The Glade 4.0

I am extremely skeptical of any argument that essentially dismisses all people that hold a differing opinion as idiots. Because when people say things like, "raising the minimum wage is bad for even those making minimum wage," that's exactly what they're doing. They're claiming that the minimum wage increase helps no-one, anywhere, in either the short or the long term, and that the only reason anyone would support said increase is stupidity.

I'm sure in the immediate, very very short term it will benefit those on minimum wage until goods and services raise to reflect that additional cost,and/or those minimum wage earners are let go due to market forces.

The only way it works is if there is a minimum wage and a control on the goods and services. That's the only way the Holy Grail of getting into a companies evil evil profits will happen.

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A man who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself. ~ John Stuart Mill

Xeq you're on minimum wage because your skills are only worth that much to the company and not have them lose money.

The minimum wage increases. Your skills did not neither did how much they make the company.

Will you still be employed?

End of line.

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"...but there exists also in the human heart a depraved taste for equality, which impels the weak to attempt to lower the powerful to their own level and reduces men to prefer equality in slavery to inequality with freedom." - De Tocqueville

I'm not actually in favor of minimum wage, honestly. I find it kind of redundant when welfare pays you more for doing nothing - nobody is going to work full time for minimum wage. I'm just using that as an example of an argument against something that just assumes everyone else is an idiot. There are plenty of other arguments against minimum wage that don't do this - it's a form of welfare, it devalues everyone else's work, it devalues the currency, (not by the same magnitude as the minimum wage increase, but it still does) etc etc. This isn't exclusive to conservatives, for example a lot of liberals love to argue that public health care will actually provide higher quality care to everyone for less money, which is another such argument as if that was actually true, it would make any opposition to public health care idiotic as there's no longer a downside of any kind.

So, you don't believe in any argument which might prove it's opponent wrong?

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Ezekiel 23:19-20 

I think you may be underestimating the severity of the ass-beating in question.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

If their argument is that the other person is an idiot, their argument is an ad hom and can be ignored. Jesus F. Christ.

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"...the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?" -Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

Could you give me an example of the type of argument you're talking about?

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A man who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself. ~ John Stuart Mill

Well, another good one is "Obama's stimulus didn't create any jobs, even in the short term." If that's the case, then once again the only reason to support the stimulus is stupidity because it just screws everyone. The "rich" have their currency devalued and the "poor" end up with less jobs in both the short and long term. In contrast, an argument that doesn't do this would be something like, "the extra government debt is a worse problem than unemployment," or "it's not the role of government to prop up the economy like this." Both of those respect the other side by acknowledging that there is actually an upside to what the other side is saying and they have a reason other than stupidity to hold the position that they do.

It created jobs. It just made very few of them and used monopoly money to do it. Many of them may go away when the fake money runs out.

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I prefer to think of them as "Fighting evil in another dimension"

I'm sure Obama and his economic advisers genuinely thought his jobs initiative would help, since he wants to get re-elected, but it wasn't executed well enough or was poorly directed.

Ideology aside, getting more people to work does help an economy, because an economy is based on how many people are being productive.

OK but who's making that argument? By this administrations own goals the stimulus was a failure. Even when the goalpoasts got nudged wider it didn't make it. To be honest when will the failure tag be hung on it? Stimulus, special stimulus to help teachers, now _ANOTHER one proposed. How much money do we have to toss at teachers until we've proven it doesn't work?

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A man who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself. ~ John Stuart Mill

I'm not saying the stimulus wasn't an overall failure, but I hear all the time people claiming that it did absolutely nothing but increase the debt and cost us even short term jobs while doing so. That there is no upside at all. That because of Obama's stimulus, we have less jobs one day after, one month after, one year after, and ten years after it was passed. At no point, anywhere, did it ever increase employment relative to not passing it.

The fact that it will hurt economic growth in the future and reduce job/GDP growth 5-10 years from now is obvious. It's a good reason for opposing the stimulus. Even liberals accept that. But this isn't good enough for people who have to demonize Obama as either a sadistic traitor, Communist, or totally incompetent retard, no, the plan has to do nothing but hurt everyone, everywhere, everytime.

It's arguments like this that completely kill the credibility of the ones making it. Here's another good one: "We can increase government revenue by lowering taxes." Well, if that's true, then why don't we lower taxes? Everyone would get what they want! The answer to this one is inevitably that our elected officials are some kind of unholy hybrid between O'Brien from 1984 and the hilariously over-the-top saturday morning cartoon villains. That Congress is composed of nothing but vain, sadistic, power-hungry individuals that have an obsessive need for control and get off on the suffering of the masses, and at the same time that the masses are all too incompetent to notice this and do anything about it. Everyone but me and the small minority who has the same opinion is either an evil sadist or a total moron.

So, Xeq, you don't think it follows logically that private sector job creation is harmed by the volatile currency climate and uncertainty about government intervention in the economy that the Stimulus creates and perpetuates?

And it's unreasonable to assert that such impedance of creation overshadows the inefficient (and, yes, mostly temporary) creation for which the stimulus was directly responsible?

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"Aaaah! Emotions are weird!" - Amdee
"... Mirrorshades prevent the forces of normalcy from realizing that one is crazed and possibly dangerous. They are the symbol of the sun-staring visionary, the biker, the rocker, the policeman, and similar outlaws." - Bruce Sterling, preface to Mirrorshades

Obama definitely had good intentions with the stimulus. I think people should at least recognize that. You win some, you lose some.

It's an explanation, not an argument. Your post is formatting in such a way as to contain a bulleted list of points, with dates, etc. Hopwin's comes across as an off the cuff remark. Therefore, yours is much more likely to be asked for citation.



You say this kind of stuff all the time as a defense for not putting out a citation. We've had this conversation before. It's not reasonable to expect that every poster has read all your posts over so many years, and remembers their details. That's crazy.

If you remember what you posted before, you can easily find it through a search - if it's lost, then sum it up - or don't worry about it, either way. Just because someone asks, doesn't mean you need to care enough to provide it - you may just have to be content in not convincing them.

Furthermore, the last time you did provide a link, I went through it in detail and it didn't contain the information you claimed it did.

To answer your above question, regarding how many times you need to source something in order to "change our god damned minds", I would say "every time it comes up with either a new topic or a new poster." If a poster disagrees with you, and you want them to change their minds, post your reason why.

I hardly think it's fair to come down on people for not having followed your arguments through the years.



Well, whatever optimism you had is gone. The majority of what I've seen lately is this kind of stuff. When asked, it's these sorts of responses:

This, very much. It did create jobs, it prevented job losses, but the cost for these was too high, and I think those costs will result in losses down the line or already did elsewhere.

Xeq sounds like he is a liberal caterpillar going through a rebellion against his chrysalis into a conservative.

You seem to be making attacks on imagined arguments that you agree with.

To me it seems you want to uncover a flaw in the reasons you are agreeing with them.

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"...but there exists also in the human heart a depraved taste for equality, which impels the weak to attempt to lower the powerful to their own level and reduces men to prefer equality in slavery to inequality with freedom." - De Tocqueville

Arathain:

The last link did indeed contain the information I claimed it contained; the problem is ... you don't understand the topic or information. It's not my fault you lack the knowledge to parse that post on economics; nor, for that matter, is it my fault you and Taskiss think people need to prove negatives all the god damn time.

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I pointed out where it did not contain the requested information. I think you probably just missed it because you were too busy pissing and moaning about having to defend what you were saying.



So you say, man - so you say. But, like I said, I pointed out specifics, and you did not respond to these. So while you argue I lack the [insert Khross's insult of the day here], all I saw where dodges, outbursts, and deflections.



It's not my fault you can't explain your points in a coherent manner.



Never have suggested such a thing. That would be silly. So, anyway, which is it? Did you provide the "proof", but I was just too ignorant to understand it, or is it unprovable because it's a negative? I can't see how it could be both.

At any rate, as I said above, it's an explanation not an argument. The rest of this belongs in the previous thread - not as a derail here.

Arathain:

No, we simply have a history of you trolling and throwing out insults when you lose an argument.

We have a history of you refusing to read links and citations, and then blaming people for making posts that use them.

We have a history of you requesting sources and then ignoring them when you know you're wrong.

Quite simply you're a troll ...

So go **** off and stop lying. You've turned into the almost-republican Montegue.

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Unfortunately, the government cannot produce wealth.

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"...the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?" -Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

No, he really hasn't. I don't always agree with Arathain, and I don't always agree with you, but the fact of the matter is that he is most certainly NOT acting like Montegue, and, nor does he have any history of failing to read posts, nor of ignoring sources, nor of trolling or throwing out insults.

You are completely out of line. Quite frankly, you are doing exactly what Mookhow (correctly) called me out about a few months back. Seriously, either defend your points without lecturing everyone else about how they don't read posts and won't change their minds and things of that nature, and present your arguments. If not, then just shut your **** piehole. You're not contributing anything but drama at this point, and apparently Arathain is your designated chew toy in recent months.

While you're at it, never quote Corolinth's opinion as authoritative again.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

Yes but it can tax people.

Diamondeye:

Really? He's telling me I'm stupid because he doesn't understand a complex economic post? He's telling me I'm stupid because he doesn't remember arguments he's had and lost in the past? He's telling me I'm stupid because I expect people to read and remember the citations they ask for?

He's doing everything I stated in this thread and several others of late ...

He's a troll.

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