Ann Romney--"I don't even consider myself wealthy"

Firstly, comparing Romney saying he likes having the option to fire someone is not the same as a soldier saying he likes having the option to kill someone. You're not comparing like to like, because the former ends in unemployment--and only if we're talking about individuals and not companies--while the latter ends in death.

However, both of those statements are necessary for society to function. If we had soldiers who did not want to kill their enemies, and executives who did not want to fire their poor performing employees, then we would be a conquered state that created or provided nothing, or at least nothing of much value or quality.

Secondly, you're really nitpicking semantics here. Either of the statements you've deemed permissible are simply another way of saying the statements you've deemed immoral. The meanings are the same. For some reason, you feel like the actual comments are callous, but I think that is simply because the media told you how to feel. You agree with both comments in principal, you just want them worded differently. Think about how silly that is.

What is the alternative to "Market Darwinism"? Market Intelligent Design? What does that entail, exactly?

I can't take this idea seriously, because it can't possibly exist. What does a world where no one is allowed to be fired look like?

That's an emotional overreaction to a reality of society. I mean, for one, Romney was not even talking about individual people. He was referring to health care providers. And again, if you're so conscious of semantics, how does it not occur to you the alternative to not wanting to have the option to fire service providers is being stuck with a single service provider despite how good or bad the service is? Surely you can see what he meant by that?

 

Log in or Sign up to hide all adverts.

Killing by a thousand cuts is unethical, not as unethical as outright immediate killing, but you get the point I was making.

Is motivating through fear right? You say yes and I say no. And if no one attacked, no one would be conquered.

It's not silly at all and your disrespectful demeanor hurts your writing. It detracts from any point you try to make.

I don't need the media to tell me what I have been thinking over the years about the way the system works and the way people behave.

So when the Iranian Ayatollah says "Death to the Great Satan," that is okay because it really is just another way of saying that he hates the USA?

That world looks like one where motivation is personal satisfaction from doing a good job and getting accolades from others.

It can't exist because people fail to imagine it or aspire to it.

He meant that he believes in dog-eat-dog economics. Yeah, it's the system, but its participants don't have to make light of its harmful aspects.

So, I stand by all I wrote 100%.

Humans can continue to accept that we are forever stuck with living according to the brutality of survival of the fittest, or we can decide together that we decry the system even if it is all we have right now. Romney does just about the opposite of what I want a person displaying progressive thinking, which his words mock, to do.

I was hoping you would have taken my apology for not understanding you earlier and accept that we just disagree. Now you feel you are in a position to try get me to reject my philosophy of ethics. Yes, you could say I'm a bleeding heart liberal and it just might be accurate.

 

Log in or Sign up to hide all adverts.

The "job" of the US President is not to create job. It's to uphold the Law.

Anyone can create a job. You, dig a hole. You, fill it in. So what?

The POTUS created millions of TSA jobs and spent billions on these asinine scanners that not only violent out rights against be searched without just cause but also don't work and probably are giving a minority of people cancer (maybe a hundred or so a year).

 

Log in or Sign up to hide all adverts.

Except they had security screeners at all airports before the TSA was created.

They worked for the airlines and did a piss poor job. So no, millions of new jobs weren't created, that again is just so much BS.

Scanners do not "violent" our rights as you can check your bags if you don't want your shit looked at, even abstractly.

You can opt out of the X-ray if you don't want it.

And yes, the scanners work..

 

Nope. You were simply using a favorite tactic of people who don't actually have an argument, which is to compare the thing they're decrying to something extreme. In this case, you compared a consumer boasting of his right to choose his own service providers to a soldier boasting of his right to kill. These are not like concepts, nor is redundancy "death by a thousand cuts."

That's a reductionist argument. Most people are motivated by their personal pride, or pride in their work. Others are motivated by their desire to provide the best life possible for their families, which they understand requires working at a satisfactory level or better.

I can tell you haven't thought this through beyond your (understandable) sentiment for the worker, so let me pose a hypothetical to you: Imagine Company X makes batteries. Company Y comes up with a way to increase battery life by 50%, and begins to take over a greater share of the market. In the real world, Company X would be able to look for new executives to find the right researches, new researchers to create an even better battery than Company Y. Sure, maybe there's some downsizing to offset the losses, but soon Company X has a battery with 75% more life than before, and regains their position at the top. But in your world, they're stuck with who they have, because the CEO can't fire anyone. Six months later, the company goes out of business.

This scenario happens in the real world, but if you had your way, a company that falls behind simply has no chance to recover, and as a result more people would lose their jobs than do in real life.

It doesn't hurt my writing. My point is clear. What it hurts, apparently, is your willingness to accept it. But that's not my problem.

You haven't been thinking very much, obviously. I'm just basing this on what you've written.

Well, whether or not it's "okay" depends on how you want to define "okay." But it certainly is not simply another way of saying he hates the USA. And again, you're trying to compare a benign statement about service providers with an ayatollah condemning Americans to death. You use these ridiculous non-sequiturs as crutches for a weak argument.

That happens today. But what happens when a person isn't doing his job well?

It can't exist because it would topple society.

No one is making light of it. He wasn't talking about having a choice between health insurance providers.

Notice that your argument relies on straw men? I suggest reassessing your position.

Of course you do. You've given this about five minutes of thought, so clearly you're invested in the idea.

Yet Romney instituted universal healthcare in the state he governs, so apparently he believes in helping one anther just a little bit.

And one more time, his words didn't mock anything. In the proper context, this is obvious. You've already made up your mind about this, and you won't hear otherwise.

Philosophy of ethics? You have zero comprehension of what we're talking about. You haven't even provided one instance of what the alternative looks like, and all of your arguments against Romney crumble when his quote is taken in context. You're just bitching for the sake of bitching.

 

When I was young I felt that wealth was oppressive and obstructive to my preference for the bohemian lifestyle. I would have identified the Romneys as fat cats, and their middle class supporters as plastic people. As I grew older I was eventually able to make my way in the world without too much sense of oppression, but without losing sight of the perennial game that plays out between the real and imagined enemies of society. I still maintain a fear and loathing of the sense of privilege that inspires fat cats to involve themselves in policy that affects the other 99% of the country.

Just as my net worth doesn't matter to them, theirs isn't worth a hill of beans to me. I don't care if they get taxed into poverty. It's good for the soul, I think they might say, if you or I were on the chopping block. (Unless you're a gazillionaire piddling away your idle time on Sci...wow...that would be weird...) Because of the brazen asshole persona that was exposed in the market meltdown, there is an unlimited supply of ideological vigilantes who would drag the fat cats to the town square, lock them up in stocks, and commence with the public flogging. The most practical way to do this is by the ultimate of humiliations—taxes. Had we just been through an era of billionaires putting on the sackcloth—as seemed to be dawning with the mega philanthropy that was inspired by the Gates Foundation—things might have been different. It probably wouldn't occur to anyone to raise their taxes. We might instead be talking about how we can better apply the Treasury to improve our own humanity. This is how role models inspire us.

I can't fathom how Mitt and Ann Romney become national role models. They might be socially responsible people—who knows. But they are living under the scourge of a party that has raked this country over the coals. They stand for the policies that led to the crash and the fat cat orgies that fanned the flames while Rome burned. So they should expect some hyperbole now and then just because of their politics. Consequently it doesn't bother me if one or the other is unfairly disparaged. It's part of their testing to show grace under fire.

As for the launching of personal attacks against candidates: I think it's not very useful to dwell on the person—after all, people change. Today's saint might be tomorrow's dirty dog. And the guy that looks weak today might rise to hero status tomorrow. Even Ann Romney could become Sister Teresa by this time next year.

I'm throwing in my chips where I see the best role models since JFK and Jackie, and that's with Barack and Michelle Obama. I don't particularly care about President Obama's torque in the political machine as much as his influence on attitude and morale. Once Americans decide to pull together, we can do anything, that's his message, and as far as I'm concerned it's the number one reason he should be re-elected.

In the mean time, the requisite pre-election pie throwing contest is in the rehearsal phase, and with it comes a lot of venting of angst. This just happens to be our present state of evolution. We haven't yet adapted to the pressures bearing down on us for failing to outgrow our terrible twos. Maybe that adaptation will appear in some future generation. No doubt some later society will regard us as little more than an antiquated curiosity living under the delusion that we can afford to thrash, while pressing needs of humanity—and of the planet—go unattended.

 

It may not be fair, but along with the words came the tone of voice. He gave me the impression that he enjoyed firing people, and that impression more than the actual words has stuck in my memory - some people do enjoy firing people, and Mitt Romney has fired and caused the firing of a lot of people. He made his bones in a cutthroat line of work, and by all accounts was quite competent - most people are comparatively good at what they like to do.

With his background, he'd be a dubious choice for Pres - what does he do when he can't control, win, fire people, give orders, etc?

 

Actually that world has been imagined, and it has even been tested by many well-meaning people. Cooperatives, collectives and communes have existed across America and by and large they haven't worked. Kaweah Colony in California, Brook Farm and the Hancock Shaker Village in Massachusetts, New Harmony in Indiana, Equality Colony in Washington, Julius Wayland's community (mixing farmers and socialist philosophers) outside Nashville in Tennessee, and countless others including many that were expressly anti-capitalist.

The Soviet Union tried mightily (and did a lot of psychological researched related to it) to instill in people a notion that doing your best work is a duty and a privilege, regardless of the compensation you get for it, and they found that they couldn't really people to act that way, even though they could train people to think that acting that way was important and right.

The net result is that most of these communities fail due to internal strife and conflicts in governance, and most do not have shining records on the worker productivity front. (The only exception I know of are kibbutzes in Israel, some of which do remain stable over reasonably long periods...which may be because religious consideration may provide enough incentive for people to worker harder and not unconsciously shirk.)

To think that no one has imagined the world you'd prefer and that no one has ever set up a self-sufficient community on that basis suggests that perhaps you overlooked many of the utopian communities that have existed, especially in the U.S. You probably wouldn't have liked all of them, but many of them (including probably every "hippie commune") were based on egalitarian socialist/communist ideals that you might find appealing.

In fact, after the publication of "Looking Backward: 2000–1887", the 1887 sci-fi novel by Edward Bellamy (about a time traveler from 1887 who finds the U.S. transformed into a socialist paradise in the year 2000), there were a number of attempts at forming self-sufficient socialist communities, including Equality Colony in Washington State.

While you might find the ideals appealing, I suspect that if you had lived there then, like the other residents, you'd not be so enamored with the actual realities of those places.

Would you say that if you ate lunch at a terrible restaurant where the food was nauseous and service was lousy...you'd go back, over and over again just to avoid "firing" that restaurant? That out of a sense of compassion and a desire to keep that restaurant in business, you'd never switch to another restaurant?

If so, I think you'd be in a very small minority (perhaps a minority consisting of just yourself). That is what Romney was talking about, except that he substituted "insurance company" for "restaurant."

 

Ok, I was a little drunk when I wrote that, and, I'm still alittle bit drunk

Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!

The scanners actually cause cancer - the estimated numbers of people who will get cancer a year is something around 100 people. Which is totally unacceptable. 100 families a year have to deal with cancer over this bull crap.

Second, they don't work! A person just the other week sewed a metal object into his jacket to prove it wouldn't be detected - as it comes up black against a black background and then walked through a few scanners - one in Austin I believe. Nothing. Didn't get picked up at all. The old metal detectors would have picked it up - but, not these naked scanners (which I think Europe is going to ban).

Another few BILLION dollars wasted by the central government not to mention the billions spent on the TSA agents themselves - which is a lug head thug of a job. Most of these people couldn't do something productive if their lives depended on it.

 

JDawg, man, you're still attacking the messenger. You haven't told me anything I wasn't already aware of about the pop culture of survival of the fittest that includes economics. I still disagree with you and stand by what I wrote 100%. It's there for you to understand if you want to break free of the way you have been accustomed to think. My posts over recent months express the philosophy of ethics that I have been contemplating after a lifetime of observing the world, and getting struck down and resisting striking back. Some of those observations are in my posts in this thread.

 

Aqueous Id, your posts tend toward a good thoughtfulness. I agree with the majority of your sentiment. Thanks for the input.

 

Iceaura, it was as though he was channeling Donald Trump.

 

Pandaemoni, I have known about the various tries at setting up things like communes, and it is relevant that you bring them up. You did well. True that it is very hard to overcome the dominating nature we genetically inherit, yet just because something is hard doesn't mean it isn't worthy to get to work. It would take teaching people a better way to see themselves and others, from toddlerhood onward, which I have not observed having been done anywhere, though the existence of a smattering of good people out there tells me that some people get it right, at least indirectly. I've noticed many scientists seem to understand the way of seeing themselves and others that I talk about, but that is a small minority of people out there, which also, by the way, includes some farmers and others like them who are dedicated to the job of providing food for the world as a major objective of theirs, with not much else other than toil to show for it. I should extend the group to include anyone that works to enhance humanity and themselves, too, without actually caring about monetary enrichment.

As far as the restaurant, a decision has to be made based on how much grace I could afford to extend. I might try to find a way to exchange some pleasure lost in the relatively poor quality of the restaurant experience with the good feeling that I helped people when I was able. That's not to say I would decide to keep going there. The main thing is that this scenario shouldn't have to happen once humanity could finally get its act together. We are a long way from being there, true, but you know, the longest journey begins with a single step.

 

Translation: I haven't really put any thought into it, thus I can't answer the fair questions you posed to me. But since I have no integrity, I won't simply admit it, opting instead to pretend that the points I've made stand on their own rather than being the ill-conceived juvenilia it actually is.

 

Not everyone shares this narrow view of the world JDawg. Things need not be a competition and there need not exist "corporations" which exist as long standing entities. The premier example of an alternative is the open source software community. People have donated millions (maybe billions or more?) of lines of code for free! It's full of information shared freely and publicly, yet software companies seem to be doing okay. How could that be? Romney should be vilified for destroying companies for no reason other than benefiting his own assets. That's mostly what Bain Capital did; they acquired assets and provided no service or utility back to society. That all came at the cost of human capital, for which they couldn't care less about.

 

The answers are there; you just have to comprehend them. You get no more explanation because of your bullying attitude (disrespect). I don't honor incivility and you're basically on ignore now.

 

I'm wounded. Truly.

 

Take care.

 

Take a good look at Social Security. Most pension funds are required to keep 80% or more in order to pay their beneficiaries the required dues years down the road. SS is supposed to have roughly 2.6 trillion dollars. How much of that is funded? Less than 1%, since the government believes that current tax payers are required to support those currently receiving payments. I am not sure why Perry backed down from his description of SS as a Ponzi scheme because he was 100% correct, and the public needs to know the truth. The treasury has borrowed against all of these funds.

This is the government that you feel we should give more tax revenue over to? Romney gave a huge amount of money to his Church because he felt that was a far more worth while cause that feeding the cash cow that is the United States government. This makes him a hypocrite?

Anyone who wants to give any more tax money over to such an organization truly must either be ignorant of facts or just dumb.

 

SS doesn't contribute one cent to the national debt.