Because they are obsessed with what other people do with their crotch.
Because they are as sexually secure as 13 year old girls.
Because they don't know how to ignore things they dislike but don't impact their lives unless they let them.
Because they don't understand the concept of "None of your business!"
Because they have a hard on for treating some people like shit.
Because they don't understand that when Jesus said things like "Love your enemies!" it gave you permission to leave people you don't agree with alone.
Because they don't understand that when Jesus said things like "Forgive them, they have no idea what they're doing!" he may have talked to his daddy but the message was for them as well.
Because they think the slogan "God is love!" includes an unspoken "No homo!" at the end.

Adding this to the Big Brother list:

GREED IS GOOD. Miniplenty can slogan it, minitrue can enforce it, and minipax will send our drones with this message. They miniluv us for our freedoms. Slavery is freedom.

I assume it's exactly the fact that such a "special" relationship with politicians and regulators exists that's the problem and moreover that these are exactly the sort of thing market controls are needed to prevent (even if the existing ones have largely been co-opted to serve the Plutocrats).

If you want to define "free-market"as completely free and unregulated then yes this is not a free market, however what regulation we do have is by this stage so ineffectual and corrupt that basically all the problems with a true "free-market" have already very much manifested.
That said I think I'm actually agreeing with you here, we might even say we have the worst of both worlds where the colossally rich have the market "freedom" do do what they like but can also co-opt socialist regulation to both defend themselves and aggressively suppress and exploit potential threats from the lower end of the economy.

The argument I guess is because SevenFingers is using the term "free-market" in a much more pejorative sense here than yourself. To him I'm guessing it simply means largely unopposed Plutocracy i.e. the misused existing regulation etc. is a product of an unregulated market running amok and corrupting every institution it can get its hands on.

If this is indeed the case then you only have a problem with incompatible semantics (meaning is use).
The real argument you guy's should be having is whether moving towards a Randian "true free-market" would make this situation any better or worse. Personally I can't see how this would make things anything other than worse for the vast majority of us.
In my head a true free market would basically be akin to just giving up and putting Weyland Yutani in charge, because sooner or later that's what you'd get. Atlas Shrugged made me sick to my stomach!

I propose the solution lies in replacing our existing systems of government and regulation with something both stronger and more importantly 100% transparent. In the age of the internet we could make political corruption virtually impossible and the old capitalist vs collectivist paradigm is becoming old, tired & increasingly irrelevant.

Time for a higher synthesis and a new dialectic cycle.
The thesis was anarcho-capitalism,
The antithesis was Totalitarian socialism
The synthesis is Meritocratic socio-capitalism!

(M) for the Movement
(M) for Meritocracy
(M) for Mindlessly repeated slogans!

Aye, there's the rub. Who's at fault for successful candidates who become disappointing office-holders... candidates who make promises they, alone, don't have the power to deliver (thereby just saying whatever it takes to get elected), or people who vote for said candidate, actually believing he/she can/will do everything they promised to do? So many (all?) of our elected officials, including Obama, are simply best-of-a-bad-lot, emotional, or litmus test selections. "Hope" was a brilliant campaign slogan. What else can we do?

You want to impeach Obama, choggie? (@chingalera) Why? We probably dislike him for very different reasons, but he'd just be replaced by another pod-Pres, no assembly required (strings pre-attached). I could get behind a Grayson, Warren, or Kucinich, but the machine would never allow such a monstrosity to exist, as it's still trying to self-correct from the last two deviations. Like you said, nuke it from orbit, double-tap, start over, same docs. Only way to be sure. Hopefully it won't come to that, but I have little hope for a country more familiar with McDonald's dollar menu and Kanye's Twitter than said docs that started it all. Is our children learning? Nope.

@dystopianfuturetoday Lefties don't see this as a scandal. At least I don't. Scandal or not scandal is not the issue here, and I think the term diminishes just what has been more fully illuminated in the last week for many people. The way the government of/by/for the people/people relationship has devolved into warden/inmate; the way money has infected and rendered ineffective our political process; the complete dissociation of electorate and elected, the lie that is representative government; the treatment of those who risk everything to expose abuses of our privacy and other freedoms (all legal, as interpreted by the abusers); Patriot Act... greatest product name ever marketed. For me, this was the straw. I've had it.

"If we are going to fix it, it will require thought, discussion and hard choices.

Check. Check. Public will bears easy choices. Pen or sword? Now, there's a hard choice.

If I am ever homeless and some dude hands me an A&F article of clothing, I'm selling that sucker to the first person who will buy it.

If he wanted to troll A&F and really help homeless people, he should have paid them to carry anti-A&F slogan signs for a day. It certainly would have done more than his money supporting Goodwill, who is worse than A&F any day of the week.

Seriously, Goodwill exploits a Great Depression minimum wage loophole for disabled people. They pay these people in the neighborhood of 1.40 an hour and yet executives can take home high 6 figure to low 7 figure salaries, not to mention special travel and other compensation benefits.

Lets correct that. Its a lost for the American people, a win for the Gun Industry! By removing this concept, criminals can still get guns just as easily without the need for expensive forgeries. Would it stop gun violence from taking place? If we could see both realities before they happen, that would give us enough knowledge to decide on the merits of both actions. Unfortunately, we can not do that.

Another thing, if you think you can just walk on out to your car, and deal there, by-passing the gun show (with background check laws in effect) and laughing 'Those dumb libs didn't think of this'. That's just moments before the police/FBI nail you when you sell the guns without following the law. Now your a criminal! Who will sell guns to a known criminal? Only criminals. You forget that the USA can use drones for police enforcement....

Even further, selling guns behind closed doors, under the table, or down alleyways does everything to undermine the slogan "Honest and Law-Abiding Gun Owner".

Reminds me of the Timex watch slogan . It takes a licking and keeps on ticking.

It won't piss them off in the slightest. All they care about is getting their slogans on screens.

Remember their "Do no evil" slogan? Kind of a joke these days.

Seriously seems like they just lost out on a gold mine there. I mean why not partner up with Mars and make M&M Honey! Literally Taste the Rainbow!(Ya okay so that's skittle's slogan but you know what I mean lol)

But... someone told me Europe = socialism.

You mean to tell me the world is more complicated than simple slogans? Well fuck that.

"And if all others accepted the lie which the Party imposed-if all records told the same tale-then the lie passed into history and became truth. 'Who controls the past' ran the Party slogan, 'controls the future: who controls the present controls the past.'"
- George Orwell, 1984, Book 1, Chapter 3

Oh okay, no fact-checking required. All I have to do is watch videos on the internet and I'll "see the rage in the faces of the MAJORITY of cops" (my emphasis). So by your logic if I saw one internet video last week of police brutality and then I see two videos this week of police brutality that means that incidences of brutality have doubled, right?

Try reading Barry Glassner's "The Culture of Fear", it talks about how the media and people in general like to see trends where there may not necessarily be any. And of course some drama-llama will misinterpret what I'm saying and assume I'm all for a "police state" and I deny the existence of police brutality or I condone it, yak yak yak. The usual Internet Debate Club horseshit.

So when the original poster makes reference to the INCREDIBLE rise of police brutality I say cite me some sources other than viral videos and protest sign slogans.

Also next time include a link to police misconduct stats that look like they were done by someone that went to a university, not USA Today.
>> ^chingalera:

@ulysses1904
http://www.copblock.org/2841/police-brutality-statistics/
Sorry there criminal justice professor, no need to site anything but internet sources, you have eyes and everyone has cell phones to record, you can see the rage in the faces of the majority of cops. They pump the shit into homes 24/7, 365 to let us all know that crime is on the rise and more cops with better weapons are needed.

I thought he was yelling "fuck bitches" at the end there, until I saw the "fast business" text. Then I watched it again, and I still think he's yelling "fuck bitches."

It's probably a better slogan anyways.