Poor Bob, punching stuff into google doesn't qualify as "research"

But let's give you the benefit of the doubt. Hrm, I wonder why THE BOTTOM 50 pay so little. Hrm...maybe it's because they're in THE BOTTOM 50 and don't have as much to give?

SHOCK!!

If only we had a strong middle class to even things out a bit. Congratulations Bob, you're demonstrating the point of the video. The Rich get taxed more, because they can afford it. When you have such a large disparity in incomes such as we have now. flat taxes don't fucking work dumbass. It would be nice if they did, but reality just doesn't work that way.

The bottom 50 pay little or no tax because there is really no point in taxing them more. a higher percentage of a small amount is still a small amount silly. Meanwhile you have the top 1 percent. You can take over 90 percent of their entire wealth and they'd still be extremely wealthy. No one's even asking for that much in taxes. The amount extra they are being asked to pay is paltry. They spend many multiple times more than that on political campaigns so they can continue to keep their taxes low. Imagine if that money actually did something more than just buy fucking ugly billboards and lawn signs and commercials.

We don't live in a world of 3 classes anymore. lower/middle/upper. It's more like lower/middle/upper/VERY upper/OBSCENELY upper.

When your upper class is poor compared to the obscenely wealthy. you've got a problem. Money must flow for an economy to work. Money doesn't flow when it's being hoarded at the top. Trickle down economics might actually work if money actually trickled down. Problem is, it doesn't. It stays at the top.

You really should have just watched the video bob, then I wouldn't have to repeat it for you. We all know you have comprehension problems, but still.

>> ^renatojj:

That's how the media, left and right, treated him for the entirety of his campaign. Any respect and coverage he got was inversely proportional to his perceived chance of winning.


...And so it goes, each election more absurd than the next until who knows? Maybe some new, "New Deal" after all the cocka-roaches are gone, calling up the depressed Roosevelt-styley to help rebuild the infrastructure? I for one, hope it includes a beautification of the entire United States in the form of razing every strip-center and billboard for starters.
This includes my first act in office, criminalizing inherently evil entities too big for their britches like Walmart and Monsanto, and razing THEIR improvements on real estate assets while demanding the offspring of their CEO's to walk naked with sandwich board signs on a remote mangrove swamp with mock city streets resembling their home-towns, filled with CCTV cameras with a live feed for folks around the world to deride them for all eternity, amen.

>> ^spawnflagger:

I guess the "sarcasm" checkbox was ineffective... Yes I think it's a neat idea, and I'm sure when these guys are "deployed" out in public, there would be plenty of time to actually read the sign.
I wonder how well they handle a windy day? Or maybe they only do indoor advertising in malls/etc.
>> ^dannym3141:
>> ^spawnflagger:
wow, they are so talented. I wish there was some way to contact them... like a billboard with a phone number that you can actually read.

This was an exhibition, being able to twirl a sign like a magician every 5 seconds compared to a signpost or a bloke holding a sign? Imagine if you were waiting for your wife shopping, or sat in a traffic jam or something. It's a really great way to stand out i think. I know you ticked sarcasm, mainly wanted a stepping stone to praise the idea!



I wonder if this is why i've never seen a person holding a sign even sedately. Are they based somewhere where wind isn't often a problem?

(also, as i said, i know and i just wanted an "in" to praise sign flipping really)

I guess the "sarcasm" checkbox was ineffective... Yes I think it's a neat idea, and I'm sure when these guys are "deployed" out in public, there would be plenty of time to actually read the sign.

I wonder how well they handle a windy day? Or maybe they only do indoor advertising in malls/etc.

>> ^dannym3141:

>> ^spawnflagger:
wow, they are so talented. I wish there was some way to contact them... like a billboard with a phone number that you can actually read.

This was an exhibition, being able to twirl a sign like a magician every 5 seconds compared to a signpost or a bloke holding a sign? Imagine if you were waiting for your wife shopping, or sat in a traffic jam or something. It's a really great way to stand out i think. I know you ticked sarcasm, mainly wanted a stepping stone to praise the idea!

>> ^spawnflagger:

wow, they are so talented. I wish there was some way to contact them... like a billboard with a phone number that you can actually read.


This was an exhibition, being able to twirl a sign like a magician every 5 seconds compared to a signpost or a bloke holding a sign? Imagine if you were waiting for your wife shopping, or sat in a traffic jam or something. It's a really great way to stand out i think. I know you ticked sarcasm, mainly wanted a stepping stone to praise the idea!

I recently took a trip down to Detroit for a weekend.

And the FIRST Billboard I saw said this:

"OBAMA

supports GAY MARRIAGE and ABORTION!
Do you?

vote republican."

I laughed Waaaaaaaaaaaaay too hard at that.

When I first heard this, I cringed. It sounds like he's sort of improvising and the line they pulled out was indelicately delivered. However, anyone who actually thinks that their success is completely independent of the rest of us is a classic ingrate. One person's success depends on interaction with others. If you have a product, you need people to buy it. That means you need people to have access to money and to the product, which means you need banks and bankers, roads and truckers, rails and train operators, boats and boat crews. In order to convince people to buy it, you need advertising space - billboards, newspapers, websites, television programs and all of them are staffed by still more people. Without security, your success is meaningless, so that's police and firefighters, the entire judicial branch of government. A lot of this infrastructure is subsidized by the public.

No one does it alone. You have to be a special kind of disconnected to convince yourself that's not true. If we govern with the attitude that successful people should not be expected to give back, it will cripple those who are emerging successes. We need to create an environment where people can buy things, and super rich people can afford to pitch in to keep that happening even if they refuse to see that they're included in the list of people who benefit.

holyshitrant

>> ^DuoJet:

>> ^bareboards2:
Surely this guy can't get elected?

Surely he can get elected. George W. Bush was elected twice.


I think you just highlighted exactly why he couldn't get elected. The system is not designed to attract the best and the brightest and the statesmen who wish to serve and to put the country's interests ahead of their own or ahead of their party.

Left and right both have adopted the lesser of two evils approach In 2004, the left said, "anyone but Bush", and in 2012, the right said, "Anyone but Obama" When you don't really care about your own candidate, you're just voting against the other guy, you've got a broken system.

The first past the post system is a dud. Abolish all parties, vote for the person, not the party. If that means we have 42 candidates instead of 2, then fine. If that means the guy with most votes only represents a small fraction of the total vote...tough. We already have shitty turnout in our elections and presidents are already elected by a small fraction of the populace so really, what's the difference?

and lastly. eliminate all private funding from elections. money is not speech. speech is speech, that's why we have two different words for them. Every candidate gets a publicly funded website to do what they want with it. That's all you fucking need in today's world. no stupid billboards and lawn signs, no commercials. Just a website and a series of debates. That's all we fucking need to make a choice.

It's shit like this that make me wonder if Heinlen isn't right. You can't lead unless you've served. There has to be some demonstration that you're willing to sacrifice. I'm not just talking about military service either, there are plenty of ways of demonstrate selflessness and willingness to serve than just the military. We just have to identify them and ensure that our wannabe leaders abide by it.

[EDIT] Ooops, I thought you were referring to Powell, bareboards and Duo

Glad I seen the billboards.

Great post. He sings it hard.

>> ^probie:

Not being facetious, I'd be interested in seeing how this reacts to Julian Clary, or Boy George. I wonder how the algorithms interpret the more androgynous.


They claim it has a 90% success rate at guessing gender. So it only insults 10% of the women who try to use it.

I think the disagreement here basically comes down to whether you consider a particular expression of religion to be a promotion of that religion or one of its doctrines.

I don't see a meaningful establishment of a religion in any of it. I do see a bias towards the 80%-90% of the people who believe in some kind of deity.

The Ten Commandments on the courtroom wall, that's a whole other thread. How can you have a courtroom when the Bible says "Judge not lest ye be judged."


>> ^jonny:

@quantumushroom - I don't understand how you define the boundary of the 1st Amendment's prohibition on government to espouse one religious doctrine over another.
I absolutely agree that in a free society no one has the right to live free from exposure to ideas (or speech or any other expression) that they don't like. But it's one thing to read a prayer on a billboard, and quite another to read it on the wall of a courtroom. When I see the billboard I know that someone cares about that message enough to spend quite a bit of money on it. When I see it in a courtroom, possibly facing the full weight of government authority, I have to wonder if my own religious beliefs will be used against me if they don't conform to what's on the wall.
I don't have a problem with things like a nativity scene in a public park, so long as it is privately sponsored. I don't really have a problem with references to god on money or in the pledge of allegiance. I don't care for it, but in those cases its as much a figure of speech as a religious statement. (The recitation of the pledge in schools is a larger issue, because there you're dealing with kids in an essentially authoritarian environment.)
I think the disagreement here basically comes down to whether you consider a particular expression of religion to be a promotion of that religion or one of its doctrines.

@quantumushroom - I don't understand how you define the boundary of the 1st Amendment's prohibition on government to espouse one religious doctrine over another.

I absolutely agree that in a free society no one has the right to live free from exposure to ideas (or speech or any other expression) that they don't like. But it's one thing to read a prayer on a billboard, and quite another to read it on the wall of a courtroom. When I see the billboard I know that someone cares about that message enough to spend quite a bit of money on it. When I see it in a courtroom, possibly facing the full weight of government authority, I have to wonder if my own religious beliefs will be used against me if they don't conform to what's on the wall.

I don't have a problem with things like a nativity scene in a public park, so long as it is privately sponsored. I don't really have a problem with references to god on money or in the pledge of allegiance. I don't care for it, but in those cases its as much a figure of speech as a religious statement. (The recitation of the pledge in schools is a larger issue, because there you're dealing with kids in an essentially authoritarian environment.)

I think the disagreement here basically comes down to whether you consider a particular expression of religion to be a promotion of that religion or one of its doctrines.