Occupy Protests now trying to shut down Ports...

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MarcusTulliusCicero
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15 Dec 2011, 1:42 pm

Fnord wrote:

Well then, have those self-righteous hypocrites in the "Occupy Movement" sell their $500 smartphones, their designer jeans, their name-brand shoes, all of their jewelry, their homes, their cars, and everything else they own, and give it all to the poor!

Believe me, I get it. Members of the "Occupy Movement" want other people to share their wealth, but no members of the "Occupy Movement" seem to want to share theirs.

First you try and say that only the unemployed march in the Occupy Movement, now you're claiming that they're all hipsters with $$$?

Exactly how contradictory are your arguments getting?

Dennis
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15 Dec 2011, 2:31 pm

Fnord, please shut up if you can't even make an argument without contradicting yourself. Also, the middle class selling their possessions to give to the poor isn't a very efficient way of helping things. Also, I think it's absurd that you're arguing that people should do that, but you're apparently outraged at the idea that billionaires should pay higher taxes or even be held accountable for how they make their money?

marshall
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15 Dec 2011, 2:45 pm

cubedemon6073 wrote:

There are problems with these inalienable rights we do have. Typhoid Mary is one. Right wingers will not listen to you on that They had to strip her of her liberties to protect other people's lives. It seems like some inalienable rights more inalienable than others. With what is going on in the world have we reached this point?

Highly vocal right wingers do not listen because they are often extremely rigid stubborn thinkers. They're the kind of people who don't accept contradictions and cognitive dissonance. I don't disagree with the notion of inalienable rights or the 18th century enlightenment thinking that lead to it. I just don't think it nearly goes far enough when you apply it to the real world. Enlightenment philosophy is largely a philosophy that came from ivory tower aristocrats. Modern thinkers like Robert Nozick or Murray Rothbard were stuck in that mentality when they define liberty the way they do.

Quote:

I believe rugged individualism is a myth. I believe people survived in communities and they pulled together.

It's a myth sold by taking advantage of people's pride. Americans want to believe they are rugged individuals. They want to believe the reason for this recession is simply that Americans have become lazy. Nobody want's to admit that they are in fact dependent on multinational corporations and living off the sweat and toil of third world laborers. Self reliance and rugged individualism are a bunch of BS. Everyone is a slave to the system to some degree.

marshall
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15 Dec 2011, 2:56 pm

Dennis wrote:

I'm tired of hearing these vomit-inducing tropes about how people just need to "get jobs and work hard". Where do you think people get jobs in a market with 9% unemployment? The job fairy? By moving to one of the countries with terrible safety standards and working conditions the jobs keep getting outsourced to?

Apparently they are just losers. I wonder if attitudes would change if the jobless rate went up to something more like 25% and unemployment benefits were suddenly cut off.

dogslife
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15 Dec 2011, 3:14 pm

marshall wrote:

They want to believe the reason for this recession is simply that Americans have become lazy.

Seriously.

Fnord
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15 Dec 2011, 3:15 pm

MarcusTulliusCicero wrote:

Fnord wrote:

Well then, have those self-righteous hypocrites in the "Occupy Movement" sell their $500 smartphones, their designer jeans, their name-brand shoes, all of their jewelry, their homes, their cars, and everything else they own, and give it all to the poor! Believe me, I get it. Members of the "Occupy Movement" want other people to share their wealth, but no members of the "Occupy Movement" seem to want to share theirs.

First you try and say that only the unemployed march in the Occupy Movement, now you're claiming that they're all hipsters with $$$? Exactly how contradictory are your arguments getting?

I never said that. What I have said is:

Fnord wrote:

Assuming that all of those who are unemployed are "fed up", then that is still far below the "99%" figure, oft-quoted by the "Occupy" movement.

Fnord wrote:

Well then, have those self-righteous hypocrites in the "Occupy Movement" sell their $500 smartphones, their designer jeans, their name-brand shoes, all of their jewelry, their homes, their cars, and everything else they own, and give it all to the poor!

Fnord wrote:

I am a working American. I do not care about any "Wealth Inequality" - real or imagined - because everything I own, I earned, and no loud-mouthed, under-educated, unwashed, commie-pinko slackers are going to make me feel guilty for it, no matter how hard they try ... maybe I'm just tired of losers whining about how they think it's "unfair" that someone else has more wealth than they do.

Stop lying about me, Troll.

Last edited by Fnord on 15 Dec 2011, 3:22 pm, edited 1 time in total.

dogslife
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15 Dec 2011, 3:20 pm

Fnord wrote:

MarcusTulliusCicero wrote:

Fnord wrote:

Well then, have those self-righteous hypocrites in the "Occupy Movement" sell their $500 smartphones, their designer jeans, their name-brand shoes, all of their jewelry, their homes, their cars, and everything else they own, and give it all to the poor! Believe me, I get it. Members of the "Occupy Movement" want other people to share their wealth, but no members of the "Occupy Movement" seem to want to share theirs.

First you try and say that only the unemployed march in the Occupy Movement, now you're claiming that they're all hipsters with $$$? Exactly how contradictory are your arguments getting?

I never said that.

What about this:

Fnord wrote:

It has always been about the 9% who can't find a job making trouble for the 90% who are currently employed

Also, as a vocal, active member of the Occupy movement, how am I personally being a self-righteous hypocrite?

Fnord
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15 Dec 2011, 3:30 pm

dogslife wrote:

What about this:

Fnord wrote:

It has always been about the 9% who can't find a job making trouble for the 90% who are currently employed

Okay, I forgot about that one.

My bad.

So, back to Square One: Just what is this "Occupy Movement" all about, anyway?

Shaming the wealthy into giving the Occupiers a wad of money?

Converting the economy into a Communist state?

Just what are they trying to prove?

dogslife wrote:

Also, as a vocal, active member of the Occupy movement, how am I personally being a self-righteous hypocrite?

How much of your money goes to those who have none? Have you liquidated all of your holdings and given all of the cash to the poor? Do you hold any back for yourself, or do you just give an "equal share"?

I say that anyone who does not share all of their wealth with those who have none, and then claims that the wealthy should do so instead is a hypocrite.

Sweetleaf
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15 Dec 2011, 3:40 pm

Fnord wrote:

Its about people being fed up with the system.......one of the legal things people can do is protest about things they have an issue with. Basically in the U.S specifically the main issue is with the Corporatocracy system we have and the problems it causes.

And yes some of them might be of the opinion communism would be better than the current system, in which case I agree......but I would not say that is the goal of the Occupy protests.

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Sweetleaf
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15 Dec 2011, 3:45 pm

Fnord wrote:

dogslife wrote:

Also, as a vocal, active member of the Occupy movement, how am I personally being a self-righteous hypocrite?

Well first off no one is saying the wealthy should give up all of their wealth and possessions, now are they? That is an exageration on your part.

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dogslife
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15 Dec 2011, 3:46 pm

Just a few things that Occupy is upset about:

1. Corporate money in politics, ie: corporations being given person-hood, with massive campaign contributions influencing legislature.

2. The response of the financial industry to our $700 billion-plus bailout: they paid themselves outrageous bonuses ($20.8 billion in 2010 alone), fired thousands of people, and continue to sit on multibillion dollar cash hordes all while refusing to lend, with no big-bank CEOs being held responsible despite the fact that they are doing this all with government money, ie: our taxes.

3. Wall Street’s securities-trading firms earned more in the first two and a half years of the Obama administration ($83 billion) than they did during eight years of the G.W. Bush administration ($77 billion), the Washington Post reported. So why aren’t they hiring, lending or doing mortgage modifications?

4. Disturbing corporate profit tactics like when Goldman Sachs, Citigroup, JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, etc. packaged high risk mortgages — the kind pretty much anyone would be eligible for, without even having to prove income — into something they called “collateralized debt obligations” (CDOs). They then sold these toxic CDOs as AAA (highest rating/lowest risk), when in essence they really should have been rated C (very risky/junk status) by Standard & Poor’s, Moody’s, etc.

5. Normally, the middle class pays about 6% of their income to Social Security; someone making $1 million a year pays about 0.6% (or 90% less than the average person). It is not too much to ask that the rich simply pay an equal percentage of tax as those of us who are struggling.

6. Reinstate the Glass-Steagall Act, placing serious regulations on how business is conducted by Wall Street and the banks.

7. Investigate the Crash of 2008, and bring to justice those who committed financial crimes.

8. Nobody should have to die because they're too poor to afford health insurance, or be in debt for the entire rest of their life if they do seek treatment.

I should add that I am absolutely not a communist, as I think the way communism has pragmatically played out in every instance it's existed in has actually been very oppressive.

dogslife
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15 Dec 2011, 3:48 pm

Fnord wrote:

dogslife wrote:

Also, as a vocal, active member of the Occupy movement, how am I personally being a self-righteous hypocrite?

As I said earlier, I'm not asking the wealthy to give up all (or even anywhere remotely near "most") of their wealth, so not doing so does not make me a hypocrite. I gave the same percentage of my wealth (and most likely more) that I want billionaires to, so once again I am not at all a hypocrite there.

Sweetleaf
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15 Dec 2011, 3:52 pm

dogslife wrote:

Those are reasonable things to be pissed off about, I however like the idea of communism......but in its true form not what they had in the soviet union which was not even close to true communism.

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dogslife
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15 Dec 2011, 3:53 pm

I guess it's hard for me to imagine a world in which the ideologies of communism would ever actually work/be adopted, heh.

Fnord
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15 Dec 2011, 3:55 pm

Sweetleaf wrote:

Fnord wrote:

... back to Square One: Just what is this "Occupy Movement" all about, anyway? Shaming the wealthy into giving the Occupiers a wad of money? Converting the economy into a Communist state? Just what are they trying to prove?

Its about people being fed up with the system

News Flash: People have been fed up with "The System" ever since "The System" came into being.

Sweetleaf wrote:

... one of the legal things people can do is protest about things they have an issue with. Basically in the U.S specifically the main issue is with the Corporatocracy system we have and the problems it causes.

Protests? Just protests? Again, what are they trying to prove? Only that they are unhappy that "The System" is not being run to their direct benefit?

Sweetleaf wrote:

what are they trying to prove?And yes some of them might be of the opinion communism would be better than the current system, in which case I agree......but I would not say that is the goal of the Occupy protests.

Then WHAT IS THE GOAL?! !

By the way, communism represses activism unless it serves The System - those who protest against The System are often "re-educated", sent to remote labor camps, or simply made to "disappear".

Fnord
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15 Dec 2011, 3:57 pm

dogslife wrote:

I guess it's hard for me to imagine a world in which the ideologies of communism would ever actually work/be adopted, heh.

That's because Communism is based on the assumption that human greed can be "evolved" out of the human race in only a generation or two.

Read Das Kapital, by Karl Marx.

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