Topic: Disgrace!!! Friend unable to get GEEK POINTS! (Read 33038 times)

sociald1077 · « **Reply #100 on:** October 19, 2005, 12:15:06 AM »

Quote from: BizB

I don't want to protect people via the government. That gives the government too much power. I'd prefer that the individual care for himself. I can only think of a very limited number of things that the government can do for me better than I can do for myself. Alerting me to the potential danger of an apporoaching hurricane could possibly be one of them. Moving me out of harms way is not. Look, I live in an area where there are tornados every year. The government, through the national weather service issues warnings when a tornado is spotted via their large network of public officials including police, fire, etc. It is not their responsibility to escort me to my basement to take cover. If I live in a home with out a basement (storm cellar), I should be aware of that and know where the closest protective cover is located. That cover may actually be provided by some government agency; however, it is not that shelter's responsibility to go get me and take me to that location when the storm is coming. Similarly, Katrina sat in the Gulf of Mexico for 5 days. If you stayed in harms way because you didn't fear the storm, or you didn't think the weather people knew what they were doing, it's not the president's fault. I find it hard to place the blame anywhere other than squarely upon the shoulders of the individual. Clearly they knew they lived below sea-level and that the leves weren't designed to withstand the force of a storm the size of Katrina.

I wish I knew how to do a clapping smilie. You would get a whole string of them.

sociald1077 · « **Reply #101 on:** October 19, 2005, 12:39:42 AM »

Quote from: GenStyx

I don't want to get too into it, but...

BizB, what about the people that were left to die in hospitals and nursing homes?

Also, New Orleans is one of the poorest cities where 28% live below the poverty line compared to a national average of 9%.
Roughly 50,000 people don't have cars there and they were left to their own devices and methods of leaving the city.

And since someone mentioned race, 89% of these poor people mentioned are Black/African American.

Also, methods used oto set the poverty line are artificially LOW. We use a formula where housholds use 1/3 of income for food. Today we spend less on food, but we are still using it as a basis.

The hospitals and nursing homes being left was a great mistake made. But as mentioned before, there were several levels of government that fail in New Orleans. The Local and State goverments should have been assisting those people, not the Federal government.

Now I am not supposed to say this out right in a public forum, but I will. I do not like President Bush. I beleive that he has made some glaring mistakes in his presidency. But should the blame come to him for what happened with Katrina? No. The more imeadiate (aka local and state leaders) should have been taking more charge and figuring out solutions, rather then the piss poor planning that they did.

GenStyx · « **Reply #102 on:** October 19, 2005, 01:02:06 AM »

Right. I dispise Bush, but I don't think Katrina was his fault. I do feel he could have done a better job concerning the disaster. I also feel insulted that after the shit hit the fan, he thought it would be good to go there and fly over everything in his helicopter 8 times!
Alright, we get it...you feel bad now. Don't forget you are the President and you have better things to do besides fly over the disaster area. 2 or 3 times would be more then enough, don't overkill it.

jeee · « **Reply #103 on:** October 19, 2005, 03:22:48 AM »

Quote from: BizB

Quote from: dur-ril
May be I'm not having a good day, I don't know ,but what exactly did you mean by that?, do you have anything against the socialist sistem?. Ok, it's not perfect, quite a few things should be modified (wish i could express my opinion on this matter in a better way but i'm not familiar with some specific language i'd need to use), but is anything perfect?, it sure seems to be working better than the capitalist sistem. Me and Melian were discussing this matter early today…
But as i said, may be you didn't mean any of the things i thought you did, so in that case, sorry for the misunderstanding
I meant that the economy in the US is laze fair capitalism (not quite as laze fair as some would like), not one based on socialism. I do have something against the socialistic system. You're right, it's not perfect... nor is capitalism. You presume that socialism works better than capitalism? Here... fill in these blanks.

The following socialist economies have put a man on the moon ________________.
The following socialist economies have a larger GDP than the USA _____________________.
The following socialist economies produce more food per year than the USA ________________________.
The following socialist economies have been more successful in times of war than the USA __________________________.
The following socialist economies have furthered technology at a faster pace than the USA _____________________.
The following socialist economies have more people trying to get into their country than does the USA __________________.

Go ahead, I'll wait.

Depends how you make the comparison. If you don't look at the size of the country or how many people there live the answer will indeed be USA all over. Once you throw in a few parameters like size or inhabitants, only the first will be USA. I must say I admit that I admire the love for your country Bizb. I am like that myself hence why we will never agree in discussions like this. That's fine else it would be fucking boring.

TeraHammer · « **Reply #104 on:** October 19, 2005, 07:42:12 AM »

Quote from: Vespertine

TeraHammer, let me pose this question to you. I work my ass off day in and day out. There are things in life that I miss out on because I need to be at work that day. Jill is fully capable of work, but chooses not to work, and she does choose to keep popping out kids. I made my choice and Jill made hers. Why on earth should I have to pay to feed and clothe Jill and her kids? How is that a fair and just system of reward (or punishment)?

Ah but there is a difference. In your story Jill CHOOSE not to work. So I think it is indeed unfair to you if she got any of your money. However, if Jill is uncapable to work, she should get support.

BizB · « **Reply #105 on:** October 19, 2005, 08:23:15 AM »

Quote from: TeraHammer

Ah but there is a difference. In your story Jill CHOOSE not to work. So I think it is indeed unfair to you if she got any of your money. However, if Jill is uncapable to work, she should get support.

4%. In the capitalist model, 4% will fall into that category and there are mechanisms in place to care for that 4%.

Demosthenes · « **Reply #106 on:** October 19, 2005, 09:01:52 AM »

Quote from: catwritr

Anyone mind if I move this to the Political Opinions forum?

I didn't think so.

Carry on with the wailing and gnashing of teeth. I'll be over there--> waiting for Demosthenes to show up.

No need. It looks like Biz has this pretty well in-hand.

Though he should be ashamed of himself trying to fight what is quite obviously an unarmed opponent.

Tsk, tsk, Biz.

TeraHammer · « **Reply #107 on:** October 19, 2005, 09:34:43 AM »

Quote from: Demosthenes

No need. It looks like Biz has this pretty well in-hand.

Though he should be ashamed of himself trying to fight what is quite obviously an unarmed opponent.

Tsk, tsk, Biz.

Tsk Tsk demo, its not very nice of you to call me an "unarmed opponent" nor tell off Biz discussing with me, mister 4000 posts and obvious a big reputation here. I guess that if you're such a big character around here you can be an arrogent jerk.
I despise you Americans allways praise your own country to be heaven while there are very good, or better, and at least more social alternatives to your society.

Min · « **Reply #108 on:** October 19, 2005, 09:36:34 AM »

America can only be heaven if you believe in heaven.

Which alot of Americans don't.

TeraHammer · « **Reply #109 on:** October 19, 2005, 09:40:24 AM »

Quote from: Detta

America can only be heaven if you believe in heaven.

Which alot of Americans don't.

I don't quite follow you what you're trying to say... I don't want to spend my afterlife in America though

jeee · « **Reply #110 on:** October 19, 2005, 09:45:31 AM »

Proportion of people in 1990s surveys expressing confidence in this social institution.

Church.

1.   United States   72%
2.   Ireland   72%
3.   Canada   63%
4.   Italy   60%
5.   Belgium   51%
6.   Austria   50%
7.   France   49%
8.   Norway   49%
9.   Finland   47%
10.   Denmark   47%
11.   United Kingdom   45%
12.   Australia   43%
13.   Sweden   43%
14.   Switzerland   42%
15.   Germany   38%

72 % Detta

Min · « **Reply #111 on:** October 19, 2005, 09:51:20 AM »

Yup, I'd say that 28% is "alot" of Americans.

Min · « **Reply #112 on:** October 19, 2005, 09:52:24 AM »

Also, you'd need to define "church". There are many different belief systems wrapped up in there.

TeraHammer · « **Reply #113 on:** October 19, 2005, 09:54:27 AM »

Looking at the countries listed, I say its the christian church

jeee · « **Reply #114 on:** October 19, 2005, 09:56:13 AM »

Yes, but this stat all include religions that believe in heaven.

Demosthenes · « **Reply #115 on:** October 19, 2005, 10:01:27 AM »

Quote from: TeraHammer

Tsk Tsk demo, its not very nice of you to call me an "unarmed opponent"

You clearly have very little understanding of basic concepts such as economics, forms of government or the political process in the United States.

Not only that, but your posts in this discussion are nearly all logical fallacies in one form or another.

By contrast, I happen to know that BizB is very well informed, articulate, and has so far refrained from ad hominems, straw man arguments, ad populum arguments (mostly) and has remained civil, while yours have largely been pretty much easily disregarded as drivel.

Hence the "unarmed opponent" comment. It wasn't intended to be an insult. Just an observation.

Quote

... nor tell off Biz discussing with me, mister 4000 posts and obvious a big reputation here. If you're such a big character around here you should respect people, and not be the arrogent jerk.

I respect people who can think for themselves. You appear to only be capable of spouting forth knee-jerk political idiocy so far in this "discussion", so I have doubts that you are worthy of any measure of respect. I could be wrong. All I have to go on are your posts on this forum, which, as yet, have not impressed me.

If you want respect, you must earn it.

And learn to spell "arrogant" before assigning me that title. I won't dispute that I am arrogant, but I must insist that if you are going to use that term with regard to me, you must use it correctly.

Quote

I despise you Americans allways praise your own country to be heaven while there are very good, or better, and at least more social alternatives to your society.

I don't think anyone here is doing that. On the contrary, that appears to be another straw man argument.

And another knee-jerk response to a coherent argument.

OMG CAPTITALISM IS TEH DUMB! AMRERICANS R ARROGANT!

So far here, Biz has presented his arguments pretty matter-of-factly, not arrogantly. When expressing his opinion, he has clearly designated it as such, and never once here has he told you that your opinions are "wrong"... but he has questioned your understanding of the subject matter, and from what I'm seeing he was right in so doing.

Min · « **Reply #116 on:** October 19, 2005, 10:01:48 AM »

Quote from: TeraHammer

Looking at the countries listed, I say its the christian church

Eeeesh, looks like you're right. I'm finding statistics higher than that even.

Well, my point was that not ALL Americans believe in heaven and hell. There are MANY that don't.

TeraHammer · « **Reply #117 on:** October 19, 2005, 10:49:34 AM »

Quote from: Demosthenes

Quote from: TeraHammer
Tsk Tsk demo, its not very nice of you to call me an "unarmed opponent"

You clearly have very little understanding of basic concepts such as economics, forms of government or the political process in the United States.

Not only that, but your posts in this discussion are nearly all logical fallacies in one form or another.

By contrast, I happen to know that BizB is very well informed, articulate, and has so far refrained from ad hominems, straw man arguments, ad populum arguments (mostly) and has remained civil, while yours have largely been pretty much easily disregarded as drivel. Hence the "unarmed opponent" comment. It wasn't intended to be an insult. Just an observation.

I thank BizB for his debate and I acknowlegded my information was incomplete, though I personally disagree with the American system. However, some of his arguments were wrong aswell and I pointed them out as such.
Yes, some of my arguments were ad homines, to keep the discussion lively. Also, I may be a mediocre debater when using arguments such as above, but I have a personality and opinion which I won't hold for myself, as you've seen for yourself.

Quote from: Demosthenes

Quote
... nor tell off Biz discussing with me, mister 4000 posts and obvious a big reputation here. If you're such a big character around here you should respect people, and not be the arrogent jerk.

I respect people who can think for themselves. You appear to only be capable of spouting forth knee-jerk political idiocy so far in this "discussion", so I have doubts that you are worthy of any measure of respect. I could be wrong. All I have to go on are your posts on this forum, which, as yet, have not impressed me.

If you want respect, you must earn it.

Mind you, this topic was set up in a joke and was absolutely not meant be taken seriously. Later on it became serious with politics.
I don't know what you are doing in this topic because this discussion about Bush and socialism was allready over. For state-of-the-art politics, go to the white house or whatever. This is the internet. I'm not here to convince everybody here that America sucks, but to relativate. I'm here to have a fun time discussing with people over various topics, saying what I want to say and sometimes too far in a serious discussion.

Quote from: Demo

And learn to spell "arrogant" before assigning me that title. I won't dispute that I am arrogant, but I must insist that if you are going to use that term with regard to me, you must use it correctly.

Whatever.

Quote from: Demo

Quote
I despise you Americans allways praise your own country to be heaven while there are very good, or better, and at least more social alternatives to your society.

I don't think anyone here is doing that. On the contrary, that appears to be another straw man argument.

And another knee-jerk response to a coherent argument.

OMG CAPTITALISM IS TEH DUMB! AMRERICANS R ARROGANT!

Come on Demo! Never heard of exaggerations? If this is a false way to debate, so be it. I won't be changing my style, else I would slap myself because of my own boredom.

Demosthenes · « **Reply #118 on:** October 19, 2005, 10:54:07 AM »

Ahh, I see then.

It's a "serious discussion" when you're taking it seriously, but it's just "having fun" when your ass gets handed to you and someone calls you on it.

Noted.

TeraHammer · « **Reply #119 on:** October 19, 2005, 11:05:18 AM »

Demosthenes · « **Reply #120 on:** October 19, 2005, 11:12:13 AM »

Quote from: TeraHammer

bah

My thoughts exactly.

Min · « **Reply #121 on:** October 19, 2005, 11:16:32 AM »

*looks at horse*

It's dead, Jim.

TheJudge · « **Reply #122 on:** October 19, 2005, 11:23:15 AM »

Hello, this is TheJudge reporting from geeknews. If you are just tuning in, you have been missing out on the action! Let me recap these incredible last few days!

Aye Caramba! What is this debate about again? Yes... that is a question many have asked me. Lets see... we start with an attempted discussion on the subject of unjust practices by www.thinkgeek.com who apparently only reward Americans. Then, there's the "black" comment which and the "american Tyrany", which I'll assume was intended to be humoristic, but was intepreted differently by others. This in turns changes the attitudes of the players and the topic of the discussion ends up on Bush's perfomance in a situation where he was by the way highly critizied by his own uninformed citizens, and then the rivalery of USA vs the world begins. Different philosophies and diferent approaches, roles of government at various levels, forms of government are discussed and this ends up in turning into some sort of accomplishments contest used as a mean to validate one form of governemnt over the other. And the non constructive comments like "thats retarded" get more and more frequent and the discusison gets personal. We get a lesson irony and in emoticons and personal beleifs get in the way of understanding clear and basic statements such as "the US does not have a socialistic economy". In an unexpected turn of events, the debate turns to spanish, were one group is completely excluded from the discussion, or so it appears... So then, the discussion resumes in English and the topic is now languages of the earth! But quickly, BizB shows up and tries to bring the topic back on track and gets into government models and challenges others to a little quiz. And suddnely, we are back on Katrina, Bush and we thow poverety in the equation. At this point, the discussion simply stalls as there is an evident lack of understanding between the people involved in the debate. But depending on your perspective, because this is what it's really all about, one could even cry victory at this stage. And then the pop quizes continue in an attempt to prove... something. But what? Is it safe to assume at this stage that the success of a particual form of government can be measured in financial figures and if so, can both forms of governements be compared and valided in the same way? Apparenlty, the assumption is that it can, yet each sides continue to bring in more and broader examples and figures which they use to reinforce their position. Of course, each party will bring up figures and accomplishements that are favorable to his own agenda, proving in fact that there is no clearly established measure of success that are agreed uppon by all parties involved. This renders the discussion redundant, pointless and somewhat boring. It is at this stage that the maginificent Demosthenes, also know as the PEG, coes to the rescue and clarifies a few things. Indeed, Demosthene as earned the respect of the community by demonstrating over and over that he was a master debater who had the ability to draw out facts and point out fiction, who was able to apply his logic not only to prove his point, but also to get a grip on other perspectives that were presented to him. Countless time, those perspectives have been demolished because Demo was ale to demonstrate without a doubt that there was flaw in the logic and in the arguments. He is respected and admired for thos abilities, and also for the ability to leave his personal feelings and emotions outside of the conversation because the very foundation of a successful debate is logic, not emotion. Unfortunately, newcommers were unaware of this reputation and reffered to it as arrogance, but quickly aknowledge the possibility of reputation. There's a couple of sidelines on religion thrown in there, but in the end, Demosthene uses his ability to draw fact from fiction and this pretty much terminates the discussion as his adversary quickly becomes argumentless and is forced to reply with a simple "bah" which will be interpreted by most as a defeat.

And there you have it folks, this is the summary of this six page thread at a particular point in time, which is attached to this post. For the record, I am not American. But the one question remains... When the hell are we going to talk about www.thinkgeek.com and there discrimating reward system?

This was TheJudge, reporting live for geeknews. Tune in at five where Lacerda will be reporting on strange Alien abductions in catholic schools.

xolik · « **Reply #123 on:** October 19, 2005, 11:25:13 AM »

In other news, paragraph breaks are turning up dead all over the internet. We now go live to Xolik being a bitch.

TheJudge · « **Reply #124 on:** October 19, 2005, 11:26:55 AM »

Quote from: xolik

In other news, paragraph breaks are turning up dead all over the internet. We now go live to Xolik being a bitch.

You bastard! I'm in a classroom right now and I justed LOLed very very loudely.

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Author Topic: Disgrace!!! Friend unable to get GEEK POINTS! (Read 33038 times)