Posts: 2,936
Threads: 0
Joined: May 2016
08-30-2016, 12:19 AM
(This post was last modified: 08-30-2016, 12:40 AM by Classic-Xer.)
(08-29-2016, 11:43 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: (08-29-2016, 11:29 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote: (08-29-2016, 10:16 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: I guess because you're supposed to salute the flag and all that when you sing it at a game? I haven't been to a game like that since I was a kid, and I don't remember everyone doing that. Maybe we did, I don't remember. Back then, maybe I did. I know we stood and pledged allegiance to the flag every morning in school. When I became a substitute teacher, I think I did that once. I'm not sure.
No, I don't think what binds us is a symbol. What is American is defending the rights of all Americans. It's not the symbol that counts; it's the reality that it stands for-- which is those rights. How can you honor the progress we have made, by opposing all progress today, which is what the Republicans do? The flag stands for the right not to salute it, to spit on it or burn it if that's what an American wants to do. That's free speech; even Justice Scalia agreed with this. No, Martin Luther King Jr. was right, and you're not, Mr. Classic Xer.
Do criminals have rights to be criminals? Do criminals have the right to gun down people in public parks? Do blacks have a right to attack a cop and resist arrest or to steal stuff without concern about the cops?
NO, they certainly don't.
Quote: As I told you, the flag means more than just a symbol. Anyone who doesn't get it hasn't been an American for very long or simply doesn't care for America very much or is clueless. The flag represents all that is associated with America and its advancement as a nation. You have the right to purchase a flag and burn it if you choose to do so and view it as your right of expression. I don't have a problem with any of that anymore than I have a problem with people burning his jersey before the next home game. You are free to make a fool of yourself and damage your own image as much as you want.
I don't plan to, but I don't see any reason for fuss because Colin doesn't want to stand or even salute the flag at a ballgame. I will be impressed with peoples' defense of the flag when I see those same people support what the flag represents. They don't. They stand for regression on voting rights and many other rights, and are against the state helping those who need a helping hand, as we all might need someday, and for state investment in what capitalism refuses to invest in. They stand for destroying the land and environment on which the country stands.
Quote: Ain't much progress today as far as the left is concerned. The left is still stuck on burning flags, still labeling soldiers as murderers, still chanting the same old anti-American memes, the same old anti-Republican bullshit and still supporting the same old control freaks. Would we be talking through our computers over the internet without Ronald Reagan?
Ronald Reagan had next to nothing to do with computers. They were developed back in the time when the government was not seen as the problem, but invested in enterprises that capitalists would never do, because it doesn't yield a quick return. Like the space program, without which we wouldn't be typing away at each other like this.
Would you own a computer without supply side economics (the increase in capital means to invest and mass produce individual computers and the economic growth or increase in wages and investments, revenues and capital of all types including the amount of financing (lower interest rates) available in the market to purchase one for yourself). My first computer was purchased for business during the early 90's. I purchased four more later for the cost of two earlier. Today, I have business computers and personal computers that were all obtained during voodoo economics without a college degree. Dude, you have no argument that works against me or argument that can be effectively used with me. You're not alone, Bob has run into the same issue with me. I'm still trying to pin down Bob's blue values and whether they are Democratic values or blue hippie values that he views as still being attached to the Democratic party.
Posts: 1,402
Threads: 17
Joined: May 2016
Eric The Green Wrote:What suckers we are. We built a new stadium for Colin (49ers quarterback) and the boys in Santa Clara, financed by the jeans we wear. The jeans aren't even made in San Francisco anymore, and we used to have a small factory in San Jose too, and the company was founded in SF. All gone now. The glories of free trade. And the new stadium isn't even in San Francisco, even though they are still called the San Francisco 49ers. So yeah, just what city do they belong to?
True enough on all of the above. I mean, really? I can think of a lot of better uses for public money than for this nonsense.
Oh, and look, there's lots of prior examples of stupored stadium buying stunts to go by, which for some reason never deter new suckers.
Quote:I'll never go see them!
I never see them [fötbah games.] When you get right down to it, theres lots of time wasted on time outs which get filled in with lame commercials which are usually about cheap beer, assorted vehicles, and assorted man cave junk.
Quote:But you could have posted Hendrix's "Banner" when we were doing 1969 on the best songs ever thread. But ya diddint. 
I know. That cover by Jimi is pretty much the only one that pops into my head when "Star Spangled Banner" is mentioned. There was no memory cue until this thread.
Oh, and P.S
Eric, there's a cryptic tidbit for you from me, that if found may make you a very happy man. 
Signed,
Rags the Easter Bunny. 
---Value Added
Posts: 3,956
Threads: 11
Joined: May 2016
(08-30-2016, 12:07 AM)pbrower2a Wrote: The US flag is usually just a piece of cloth. I would not risk my life or serious injury to rescue a flag in peril of fire or of sinking with a ship. I consider a cat more precious. Indeed I would remove an irreplaceable work of art from peril of a fire before I removed a US flag.
I have a similar attitude myself, but there are any number of folk who will associate the symbol for the thing it stands for. For sake of ego and status, the symbol represents the thing it stands for. Both the protestor and the people upset by the protest are buying into the importance of symbols.
That this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the earth.
Posts: 10,013
Threads: 103
Joined: May 2016
(08-30-2016, 12:19 AM)Classic-Xer Wrote: (08-29-2016, 11:43 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: (08-29-2016, 11:29 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote: (08-29-2016, 10:16 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: I guess because you're supposed to salute the flag and all that when you sing it at a game? I haven't been to a game like that since I was a kid, and I don't remember everyone doing that. Maybe we did, I don't remember. Back then, maybe I did. I know we stood and pledged allegiance to the flag every morning in school. When I became a substitute teacher, I think I did that once. I'm not sure.
No, I don't think what binds us is a symbol. What is American is defending the rights of all Americans. It's not the symbol that counts; it's the reality that it stands for-- which is those rights. How can you honor the progress we have made, by opposing all progress today, which is what the Republicans do? The flag stands for the right not to salute it, to spit on it or burn it if that's what an American wants to do. That's free speech; even Justice Scalia agreed with this. No, Martin Luther King Jr. was right, and you're not, Mr. Classic Xer.
Do criminals have rights to be criminals? Do criminals have the right to gun down people in public parks? Do blacks have a right to attack a cop and resist arrest or to steal stuff without concern about the cops?
NO, they certainly don't.
Quote: As I told you, the flag means more than just a symbol. Anyone who doesn't get it hasn't been an American for very long or simply doesn't care for America very much or is clueless. The flag represents all that is associated with America and its advancement as a nation. You have the right to purchase a flag and burn it if you choose to do so and view it as your right of expression. I don't have a problem with any of that anymore than I have a problem with people burning his jersey before the next home game. You are free to make a fool of yourself and damage your own image as much as you want.
I don't plan to, but I don't see any reason for fuss because Colin doesn't want to stand or even salute the flag at a ballgame. I will be impressed with peoples' defense of the flag when I see those same people support what the flag represents. They don't. They stand for regression on voting rights and many other rights, and are against the state helping those who need a helping hand, as we all might need someday, and for state investment in what capitalism refuses to invest in. They stand for destroying the land and environment on which the country stands.
Quote: Ain't much progress today as far as the left is concerned. The left is still stuck on burning flags, still labeling soldiers as murderers, still chanting the same old anti-American memes, the same old anti-Republican bullshit and still supporting the same old control freaks. Would we be talking through our computers over the internet without Ronald Reagan?
Ronald Reagan had next to nothing to do with computers. They were developed back in the time when the government was not seen as the problem, but invested in enterprises that capitalists would never do, because it doesn't yield a quick return. Like the space program, without which we wouldn't be typing away at each other like this.
Would you own a computer without supply side economics (the increase in capital means to invest and mass produce individual computers and the economic growth or increase in wages and investments, revenues and capital of all types including the amount of financing (lower interest rates) available in the market to purchase one for yourself). My first computer was purchased for business during the early 90's. I purchased four more later for the cost of two earlier. Today, I have business computers and personal computers that were all obtained during voodoo economics without a college degree. Dude, you have no argument that works against me or argument that can be effectively used with me.
Every good argument of mine works, of which I write many; but that does not mean that my words will convince you. We all have to find the truth out for ourselves. But it's well known that supply side economics in the 1980s worked only for the wealthy and upper classes. Only they got income benefits from Reagan's policies; the rest stayed the same or declined. So if you were not in the upper classes, then you could have bought your computers at any time and Reagan would have made no difference to you. Trickle down does not, and never does, trickle.
Quote: You're not alone, Bob has run into the same issue with me. I'm still trying to pin down Bob's blue values and whether they are Democratic values or blue hippie values that he views as still being attached to the Democratic party.
It seems to be hard to pin either of you down, or for you guys to pin each other down. It's always liable to be hard to pin a classic Gen Xer down, as you proudly are. You fit into today's (or the 3T/Reagan era's) individualism, and that kind of conservatism, but that very individualism makes you reluctant to get pinned down to a label or put in a box.
Posts: 10,013
Threads: 103
Joined: May 2016
08-30-2016, 11:59 AM
(This post was last modified: 08-30-2016, 12:03 PM by Eric the Green.)
(08-29-2016, 11:53 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote: (08-29-2016, 10:42 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: (08-29-2016, 10:11 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote: (08-29-2016, 04:57 PM)Ragnarök_62 Wrote: Who the hell is Colin Kaepernick? That's the poll quesiton. For moi, it's who the fuck is Colin Kaepernick?
Then again, this is about fötbah. I do not do fötbah whatsoever. The NFL etc. is a bunch of overpaid, overstuffed jocks who make way way too much money and their managers don't really belong to a city. The managers should be tied to whatever stadium they're currently at. Also, any city that builds a new stadium is the ultimate sucker in this.
What do you expect when the Robber Barons have the Democrats eating from their hands? You didn't actually believe that Obama was rugged enough to take on the rich.
Obama took them on as far as the Republicans and current ideology would allow him to.
Democrats eating from the hands of robber barons? I think you'd find if you looked that Republicans eat a lot more from their hands. But Democrats eat some too, it's true. The answer is to take money out of politics. Given that, the fact that all justices who voted for the Citizens United decision were Republican appointees, and all all who voted against it were Democratic appointees, and the fact that Democrats support reform and Republicans oppose it, should tell you all anyone needs to know about who's who in this regard.
He got politically slapped, retreated back to his room and remained there for six more years.
That was his only option. When the people refuse to come out to vote, or vote for a congress determined to resist you fanatically and shut down the government, there's not a whole lot that even a president with an 18-3 candidate-horoscope score can do. Or even 19-2 with Jupiter rising! (Bill Clinton, shut down in Nov.1994). The people need to support the president through his/her term if they hope for any results from electing him or her. That's how our system works, but lots of people don't seem to understand that. They think you can just elect a president and that's all you need to do for four years, and then you can blame everything on him or her. What rubbish!
I think we need a parliamentary system. In that system, it's easier to understand. You vote for your legislature representative, and that's it. If your party doesn't get a majority, then it doesn't get its leader elected for the country. All democracies except ours, the first one, have this system; even the one we set up in our own colony of Iraq in 2003. Our early form of a democratic system is long outdated.
Posts: 54
Threads: 0
Joined: Jul 2016
(08-30-2016, 05:00 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: (08-30-2016, 12:07 AM)pbrower2a Wrote: The US flag is usually just a piece of cloth. I would not risk my life or serious injury to rescue a flag in peril of fire or of sinking with a ship. I consider a cat more precious. Indeed I would remove an irreplaceable work of art from peril of a fire before I removed a US flag.
I have a similar attitude myself, but there are any number of folk who will associate the symbol for the thing it stands for. For sake of ego and status, the symbol represents the thing it stands for. Both the protestor and the people upset by the protest are buying into the importance of symbols.
For the record, a better response has already been made.
The single despot stands out in the face of all men, and says: I am the State: My will is law: I am your master: I take the responsibility of my acts: The only arbiter I acknowledge is the sword: If any one denies my right, let him try conclusions with me. -- Lysander Spooner
Posts: 3,956
Threads: 11
Joined: May 2016
(08-30-2016, 02:46 PM)Copperfield Wrote: For the record, a better response has already been made.
Don't care much for potty humor.
That this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the earth.
Posts: 1,402
Threads: 17
Joined: May 2016
(08-30-2016, 04:20 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: (08-30-2016, 02:46 PM)Copperfield Wrote: For the record, a better response has already been made.
Don't care much for potty humor.
Uh, that video is priceless:
1. Don't believe anything the government has to say.
2. Don't believe anything the MSM has to say.
3. "potty hummor". I like it.
a. George "Bush".
b. We "pulled out"..
c. He forgot the ultimate thingie. ICBM's are the phallic symbols of nation states, man. All nations desire to have them for that 1 reason.
---Value Added
Posts: 54
Threads: 0
Joined: Jul 2016
(08-30-2016, 04:20 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: (08-30-2016, 02:46 PM)Copperfield Wrote: For the record, a better response has already been made.
Don't care much for potty humor.
George Carlin is potty humor?
Damn, you really are a baby boomer ain't ya?
The single despot stands out in the face of all men, and says: I am the State: My will is law: I am your master: I take the responsibility of my acts: The only arbiter I acknowledge is the sword: If any one denies my right, let him try conclusions with me. -- Lysander Spooner
Posts: 10,013
Threads: 103
Joined: May 2016
08-30-2016, 07:28 PM
(This post was last modified: 08-30-2016, 07:35 PM by Eric the Green.)
(08-30-2016, 04:44 PM)Ragnarök_62 Wrote: (08-30-2016, 04:20 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: (08-30-2016, 02:46 PM)Copperfield Wrote: For the record, a better response has already been made.
Don't care much for potty humor.
Uh, that video is priceless:
1. Don't believe anything the government has to say.
2. Don't believe anything the MSM has to say.
3. "potty hummor". I like it.
a. George "Bush".
b. We "pulled out"..
c. He forgot the ultimate thingie. ICBM's are the phallic symbols of nation states, man. All nations desire to have them for that 1 reason.
I like it. I agree. Carlin's main relevant point was that thinking too much about symbols is symbol-minded thinking (i.e. simple-minded). I dissent from the idea that prophets are prudes. Check out Country Joe McDonald. And humor about the size of dicks is sex humor, not potty humor. I dissent from prudery, and I dissent from the manhood dick contest, and I dissent from most wars, and I dissent from the Republican primary contest which was literally a dick contest. And what goes for manly wars goes for manly guns too; I dissent from dissecting our sexual obsession with manly violence between individual and collective (but that's another thread, uh yeah!  ).
Posts: 10,013
Threads: 103
Joined: May 2016
I was going to post Colin's defense of his (non) action, but since he buys the nonsense that Hillary did something illegal, I'll leave it for others to find. Suffice to say he doesn't like either candidate, and he doesn't like how blacks and "minorities" are treated in America. I know people don't always like it when people speak up out of the usual place and speak their mind, but I like it, and think that's what America is all about.
Posts: 2,936
Threads: 0
Joined: May 2016
(08-30-2016, 11:59 AM)Eric the Green Wrote: (08-29-2016, 11:53 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote: (08-29-2016, 10:42 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: (08-29-2016, 10:11 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote: (08-29-2016, 04:57 PM)Ragnarök_62 Wrote: Who the hell is Colin Kaepernick? That's the poll quesiton. For moi, it's who the fuck is Colin Kaepernick?
Then again, this is about fötbah. I do not do fötbah whatsoever. The NFL etc. is a bunch of overpaid, overstuffed jocks who make way way too much money and their managers don't really belong to a city. The managers should be tied to whatever stadium they're currently at. Also, any city that builds a new stadium is the ultimate sucker in this.
What do you expect when the Robber Barons have the Democrats eating from their hands? You didn't actually believe that Obama was rugged enough to take on the rich.
Obama took them on as far as the Republicans and current ideology would allow him to.
Democrats eating from the hands of robber barons? I think you'd find if you looked that Republicans eat a lot more from their hands. But Democrats eat some too, it's true. The answer is to take money out of politics. Given that, the fact that all justices who voted for the Citizens United decision were Republican appointees, and all all who voted against it were Democratic appointees, and the fact that Democrats support reform and Republicans oppose it, should tell you all anyone needs to know about who's who in this regard.
He got politically slapped, retreated back to his room and remained there for six more years.
That was his only option. When the people refuse to come out to vote, or vote for a congress determined to resist you fanatically and shut down the government, there's not a whole lot that even a president with an 18-3 candidate-horoscope score can do. Or even 19-2 with Jupiter rising! (Bill Clinton, shut down in Nov.1994). The people need to support the president through his/her term if they hope for any results from electing him or her. That's how our system works, but lots of people don't seem to understand that. They think you can just elect a president and that's all you need to do for four years, and then you can blame everything on him or her. What rubbish!
I think we need a parliamentary system. In that system, it's easier to understand. You vote for your legislature representative, and that's it. If your party doesn't get a majority, then it doesn't get its leader elected for the country. All democracies except ours, the first one, have this system; even the one we set up in our own colony of Iraq in 2003. Our early form of a democratic system is long outdated.
Presidents shouldn't make promises to one group while supposedly representing the interests of another group and then push through legislation that favors one group over the other group that supported him. Hilary will either need to try and offset the imbalance within her party or accept losing the balk of the future middle class to the Republicans.
Posts: 2,936
Threads: 0
Joined: May 2016
(08-30-2016, 10:47 AM)X_4AD_84 Wrote: (08-30-2016, 12:19 AM)Classic-Xer Wrote: (08-29-2016, 11:43 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: (08-29-2016, 11:29 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote: (08-29-2016, 10:16 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: I guess because you're supposed to salute the flag and all that when you sing it at a game? I haven't been to a game like that since I was a kid, and I don't remember everyone doing that. Maybe we did, I don't remember. Back then, maybe I did. I know we stood and pledged allegiance to the flag every morning in school. When I became a substitute teacher, I think I did that once. I'm not sure.
No, I don't think what binds us is a symbol. What is American is defending the rights of all Americans. It's not the symbol that counts; it's the reality that it stands for-- which is those rights. How can you honor the progress we have made, by opposing all progress today, which is what the Republicans do? The flag stands for the right not to salute it, to spit on it or burn it if that's what an American wants to do. That's free speech; even Justice Scalia agreed with this. No, Martin Luther King Jr. was right, and you're not, Mr. Classic Xer.
Do criminals have rights to be criminals? Do criminals have the right to gun down people in public parks? Do blacks have a right to attack a cop and resist arrest or to steal stuff without concern about the cops?
NO, they certainly don't.
Quote: As I told you, the flag means more than just a symbol. Anyone who doesn't get it hasn't been an American for very long or simply doesn't care for America very much or is clueless. The flag represents all that is associated with America and its advancement as a nation. You have the right to purchase a flag and burn it if you choose to do so and view it as your right of expression. I don't have a problem with any of that anymore than I have a problem with people burning his jersey before the next home game. You are free to make a fool of yourself and damage your own image as much as you want.
I don't plan to, but I don't see any reason for fuss because Colin doesn't want to stand or even salute the flag at a ballgame. I will be impressed with peoples' defense of the flag when I see those same people support what the flag represents. They don't. They stand for regression on voting rights and many other rights, and are against the state helping those who need a helping hand, as we all might need someday, and for state investment in what capitalism refuses to invest in. They stand for destroying the land and environment on which the country stands.
Quote: Ain't much progress today as far as the left is concerned. The left is still stuck on burning flags, still labeling soldiers as murderers, still chanting the same old anti-American memes, the same old anti-Republican bullshit and still supporting the same old control freaks. Would we be talking through our computers over the internet without Ronald Reagan?
Ronald Reagan had next to nothing to do with computers. They were developed back in the time when the government was not seen as the problem, but invested in enterprises that capitalists would never do, because it doesn't yield a quick return. Like the space program, without which we wouldn't be typing away at each other like this.
Would you own a computer without supply side economics (the increase in capital means to invest and mass produce individual computers and the economic growth or increase in wages and investments, revenues and capital of all types including the amount of financing (lower interest rates) available in the market to purchase one for yourself). My first computer was purchased for business during the early 90's. I purchased four more later for the cost of two earlier. Today, I have business computers and personal computers that were all obtained during voodoo economics without a college degree. Dude, you have no argument that works against me or argument that can be effectively used with me. You're not alone, Bob has run into the same issue with me. I'm still trying to pin down Bob's blue values and whether they are Democratic values or blue hippie values that he views as still being attached to the Democratic party.
3rd generation tech dude here. Sorry to burst your bubble but the seeds of what we call high tech were sown during and after WW2. By "statist" GIs and later by their Silent mini me clones. The greatest true advancements in tech were during the 1 and 2Ts. Of course, many in the sticks did not buy tech items until the 3T.
Computers have been around a long time. At what point did computers move from being primarily owned and used by big government and big business to being made available and being made affordable to everyone else. I say Reagan's election and the further implementation of supply side economics made owning a computer for ones business or personal use possible. You're a 3rd gen tech dude. I'm a dude who has been in business for close to 25 years.
Posts: 3,956
Threads: 11
Joined: May 2016
(08-30-2016, 11:04 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote: Computers have been around a long time. At what point did computers move from being primarily owned and used by big government and big business to being made available and being made affordable to everyone else. I say Reagan's election and the further implementation of supply side economics made owning a computer for ones business or personal use possible. You're a 3rd gen tech dude. I'm a dude who has been in business for close to 25 years.
Your timing was about right. The Apple II came out in 1977. The personal computer came before Reagan by a bit, but really took of during his time in office.
But it was the microprocessor chip that made cheap PCs possible that caused the explosion more than economic policy. I graduated from college in 1977 and watched the mini and micro computer age take off from Route 128 near Boston. Nothing was going to stop the technology or speed it up much. The microprocessor was an idea whose time had come.
Well, it was Reagan's time as well. Tax and spend had been overdone. A spectacular series of national failures resulted in Carter's national malaise. The notion that the US could attack a whole bunch of problems all at once and inevitably triumph at all of them had grown exhausting, and the failures just kept on coming during the 1970s. The disillusionment led to a call for smaller government and less taxes. In the field of government it was a time of pulling back and doing less.
But that wasn't the mood on Route 128. The tech industry was booming. Government and the tech industry were going in different directions just then.
That this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the earth.
Posts: 1,216
Threads: 29
Joined: May 2016
Kaepernick is completely right, here. And I think playing the anthem at every god-damned sports event is absolute bullshit that cheapens the anthem in any case
#MakeTheDemocratsGreatAgain
Posts: 10,465
Threads: 197
Joined: May 2016
(08-31-2016, 12:05 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: (08-30-2016, 11:04 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote: Computers have been around a long time. At what point did computers move from being primarily owned and used by big government and big business to being made available and being made affordable to everyone else. I say Reagan's election and the further implementation of supply side economics made owning a computer for ones business or personal use possible. You're a 3rd gen tech dude. I'm a dude who has been in business for close to 25 years.
Your timing was about right. The Apple II came out in 1977. The personal computer came before Reagan by a bit, but really took of during his time in office.
But it was the microprocessor chip that made cheap PCs possible that caused the explosion more than economic policy. I graduated from college in 1977 and watched the mini and micro computer age take off from Route 128 near Boston. Nothing was going to stop the technology or speed it up much. The microprocessor was an idea whose time had come.
Well, it was Reagan's time as well. Tax and spend had been overdone. A spectacular series of national failures resulted in Carter's national malaise. The notion that the US could attack a whole bunch of problems all at once and inevitably triumph at all of them had grown exhausting, and the failures just kept on coming during the 1970s. The disillusionment led to a call for smaller government and less taxes. In the field of government it was a time of pulling back and doing less.
But that wasn't the mood on Route 128. The tech industry was booming. Government and the tech industry were going in different directions just then.
The first Tech revolution gave America the gigantic mainframe computers that allowed cumbersome calculations to be done in bulk. Those computers devoured huge amounts of energy, cost fortunes to build and maintain, and broke down often. The second tech revolution created the computer chips that allowed computers that cost about as much as a good stereo system or a six-year-old used car at the time and did not require so much energy to run and cool. Then came more subtle refinements of the chips that now allow the creation of all sorts of fantasies -- maybe a live 99-year-old John F. Kennedy having a chat with a live Pope John Paul II (also deceased in reality) at the World Trade Center in New York City on some screen that has the word "LIVE" on it. (Yes, next year will be the JFK centennial. Time flies, does it not?). To top it off, the Pope has arrived on the Titanic. Let us not be suckers.
Now we have tablets and cell phones that we can buy for about the same price as a pair of shoes. I have one that I use exclusively for an input to the stereo system; it cost about $50 and a router that I had gotten for the chance to read some long novel on Project Gutenberg. The real revolution is finding new, humanizing ways to use computer power.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.
Posts: 10,013
Threads: 103
Joined: May 2016
(08-31-2016, 12:05 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: (08-30-2016, 11:04 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote: Computers have been around a long time. At what point did computers move from being primarily owned and used by big government and big business to being made available and being made affordable to everyone else. I say Reagan's election and the further implementation of supply side economics made owning a computer for ones business or personal use possible. You're a 3rd gen tech dude. I'm a dude who has been in business for close to 25 years.
Your timing was about right. The Apple II came out in 1977. The personal computer came before Reagan by a bit, but really took of during his time in office.
But it was the microprocessor chip that made cheap PCs possible that caused the explosion more than economic policy. I graduated from college in 1977 and watched the mini and micro computer age take off from Route 128 near Boston. Nothing was going to stop the technology or speed it up much. The microprocessor was an idea whose time had come.
Well, it was Reagan's time as well. Tax and spend had been overdone. A spectacular series of national failures resulted in Carter's national malaise. The notion that the US could attack a whole bunch of problems all at once and inevitably triumph at all of them had grown exhausting, and the failures just kept on coming during the 1970s. The disillusionment led to a call for smaller government and less taxes. In the field of government it was a time of pulling back and doing less.
And the main problem is that LBJ thought we could have lots and lots of both guns and butter. Inflation began to grow as a result. Carter was very conservative, insisting that the Democrats must stay within budget constraints, according to the PBS doc on Carter. Less spending had been the trend since 1967-68, and especially since the war wound down in 1973. The energy crisis then occurred, pushing inflation upward, and that was the main source of the Carter malaise in the late 70s. Reagan just took supply side to ridiculous extremes, and it only worked for the wealthy. Our growing inequality dates mostly from Reagan's time.
Posts: 10,013
Threads: 103
Joined: May 2016
(08-31-2016, 06:51 AM)Odin Wrote: Kaepernick is completely right, here. And I think playing the anthem at every god-damned sports event is absolute bullshit that cheapens the anthem in any case
Yes indeed, and I don't know why sports events require people to sing the anthem; except I guess both those public sports events and patriotism are about group identities fighting each other, and we enjoy the fight.
Posts: 10,013
Threads: 103
Joined: May 2016
(08-30-2016, 10:40 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote: (08-30-2016, 11:59 AM)Eric the Green Wrote: (08-29-2016, 11:53 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote: (08-29-2016, 10:42 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: (08-29-2016, 10:11 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote: What do you expect when the Robber Barons have the Democrats eating from their hands? You didn't actually believe that Obama was rugged enough to take on the rich.
Obama took them on as far as the Republicans and current ideology would allow him to.
Democrats eating from the hands of robber barons? I think you'd find if you looked that Republicans eat a lot more from their hands. But Democrats eat some too, it's true. The answer is to take money out of politics. Given that, the fact that all justices who voted for the Citizens United decision were Republican appointees, and all all who voted against it were Democratic appointees, and the fact that Democrats support reform and Republicans oppose it, should tell you all anyone needs to know about who's who in this regard.
He got politically slapped, retreated back to his room and remained there for six more years.
That was his only option. When the people refuse to come out to vote, or vote for a congress determined to resist you fanatically and shut down the government, there's not a whole lot that even a president with an 18-3 candidate-horoscope score can do. Or even 19-2 with Jupiter rising! (Bill Clinton, shut down in Nov.1994). The people need to support the president through his/her term if they hope for any results from electing him or her. That's how our system works, but lots of people don't seem to understand that. They think you can just elect a president and that's all you need to do for four years, and then you can blame everything on him or her. What rubbish!
I think we need a parliamentary system. In that system, it's easier to understand. You vote for your legislature representative, and that's it. If your party doesn't get a majority, then it doesn't get its leader elected for the country. All democracies except ours, the first one, have this system; even the one we set up in our own colony of Iraq in 2003. Our early form of a democratic system is long outdated.
Presidents shouldn't make promises to one group while supposedly representing the interests of another group and then push through legislation that favors one group over the other group that supported him. Hilary will either need to try and offset the imbalance within her party or accept losing the balk of the future middle class to the Republicans.
Hillary's policies will favor both the poor/ethnic minorities and the middle class, and their interests mostly coincide. They benefit from Democratic Party policies, while the Republican Party's policies of hurting both groups favor only the rich.
Posts: 3,956
Threads: 11
Joined: May 2016
(08-31-2016, 11:58 AM)Eric the Green Wrote: And the main problem is that LBJ thought we could have lots and lots of both guns and butter. Inflation began to grow as a result. Carter was very conservative, insisting that the Democrats must stay within budget constraints, according to the PBS doc on Carter. Less spending had been the trend since 1967-68, and especially since the war wound down in 1973. The energy crisis then occurred, pushing inflation upward, and that was the main source of the Carter malaise in the late 70s. Reagan just took supply side to ridiculous extremes, and it only worked for the wealthy. Our growing inequality dates mostly from Reagan's time.
Nixon taking the US off the gold standard is another neglected factor. The economic theories that prompted that move didn't predict or prevent stagflation. Coming off the gold standard was likely the right move, but it turned the 1970s into an economic mess. Carter doesn't get enough credit for doing the right but unpopular thing.
That this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the earth.
|
