social security system: I'd love to see that be practicable. Unfortunately it is almost certainly too utopian to have a real chance.

Oh, you mean like all those years before it was implemented?

Until all corruption, greed, and prejudice is eliminated from our society there will *always* be people who are unfairly screwed over in life.

And politicians are incapable of these things, so we should entrust them to legislate the market in our best interest? We should trust them to spend money more wisely than the people who worked for it? That's stupid, that's exactly how we got in this position. Big business in bed with big government, legislating under the do-good pretense of taking care of people. Of course there are always going to be people getting screwed. But far more people get screwed with your system, making free market capitalism the better tradeoff. It's the same short-sighted argument from gun control advocates. Since gun violence exists, we should work to ban guns. Yet when these bans are implemented gun violence actually increases. The criminals get them on the black market and don't think twice against citizens they know are defenseless. Meanwhile, the gun-law advocates finally figure it out: guns actually prevented far more crime than they caused through coercion, and that didn't show up in the statistics. They took a knee-jerk reaction to media stories covering gun crimes in schools, and the immediate emotional outcry overpowered actual reason.

Here, you claim that SS isn't in trouble financially or a tax burden on the economy. Just do some research:

http://www.socialsecurity.org/quickfacts/

http://www.socialsecurity.org/reformandyou/faqs.html

The whole xenu thing is supposedly a church secret, and only supposed to be available to those member who have paid enough mone..... er worked hard to earn the churches trust. I think south park nailed this "fruity little club" on the head.