posted
No, even sole proprietors get to deduct business expenses before calculating taxes. So they're taxed on net, definitely not gross.
Posts: 15770 | Registered: Dec 2001
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Most sole proprietorships are (for tax purposes, anyway) either breaking even or showing a loss. The ones that actually show a substantial profit either are doing very well (especially this year!) or have incompetent accountants. Posts: 32919 | Registered: Mar 2003
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quote: Is a bankruptcy every minute instead of every 30 seconds even remotely more comforting?
So by your logic, $100,000 is the same as $50,000? Doubling the amount of bankruptcies to scare Americans is pretty significant.
quote: Sure. That's half the bankruptcies! I mean, if there WERE a bankruptcy every 30 seconds, and through diligent effort we cut it to one every 60 seconds, we'd advertise that as major improvement.
I am not sure if you wanted this to be sarcastic or not? If we could cut the number of bankruptcies in half that would be a reason to celebrate unless you think the opposite for some strange reason?
Posts: 1918 | Registered: Mar 2005
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posted
Btw, what was the cite for that number being wrong? As far as I know, there's no consensus on the number of bankruptcies caused by medical issues, only several widely disparate attempts at estimating it.
edit: also, if the number is being used to evaluate a policy, a doubling or halving would be important. But if it is being used in a speech to highlight there's a problem with the current system, it is a major problem at once a minute just as it is a major problem at twice a minute.
Posts: 15770 | Registered: Dec 2001
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quote: Data from the U.S. Courts show about 934,000 personal bankruptcies in the 12-month period ending June 2008. There are about 32 million seconds in a year. So someone filed for bankruptcy roughly every 30 seconds last year. But even a very high estimate, like the Harvard study we looked at last year, would only attribute half of those personal bankruptcies to medical expenses. So that's one health-related bankruptcy every minute at most.
So Obama doubled a very high estimate to create a bigger crisis than actually exists and that isn't concerning?
Posts: 1918 | Registered: Mar 2005
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posted
That's not a simple mistake at all. Clearly Obama is making this into a bigger issue than it is so that he can turn your children into muslim terrorists.
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posted
Is anyone following the drama in republican leadership over Limbaugh? I don't know what to make of it.
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No, it isn't particularly concerning. Most likely the original language was something like "there's a bankruptcy ever 30 seconds, and many of them are caused by medical issues".
Errors like that happen in speeches all the time. What concerns you about it?
Posts: 15770 | Registered: Dec 2001
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quote:Originally posted by Samprimary: Is anyone following the drama in republican leadership over Limbaugh? I don't know what to make of it.
Could you be a bit more specific? I mean I've always felt that Limbaugh was poison for the Republican party, but perhaps you are talking about something specifically.
Posts: 14316 | Registered: Jul 2005
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quote:Originally posted by Ron Lambert: I don't know how many pre-tax deductions small business owners, especially in sole proprietorships, can claim. Aren't they taxed on gross, like individuals, rather than on net? $250,000 sounds like a lot of money, but it is only $20,800 a month. If it is some HVAC firm that installs and repairs furnaces, and employs only 5-10 technicians, that is not a whole lot of margin above breaking even.
I don't think it's mathematically possible to tax people on gross income rather than net.
Posts: 2392 | Registered: Sep 2005
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quote:Originally posted by Samprimary: Is anyone following the drama in republican leadership over Limbaugh? I don't know what to make of it.
Could you be a bit more specific? I mean I've always felt that Limbaugh was poison for the Republican party, but perhaps you are talking about something specifically.
I think this has been cleverly played by the Democrats. Having Rush be the face of the Republican party limits the party's appeal to moderates.
Posts: 644 | Registered: Sep 2008
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quote:Originally posted by Samprimary: Is anyone following the drama in republican leadership over Limbaugh? I don't know what to make of it.
Could you be a bit more specific? I mean I've always felt that Limbaugh was poison for the Republican party, but perhaps you are talking about something specifically.
I think this has been cleverly played by the Democrats. Having Rush be the face of the Republican party limits the party's appeal to moderates.
Cleverly played by the Democrats? Here's Rush' own words,
quote:“I'm not in charge of the Republican Party, and I don't want to be. I would be embarrassed to say that I'm in charge of the Republican Party in the sad-sack state that it's in. If I were chairman of the Republican Party, given the state that it's in, I would quit. I might get out the hari-kari knife because I would have presided over a failure that is embarrassing to the Republicans and conservatives who have supported it and invested in it all these years.”
Translation: I am content to have people call me the "voice of conservatism," as that is far more prestigious than any elected position within the Republican Party. Please make me the next William F. Buckley.
Posts: 14316 | Registered: Jul 2005
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quote:Originally posted by Samprimary: Is anyone following the drama in republican leadership over Limbaugh? I don't know what to make of it.
Could you be a bit more specific? I mean I've always felt that Limbaugh was poison for the Republican party, but perhaps you are talking about something specifically.
Rahm Emmanuel baited some republican leaders into taking potshots against Rush, having them feel obligated to say 'no, he doesn't represent us'
Backlash forced all these republican leaders to firmly backtrack and brownnose. Steele ate it. Steele ate it hard. there's angry commentary on republican blogs. Republicans are bickering amongst themselves across the webs.
He put the new leader of the GOP in a situation where he would have to choose his words very carefully to assert his control of the GOP while at the same time not upsetting Rush (and in doing so the only voting block Republicans can count on). He failed and in doing so put Rush vs Steele as the headline in the current news cycle.
Obama seems to have a plan with regards to the conservative commentators that no one has tried before. Not only is his administration calling them out specifically on comments they are making, they are using them as a wedge to divide the moderates from the Republican party. Previously the usual response to Rush and others was to ignore them, but Obama has thrown that tactic out for direct confrontation on ideological grounds.
Posts: 15421 | Registered: Aug 2005
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quote:Originally posted by Samprimary: Obama seems to have a plan with regards to the conservative commentators that no one has tried before. Not only is his administration calling them out specifically on comments they are making, they are using them as a wedge to divide the moderates from the Republican party. Previously the usual response to Rush and others was to ignore them, but Obama has thrown that tactic out for direct confrontation on ideological grounds.
This is something I saw, and the first time Gibbs attacked Limbaugh, my gut reaction was, "Dude, you're attacking a man that buys ink by the barrel and reaches 20M people. Are you nuts?"
The media reflected this line of thought, yet Gibbs kept with it. Then it sunk in to me that they're doing exactly what you're saying. By lumping the pundits in as speaking heads for the party, it creates in fighting where the party is trying to assert its own control over its image, while the pundits have the voter's ear.
It's risky, but a gutsy and potentially devastating move for sure.
Any organized event where the belles of the ball are Rush Limbaugh and Ann Coulter should give you a pretty decent idea of what's going to happen there.
This whole active engagement with the media thing is an interesting tactic. Republicans are losing badly in the polls right now, but really, their strategy of goofy defiance isn't surprising. They spent 6 years greenlighting a bunch of policies that now they're trying to disavow, and somehow at the same time are trying to foist off all the blame on Democrats. It's an unenviable position, especially given the fact that the American public seems to be somewhat removed from the fog of stupid that usually clouds their judgment. Republican intransigence is NOT playing well with the public, and GOP approval ratings are in the tank.
If they're going to oppose this bailout on principle then fine. Frankly I think it makes a lot of political sense to do so. If it fails, they get to say I told you so, but if it goes well, they were never going to get credit for it anyway. I don't get why they are ruining that strategy when guys like Jindal come out and excoriate the package, say that governors shouldn't take the money and that he personally is rejecting some of it...and then you find out he's perfectly happy taking 98% of the money offered to him. Well gee, that 2% of haughtiness isn't really all that impressive Bobby.
And on top of this, now Obama is forcing them to either own or disown the right wing media machine. Like others have said, they're forced to choose between alienating moderates who hate those loudmouths and alienating the only voting group that is solidly in their corner. The result is a lot of hemming and hawing, which is getting in the way of their planned dickishness.
It's no surprise Limbaugh would come out and say that he hopes Obama fails. Politically, unless Obama flops pretty hard, Republicans are in for a rude 2010 midterm.
Posts: 21898 | Registered: Nov 2004
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quote:Obama seems to have a plan with regards to the conservative commentators that no one has tried before. Not only is his administration calling them out specifically on comments they are making, they are using them as a wedge to divide the moderates from the Republican party. Previously the usual response to Rush and others was to ignore them, but Obama has thrown that tactic out for direct confrontation on ideological grounds.
I think he is doing more than that. In some sense, Obama is doing exactly what Lyrhawn said, he is forcing the GOP to own or disown the most extreme and vile part of their own party, and in return that obviously pays political dividends for Democrats. On the other hand, I think he is doing something more interesting, I think he is moving the extreme right wing of the Republican party out front on the Republicans, and in doing so, he is hoping to quell those extremist ideologies by presenting them to the American people and allowing the people do away with it. It's how you quell extremism when you have an idealist trust in the people, you bring to the fore-front that extremism and trust that the American people will see how it cuts to the very problems we face, and in doing so, you not only win a political fight but you empower the people by allowing the most extreme elements to hang themselves at the people's hand.
It's an interesting strategy that requires a lot of trust in the people, but I also think it is highly ambitious, like everything else he is doing. If Obama gets half of what he has envisioned in the budget, if he gets some kind of health care reform, and if he can really take on the lobbyists and the special interest groups, then it is possible that he can change the way our politics and our government work.
Posts: 457 | Registered: Jun 2005
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posted
_____________________________________ Originally posted by Humean:
If Obama gets half of what he has envisioned in the budget, if he gets some kind of health care reform, and if he can really take on the lobbyists and the special interest groups, then it is possible that he can change the way our politics and our government work. _____________________________________
Bleh, Bleh, Bleh, Bleh! . . . President Obama is stretching us too thin with his ambition, and we'll pay for it, in "dividends."
Posts: 135 | Registered: Mar 2009
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quote: ) Rush further I think, reiterating his wish for Obama to fail, not succeed, to FAIL he wants him to fail. Woohoo for treason!
It's the same thing as the Democrat line of 'we support our troops, but not the war'. Rush and many conservatives want Obama's 'policies' of massive government spending and many of the XO's he has issued to fail because we should not be doing what he proposes in the way he proposes it. Rush has clearly stated he wants America to succeed. From Rush's website:
quote: RUSH: It sounds to me you're hoping for economic failure so that people realize just how inexperienced and poor a President Obama is.
CALLER: That's pretty much it, yeah.
RUSH: See, I don't want that. I don't want it to happen that way. I'm afraid that it will. I don't want economic failure. I don't want the kind of pain and suffering that we have now to get any worse. It's the exact opposite. I don't want this economy to get worse just so people learn the truth about Obama. It may take that, I hope not, because if it takes that, we may not have enough power left to gain control of our economy the way it was. But I don't want the economy to fail. I don't want people losing their jobs and being kicked out of their houses. I don't want people going on welfare and unemployment just for people to realize what a mistake they made with Obama. I want Obama to fail, not the country. I want Obama to fail in being successful with his economic plan. Now, if Barack Obama all of a sudden came out and said, "You know what? I think we need to do something here in the midst of this recession. I'm going to resend my capital gains tax increase and I'm going to suspend capital gains. And, you know what, I think we can really improve the economic circumstance if I would cut the corporate tax rate in half, and maybe just suspend capital gains for three months. Maybe have a tax holiday on FICA, Social Security withholding."
Well, I tell you, I would become Barack Obama's biggest cheerleader in this country. If he actually proposed ideas to jump-start this economy, so there isn't any more economic pain and we can bottom out at some point and start building this back. But, folks, his plan doesn't do that. Government spending does not elevate the private sector. It does not stimulate the private sector. It does not in any way, shape, manner, or form expand the private sector. But hear me, and hear me loud. Look at me. I don't want the economy to fail. That's why I'm sticking my neck out here. I actually care about the people who are seeing their financial lives damaged and, in some cases, ruined. I'm the one, among many on my side, who are truly worried about this. Some of you are hoping that the words from Obama's mouth will magically bring you back. It ain't going to happen. I do not want economic collapse. This is it for me. This is enough. It's got to stop. The problem is this administration has no interest in it stopping right now.
posted
I tried to point out that there is such a thing as the "gold standard" that supports and backs up the value of the dollar. Sorry, I assumed that this was common knowledge. The reply that was posted shows that it isn't.
fugu13 Member Member # 2859
posted March 03, 2009 04:43 PM -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The value of gold does not change? Where on earth do you get that idea?
"How much food/housing/cellos I can get in exchange for a set amount of gold changes all the time. That's the value of gold changing, right there. There is no absolute measure of value, much less gold being it".
Once upon a time long long ago our dollars could be exchanged for gold or silver. Gold is the base. If an ounce of gold cost $30.00 then the dollar is strong. If an ounce of gold costs $1,000 then the dollar is weak. Inflation is when it takes more and more dollars to buy an ounce of gold.
I agree with the statement that there is no absolute measure of value. Unless of course it is God that is doing the measuring. On the other hand a money bomb of printed paper money (without gold being trucked into Fort Knox to back up the new paper)can only be inflationary.
Posts: 83 | Registered: Mar 2009
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quote: I don't get why they are ruining that strategy when guys like Jindal come out and excoriate the package, say that governors shouldn't take the money and that he personally is rejecting some of it...
The reason for refusal is very important
quote: "Today, Governor Bobby Jindal announced that the state will not change its law to use a part of the $787 billion federal stimulus bill that would result in an unemployment insurance tax increase on Louisiana businesses. The Governor also announced that the state will use a provision in the legislation to increase state unemployment benefits for recipients by an extra $25 per week, and reaffirmed his acceptance of the transportation funds included in the bill to fund shovel-ready transportation priorities in the state."
His reasoning: the federal government won't pay the money forever, so taxpayers and businesses would have to foot the bill for the bigger dole. Jindal, in the statement, urges other states to take a look at the provision. In lieu of the government money, Jindal said that the state would increase its unemployment payments by $25 per week.
quote: and then you find out he's perfectly happy taking 98% of the money offered to him. Well gee, that 2% of haughtiness isn't really all that impressive Bobby.
I'm not sure I understand your ire. He is accepting money to fix the infratructure but turning down money that will hurt his state in the long run. Should he just accept these millions because it is only 2% and 2% is small? If that is truly your rationale then I definitely want the Democrat strategy of spending trillions of dollars on everything imaginable because each part is only a small percentage of the whole to completely fail and not have any of the money spent. I also believe he is still reviewing the other Billions to see if there is anything else that will not benefit him and his state in the long term.
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Sounds right to me. What part are you having difficulty understanding? Oshki is only referring to how it used to be. The value of the dollar was once measured by how much gold the U.S. had in reserve. Now, the problem is there isn't enough gold in all of America to back how much the banks lend and the government uses. This is one of our fundamental economic issues.
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posted
Oshki, there is no gold standard. There hasn't been since long before it was officially abolished. The "only" thing backing the dollar is the faith and credit of the United States of America.
That once there was a gold standard doesn't make gold the standard now (and really, it didn't create a fixed value of gold, then; governments spent huge sums of money moving gold around just to keep the exchange value of gold roughly fixed, it certainly didn't happen by itself).
beleaguered: Oshki made a statement about current practice, not past practice, that "The value of gold does not change". That statement is nonsense.
And that we don't have a bunch of gold in reserve is not a problem at all. Even most advocates of the gold standard don't think not having enough gold around is a fundamental problem, they think that by forcing the government to keep gold around that would prevent the government from inflating. Anyone who thinks not having enough gold is a 'fundamental economic issue' does not understand economics.
Posts: 15770 | Registered: Dec 2001
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quote:It's the same thing as the Democrat line of 'we support our troops, but not the war'. Rush and many conservatives want Obama's 'policies' of massive government spending and many of the XO's he has issued to fail because we should not be doing what he proposes in the way he proposes it. Rush has clearly stated he wants America to succeed. From Rush's website:
That doesn't really sync in my head 100%. If the policies are successful, why wouldn't you want them used? Absolutely no one WANTS the Iraq War to fail. None of us who support the troops but dislike the war actively wish for them to fail because of personal ideology. We hope they are wildly successful and get the hell out of there as fast as possible, but fear that that won't happen. This isn't the same, because Rush doesn't want Obama's policies to succeed at all, even if they were the best thing for the country.
I get what you're saying, but I think there's still a disconnect there.
quote:I'm not sure I understand your ire. He is accepting money to fix the infratructure but turning down money that will hurt his state in the long run. Should he just accept these millions because it is only 2% and 2% is small? If that is truly your rationale then I definitely want the Democrat strategy of spending trillions of dollars on everything imaginable because each part is only a small percentage of the whole to completely fail and not have any of the money spent. I also believe he is still reviewing the other Billions to see if there is anything else that will not benefit him and his state in the long term.
If you have to change the law to provide more benefits now, then why wouldn't you just change the law back when the money runs out? I wasn't aware that the stimulus bill was a suicide pact signed in blood. But that's hardly my main objection.
I have no problem with him taking individual exception to pieces of the bill, but to lambaste the entire bill while extolling the virtues of lost Republican ideals that haven't been practiced or held in a decade while at the same time gleefully accepting 98% of the thing that he 100% disses is over the top for me. You don't get to pretend 2000-2006 never happened, and you don't get to foist off their legacy of fiscal irresponsibility on the Democrats while at the same time taking handouts from the people you're badmouthing.
I don't think he should accept the money if he doesn't want it. But you look pretty damned silly when you wag your finger and tip your hat at the same time.
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posted
Ad hominem already? (smile) Not having enough gold around only means that it takes more paper money to get it. At least they changed the law so that we can own it. Hasn't anyone noticed the commercials where people will buy your old gold? Heck, they will come to your home and cut you a check. To do that, means that they are going to some trouble and expense to write that check. They must not understand economics either.
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posted
I kind of hope so, for two reasons. 1. The conservatives that do post here in political threads probably feel outnumbered and dogpiled from time to time, and that's never cool. 2. It's always nice to hear what the other side is thinking.
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posted
Sorry, I was answering fugu13 and didn't post fast enough. I just feel that we are going to be hit by a money bomb. (even the life of the sun is measured in billions of years) I was addressing the upcomming abundance of paper money. Which is only as valuable as peoples confidence in it. Gold is always valuable.
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Blayne Bradley
unregistered
posted
I ld be careful about following that slippery slope, once in my college a teacher let a NeoNazi (yes even Canadians have em') speak for an hour in front of his class to "hear the other side".
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quote:Originally posted by Blayne Bradley: ... once in my college a teacher let a NeoNazi (yes even Canadians have em') speak for an hour in front of his class to "hear the other side".
quote:Ad hominem already? (smile) Not having enough gold around only means that it takes more paper money to get it. At least they changed the law so that we can own it. Hasn't anyone noticed the commercials where people will buy your old gold? Heck, they will come to your home and cut you a check. To do that, means that they are going to some trouble and expense to write that check. They must not understand economics either.
Where have I said gold had no value? Obviously for many people it has quite a bit of value. How on earth is this evidence that "the value of gold does not change"?
Posts: 15770 | Registered: Dec 2001
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quote:Originally posted by Blayne Bradley: I ld be careful about following that slippery slope, once in my college a teacher let a NeoNazi (yes even Canadians have em') speak for an hour in front of his class to "hear the other side".
It isn't a slippery slope to want to hear the other side. Often times, a like-minded group will become close-minded unintentionally because their ideology and beliefs aren't challenged. To simply want more people to contrast with your opinion speaks well of the person in so far as they probably are looking for another perspective to help shape their own. (Then there are some who want people to disagree with them so they can just rip them a new one, but I'm not advocating that line of thought.)
I'm glad to see more conservatives posting as well.
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Blayne Bradley
unregistered
posted
quote:Originally posted by Mucus:
quote:Originally posted by Blayne Bradley: ... once in my college a teacher let a NeoNazi (yes even Canadians have em') speak for an hour in front of his class to "hear the other side".
Go on.
I wasn't there I do not know the content though I could geuss.
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quote:Originally posted by Blayne Bradley: ... once in my college a teacher let a NeoNazi (yes even Canadians have em') speak for an hour in front of his class to "hear the other side".
Go on.
I wasn't there I do not know the content though I could geuss.
If all they were doing was talking, I don't see the real harm of it. The person had an opinion and wanted to express it. Just because you wholeheartedly disagree with a person doesn't mean they shouldn't be able to speak. It's the freedom of expression. I'm sure practically everyone in the class was shaking their head or bashing their face into the desk while they were speaking, but the fact that they were allowed to express them self speaks well of your professor.
I think an hour might be a little bit long, I mean, how much time do you need to profess your Neo-Nazi ideology? But still, I'm not opposed.
Another cool thing with your professor allowing them to speak is that by allowing the Neo Nazi to speak freely, your professor was subtly attacking the person's ideology. Freedom of expression was nonexistent in Nazi Germany, so the fact that this person was able to express them self without repercussion should re-enforce the value in the freedom of expression.
Posts: 1831 | Registered: Jan 2003
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quote:Not having enough gold around only means that it takes more paper money to get it.
Because, of course, the end goal of any macro-scale economy should be to acquire gold.
I can only assume that you believe our planet is secretly run by a cabal of ancient dragons or something.
*laugh*
Seriously, man, gold's inherent value relative to its portability isn't really all that interesting; there's nothing special about the metal. (Note: it's precisely because old people believe that there is something special about the metal that groups like Cash4Gold, which you cited as evidence of the inherent value of gold, are able to take advantage of them and scam them out of their jewelry for a pittance.)
Yeah, gold's got value as long as people believe it has value. But arguing that we should measure our economy against the amount of gold we keep in a box somewhere seems a bit limiting.
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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quote: It's always nice to hear what the other side is thinking.
I agree and one of the main reasons I stay at Hatrack is because of people like Lyrhawn (who posted the above quote). We may not agree on everything but I have always found her posts to be informative and always civil even when the views are polar opposites.
Posts: 1918 | Registered: Mar 2005
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posted
quote Where have I said gold had no value? Obviously for many people it has quite a bit of value. How on earth is this evidence that "the value of gold does not change"?
You never said that. I never ment to imply that. Is that all we are arguing about? Is it true or not that the price of gold is (or not) an indicator of inflation? Is everything equal including apples and oranges? (everything is supply and demand) Address the great influx of money. Is inflation tied to the GNP so that more money earned is less inflationary then enjected unearned money? If there is a sudden supply doesn"t the demand do down which means it's value. Does this apply to money also?
Posts: 83 | Registered: Mar 2009
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quote: It's always nice to hear what the other side is thinking.
I agree and one of the main reasons I stay at Hatrack is because of people like Lyrhawn (who posted the above quote). We may not agree on everything but I have always found her posts to be informative and always civil even when the views are polar opposites.
Lyrhawn's a man.
I agree with you, though--he's almost unfailingly level headed and fair, and even when we come to different conclusions, it's clear that he's given whatever he's talking about a fair amount of thought.
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Blayne Bradley
unregistered
posted
quote:Originally posted by TomDavidson:
quote:Not having enough gold around only means that it takes more paper money to get it.
Because, of course, the end goal of any macro-scale economy should be to acquire gold.
I can only assume that you believe our planet is secretly run by a cabal of ancient dragons or something.
*laugh*
STOP LAUGHING AT ME! It would be AWESOME AND COOL AND GREAT if the above dream came true.
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Blayne Bradley
unregistered
posted
quote:Originally posted by Vadon:
quote:Originally posted by Blayne Bradley:
quote:Originally posted by Mucus:
quote:Originally posted by Blayne Bradley: ... once in my college a teacher let a NeoNazi (yes even Canadians have em') speak for an hour in front of his class to "hear the other side".
Go on.
I wasn't there I do not know the content though I could geuss.
If all they were doing was talking, I don't see the real harm of it. The person had an opinion and wanted to express it. Just because you wholeheartedly disagree with a person doesn't mean they shouldn't be able to speak. It's the freedom of expression. I'm sure practically everyone in the class was shaking their head or bashing their face into the desk while they were speaking, but the fact that they were allowed to express them self speaks well of your professor.
I think an hour might be a little bit long, I mean, how much time do you need to profess your Neo-Nazi ideology? But still, I'm not opposed.
Another cool thing with your professor allowing them to speak is that by allowing the Neo Nazi to speak freely, your professor was subtly attacking the person's ideology. Freedom of expression was nonexistent in Nazi Germany, so the fact that this person was able to express them self without repercussion should re-enforce the value in the freedom of expression.
The idea is that in a class room of 40 people, what happens if in that hour the nazi manages to convicne even ONE person that he is right in someway? By and large people are easily impressionable, not everyone has a well thought out opinion in every subject, the Holocaust is one of those tragedies that we by and large accept as fact and never research it on their own, so when someone comes up to you suddenly and challenges this world view with an argument that at first glance SOUNDS logical or better thought out then the argument you half listened to in high school history 101, may convince someone of this. And once they repeat this to a friend and rebuffed as stupid, theyll research all the wrong sources just to justify their terribly wrong new world view just to avoid admitting their wrong.
This is why sometimes it is better to not give the person a soap box, to avoid convincing that one person.
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posted
I guess this is an instance where we'll just have to agree to disagree. I guess I invest more faith in people not being a flock of sheep easily convinced by one fanatic. Sure, a person may agree with the neo-nazi after the rampage, but I believe society as a whole is rational and that in the end our better judgment will come out stronger than the cacophonic ravings of a fringe ideologue.
Historically, yes, people have fallen for the venomous diatribes from horrendous people against others, but I like to think that we grow and learn from our mistakes. Posts: 1831 | Registered: Jan 2003
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posted
You know, I don't think it's even criminally wrong to be a neo-nazi. I think it's criminally wrong to hurt people, but the world is full of people with bad opinions.
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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quote:Originally posted by TomDavidson: You know, I don't think it's even criminally wrong to be a neo-nazi. I think it's criminally wrong to hurt people, but the world is full of people with bad opinions.
Agreed.
And while I disagree wholeheartedly with the opinions expressed by neo-nazis, I think that suppressing their opinion because it is fraught with intolerance is in itself a form of intolerance.
Posts: 1831 | Registered: Jan 2003
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posted
IIRC, a documentary stated that there is only enough gold in the entire world to fill an olympic sized swimming pool. In terms of global economies I just can't see that much gold as being representative of the credit due the entire world.
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