Whats up faggots.

[kthx]

Also you are right Qan, it is pretty shitty that companies like Wal-Mart and others rely on basically federal subsidies to provide the missing income to their employees and abuse the system like that, while purchasing most items from out of country. It is disgusting, but Wal-Mart shouldn't be the pinnacle of anyones working career, it should be a shitty job you work at until you find something better to do or find what you are good at in your life, or even when you are done working and just need something to do after retiring. But for every walmart there is also a company like CostCo that pays their employees well and treats them better. CostCo does better because their employees are happier working there, people hear that they treat their employees better and choose to shop there more. That is free market capitalism working properly, the problem is that Walmart is so huge that it can bulk purchase items and have insanely low prices that bring in low income shoppers. It really is a complicated matter and you can't really have the government step too much into that without causing a giant problem. Walmart will get whats coming to them but I don't expect it to be for another 40-50 years thanks to their previously accumulated earnings.

[kthx]

The problem is today kids treat everything like new age gangbangers where there is no class, no pulling your punches, and complete and utter destruction of your enemy being your main goal. Jerome seems on edge today likely from craving some sort of drug but even he is one of the old school type people. I would like to think that we are more like rival families in the mafia instead, we can still show some class and dignity while working against each other. Its a dying breed unfortunately. People need to learn how to pull their punches or they risk looking insane.

[qan]

these people will look at the president who started it as well as trump, who due to his mean-girls-esque tweeting has been upgraded from brain-lesioned cheetoh goblin to a full-on messy bitch who dont need no man. i dont think young folks are going to look around at a country shaped by two decades of republican shitposting and come away thinking conservatism is a good thing

Don't forget how eagerly Obama continued the War on Scariness, along with Clinton as Sec of State. The drone strikes ramped up under Obama, he never closed the deeply anti-American Gitmo where anyone can be held without charge indefinitely, and he was happy to continue to prop up CIA's ISIS to keep the military-industrial dollars coming in. The guy was a creep and a disingenuous swindler, much like his model, Bill Clinton. To not pin any blame on him for the state of the US is really irresponsible.

I am afraid this is what college does to you, I of course had my rebellious moments when I was younger about America. But as I got older I realized that we have it pretty fucking good and people need to stop whining about the stupidest shit like changing the fundamental values of the country.

It's not just about whether things are good or bad for you personally. I agree -- we shouldn't so easily change the fundamental values of the country. We used to believe in fair pay for fair work, not $8/hr and people requiring government subsidies just to get by. There's a big change. When the minimum wage was created it was intended to keep pace with inflation. Should be about $21/hr right now. Or here's a big change -- charging people when they can't afford health insurance! How despicable can you get?

One very important American value is of course freedom of expression, but with that, generally showing respect for other people. Not thinking that because you've got the right to say it, you should. Having some human decency. The lack of respect people show for one another is just shameful. Especially between the red team and the blue team these days ("LIBERALS ARE SUBHUMAN SCUM" "ALL REPUBLICANS SHOULD LITERALLY KILL THEMSELVES"). And the egotism ... GOD, the egotism. Americans have always been fairly assertive, but we used to have some humility. Now the country's full of divas who are all shining stars in their own personal dramas. Everyone's got to have a sarcastic comeback, as if they're a sitcom character. We're all heroes, we're all special, we've all got our bling, everyone else is trash, worship me, I'm god. It's shameful, it's deeply un-American. I'd like to get back to a country that's hard-working, humble, resourceful, thoughtful, is immune to being triggered, has a sense of humor about itself, and isn't keen on being World Police.

[kthx]

I am afraid this is what college does to you, I of course had my rebellious moments when I was younger about America. But as I got older I realized that we have it pretty fucking good and people need to stop whining about the stupidest shit like changing the fundamental values of the country. I would say Jerome has to be closer to 35 than 30 assuming he is around my age, and he went to college and became a socialist, got out of college and joined a socialist superfun club, grew out a rats nest of a beard, and still does physical labor for a living even though he could probably get a job somewhere at a campus teaching the idiotic shit he teaches. College should prepare you to grow up, not brainwash you into being a middle aged antifa socialist. Voth is right.

[Voth]

all due respect, jerome, do you require a "safe space" right now?


i'm pretty sure you must be pushing 30, if not already there, and yet you still sound like a complete bonehead screaming foul and breaking windows at the college in Berkeley.

[kthx]

That is the worst bait I have ever seen Jerome, I don't use that word personally.
https://www.reddit.com/r/4chan/comme...ribes_a_photo/

[Jerome Scuggs]

Man, that furious Jerome multiposting was terrible, as the sea captain would say "argh not a looker in the bunch" you know. Also, Jessup was ruined by eating too much soy, someone tell him he should sue big soy.

its kind of crazy honestly, like i have a thought in the afternoon and then because my thinking is reality-based, as i go through the day articles and papers are published that either add weight to something i've been pondering, or like yesterday, flesh out something i'm actively thinking about. so yeah i post multiple times in a row and i guess my intimidating style might be interpreted by the meek as "furious"

like today i realized now it's 2018, meaning that in about a year we're going to see the first wave of people turning 18 who were born after 9/11. some of these 18-year olds will join the army. some will wind up in afghanistan. some will die. in the name of a war they weren't even around to see starting. these people will look at the president who started it as well as trump, who due to his mean-girls-esque tweeting has been upgraded from brain-lesioned cheetoh goblin to a full-on messy bitch who dont need no man. i dont think young folks are going to look around at a country shaped by two decades of republican shitposting and come away thinking conservatism is a good thing

this thread is a gr8 place where i can 1) ruminate on these subjects 2) watch you slowly smolder & bide my time until you inevitably slip and call jessup a ******

[Jerome Scuggs]

Man, that furious Jerome multiposting was terrible, as the sea captain would say "argh not a looker in the bunch" you know. Also, Jessup was ruined by eating too much soy, someone tell him he should sue big soy.

http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer...etirement.html

do do do do do

another one bits the dust

[kthx]

Man, that furious Jerome multiposting was terrible, as the sea captain would say "argh not a looker in the bunch" you know. Also, Jessup was ruined by eating too much soy, someone tell him he should sue big soy.

[Zeebu]

pscht, likely story

[qan]

Qan I love you but saying that their are very few differences between the left and the right in the usa is ridiculous. Sure we eat, breath and poo the same but that is about where the similarities ends. The very core belief systems are different amongst them with far reaching implications in society and the world as a result of these personal stances.

Well, to put it a better way, there's little meaningful difference in terms of who they choose to elect. And there are many people who vote for Democrat candidates/are registered as members of the US Democrat Party -- a fairly far-right party, by anyone's reckoning -- and yet inexplicably identify as leftists. They might claim the "lesser of two evils" defense. But the idea of voting for one candidate to prevent the other's election is a cancer on the republic, every year further driving down the standards. I've even heard that some people who consider themselves leftists voted for Clinton as a vote against Trump, when Clinton's not just slightly but significantly further right than Trump is! Bizarre stuff.

There are differences between the left and right in some respects, but mostly belonging to the left or right in the US means supporting status quo economic and foreign policies, and then advocating for a set of liberties that have been determined to be acceptable to your particular group, i.e., identity politics.

Whether or not the ever-popular and profitable "kill brown people for ca$h and then rebuild for exorbitant amounts while ironically shorting domestic infrastructure" Program(tm) should remain in effect, for example, is not something that is debated, or, indeed, that most people are even aware of. Near-unanimous passage of the 2018 defense budget, raising it another $60,000,000,000, ensures this healthiest portion of the US economy will continue its work "protecting" citizens from the War on Scariness. (Oh, and for the 2 people who don't already know, Terrorism Spoiler alert: the US runs ISIS. A constant state of unending, low-level war is an absolute economic necessity, and the best way to ensure it continues is to be on both sides of it, like Catch-22's Milo Minderbinder. Hey, Oceania has always been at war with Eastasia. Or itself. Who cares?)

In short, anything that's actually important is not up for discussion, and you're left free to divide into opposing camps based on whether hate speech should be a crime, if transgendered folks can use the bathroom of the gender they identify with, if abortion should be legalized or guns allowed to be owned by private citizens. Not that those issues are without meaning, but they pale in comparison to the bigger picture. The for-profit media will work us up over relatively minor points unlikely to change, no matter how many enraged social media posts we slaves make, and at the end of the day we are left with a feeling of having done something meaningful, when in reality we've just exhausted ourselves in petty squabbles precisely so that we will be unable to do anything of any meaning or consequence.

[Jerome Scuggs]

less specifically but still relevant is of course the "boy who cried wolf" effect, for 20 years conservatives have been saying that universal healthcare and fire departments are 0% different than like, cold-war era soviet russia. young people haven't been raised to shit themselves whenever someone says the word "stalin" and so trying to scare them with the same tired old arguments is not only losing its effect but perhaps even backfiring

oh and also these beautiful youth aren't callous dumb assholes, they read shit like this (https://www.healthaffairs.org/doi/10...haff.2017.0767) and feel like we can do more than thoughts, prayers and kickstarters (seriously, how fucking sad is this: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/artic...r-crowdfunding)

[Jerome Scuggs]

Qan I love you but saying that their are very few differences between the left and the right in the usa is ridiculous. Sure we eat, breath and poo the same but that is about where the similarities ends. The very core belief systems are different amongst them with far reaching implications in society and the world as a result of these personal stances.

nah, qan is pretty spot-on

check out "the overton window"

the democratic party is basically republicans who also think that gay & trans people should be allowed to do things like bomb foreigners & become unaccountable billionaires

basically the political process for quite some time has been a cycle where republicans say something insane, and democrats shift ever-so-slightly right in the form of "compromise", and through the constant "compromising" and weakness, have lost alot of qualities that initially set them apart

[Jerome Scuggs]

specifically not economic libertarianism because the younger generation is growing up in this economy: http://dataspace.princeton.edu/jspui...b933/3/603.pdf

less specifically but still relevant is of course the "boy who cried wolf" effect, for 20 years conservatives have been saying that universal healthcare and fire departments are 0% different than like, cold-war era soviet russia. young people haven't been raised to shit themselves whenever someone says the word "stalin" and so trying to scare them with the same tired old arguments is not only losing its effect but perhaps even backfiring

[Jerome Scuggs]

specifically, social libertarianism as opposed to economic

specifically not economic libertarianism because the younger generation is growing up in this economy: http://dataspace.princeton.edu/jspui...b933/3/603.pdf