The worst part is who they target. I walk around in Philly every day with my friends to and from the train multiple times with people who would be targets. They are groups that wait for women who are alone or older people who can't defend themselves. If you are a male between 20 and 35, and not to classify people but you can't weigh 140 pounds soaking wet, be a good guy and walk people to their cars or to the train. If they see you they won't come near because one of them could get hurt.

They are simply the trash of the city who are still cowards on the inside.

Philly has been, and always will be a shit town.

You can look at it any way you want. I'm considered "middle-class" by all terms. I have super cheap rent in one of the most expensive places in the US, that is of my own accord. But I sure as hell can't afford anything. I take public transit, ride my bike, I still eat the best organics in the nation and have the best friends I could have ever met.

I've had many jobs where I've done the work of the higher-ups and seen what they do while making 5X the amount of money I do. I know they know they're lucky, but, I've also seen how they choose to make financial decisions for their own gain - one of those being getting others to do their work for them. Corrupt fucks.

One of my main influences for being more "socially" inclined was my father. A CEO, he wasn't a scumbag or anything - at least not to my knowledge (he did help build prisons) but just the thought of people putting profit before their own lives & family is sickening.

To his credit, he grew up in Philly with a mother who lost her husband (an olympic athelete) early on. She grew up during the depression and only had a 4th grade education. She was one of those cuties that saved huge tin foil balls. I know my father worked hard and felt obligated to but I think and will always think he cared too much about making profit.

He still touts that. Now that I am nearly an old man he admitted while we sipped on some bourbon and smoked a cigar that, "All I ever wanted was to make money." My reply was "yeah." I looked him in his empty eyes and saw a robot. Sure he has a super nice house on a lake system, an amazing wife, nice cars, a speed boat, a golf course... hardly any friends, kids that don't appreciate him... but he has shitloads of money. Good for him! That's amazing. Money really informs people what life is truly about, keeps people focused on what is really important. Paying your taxes, keeping your yard and hair well groomed, going to stiff social events and working. Man, that is just not a life worth living in my opinion.

On the opposite side of the spectrum their are jobs where everyone is paid nearly the same, they buy into their businesses and co-own their businesses and everyone comes out a winner with 30k+ bonuses at the end of the year. The only people that may not think they're winners are people that are greedy fucks that require too much. But, at the same time these people are able to live regular lives that promote interaction, activity & family. Not that I believe in having a family, but when you do not have to take your bullshit job home with you or work many many extra hours the better it is for everyone.

>> ^quantumushroom:

You fellows are buying into something you don't seem to have thought all the way through. If you spread all wealth equally across the board, in a month things would look about the same as they do now, as foolhardy choices were made and the inexperienced gambled their "profits" away.
Communism attempted to eliminate the profit motive. It's been a disaster everywhere it's been tried.
Socialist countries are not only less competitive than capitalist ones, many of them across Europe are now in serious trouble.
You do know most of the American "poor" are well fed, own their own homes, have two vehicles, 3 TVs, cable, computers, appliances, etc?
One other thing. I do not believe for one second that if any of you "revolutionaries" won the lottery, you wouldn't immediately put together a legal team to rival Mr. Burns' on The Simpsons and proceed to exploit every tax shelter and loophole possible.

"i dont know where you were on the east coast but when i lived in brooklyn, walmart was trying to get in and the community came out everytime to protest."

I used to live in PA. It was chain stores and outlets for hundreds of miles to Pittsburgh, to Philly, to Baltimore, to New Jersey. I remember my parents loved it. They used to take me to SAMs, one of those Costco-esque places and the immense size of those places used to almost give me a panic attack, as I would repeat in my head "this is what is wrong with world". Even creepier when they pretty much got rid of cashiers. I mean even if I had enough money to buy shitloads of stuff - I wouldn't even have enough space to put away the sort of things you could buy at a place like that. I've only room for like 4 boxes of cereal of hopefully different varieties.

@messenger

One of the purposes of society is communication. Not having access to sophisticated culture because you don't speak the language needed for success is bad. (Doesn't it seem like being able to communicate with your boss would be useful? Why does that have to be pointed out?)

Many of humanity's capitals for intelligence, like Silicon Valley and Cambridge, Mass. speak English, and it's a professional disadvantage to not have good English skills.

Encouraging people to not assimilate into successful habits promotes decay because long-term low education levels, poverty, etc. are part of decay. Your self-caused decay doesn't personally affect me as much for the reasons stated in my previous comment, but I think it's good to want society to move closer to success rather than farther away.

What did I do to give you that impression? I think the concepts of royalty and tradition are both bullshit.

And we already are friends, dumbass -- Facebook wouldn't lie to me.

>> ^rottenseed:

No, I just thought you liked royal tradtions...jesus. What's a fag like me gotta do to make friends around here?!

No, I just thought you liked royal tradtions...jesus. What's a fag like me gotta do to make friends around here?!>> ^berticus:

? weird man is this meant to be a gay joke? i can't even see how it would be funny.. you're slipping. but, just fyi, i did my best to avoid the royal wedding like the plague. unfortunately, i was at a conference in another city and EVERY OTHER (HETEROSEXUAL) person in the hotel room was fucking determined to see every second of that bullshit. they even got angry at me when i continually pointed out what a fucking farce the whole event was. so i guess what i want to say is
WHATEVER FAGGOT
>> ^rottenseed:

>> ^blankfist:
>> ^berticus:
&
amp;
lt; br> The US is not a good model for anything.

Not that I'm a nationalist, but I did notice Europe soon jumped off the monarch bandwagon after the US Revolution. Just saying...

what?! Didn't you see the royal wedding? We know Berti did

? weird man is this meant to be a gay joke? i can't even see how it would be funny.. you're slipping. but, just fyi, i did my best to avoid the royal wedding like the plague. unfortunately, i was at a conference in another city and EVERY OTHER (HETEROSEXUAL) person in the hotel room was fucking determined to see every second of that bullshit. they even got angry at me when i continually pointed out what a fucking farce the whole event was. so i guess what i want to say is

WHATEVER FAGGOT

>> ^rottenseed:

>> ^blankfist:
>> ^berticus:
&
lt; br> The US is not a good model for anything.

Not that I'm a nationalist, but I did notice Europe soon jumped off the monarch bandwagon after the US Revolution. Just saying...

what?! Didn't you see the royal wedding? We know Berti did

>> ^rottenseed:

>> ^blankfist:
>> ^berticus:
&
lt; br> The US is not a good model for anything.

Not that I'm a nationalist, but I did notice Europe soon jumped off the monarch bandwagon after the US Revolution. Just saying...

what?! Didn't you see the royal wedding? We know Berti did


Your gay jokes are insensitive. Siftquisition!

>> ^blankfist:

>> ^berticus:
< br> The US is not a good model for anything.

Not that I'm a nationalist, but I did notice Europe soon jumped off the monarch bandwagon after the US Revolution. Just saying...


what?! Didn't you see the royal wedding? We know Berti did

>> ^berticus:

The US is not a good model for anything.


Not that I'm a nationalist, but I did notice Europe soon jumped off the monarch bandwagon after the US Revolution. Just saying...

thanks!

In reply to this comment by residue:
*promote

more details on this story
http://consumerist.com/2011/02/how-this-philly-homeowner-foreclosed-on-wells-fargo.html
and
http://consumerist.com/2011/02/philly-homeowner-who-foreclosed-on-wells-fargo-settles-dispute.html

>> ^Winstonfield_Pennypacker:

How is what these guys said any different than what the 'other guy' says (and gets a pass)?

What I think is different about things like what Angle and Bachmann said is that are incitement of violence.

>> ^Winstonfield_Pennypacker:
Politicians since times ancient have grossly extrapolated the actions/policies of their opponents.
[snip]
Bachman wanted people 'armed and dangerous'. Barak Obama wanted people "angry, get in their face, hit back twice as hard, bring a gun". I see no difference.

First, you need to source your Obama quote. I only found this as context:

“If they bring a knife to the fight, we bring a gun,” Obama said at a Philadelphia fundraiser Friday night. “Because from what I understand folks in Philly like a good brawl. I’ve seen Eagles fans.”

Kinda sounds like it's a metaphor, does it not?

Secondly, that never became any sort of Democratic talking point or campaign slogan. You didn't hear it coming out of the mouths of everyone on the left every 10 seconds for the better part of a year, the way you heard "death panels".

Thirdly, have you followed the link on Bachmann's full quote, and read it in context? If not, here's more:

I want people in Minnesota armed and dangerous on this issue of the energy tax because we need to fight back. Thomas Jefferson told us ‘having a revolution every now and then is a good thing,’ and the people – we the people – are going to have to fight back hard if we’re not going to lose our country. And I think this has the potential of changing the dynamic of freedom forever in the United States.

I see the word revolution being used literally. I see talk of losing the country, of losing freedom, in the context of saying "I want people armed and dangerous".

Fourth, have I mentioned that this is in the larger context of falsely accusing Democrats of making up global warming?

So, the Obama quote isn't well sourced, doesn't involve a lie, was pretty transparently a metaphor for traditional electioneering activities, and I suspect if Obama was asked about it today he'd say it was a poor word choice. Bachmann's quote we have audio recordings of, involves a big lie, was pretty clearly about armed insurrection against the legitimate government of the United States, and while I suspect she would say "I didn't mean that", she probably wouldn't confess to any kind of issue with her word choice.

I don't see any equivalence.

>> ^Winstonfield_Pennypacker:
Palin's death panel is an exaggeration of the rationed care that IS a part of Obamacare. Similarly, Democrats accuse the GOP of starving people when they want to cut a social program.

Really? Neither statement is true.

First, medical care is a scarce resource, and any system by which we choose to distribute it is by definition "rationing", whether it's a market, or something else, so saying "Obamacare" has "rationing" is a meaningless statement. Even if I grant some special meaning of the word "rationing", there still isn't anything even remotely like Palin's "death panel" in the bill anywhere.

Second, when have Democrats accused Republicans of starving people? To be frank, I wish they would, especially since it's true more often than not. The closest I've seen is Alan Grayson saying that the Republican health care plan is "#1 Don't get sick. #2 If you do get sick, die quickly."

For that one to be true you need to wrap some caveats around it, but basically if you can't afford insurance, or have a preexisting condition, that was totally accurate.

>> ^Winstonfield_Pennypacker:
Do I like the overblown rhetoric? No, but it is part and parcel of any vigorous debate.
No normal person takes these statements literally though. And trying to pander to the NOT normal people seems to me an exercise in futility. Moreover, trying to be "PC" using the outliers of society as a standard is an impossible moving target, and rather subject to opinion.

To a large degree, this is a response to an argument I'm not making. I actually really like overblown rhetoric. What I don't like is the way the right imputes sinister motives to the left. It's not just "they're corrupt and beholden to special interests (and sometimes mansluts)", these days it's "they're coming to take your guns, kill your family, make your kids into gay drug addicts, take your house, your job, and piss on the American flag while surrendering to every other nation in the world".

The left is getting pretty coarse about the right, but most of our insults are that Republicans are corrupt and beholden to special interests...and dumb, heartless liars.

>> ^Winstonfield_Pennypacker:
There is no nice way to say this, but you are wrong. They were not, and you know it. There is no GOP candidate who would have survived 5 seconds if they'd been calling for armed rebellion if they lost. That is hyperbole.

I'd love to be wrong about this. I am not. Scroll back up to my first comment here, there are two videos of Republicans calling for armed insurrection if they lose. These two were small potatoes, but Michele Bachmann and Sharron Angle both were saying the same thing, just a little less directly. Rick Perry has been a bit more overt, but also a lot less graphic (talk of secession rather than revolution). Not to bring the Tea Party into this, but they kept showing up with signs talking about "Watering the tree of liberty with the blood of tyrants"

>> ^Winstonfield_Pennypacker:
I put it to you kindly that this opinion is another symptom of perception bias. Would you not agree that from Glenn Beck's perspective his infamous 'chalkboard histories' are an attempt to educate and outreach? And quite frankly, I feel very little sense of 'outreach' or 'education' when liberals call conservatives hateful, angry, evil, nazis, corporate shills, mind numbed robots, neocons, teabaggers, racist, sexist, and bigoted.

No, Beck's not trying outreach with his blackboards. He's painting a false picture of history in which liberalism is about violence and domination, and entirely overrun by a conspiracy of nefarious interests. That's not outreach, that's poisoning the well so that it's impossible for people who think he's illuminating some sort of truth (and to be clear, he is not), to talk to the people who haven't subscribed to Beck's belief that liberalism progressivism is just the new mask the fascists have put on to insinuate themselves into modern society so they can subvert it from within.

It's true that the left isn't engaging in outreach when they're calling you names. I suspect you haven't seen much outreach, given the way you personally tend to approach topics around here. You don't seem like the kind of person who's open to outreach.

That said, if I thought there was a way to show you what I think is good about liberalism, I would do so. I'd be happy to give you my take on what liberals believe and why, if you're genuinely interested in trying to understand the way we think.

>> ^Winstonfield_Pennypacker:
Sure - just be sure to allow that both ways. Criticize conservative pundits all you want. But don't get all testy if conservatives criticize liberal ones. And if you try to pin accessory to murder on conservatives, don't be surprised when they get their back up.

Yeah, I didn't. See, the right's been calling us murderers and tyrants quite a bit lately. They've been making the case in countless different ways that government run by Democrats, and especially by Obama is fundamentally illegitimate. Not "something we strongly disagree with" but a total break with the fundamental principles of our government that present a direct threat to people.

Here I personally went one click further and suggested that perhaps this is an intentional strategy to rile up the crazies, so they'll physically intimidate liberals.

Again, I'd love to see someone prove me wrong about that. Ad hominem tu quoque arguments won't really do the job.

>> ^Winstonfield_Pennypacker:
That is because I'm bearding the lion in its metaphorical den, so to speak. The sift is liberally slanted. I'm not. So even when dare to challenge the consensus groupthink - even when done respectfully - I get blowback. I would say that I am incredibly patient, respectful, and moderate in my tone. I rarely (if ever) make things personal. Even when I'm on the receiving end of some rather nasty abuse I tend to keep it civil.

I think then there may be room for me to maybe help understand the kinds of reactions you get.

Part of the issue is a lot of your comments are of the formation "What liberals are saying is utterly, demonstrably, and obviously false, and in fact, they're more guilty of it than the right". You then support your argument with a litany of asserted facts...that you don't source, and are in direct contravention of what was said elsewhere (regardless of whether it'd been sourced or not).

Part of the issue with making an argument purely on challenging facts is that you run headlong into questions about the legitimacy of the source, and those can be some of the ugliest arguments of all, especially if the only source cited is yourself.

I'd recommend trying to make philosophical or moral arguments that don't hinge on the specific circumstances, especially when we're talking about events we only know about from news stories. I find it helps move conversations from heat to light when you shift the discussion to the underlying philosophical disagreement like that.

I also think you'll get farther with making a positive statement about what you believe, than a negative statement about what you believe liberals believe. (i.e. instead of "Liberals just want to boss people around with their nanny state", try "Conservatives are trying to give people more freedom to choose how to run their own lives")

People will likely still disagree with you, but at least there's a chance they'll respond to what you said, rather than just hurl invectives at you.

>> ^Winstonfield_Pennypacker:
I don't apologize for being a rare conservative voice in a chorus of liberals, but that doesn't mean that "I" am responsible for 'increased vitriol'. The vitriol comes when people other than myself. I simply present a different point of view.

I don't think you should apologize. However, I also think you have to be willing to accept some responsibility for how people react to what you say. I'm self-aware enough to know that what I say is going to sound inflammatory to some people, and I certainly don't feel like criticism of my own inflammatory speech is somehow an assault on my free speech.

If you're getting a lot of vitriol (and I know you are), and that's not what you want, I think you should examine the way you're presenting yourself rather than assuming it's all the result of some sort of universal liberal intolerance.

This place has a bunch of really thoughtful people who enjoy civil discussion with people who they disagree with. If that's what you want, I gotta say I think you're just pushing the wrong buttons.

summer, summer, summertime

time to sit back and unwind

Verse One: Fresh Prince

Here it is the groove slightly transformed

just a bit of a break from the norm

just a little somethin' to break the monotony

of all that hardcore dance that has gotten to be

a little bit out of control it's cool to dance

but what about the groove that soothes that moves romance

give me a soft subtle mix

and if ain't broke then don't try to fix it

and think of the summers of the past

adjust the base and let the alpine blast

pop in my CD and let me run a rhyme

and put your car on cruise and lay back cause this is summertime

Chorus

Verse Two: Fresh Prince

school is out and it's a sort of a buzz

a back then I didn't really know what it was

but now I see what have of this

the way that people respond to summer madness

the weather is hot and girls are dressing less

and checking out the fellas to tell 'em who's best

riding around in your jeep or your benzos

or in your Nissan sitting on lorenzos

back in Philly we be out in the park

a place called the plateau is where everybody goes

guys out hunting and girls doing likewise

honking at the honey in front of you with the light eyes

she turn around to see what you beeping at

it's like the summers a natural afradesiac

and with a pen and pad I compose this rhyme

to hit you and get you equipped for the summer time

Chorus

Verse Three: Fresh Prince

it's late in the day and I ain't been on the court yet

hustle to the mall to get me a short set

yeah I got on sneaks but I need a new pair

cause basketball courts in the summer got girls there

the temperature's about 88

hop in the water plug just for old times sake

break to ya crib change your clothes once more

cause you're invited to a barbeque that's starting at 4

sitting with your friends cause y'all remincise

about the days growing up and the first person you kiss

and as I think back makes me wonder how

the smell from a grill could spark up nostalgia

all the kids playing out front

little boys messin round with the girls playing double-dutch

while the DJ's spinning a tune as the old folks dance at your family reunion

then six o'clock rolls around

you just finished wiping your car down

it's time to cruise so you head to the summertime hangout

it looks like a car show

everybody come lookin real fine

fresh from the barber shop or fly from the beauty salon

every moment frontin and maxin

chillin in the car they spent all day waxin

leanin to the side but you can't speed through

Two miles an hour so everybody sees you

there's an air of love and of happiness

and this is the Fresh Prince's new defintion of summer madness