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strigori

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strigori last won the day on March 8 2021

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  1. I'm endlessly amazed how well the conservative media discussion tactics have so heavily permeated things. Find an exception, and claim that the issue does not exist. There is a difference between what an individual does, and what an organization does. But when individuals continually, blindly, support an organization, in this case the GOP, they will be lumped in together. Everything I have said, holds true for the GOP talking points. We can just look at the stated stances of the Presidential candidates. And that I where I am having the discussion. With those that are making policy, support them, vote for them, and I'm going to assume your stances are the same. Because your company is not being a greedy bastard, does not mean others are not. And the $10 an hour being a defense is more a point in my favor. Given that it is next to impossible to live on $10 an hour. For not believing my arguments, how about making a trip over to the Kansas thread. Lower taxes for businesses and the wealthy, and the financial gap for the state will be made up mostly from the middle class and poor by consumption taxes(Kansas even taxes food) But its damned good for the Koch Bros. And again, its not the mom and pop shop that is getting the ear on the policy makers. I have known good small business owners. But can you honestly tell me you trust anyone publicly traded? HP had an increased profit, and the former CEO now running for president, then proceeded to reward the workers for increasing profits, by laying off 30,000 people. Walmart expects large segments of their employees to be on governmental assistance, because its impossible to live on single digit dollars an hour. Here is another article that hits pretty much every one of my points. Read it, its disturbing to say the least. http://www.salon.com/2015/06/12/something_is_rotten_in_michigan_poisoned_water_supplied_dissolved_school_districts_and_a_massive_unraveling_of_american_democracy_partner/ And maybe your church group and your family are doing good things. But the large segments that endlessly try to legislate their religion are a problem. And comparing to "radical liberals" is a ridiculous argument. There are not "radical liberal" groups with millions of members, and a giant voting block. But clearly I must be delusional by simply paying attention to the world larger than my day to day life. Just because things might be going good for you, does not mean that things are going well for millions of others in this country. Just because these issues are alien to your echo chamber does not mean they are not real issues.
  2. XBox One will have full PC mod support as well--just announced at E3 yesterday, FWIW. But yeah, play it on a PC. They even have full (XBox 360/One) controller support now if you're wanting to play it on a HTPC or just prefer controller to keyboard. The consoles may get mods, but it will not be the same. Both MS and Sony have never let anything onto their closed systems that did not pass an in house check. So, while its a good step, it won't be quite the same. For controllers, PC has always been able to use 360 controllers, and PS3/4 controllers can connect wirelessly through a bluetooth connection, just need to download a driver package.
  3. For the most part, yes. Many to most businesses would do anything to increase profit, it only gets worse if they are publicly traded. We have endless examples of it. Businesses are doing fantastic, record stock prices, CEO and exec pay skyrocketing. Meanwhile, everyone else is just trying not to fall behind, and mostly failing at it. We have sickening wealth inequity that could literally be ended tomorrow if businesses and the greedy bastards that ran them gave a crap about anyone else. But they fight against every single min wage increase. They swindle people out of pensions, and give people a 401k. Pick a Walmart court settlement. How about the banking schemes that damned near collapsed the world economies? And that they are trying to undo the regs that were put back into place to keep them from doing all that damage again. Who is backing the guys who want to get rid of the EPA and any rules against pollution? The list could go one and on. Ethical is not a word that goes hand in hand with businesses. Ask yourself, do you trust the company you work for? Do you think they have your interests in mind? They want your loyalty, but will show you none if it costs them money. And conservatives are the champions of these same greedy bastards. All the while waving a Bible, which lists greed as sin, and their savior spends quite a bit of time condemning greed, and championing the poor. The exact opposites of their political positions. Making them first rate hypocrites. And then trying to subject the whole population to other parts of their centuries old book. Its a masterful bait and switch when you really get down to it.
  4. What platform? PS3 had a mess of a time with Skyrim at release. PC is the best way to play anything from Bethesda when you really get down to it. Full Mod Support.
  5. If a police officer tells you to leave private property and you dont, then yes.. it is illegal. That is how they were being disrespectful. They were not listening to a command given by an officer. The video was taken from a sidewalk, next to a street, which would appear to not be private property. And there is still an amendment in the Bill of Rights allowing people to congregate. Officers can not remove your rights.
  6. Re: your last paragraph: When I think of smaller or 'right sized' govt I'm talking about efficiency without compromising duty (Justice, general welfare). Cutting govt just for the sake of cutting govt to fulfill a campaign pledge(or downsizing across the board) often compromises the concepts of justice and general welfare. It takes much more work to make govt efficient (efficient maintains justice and general welfare) than it does to just cut the size. (1)Regarding less rules for business - that should not be a goal in and of itself. Govt needs to protect the general welfare of all - thus certain environmental, financial, labor, etc regulations are needed. Yet too many laws/regs can create bad behavior - businesses sending jobs or moving headquarters overseas to avoid the overly burdensome regs that hinder profitability. Govt tends to view businesses too often as the goose that continually lays the golden eggs. One day, those eggs will stop coming if the rules are overly burdensome. (2) The govt should not hinder the free exercise or expression of religion - it should be religion neutral - not pushing one over the other but not endangering the free expression either. Re: your 1st paragraph. The GOP finds themselves in a hard place: they cannot judge Obama's response to ISIS as being too limited without evoking fears of being entangled again in the middle east. How you are defining things is not the way the GOP does. No one really argues against efficiency, but the GOP sit and call for the elimination of whole departments. Something people forget is that all these departments exist because the people demanded the Gov do something about problems, and these were the solutions. And the reasons why the GOP wants to eliminate these departments are back to, 1- Make more money for businesses (the ultra wealthy, lets not kid ourselves) or 2- remove barriers to try to blend religion into more people's lives. Every rule and reg that is on businesses is there for a reason. And the businesses really don't care about anything but making more money. It is not the government's job to protect their earnings. It is the Gov's job to protect the people from businesses. We have far too many documented cases of what happens when you don't have rules in place. And what is deemed "overly burdensome" by businesses eventually becomes "anything that I spend money on that does not return a profit" And the moving jobs overseas line is so old. We are not going to change our ways of doing things to be more on par with 3rd world nations, paying people pennies per hour, and more or less owning them and working them in unsafe conditions. Rules and regs have zero bearing on this. As long as we require employers pay a minimum wage, and don't allow them to belch black smoke into our cites, or dump toxic chemicals in our water, then keeping jobs here is never going to add up for their books.
  7. We can bicker about the random lunatic who avoided society having, or not having more freedoms, but that's a waste of time. Now, I agree with you on the later parts. Most people, either Americans, or from anywhere else, don't even understand their rights, or why we as Americans have different expectations. I have gotten into arguments elsewhere on the internet over how Americans have a different standard for Freedom of Speech and Expression that anywhere else on earth. Europeans get really pissed. But the simple fact is our system is different, and even while we do have a crapload of issues we should take care of, and endlessly fight over, we are generally in a better situation than just about anywhere on the planet.
  8. That was more towards Enhance. The term would be Deist. The belief in a god of some sort, but not adhering to any holy book. Most of our Founding Fathers fell into this category, though many can't seem to grasp the concept, as somehow God must always equal their own God.
  9. Meh...I thought the same thing about Obama and some of his past friends. And, as for the red. Ummm...no. If I were sitting out here as a mountain man/trapper in the mid 1800s, I'm pretty dang sure I was free to do whatever the hell I wanted, whenever I wanted to do it. That's just one example. The context between Obama and some of his pictures are pretty different that the situation with Dugger. Some of the candidates have actually defended his actions, that included molesting his sisters! Your scenario is a white, Christian man, living alone on a mountain? Seriously? Not when he goes into a town. There would be plenty of restrictions on what he could do or say. Blasphemy would still have been a crime in many places. We are talking about society, not a lone hermit who is trying to live away from civilization. And at no point in recorded human history have all the members of a society had as many freedoms and protected rights as they do right now in the US. And what about the Cherokee man or woman of the same era. How about the slaves? Or a Chinese immigrant? How about the poor who would often be working jobs where they could actually wind up dead.
  10. As long as it keeps happening, there should be a national debate about it. Notice that the kid shooting the video was completely ignored by the police officer. Why was he not being told to either leave, or get on the ground? He was white. The fact that you want to sweep institutionalized racism under the rug, I find very disturbing.
  11. Tone shifting does not work anymore. That is a hold over from the pre-internet age. Nothing a politician says ever goes away. Romney tried it last time, and failed epically. And all of the candidates so far have a very, very long list of statements and videos that will prevent them from drifting back center. With a running video of the things a candidate has said, its pretty much impossible for them to back peddle and say "You know, all that stuff I have been screaming for years to anyone who would listen? I didn't really believe any of that, it was just politics to get elected." All it does is leave them sounding like an idiot who is willing to sell his convictions to whomever is currently listening. And mark my words. 2016 is going to have a giant focus on LGBT rights. Its an issue that the general public is heavily against the conservatives. The GOP will like to invoke the midterms, but midterms never get the under 30 crowd to the polls. But presidential elections, and multiple focuses on what that generation tends to view as human rights, will. Anti-gay marriage, and less healthcare do not go over well. Sure, the elderly like those topics, but you alienate the masses. Oppose LGBT rights, lose the swing states.
  12. This will probably be pretty long. I am an atheist. I was raised Lutheran, church many Sundays and confirmation as the Lutherans call it, Catholics call it Catechism. I have always had an analytical mind, and annoyed the hell out of my mom with "why?" and that is where things start. Asking "why?" in any of the parental free teaching, which is nearly everything outside of the services, got me more of a shame and derision response from whomever was 'instructing' than an attempt at a real answer, at best the response of "God/the Bible said so" to at worst making me feel stupid for asking a question. Over 20 years ago, and I vividly remember a heavy focus on the 5000 year old earth, and being a kid who loved all things ancient or prehistoric, this clashed heavily with school science classes, or any library books on the subjects. So sitting silently was generally the better option. After all, I had a tendency to get in trouble at school for talking too much, and at that age authority figures are pretty much all the same. When the confirmation classes started, the focal point of the teaching changed. The overwhelming amount that I remember from those was a heavy focus on how bad, wrong, and evil sex or sexual desire was. There were whole worksheet exercises about the kinds of things that were sins, basically any sex, or sexual thought, that was not for the express purpose of procreation, was going to send you to hell. Now these classes are very carefully timed to be right about the time most kids enter puberty, then you get weekly sessions telling you how much of a sinner you are. Its a fantastic way to screw up the head of a boy who is just starting to notice girls. And with the whole concept of Original Sin (for those who are not aware, it is the teaching that Jesus was free of sin due to his immaculate conception that was, by definition, free of sex, all other humans are born through sex, therefor carry the sin of Adam and Eve and are thus condemned to burn in hell from birth unless first baptized and later endless repenting) it lead to some mental damage I didn't get sorted out for years. The Abrahamic religions have a very sick obsession with the demonization of sex in general, regardless of which of the three one is a member of. Now, unlike most people who go through daily life and don't tend to think about the quite frankly sick indoctrination they were subjected to growing up, at 20 I ended up on an overnight shift, doing a job that required no real mental ability, and coworkers who were all substantially older than me, and had absolutely nothing to talk about with. So, my mind wandered. And I started going deeper and deeper into the rabbit hole, following mental issues where I kept asking "Why do I respond like this?" "Why does this thought or that thought immediately pop into my head in some situations?" "Why do things I see and read not add up with what I was taught?" The answers to my questions all led back to the indoctrination. Trying to answer my questions with things that would be said through a pastor's sermon, or what was in the Bible, did not pass muster to me. Because it was written in an old book, and forced upon people for centuries did not work for me. The endless circular logic did not work for me. Things written in the old book, came across as simply wrong and morally untenable to me. The more I read and the more I learned, only one option was eventually left for me. The religion I was raised in was nothing more than a two thousand year old powerplay. I have long ago left my faith behind, and I am a better human being for doing so.
  13. In all honesty, no one in the GOP clown car is capable of winning a national election. They are all pandering to the far right, making sure they are seen and heard being anti-LGBT, and just about every single one of them has nice cozy pictures next to an admitted child molester, who somehow is still some sort of conservative hero. With the impending SCOTUS decision on gay marriage,generally expected to legalize it, there is going to be a political firestorm for conservatives. Add in that every last one of them want to expand Middle East wars, another position the general public wants nothing to do with. There are not much differences between the candidates real stances on positions, just the way they like to talk about them. I would be careful when you talk about 'tea party' views, they are very deceptive. When they talk about "smaller Government" they are only talking about two things. 1, less rules for businesses. 2, remove anything they feel is imposing on their religion. Right now, individuals in this country have more rights than anyone has had in recorded human history, anyone who says otherwise simply has no sense of history.
  14. My coworker has been catching up on the Witcher series, I've heard good things about it from him. I should get back into PC gaming more, seeing as that's what I actually built my computer for in the first place... You should. Witcher 3 is a great excuse to. Plus, it has full XBox 360/XB1 controller support, if you'd rather play that way. Seriously, though--Witcher 3...barring some unforseen Zelda or Metroidvania title from Nintendo or Halo 5 being some glorious revival of the FPS genre...Witcher 3 is game of the year, hands down. Haven't had this much fun in a sandbox since San Andreas. I want to get this so bad but I'm have a hard time justifying the $60, and I'm afraid it may not have a steam sale until x-mas rolls around. This, like some of the other big RPGs, I'm holding off on til the major DLCs drop. CDPR has a couple of major DLCs in the works, but they are a ways off yet.
  15. I don't think you quite understand why the term is used. No one is telling people they need to give away all of their money and become paupers. No one. What the issue becomes is the wealthy using their greater influence rig the system. Why does a millionaire get to pay a lower percentage income tax than I do after all is said and done? Why are raises good for the execs but not the worker? Break unions, so the corps can make more money by taking away from the people doing the work. THERE IS MORE TO LIFE THAN AMASSING MONEY. But that is the end all be all with the GOP. Everything is either about "F society, get mine" or trying to force religious law down people's throats. And the hypocrisy of a Christian defending greed in this, and many other cases is quite exquisite. Might want to investigate the 'sin' that book talks about so much. It might shock you, I know its not something the recruitment arms of the GOP are going to spend their time preaching about in the pulpit these days. To make the point again, no one is saying go be poor and have nothing. What is being said is Mr. Millionaire needs to stop fighting every single penny that gets taxed, and stop fighting every protection for those with less. For most of them all more money is is just a tally on a spreadsheet. It effects their lives in no discernible way. yet they will fight for every penny like a drowning man gasping for air. And for the record, if I did with the powerball, I would spend a hell of a lot more money helping others than I would on myself. Maybe that drops me in the minority, and that's sad.
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