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YEAH IF ONLY I HADNT SAID THIS BRAH

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ORIGINAL: imperatrixx

Only on the condition that you accept that I feel the same way about you.

I'd say lets shake on this but you might catch the aids.

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ORIGINAL: lockedaway

I will accept that you feel the same way but you cannot argue that I have any more interest in the system I advocate than my desire for parity.  Right?  Wouldn't you say that is a fair enunciation of what I have been arguing?

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ORIGINAL: lockedaway

And you can over simplify it that way if you want to.  I look at it from the standpoint that 53% of the United States ALREADY carries the bulk of the freight for the other 47%.  Pardon me if I don't want to pay more in addition thereto.  You are right in the sense that I don't want to be more involved in rowing the boat than the sniggering loser sitting across the aisle that is barely rowing at all.  Maybe he isn't rowing because he is lazy and not putting his back into it.  Maybe he isn't rowing because he is a fucking moron who has learned how to row after all of these years.  Whatever.  It doesn't matter.  I ALREADY pay much more than he EVER will. 

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ORIGINAL: lockedaway
I work for what I have...no handouts, no entitlements, no reliance on any government.  BECAUSE I have achieved what I have achieved, I argue AGAINST punitive taxation because I understand the effort it took to earn it. 

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ORIGINAL: lockedaway
You mean the system that sucks up as much of my tax dollars as it can and pays entitlements to scumbags that don't work? 

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ORIGINAL: imperatrixx

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ORIGINAL: lockedaway

I will accept that you feel the same way but you cannot argue that I have any more interest in the system I advocate than my desire for parity.  Right?  Wouldn't you say that is a fair enunciation of what I have been arguing?

No, I wouldn't, because your posts have made it far too personal, with a "me vs. them" mentality where your main focus is making sure your money doesn't give anything to them.

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ORIGINAL: lockedaway

And you can over simplify it that way if you want to.  I look at it from the standpoint that 53% of the United States ALREADY carries the bulk of the freight for the other 47%.  Pardon me if I don't want to pay more in addition thereto.  You are right in the sense that I don't want to be more involved in rowing the boat than the sniggering loser sitting across the aisle that is barely rowing at all.  Maybe he isn't rowing because he is lazy and not putting his back into it.  Maybe he isn't rowing because he is a fucking moron who has learned how to row after all of these years.  Whatever.  It doesn't matter.  I ALREADY pay much more than he EVER will. 

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ORIGINAL: lockedaway
I work for what I have...no handouts, no entitlements, no reliance on any government.  BECAUSE I have achieved what I have achieved, I argue AGAINST punitive taxation because I understand the effort it took to earn it. 

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ORIGINAL: lockedaway
You mean the system that sucks up as much of my tax dollars as it can and pays entitlements to scumbags that don't work? 

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ORIGINAL: lockedaway
You are right!!!  I DO take it personally.  Absolutely I do.  But...I still argue for parity.  Imperatrixx, I have even acknowledged that there might be some grading of the flat tax.  Start with 10% and see how it goes.  There might have to be a bracket that pays 12.5% and a bracket that pays 15%.  I don't know how much fairer I can get.

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ORIGINAL: imperatrixx

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ORIGINAL: lockedaway
You are right!!!  I DO take it personally.  Absolutely I do.  But...I still argue for parity.  Imperatrixx, I have even acknowledged that there might be some grading of the flat tax.  Start with 10% and see how it goes.  There might have to be a bracket that pays 12.5% and a bracket that pays 15%.  I don't know how much fairer I can get.

Well...if you doubled the minimum wage the lowest bracket could give twice as much!

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ORIGINAL: imperatrixx

Honestly, I don't know. I don't know why other countries can have higher minimum wages, more social benefits, mandated paid leave, and currency worth more than the US dollar, as well as higher standard of living on the UN index. I studied polisci, not economics.

It just seems a bit incredible to me that the US is like the only one who can't, you know? I don't think the solution is as simple as "raise the minimum wage" or anything...I mean as much as you hate national health systems, wouldn't it alleviate the burden of the employer to provide health insurance to full time workers? These things work together, trying to min/max costs and profits doesn't seem like the best way to build anything. My grandparents had their house built, and I plan to do the same, and I know that I wouldn't be looking at the cheapest way to build my house, I would be looking at the best way that I could afford. I think a lot of corporations could afford a lot more than minimum wage. I think they'd get better workers for it. I think they'd operate in a better society for it. You say a minimum wage job is not supposed to support a family...but what if it has to? "Minimum wage" and "Unskilled labor" are not synonymous, they just usually happen to go together. And I'm not even talking about strict minimum wage...I think that's $7 and some change...but if you look at someone who makes $9 an hour...it's not "minimum wage" but it's not a living wage.

It's really late here, I can't really articulate what I'm trying to say very well. I just wonder...how do you quantify whether a janitor "deserves" $9 an hour or $15 an hour? It's probably based off of how close it is to the legal "minimum wage" and not based off the real living expenses of that human being. You can't say what it's worth, concretely, you can only say how much you're willing to pay and how much he's willing to accept. So why not try to shift that over a bit to a "living wage" instead of a "minimum wage."

And just saying, I grew up in the suburbs of a big city. I just know someone's going to come around and say "Yeah well in Arkansas $9 is a good wage," and I'm sure it is. But there are janitors in other places where $9 an hour means you'll have to save for 8 months to get a cavity filled at the dentist or something, and god forbid you have a kid. So if you are an Arkansas native or wherever...don't look at my specific number, look at it as "a really low wage that is hard to live on" and you'll get my point.

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ORIGINAL: popeye1250

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ORIGINAL: imperatrixx

Honestly, I don't know. I don't know why other countries can have higher minimum wages, more social benefits, mandated paid leave, and currency worth more than the US dollar, as well as higher standard of living on the UN index. I studied polisci, not economics.

It just seems a bit incredible to me that the US is like the only one who can't, you know? I don't think the solution is as simple as "raise the minimum wage" or anything...I mean as much as you hate national health systems, wouldn't it alleviate the burden of the employer to provide health insurance to full time workers? These things work together, trying to min/max costs and profits doesn't seem like the best way to build anything. My grandparents had their house built, and I plan to do the same, and I know that I wouldn't be looking at the cheapest way to build my house, I would be looking at the best way that I could afford. I think a lot of corporations could afford a lot more than minimum wage. I think they'd get better workers for it. I think they'd operate in a better society for it. You say a minimum wage job is not supposed to support a family...but what if it has to? "Minimum wage" and "Unskilled labor" are not synonymous, they just usually happen to go together. And I'm not even talking about strict minimum wage...I think that's $7 and some change...but if you look at someone who makes $9 an hour...it's not "minimum wage" but it's not a living wage.

It's really late here, I can't really articulate what I'm trying to say very well. I just wonder...how do you quantify whether a janitor "deserves" $9 an hour or $15 an hour? It's probably based off of how close it is to the legal "minimum wage" and not based off the real living expenses of that human being. You can't say what it's worth, concretely, you can only say how much you're willing to pay and how much he's willing to accept. So why not try to shift that over a bit to a "living wage" instead of a "minimum wage."

And just saying, I grew up in the suburbs of a big city. I just know someone's going to come around and say "Yeah well in Arkansas $9 is a good wage," and I'm sure it is. But there are janitors in other places where $9 an hour means you'll have to save for 8 months to get a cavity filled at the dentist or something, and god forbid you have a kid. So if you are an Arkansas native or wherever...don't look at my specific number, look at it as "a really low wage that is hard to live on" and you'll get my point.

Trixx, because many of them relied on the U.S. for their defense needs and wearn't paying 50% of their taxes for a military.
If we hadn't been doing that for the last 40 years (60 years in S. Korea) we could have had 8 week vacations, 2 year maternity leaves, free medical, dental, etc, etc, etc all on the same or less taxes than we're paying now!
A military is expensive and when you deploy them to foreign countries that is TREMENDOUSLY expensive!
The American People lost out on all that stuff because the people in Washington *just cannot mind their own fucking business* and concentrate on *this* country and not be "the world's policemman!"
Watch, the next time foreigners start hacking each other to pieces with machetes there'll be a bunch of people in the congress saying; "We have to DOOOOOOOOOO something about this!" No we don't!
But, they want the working classes in uniform and their scion in colleges! No foxholes, blood and guts for young "Skipper!" ("He was wounded playing La Crosse!")
We shouldn't be reacting to any squabbles in foreign countries.
When you send the military to things like that and do the math it probably comes out to $ 2 million per hackee!
So if you spend $5 B (a very small amount for the military) that's a hell of a lot of benefits that we're taking away from our own in just one small instance!
Look at all the homless shelters in this country who could benefit enormously with just one quarter of that money!
President Eisenhower was absolutely right when he warned us about the military industrial establishment!
And what did our govt. do? They did it anyway!!!

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ORIGINAL: housesub4you

Jeez  raising taxes on the wealthy for one, 

But hell at least you keep an open mind  One can tell by your cheap degrading remarks

he entered office as an ideologue who promised a conservative revolution, vowing to slash the size of government, radically scale back entitlements, and deploy the powers of the presidency in pursuit of Reagan's presidency doesn't yield the seamlessly conservative record being peddled today.

Federal government expanded on his watch. The conservative desire to outlaw abortion was never seriously pursued. Reagan broke with the hardliners in his administration and compromised with the Soviets on arms control. His assault on entitlements never materialized; instead he saved Social Security in 1983. And he repeatedly ignored the fundamental conservative dogma that taxes should never be raised. socially and culturally conservative goals. That he essentially failed in this mission hasn't stopped partisan biographers from pretending otherwise.

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ORIGINAL: lockedaway


Only a fucking moron would use a completely subjective label like "social justice"

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ORIGINAL: imperatrixx

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ORIGINAL: willbeurdaddy
Yes. There is a huge difference between a "rant" and detailed rebuttal of specious posts.

I completely agree. A rebuttal of a post generally replies to the topic being discussed in the post. For example (totally hypothetically of course) a rebuttal to a post about parents who earn low wages would contain something about parents, wage earners, or both.

Replying to a post about parents who earn low wages with LOL YEAH WHY DONT WE JUST GIVE EVERYONE ON WELFARE CARS (I'm not even kidding here) is not a rebuttal. It's a rant.

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ORIGINAL: imperatrixx

Unlike some people, who can say in one post that they want to stop illegal immigration and say in the next that they really don't give a fuck that they're one of the people encouraging illegal immigration by hiring them,

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ORIGINAL: imperatrixx

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ORIGINAL: lockedaway
You know what social justice is NOT?  Social Justice is not burdening a class of people with the support of a mentally and physically healthy underclass.  Got it?

Get some proper schools for the poor and universal healthcare for everyone and then you can call your underclass mentally and physically healthy bro.

Yeah everyone has the same opportunities in that level playing field.

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ORIGINAL: Hillwilliam
Mark this date in history. I'm agreeing 100% with pops.