rkbabang

Take cover! You keep talking like that you might accumulate as many people blocking you as already block me. Philosophy matters, but most people like to pretend that it doesn't. Mostly because they have not given much thought to the underlying philosophy at the base of their beliefs. A libertarian starts out with a philosophy and derives his policy from it (communists & real socialists do this as well), but most people just have a mish-mash of policies they support with no philosophical basis for why they feel that way. (notice I said feel not think). There is no reason that someone who is pro-abortion rights need to be anti-gun rights for instance, but we are told by the 2 party system that those go together.

The fact that poverty in India is much worse than poverty in USA does not subtract from issues of poverty in USA. Yeah, I would rather alleviate poverty in India and other super poor countries. Yeah, I mostly donate for charities outside USA. But rich rightwingers like people in previous messages who casually dismiss US poor likely haven't seen their living conditions either. It's very easy to dismiss US homeless who die in the streets as mentally unstable or addicts. A lot of them are, but there are numerous examples of normal people who lose their mobile houses (haha, let's perhaps read about BRK's Clayton again), have no employment, are buried in debt, and have no money for medicine or other necessities. Should we read about Flint again? Should we read about native American reservations? It's always possible to blame them as clearly they've had much better opportunities than people in India, but that's the common practice of blaming the victim. No one disputes that there are people out on the tail who really are in need, but throwing around numbers like 42 or 47 million is not even close to reality. The numbers of such people are very small. The fact is that those 47 million are taking resources from very few who are truly in need.

Tim you are absolutely correct. There are a few mentally ill people living on the streets because they refuse to go to the homeless shelters and get help, but for the most part no one in America is poor by historical or even current 3rd world standards. It is quite extraordinary that there are 350M people and no one is starving, even if they refuse to lift a finger to be productive or help themselves. In fact the poorest among us regularly consume too many calories not too few, while playing video games on their large screen TVs in their temperature controlled homes. We have such phenomenal abundance of wealth that it is insane what seems poor to us. I'm sure a truly poor child in Haiti would be quite amazed at the wealth of those "47 million Americans living in poverty" that rb talks of.

"Fraud is not a trade secret" WSJ: Theranos Whistleblower Shook the Company—And His Family

Not bad. Not good either. He'd like the government pay a bunch of people to dig holes so that they can fill them back in again. I know he said "hopefully in a productive way", but that is a utopian dream that I wouldn't bet on.

An interesting take on it. http://rare.us/story/how-president-trump-will-make-politics-better-for-gay-americans/ "Trump is the first president in US history to enter office supporting gay marriage... Obama didn’t embrace same sex marriage until 2012, reversing his earlier opposition. “I believe marriage is between a man and a woman. I am not in favor of gay marriage,” Obama said in 2008. Hillary Clinton didn’t embrace same sex marriage until 2013, reversing her previous opposition."

Nightmare scenario for the secret service. Securing a few block radius of Manhattan. Maybe they can build him a replica in the Whitehouse as part of the infrastructure project. Just demolish that old fashioned white hut and build a proper White Tower there. Well, with golden T on top. Well they do need more office space the the WH. 8) It would make it easier to hit with a plane though, you have to keep that in mind. Maybe that isn't a bad thing, though now that I think about it. It is better than the terrorists targeting innocent people.

The "T" is a capital letter, but only because he wrote it in all caps and there is no apostrophe before the "s", so I doubt he means "I love Trump's hate". He shouldn't have wrote it in all caps. Capitalization is important and all caps is unclear. It is the difference between "I helped my Uncle Jack off a horse." and "I HELPED MY UNCLE JACK OFF A HORSE".

So you are saying he is trying to kiss up to POTUS or he is reconciling himself to a very sad event. I am saying people have a choice on how to deal with the turmoil going on in their heads. Ackman chose acceptance and a positive path forward. Others, like these, alt=Image result for trump street protestshttp://images.indianexpress.com/2016/11/election-protests-tex_kuma759.jpg[/img] chose to continue a fight with the monster they hallucinate Trump to be. "Love trumps hate" Who knew that would involve so much violence and vandalism? Not to mention the unkind things being said.

So much for that: http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/n-kkk-group-hold-victory-parade-donald-trump-article-1.2868491 I know this week has been dragging on slowly, but four years has yet to pass. lol, And the latest. PE apparently likes to sleep in his own bed at night. During the campaign he would fly home at night so he could wake up in his own bed in Trump tower, hence the evening rallies. He wants to know how many days per week he has to stay in the Whitehouse. I know alot of 70 year olds who are like that. Oh, the laws of unintended consequences..... I like to sleep in my own bed at night too, that is why whenever I move I bring my bed with me to my new home.

I know. It makes me want to weep. In the past, you've implied that humanity needs to evolve socially to reach a better place for everyone, and I'm right there with you. Human nature is broken. We need to get beyond the "us" and the "them". I wrote that when still in horror after clicking on that link. I'd like to rephrase that to "some people suck". I agree with you the "us" and "them" needs to go, we are all human beings, but I do believe that most people at least mean well and that the worst racists and bigots are a small and shrinking percentage of our society. At least that is what I want to believe. But the bottom of the barrel is really awful to behold.

So much for that: http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/n-kkk-group-hold-victory-parade-donald-trump-article-1.2868491 I know this week has been dragging on slowly, but four years has yet to pass.

Just keep on whacking that straw man. Nobody's wanted equality since Lenin. What people want is low enough inequality that the poor don't rise up and shoot the rich, but instead have the income mobility to rise up and become the rich. If an ideal means the violation of rights and destruction when consistently implemented, why would you want to implement it to any degree at all? It's silly to think that people will rise up if there's inequality. They will rise up if they perceive inequality as unjust. They will be happy with inequality if they think it's just. And earned inequality that results from freedom is just. I agree. Of course there will always be some who think they are entitled to what other people have worked hard for simply because they have been born and draw breath, people who let envy get the best of them, and those who play on the envy of others to obtain political power, but hopefully those will always be the minority. Envious people don't scare me as much as those who wish to use them as a base for power.

Let me help you with this. Electing an openly racist and sexist president matters. It changes the culture of the nation. That might not impact white males, but it can make a real difference in the day-to-day life of minorities and women. This twitter feed has a few (well, fifty), examples. To me, this is very worrisome. People suck.

Yes I love this year. First Brexit now this. Next up Europe please? I'm hoping for the secession movements to really pick up some steam. The US: CA: http://www.yescalifornia.org/ NH: http://nhindependence.org/ TX: https://www.texassecede.com/ VT: http://vermontrepublic.org/ AK: http://www.akip.org/ Canada: Alberta: http://www.republicofalberta.com/ Quebec: http://www.mlnq.org/ Scotland and a bunch of other movements in Europe: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_active_separatist_movements_in_Europe Oregon & Washington state: http://www.kiro7.com/news/local/after-trump-victory-oregonians-submit-petition-to-secede/466091749

There is no law of nature that says you need to like who is president. That doesn't mean you can't get on with your life and do what needs doing. That doesn't mean you should go around butt kissing though. There isn't any reason for Buffett to say anything at all.

If I could proactively plan out my life and the entire world around me I would too. The best-laid plans of mice and men often go awry

I'm still hoping he's a closet Democrat and did all this simply to win. You gave up German beer! :( Cheers! I don't think he is a closet Democrat, I don't think he is a politician in the usual sense. He's pretty much doing this for publicity and his own ego. Unlike someone like Hillary, I doubt he is obsessed with political power for its own sake. I think he is closer to being a liberal than he let on in his campaign. What is truly amazing to me is how the left is reacting. There are people who are completely out of control, with no sense of proportion. He's the president not the dictator, with the possible exception of foreign policy he really doesn't have all that much unilateral power. He needs congress to get anything done, and his own party isn't crazy about him. That too. His own party is him, not the republicans. This chart says it all. Republicans did not particularly like Trump, he got less votes than either Romney in 2012 or McCain in 2008. The best way to describe this election isn't "Trump won", but rather "Hillary lost". Trump doesn't exactly have overwhelming support and the Republican Party leadership is not happy at all. My point is that he won't be able to do anything crazy.

I'm still hoping he's a closet Democrat and did all this simply to win. You gave up German beer! :( Cheers! I don't think he is a closet Democrat, I don't think he is a politician in the usual sense. He's pretty much doing this for publicity and his own ego. Unlike someone like Hillary, I doubt he is obsessed with political power for its own sake. I think he is closer to being a liberal than he let on in his campaign. What is truly amazing to me is how the left is reacting. There are people who are completely out of control, with no sense of proportion. He's the president not the dictator, with the possible exception of foreign policy he really doesn't have all that much unilateral power. He needs congress to get anything done, and his own party isn't crazy about him.

Too many conflicts of interest operating here. Impeachment is a real possiblity. If/When his scandals and mouth become a national embarassment R. Reps will be trying to save their own skins and will start an impeachment process. At the very least within short order they will firewall him. Its all just sowing the seeds for a needed democratic renewal. I hope he isn't impeached (or one of the crazy liberals we see crying or defecating on the sidewalk doesn't flip out and kill him). Trump is unlikely to be that bad a president, but Pence would be awful. Trump is basically a New York liberal pretending to be a conservative. Pence however is the real deal. Pence is a big time religious nut conservative. When he says anti-gay things, or anti-abortion things, unlike Trump, he really means it.

Taxation and regulation obviously do destroy wealth. And inequality is one fantastic aspect of a free society. People are different and they deserve different amounts of wealth. Exactly, word for word. Inequality is a feature not a bug. Especially in a world (like ours) where the bottom keeps moving up too. http://money.cnn.com/2015/10/05/news/economy/poverty-world-bank/ https://fee.org/articles/the-world-is-getting-better-and-nobody-knows-it/ Unequally wealthy is far superior to equally poor.

Speaking of dystopian fiction this was the best quote I saw yesterday: "It seems that the American people are rather hesitant to elect a woman who both looks and acts like the shadowy dictator in every dystopian young adult novel ever written. When given a choice between a character from reality TV or the villain from the Hunger Games, the American people chose the former." From: http://www.theblaze.com/contributions/matt-walsh-liberals-this-is-very-simple-you-lost-because-hillary-clinton-is-objectively-terrible/

I don't know what others mean, but when I say "elites", I am not talking about the super rich. I'm talking about political elites: people who's money and power derive not from serving humanity in the free and open marketplace, but rather from political pull and influence.

I agree there.

No way, after this you have the Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren Democratic Party. You're not gonna get a center candidate. I was kidding obviously, just her age will probably stop her (if her health problems and/or being in jail don't). But unless Trump does something horrible, the Democrats moving even further left is going to guarantee him another term. The Democrats need to find someone centrist on taxes & guns, who at least talks about peace the way Obama did in 2008, and of course doesn't have the Clinton baggage. Then they will have a chance of unseating him.