At first I frankly wasn't terribly impressed with his efforts, but in the end I think he did an admirable job.

Also Nissan, not Suzuki.

edit: My mistake. The car being used as a battering ram is in fact a Suzuki though the dealership is Nissan. Maybe that's the problem right there... why would a Nissan dealership replace Suzuki parts under warranty? Just askin'.

I went to dealerships instead of doing this...I should've done this it would've saved me a lot of time. I went back and forth pitting the dealers against eachother, until I got a price less than I was expecting and more for my trade in. It wasn't perfect and I maybe could've gotta a bit better by using this guys system, maybe next time I'll try it.

Kind of interesting. Basically forcing the dealers into a bidding war by letting them know there is a game in play. This would only work for non-unique goods that are the same from each dealership - like this wouldn't work with houses.

"We need a new spin on our Kia Dealership ads boys, what have you got?"

"What if we bring in a raging psychopath as a spokesperson?"

>> ^rgnjc:

Health insurance is clearly not the same as college. With higher education you volunteer to pay X amount of dollars to get an education per year that is optional. Considering there are literally thousands of options in this country to choose from, CHOOSE ONE THAT WORKS FOR YOUR BUDGET! Consider buying a car, certainly we all don't go out and buy lamborghini's...instead we buy Toyota Corolla's and Ford Focus's...something that is more fiscally realistic. I wouldn't go buy a lamborghini and have the gall to sit here and complain about the price when there are better options.
Health insurance is different, and I don't care to talk about that, that's not the point of this thread.

>> ^Fletch:
>> ^rgnjc:
IF YOU DON'T LIKE THE TUITION DON'T GO THERE! Find another school that fits your fiscal requirements, moron.

THIS! So succinct!
Hey, while I got ya here... It doesn't look like my medical insurance will pay even a third what they payed the first time, should I relapse. I'm not rich and, admittedly, I'm kind of a moron, so what should I do if that happens? Find another insurance company, or find another disease? Two seemingly impossible solutions... should I desire to live, but I just bet you can help me.



Except at some point, writing your degree on a paper napkin probably carries more weight that the low budget degrees. Or, I have 2 grand, my car options would be something that needs a lot of work and additional money invested or an extreme high mileage vehicle that has a good maintenance record but let's face it after some point on mileage maintenance or not something is going to happen...severity dependant. Or I borrow or otherwise go beyond my means in hopes that it will give me a reliable car that will get me to where I want to go but have no warranty, and then the transmission goes out and the dealership wants nearly what the car is worth to fix it. So I face having no car or going even further beyond my means to hopefully continue to keep my reliable car on track and get my invested money back out of it. I think that more accurately represents the school situation for that guy. You can't just go to another school and hope they transfer every credit 1:1....depending on where you are in your degree you might get boned out of many credits you otherwise would have kept had you not switched schools/programs.

And I'd argue the "optional" portion of a higher education when jobs that SHOULDNT require them, do. It's either tradeschool or college unless you like digging ditches, collecting trash or some other unskilled workforce area. And that's not a bash on those jobs, in fact I think most of those unskilled jobs should pay more than a teachers salary...because a lifetime of those utterly destroys your body. Be lucky if you don't need back surgery by 50 if you do hard manual labor from 18 on up.

Just wait until car dealerships get a hold of this.

It wasn't 'the bank's' idea any more than the Internet was Al Gore's 'idea'. Computer records were just a natural evolution. Computers came along. Magnetic card readers came along. Banks didn't 'invent' them. They just used them like everyone else to simplify their work. Secretaries didn't invent word processors, but they use them to improve performance.

And consumer convenience via electronic records is very much something that banks want to 'do for thier customers'. They can use the convenience to attract customers and profits. Obviously such a thing is helpful to them both on the back end with their records, and on the front end in attracting potential clients. If a bank is more convenient than the other guy - it gets more business. That's making something for YOUR convenience that also helps them. Nothing wrong with that.

And so what if it is 'institutionalized'? Clothing is institutional. Should you tear them all off and go around naked because you're afraid of getting ripped off by the textile industry? Food is institutional. Should you die of starvation so you don't get ripped off by farmers and grocery stores? TV is an institution. So go throw your TV out the window so you don't get brainwashed by the 'free' TV progam ads? Money is an institution too. What's your point? That we should live in a cave and never partake of any human advance in civilization just because someone else is making a profit on it?

And everything you say you 'can't do' without a credit/debit card is bologna. You can walk to your HR department right now and demand your wages as a check, and then take that check to the bank and get cash. You can buy airline, bus, and train tickets with cash. You can buy food, clothing, utilities, and every other necessity with cash. You can pay your bills by mail. You can pay rent in cash. You can buy a house with cash. A bank account HELPS in all these transactions (IE convenience). But if you walk up to a business with with a wad of legal tender they WILL accept it - I promise you. I have never once walked into a car dealership with a pile of cash to buy a car and had them turn me away. Quite the opposite. They literally drool over me, and it gives me far more power to negotiate.

All I'm saying is that the things you SAY you can't do without a bank are easily doable if you apply a little elbow grease. If you find paying a measley $5 a month so horribly offensive and crippling to your finances, then do yourself a favor and stop whining about it. Take your money and go somewhere else.

I think it's both hilarious and insane that you think Wal-mart simply re-arranges a local economy. A lot of Mom & Pop stores are niche market but make a lot of their profit off your everyday Joe & Jane buying garbage. That is probably the majority of consumer product in America - garbage. I remember I was really good friends with the owner of a record store in a small town but he made most of his money from larger "indie" rock bands on Atlantic records or some shitty metal band. 98% of everything else was underground punk, pop-punk, grindcore, power-violence, thrash, straight-edge hardcore, emotive hardcore, gravity style, D-beat, black metal etc etc. But, he made most of his profits from garbage. Don't think about anything folks, just work your shitty job and hope your wife doesn't cheat on you. Remember to pay your taxes. BLEH!

The other problem in my eyes is that a lot of middle-class & lower-class people inevitably shop at Wal-mart because of cheaper prices. I remember reading an article about how Wal-mart lost revenue last year but luxury stores (Neiman Marcus, etc) finances skyrocketed. The rich are now uber rich and they burned up the middle-class as well as their jobs so we could get them to new heights of wealth. Wal-mart and a lot of shitty huge corporate stores are VERY much apart of this topic & apart of the problem America faces. As long as there are huge big-box stores stamping out local business and selling product cheaper because they are such a gigantic virus-like company - local economies across the entire country will never get "well". Make these stores into Co-ops and maybe we'll get somewhere, we have to snuff out at least some of these greedy fucks.

It's still stunning to me that people are able to stick up for such a piece of shit company.

>> ^Winstonfield_Pennypacker:

Wal-mart... crazy rant about how it kills your neighbors...
I've never quite understood this argument. Wal-Mart doesn't kill local businesses. It rearranges them and then creates more jobs. Every Wal-Mart that goes up has about 10 restaurants, 2 car dealerships, 1 Gamestop, a couple book stores, and a bunch of other ancillary businesses sprout up literally overnight right next to it once it opens. These places employ - that's right - your neighbors. It has been demonstrably proven over and over again that Wal-Marts increase employment and revenue in the communities they enter. Do they shake up the environment and force local shops to change it up? Of course. But for every guy that curses Wal-Mart because he had to close his Mom & Pop, there are 20 other guys who are cheering Wal-Mart as they take showers in new business money.

I'm sure that's a HUGE consolation to the other 40 people that lost their jobs.>> ^rychan:

>> ^Winstonfield_Pennypacker:
Wal-mart... crazy rant about how it kills your neighbors...
I've never quite understood this argument. Wal-Mart doesn't kill local businesses. It rearranges them and then creates more jobs. Every Wal-Mart that goes up has about 10 restaurants, 2 car dealerships, 1 Gamestop, a couple book stores, and a bunch of other ancillary businesses sprout up literally overnight right next to it once it opens. These places employ - that's right - your neighbors. It has been demonstrably proven over and over again that Wal-Marts increase employment and revenue in the communities they enter. Do they shake up the environment and force local shops to change it up? Of course. But for every guy that curses Wal-Mart because he had to close his Mom & Pop, there are 20 other guys who are cheering Wal-Mart as they take showers in new business money.

I agree that it's a crazy rant, but I'll take it further. Any argument about making or killing jobs is a crazy rant.
Our goal, as a society, is to reduce the number of jobs needed in stupid stuff (like retail), so that we can put more of our collective resources into things that actually improve us as a society (research, education, health care).
If a WalMart meets the retail needs of a community with 40 jobs instead of 80 independent merchants, FANTASTIC. That means we all get to spend less money on equipping and feeding ourselves, and more money on schools and space programs. If you went out of business because a WalMart showed up, your job was not adding enough value to the product to be worthwhile. Sorry, the free market has spoken. But don't worry, we haven't reduced the productive output of the human race, this just means that we have more resources to spend on science instead of mom and pop shoe stores.
So stop bragging about your stupid government project "creating hundreds of jobs". Anyone can create make-work jobs. The only job the government should be creating are those that directly serve the public good and that can't be financed on an individual scale. Basic research falls into this category. So does policing and homeland security, although I think we've gone way overboard on security spending.

>> ^Winstonfield_Pennypacker:

Wal-mart... crazy rant about how it kills your neighbors...
I've never quite understood this argument. Wal-Mart doesn't kill local businesses. It rearranges them and then creates more jobs. Every Wal-Mart that goes up has about 10 restaurants, 2 car dealerships, 1 Gamestop, a couple book stores, and a bunch of other ancillary businesses sprout up literally overnight right next to it once it opens. These places employ - that's right - your neighbors. It has been demonstrably proven over and over again that Wal-Marts increase employment and revenue in the communities they enter. Do they shake up the environment and force local shops to change it up? Of course. But for every guy that curses Wal-Mart because he had to close his Mom & Pop, there are 20 other guys who are cheering Wal-Mart as they take showers in new business money.


I agree that it's a crazy rant, but I'll take it further. Any argument about making or killing jobs is a crazy rant.

Our goal, as a society, is to reduce the number of jobs needed in stupid stuff (like retail), so that we can put more of our collective resources into things that actually improve us as a society (research, education, health care).

If a WalMart meets the retail needs of a community with 40 jobs instead of 80 independent merchants, FANTASTIC. That means we all get to spend less money on equipping and feeding ourselves, and spend more money on schools and space programs. If you went out of business because a WalMart showed up, your job was not adding enough value to the product to be worthwhile. Sorry, the free market has spoken. But don't worry, we haven't reduced the productive output of the human race, this just means that we have more resources to spend on science instead of mom and pop shoe stores.

So stop bragging about your stupid government project "creating hundreds of jobs". Anyone can create make-work jobs. The only job the government should be creating are those that directly serve the public good and that can't be financed on an individual scale. Basic research falls into this category. So does policing and homeland security, although I think we've gone way overboard on security spending.

Wal-mart... crazy rant about how it kills your neighbors...

I've never quite understood this argument. Wal-Mart doesn't kill local businesses. It rearranges them and then creates more jobs. Every Wal-Mart that goes up has about 10 restaurants, 2 car dealerships, 1 Gamestop, a couple book stores, and a bunch of other ancillary businesses sprout up literally overnight right next to it once it opens. These places employ - that's right - your neighbors. It has been demonstrably proven over and over again that Wal-Marts increase employment and revenue in the communities they enter. Do they shake up the environment and force local shops to change it up? Of course. But for every guy that curses Wal-Mart because he had to close his Mom & Pop, there are 20 other guys who are cheering Wal-Mart as they take showers in new business money.

Want to know what it even worse? Laws like this are still on the books, and enforced.

From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_law:

"In Colorado, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Louisiana, Maine, Minnesota, Missouri, Oklahoma, New Jersey, North Dakota, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, car dealerships continue to operate under blue-law prohibitions in which an automobile may not be purchased or traded on a Sunday. Maryland permits Sunday automobile sales only in the counties of Prince George's, Montgomery, and Howard; similarly, Michigan restricts Sunday sales to only those counties with a population of less than 130,000. Texas and Utah prohibit car dealerships from operating over consecutive weekend days.

Many states still prohibit selling alcohol on Sunday, or at least before noon on Sunday, under the rationale that people should be in church on Sunday morning, or at least not drinking.

Blue laws may also prohibit retail activity on days other than Sunday. In Massachusetts and Connecticut, for example, blue laws dating to the Puritans of the 17th century still prohibit most retail stores, including grocery stores, from opening on Thanksgiving and Christmas."

I'm so glad these were ruled to be unconstitutional here in Canada in 1985.
>> ^kceaton1:

So sad that this is more or less true. It leaves me speechless.

Ah, here's a nice debunking of the dog vs SUV claim:
http://www.grist.org/article/dogs-vs.-suvs

Also, Peroxide, are you being intellectually honest with yourself when you list all of the collateral expenditures of dog food manufacturing and shipping and not do the same for cars? The environmental impact of roads, bridges, car dealerships, quickly lubes, parking garages, the auto insurance industry, hospitals and funeral homes for the 40 thousand that die in car accidents each year, etc...

Do you know who I am?! DO YOU?! My dad owns a car dealership!

In reply to this comment by dag:
You know, as important as this poll is - and despite how proud I am of you @rottenseed for coming out about your booger snacking habits - I'm going to have to invoke the poorly enforced "must be sift related" rule - as I have an urgent poll about Sift stuff. Sorry *discard

>> ^Winstonfield_Pennypacker:

“What I think is different about things like what Angle and Bachmann said is that are incitement of violence”
This claim has been made several times and I have yet to see any substance to it beyond personal opinion and interpretation. Obama, Frank, Ried, Pelosi, Grayson, Franken, or other liberals make outrageous statements that imply violence on a routine basis.

This claim has been made several times, and I have yet to see any substance to it beyond the mere assertion of your conclusion.

>> ^Winstonfield_Pennypacker:
Every major point here is based on interpretation and opinion. “I see… Big lie… Armed insurrection”… There is even a statement of agreement that Bachman DIDN’T mean it ‘that way’. But the comment is held to a different standard than Obama’s. HIS rhetoric is ‘not a lie’, ‘traditional electioneering’, and a ‘transparent metaphor’. Bachman bad; Obama good; Motivation – bias.

Stating your subjective view of my motivation isn't proof that my claims of objective qualitative differences are false.

This is another of my frustrations with the way you conduct yourself here. I'm trying to depersonalize this, and not question your motives, while still making the case that my viewpoint (which obviously differs from yours) is based on things that are supported by objective facts.

The burden of proof here is not entirely on me -- you're the one who provided the Obama quote as equivalent to Bachmann's. I think the strongest objection to it is the first one I listed, namely that it's out of context. How do we know whether Obama's meaning was "overwhelm the Republicans with volunteers and ads" and not literally "I want you to bring guns to kill Republicans with" without the context surrounding it?

My point here is that not all gun metaphors are created equal. "We're going to stick to our guns on health care" is pretty different from "If ballots don't work, bullets will".

Obama's quote was a tick more inciteful than the first, Bachmann's was only a couple ticks less inciteful than the latter. I'm saying the bounds of civil conversation lies inbetween.

>> ^Winstonfield_Pennypacker:
I see… So – just to make this clear – calling Obamacare’s rationing a ‘death panel’ where Grandma takes a pain pill and gets end-of-life counseling instead of medicine (Obama said this) is over the top.

Yep. Part of your issue here is that you're not talking about anything in legislation, but something Obama said.

The other issue is, you're quoting him waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay out of context:

But what we can do is make sure that at least some of the waste that
exists in the system that's not making anybody's mom better, that is
loading up on additional tests or additional drugs that the evidence
shows is not necessarily going to improve care, that at least we can let
doctors know and your mom know that, you know what? Maybe this isn't
going to help. Maybe you're better off not having the surgery, but
taking the painkiller.

And those kinds of decisions between doctors and patients, and
making sure that our incentives are not preventing those good decision,
and that -- that doctors and hospitals all are aligned for patient care,
that's something we can achieve.

It takes removing the context to make what Obama said sound even remotely sinister. Even then, it's clear he's not saying "I reserve the right to compel doctors to pull the plug on your grandma if she doesn't meet my subjective standards on her value to society".

He's saying that we can pull the plug on paying doctors for performing treatments that have been shown to be medically ineffective, so that doctors don't have a monetary incentive to try to convince patients to undergo treatments they don't really need.

>> ^Winstonfield_Pennypacker:
But Grayson saying the Republican plan of privatization (a system that worked for decades)

What Republican plan of privatization that worked for decades are you talking about? The employer-based insurance system that arose as an "unintended consequence" of FDR's wage controls? The one everyone was happy with, could afford, and never left anyone out?

>> ^Winstonfield_Pennypacker:
I’ll be honest. I see this as a classic example of distortion bias. “It’s fine when WE do it because we’re RIGHT, but not when THEY do it because they’re WRONG!”

You say "classic example of distortion bias" as if that's some named phenomena. What you mean to say is that it's a double standard.

But see, you're just asserting that, not making a case for it.

I mention Grayson as an outlier. He's unusually inflammatory for a Democrat, and even what he said wasn't particularly inciteful. He didn't say "Republicans are coming to kill you" the way the right often says of Democrats, he merely said "Republicans will leave you for dead."

That's pushing it in my view, but not because I think it runs the risk of sounding like an endorsement of violence against Republicans, but because it's an exaggeration that I think stretches the truth a bit too much.

I say stretch, because Republicans never put together a fully formed plan of their own, and a lot of the rhetoric was based on the idea that there is no need to address the issue of people not being able to afford medical care.

>> ^Winstonfield_Pennypacker:
Second, when have Democrats accused Republicans of starving people?
1990s Contract With America. Democrats accused Newt Gingrich and the GOP congress of starving children because they wanted to make cuts in education that would have had some impact on school lunch programs.

Good on them then.

>> ^Winstonfield_Pennypacker:
Similarly in 2010, Alan Grayson accused the GOP of starving children and women, and selling people into slavery for black market organs because they wanted to stop the fourth extension of unemployment.

I demand a source on this one. It's gotta be sifted here as a YouTube clip if that's accurate.

>> ^Winstonfield_Pennypacker:
But this is a great teaching moment. This is the origin of your bias. You – Netrunner – AGREE with Grayson. So when he says, “GOP is starving children”, you don’t have a problem with it. You agree with him - so when Grayson is incendiary and egregious in his rhetoric you give it a pass as ‘electioneering’ or ‘metaphor’ or a ‘joke’.

Actually no. Here's an alternative hypothesis: When someone says "So and so is murdering babies", I think it's inciteful. I don't think it's a joke, I don't think it's a metaphor, and I think you better back up your claim.

If you can't, I think you've done something wrong by saying it.

If you can, I think you've probably done something good.

"Cap and trade will be the end of freedom as we know it." Can't be backed up.

"The Republican health care plan is: 'Don't get sick, and if you do get sick, die quickly." This one's debatable for the reasons I said above. But I think that the accuracy of the statement has a lot to do with whether that comment was okay or not. This one's at the edge, either way.

"George W. Bush ordered the torture of Guantanamo detainees" is true, by his own admission.

>> ^Winstonfield_Pennypacker:
I can see both sides of the debate. I disagree with liberals, but I can mentally grasp their OPINION (even if I reject it) that the conservative method (smaller government, private solutions) ‘takes away’ from social programs. So when liberals get vociferous, I am willing to cut them a little slack.

I don't think you understand the liberal side of arguments at all. I also don't think you are willing to actually engage in any sort of reasonable discussion about their criticism of the right, either. For example:

>> ^Winstonfield_Pennypacker:
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.
So – is leftist rhetoric intentionally done to rile up the crazies so they’d physically intimidate conservatives? You know – stuff like the threats against Ann Coulter that caused a college speech to be cancelled. Or when a liberal man bit off a guy’s finger because he disagreed about healthcare. Or when liberal Amy Bishop killed her co-workers. Liberal Joseph Stack flew a plane into the IRS. Liberals destroyed radio towers in Seattle. Liberals torched Hummer dealerships. Liberals beat up a conservative black man at a Tea Party. A liberal brought bombs to an RNC meeting. Liberals attacked police in Berkley. Liberals threw rocks at animal researchers. Liberals stood outside polling stations with nightsticks. A liberal shot up the Discovery Channel. A liberal said, “You’re dead!” to a Tea party leader. Liberals made death-threats against Palin. Liberals made death threats & assassination movies about Bush. A liberal shot up the war memorial. And let us not overlook the fact that Loughner is a 9/11 truther and that the left is the source for that particular 'rhetoric'.

Litanies like this make it pretty clear that you're you're not interested in examining your own prejudices about liberals.

In case that all by itself wasn't enough:
>> ^Winstonfield_Pennypacker:
OK – I’ll take one glove off here. I have not accused you of making crap up, and you aren’t providing sourcing either.
[snip]
[Y]ou can find the sources for ALL the examples of liberal violence I listed above. I’ve got the links for EVERY one of them and dozens more, but I don’t go around assuming you're an intellectual cripple that can't find them. Nor do I want to play dueling link banjos here. I extend the courtesy in an online discussion of not forcing the other guy to cite every freaking thing they say because 99 times in 100 the source just gets attacked and ignored anyway.

So what do you think you've done with the combination of these paragraphs?

I see someone essentially saying "I'm right, you're evil, and nothing you say will convince me otherwise".

That's not winning an argument, that's refusing to present one because you're so prejudiced you don't think you need to when dealing with people like me.

>> ^Winstonfield_Pennypacker:
I typically don’t jump in a thread until intolerant liberal rhetoric has already reared its ugly face. Liberal intolerance is there before I say a single word. So I don’t care a fig about the leftist vitriol I get, because it is generally only a continuance of the intolerance that was there before I showed up. They don't hate 'me'. They hate the fact that I have dared to hold a mirror up on own intolerance. What they really want to be doing is feeling self-righteous as they spew intolerance at things they hate. Ol' Winstonfield popping up and spoiling the fun wasn't in their plan, and they react badly. Boo hoo.
But you are specifically accusing ME of being vitriolic. I stridently reject that position. I do no more than calmly, fairly, and accurately present an opposing point of view. I may do it sarcastically. I may point out hypocrisy. But I attack philosophies and public figures – not Sifters. Therefore the personal vitriol against myself is unwarranted and unjustified. I bring no vitriol or intolerance to the table here. The only vitriol and intolerance that exists is directed towards me.


To be frank, you're delusional about why people get mad at you. People would respond differently if you tried to actually make an argument for what you believe, instead of just telling people they're wrong and/or evil, that it's been proven beyond a shadow of a doubt, and there's no point in trying to deny it. You just did that to me here with your litany of supposed liberal crimes against humanity, with the follow-up that sources don't matter because any questioning of the veracity of your sources is proof of the dread liberal bias.

Another example: I gave 4 different reasons why I think the Bachmann and Obama quotes aren't equal. 4 distinct reasons that could all be examined and definitively addressed without making this about me personally. Instead you chose to ignore them, and accuse me of using a double standard.

If you want to show that I am engaged in a double standard, you need to make that case. You need me to define exactly what my standard is, and then show that I'm inconsistently applying it. To prove an overall bias, you need many examples where I've done so. You didn't even try to do any of that. You just leveled it as a personal attack.

My sense is that you don't know (or don't care) about the way legitimate arguments get made. Think Geometry proofs, or science papers. Do they just say "The sum of the internal angles of a triangle always add up to 180 degrees, and anyone who disagrees with me is just doing so because they hate mathematicians!" or do they lay out a proof that clearly states the assumptions and the deductive steps they followed to reach their conclusion?

The topic of what rhetoric is worthy of condemnation is going to be a little more slippery, but it's not impossible to have a civil discussion about what the important factors are in deciding whether a comment is appropriate or not.