Lurker > ScazarMeltex

It looks and sounds a little to borderlands-esque to me.
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"If you wish to converse with me define your terms"
Voltaire

John coffey's speech to Tom Hanks in The Green Mile is pretty high up there as well.
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"If you wish to converse with me define your terms"
Voltaire

Laughable.
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"If you wish to converse with me define your terms"
Voltaire

Bestoffuture posted...

creativerealms posted...

Bestoffuture posted...

creativerealms posted...

Where's W. Bush? He's the one who did the damage. Obama was cleaning up his mess.

Bush just inherited a bad economy

Uh no. The economy was fine when he came into office.

It was inevitably gonna crash. Nothing he could do

Citation Needed
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Voltaire

Good. Death penalty please. If he's given life the aryan brotherhood will make a hero out of him and protect him from the prison justice he deserves.
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"If you wish to converse with me define your terms"
Voltaire

Imagine caring this much about what games other people play. Is it creepy? Sure. Will I ever play them? Fuck no.But censorship is censorship and since nothing illegal is occuring I feel like this sort of moral policing is not a good idea.
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"If you wish to converse with me define your terms"
Voltaire

FLUFFYGERM posted...

McCarthy was ahead of his time. It's a shame he wasn't born in the age of the Internet so he could more effectively leverage his skills.

I actually keep a photograph of him in my wallet so that I can be reminded every day of what's at stake in this race.

You should probably seek help.
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"If you wish to converse with me define your terms"
Voltaire

FLUFFYGERM posted...

ScazarMeltex posted...

I have no problem with people renting out whatever they want to rent out. I'm also not a marxist. The problem is the system doesn't work out like that. Take for example what was going in Vegas a few years back when I was there talking to locals.

The used to be a law limiting the amount of properties an individual or company could own and rent out. It was something like 10 I want to say but don't hold me to that. Through lobbying they got the assembly to change it to where you could own 10,000. What happens? A few companies and individuals buy up all the properties (because they have all the cash) and rent them out at exorbitant rates. So now if you want to live there you have to pay the ridiculous rates and you can't buy a property even if you want to because the landlords are making to much money and they get to write off the properties that don't get rented out as a loss on their taxes.

When the systems is so heavily skewed the way it is in America, things are never going to work the way the capitalist fantasy claims it does, no more so than the marxist fantasy will function. There has to be a middle ground. For the most part Western Europe has found it economically and socially. Their issues with middle eastern migrants notwithstanding.

Except for a handful of extreme markets like NYC and San Francisco, that's not how broader America is at all. I live in Chicago and I can still find plenty of real estate I could buy if I wanted to rent it out at or below market rates in order to take market share from the big corporations that are in the area.

Being big has its disadvantages. That's why start-ups can end up disrupting entire industries of big players.

In any case, if you're not a Marxist then you don't need to defend the cheap Marxist deflection to "personal" property vs private property. Ultimately there's very little meaningful difference, and most Marxists would argue that renting out your "personal" property is wrong and violent exploitation.

I do need to defend it because it's intellectually dishonestly to pretend that there is no difference.
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"If you wish to converse with me define your terms"
Voltaire

I have no problem with people renting out whatever they want to rent out. I'm also not a marxist. The problem is the system doesn't work out like that. Take for example what was going in Vegas a few years back when I was there talking to locals.

The used to be a law limiting the amount of properties an individual or company could own and rent out. It was something like 10 I want to say but don't hold me to that. Through lobbying they got the assembly to change it to where you could own 10,000. What happens? A few companies and individuals buy up all the properties (because they have all the cash) and rent them out at exorbitant rates. So now if you want to live there you have to pay the ridiculous rates and you can't buy a property even if you want to because the landlords are making to much money and they get to write off the properties that don't get rented out as a loss on their taxes.

When the systems is so heavily skewed the way it is in America, things are never going to work the way the capitalist fantasy claims it does, no more so than the marxist fantasy will function. There has to be a middle ground. For the most part Western Europe has found it economically and socially. Their issues with middle eastern migrants notwithstanding.
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"If you wish to converse with me define your terms"
Voltaire

Something similar to this happened to my dad when he was in the hospital related to his esophageal cancer. The hospital was in his network but the Hospitalist doctors were not.
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"If you wish to converse with me define your terms"
Voltaire

FLUFFYGERM posted...

Giant_Aspirin posted...

FLUFFYGERM posted...

Giant_Aspirin posted...

oh okay. because "employee owned and operated" seems like it's the best of both worlds IMO. employees have a direct incentive to work hard and reap the rewards of said work.

Until someone works harder than someone else yet gets paid the same. So they end up leaving to start their own things where they retain more of their earnings.

competition is good

Agreed.

ScazarMeltex posted...

FLUFFYGERM posted...

Giant_Aspirin posted...

oh okay. because "employee owned and operated" seems like it's the best of both worlds IMO. employees have a direct incentive to work hard and reap the rewards of said work.

Until someone works harder than someone else yet gets paid the same. So they end up leaving to start their own things where they retain more of their earnings.

What fucking world do you live in where people who work harder than other people make more money?

That's usually how it works in skilled trades / labor. If you are better and you work harder/smarter, you can end up earning more money.

I'm going to ask you these honest questions. What do you do for a living? How much time do you spend with or around tradesmen or factory workers?
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"If you wish to converse with me define your terms"
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FLUFFYGERM posted...

Giant_Aspirin posted...

oh okay. because "employee owned and operated" seems like it's the best of both worlds IMO. employees have a direct incentive to work hard and reap the rewards of said work.

Until someone works harder than someone else yet gets paid the same. So they end up leaving to start their own things where they retain more of their earnings.

What fucking world do you live in where people who work harder than other people make more money?
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"If you wish to converse with me define your terms"
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Hey look at proudclad not knowing the difference between private and personal property when it comes to socialism.

Personal property or possessions includes "items intended for personal use" (e.g., one's toothbrush, clothes, homes, and vehicles, and sometimes money).It must be gained in a socially fair manner, and the owner has a distributive right to exclude others.

Private property is a social relationship between the owner and persons deprived (not a relationship between person and thing), e.g., artifacts, factories, mines, dams, infrastructure, natural vegetation, mountains, deserts and seas. Marxism holds that a process of class conflict and revolutionary struggle could result in victory for the proletariat and the establishment of a communist society in which private property and ownership is abolished over time and the means of production and subsistence belong to the community. (Private property and ownership, in this context, means ownership of the means of production, not personal possessions).

To many socialists, the term private property refers to capital or the means of production, while personal property refers to consumer and non-capital goods and services
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Nothing really wrong with their demands.
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Despite being a miserable bitch she isn't wrong here.
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"If you wish to converse with me define your terms"
Voltaire

clearaflagrantj posted...

ScazarMeltex posted...

Unpaid internships should be illegal. If you are doing work that someone is profiting from you should be paid.

Ban prison labor while we're at it

I agree. I have no problem with prisoners doing basic maintenance, cooking, cleaning and the like for the prison. But I also believe that for profit prisons should be illegal.
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"If you wish to converse with me define your terms"
Voltaire

FLUFFYGERM posted...

I was an undercover FBI agent at a communist meeting and overheard the commies talking about how Bernie wasn't radical enough to earn their support in 2020.

You can't even go undercover as sane 90% of the time, let alone as an FBI agent.
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"If you wish to converse with me define your terms"
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Unpaid internships should be illegal. If you are doing work that someone is profiting from you should be paid.
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"If you wish to converse with me define your terms"
Voltaire

For the last 12 hours I have done nothing but vomit and empty my bowels.
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"If you wish to converse with me define your terms"
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Anti-245 posted...

CADE FOSTER posted...

Eh tbh China also steals all our ip's and makes cheap rip offs fuck them

Nations do that all the time. The U.S. stole scientists from Germany before and after wwii as did the USSR.

They didn't steal them, they recruited them. Some of them were fucking war criminals.
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"If you wish to converse with me define your terms"
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KamenRiderBlade posted...

ScazarMeltex posted...

This is what happens when your national defense is entrusted to large corporations whose only real goal is turning a profit for their share holders.

We were worst off when we tried to source things in house and had horrible results from endless internal politics and bureaucracy.

You still have all the internal politics and bureaucracy, you are just paying more for it.
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"If you wish to converse with me define your terms"
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Questionmarktarius posted...

Sunhawk posted...

And, of course, by the end of WW2, he'd become so paranoid / unhinged that he thought all his generals were either incompetent, or "betraying" him. I guess he had to blame someone who wasn't himself.

Syphilis may or may not have been involved, depending on who you believe.

I've read a few books that speculated Parkinson's disease as well.
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Sunhawk posted...

I like the idea of Hitler's temper tantrums, when he would scream and shout, and - apparently - sometimes flop to the ground and chew on the carpet. Seems pretty ridiculous.

Heinz Guderian's memoirs talked a decent amount about that towards the end when he was Head of the General Staff and had to deal with him for hours everyday. The worst one was Hitler's idea to have guys armed with Anti-Tank rockets (Panzerfausts) ride around on bicycles and Guderian told him "no that's dumb" and Hitler literally threw a temper tantrum.
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Fossil posted...

Highwind07 posted...

I remember an article that I posted a few months back on how much the Air Force spends on simple things like a coffee cup for its pilots and it blew my mind on how frivolous the spending goes. Someone pointed out that there were many cases like that and it all had to do with connections and corruption.

That's true for all branches. Even simple things like parts for helos are nuts. Our contracts with certain companies need to be seriously reevaluated.

This is what happens when your national defense is entrusted to large corporations whose only real goal is turning a profit for their share holders.
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"If you wish to converse with me define your terms"
Voltaire

Sunhawk posted...

Wow, I didn't realise that. But it probably wouldn't change the overall "tone" much, which is probably a problem.

Also, did you really read it all the way through? I mean, I've read fiction books that were roughly 1,200 pages, but never a non-fiction book. Come to think of it, i don't think I've ever read a non-fiction book all the way through, even a 300 page book or whatever. But I like reading articles online, especially on Wikipedia. Is it worth reading all the way through, even if you already know a lot about the Nazi regime?

Yeah, it's worth it. It basically starts with the treaty of versailles and moves forward from there. The first quarter or so of the book is just the setting of the stage and the actual rise to the chancellorship. It sheds a lot of light on the politics of the time, and gets very detailed into the backgrounds of the major players. It gives great insight into the resistance movement within in Germany, both civilian and military. It also delves deep into German history as a way to set the stage for how such a regime could have come to power.
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"If you wish to converse with me define your terms"
Voltaire

Sunhawk posted...

I was down a bookstore again today, reading some of their German history stuff.

The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich is about 1,200 pages long, and the print size isn't even that big. I've read some it, but wtf @ the thought of reading the whole thing. Lots of little bits of information in there, very detailed stuff. I think that maybe the book lacks perspective, though, because it was released in the 1960s, only 15 or 20 years after the fall of the Third Reich, and historically speaking, I don't think that's long enough to really understand a huge thing...plus, the author wouldn't have been able to see as many of the consequences of the Nazi Era as someone writing such a non-fiction book in the last 10 years. The rise of the alt-right in Europe and North America, for example.

I've read it, it's quite good with very detailed information. It's been updated with new editions multiple times (like most historical texts) as new information is discovered.
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"If you wish to converse with me define your terms"
Voltaire

KiwiTerraRizing posted...

ScazarMeltex posted...

The best steakhouse that i've had in Vegas is Fix at the Bellagio. It's expensive but it's damn worth it.

The best no matter the price Ive had is SW at the Wynn.

But, I honestly cant say their steak is any better than BLT, just everything else.

I haven't eaten at SW, though from looking at the menu just now, price wise they look about the same as Fix. I may have to check it out next time we go out there.
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"If you wish to converse with me define your terms"
Voltaire

The best steakhouse that i've had in Vegas is Fix at the Bellagio. It's expensive but it's damn worth it.
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"If you wish to converse with me define your terms"
Voltaire

Sure beats the fuck out of punching a clock somewhere.
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"If you wish to converse with me define your terms"
Voltaire

RiderofHogs posted...

shockthemonkey posted...

RiderofHogs posted...

RchHomieQuanChi posted...

But I thought it was the Democrats that faked votes

What if it was actually the democrats that did this? Go out and collect ballots and then claim it was the other side.

Yeah what if it was the Democrats who committed voter fraud to help the Republican win?!?

Yeah, and then they pull the fraud card. Total false flag operation. These days I wouldn't put it past them to try something like that.

The dems aren't smart enough for that.
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"If you wish to converse with me define your terms"
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Damn_Underscore posted...

As soon as he died, people probably started digging through his history to find reasons to hate him. It's sad.

There were plenty of reasons to hate him without digging. IE he's a fucking war criminal.
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But....President Trump said it was democrats who committed voted fraud everywhere all the time, he would never lie to me.
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"If you wish to converse with me define your terms"
Voltaire

Comfy_Pillow posted...

Conflict posted...

Nobody "calls everybody nazis".

You haven't been here on CE very long.

Guy is wearing Nazi regalia, has social media accounts showing him sieg heiling and posing with other Nazi imagery.
"OMg y U CaLL HiM A nAZI"
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Voltaire

Final Fantasy V?
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"If you wish to converse with me define your terms"
Voltaire

Here i'll even help you.
https://tinyurl.com/y7zjzjdt
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"If you wish to converse with me define your terms"
Voltaire

Comfy_Pillow posted...

A_Good_Boy posted...

Bishop9800 posted...

Comfy_Pillow posted...

99% of people you guys call Nazis will never hurt anybody. You know that right?

You know that how?

He doesn't. Stats don't support his assertion at all.

Which stats would those be?

You and the other over sensitive types here have called hundreds of people Nazis in the short time I've been here. Haven't heard of hundreds of cases of Nazi attacks. Lord knows if they did happen you'd be posting about them nonstop

https://www.splcenter.org/20180723/terror-right
You'll find plenty there if you can be bothered to read.
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"If you wish to converse with me define your terms"
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Comfy_Pillow posted...

Tmaster148 posted...

I can only believe that the people who are offended by people who thinks Nazis should be punched are Nazis themselves.

Why would you believe people against violence over words are Nazis?

There is no reason to assault people who are not threats. Why are you guys so threatened by non-threats that you need to use violence when it's not necessary?

Nazism as an ideology is a threat. It's entire purpose is the "betterment" of society by the killing off of people who are seen as lesser.
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Voltaire

The goddamn final dungeon of Xenogears. Also Xenogears, the Tower of Babel.
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Voltaire

Ed Harris makes The Rock a good movie.
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"If you wish to converse with me define your terms"
Voltaire

Yeah I feel like Peterson could have benefited from reading Shirer's The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich.
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Voltaire

The working class is the middle class antifar, we've been conditioned to use the term middle class in it's place. A socialist such as yourself should know that.
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"If you wish to converse with me define your terms"
Voltaire

FLUFFYGERM posted...

ScazarMeltex posted...

You don't really spend any time around common working class or poor GOP voters do you?

I live in Chicago so no. And even if I did I wouldn't let my personal experiences change what is true about the population at a broader level, because that would be completely silly.

The majority of conservatives are not against "brown people coming to America" or whatever other reductive horse shit the left has come up with. That's just a leftist hot take designed to suppress criticism by dog-whistling about racism since they know that doing that is an effective way to get people afraid to talk about things.

Again, we deport and block a lot of Europeans from coming or staying here too. If you were right then that would not be the case.

That's pretty much what I thought.
Lower income and working class white voters make up the largest part (these groups also encompass the evangelical community) of the GOP base.The vast majority of them know nothing about European immigrants because they aren't being dog whistled to acknowledge them. I live and work with these people. They do not want non-whites coming into the country period. They know they can't stop legal ones from coming and "taking our fucking jobs" but they damn well jerk off to the thought of machine guns mounted on the border to kill anyone trying to come in illegally. Yet at the same time when asked if they would be ok with Canadians sneaking in they oppose it but the vehemence, zealotry, and desire for violence just isn't there. Stop being dishonest about it, that's all I ask. I'm not talking about you, your stance has reason and nuance, I'm talking about your party's base.
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"If you wish to converse with me define your terms"
Voltaire

FLUFFYGERM posted...

ScazarMeltex posted...

FLUFFYGERM posted...

ScazarMeltex posted...

Solar_Crimson posted...

Well, what inherently is wrong with migration?

White people get upset when not white people want to come to their country.

Uh when your government considers it a hate crime to criticize religion and millions of people of that religion are seeking to enter your country and you can't even say anything against it because you have no power over what your leaders do, that's definitely going to upset people.

But then again, aren't you one of those people who believes in open borders? IE letting everyone enter and go as they please without qualification.

No, i'm not. I have issues with the absurdity of making criticism of religion a hate crime and I believe that migrants should either accept the laws and culture of their new home or move along. We should also be making sure we aren't letting in potential terrorists or criminals. So long as that's in place I have zero issues with bringing in plenty of migrants. In fact I would be more than willing to trade a bunch of useless ignorant current citizens for them.

But you are intellectually dishonest if you don't acknowledge, that while you may have legitimate reasoned and academic beefs with the immigration system, the vast majority of the GOP base simply don't want brown people coming into the country because they are fucking brown. They haven't thought out the nuances of the situation, they've simply been dog whistled to embrace a view that coincides with their already existing prejudices. There is a reason that the confederate stars and bars flies quite freely among the anti-immigration crowd.

Conservatives are against illegal immigration. America has taken in something like one million people a year for a long fucking time. The problem is the people who inundate our nation illegally. We turn away people from Europe all the fucking time, so this narrative about how it's just "white people hating on brown people" is simply a really annoying leftist diatribe that has become repeated ad nauseum to the point where it's just a religious mantra.

I could easily make a similar reductive hot take about how "leftists hate white people" but that'd be so fucking annoying and stupid to do.

Taking in more people than your resources and people can support is immoral. If the people don't want it, then the leadership needs to bow to the people's will. Not to their own. End of story. If some European population doesn't want to be inundated with migrants, legal or illegal, it is their right to close down their borders.

And if the majority decides to allow it, that is also their right.

You don't really spend any time around common working class or poor GOP voters do you?
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"If you wish to converse with me define your terms"
Voltaire

WhinyZach posted...

It's a funny joke that you think skilled tradesman will be replaced by robots any time soon.

Yes i've seen videos of it.

I've been a contractor my whole life. You need to be human to do most of the stuff in the building.

I'm talking about skilled trades here, not guys that dig holes.

But when everyone has to get those skills because those are the only jobs available makes the value of your skills plummet, which is exactly the point. Then the employers can pay you next to nothing and if you don't want to accept it they'll give the job to one of the billion people who have those skills and doesn't want to starve.
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"If you wish to converse with me define your terms"
Voltaire

scorpion41 posted...

Leftists: Trump is a fascist and a wannabe dictator who wants to take away our rights!

Also leftists: Criticism of mass migration should be a punishable offense!

I mean damn...you cant have it both ways.

The UN is not a leftist organization.
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"If you wish to converse with me define your terms"
Voltaire

FLUFFYGERM posted...

ScazarMeltex posted...

Solar_Crimson posted...

Well, what inherently is wrong with migration?

White people get upset when not white people want to come to their country.

Uh when your government considers it a hate crime to criticize religion and millions of people of that religion are seeking to enter your country and you can't even say anything against it because you have no power over what your leaders do, that's definitely going to upset people.

But then again, aren't you one of those people who believes in open borders? IE letting everyone enter and go as they please without qualification.

No, i'm not. I have issues with the absurdity of making criticism of religion a hate crime and I believe that migrants should either accept the laws and culture of their new home or move along. We should also be making sure we aren't letting in potential terrorists or criminals. So long as that's in place I have zero issues with bringing in plenty of migrants. In fact I would be more than willing to trade a bunch of useless ignorant current citizens for them.

But you are intellectually dishonest if you don't acknowledge, that while you may have legitimate reasoned and academic beefs with the immigration system, the vast majority of the GOP base simply don't want brown people coming into the country because they are fucking brown. They haven't thought out the nuances of the situation, they've simply been dog whistled to embrace a view that coincides with their already existing prejudices. There is a reason that the confederate stars and bars flies quite freely among the anti-immigration crowd.
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"If you wish to converse with me define your terms"
Voltaire

Solar_Crimson posted...

Well, what inherently is wrong with migration?

White people get upset when not white people want to come to their country.
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"If you wish to converse with me define your terms"
Voltaire

So in this magical world where automation has taken over most low skill jobs and everyone has become educated and now has the skills to compete in this new world, the competition will still drive wages through the floor.
There will still only be some many jobs available. If everyone has the skills the do them that means that employers will be able to pay rock bottom wages and if you don't like it, well guess what, there are a few million other people out there with the same skills and a desire not to starve who will take your job.
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"If you wish to converse with me define your terms"
Voltaire

Kineth posted...

OctilIery posted...

Ehhh, trashy and racist as it is, you can't really equate the confederate flag with Nazis. They're on a whole different level

Neo Nazis in Germany use the Confederate flag because the Nazi flag is banned there. They're not on different levels and yes, you can equate them.

They are exactly the same. I live in missouri, I've never met a person who flex the stars and bars that hasn't been a fucking raging racist.
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"If you wish to converse with me define your terms"
Voltaire

Should be murder 2.
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"If you wish to converse with me define your terms"
Voltaire