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Originally posted by andrew777:
Warren Buffett is such a scumbag. The govt really should just confiscate all his assets and ship him to North Korea. Same with Soros.

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Nobody cares what you think, regardless of whether or not you're right.

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Originally posted by JoshSherman:
Nobody cares what you think, regardless of whether or not you're right.

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Overly harsh. I mean, if that's the case, why does any one post on MOTL other than to sell/trade.

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Originally posted by choco man:
Overly harsh. I mean, if that's the case, why does any one post on MOTL other than to sell/trade.

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Not at all. If I'd said it to you (or anyone else, really)? Definitely.

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Originally posted by JoshSherman:
Not at all. If I'd said it to you (or anyone else, really)? Definitely.

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Oh, I see.

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Originally posted by Volcanon:
The best part is when Fox News tried to call Warren Buffet a socialist.

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Hey, being socialist isn't bad!

__________________
#2 in posts from British Columbia!

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Originally posted by Mr.C:
Hey, being socialist isn't bad!

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Originally posted by JoshSherman:
Nobody cares what you think, regardless of whether or not you're right.

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Actually, based on how many replies my comment got, it would seem that a lot of people care what I think, yourself included.

I enjoy how hypocritical most of you are. A couple years back if somebody posted "I wish Bush would die" a bunch of people would cheer him on, but when somebody posts views you don't agree with you take the moral high ground and pretend to have values other than your own greedy interests.

Soros I dislike based on his politics as well as his pro-Nazi history.

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Originally posted by andrew777:
Actually, based on how many replies my comment got, it would seem that a lot of people care what I think, yourself included.

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It looks to me like Josh was just sticking up for Jazaray.

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Originally posted by andrew777:
I am a raging cockhole (see Josh's link)

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Holy balls, I thought you were just an opinionated, marginally informed, vitriolic person (qualities I find distasteful, but I understand how one can think like that and still be a decent fellow human being). I had no idea you were a bona-fide, objective soulless bastard. I apologize, I misjudged you. Turns out that independent of your political beliefs, you are a terrible person. Sorry about that!

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Originally posted by andrew777:

I enjoy how hypocritical most of you are. A couple years back if somebody posted "I wish Bush would die" a bunch of people would cheer him on, but when somebody posts views you don't agree with you take the moral high ground and pretend to have values other than your own greedy interests.

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That's not true; calling Bush and Cheney war criminals and saying they should be prosecuted--or calling them on their lies--is different from wishing them to die. And, as I recall, I was one of only a handful of members (IIRC, hammr7 and super*** were among them, although I believe that some of the threads are archived, so we could check if we had to) who were against the invasion of Iraq in the first place. Others gradually came around. The most heated rhetoric was actually on the other side (largely due to the effect of 9/11, I'm sure).

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Soros I dislike based on his politics as well as his pro-Nazi history.

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What Nazi history? The fact that he handed out deportation notices for the Jewish Council in Hungary when he was a kid? Last I checked, Jewish children in Axis territory weren't given much choice--irrespective of whether Soros warned the people he gave the notices to or not (which is what he claims, and there's not really any reason to doubt his account).

Or is it rather the fact that he's been critical of the policies pursued by Israel and the US? That hardly makes him a Nazi or a Nazi sympathizer.

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Buffett is a giant hypocrite. He goes on and on about taxing the wealthy, but he owes over a billion dollars in unpaid taxes. In my mind that makes him a scumbag.

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Even if that's true, it doesn't mean he's wrong. His argument stands independently of his character. Attack the argument, not the arguer. Attack the premises, not the conclusion. Anything less is bad argumentation, and doesn't constitute any kind of reasonable grounds for rejecting the argument.

__________________
"I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each. I do not think they will sing to me." -T.S. Eliot

RIP Ari

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"I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each. I do not think they will sing to me." -T.S. Eliot

RIP Ari

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Originally posted by Goaswerfraiejen:
If you've got an interest in the long-gun registry issue (and understand French), I highly recommend the podcast of today's episode of Maisonneuve en Direct when it goes up. Once again, it shows how empty and ideological the arguments of the abolitionists really are: nobody (including Tory ministers) against the registry seems capable of explaining exactly how it 'criminalizes farmers and hunters', how it 'seriously inconveniences' them, or how it's 'useless' despite expert testimony to the contrary. Too bad it'll be abolished and all the data destroyed anyway.

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Guess that's one state where I won't be looking for a job. Too bad; it's not like there are a whole lot of academic jobs to choose from.

__________________
"I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each. I do not think they will sing to me." -T.S. Eliot

RIP Ari

I went into this article with, I admit, an amount of scorn bordering on eye-rolling (especially because the plug on the cover was "why are obama's critics so dumb?" which is a terrible thing to put on the front page [newsweek has gone downhill ever since Tina Brown took over]), but there's a lot of good points made in it I think. Certainly made me re-evaluate my opinion of the man. Granted, there's still plenty to take issue with, including his failure to get the ball rolling in the other direction in the area of intrusive govt. power - the Patriot Act has strengthened, and the NDAA is a new can of worms to deal with - but a lot of the points raised seem spot-on, in the sense that I'd read and think "oh yeah, now that you mention it I guess he did do that, never really thought about it".

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Originally posted by Bugger:
And this is why I'm voting for Obama. Hard to believe it took until 2012 for us to have a president who can outright say the obvious on the issue. Sorry bigots, game over.

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Originally posted by speechjew:
And he just got a 10% lead on Romney

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At the cost of local and state-level offices around the country.

Don't get me wrong, I'm definitely on the "took you long enough" bandwagon, but Obama's stance on gay marriage had WAAAYYYY more to do with protecting democratic candidates across the country in smaller offices, rather than trying to keep himself in office. By taking a step off the fence, Obama gave the GOP ammunition to rile up their base for local and state offices, since every GOP candidate can now run on the platform of making sure "marriage stays a sacred institution, pledging to battle Obama on this issue, blah blah blah".

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Originally posted by Zeckk:

The cynic in me is just shaking my head, since Obama's declaration actually does nothing for the LGBT community in the long term. Believe it or not, Hollywood and individual interactions with gay role models do more for their cause than a politician ever could. All they have to do is bide their time until the older generation dies off, literally.

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Basically, this can be as big an issue as the Republicans want it to be. It doesn't endear Obama to the bigots, but most of them weren't going to vote for him anyway. It does, however, help entrench his support among moderates, some libertarians, and democrats themselves, by allowing him to point to his promises in the last campaign and his record (well, mainly just ending DADT). If Republicans make it into a serious federal election issue, they'll be shooting themselves in the foot. There's too much Republican hypocrisy, closeted homosexuality, and outright vitriol for it to end well for them so long as the Democrats are remotely electorally competent (which they are); they'll push themselves further right, and alienate most of the people they need to win (including their own moderates). Want an attack ad? Just show real footage of what they do to gay children (hint: torture) to try to make them straight. Better to stick to straight-up economic issues and Obamacare. Those will energize the base aplenty without risking stepping on the wrong side of a civil rights issue.

I'm glad a president finally took that step. It's long overdue. As Shadow88 observed, it helps to create a better atmosphere. Given the amount of public vitriol that targets homosexuals, it's really important to have big public figures step up and say that enough is enough. Frankly, I wish someone would just decide to make it a massive campaign issue, with an ad blitz and the whole caboodle. Not gonna happen, but I think it would do real good. Some of the rhetoric that I hear on the topic coming out of the States just makes me sick to my stomach.

__________________
"I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each. I do not think they will sing to me." -T.S. Eliot

RIP Ari

Really what having a sitting president explicitly support gay marriage does is legitimize it within our national dialogue. Yes, hollywood and others have an impact on cultural mores, but I'm pretty sure that equal rights for those of differing ethnicities didn't spring forth from the Jeffersons or the Cosby show.