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Walmart customers “unruly” after store closes, police called

The exceptions might do so, but expecting everyone to bootstrap themselves to riches when they have neither boots nor straps is cruel far beyond being unrealistic.

Nobody is bootstrapping to riches in one go but they can make their life incrementally better by just putting in the time and effort to do so.
 
I would usually write off a statement like this as hackery, but really, the Ayn Rand philosophy teaches the literal "virtue of selfishness." Liberalism is a collectivist philosophy, whereas modern conservatives favor individualism over the collective.

I would argue self importance falls under individualism, not collectivism. No responsibility to anybody but yourself is not collectivism, but more of an individualist mindset.

I am not going to argue these people are liberal or conservative. I am just pointing out the flaws in your post.
Individualism also promotes personal responsibility... One is responsible for ones own actions, individual politeness/class/golden rule all fall under this, otherwise you are viewed as rude/etc. and deserve whatever is coming to you.

collectivism promotes collective responsibility... a group is responsible for it's actions, i.e. Walmart, was infringing MY ability to shop when I WANT TO, and I am the collective because other people are mad too.... it's always convenient to be a part of the collective. The collective never minds putting blame on groups whatever it deems not right or advantaged... thus the individual is never to blame, but the collective blamed group is.
 
Yeah, you know I grew up what many would call a somewhat privileged childhood...Father that owned his own business, went to private schools, yet still managed to throw it all down the tubes, and take the hardest possible path....My Dad was very old fashioned, and as a result, when I made the choices I made, in his eyes, I was a man, so I was on my own...Still, even though I had some, hell, a lot of really tough times, I managed to catch on, and make a respectful living, own a home, and send my kids to college...It can be done....I learned when I stopped thinking that the world owed me something, I did better.

Whereas I did it the other way, I worked hard, I chose to go to a private school and I worked hard to pay for it myself. I went to college and paid every red cent of it out of my own pocket. I worked multiple jobs while going to school full time, I sacrificed because I knew what was important and I ended up being a lot better off than my parents ever were. It can be done because I did it. Of course, the liberals don't want to hear that...
 
Agreed. And I don't know if that's a viable option or not. I'm mostly here to just constantly poke, prod, and bitch about the current system.

Because you have no actual solutions of your own. :roll:
 
Yeah, you know those evil liberals who go around telling kids to give up on their hopes and dreams.

Hopes and dreams don't improve one's life, hard work, commitment and responsibility do. You can dream all you want, it isn't going to do a damn thing unless you get off your ass and make it happen.
 
Because you have no actual solutions of your own. :roll:

Right, because the ****ing free-market is all that is holy is a great ****ing solution. Don't roll your eyes at me.

Hopes and dreams don't improve one's life, hard work, commitment and responsibility do. You can dream all you want, it isn't going to do a damn thing unless you get off your ass and make it happen.

I'm doing fine, thanks.
 
Then why do you whine so much?

Where was I whining?

*Edit:

FYI, I wouldn't consider me pointing out your simple ideas about value and the free market to be just that, simple, to be whining.
 
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Where was I whining?

*Edit:

FYI, I wouldn't consider me pointing out your simple ideas about value and the free market to be just that, simple, to be whining.

I would, considering you seem to have no better ideas of your own. You're just complaining.
 
maybe you shouldn't use such boilerplate talking point blather, and you might get some better replies...

You made some talking points blather about SS 'going broke.' It need not, and it doesn't take anything near drastic changes to the program to keep it 'solvent' for 75 years or so. If you want to present some actual data or evidence for your talking point blather, I'll respond in kind. Deal? Great!

Contempt? not at all...Hell, I used to be the epitome of 'working poor'.... Hell, at one point the Church gave us Thanksgiving dinner, and that was all we had in the house...So don't tell me...Those "poor people" you speak of also have things like EIC's on their taxes at the end of the year, that all but ensure that not only do they get whatever they paid in income taxes back, but an additional couple thousand as the credit...So, in terms of net taxes paid, they don't, they in fact get money back, or more welfare if you will.

Yeah, it is contempt, or ignorance. First of all, nowhere near half the country pays negative total taxes. And if in any one year they did, many will later pay significant amounts in taxes, like you say you now do, so you're labeling half the country as freeloaders off the "producers" when you were for at least part of your life a parasite on the producers.

Furthermore, working women (generally) with kids get big EITC refunds, the rest of the roughly 10 million who can claim EITC get back some part of their payroll taxes, but don't get refunds or 'negative' taxes. And everyone pays sales, excise, property etc. If you have data showing half the country pay NEGATIVE total taxes, let's see it, and then we'll discuss how many of them are students, and will pay taxes very soon, or are poorer seniors who spent a lifetime paying taxes and now are living on generally untaxed SS etc.

It's a BS talking point....unless you have some evidence you'd like to cite to back it up.
 
I don't get it. How can we have a problem with single women with kids not making enough money and at the same time not have any sort of problem with people getting back more money then they pay in?
 
I don't get it. How can we have a problem with single women with kids not making enough money and at the same time not have any sort of problem with people getting back more money then they pay in?

I sorta agree.

I'd much prefer a higher minimum wage, the elimination of all forms of means tested welfare (including the EITC, food stamps, etc), and huge tax cuts on the bottom three income tax brackets (which would also provide a tax cut to the working rich). With the higher minimum wage and lower tax rates, lower income workers wouldn't really need for welfare, all they would need is to get a full time job.
 
I sorta agree.

I'd much prefer a higher minimum wage, the elimination of all forms of means tested welfare (including the EITC, food stamps, etc), and huge tax cuts on the bottom three income tax brackets (which would also provide a tax cut to the working rich). With the higher minimum wage and lower tax rates, lower income workers wouldn't really need for welfare, all they would need is to get a full time job.

Yea, its really kind of ridiculous the way we subsidize businesses that predominately employ low income workers. Raise the minimum wage, those businesses can adjust their prices to truly reflect the cost of their labor, and you can eliminate most welfare except for some basic services and unemployment.
 
Why do you think you're entitled to someone else's earnings? Because the government took your property to pay other people while you were working? Is that it?

From whose pay am I drawing? And for what purpose? And you don't believe in paying taxes to better your society?
 
Whereas I did it the other way, I worked hard, I chose to go to a private school and I worked hard to pay for it myself. I went to college and paid every red cent of it out of my own pocket. I worked multiple jobs while going to school full time, I sacrificed because I knew what was important and I ended up being a lot better off than my parents ever were. It can be done because I did it. Of course, the liberals don't want to hear that...

See, here's where the "hard work and responsibility" argument starts to unravel.

Did you make the choice to attend a private school, pass the entrance requirements, and get enough work to pay for it right after you sprung, fully functional, out of a test tube? Of course not. You had to LEARN how to work hard, and you had to LEARN responsibility. And at least in the beginning, someone had to teach you, didn't they? Most conservatives don't seem to have any idea how many children never get an opportunity to learn any of those things. They can't even conceptualize the world outside their social vacuum.
 
From whose pay am I drawing? And for what purpose? And you don't believe in paying taxes to better your society?

If your drawing from Social Security you're benefiting from those paying into it now. I would imagine you feel justified in drawing from it because it's something you feel you are owed. Not because someone owes you anything, but because you feel that you paid into it and thus it is something you are owed to receive. As for paying taxes to better society, no, I don't believe in it.
 
Well, I don't know that at all...It is behavior that drives redistribution. And further, I don't think it is nonsense at all. While I am all for helping those that are down, our current social welfare system is not only bloated, but inefficient at rooting out fraud. How long do you think a society can afford to take care of nearly half of its citizenry while they produce nothing?



SS is NOT a pension, and wasn't supposed to be ever. It was, as far as I understand, supposed to be a supplement to retirement savings. It has however, become many peoples sole retirement income, while the COLA goes up, the contributor pool decreases. Primarily because the investment involved only returns 1% or less over the course of years...We'd be much better off had we just put the money in the stock market and taken our chances...Oh, and don't give me that crap of the recent crash BS. The market has traditionally paid out over 8% even with the downturns.



No, the two are separate. Unless the government is investing in the stock market with our money, and only giving us the scraps...Which I know you know better...Try as you might Jet, you are projecting an anti capitalist screed that would in real world realization fail miserably....We may not have a perfect system in this country, but it is among the best in the world.



Maybe you need a shower?

I gave public knowledge about the cons and welfare over to you: apparently I was wrong. Not about cons and welfare, but about your take on public knowledge…

“Redistribution” is a poor choice of words and very misleading. No money is taken and the redistributed to the poor: that’s a communist idiom taken during the southern American revolutions; redistribution of land for instance. WE redistributed land after our Revolution ya’know. Yes, I agree that our assistance programs are bloated and we do give away too much money. And yes, the black market in this area is a real problem. I wish, that for my money, patriotic Republicans (cough) would spend more time and energy making all of aware of exactly what those problems are and designing plans that go after that kind of fraud instead of mind-screwing everybody with idioms like redistribution of wealth: that’s stupid and only shows malfeasance in Republican leadership.

No, SS is not a pension: I am drawing from a pension system and it’ll be some time before I can draw from SS. I used the pension system as an example; like SS that one pays into and can draw from, that does not suffer the slings and arrows of the outrageous stock market like 401Ks do. My ex mother-in-law worked for United airlines her entire adult life and lost the whole kit and kabootal when UAL had a problem. The only guys that made it were union members who had a pension. And no, she was not a union member and thought that unions were stupid up until the time she lost her ass. So, 8% you say? She got 0%.

As for SS and Wall Street; yes, the two are separate. Wall Street and its minions want to do away with SS under the cover of this “going broke” scenario. The everybody’s former SS payments will go into the market, where there are fees and bonuses… Yeah, you bet there’s a rat. And noooo, I’m not saying anything that could be construed as anti capitalistic, I just know a rat when I see one.
 
See, here's where the "hard work and responsibility" argument starts to unravel.

Did you make the choice to attend a private school, pass the entrance requirements, and get enough work to pay for it right after you sprung, fully functional, out of a test tube? Of course not. You had to LEARN how to work hard, and you had to LEARN responsibility. And at least in the beginning, someone had to teach you, didn't they? Most conservatives don't seem to have any idea how many children never get an opportunity to learn any of those things. They can't even conceptualize the world outside their social vacuum.

And why don't they have the "opportunity" to learn any of those things? Who isn't teaching them, and why is it my fault?
 
And why don't they have the "opportunity" to learn any of those things? Who isn't teaching them, and why is it my fault?

Lot's of reasons. Many of which have nothing to do with the individual. That's why us old timers used to say walk a mile in someone's shoes before you criticize that person. And when you are able to see possibilities, they don't really exist for you. I've known that blindness. It's not an easy thing to overcome. Impossible until the vision improves.
 
Lot's of reasons. Many of which have nothing to do with the individual. That's why us old timers used to say walk a mile in someone's shoes before you criticize that person. And when you are able to see possibilities, they don't really exist for you. I've known that blindness. It's not an easy thing to overcome. Impossible until the vision improves.

Oh, I thought it was so you would be a mile away, and have their shoes. :mrgreen: All joking aside, I see your point. I just wish people would learn to be more responsible and teach their kids these basic principles.
 
Oh, I thought it was so you would be a mile away, and have their shoes. :mrgreen: All joking aside, I see your point. I just wish people would learn to be more responsible and teach their kids these basic principles.


That would be what should happen in a perfect world. But that's not the one we have.
 
So you have never shopped at a discount retailer?

Time is money and Walmart is exactly what it is, a haven for the ignorant masses. If I ever go to a discount store it has been Target, but when I shop I demand assistance when I need it to locate an item. Ever ask for help from a discount store employee?
 
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