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(12-24-2016, 04:44 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: (12-23-2016, 09:07 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote: (12-23-2016, 06:50 PM)pbrower2a Wrote: (12-20-2016, 07:21 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote: (12-20-2016, 07:49 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: Somebody is confusing 'truth' and 'big lie'. I'm not quite sure who...
What would you call it if the situation was reversed? I'd call it and see it as a landslide victory regardless of who had won the election. As I've told you before, the term Democrat and the term Republican represent little value to me as an American voter.
We liberals would be humbled by our win and would be trying to make conservatives feel less bad about their loss. I wish I could tell you how I tried to console conservatives with the wins of my side. There would be no "Eat sh--!" talk on our part and no attempt to make people feel bad about themselves for voting 'wrong'. The campaign ends, and service to voters comes above partisan politics. We would expect conservatives to participate in the give-and-take of politics.
But there is no confusion. Republicans win the votes that mattered, and the only people who will now matter in our political order will be those who believe that no human suffering is in excess so long as they get everything that they can possibly get by command against people who can do nothing to stop them. By the time that Donald Trump is through, America will be a wreck, the sort of place that has no immigration problem because it is no longer a country that people want to go to.
I expect to hate life. If I were thirty years younger I would emigrate. If Social Security and Medicare should disappear then I might as well take a Valium and vodka.
The liberals rubbed it in our faces the last time.
How did liberals rub it in your face?
In my case, by instituting regulations that made independent contracting untenable for me, reducing me to wage slavery, all the while blaming the weak economy that resulted from their policies on Bush.
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It's hard for me to see which regulations Obama created which made independent contracting untenable.
I imagine they could not have come from Massachusetts government, since it has been pretty liberal for a while.
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12-26-2016, 02:33 AM
(This post was last modified: 12-26-2016, 02:36 AM by Eric the Green.)
(12-23-2016, 06:50 PM)pbrower2a Wrote: (12-20-2016, 07:21 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote: (12-20-2016, 07:49 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: (12-20-2016, 02:51 AM)Eric the Green Wrote: President-elect Donald J. Trump has claimed he won the electoral vote in a “landslide,” but he ranks below most presidents in the electoral vote and popular vote margins.
Somebody is confusing 'truth' and 'big lie'. I'm not quite sure who...
What would you call it if the situation was reversed? I'd call it and see it as a landslide victory regardless of who had won the election. As I've told you before, the term Democrat and the term Republican represent little value to me as an American voter.
We liberals would be humbled by our win and would be trying to make conservatives feel less bad about their loss. I wish I could tell you how I tried to console conservatives with the wins of my side. There would be no "Eat sh--!" talk on our part and no attempt to make people feel bad about themselves for voting 'wrong'. The campaign ends, and service to voters comes above partisan politics. We would expect conservatives to participate in the give-and-take of politics.
But there is no confusion. Republicans win the votes that mattered, and the only people who will now matter in our political order will be those who believe that no human suffering is in excess so long as they get everything that they can possibly get by command against people who can do nothing to stop them. By the time that Donald Trump is through, America will be a wreck, the sort of place that has no immigration problem because it is no longer a country that people want to go to.
I expect to hate life. If I were thirty years younger I would emigrate. If Social Security and Medicare should disappear then I might as well take a Valium and vodka.
I expect to continue to love life, and thank the Lord I live in California.
But it is very disappointing to have to go back over to opposition to the US government yet again, as I have been so often in my adult life. 8 long years of Dubya, and 12 years of Reagan/Dubya Senior. And Nixon/Ford and LBJ-Vietnam before that. And even not being that happy with Bill Clinton, and only somewhat happy with Obama, and opposed to the resistance they both faced for most of their terms. Being an American with moral principle is a hard task. But we keep moving, keep hoping. Just like Atticus Finch defending Tom Robinson. And we respect heroes like Martin Luther King Jr. and Bernie Sanders. And today we have the late night comic gadflies, which I can watch on you tube or on TV, keeping the spirit alive. And hoping that Americans will someday be willing to take "a closer look." We shall overcome, someday.
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(12-27-2016, 06:35 AM)Eric the Green Wrote: ![[Image: 15726668_1318679761523025_56760658552310...e=58DF0F8F]](https://scontent.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0-9/15726668_1318679761523025_5676065855231091545_n.jpg?oh=b97ed758410953d4e80d1f171befe5db&oe=58DF0F8F)
It is unfortunate that we lack the ultimate check against an incompetent, corrupt, or dictatorial leader -- the vote of no confidence.
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.
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12-27-2016, 11:15 AM
(This post was last modified: 12-27-2016, 11:16 AM by Warren Dew.)
(12-27-2016, 06:35 AM)Eric the Green Wrote:
Of course, the Republicans in the House won both the popular vote and the number of seats. I guess that means the House Republicans are the ones with the mandate. I'm happy if the Senate and President become a rubber stamp for whatever gets through the House.
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(12-27-2016, 11:15 AM)Warren Dew Wrote: (12-27-2016, 06:35 AM)Eric the Green Wrote:
Of course, the Republicans in the House won both the popular vote and the number of seats. I guess that means the House Republicans are the ones with the mandate. I'm happy if the Senate and President become a rubber stamp for whatever gets through the House.
And yet, the presidential election turned into a referendum on a Maverick running against the Establishment, with it pretty clear that the Establishment wasn't popular.
I don't think anyone has a mandate, yet everyone will attempt to govern as if they have one. The result will be that whomever succeeds in forcing their perspective on everyone else is apt to become unpopular and have trouble the next election cycle.
At the moment, we are in a severely divided place. Confrontation and stalemate is much more likely than usual. This is 3T behavior on steroids. Eventually we're collectively going to have to grow up. I don't see an immediate likelihood of that happening. In the meantime, cooperation and compromise is out of season, as is good governance.
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.
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(12-27-2016, 11:15 AM)Warren Dew Wrote: (12-27-2016, 06:35 AM)Eric the Green Wrote:
Of course, the Republicans in the House won both the popular vote and the number of seats. I guess that means the House Republicans are the ones with the mandate. I'm happy if the Senate and President become a rubber stamp for whatever gets through the House.
Do you have any idea of what will be rubber-stamped? Most likely it will be an ideology that holds that no human suffering is in excess so long as the economic elites get what they want. By the end of the Trump Administration, 95% of the people will be suffering for 2%... which is how things were in Russia under the Romanov dynasty. You can also count on those elites doing everything possible to ensure that their people never lose another election that will in any way trim their power.
We will not have domestic tranquility unless it is enforced with the usual mechanisms of a brutal police state. Does anyone want to live in something like Pinochet's Chile?
...Of course the Establishment failed. The one who ran as the exemplar of the Establishment at its best lost to someone who ran hypocritically as a populist and then latched onto the most rapacious and reactionary elements in American life. Donald Trump has done nothing to win over people who voted against him.
All that his brutal new order will give us is more work for much the same pay -- and people will have to work to exhaustion just to survive because all the added work will do is to enrich the Master Class.
If I were born thirty years earlier I would emigrate, and I would take my kids with me, even if to a much poorer country. The American Dream morphs into a nightmare as Donald Trump becomes President.
I consider suicide a possibility some time during the next four years. I am too old to be a workhorse, and I expect the mind-numbing awfulness of a culture made for semi-literate types who read the National Enquirer to offend all of my sensibilities .
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.
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(12-27-2016, 11:15 AM)Warren Dew Wrote: (12-27-2016, 06:35 AM)Eric the Green Wrote:
Of course, the Republicans in the House won both the popular vote and the number of seats. I guess that means the House Republicans are the ones with the mandate. I'm happy if the Senate and President become a rubber stamp for whatever gets through the House.
That's true. Shame on the majority of American voters who support your outdated ideology that keeps power in the hands of a few rich people. Americans do not know how to vote for what benefits them.
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(12-27-2016, 02:09 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: (12-27-2016, 11:15 AM)Warren Dew Wrote: (12-27-2016, 06:35 AM)Eric the Green Wrote:
Of course, the Republicans in the House won both the popular vote and the number of seats. I guess that means the House Republicans are the ones with the mandate. I'm happy if the Senate and President become a rubber stamp for whatever gets through the House.
That's true. Shame on the majority of American voters who support your outdated ideology that keeps power in the hands of a few rich people. Americans do not know how to vote for what benefits them.
Even worse -- as the terms of compliance with the will of the Master Class become increasingly odious and one-sided, and such means as free elections become in doubt, a major shift in mass opinion can require increasingly-severe violence to resolve the issue one way (democracy) or the other (tyranny).
Much that many of us thought unlikely to be at stake two months ago is at stake, including freedom and the value of human life. .
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.
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(12-24-2016, 11:48 PM)Warren Dew Wrote: (12-24-2016, 04:44 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: (12-23-2016, 09:07 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote: The liberals rubbed it in our faces the last time.
How did liberals rub it in your face?
In my case, by instituting regulations that made independent contracting untenable for me, reducing me to wage slavery, all the while blaming the weak economy that resulted from their policies on Bush.
This needs a lot more detail!
There are many types of contractors in this world, and I've employed some and been some as well. I have a hard time believing that your status became illegal under BHO, but was OK prior to that.
On the other issue, can you honestly say that the economy under BHO was not affected by the inaction of the GOP-dominated Congress? At that, it improved but less than it should have, because Mitch McConnell wanted it that way.
Intelligence is not knowledge and knowledge is not wisdom, but they all play well together.
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(12-27-2016, 11:15 AM)Warren Dew Wrote: (12-27-2016, 06:35 AM)Eric the Green Wrote:
Of course, the Republicans in the House won both the popular vote and the number of seats. I guess that means the House Republicans are the ones with the mandate. I'm happy if the Senate and President become a rubber stamp for whatever gets through the House.
Of course, that's not what will happen.
Intelligence is not knowledge and knowledge is not wisdom, but they all play well together.
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(12-28-2016, 02:39 PM)David Horn Wrote: (12-24-2016, 11:48 PM)Warren Dew Wrote: (12-24-2016, 04:44 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: (12-23-2016, 09:07 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote: The liberals rubbed it in our faces the last time.
How did liberals rub it in your face?
In my case, by instituting regulations that made independent contracting untenable for me, reducing me to wage slavery, all the while blaming the weak economy that resulted from their policies on Bush.
This needs a lot more detail!
There are many types of contractors in this world, and I've employed some and been some as well. I have a hard time believing that your status became illegal under BHO, but was OK prior to that.
Independent software contracting. The issue is that there's a lot of regulatory flexibility regarding how much pressure is put on employers to provide employee style benefits like health care to contractors. Under Obama, that pressure rose high enough that many software employers simply stopped using independent contractors, even when those contractors had their own health insurance and such.
Quote:On the other issue, can you honestly say that the economy under BHO was not affected by the inaction of the GOP-dominated Congress? At that, it improved but less than it should have, because Mitch McConnell wanted it that way.
The economy was greatly affected by the Republican takeover of the House in 2010. Had the Democrats stayed fully in charge, the unemployment rate would likely still be at least 10%, maybe much higher.
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(12-27-2016, 12:51 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: (12-27-2016, 11:15 AM)Warren Dew Wrote: (12-27-2016, 06:35 AM)Eric the Green Wrote:
Of course, the Republicans in the House won both the popular vote and the number of seats. I guess that means the House Republicans are the ones with the mandate. I'm happy if the Senate and President become a rubber stamp for whatever gets through the House.
And yet, the presidential election turned into a referendum on a Maverick running against the Establishment, with it pretty clear that the Establishment wasn't popular.
That's likely one of the reasons the Republicans in the House did so well. The establishment House Republican leadership has already been ejected - Cantor lost his seat and Boehner was forced to resign the speakership - and while the new leadership still has establishment elements, they know they have to deal with the insurgents.
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The Republican "insurgents" in the House are even more Establishment (i.e. reactionary) than the Establishment, but perhaps the voters could not distinguish that too well, just as they did not notice that Trump was even more Establishment than the Establishment he professed to criticize.
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(12-28-2016, 09:36 PM)Warren Dew Wrote: The economy was greatly affected by the Republican takeover of the House in 2010. Had the Democrats stayed fully in charge, the unemployment rate would likely still be at least 10%, maybe much higher.
This is such nonsense, outright magical thinking. The economy would be even better than it is now were it not for your side's insane, hysterical obstructionism. If your side were in any way correct Kansas would not be a god-danmed basket case.
#MakeTheDemocratsGreatAgain
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(12-28-2016, 09:36 PM)Warren Dew Wrote: (12-28-2016, 02:39 PM)David Horn Wrote: There are many types of contractors in this world, and I've employed some and been some as well. I have a hard time believing that your status became illegal under BHO, but was OK prior to that.
Independent software contracting. The issue is that there's a lot of regulatory flexibility regarding how much pressure is put on employers to provide employee style benefits like health care to contractors. Under Obama, that pressure rose high enough that many software employers simply stopped using independent contractors, even when those contractors had their own health insurance and such.
I tend to agree that those changes were warranted. Companies love to use the mantel of 'contractor' to avoid the responsibilities they have to employees. Uber is a prime example. When the companies punt, and their not-employees need healthcare, the taxpayer pays. That's just wrong.
Warren Dew Wrote:David Horn Wrote:On the other issue, can you honestly say that the economy under BHO was not affected by the inaction of the GOP-dominated Congress? At that, it improved but less than it should have, because Mitch McConnell wanted it that way.
The economy was greatly affected by the Republican takeover of the House in 2010. Had the Democrats stayed fully in charge, the unemployment rate would likely still be at least 10%, maybe much higher.
The only real bump in employment occurred during the brief window when the stimulus was in effect. Since the Republicans siphoned-off most of that at the state level, the effect was too small ... but it worked to the extent it did. I can see no argument for 10% unemployment if the infrastructure part had been implemented -- just the opposite.
Intelligence is not knowledge and knowledge is not wisdom, but they all play well together.
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(12-29-2016, 12:15 PM)David Horn Wrote: (12-28-2016, 09:36 PM)Warren Dew Wrote: (12-28-2016, 02:39 PM)David Horn Wrote: There are many types of contractors in this world, and I've employed some and been some as well. I have a hard time believing that your status became illegal under BHO, but was OK prior to that.
Independent software contracting. The issue is that there's a lot of regulatory flexibility regarding how much pressure is put on employers to provide employee style benefits like health care to contractors. Under Obama, that pressure rose high enough that many software employers simply stopped using independent contractors, even when those contractors had their own health insurance and such.
I tend to agree that those changes were warranted. Companies love to use the mantel of 'contractor' to avoid the responsibilities they have to employees. Uber is a prime example. When the companies punt, and their not-employees need healthcare, the taxpayer pays. That's just wrong.
Being a former software guy, I'm also not weeping over how poor off you are. Poor guy, having to survive on an engineer's salary. The Democrats working to assure benefits for those who really need them while the Republican look out for those who don't need looking out for seems par for the course.
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(12-29-2016, 02:57 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: (12-29-2016, 12:15 PM)David Horn Wrote: (12-28-2016, 09:36 PM)Warren Dew Wrote: (12-28-2016, 02:39 PM)David Horn Wrote: There are many types of contractors in this world, and I've employed some and been some as well. I have a hard time believing that your status became illegal under BHO, but was OK prior to that.
Independent software contracting. The issue is that there's a lot of regulatory flexibility regarding how much pressure is put on employers to provide employee style benefits like health care to contractors. Under Obama, that pressure rose high enough that many software employers simply stopped using independent contractors, even when those contractors had their own health insurance and such.
I tend to agree that those changes were warranted. Companies love to use the mantel of 'contractor' to avoid the responsibilities they have to employees. Uber is a prime example. When the companies punt, and their not-employees need healthcare, the taxpayer pays. That's just wrong.
Being a former software guy, I'm also not weeping over how poor off you are. Poor guy, having to survive on an engineer's salary. The Democrats working to assure benefits for those who really need them while the Republican look out for those who don't need looking out for seems par for the course.
So basically you're saying you want to tear down everyone who does better than you. Got it.
Me, I'd rather everyone do as well as possible.
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