1. Yes, these are the people who want to have power over our lives. Imagine: this woman isn’t mourning the death of a human being, she’s angry because that human being can no longer serve her interests. The human being in question continued to work for the public long after she could have retired with dignity and comfort, and this woman is furious that she wasn’t physically able to do so “until 2021.” Not only that, she posted this repulsive video with no apparent comprehension that it exposes her as a horrible human being. She just assumes that most who share her political persuasion are just as incapable of empathy and compassion as she is. Maybe she’s right.
Again I must ask, “How do people get like this?”
***
Okay, I just stumbled on some timely satire. I generally hate memes, but this is genuinely funny. Forgive me.
2. Speaking of memes and The Great Stupid, what can you say about an adult who would post this on Facebook in all seriousness, as if it was profound or true?
If one thinks one’s Facebook friends have the IQ of lemurs (or better), one should worry about being mocked mercilessly for embracing the infantile view of reality conveyed by “Imagine.” Such an individual exists in such a low-information bubble that they are probably safe. Most of their social media friends are so addled that they probably think this is Truth. I know the poster well: she’s retired, a great-grandmother, cultured, well-educated, well-read, and absolutely impervious to any facts that don’t fit her ideological biases.
Signature significance: when I posted critically about D.C. holding that George Mason was unworthy of being honored or memorialized in the nation’s Capital, she wrote, “Who the hell is George Mason?”
The good news? Our educational system sucked long before now.
3. An almost ethical quote from the New York Times book review of Harold Holzer’s “The Presidents vs. the Press:”
Trump has become the punching bag for the contemporary press, and while he deserves many of his beatings, Holzer offers evidence that Barack Obama treated the press as poorly, only differently. Obama subjected reporters to the most invasive leaks investigations ever and intentionally concealed the workings of his presidency from public scrutiny, as top reporters attest. In one study of the Obama administration, the former Washington Post executive editor Leonard Downie Jr. wrote that its “war on leaks and other efforts to control information” were the most egregious Washington had seen since Nixon. The biggest difference between Obama’s contest with the press and Trump’s — questions of the vulgarian in chief’s style aside — was that Obama masked his enmity for the press with a smile whereas Trump broadcasts his loathing for all the nation to see.
True, but reviewer and liberal pundit—and maybe the book, I don’t know, as I haven’t read it—Jack Shafer, leaves out one salient, indispensable and inconvenient distinction between President Trump’s relationship with the news media and Barack Obama’s, making this a false and misleading dichotomy.
What is it?
(This should be easy.)
4. [RETRACTED: The article discussed is from a hoax site] Exactly how stupid is The Great Stupid? Just how freaky is the George Floyd Freakout? This essay is a big clue: at what other time in our history would an article titled “Why White People Owning Dogs is Racist” be published except in the weekly newsletter of Madam Lucille’s Home For The Bewildered?
The writer, we are told, is a lifelong conservationist who spends his time creating and disseminating educational materials for local schools that help kids understand why protecting animals and LGBTQIA+ rights is so important. Yes, they let people like him—you know, insane—indoctrinate school children. Here’s an excerpt:
If you are white and own a dog, you are openly participating and advocating for cultural appropriation and colonialism. Reinforcing this culture is NOT acceptable and will come with its repercussions. Dogs are and always will be the living reminder of how tainted our history is as a whole. POC deserve to exclusively own dogs as a form of restitution for their stolen ancestor’s work. Supporting the idea of white dog ownership is spitting on the grave of past POC generations.
The good news: all the comments were negative, the most thorough and trenchant being from the unfortunately named “Go fuck yourself”—imagine going though life with a name like that!—who writes,
God what horrid fuckshit this is,Shut the fuck up and think before you post
Oscar Wilde could hardly have said it better.
UPDATE: Reader Isaac led me to the other two articles on the site, which are clearly jokes. Nowhere on the site is it stated that it is a hoax site or that it engages in satire. The dogs post is not obvious satire; it’s not funny, and it’s no more ridiculous than a lot of genuine Black Lives Matter nonsense, the things Rep. Ocasio-Cortez says every other day, or the typical PETA press release.
Ethics Alarms 
#4 I rather suspect this article is a hoax. The article isn’t published under a real person’s full name. The name “United Wildlife Union” is redundant, and their website is nearly devoid of content – most notably the name of any real person, telephone number, or address affiliated with the organization. A search for their name reveals nothing but this website and a now-defunct Twitter account.
Hoax how? What’s the difference between an idiotic opinion piece and a fake idiotic opinion piece? Poe’s Law applies.
Well, for starters, an authentic but idiotic opinion piece would generally be traceable to a particular real individual, or at least a real organization.
I wouldn’t put my real name on that, would you? It’s on a website; I couldn’t care less about the organization. The only question is whether the thing is a ‘genuine’ stupid, race-baiting diatribe, or what, a false flag? If it’s a false flag, why wouldn’t the hoaxter pose as a black author? If the opinion is no more absurd than dozens of race-vilification pieces that are genuine, and it isn’t, why would the presumption be that it’s not sincerely idiotic?
I think it’s a comedic parody; the other articles on that blog are even funnier. But I’ve been burned both ways before, so I’m only 99% sure.
Well, you got me: the other two articles were obviously ridiculous, and satire, if incompetent. The one in question, however, isn’t obvious, for the reasons I cited, and the assholes have nothing on their page to suggest that its a satire or hoax site.
That’s unethical, as I’ve written here many times.
I, too, think it’s likely deep satire. Poe’s law may be operating here, but it, and a few other pieces ( https://unitedwildlifeunion.com/author/cayde-6/ ) by the supposed author are just too batshit crazy. The links in the dog article noted by Jack don’t actually go to anything supporting the claims made but just to a proposal by some academic to do a study on canine domestication.
Without some convincing confirmation, I call shenanigans on this one.
Well, never mind. Apparently while I was checking out #4 & composing a comment, the question was resolved.
2)OK, I’ll bite. No that doesn’t per se make you a communist, unpatriotic, or socialist. Nor does it per se make you a good person either. It may signify that you are a good-hearted person.
Wanting to take my money by force to gift others with ‘free’ health care or ‘free’ food? All right, now you are getting into the territory of communism, socialism, or unAmericanism. It definitely removes you from the ranks of ‘good’ people.
TANSTAAFL
The satire image with Biden is a GEM.
I am not a lip reader but I bet an audio overlay was done. The audio and video were way out of sync and some of the words could not be made with the way her mouth appeared forming the words heard
“It just makes you a good person.”
I’ve been trying to come up with rejoinders to the slogans on the Black Lives Matters lawn signs. I think one rejoinder, to “Love Is Love,” could be “Love Is Not Coerced.”
1. How do people get like this? How indeed. Where to even start? Lousy parenting is a good bet for part of it. Good parenting would teach that people don’t exist solely to serve your interest, that you don’t lose your temper like that, if you do, you don’t record it, and that, if you do THAT, you don’t release it publicly. Loss of the concept of shame is another. For a long time the left especially has pushed the idea that no one should be ashamed of what they say, what they do, or how they say or do it. Social media has amplified that, as anyone can post anything, no matter how rude, profane, or outrageous, and get a ton of likes, meaning they must be right, or at least a bunch of people agree with them. So why not ape Dan Savage and drop a million f-bombs to make your point? Why not threaten to burn things down if you don’t get your way? And why not shriek like a harpy when things don’t go your way and you’re just THAT angry? It’s not like anyone will shame you for doing it.
2. I just usually ignore stupid memes like that, or respond with one of my own. One stupid turn deserves another.
3.Hmmm, could it be that the press, with one or two exceptions, spent so much time kissing Obama’s ass that their mouths were full of his butt hair, while they have been warring on Trump like the Teutonic knights on the pagans?
4. The internet gives voice to the voiceless…and the brainless.
Re: #4. Why, you recited the answer verbatim!
2. As if anyone with any understanding of history would associate communism with plentiful food.
Re 2:
Profound? Arguably not.
True? Apart from the last line, yes, and even self evident.
But many, many people apparently think otherwise. In fact, that pretty much defines the Far Right. They say so themselves, proudly.
Last line – it’s necessary, but not sufficient.
That it is necessary leads to disturbing conclusions that discomfort me. I don’t want to believe that so many of those who I disagree with are complete assholes. Such a belief is dangerous, but I see no other conclusion.
I think I’m in the right place to get good,logical arguments against.
“Not wanting everyone to have healthcare and food makes you an asshole”.
True or False?
Sufficient, but not necessary. There are many assholes on the Left, to state the obvious. But most who are assholes say “everyone… except the reactionaries, the nazis…” rather than meaning everyone, without exception.
And yes, I know in practice resources are limited, so please take as read “up to a minimal standard, and above that to the extent it can reasonably be afforded without committing gross injustice”.
The thing is, who is obligated to produce these necessary things in sufficient quantity to ensure everyone to have a “minimal standard” allocated to them, if nobody is required to produce enough for themselves?
It’s easy, in a capitalist society of such bounty as ours, to look at the sum total of wealth produced and see that it would be more than enough to meet the basic needs of all. But that abundance is a direct result of people knowing they need to be productive to get by. We can skim enough off the top to remedy some of the hardship of the poor, but when everyone is assured a decent standard of living, nobody has any reason to produce it – for themselves, let alone anybody else.
Solid and succinct.
Not trying to be an asshole but to suggest that people do not want anyone to not have healthcare makes that person themselves an ass. I have never heard anyone state that X person should not be allowed health care or food. The issue is who pays for that health care. There is a huge difference between saying I don’t want to pay for care that could be prevented and saying I don’t want to pay for anything so let Darwinism eliminate the weak.
What exactly will be the minimal standard is what must be defined. Does it mean basic management of chronic illnesses or does it mean anyone gets what anyone else can get? This raises the question, at what point do the payers have a right to deny help to those bent on self destruction or are we bound to help them no matter how often they overdose or decide to perform feats of death defying activities for the adrenaline rush? Should we make purchasing cigarettes illegal for all those that cannot produce an “I make enough money to have health insurance card”.
We currently provide substantial free health care to all who present themselves at emergency rooms and Medicaid picks up substantial numbers of low income persons. Perhaps if we did not have to eat the costs of providing hundreds of thousands of dollars to treat each gangbanger with GSW’s or innocent victim of a violent crime hospitals could do more for those low income persons with diabetes and heart disease.
On the issue of food. SNAP programs or Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Programs, are designed to provide fundamental basic foods such as bread, meats, potatoes, vegetables and other foods that must be cooked. Instead convenience foods, soft drinks, and other empty calorie foods are purchased which leads to chronic obesity problems, diabetes, hypertension and other diet related problems. This problem for many is either caused by or exacerbated by the lack of quality food options in low income neighborhoods. It is a cycle. Any call to limit the choices recipients have is met with claims of racial animus or greed.
Many of us do not want to see good money thrown after bad and are working on ideas that attempt to correct many of the underlying conditions that lead to poorer health outcomes and subsequently higher health care costs. Sometimes providing guidance by permitting fewer or different SNAP choices at the market – it makes no sense to allow sugary drinks but to deny toilet paper or other hygiene items – will create conditions leading to improvements in their lives.
I don’t think the above is pithy enough to fit on a purely virtue signaling sign.
Re: #2 – I recently shredded an essay about how being a liberal makes you SO right, according, supposedly, to Ron Howard, but it wasn’t written by him:
I’m a liberal, but that doesn’t mean what a lot of you apparently think it does. Let’s break it down, shall we? (OK let’s do just that) Because quite frankly, I’m getting a little tired of being told what I believe and what I stand for. (So are we.) Spoiler alert: not every liberal is the same, though the majority of liberals I know think along roughly these same lines (Additional spoiler alert: we know, and we don’t think you’re all the same):
1. I believe a country should take care of its weakest members. A country cannot call itself civilized when its children, disabled, sick, and elderly are neglected. PERIOD.
That’s nice. Apparently every country in the world is uncivilized, then. Pretty much every nation, from the US on down, has some issues with taking care of those least able to take care of themselves. A lot of it starts at home with parents who shouldn’t have become parents because they’re not up to the task. It continues with elderly folks who didn’t make provision for their own retirement and whose families aren’t willing to carry them, It keeps going with those who don’t take care of their health and don’t do enough to get adequate care. The disabled have a tougher hand than most, but, except in the case of the really severely handicapped, they can do their best to do their part. The best way to not be neglected is to put yourself in a position where you don’t need to depend on someone else’s care, and the only one who can do that is you.
2. I believe healthcare is a right, not a privilege. Somehow that’s interpreted as “I believe Obamacare is the end-all, be-all.” This is not the case. I’m fully aware that the ACA has problems, that a national healthcare system would require everyone to chip in, and that it’s impossible to create one that is devoid of flaws, but I have yet to hear an argument against it that makes “let people die because they can’t afford healthcare” a better alternative. I believe healthcare should be far cheaper than it is, and that everyone should have access to it. And no, I’m not opposed to paying higher taxes in the name of making that happen.
First of all, show me where it says in the Constitution that healthcare is a right. I’ll save you the trouble. It doesn’t. Yup, Obamacare has problems, like being passed based on lies, as admitted by its own architect and a severely botched rollout, and that’s before we even talk about the bureaucratic nightmare it has become. There’s a reason that it only just avoided repeal because a now-dead senator, who didn’t vote for it the first time out, chose to make it his last big middle finger to a president who he hated. It’s not a binary system where it’s either increase this bureaucratic mess or let people die, that’s what we call a false dichotomy. If you want to live in a place with a national healthcare system, feel free to hop a plane to Europe or drive north to Canada, leave your American passport on the kitchen table on the way out. Have fun paying the much higher taxes there.
3. I believe education should be affordable. It doesn’t necessarily have to be free (though it works in other countries so I’m mystified as to why it can’t work in the US), but at the end of the day, there is no excuse for students graduating college saddled with five- or six-figure debt.
That’s just a platitude. The system here isn’t changing. There are just too many people’s interests tied up in making it necessary and easy to take out huge loans to pay for degrees from universities that have no reason to contain costs, where you’re mostly paying for the prestige and potential connections, not for appreciably better education. That said, feel free to endow a scholarship or two, or hop that plane to Europe I just talked about.
4. I don’t believe your money should be taken from you and given to people who don’t want to work. I have literally never encountered anyone who believes this. Ever. I just have a massive moral problem with a society where a handful of people can possess the majority of the wealth while there are people literally starving to death, freezing to death, or dying because they can’t afford to go to the doctor. Fair wages, lower housing costs, universal healthcare, affordable education, and the wealthy actually paying their share would go a long way toward alleviating this. Somehow believing that makes me a communist.
Unfortunately, when the government uses taxes to finance relief for those who can’t seem to get ahead, that’s what happens. When government gives to someone it must first take from someone else. That’s just how it works. Wealth doesn’t just appear from thin air. If you say you’ve never encountered anyone like this you’ve been moving in different circles than I have. I’ve seen the people can’t break off with alcohol or drugs and don’t really try. I’ve seen the people whose work ethic consists of “gimme, gimme, gimme.” I’ve seen the women who live in subsidized housing that everyone else picks up the subsidy for, collecting the welfare checks because they have three children by three different fathers and really very little in the way of marketable skills because they never really tried to acquire them. Your wish list sounds nice, but how about a workable proposal to make it a reality? Who decides what anyone’s fair share is? You? Who authorized you to decide that? If you want to decide it, may I suggest you consider a run for office?
5. I don’t throw around “I’m willing to pay higher taxes” lightly. If I’m suggesting something that involves paying more, well, it’s because I’m fine with paying my share as long as it’s actually going to something besides lining corporate pockets or bombing other countries while Americans die without healthcare.
Maybe you’re fine with paying more. That doesn’t mean everyone else is. BTW, taxes go to a lot more than stuffing corporate pockets and financing wars you consider ill-conceived, starting with entitlements.
6. I believe companies should be required to pay their employees a decent, livable wage. Somehow this is always interpreted as me wanting burger flippers to be able to afford a penthouse apartment and a Mercedes. What it actually means is that no one should have to work three full-time jobs just to keep their head above water. Restaurant servers should not have to rely on tips, multibillion-dollar companies should not have employees on food stamps, workers shouldn’t have to work themselves into the ground just to barely make ends meet, and minimum wage should be enough for someone to work 40 hours and live.
When you are running your own company, you make those decisions. Someone else might not see it that way. It isn’t for the government to impose your views about the way things should be done on others, at least not without a vote first. Companies are only one-third about giving their employees reasonable compensation. They are two-thirds about giving their customers reasonable service and investors a reasonable profit. If people are having to work three full-time jobs just to make ends meet it doesn’t mean society isn’t fair, it means they need to adjust their lifestyles or that they made bad choices. If companies aren’t paying employees enough, then the employees need to make themselves valuable enough to get a raise, or look for another job where they’ll be better paid. Restaurant servers know how it works, and if they don’t like it, they can move on, as most servers do. It’s called free enterprise, not everyone gets some minimum, and that minimum is enough that no one desires to do better.
7. I am not anti-Christian. I have no desire to stop Christians from being Christians, to close churches, to ban the Bible, to forbid prayer in school, etc. (BTW, prayer in school is NOT illegal; *compulsory* prayer in school is – and should be – illegal). All I ask is that Christians recognize *my* right to live according to *my* beliefs. When I get pissed off that a politician is trying to legislate Scripture into law, I’m not “offended by Christianity” — I’m offended that you’re trying to force me to live by your religion’s rules. You know how you get really upset at the thought of Muslims imposing Sharia law on you? That’s how I feel about Christians trying to impose biblical law on me. Be a Christian. Do your thing. Just don’t force it on me or mine.
– Most of us don’t think you want to do those things. Stop being absurd. The vast majority of us don’t give a damn what you believe or if you believe. Most of those of us who have a particular belief are quite content to leave you alone. Who’s trying to legislate scripture into law? Where? What passage is he trying to legislate? No one is trying to force you to live by any religion’s rules, although some of the laws that govern good order, taxing, you know, that aid to the poor you’re so hung up about, etc. happen to comport with some religious principles. The main problem we people of faith have is when those who have no faith look down their noses at us, insult us, offend us, or hurt us. So, maybe look to your own house and stop calling people of faith “religitards” and talking about “the sky fairy.” While you’re at it, I’d suggest you clam up about imposing beliefs until people like yourself stop bringing lawsuits about crosses on war memorials that have been around for almost a century without a problem or non-sectarian invocations you are free not to say “amen” to. For people who don’t believe and who think belief is silly, you spend an awful lot of time thinking about it. I’d almost think you were obsessed with it, or hated it. Nah, that couldn’t be, could it? Liberals never hate, right? You just pour deserved contempt on those who deserve it anyway.
8. I don’t believe LGBT people should have more rights than you. I just believe they should have the *same* rights as you.
– And I believe that those of us who don’t want to get involved in that sort of thing shouldn’t have to. If someone doesn’t want to bake the cake, or take the pictures, or arrange the flowers, or host the event, then find someone who does. Don’t bring a lawsuit to force them, and don’t go seeking out someone you know will say no just so you can bring a lawsuit.
9. I don’t believe illegal immigrants should come to America and have the world at their feet, especially since THIS ISN’T WHAT THEY DO (spoiler: undocumented immigrants are ineligible for all those programs they’re supposed to be abusing, and if they’re “stealing” your job it’s because your employer is hiring illegally). I believe there are far more humane ways to handle undocumented immigration than our current practices (i.e., detaining children, splitting up families, ending DACA, etc).
– Here’s a spoiler for you: if you’re here illegally, however you got here, you don’t belong here. That’s it. It really is that simple. It doesn’t matter if you overstayed a visa, or stowed away on a ship, or came here with your three-year-old in your arms in one of those “caravans” that somehow made it all the way from Guatemala or Honduras to the Rio Grande (which is about 1,500 miles) without running into too many problems. I have zero problem with people coming here legally, following all the procedures, and actually wanting to become productive citizens. I have a huge problem with people essentially jumping the line and crying oppression when we insist they do things the right way. BTW, a lot of the practices you decry went on under Obama, and never a peep did we hear from you.
10. I don’t believe the government should regulate everything, but since greed is such a driving force in our country, we NEED regulations to prevent cut corners, environmental destruction, tainted food/water, unsafe materials in consumable goods or medical equipment, etc. It’s not that I want the government’s hands in everything — I just don’t trust people trying to make money to ensure that their products/practices/etc. are actually SAFE. Is the government devoid of shadiness? Of course not. But with those regulations in place, consumers have recourse if they’re harmed and companies are liable for medical bills, environmental cleanup, etc. Just kind of seems like common sense when the alternative to government regulation is letting companies bring their bottom line into the equation.
– The bottom line IS in the equation. If it wasn’t, then the companies wouldn’t be doing anything, and they wouldn’t be generating wealth you can tax. And just who said you get to decide who can be trusted to do what? The government is supposed to protect people, which it does by enforcing standards. It is not supposed to run every aspect of their lives to make sure everything is safe. It is supposed to trust people to at least some degree. That’s why there is a certain level of privacy that people have recourse to and the government can’t just show up and look over your shoulder without saying why. Honestly, this sounds like double talk – I don’t want the government’s hands in everything, but I don’t trust people making a profit – so you DO want the government’s hands in everything, you just want to justify it.
11. I believe our current administration is fascist. Not because I dislike them or because I can’t get over an election, but because I’ve spent too many years reading and learning about the Third Reich to miss the similarities. Not because any administration I dislike must be Nazis, but because things are actually mirroring authoritarian and fascist regimes of the past.
– Wait a minute here. Full stop. If you think there are many similarities between the Trump administration and the Third Reich then you must be reading some different history than I did. The Nazis closed churches as well as synagogues, created a secret state police with sweeping powers, made Germany into a national rather than a federal state, broke multiple treaties, allowed one sector of society to be abused while the emergency services stood back and did nothing, demanded loyalty for all practical purposes at gunpoint, and, hmmm, there’s one other big thing they did, but it’s just not coming to me right now, let me think…Oh yes, that little thing called the HOLOCAUST. I haven’t seen the current administration do any of those things. If anything, it’s the liberals who are talking about trashing the Constitution (kill the electoral college, stack the Supreme Court). It’s also those liberals who call themselves antifa who go around beating up those who disagree with them. Not to mention the liberals were pretty darn close to nominating a Communist sympathizer for president. Don’t call the current administration fascist and expect us not to call you borderline Bolsheviks.
12. I believe the systemic racism and misogyny in our society is much worse than many people think, and desperately needs to be addressed. Which means those with privilege — white, straight, male, economic, etc. — need to start listening, even if you don’t like what you’re hearing, so we can start dismantling everything that’s causing people to be marginalized.
– That’s nice. Some folks probably even agree with you. Some of us don’t though. Some of us think this society has come a lot farther than you think it has, and that these allegations of privilege are just another way of dressing up the old conflict of the have-nots vs the haves. Maybe we’ll listen to what you have to say. However, maybe we won’t, because a lot of us have heard it already, several times. Maybe we will dismiss it. Maybe we will say no. Maybe we’ll fight our corners. Despite what you might think, privilege is not a magic word that will cause anyone you aim it at to hang his head like a Victorian-era servant being scolded by his betters, “Yes mum, no mum, won’t happen again, mum…”
13. I am not interested in coming after your blessed guns, nor is anyone serving in government. What I am interested in is the enforcement of present laws and enacting new, common sense gun regulations. Got another opinion? Put it on your page, not mine.
– I’m putting it here. You want to go unchallenged, then keep to talking about your kids and the weather. You post a narcissistic rant about your thoughts on everything, you get challenged. Your assertion is nice. But it’s only partially true. You don’t want to come after guns. You want to send someone after guns on your behalf. There are over a thousand laws on the books regarding the regulation of firearms. There are probably just as many about recreational drugs and immigration. You can see for yourself how well those are working. What makes you think that a government that can’t stop either of those things can keep all guns out of the wrong hands? The thing is that you liberals think that almost no one’s hands are the right hands. Still, if you think you can change things, feel free to see if you can get 2/3 of Congress or 3/5 of the states to agree with you.
14. I believe in so-called political correctness. I prefer to think it’s social politeness. If I call you Chuck and you say you prefer to be called Charles I’ll call you Charles. It’s the polite thing to do. Not because everyone is a delicate snowflake, but because as Maya Angelou put it, when we know better, we do better. When someone tells you that a term or phrase is more accurate/less hurtful than the one you’re using, you now know better. So why not do better? How does it hurt you to NOT hurt another person?
– I don’t. I think it’s control masquerading as politeness. What makes you think that someone else knows what phrases are more accurate or less hurtful than what I choose to use? What’s more, what makes you think you have the right to correct another adult’s way of talking? Where I come from, THAT’S what’s called rude. Your own name is one thing, I’ll call you whatever you want, but if I want to say Oriental and you want me to say Asian, too bad. I grew up saying it, it was fine then, it’s not a deliberate insult, and I’m not going to stop saying it because it’s no longer the flavor of the month. I’m still going to use the generic male pronoun and not say the clunky “his or her” every damn time. I’m still going to say fireman and congressman and fisherman, although I’ll probably say cop rather than policeman because it’s shorter and quicker. If you don’t like it, I really don’t care, unless you’re signing my paycheck.
15. I believe in funding sustainable energy, including offering education to people currently working in coal or oil so they can change jobs. There are too many sustainable options available for us to continue with coal and oil. Sorry, billionaires. Maybe try investing in something else.
– No, that’s not how it works. You don’t get to put a whole sector of the energy business out of business with a flip statement that you’ll teach them to code, and you don’t just get to sneer and say invest someplace else. This statement is the height of arrogance.
16. I believe that women should not be treated as a separate class of human. They should be paid the same as men who do the same work, should have the same rights as men and should be free from abuse. Why on earth shouldn’t they be?
– Women sometimes get treated differently because they ARE different from men. That’s just a biological fact, and aren’t you liberals supposed to be all about the science? They should be paid as much as their employer decides they are worth, same as men. They do have the same rights, unless someone shredded the Constitution while I’ve been writing here. Everyone should be free from abuse, but they won’t be, because sometimes people just treat one another badly, and that’s just a fact of human nature, so we’re stuck with enforcing the criminal laws.
I think that about covers it. Bottom line is that I’m a liberal because I think we should take care of each other. That doesn’t mean you should work 80 hours a week so your lazy neighbor can get all your money. It just means I don’t believe there is any scenario in which preventable suffering is an acceptable outcome as long as money is saved.
Copy & paste if you want.
– Oh, that MORE than covers it. This last statement is Authentic Frontier Gibberish. The bottom line is that you’re a liberal because you think you have a lock on everything that’s good, and you think everyone else should do as you say because you have that lock. Well, some folks may be persuaded, but I’m not. Have a nice day.
Only by defining racuism and misogyny past the point of incoherence. Clck here
http://groups.google.com/g/talk.politics.guns/c/1q_VILz3TQc/m/ZKzsl703BQAJ
Note that the bottom right of the meme has the word RobinHoodTax.
#2
I’ve seen that one and similar ones that say the same kinds of things on Facebook many times and my typical response is…
I had what turned out to be a really obnoxious social justice warrior activist theatrical “friend” unfriend and block me on Facebook because I made that exact statement on that exact meme. I copy and save all my conversations with contentious Facebook friends so I’m quoting this one exactly.
1: “Again I must ask, “How do people get like this?””
Somewhere, maybe not in this thread, I thought I saw a commenter say something about the audio and video being out of synch. I checked YouTube last night, and found this same video (which had one extra shriek of some words in it, before the lady’s performance we can view above, followed by a few seconds of eye-rolling by some kind of ghoulish puppet-thing). In this video, the audio and video were in synch.
I am starting to suspect that the whole performance we see here is just an act. It might even be a…what’s it called?…a “false flag” operation. (?) In any case, anyone driving a car, while being sincerely as upset as that lady appeared, ought to have better sense to stop, if not completely take the car out of traffic, before throwing a tantrum like that. The fact that the lady shown went so drama-queen-y while at the wheel is just too hard to trust as authentic or “candidly camera-ed.”
This “meltdown” is just like the poor, “victimized, brutalized” lady who I saw in one of the many TV broadcasts of confrontations between cops and “protesters” over the past few months. Some lady on the front line of a mob was hurling insults and might have even sprayed (or spit) something at one of the cops. A cop TOUCHED her, in no obviously “brutal” way, while he stood shoulder-to-shoulder with a line of cops that was coaxing the mob to back-up a bit – a VERY reasonable and proportionate “use of force.” The lady jumped and jolted and writhed and screamed as if she had just had her eyes gouged-out with a hot poker. Poor little snowflake.
Aw, sh!+! I just now saw Chris Marschner’s comment directly below mine, “15h ago.” So now the question becomes, did a video-doctorer doctor the video further? It only increases my suspicion of the authenticity of the lady’s true passion and motive.
Sure, people freak out like that; it was only a little over a week ago that we heard reactions of people on the streets of New York watching the planes fly into the World Trade Center. But I still can’t believe this lady we see here would express all that passion and accompanying body language with sincerity while maintaining such a relatively un-contorted face. History’s world gross output of botox could not smooth a person’s face who is truly THAT upset.
If she is really like that, she would be hell to read for feedback in the act of whoopee-making!